VOLUME 1 [Pages 1 - 465]
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[Page 1]
This
Gospel
was probably written at
The
Gospel
of Matthew was, while
The
danger
to the
‘Who was this Christ, of whom
they heard so much?
And how did he stand related to the
Godhead?’
Here they branched off into various
conclusions. For
the truth concerning
our Lord came into collision with their most
cherished opinions.
What, then, was to be done?
They refused to receive in their integrity
the truths concerning Jesus; because these overthrew
their principles of error.
To them generally – ‘Matter
was
the cause of sin.’
And the
confusion and evil visible around them were due, as
they supposed, not to the
fall of the creature, after having been [Page 2]
created in perfection; but to the want of knowledge
or of power in
the Creator. Hence,
many denied that Jesus was really a man born of
woman. His
body was an illusion. These, we may call
the Phantomists. Many
refused the God of the Old Testament,
who appears in Scripture both as the Creator and
the God of
There
was
a party, also, of Jewish Christians, who, even after
the destruction of
There
were
those, again, who regarded John the Baptist as the
Great Light sent of
God; and although he did no miracle, they clung to
him in preference to the
Saviour. John’s
Gospel refutes these, by
giving the. Baptist’s own Statements of his
inferiority to Jesus.
Some traces of this sect, and of its book,
are extant to this very day. It is in entire harmony
with this view, that Paul,
as soon as he comes to Ephesus, finds disciples, who
had got no farther than
the baptism of John, and were not possessed of the
supernatural gifts of the
Holy Ghost. These
Paul requires to be
baptised again, as a witness that they owned the
superiority of Jesus to John
Baptist.
The
Holy
Ghost, in short, led John the Apostle, who was in
full possession of the
mind of God about the Saviour, to state [Page 3]
those facts and words of Christ which are sufficient
to refute the above and other errors, and to
establish the counter-truths.
The
main
designs of John are sketched in the first eighteen
verses of the Gospel,
which form a sort of preface. This preface contains
a view of what the
Evangelist afterwards establishes in the body of the
Gospel, by the words and
deeds of Jesus.
We
may
consider the Preface as divided into seven parts.
1. THE
WORD -
or Son of God -
His
relation to God.
1.
2.
His
relationship to creation, 3.
He was Creator of men. He was their Life and
Light. Refused by them, nevertheless. 4,
5.
2. JOHN THE BAPTIST. What was
his
standing in reference to Christ?
This is
carefully given, both positively and negatively. Why John
Baptist should thus early appear
cannot be easily accounted for, save on the
supposition that the Baptist was by
some, supposed to be ‘the
Light of men.’
This error must lead to the ruin of souls,
as
thereby they shut out from themselves and others the
true Light, which is
Christ, verses 6-8.
3. A further statement
concerning JESUS
as the TRUE LIGHT. He was
foretold
by the Law and the Prophets of the Old Testament as
about to come into the
world, 9.
He who at length appeared in the world was
the Creator, but was not
recognised as such.
He presented Himself
as foretold, to
4. There was, however, a class of exceptions.
There were those who believed in Jesus,
confessing Him to be what He really was.
To these He granted the high dignity of
becoming THE SONS OF GOD. They
were
made so by, and in Himself, the original and eternal
Son of God. These
Sons of God were (and are) found, not
among the Jews alone, but among Gentiles also.
For this dignity was not derived from the
flesh of Abraham, or from any
natural source; but from the regenerating energy of
God, verses 12,
13.
Answerably, in our Lord’s discourses here [Page
4]
reported, the Father’s electing
love, and the certainty of the eternal life of God’s
children is asserted.
5. Then is stated the fact of Jesus’ INCARNATION,
verse 14.
The men above-named are made
Sons
of God; the Son of God was made man.
The dwelling of the Godhead in the
manhood of Christ, made of His body a better ‘tabernacle’
than that which was exhibited under Moses.
And the moral and spiritual glory of Christ
was greater than the
material glory which, in the wilderness of
This
Gospel
was, as Irenaeusus
says,
especially designed to counteract the deadly errors
of one named Cerinthus,
who lived at
1.
Unbelieving
Jews, against whom our Lord is seen contending and
testifying, that
He is the Son of God, sent by the Father.
These believed that the Christ should be a
man; but they denied that
Jesus was that man.
2.
Gentile
errorists also denied that ‘Jesus
is the
Christ, the Son of God’ They distinguished
Jesus Christ, as we have seen, into two persons.
The
Christ might be the Son
of God;
but the according to
them, was not. From such
unbelievers eternal life was cut off.
6. JOHN BAPTIST’S TESTIMONY to
the Saviour’s superiority over himself, follows. (15)
7. Then is noticed the relation of Jesus to Moses, verse 17. Moses
brought law,
Christ brings grace.
Moses, to some extent, revealed God. But the
full truth concerning Him could only [Page
5] be
brought by Jesus Christ, who
was from all eternity the Son of the Father.
This
view
is the only one which satisfactorily accounts for
the sudden introduction,
without explanation, of the new terms, ‘Word,’
‘Life,’ ‘Light,’
‘Only-begotten.’
Philosophers, specially Valentinus,
had spoken of these things as distinct Persons,
emanations from the
Godhead. John,
by the Holy Spirit,
proves that Jesus Christ was Himself possessed of
all the glories which vain
speculation had distributed among various
supernatural beings, whom they called
by these titles.
Our
Gospel
treats scarcely at all of that which forms almost
the substance of the
three previous (‘or
Synoptic’) Gospels - ‘the
Our
Gospel
then reveals very fully the Person
and Glory of Christ,
and the new aspect of the Godhead.
We
have
also delineated the strife between the Jews and
Jesus, in relation to His
great testimony concerning the Sender and the Sent,
or the Father and the Son,
of one nature and power.
This was their
chief stumbling-block.
The men of Moses
refused this witness; and for this cause they have
ever since been cut off from
the
*
*
*
[Page 6]
CHAPTER 1
1.
‘In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with
God.’
These
observations
premised, let us consider the opening words more
deeply. ‘In the beginning was
the Word.’
Genesis opens with ‘In
the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’ But our
Gospel opens with a view of Christ
the Creator. He
was already in
existence, for ‘by Him were
all things created.’
As a man is revealed by his words, so is
God
revealed by Christ, the Word.
When in
the account of the creation, we read - ‘And
God said,’
the
reference is to the Son of God.
‘The Word was with
God.’
He was not an attribute existing in
God; but a companion.
At
the
very opening of John the doctrine of the Trinity
begins to appear.
This person who was existent from all
eternity, was not the Father, but a companion and
equal of the Father.
Then, in the Unity of the Divine Being, as
taught by Moses, we now learn that there is also
plurality. God
was not solitary.
Of man He said, ‘It
is not good he should be alone.’
This explains too that word ‘Let
us
make man, after our image.’
1. ‘And
the Word was God.’
This
sentence
states the proper Godhead of the Second Person of
the Trinity. He
was no subordinate being, possessed, as
some said, of an inferior nature.
The
Son is God; is so truly, and in the same sense as
the Father is - God.
Here the old truth of the Law - the unity
of
God’s essence - is asserted.
[Page 7]
But
may
we not render it – ‘God was
the Word’? - as
Swedenborg
does. No:
Greek syntax forbids it.
Had that been the meaning, there must have
been the article before ‘God,’
as well as before
‘Word.’
And the effect of the article, if inserted,
would be to declare that God
and the Word are co-extensive.
There was
no God but the Word.
The Three Persons
of the Godhead would thus be denied.
And
the Evangelist would thus set aside what he had just
affirmed, that the Word
was the Father’s companion.
The
Arians
asserted that there was a
time when the Son was not in existence, but that He
was created by God - the
chief of creatures.
This verse declares
His proper and real eternity.
Before
creatures came into being, this Person, the Wisdom
of God, was the companion of
God. These
words establish us, then,
against the human reasoning, that if Jesus Christ be
the Son of God, He cannot
be eternal; but began to be in time.
‘For must not a son be subsequent in time to his father?’ And we answer, ‘Among men, yes:
with God, this follows not!’
Men are, in a case like this, extending their
speculations to a region where
the waxen pinions of reason melt. On this subject
the only wisdom is with the
simplicity of children to accept the witnessing of
the Spirit of God. And that [He] says, that the
Father was always a Father; and that the Son was
from eternity in the Father’s
bosom. ‘He was
in the beginning with God.’
Observe,
if
the Son was in the beginning with God, he cannot
have begun to be born of
Mary ages after the creation.
3. ‘All
things were made by Him; and without Him was not
anything
made that was made.’
3.
Jesus
Christ, the Soil of God, and the Revealer of God,
was also
the
Creator. The
Creed called ‘The Apostles’, wrongly states creation as effected by the
Father. Scripture
traces creation to the
Son.
It
was He who carried out the Father’s mind in that
respect, as in all
others. ‘Everything
was created by Him; everything without exception.’ Then Jesus
Christ is God, in the full and
proper sense. How
do we know there is a
God? By
the
works of creation.
They are
the witnesses to [Page 8] the eternity and Almighty power of their Creator.
‘He
that built, all
things is God,’
Rom. 1: 20; Heb.
3: 4.
This divine attribute of creation is assigned
in all its fulness, to Christ, Col.
1: 13-15.
How, then, do Unitarians get over this
testimony? By
limiting its meaning.
‘Jesus arranged
all
things relating to the Christian dispensation.’ They might
as well say ‘It refers to
His arranging the government of the
In
‘the Word of God’
were united intelligence and
power. He
gave the command, and the
effect instantly followed.
The word used
in the Greek (…)
signifies that beginning to
be, which belongs to the creature.
The
difference between the Creator and the creature is
expressed in those words of
our Lord to the Jews:- ‘Before
Abraham, began
to be
(…) I am (…)’ John
8: 58.
3.
‘Without Him was
not
anything made that was made.’
Observe
the
care with which the [Holy] Spirit of God fences
this so important truth.
Notice how the negative which concludes
this
verse settles another important question.
Philosophers of old denied creation properly so called. With
them
matter was eternal.
God simply
framed the world out of existent materials.
But Scripture asserts the contrary.
Matter began to be, when created by Christ. So says
Paul, Heb.
11: 3.
There
is,
then, no being equal to Christ, much less any
superior to Him.
All other beings but the Godhead are the
creation of the Son; all without exception.
Then the speculations of the Valentinians
concerning successive Divine beings produced at
different epochs by the
Godhead, are false,
4. ‘In
Him was Life.’
John’s
eye
is on the history of creation, as given in Gen.
1. Jesus
Christ was, and is, ‘Life itself.’
He was possessed of eternal life in
Himself,
and was the Imparter of life to all who possess it. John, in
his Epistle, calls Jesus ‘The
Word
of Life.’
‘For Life was
manifested, and we saw it, and bear
witness, and declare unto you the Eternal
Life, who was [Page 9] with the Father, and was manifested to us.’ In the
next
verse he calls these two Persons of the Godhead,
respectively, ‘Father and
Son.’
‘Truly our fellowship
is with the Father, and
with His Son, Jesus Christ.’
Thus
is overthrown the doctrine of Swedenborg,
which denies the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead,
and wholly perverts the
testimony concerning the Son.
The
proof
of this ‘GLORY’
of Jesus is given in chapters
6., 8.,
and in the resurrection of Lazarus.
We
see
by these statements, that it is the design of the
Holy Spirit, and of John,
His servant, to exalt our views of the Son to the
highest extent.
Any doctrine, then, which depresses the Son,
and takes away His glory, His power, and His twofold
nature, as being at once
both God and man, is false.
4. ‘And
the LIFE was
the
Light of men.’
He
who
gave life to the creatures of the world, was also
the possessor of all
intelligence, and imparted it to Adam and his sons. Whatever
understanding is possessed by the
sons of men, is due to the gift of the same Person
who bestowed life on
them. Those,
then, who divided the Eon ‘Life’ from
‘Light,’
making,
them to be two distinct beings, or ‘Eons,’
as
they called them, were in error.
See how
carefully John guards his words.
Why? Because
he is leading his
troops against subtle foes, who were desirous of
finding a breach in his
statements concerning the glory of Christ, at which
they might be able to pour
in their destructive speculations of unbelief.
The
proofs
of the position that ‘Jesus
is Light’ are
given in the body of the Gospel; in the
many acts and assertions of our Lord concerning
Himself.
5.
‘And Light is
shining in the darkness, and the darkness received
it not.’
This
verse
is a very difficult one - arising mainly from the
difference of the
tenses in the two parts of it.
You have,
first a present, and then a past
tense. Is
John speaking of the ‘light’
of the Gospel, and of the world’s rejection of
it? It
might seem that he is speaking of
the former, if we look at 1
John 2: 8.
[Page 10]
But
I
believe the apostle to be speaking of the time since
the fall of man, and up
to the present day.
On the subject of
God’s eternal power and Godhead, the works of
creation gave and give clear
light. He
who created all things must be
Almighty, Omniscient, Eternal.
He
cannot, as the Holy Spirit says, need anything from
man’s hand. He
is not like gold or silver, graven by art
and men’s device.
JOHN THE BAPTIST’S PLACE
6-8. ‘There
was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came
for a testimony, to bear witness of the
Light, that all through him might believe.
He was not the Light, but was sent to bear
witness of the Light.’
The
Baptist
is, throughout our Gospel, called ‘John,’
without
the mark of distinction -
‘John the Baptist’
- which the
other Gospels use in order to distinguish him from
John the Apostle.
But John the Evangelist never names himself
in the Gospel, but gives a description of himself
only; hence he appropriates
the name John to the forerunner of Jesus.
Why
does
this notice of the Baptist come in at so early a
point, and so close after
the glories of Deity in Christ? The suggestion has
been given, that it is
designed to overturn false ideas about the Baptist,
which held sway in the
minds of some.
[Page 11]
‘John
was not the
Light.’
This is an inspired contradiction to those
who were falling into perdition through setting up
the Baptist in the place of
the Saviour. Hence
also, very speedily
in the history of this Gospel, we have John’s own
testimony, that he was not
the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet promised by
Moses in Deut. 18.
In
Luke 3: 15 we
learn that ‘many were
doubting, whether the Baptist were not the Christ.’ And, which
is very noticeable, when Paul
comes to
John,
then,
was a ‘man.’
He was not God.
He arose; he began to be (…).
He was not, like Christ, from all
eternity. He
was ‘sent by God.’ He
it was of whom Malachi spoke, ‘Behold,
I send my
messenger.’ He
so testifies concerning himself, ‘I
am not the Christ, but am sent before Him,’ 3: 28.
He
came,
not to be the centre of all eyes and hearts, but to
direct them by his
testimony to another, even to Christ, the uncreated
Light. Jesus
notices this distinction between
Himself and John.
John was ‘the
burning and the shining lamp,’ 5:
35. But
of
Himself he says, ‘I am the Light of the World,’
8: 12.
Several times in this Gospel does Jesus
testify to His being ‘Light.’ To
Nicodemus - ‘Light is
come into the world, and men love
darkness rather than Light,’ 3: 19, 20.
When He gives sight to the man born blind,
he
says, ‘As long as I am in
the world I am the
Light of the world,’ 9:
5. So [Page
12] when taking leave of blinded
To
this
sense it is objected - ‘That
it supposes the
light was not yet come; which is not correct, for
it had come, when John bore
his witness.’
Whereto we reply,
that these words refer to a period before John had
come; and they take up that
which is one of the bases of John’s Gospel - the
testimonies of the Law and the
Prophets, that the Most High was to come.
So Rom. 1: 1-3. For John’s
object is to connect the Gospel
and Christ with the Creation and with the previous
covenant with
On
what
does our religion rest?
On
argument? No!
on testimony. It
calls for faith; and
faith supposes witnesses who
testify. John’s
mission, then, was given
with design to lead all, and not
9.
‘The true Light,
which enlighteneth every man, was to come into the
world.’
This
is
a difficult verse; and it is, I doubt not, wrongly
rendered in our version,
the proof of which is, that it is obliged to insert
the emphatic word ‘That.’
Moreover, it gives but a very poor hungry
sense, by adding to ‘every
man’ the words ‘that
cometh
into the world.’
This
addition not only does not give any new force to the
verse, but it gives a
sense which is not in John, or in Scripture
generally, applied to mere
men. To
‘come
into the world’ is something spoken of by
John, concerning the Nativity
of Christ only.
The word ‘coming’
must be joined either to ‘man,’ or to ‘Light’.
If not to ‘man,’
then
to ‘Light.’
This
last gives an excellent sense. Jesus is the True
Light - the essential original
Light - from which all others, physical or
spiritual, are borrowed. ‘He
enlighteneth every man.’
All light, whether of intelligence or of
conscience, found among men, comes from Him.
Thus this verse fastens on to the previous
one, ver.
4. The
Creator [Page
13] of
man, the Giver of
intelligence to all men, was destined,
as Scriptures foretold, to come into the world He
had made. Thus,
Jesus’ coming is connected with the Old
Testament Scriptures.
It is one God in
action throughout: not two rival
and antagonistic Gods, as
the Gnostics taught.
Christ,
who
as Son of God, is the enlightener of every man by
reason and conscience,
was promised as about to come into the world.
Take as proofs these passages of Isaiah
42:
1-8; 49: 1-9; 9: 1-2.
Moses and
the prophets were inspired to foretell this great
event, and accordingly many
were on the out-look for Messiah when He came.
Moreover, He is continually spoken of as ‘the
Coming One,’ ‘the
Comer into the world.’
So John the Baptist speaks of Him.
‘He that cometh after
me.’ ‘Art thou he
that should come?’ ‘I know that
Messiah is coming.’
‘Thou art
(says Martha) the
Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.’ So John 6: 14.
Let
us
take one or two more of these prophecies.
‘To us a child is
born; unto us a Son is given.
... and His name shall be called the Mighty God.’
So,
Malachi, after speaking of John as the Messenger,
foretells, also, the coming
of Jehovah to His temple, the angel of the covenant,
Mal.
3: 1.
‘But
who may abide the day of His coming?’
This
sense,
then, is not only in consistency with the Scriptures
in general, but
with John’s present aim.
In showing that
the advent of this Great Deliverer had already been
foretold, he maintained
that the Creator and the Giver of the Law and the
Prophets, were one and the
same Person. Thus
he treads down the
deceits of the Gnostics, who laboured to set the Father of Christ,
and Christ Himself, in opposition to
the Creator and the God of Israel. Moses
and
the prophets, then, are accredited by John and by
Jesus. And
this gives additional force to the next
two verses. For
if His coming, who is
the God of all, had been predicted, so much the
greater was the blindness of
the Gentiles and of Israel, in that they recognized
Him not when He came.
Those enlightened of God, as the Magi, gave
worship
to Jesus, as the King of Israel.
This text was the centre
once of a very stormy
fight. It
[page 14] was the great Quaker-text,
on which they relied to
establish their destructive doctrine.
The Quakers arose about the time of the great
civil war in
Those
who
held fast by the Scriptures were required,
therefore, to show, as Bunyan
did, that the Quaker doctrine
denied the testimony of the Word of God about the
Fall, and overthrow the
distinction everywhere therein set up between the
converted and the
unconverted, the elect and the reprobate.
The
Quaker
preaching up of ‘the light
within
every man,’ led them to make
light of, to deny, and to blaspheme the Person of
Jesus Christ. Instead
of His birth, death, resurrection,
and ascension, as a man outside them, they spoke of a birth, death, blood-shedding, resurrection, and
ascension within them!
The
orthodox
objected to the Quaker doctrine, that the light
within, whether of
conscience or of reason, or of both, was but a created
and fallible light; unable to save
men. Those
errorists were therefore
drawn on to deny a truth which made void their
scheme. They
affirmed, that it was no created and
fallible light, but uncreated, infallible, able to save them: making them, as they said, ‘equal
with God.’ ‘The light within them created
all things!’
- Bunyan’s Gospel Truths opened, pp.
134, 152, 191, 206.
They
would
‘own Christ no otherwise
than as He was before the
world was made.’
Then, said
Bunyan, ‘you deny that
Jesus Christ has been born of
Mary. For
His birth of Mary was
something that took place some four thousand years
after the creation.
And denying this, you are Antichrists,
against whom we are warned.’
The
Quakers of that day denied, too, the coming again of
Jesus Christ in the flesh;
which is another token of their being Antichrists.
This verse is wrongly
rendered. Rightly
translated, as given [Page
15]
above, it lends no aid to Quaker
views. The
early Quakers refused, with
boldness and contempt, the testimony to Jesus
Christ, as the man who was born
at
Ans. Which is
contrary to John
1: 9, who saith, “it
was the true light, by
which all things were made; which, as many as
received Him, he gave them power
to become the ‘sons
of God,’ which is
beyond natural sense and reason.” - Great
Mystery, pp. 39, 9, 10, 206.
Bunyan said, that ‘Not every man had the Spirit of
Christ within Him.’
G.
Fox replied, ‘Every
man that cometh into the world is enlightened.’ Thus the
two systems of Christ and of Antichrist
came into conflict.
The
salvation
which the Son of God came to bring was to be
effected by means of an
object outside men, even Himself as born, dying,
risen. The
salvation which Jesus brought, was, He
tells us, typified by the deliverance which
Baxter, Bunyan, and those who held
the truth, preached continually a Christ outside
themselves, by whose works in
the flesh, by whose death and blood-shedding,
resurrection and ascension, they
were justified.
The Quakers replied, by
asserting that men were saved by the blood, the
birth, the resurrection and
ascension of the light within every man!
Now
the light within every man,
whether of reason or conscience, can only convict
and condemn. Here
we see of what immense [Page
16]
moment the true rendering
of every verse of the Scripture is,
since any mistake admitted even un-designedly within
the text, affords room on
which errors of Satan fasten and destroy many.
10.
‘He was in the world, and
the world was made by Him,
and the world knew Him not.’
As
the
Saviour’s coming was foretold, so, in the Father’s
appointed season, He
actually came.
He
was
the Creator. The
same truth given in
verse 8 is anew
asserted. The
previous cavil - that Jesus’ making all
things was only His ‘arranging
the Christian religion’
- is here more manifestly refuted.
For
God, sensible of the various deceits of the Wicked
One, and his attempts to
turn aside His saving truth, has left amply
sufficient testimonies to build up
the truth and to beat down error.
But
the
world recognised not its Creator when He came. Observe,
that which was previously spoken of
as “the Light” is now
described as a Person – ‘Him.’
The
Saviour
is the Creator. This is
another
truth set up against the deceits of the ‘knowing
ones.’
For they taught a God superior to the
Creator. Their Christ came as a rival and a foe to the Creator.
‘He came,’
they said, ‘to deliver men
from His tyranny.’
If
the
world recognised not its Creator when He came, how
much less wonderful is
it that the world does not recognise the sons of
God! This
is the sentiment of John in his Epistle
- 1 John 3: 1.
11.
‘He came unto His own, and
His own received Him not.’
Jesus
joined
Himself as a Jew to the Jews.
He
was ‘made of the seed of
David according to the flesh.’
He was born in the land of promise.
He was presented in God’s temple at
Then,
Jesus
Christ the Creator was also the God of
The rejection of the true
Christ by
In
Matthew
and the other Gospels the rejection of Christ the
Son of God is traced
for us, step by step, up to the crucifixion and
refusal of the
resurrection. But
John begins by
assuming this rejection; for his Gospel is based
upon the difference between
the birth of the flesh, and the birth of the Spirit. Thus are
we led to a truth which sets
God
the
Creator is the Author alike of the Old Testament and
of the New; of the
dispensation of justice under Moses,
and of the present dispensation of grace through His Son.
12, 13. ‘But
as many as received
Him, to them gave He warrant to become the sons of
God, even to them that
believe on His name.
Who were born, not
of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the
will of man, but of God.’
Behold then the origin of a
new people, characterised
by faith.
But
when
that people in its blindness refused the Son of God,
the Most High raised
up a new people, characterised by faith in Jesus
Christ as the Son of God.
These are found scattered through every
land
and people and tongue. The great turning point now
is: What think you of
Christ? Is
He the Son of God?
Was He the Creator - the God of
[Page 18]
The
receivers
of this name of God, and of Christ Jesus as the Son
of God become, in
virtue of this faith wrought by the Holy Ghost, ‘sons
of God.’
Christ was the Son of
God before the world was - these begin to be sons of God long since the creation.
There were errorists then
(and there will be again) who affirmed, that the
reception or rejection of the
Gospel turned upon some original difference of nature, found in the
flesh at birth.
This the Spirit of God
here denies. There is no peculiar readiness to
receive the Son of God in any,
considered simply as born into the world, flesh of
the flesh. The
old people of the Sinaitic Covenant were
a people born after the flesh, and called to the
enjoyment of an earthly inheritance.
But the new people are men of faith -
begotten by the Spirit of God, and only these do
realty believe in the Son of
God.
How
do
any receive Christ?
By baptismal
regeneration? Nay;
but by believing in
Him as Son of God (20:
31). He, then, is no
Christian, and no son of God, who does not believe. The
attempt to ‘Christen,’
or
to make a Christian of any, by an ordinance of water
without faith, is
ruinous.
The
sons
of God are ‘by nature
children of wrath’ like
others. Persons
are not born Christians,
even though both parents be Christians.
Parents of the flesh cannot impart the new,
and spiritual nature.
Here,
then,
it is clear, that the Gospel does not recognise any superiority in the children of believers over the
children of unbelievers.
Both are alike
children of fallen flesh. ‘And
the children of the
flesh,’ says Paul, ‘are
not the children of God,’ Rom. 9:
8. Hence,
then, neither ought children of the
flesh to receive the rite of Baptism.
The rightly baptised are
those justified by faith - the saved.
Baptism, or the emersion out of the water, is
the new visible birth,
which follows after the new life communicated by the Spirit of God.
Hence Jesus, in this Gospel, testifies to
Nicodemus - the Jew, the
Pharisee, the Scribe, the Ruler - that, in spite of
all his boasts of his [Page
19]
descent - his birth, as being
only flesh of the flesh, would not admit him into
the millennial glory.
‘Verily, I say unto
thee, ye must be born again.’
And where our Lord witnesses of the necessity
of this new life by the
Spirit’s regeneration, He testifies also to the new
birth, or that visible coming
forth out of the womb of the waters, which God has
annexed to this being
begotten by the Spirit.
The
Jews’
boasts, then, of their parentage, are hereby all set
aside. How
vain that birth of the flesh which knew
not the Hope of Israel, and refused the Creator-Son
of God! Here
is alone true dignity - the being sons,
not of the kings of earth , but sons of God in the
Son of God! And
this dignity God bestows, according to
His counsels of electing grace, mainly on the poor
and despised of this world.
If we have this dignity, what need we
care about the glory, and wealth, and titles of
earth? How
came it to pass that we accepted Christ,
when others reject Him? (1) Negatively
– It was no superiority
of the flesh - no result of ancestry - not by
baptism – no clearer
understanding, or better education, or example.
(2) Positively - It was the consequence of our being begotten by
the Spirit of God.
4. ‘And
the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us,
and we
beheld His glory, the glory as of the
Only-begotten from the Father, full of
grace and truth.’
This
subject
is of the deepest moment to us: it is carefully
taught here, and to be
approached in a reverent and childlike spirit.
‘The Word’ - He who has
been before described as the
Creator, as existing from eternity with the Father –
‘became
flesh.’ Here begins a new era in His
history - a new era to us.
John, in his Epistle, in the same way
divides
the Saviour’s existence.
‘The Eternal Life
who was
with the Father,
and was manifested unto us,’
1
John 1: 2.
Observe the difference the accuracy of the
expressions used:- ‘In the
beginning was
the Word.’
But He ‘was made (or
became) flesh.’ That took
place, not in eternity, but in
time. Jesus
began to be, 4,000 years
after creation. We are being taught, then, [Page 20]
not concerning wisdom or any attribute or perfection
of God, but about a Person: One who
appeared as a man on earth.
The
expression
is carefully chosen.
We
generally say, ‘He became
man,’ or ‘was
incarnate,’ or ‘took
a
body.’ But
a body
may be taken, which is not flesh. And the other phrase
would
lead us to imagine that Jesus was a body without soul
or spirit. But
no! Jesus
came not in sinful flesh, as
the Irvingites and Swedenborgians assert, but ‘in the
likeness of sinful flesh’ - though He was
the Son of God.
Rom. 8: 3. This
tells us, too, which person of the
Godhead became man.
It was not, as
Swedenborg, says, ‘the
Father.’
It was the Creator-Son of God who was sent
by the Father to take flesh.
The flesh
taken by the Son of God was not ‘the
Son,’ as
that errorist teaches.
Observe how
carefully the Spirit of God cuts off this deceit
of Satan:- ‘Grace be with you,
mercy and peace from God the Father, AND from
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love,’ 2 John 3.
‘Jesus Christ’ is the name
of the Son of God become
flesh. He
became the Son of Man.
He was a
John
has
been thus accurate in his treatment of this subject,
because it is the
foundation of the truth of Christianity.
Error on this point is deadly. This
truth is made the test of true or false
doctrine (1 John 4: 2).
John thus puts in
his contradiction to the deceits abroad around him.
Those
errors
were mainly four.
1.
‘The Word was made flesh.’ This was
said against the Phantomists,
who taught that the
Saviour’s body was not of real flesh, but an
illusion only, which imposed on
the senses of the spectators.
Against
this we affirm, that the Word took flesh really. He who
took flesh was also ‘very
God of very God.’
This we hold against the Ebionites,
He took human nature ‘truly.’
2.
There was another error, that of those who supposed
our Lord to take only
a part of human nature.
Such assert that [Page 21]
our Lord took only the human body the Godhead in Him
supplying
the place of the soul and spirit.
That
was the error of the Apollinarians;
whereto the Swedenborgians
add the
further error that it was the Father who took flesh,
the Son
being only the body, which the Father took. On
their
views, the Word was not with
God, and was not God, nor
in the beginning
with God. Against
this we testify, that Jesus took
flesh ‘perfectly.’ He had a soul - ‘Now is My soul troubled,’
12: 27.
He had a spirit*
- ‘He groaned in the
spirit and was troubled,’ 11: 33. He
had a body also.
‘He spake of the
temple of His body,’
2: 21.
‘Then took they the
body of Jesus
and wound it in clothes with the spices,’
19: 40.
[*
See also John 19: 30.
cf.
Jas. 2: 26a.]
3. There was a third error. If you put
mercury beside lead, it will
take up some of the lead, and form out
of the two substances a third, which is neither
quicksilver nor lead, but an
amalgam. Some
of the errorists, as Eutychees,
taught, that the two natures
of the Godhead and the manhood in Christ formed a
new compound different from
either of the two.
The Christ was a
being possessed of but one nature, higher than the
manhood, but lower than the
Godhead. Against
this we testify, that
the Son took human nature ‘unconfusedly;’ the
Godhead and the manhood retaining
each its separate powers and properties without
confusion. And
so says the Athanasian Creed that
Jesus Christ is – ‘One, not by conversion (change)
of the
Godhead into flesh, but
by taking of the
manhood into God.
One altogether, not
by confusion of substance,
but
by unity of person.
For as the
reasonable soul and flesh is one man,
so
God and man is one Christ’ (Phil.
2: 6-8).
There in Jesus Christ two natures,
perfectly distinct, making
up one person.
4.
At
this point again entered the spirit of error, which
was especially called to
witness against at
The
Word
‘tabernacled with us.’
The
expression is chosen with design, to connect our
Lord’s appearing as a man on
earth with previous visits of God to man.
In
That
exhibition
of God, suited to law and justice, passed away. A new and
better covenant was to come, and
the Son of God descends as a man to ‘tabernacle’
among men. It
was great condescension
for the Maker of all, to take post in the poor
little tent spread for Him,
although He dwelt there in state, waited on by His
own ministers.
At length God abides among men in the body
which the Father, and not man, had pitched for Him.
‘God
was manifest in the flesh.’
[Page 23]
‘We beheld His glory.’
The ‘we’ seems
to refer especially to
believers. John
the Apostle was one of
the eye-witnesses.
He beheld in Christ a
double glory - material and spiritual.
When
Jehovah entered into the
Royal Pavilion prepared for Him, it was with a
glory (or brightness) so great,
that the priests could not stand to minister.
Also there was a terrible glory in
His
cutting off of offenders in the desert.
John then beheld a double
glory
in Christ. He was one of the three
who saw the brightness, as of the
sun, stream forth from the Saviour’s face on the
Mount. He
beheld, also, the spiritual glory of the
Lord’s turning the water into wine, and the raising
of the dead; specially, as
detailed in this Gospel, in the resurrection of
Lazarus.
He
heard
a voice out of the exceeding glory testify, that
Jesus was the Father’s
well-beloved Son: a testimony which set Him at an
infinite distance above Moses
and the Prophets.
This glory was of ‘the
Only-begotten
from the Father.’
These words, then, refute the ideas of some
of ‘the men of intelligence,’
that there were
many like Emanations proceeding from God.
No! He is the Only
begotten. He
is related to the Father,
as an only son is to an earthly father.
He is ‘begotten, not made,’ partaker
in full of His Father’s Godhead.
‘But if so, do you not introduce
another difficulty?
If He be the begotten Son of God,
proceeding
from the Father, do you not imply, that He is not
eternal, but had a beginning,
after the Father?’
At
this
point two errors may seek to enter, ‘Jesus
Christ
is God; therefore not a Son of God.’
Then arises Tritheism,
or the
doctrine of three Gods.
Or, ‘Jesus Christ
is Son
- therefore He is not God.’
Then Arianism
comes in. We
testify on the
contrary, then, with Scripture, that Jesus Christ is
the Eternal Son of God, and
is God. ‘Eternal
decrees’ contains as great a difficulty as
‘Eternal
Son.’
Eternity introduces
difficulties beyond our plumb-line.
Jesus
is
‘the Only-begotten’
in relation to the many
figurative ‘sons of God.’ Angels are
sons of God by creation; but in
the sense in which Christ is so, they are not sons
at all. He
[Page 24] stands alone.
In another sense those begotten anew of the
Spirit become adopted Sons of
God. But
they begin to be so, after having become men.
Christ was Son from all eternity.
Still further, to set the matter clearly, the
Spirit of God adds - ‘Only-begotten
from
the Father,’
as distinct from Him eternally, and
sent forth from the Father.
Jesus uses
this phrase in reference to Himself (3:
16-18).
The word is then to be taken in the
loftiest
sense of which it is capable; for the giving of
Jesus Christ is alleged to be
the very greatest gift which is possible.
The higher the person of Christ, the greater
the glory of God in the
gift of His Son.
‘Full of grace and truth.’ These
perfections, even in the days of Moses,
are witnessed by God to be part of the glory of the
Lord Jehovah’s character, Ex.
34. But
in
the days of law they could not be manifested, as
they were under the
Gospel. Jesus
was seen among the fallen,
‘full of grace’
pardoning offences, even against
Himself, when they blasphemed Him, and sought to put
Him to death. He
smote them not, as He did those who rose
up against Moses and Aaron.
Do Nadab and
Abihu, offer strange fire?
They are cut
off. Do
men nail Christ to the
Cross? He
asks His Father to spare them!
The
Incarnation
of the Son of God, then, is the great centre-truth
of the
Gospel. Deny
it, and you are thrown back
on the level of the Law.
Believe it, and
you are exalted to partaking in the Divine nature. You become
a son of God in the Son of
God; and are beloved of the
Father as Christ Himself is.
You have
the Spirit of God dwelling in you, to give you the
spirit of a son, that you
may cry to God – ‘Abba
Father!’
Wondrous redemption! which calls forth
these
great operations of the Trinity in Unity!
The
present
tense, as used of John’s testimony, is singular. ‘John
beareth witness.’
It is noted hereby that His disciples were
publicly warned not to regard Himself as superior.
The
testimonies
to Jesus’ pre-existence are several times given by
our Lord
Himself, 6: 62; 8: 58;
17: 5, 24.
[Page 25]
John
was
quite subordinate.
He was one of the
receivers of the Lord’s bounty - not the Great
Giver. He
tells us of the Great Fulness, whereat our
emptiness can be supplied.
15-18. ‘John
beareth witness of Him, and shouted, saying, “This
is He
of whom I said, He that cometh after me has become
before me, for He was before
me.” And
out of His fulness we all received,
and grace for grace.
For the law was
given through Moses, but grace and truth were
through Jesus Christ.
None has ever seen God at any time; the
Only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the
Father, He declared Him.’
This
seems
a Summary of John’s testimony, answering to that of
our Lord in chap. 12:
44-50.
The importance of John Baptist’s witness is
thus shown, and his own
testimony to the inferior place which he himself
occupied, in comparison with
the Son of God.
John, in beholding Jesus, saw the
Only-begotten
Son.
His two-fold nature, as compared with John’s
single nature, is given in
an enigmatic form.
John was born six
months before Christ; and
yet Jesus was in existence before John, and in pre-eminence in consequence.
How?
Because our Lord was possessed of another and
an eternal nature; to
which, also, He referred in His controversy with
Israel, as being really
implied in Ps. 110: 1;
(Matt. 22: 41-16),
‘The
Lord said unto my Lord.’
Jesus,
in
John the Baptist’s eyes, was the Lord of light and
life to His
creatures. The
creature has no strength,
or intelligence, or goodness, save as derived from
Him. The
word ‘fulness,’
(Pleeroma), used here and in Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians and Colossians,
was one of the words much employed in the false
systems of the Gnostics.
They meant by it a space answering nearly
to
our heaven, considered as the abode of God.
But John and Paul apply it rightly, as
referring to the spiritual
fulness of God and Christ, Eph.
3: 19, 4: 13; Col.
1: 19, 2: 9.
John Baptist
therefore confesses himself to be a creature, and
Christ to be the Creator,
possessed of, and communicating, all good.
Various are the ways in which the expression
‘grace
for grace’ is taken. I understand it to
mean, that Christ out of the
universal fulness of all spiritual good which dwells
in Him, has bestowed some
of each grace which He possesses, upon His
[Page 26]
people. In Jesus,
for instance, there is wisdom;
out of
that wisdom He imparts to
believers. He
has love; out of that love He
bestows love on us.
So then for every
perfection which dwells in Himself, He is pleased to
communicate some of that
to His people. John Baptist is now speaking in a
more restricted sense than in ver.
3, 4, for he mentions grace as received by
‘US;’ and it had been
previously affirmed, that the
darkness refuses the light of God, which is in
Christ.
This
paragraph
(15-18), then, is
closely linked
on to ver. 14. Does the
Evangelist say ‘The Word
became flesh?’ the Baptist owns the human
nature of Jesus, by saying, that He came after
himself. But
the Baptist confesses also the Divine
nature of the Word, when he adds, that Jesus was in
existence before him, and
vastly pre-eminent above him.
Does the
Evangelist say, that Christ was ‘full
of grace and
truth?’
John Baptist confesses
the fulness of Christ
as the fount of supply,
communicating every grace possessed by His people.
Does this Gospel declare ‘grace
and truth,’ as the great characteristics of
‘the Only-begotten of the
Father?’ John Baptist
affirms, that the Son came as the contrast to Moses
and law. Law
made demands in justice on men; and was
necessary to prove to the fallen their need of the
grace of a Saviour.
Accordingly, in the appointed season, the
Forerunner testifies to the grace and truth which
came by Jesus.
Moses is to be superseded by Christ.
Moses is the minister of law, condemnation,
and death. He
cannot give life.
But men are slow to get rid of their proud
thoughts of goodness in themselves.
Therefore Moses must go first to convict of
sin.
Here,
for
the first time in this Gospel, we find the name
which is above every name,
after the Evangelist has declared His two natures. First, we
have His Godhead - as the Word, the
Creator; then His manhood, when He entered into the habitable earth, and He
became known as Jesus the Christ.
The Word of God came to
earth in order to manifest to
us the true God, as disclosed by the Son of God. ‘The
Only-Begotten
[Page 27] Son* who
is in the bosom of the Father, He declared Him.’ This also
takes up the testimony of the fourteenth
verse, which teaches that the glory
which the disciples ‘beheld
in Jesus was the glory of
the Only-begotten from the Father.’
* Ought
we to
accept the startling reading here of three of the
uncial copies – ‘Only
begotten God?’
The question is not so
difficult to decide.
These three uncials
have been tampered with, as will appear to any who
investigate the matter.
The decisive point, I submit, is, that they
omit the article before ‘God.’ Then it
will stand only – ‘An
only-begotten
God,’
and this was more easily reconcilable with the error
of Arius, than the Received Text, which is supported by the vast
majority of copies, both uncial and cursive.
Thus
ends
the PREFACE. It is
designed to set before us – (1)
The Word as he is in Himself,
and in relation to God, and to
creation. (2) Unbelief concerning
Him. (3)
The circle of Faith, which He
supplies with every
grace. This
gives us in a few words the
general scheme of this Gospel.
How great the
mercy of God to fix our time, not beneath Moses and
law, which could not fully
reveal God; but under Jesus as the Son Incarnate,
overflowing with goodness,
not to Jews alone, but to us Gentiles!
Law which demands the rights of God as the
Sovereign, does indeed
exhibit one feature of the Most High; but the Gospel
of Jesus alone can
discover God as the Giver to those who are
bankrupts. Law
gave also shadows of the good things that
were to come in the Gospel, and
are
yet to come in millennial
and eternal
glory; but the truth
about God, His nature, and worship, could only be
manifested by one of the
persons of the Godhead.
All who preceded
Him were slaves sent by the King; but this is the
Son, ‘very God of very God,’ sent to make known to believers the love
that God bears to them, and to tell us of the
Father, the Son, and the [Holy] Spirit, as all
engaged in the blest work of redemption.
NOW BEGINS THE HISTORY OF THE
GOSPEL.
19-23.
‘And this is the testimony
of John when the Jews sent
Priests and Levites from
This testimony is cited in
pursuance of the notice given in the preface that
John was not ‘the Light,’
but was sent to bear witness to the Son of
God as the Light.
The importance of it
in that day we learn, not only from the twelve
disciples at
Also it is
given to confirm the statement,
that Jesus came to His own, yet was not received;
and that, in
spite of the witnessing of John
Baptist. In
this place ‘His own’
are seen to be ‘the
Jews’ led by their sacred chiefs - the
Priests and Levites.
It is evident also that this testimony was
of
the utmost moment, if many in Asia Minor were even
then clinging to John the
Baptist, as if he were the Christ.
Strong then was the temptation to assert
himself to be the Christ; or to
leave the matter in a mysterious silence, in which
the idea might grow.
But John overcame it.
He was faithful.
His own words, therefore, are adduced by
the
Apostle to scatter this delusion, so destructive to
all true faith.
And how could any profess to be the disciples
of John Baptist, yet refuse their Master’s words?
19. ‘The
Jews sent Priests.’
Very remarkable it is to find
John, the Jew by birth, sever himself from his own
nation. The
Apostle is now a Christian, and his
spiritual birth weans him from the people of the
flesh who had rejected
Christ. Hence
he says on one occasion [Page
29] very
significantly, ‘after the
manner of the purifying of the Jews.’ For John
knew of the one great purification
of the better covenant, effected by blood; so that
he had no need to go back to
the old. The
synagogue was now a ‘synagogue
of Satan.’
This
passage
of the history was doubtless ever memorable to the
Apostle. He
was probably ready before to give too high
a place to the Baptist.
John’s message
had stirred the whole nation.
The
officials of it - generally the last to be reached
by a great movement - send
to enquire about him.
To the tribe of
Levi the Lord under Moses had committed the teaching
of
John
the
Evangelist was at first a disciple of the Baptist,
and was probably present
when this official deputation from God’s city, the
place of the
‘Was he Elijah the prophet?’ He was
not.
At this point the Saviour and His Forerunner
at first sight seem to be
in contradiction to one another.
For
Jesus, when speaking of [Page 30] John to the multitudes, says, ‘And if ye are
willing to receive it – ‘This is
Elijah, who is to come,’
Matt. 11:
14. Moreover,
on the Mount of
Transfiguration, when Elijah the Tishbite had
appeared, together with Moses, the
three disciples, under a
sense of difficulty had appealed to Jesus on the
point, how it could be true
that He was the Christ, if, as the Scribes taught,
Elijah was to go before Him?
For Elijah had only then been seen by them,
while Jesus had been, for
two years, probably, carrying on His ministry. The
Saviour’s reply, then, is to this
effect:-
‘There are two
comings of Christ; one
in meekness to
suffer; one in power and justice to reign.
Answerably there, are two
Elijahs. The
first is already come, and has been
slain, as I also shall be.’ That Elijah, who had already come, the three Apostles understood (and
rightly)
to refer to
John Baptist.
But our Lord recognised and taught a future
coming of Elijah, the Old
Testament prophet foretold by Malachi, in the words
‘Elias
truly shall first come and restore all things.’ That
was said after John’s death.
Moreover, Elijah is to do a work which John
Baptist did not do.
‘He shall restore
all
things.’
This passage, then,
reconciles all the testimonies upon the subject. John
Baptist was ‘in the spirit and power
of Elias,’ Luke 1: 17.
But he was not
the Elijah of Mal.
4., who is to precede the smiting of earth
with the curse of the Lord,
in the great and terrible day of the Lord (Matt.
17:
1-13).*
[*
NOTE.
Only after
the Elijah
of Mal. 4. cf. Rev.
11, will our Lord’s Millennial Kingdom be
established (verse 15):
that same “Kingdom,”
which will precedes His eternal
kingdom, in ‘a new
heaven and a new earth’
(Rev. 21: 1):
that same ‘Kingdom,’
which will be on this earth, the religious Jews - at
that
time - were expecting to be established
at their Messiah’s first advent.]
‘Art thou the Prophet?’
These two parties are both well acquainted
with their own
Scriptures. They
need not to add – ‘the
prophet whom Moses
predicted
in Dent.
18: 18.’
John Baptist still denies.
The prophet of whom Moses there spoke was
really the Christ.
Therefore Peter
cites it as fulfilled in Jesus (Acts
3: 22).
Thus, also, Stephen
hints the
same in Acts 7: 37:
‘This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet
shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your
brethren, like unto me; Him
shall ye hear.’
At
length
the Baptist gives a positive reply.
He is the voice in the desert preceding the
Lord’s presence, and
preparing the [Page 31] way for it. Thus, John
Baptist,
by his citation of Scripture and his references,
indirectly asserts the Godhead
of Jesus. When
he affirms that he was in
one sense before Jesus, yet in another after Him, be
points to Malachi 3.,
which tells us, that ‘the
messenger’ (which John Baptist was) was to
precede
the coming of Jehovah (5:
1-5). Even
thus also said the angel at His
birth (Luke 1: 16-17),
‘Many of the children of
24-28. ‘And
they who were sent were of the Pharisees. And they
asked
him, and said unto him, “Why then immersest thou;
if thou art not the Christ,
nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
John
answered and said unto them, “I immerse in water;
but amidst you stands one,
whom ye know not.
He it is Who coming
after me was before me, the thong of Whose sandal
I am not worthy to
untie! These
things took place in
Was not John, then, taking
too much upon himself, in
immersing, if he were neither the Christ nor Elijah?
John’s answer
is to the effect, that his immersion was a
very subordinate one to the immersion which the
Christ would bestow (33). He
testifies, that that immersion in water was
commanded him by God (1:
33). It
was,
indeed, a part of the people’s preparation for the
Christ. It
was a death and burial to Moses, as [Page
32]
unable to save; and was preceded,
as we are told, by a confession of sins.
But Moses cannot save the sinner; he
justifies only the righteous;
therefore this witness of John, and men’s acceptance
of it by the reception of
immersion, were a good preparation for the grace and
riches which were to be
bestowed by Christ.
If Moses could save,
our Lord’s coming was needless.
Moreover, this immersion was a fulfilment of
the word by the same
prophet that foretold John Baptist’s advent.
Still further, it was designed to minister
the opportunity by which
Christ should be manifested to
Our
Lord’s
vast superiority is asserted by the greatest born of
women. He
was not worthy to do the most menial
office for Christ.
Yet
These
Priests
and Levites were of the strictest sect of their
religion. They,
in general, refused John’s testimony;
and the immersion, which was the visible proof of a
man’s accepting it (Luke
7: 30).
Their pride would not stoop to it.
They did not reckon themselves sinners and
accursed by the law.
Hence, morally and
spiritually, they were not ready for Christ and His
message. So
that their refusal of John’s baptism
rested upon a real antagonism of spirit to the truth
he was sent to herald.
This
answer
of the Baptist implies, that the prophets spoke of two baptisms - that of water, and that of the [Holy] Spirit. John’s
was
only the preparatory one.
The greater
baptism would be communicated by the Christ. The
baptism of water had been foretold in Is.
1: 16, 17.
And this call John Baptist enforced.
But to those who rightly accepted that there
was an immersion in the Spirit,
of which the prophets also spoke, as in Isaiah
32:
15, 44: 3, 59: 21; Ez. 36: 27, 39: 29, and
Joel
2. The
preparatory baptism of
John, then, was the witness that Messiah [Page 33]
was already come, and was designed to point out who
were ready for Him.
It
answered
to the older baptism of persons and clothes, which
by God’s command
took place at Sinai, as the preparation of the
people of
The
majority
of copies read ‘
Where
‘
29. ‘The
next day he seeth Jesus coming to him, and saith,
“Behold
Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world.
This is He of whom I spake –
‘After me cometh a man who is preferred before me,
for He was before me.’
And I knew Him not, but in order that He
might be made manifest to
This
interview
seems evidently to have taken place after the
Saviour’s baptism and
temptation; as the series of events is now given
with such exact statement of
the days, and even hours of the day, that there is
no room to interpose forty
days. John
Baptist knew not Jesus as the
Son of God till after His baptism.
This testimony of the
Baptist probably took place in
the presence of His disciples, and greatly affected
one Apostle; he being most
probably led to Christ and away from the Baptist by
his Master’s own
teaching. The
Apostle then is very particular
in his narrative here.
This testimony
connects Jesus with the previous witnessing borne to
the deputation from
29. ‘Behold
the Lamb of God!’
The doctrine is of the
deepest moment.
To John, as the inspired man, the Saviour’s
primary course and mission was revealed.
He does not speak of Jesus as the Jewish King, raised up to smite
the Gentiles, and destroy the guilty by [Page 34]
power. He is to
prevail, not by His life, but by His
sacrificial death.
Why
is
He called ‘the Lamb of God’? In
opposition to the lambs of man’s
providing. Jesus
is ‘the Lamb of God,’
because provided by the Most High,
to redeem by His sacrifice the lost.
There is doubtless a reference to the
sacrifice of Abraham, and his
words, ‘My son, God will
provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering.’
And also to the Psalm ‘A
body hast thou prepared
With
what
purpose is our Lord so called?
‘He is taking away
the sin of the world.’
This, then, was a reference to the use of
lambs in the Jewish services.
(1) First,
to the lamb of the Passover, which made
atonement for the sins of
That
Jesus
was the true Passover-lamb is quietly assumed by
John in our Gospel as
self-evident (19: 36).
Hence, in the very
hour and power of darkness God set a limit to the
foes’ degradation of His
Son. Hence
too, in the Apocalypse of
John, we see Jesus made Head over all, as the Lamb
that was slain and is risen
again. Before His pretensions thus stated, all the
great ones of heaven bend
down and confess themselves overcome. He is worthy;
they are not. Thus
too Paul has told us, that Jesus was the
Church’s paschal lamb, and therefore we are to keep
the feast of unleavened
bread (1 Cor. 5.). Thus too
Peter adds his testimony (1
Peter 1: 19).
In the blood of the Lamb all must wash their
robes, who would stand
accepted as priests before the throne of God on high
(Rev.
7.).
‘Do you trust the blood of the
Lamb, or not?’ is the
testing question now.
According as your
heart in love replies – ‘Yes’
or ‘No’; you are
either one of the true Israel, or you
are an Egyptian, ready to be cut off.
(2)
The
reference is next to the Lamb of the daily morning
and evening sacrifice (Ex.
29: 38-46).
That was the continual [Page 35] sweet savour of atonement, on the ground of which Jehovah would
consent to dwell in His tabernacle in glory among
the sinful nation, and to be
their God,
That which these
constant sacrifices could only very partially
effect, the Son of God by one
offering has produced already for His Church, which
now trusts Him; and will effect for Israel, in the latter day.
(3)
But
there is a fuller reference to Is.
53.;
in which Messiah is spoken of as put to death
unresistingly as a lamb ; and is
described also as bearing sins and putting them
away. Verses 4, 5, 6,
10, 11, 12.
Jesus then was
revealed to John Baptist, as the bearer of sin with
intent to put it away.
As the bearer, not of the sin of
Law
lays
sin on our conscience, and disquiets us. Grace takes
sin away and gives
peace, but only in perfect consistency with justice. If sin is
on you, you are lost; if your sin
is on Christ, you are saved!
Is any one who reads this
not forgiven? not at rest in
soul? Here
is the secret of peace!
‘Behold the Lamb of God, who
taketh away the
sin of the world!’
This requires
no previous knowledge of election.
Are
you one of the world? a sinner like the rest of
men? Here
is God’s Deliverer, and deliverance is
set before you!
What have you to do to make
it yours? Only
to accept
it, as it is offered by the Most High!
It is not to make yourself worthy of
this, but to accept it in all your
present unworthiness.
Herein it stands
opposed to the view of the matter given under Law. Was an
Israelite sensible of sin.? . He must
go to his flock, and provide or buy a victim without blemish, as a substitute for his blemished
soul. Now
God
has done that
for us once for all. He alone could
provide the perfect sacrifice.
He has
done so. He
calls on all who [Page 36]
would be saved
to receive His
testimony about His Lamb, and its
peace-giving blood.
Hence the Scripture
says not, ‘Provide a lamb
for God, to take away your
sin’ - but ‘Look to the Lamb which
God has provided,
and by which sin is put away.’
It is only a look: a look of faith; in opposition to
great works or little
works, great or little merits, or feelings on your
part. And
thus the witness of Jesus and His
forerunner closely correspond.
For when
Jesus is describing to the teacher of Israel God’s
plan of salvation, he sets
it forth as resembling the rescue from death which
God gave through the
mediator in the desert.
When anyone
bitten by the serpents but looked to the serpent of brass lifted up, he lived.
The bitten one returned to life, however
deeply before that the venom had penetrated his
vitals. Only
the blood of the Son of God could take
away the sin of a world.
But that,
beheld by faith, saves.
Thus
‘the Lamb of God’
means ‘the lamb provided by God,’
just
as ‘the bread of God’
means ‘the bread provided by
God,’ ‘the armour
of God’ means ‘the
armour supplied by God for us,’ and ‘the
righteousness of God’ means ‘the
righteousness provided
by
God for us the guilty.’
Here is the doctrine of a ‘suffering Messiah,’
at
which the
Jew has,
ever since Christ’s appearing, stumbled.
John knew and taught it by direct revelation; for
although it was hinted even in the Garden as the
bruising of the heel of the
deliverer, so displeasing was it to human nature,
that
Here
too
is a doctrine far transcending Jewish ideas - not
only the death of
Messiah, but His death as the source of redemption
to the world!
‘Behold!’
In that
word John points away from himself to another.
John was sent to manifest Jesus to
John Baptist next
identifies the person of whom he had
spoken such great things, with the man Christ Jesus
before him. He
was not speaking of two persons, but of
one only. Thus
he identifies Jesus with
the Son
of
God. Thus
he destroys the Gnostic error of Cerinthus. According
to that falzehood, the
man Jesus
stood not before
John Baptist, though the Christ
did. Nor
was ‘Jesus’
preferred before John Baptist, because of His
previous existence; because, on
that view, He had
no previous
existence. The
same observation applies
also against Swedenborg’s
error. The
human body into which ‘the
Father’ entered, was not in existence
before
John. Neither
Was Jesus in his views
really a man.
The Father, in taking a human body, took
neither the soul or spirit of a man.
In the thirty-first verse
John Baptist testifies, that
his witness to Jesus was not given in consequence of
collusion with Christ, or
as the result of family feelings.
John
knew not Jesus by sight.
The two cousins
had been severed from their earliest youth (Luke
1:
80). Yet
the great end of John
Baptist’s mission was to manifest Jesus to
32. ‘And
John bare witness saying, “I saw the Spirit
descending as
a dove out of the heavens, and it abode upon Him. And I
knew Him not; He that sent me to
immerse in water, He said unto me, ‘On whomsoever
thou shalt see the Spirit
descending and abiding on Him, that is He who
immerseth in the Holy Spirit.’
And I saw and bare witness that HE
IS THE SON OF GOD.”’
The baptism of Jesus is one
of the turning points of
His as it is also of the spiritual history of His
followers. From
that moment Jesus, who up to that time had
appeared as the carpenter of Nazareth of Galilee,
became the
Great
Teacher
and Wonder-worker in
On
this
point the Gnostics
fastened as
giving countenance to their new and false
interpretation of the Gospel. Part of
their allegation was true; even the statement just
made above. Their
falsification of it consisted in their
asserting (1) that Jesus before His
baptism was but the mere man.
Against that, the opening verses of John, which describe Him as the eternally
existing Creator and Son of the Father, have been
directed. (2)
Their second falsehood consisted in
asserting, that the Divine Person who came on Jesus
was ‘the Christ,’ and that thus Jesus
Christ was the temporary union of two
persons. This false doctrine
was
really refuted by the foregoing testimonies of the
three Evangelists, who all
affirm, that the Divine Person who descended out of
heaven on our Lord was ‘the
Holy Spirit’; and not ‘the
Christ.’
But as this was and is
one of the vital points of the faith, John was
inspired to add his witnessing.
In
the
previous Gospels it was said, that Jesus saw the
heaven opened, and the
Spirit descending on Him.
In this Gospel
John’s additional
evidence was given, that he
also saw the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus.
The Spirit descended as a dove: the Holy
Ghost in person abode on Jesus
Christ. It
is remarkable that He is not
said to enter into Christ, but to abide on Him, even
as under the Law anointing
was an outward application. The Father’s voice out
of the heavens attested that
Jesus was His beloved Son, in whom He was ever well
pleased.
Now
this
scene smites the doctrine of Swedenborg,
and of the Spiritists
with a deadly
blow. For,
according to that teaching
(1) it was the Father that dwelt
in the human body which was called Jesus; and the
Father at the baptism was
abiding on earth, not up in the heaven; so that if
the Father’s voice came
forth from the place where He really was, it ought
to have proceeded out
of the mouth of Jesus!
(2)
Moreover, the body which the Father took was, they
say, [Page
39] ‘the Son.’
But this body, they say, ‘was
full of every vile passion; and the Father’s
employment
while on earth consisted in wrestling against this
wickedness, and preventing
it in appearing in act.’ God was engaged,
according to them, as soon as
He had taken up this body, in
putting it off again; so
that, though He took at first a body of
flesh, it was so completely put off at last, that at
His death (or rather, His seeming death)
upon the cross, He had put off
every particle of the body of flesh.
Does it need any sagacity to see, how
diametrically opposed such teaching
is to the declaration of the Father, that the Son
was ‘His
Beloved
one
in whom He was
well pleased’?
This
abiding
of the Spirit upon God’s King and
At
Jesus’
baptism the Trinity in Unity appears.
The Father of the heavens attests the Son,
and opens the heavens over
Him.
The
force
of this opening of the heavens is not generally
observed. It
is the basis of all the after-action of
the dispensation.
It is the setting
forth of the true God, the God of
heaven - Father, Son, and
Spirit. It
is the contrast to the scene
at the commission given to Moses - when God descends
to abide in the bush of
earth, and pronounces Himself to be the
self-existing God, the God of the
fathers, the Lord of earth, about to lead
This
thirty-second
verse is of vast moment.
It is a refutation of the Gnostic
error, that the Being who came on Jesus was ‘the Christ.’
John
Baptist on the contrary, declares that it was ‘the
Spirit.’
He beheld the
Spirit descend, as a Dove.
The person on
whom the Spirit rested was Jesus the man, but also the
Son of God (32-33). The Great Deliverer is
not
the temporary union of two persons, long since
dissolved; but One Person, who
abides in the Unity of the Godhead and Manhood
still.
[Page 40]
But
how
did John Baptipt know, what was the name of the
Being who came on
Jesus? By
divine teaching.
The Father who sent him to baptize pointed
out the way in which the Deliverer was to be known,
and named the Divine Person
who was to rest on Jesus, as ‘the
Spirit.’
Here then the name proceeds directly from
the
testimony of God.
See also Isaiah
11: 1 ; 61: 1.
Moreover
this
doctrine is connected with the Church in John’s day;
and since then Jesus,
as in this Gospel it is shown, promised to send down
the Holy Spirit.
John bore witness that Jesus was to immerse
-
not in ‘the Christ,’
but in ‘the Spirit.’
Hence He who descended at Pentecost was the [Holy]
Spirit. And
the
Holy Spirit who dwelt in the Church and rested on
its inspired men, as for
instance on the Apostle John, testified back
concerning the baptism of the Lord
Jesus, that it was not the Christ, but the Spirit
that came on Him.
Therefore, the whole of the Gnostic scheme was
false.
A
new dispensation, not of earth in its origin, but of
the heaven, had
begun. The
Holy Ghost descends out of
the heavens to bind together heaven and earth; and
to knit Christian baptism to
Christ’s personal immersion. The name of the Father,
the Son, and the Spirit,
is to be called over every believer, rightly
baptized.
Thus, then, the
person of Messiah was made known to John Baptist by
a better testimony than
that which made known to Samuel, Saul as the new
king of Israel; or David, as
the king after God’s own heart, to the same prophet. God
anointed now, not man; and the anointing
oil is not a confection of man’s making, but the
Spirit of God Himself.
Thus,
too,
the Spirit that came on Jesus is identified with the
Spirit that
afterwards came upon the
34. ‘And
I saw, and bare witness, that He is the Son of God.’
Thus,
in
due time, the sign given to the Baptist was
fulfilled. The
Dove, ‘the Spirit,’
rested on Jesus.
He was a man; but He
was also Son of God.
He was of two
natures united in One Person.
John then
reveals the testimony of the Father given to Jesus
at His baptism.
‘This
is My beloved Son.’ He was the
Word made flesh, from His birth;
but now the Spirit, another Divine Person, rests
upon Him.
35-37.
John repeats his testimony.
The effect of it is to detach from himself
two of his disciples, who follow Jesus.
John Baptist was the subordinate, and is
content to be so.
He does not seek to recall these two
disciples. Jesus
attaches them to Him,
opening the way by a question, and an invitation to
come and see where He
dwells. They
go. No
description of the spot is given, nor of
the conversation.
The two disciples are
types, I believe, of the
The
name
of one of the two disciples is given; the other is
concealed. No
doubt it was John, who never seeks his own
glory. But
from this it appears, that he
was one of the first to find Christ.
Hence, also, we learn, why nothing is said of
the Apostles’
baptism. For
they were, perhaps without
exception, disciples of John.
Only those
who accepted John and his message, accepted Christ. Those who
refused John and his baptism, as
did the Pharisees and Sadducees, refused Christ
also. [Page
42] Andrew, having seen Christ, seeks to introduce others to Him.
This is a blessed privilege, and a great
joy
when we succeed.
Andrew begins with his
relations, his own brother.
The ties of
the new nature are stronger than those of the flesh,
He bears his witness to Jesus as the Christ. Here, then, is
another
testimony against the Cerinthian
error. Andrew
understood, as the result
of the Baptist’s testimony, that Jesus was but one
person. He
led Simon to Jesus.
Here is a field for every believer: a field
for prayer and effort.
How great a joy,
when those near to us in the flesh are bound to us
by an eternal tie!
Jesus
is
aware who he is, though He had never seen him
before. He
bestows on him a new name, which Paul uses
in his Epistle to
This
was
a memorable day for John, and accordingly he
recollects even the hour at
which he met the Lamb of God (44,
45). Jesus
was leaving Judea for
45, 46. ‘Philip
findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have
found Him
of whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote -
Jesus, the son of Joseph of
Nazareth. Nathanael
said to him, “Out of
Nazareth can any good thing come?”
Philip saith unto him, “Come and see.”’
Where
the
Spirit of the Lord is at work, one is added after
another to Jesus, by the
testimony of the disciples. This is as it should be. The force
of testimony is great, even when
given [Page 43] in very
simple words. The
Gospel is a
report. And
it is easy to raise a
report.
‘We have found.’
After ages of waiting and seeking, lo, the
Messiah is come!
‘We have found!’ We may
remember the mathematician’s joyous
leap, and shout, and sacrifice of a hundred victims
- when he discovered the
answer to the difficult problem.
‘I have found it! I
have found it!’
Here is a better
find, better than the gold-seeker’s nugget of one
thousand ounces of gold.
Jesus
gains
three Apostles out of
Reports
are
often false, and will stand no sifting.
But this was true and effectual.
Philip represents Jesus as the person
testified of, not by John, but by
the writers of the Old Testament.
That
was true; as Jesus bore witness to the two going to
Emmaus; and to the rest of
the disciples after His resurrection (Luke
24.).
This word of Philip’s is important, as
destroying the false idea of ‘the
men of knowledge,’
- that the prophets of the Old Testament were
inspired by the Creator - the God
of the Jews - but a Being ignorant of the Father of
Christ.
There
is
gold in this witness of Philip, but dross too. ‘Jesus
is the personage of whom the Old Testament speaks.’
True. ‘The Son of Joseph of
* The
better
reading.
Nathanael
expects,
that one so celebrated in Scripture should not come
out of a lowly
town, not named in Holy Writ.
But that
was a part of Messiah’s humiliation.
He
would impart glory to
Understand,
Christian!
that the glory of God and the glory of man do not
flow in the same
channel. To
be wise with God you must be
a fool with the world.
God is hiding His
wisdom and power now under the semblance of weakness
and folly. He
is acting on a hidden wisdom, ordained
before the world for our glory.
That is good doctrine which
leads to Christ; that is
evil which leads away from Him to aught beside.
Here we see the mixture of the gold with
stubble in this building of
Philip.
Observe the great and
solemn difference of
result. John
Baptist’s official
interview and testimony to the Pharisees and
priests, does not lead them to
faith in Christ, as the Pro-existent One, far
greater than himself. But the few
words of John and of his disciples, afterwards avail
to gather some to Christ
savingly.
48-51. ‘Jesus
saw Nathanael coming to Him, and saith of him,
“Behold
an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!”
Nathanael saith to 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.”
Nathanael answered Him, “Rabbi, thou art
the
Son of God, the King of Israel.”
Jesus
answered and said unto him, “Because I said, I saw
thee under the fig-tree, believest
thou? Thou
shalt see greater things than
these.” And
he saith to him, “Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see
heaven opened, and the angels of
God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”’
This
scene,
the result of Jesus’ ministry set on another
footing, gives us an intimation of the remnant of
As
I
understand verse 48,
Philip called to
Nathanael without seeing him, only believing him to
be somewhere near; and thus
broke off his thoughts and his prayers.
Our Lord then notes, [Page 45] that before he was called, and while engaged in the meditation and
prayer interrupted by Philip, He was in spirit present, and would let him know, that He heard. Nathanael
believed himself unseen.
So, doubtless, he was unseen by man.
But there is an eye that sees us even in
our
closet, and an ear that hears.
Would not
this bring to Nathanael’s mind the 139th
Psalm,
1-3, ‘O Lord, Thou hast
searched me out and known me.
Thou
knowest my downsitting and my uprising.
Thou understandest my thought afar off.’
Philip
had
testified of Jesus as Joseph’s Son:
but Nathanael has
outrun his instructor.
He sees in
Joseph’s Son really the Son of God.
‘The eyes of the Lord are in every place.’ Have
you
a Nathanael’s fig-tree near your house? a place of
retirement to be with
God alone?
Here was an
indication of the future accomplishment of that word
concerning the
kingdom (Isa.
56 17-25), ‘Before
they call
I
will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I
will hear.’
Jesus displays at
once His knowledge of the character of Nathanael. He was a
son of Jacob, who by his strong prayer
and wrestling,
won the name of
Nathanael was sighing for
that day, praying for it,
comparing it [Page 46] sadly with the then state of
The
reply
of our Lord strikes the simple and candid mind of
Nathanael at once with
overwhelming force.
He is in the
presence of Divine Intelligence.
He
expresses his faith, ‘Rabbi, thou art the Son of
God; thou art the
King of
Thus Nathanael shows himself a believer
in the witness of the prophets who testify, that the
King of Israel
in the millennial day, is to be the
Lord Himself
(Is. 44: 1-6; Zeph.
3: 13-20).
Nathanael is regarded as one of the remnant
of
[Page 47]
In
the Second
Psalm
we have the two views of the Son of
God, and
King
of Israel, united.
In the eighty-ninth
Psalm too, we have, on the one side,
God’s promises to David and his
son, and the contrasted dishonour which overwhelms
* It should be rendered – ‘They have reproached the heels of thine Anointed.’
The Saviour, by His words concerning
Nathanael’s guilelessness and His beholding him in
secret, virtually pointed him
to two passages of the Psalms, which speak of such
persons as justified. (Ps.
32: 2)
‘Blessed is the man
unto whom the Lord imputeth
not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.’ Shall
we
not say also, how strongly in such a view verses
6
and 7 would
strike Him: ‘For this shall
every one that is godly pray unto Thee in a
time when Thou mayest be found: surely in the
floods of great waters they shall
not come nigh unto him.
Thou art
my hiding place; Then shalt preserve me from
trouble; Thou shalt compass me
about with songs of deliverance.' But more
remarkable still is Psalm
thirty-four.
Nathanael has
been praying, we suppose, for the millennial day,
and its joys (12,
He has one of the chief characteristics of
those who enjoy it, and is to rejoice (13). Moreover,
Jesus in that case makes Himself
the Lord. ‘The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous’ ‘I SAW THEE.’
The Saviour shows Himself aware of his
prayers, by giving him a new promise of the glory of that kingdom which shall be
given into His hand; and a new reference to Moses
(Jacob’s dream), which is to
be fulfilled in Himself.
Does
every
reader own in Jesus these two titles?
With
most Christians
does not the Saviour’s glory
as ‘Son of God,’ thrust His glory as ‘King of Israel’? The
latter
has been so long in abeyance, they cannot
believe it will be fulfilled.
But it must!
NO
jot of Moses or the
prophets can fail.
The
hopes of Israel are recognised by the Lord. On His
head are to be many crowns.
Moses and the prophets knew not of the [Page
48]
Church. It
was a secret of the Father’s bosom.
But they testified of
Jesus
is
‘King of
Yet
the
Saviour has never really and in
fact
been King of Israel.
(1) Jesus, when the
multitude wished to make Him King over them, refused
(John
6.). (2)
And
The
Saviour
is pleased with a faith which can rest on a sign so
inferior to those
which He was prepared to give. Nathanael should see
‘greater
things.’
Our Lord applies to
Himself and His hearers the dream of Jacob.
He,
as the Son of Man, and
Son of God, was the true ladder,
which in
the coming day is to bring into
correspondence and harmony heaven and earth,
which are now so divided.
Jacob, driven out of his former lot,
because
of the birthright acquired, and now a stranger
and pilgrim, with the earth
alone for his bed, and a stone for his bolster,
is comforted by a view of the
coming millennial day.
Out of Him
should spring the Redeemer, who should unite in
blessing the earth and the
heaven. Jacob
sees the ladder. Nathanael
has touched the foot and the top of it, in the two
titles which he has assigned
to Jesus. ‘King of Israel’
was the [Page
49] earthly title, and rehearsed our Lord’s place on earth.
‘Son
of God,’
discovers to us the heavenly title.
The ladder
is one. It
is Jesus’ own person; uniting
in Himself the natures of earth
and
of heaven; of man and of God (Eph.
1: 10).
The words of God which follow Jacob’s
dream,
serve to expound the vision (Gen.
28: 13-15).
The
day was coming, when the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, should bestow on the
patriarchs and their numerous posterity, the land
of promise.
But there is one special heir of all, even
Christ. ‘Thy seed, which is
Christ.’
Thus the
Lord
shows He has not forgotten His covenant with the
departed patriarchs.
The Saviour has not yet fulfilled His counsel with
The prophets introduce
their visions and commands by ‘thus
saith the Lord.’
Jesus, as the Lord of the prophets, speaks in
His own name. ‘Verily, verily,’
etc. He is the Amen of God, in whom all the promises are ‘Yea
and Amen.’
The
angels
are moving now on God’s messages of good to us. But the
heavens are not opened, and the
angels are not seen.
But they will be,
when Satan and his angels are cast into the abyss. Most of
the commentators labour to show, that
the heaven was or is opened now,
and that the angels
descend. But Jesus speaks of it as future.
It depends on His own presence.
It awaits the ladder being set, with its foot
on earth, and its top in
heaven. Now the whole ladder is
on high.
He who is the man of faith
[in
God’s millennial promises]
now shall see the
fulfilment then.
In that blessedness he is to be the
contrast
to the men of unbelief.
‘Now, behold if the
Lord should make windows in heaven, might
this thing be Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not eat thereof.’
And so it fell out.
The unbelieving lord of Elisha’s day looked
only to the utter destrution of the earth, and the
weakness of man, when he [Page
50] made
that speech. His
hopes wore not in the power of God (2
Kings 7).
He saw the fulfilment, but it was only to vex
His eyes and grieve his
heart. So
it will be with many.
‘Whosoever shall
not
receive the kingdom of heaven as a little child,
verily I say unto you, he
shall in no wise enter therein.’
51. ‘The
angels of God ascending and descending on the Son
of Man.’
Here is the evident
reference to Gen. 28:
12.
‘And he dreamed, and
behold a ladder set up on
the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven:
and, behold the
angles of God ascending and descending upon it.’
The
angels of God are no common messengers.
But they are at the beck of this Son of Man
in that day, when, according
to the eighth Psalm, ‘All things are subjected to His
feet.’*
They will come with Him to set up His
Kingdom. He
will send them up to heaven on His
errands. They
will descend again to Him
with replies. The
ladder is ‘the Son of
*
It was, I
believe, Satan’s hatred of this counsel of
God, that led him to tempt and ruin man.
This has effected his own perdition.
‘The counsel of the
Lord, that shall stand.’
Slowly, but surely, all shall be fulfilled.
All
Christians
confess Jesus as Son of God.
It is necessary to Christian faith.
But how few own Him to be also ‘King
of
There
is
in the title ‘Son of Man,’ a reference to the
promised
This chapter of our Gospel
discovers to us our Lord from
three points of view.
1.
As He existed from eternity, 2. As man at
His first coming.
3. As seen in the coming millennial
glory, fulfilling the hopes of
Verses 50
and 51 of
this chapter
are incapable
of any true interpretation by
an anti-millenarian. How do
those interpret it, who assume it to
be fulfilled in the present day?
Take Alford’s
statement. ‘The glories of
a period beginning from the opening of our
Lord’s public ministry, and at this day not yet
completed, are described.
For it is
not the outward visible opening of
the material heavens, nor ascent and descent
of angels in the sight of men
which our Lord here announces; but the
series of glories which was about to be unfolded
in His person and work from
that time forward.’
Luther
(cited by Lucke 1. 458) boldly says: ‘When Christ
became man, and entered on His ministerial office,
and began to preach, then
was the heaven opened and remains open;
and has
from that time (since the baptism
of Christ in the Jordan) never been shut, and never
will be shut although we do not
see it with our bodily eyes.
… Christ
says this: “Ye are now heavenly citizens, and have
your citizenship above in
the heavenly
Now
this
is a flagrant contradiction of Christ’s words.
So much so,
that I own I should be very offended with any one
who should so contradict me,
and so foist in something I never said.
1.
Nathanael
had believed without sight.
Jesus
promises
a time of sight.
‘Ye shall see the
heaven opened.’ And the
habitation of the angels being opened to sight, the
inhabitants of heaven, the
angels, shall be objects of sight also.
Moreover, it is not the ascent and descent of
angels around, or on, the
saved
- but on Christ, the
visible Son of Man.
None of this then has been accomplished
during the Gospel, nor can it be.
(1) For
Christ as the visible Son of Man has been concealed
in the heavens all the day
of Gospel grace, the invisible Holy Spirit having
come down to supply to the
men of faith the absence of Christ.
(2)
The Gospel is the time of walking by faith,
not by sight. And these words
promise
three objects of sight to men, which during all the
Gospel-day will continue
concealed - (1) Heaven. (2) Angels. (3) Christ.
Moreover,
Jesus
was speaking to Nathanael about Jewish and Old
Testament hopes; hopes
given to the men of the letter, to be literally
fulfilled. The
words are attached to the fulfilment of
Jacob’s dream; and that refers not to the Gospel,
which is a deferring of the
hopes of the patriarchs, but to the millennial kingdom of glory.
As truly as Christ and Nathanael’s fig-tree
were then objects of sight, so shall these three
promised things be objects of
sight also.
But
let
us look into the promise more closely, to see if
this was literally
accomplished; and we shall observe how utterly
unfounded is this interpretation.
1.
‘Hereafter*
ye shall see heaven opened.’
*
…Two
uncial copies omit this word, probably because it
created a difficulty.
It is to be retained, with the great
majority
of copies, both uncial and cursive.
‘Was
not that fulfilled at
Jesus’ baptism?’ it will be said.
No!
The heaven
was not then opened to Jewish disciples in general. It was
opened to John and Jesus only.
Besides, this promise of Jesus was made after that
baptism was past, and relates, as the words show, to a future day.
‘But is not heaven open now, and
are not we, as priests,
welcome to enter the Holiest now?’
Yes, but
that is
a spiritual access by
faith to a heaven not
visible. And
this is the promise
of a something visible out of an open heaven; and
not of our entrance in spirit
into an unseen heaven.
It is not true,
as Luther says, that heaven is never to be shut. For three
years and a half heaven is closed
to
2.
‘Ye shall see the angels of
God ascending and descending.’
Some would say – ‘Was
not
this fulfilled, when the angels after the
Saviour’s victory over Satan, came,
and ministered to Him?
When,
in His agony in the Garden, an angel
appeared from heaven strengthening him? When, at
the resurrection angels were
seen at His tomb attesting His resurrection, and
showing to the women where He
lay? Finally,
when the Saviour ascended,
did not angels appear to the apostles, and assure
them of the Saviour’s second
advent?’
The observations are quite
true; but beside the
mark. These
visits of angels were not
seen by men; or were not in visible connexion with
the Saviour as a man.
(1) The angels in the desert ministered to
Christ; but were unseen by men. (2) Beside, that
ministry was something already
past, and Jesus promises this as a future thing. ‘Hereafter
ye shall
see.’
(3) The appearance of an angel in
(4)
The
appearances of angels at the resurrection were not
given to any of the
apostles, much less did these angels come from opened heaven. Nor were the
angels then in connexion with
visible person of Jesus.
The angels on
the day of resurrection showed only the tomb from
which He was absent. (5) The [Page
54]
appearances at the Ascension do
not fulfil this word.
The heaven then
was not opened.
A cloud came and shut
Christ from their gaze.
The angels were
not then ascending and descending on the Son of Man,
but they explained the
meaning of His absence and promised His return.
It
is
evident then, that Jesus has carefully distinguished
all these things from
His promise here.
That has never yet
been fulfilled.
1. When then is it to be
accomplished?
(1)
It
has been shown, that the promise cannot be fulfilled
in our Gospel days of
grace. For
during these times heaven is
not visibly open, angels are not objects of sight,
and even if they were, it
would not avail; for the promise is that they are to
move up and down in connection
with Christ as their centre, their Master and
Governor, executing His errands.
2. When then shall it be
accomplished?
(1)
In
millennial days.
When the Kingdom is,
as foretold, to be given into the hands of Christ
Jesus, exalted as ‘the Son of
Man.’
It is God’s counsel, that the Kingdom, lost by the first Adam, shall be
manifested with additional glory in the hand of
the second man. When He
is a second time manifested in the habitable earth, all the angels of God
are to worship Him (Heb.
1: 6).
He
is
to come with them when He takes His Kingdom of
glory. They
are to be the executioners of His
wrath. This
tells us too, that in the
days of Christ’s rule over heaven and earth,
they are to bring Him tidings, and
to be despatched on His errands.
Then
they are not only to be seen, but are to be in
closest connexion with His
person.
Then,
too,
the
heaven
is to be opened. As
during the reign of Satan and his
False King and Christ, heaven is shut and hell is
opened: so during the reign
of the true Christ, heaven is opened and hell ([‘Hades’] or the
bottomless pit) is shut (Rev.
19: 11; 20: 1-3).
John sees the heaven opened then
and the inhabitants of it come forth.
That
can
only take. place in millennial days. For after they are
over,
Jesus gives up His kingdom as the [Page 55] Son of Man, in order that God may be all in all. And the heavens and
earth
that are now quite pass away.
Moreover, thus, as we have
seen, we bring the matter
into closest correspondence with the context.
The thoughts of Nathanael probably turned on
the future kingdom.
He was informed that the Son of Man, the
great centre of all the promises in Moses and the
Prophets, was come.
And our Lord confirms his thoughts.
To Him, as Son of Man, all things, even the
angels, shall be subordinate.
Moreover, then we bring in
Christ’s recognition of
Jewish hopes. ‘The
men of intelligence’ of old, not crediting
the Jewish Scriptures, and
despising the prophets’ testimonies of a better day
to come, through Jehovah’s
intervention in miracle, asserted that Jesus
despised all the Jewish rites and
festivals. While
then the line of things
testified by the Holy Spirit in John gave no such
prominence to these days and
these hopes, as the other Gospels do, the Saviour is
yet seen to accept the
millennial Jewish hopes, and the promises of their
prophets. And
thus we obtain the true solution of that
passage of the Old Testament to which these words of
the Saviour manifestly
point. They
allude, as any impartial eye
will see, to Jacob’s dream, which has never yet been
fulfilled. See
Gen. 28.
At
that
time Jacob was a pilgrim and stranger driven out of
his land by his fears
of Esau. But
that time of his stripping
was the time of revealing to him greater blessings
than those he had lost:
blessings dependent on his Son, or ‘Seed.’
The
dream
of Jacob’s ladder was
designed to discover to us
One in whose person heaven and earth - so wide
apart, morally and physically -
shall be brought together. This our
Lord
shall effect by the union in Him of two natures,
one earthly and the other
heavenly. Jesus, as the Son of Man, has a just right on earth;
as the Son of God, the heaven
also is His righteous abode.
In the [millennial] days of the Son of
Man there shall be a visible way of access between heaven and earth. It is
God’s purpose as He has declared, to gather
together in Christ, as the One Head, all things (Eph.
1.).
[Page 56]
This
dream,
too, assures the land of promise to Christ, and to
Jacob. Neither
of
these has as yet received the prize. The land
belongs to Jacob and to Christ.
Neither
has
as yet enjoyed the promise.
All nations are to be blessed under Christ in
those days.
The
final
promise supposes resurrection.
Not
till then can Jacob possess the land of Palestine. Neither
he,
nor Christ, the seed of Jacob, has ever yet
enjoyed the land promised
them. Never
yet have all the families of
the earth been blessed in Christ; nor will they be
during the Gospel, though
some of each family are being gathered out by the
Gospel in order to have part
in the resurrection-glory of those days.
These
words
suppose the restoration of
In
short,
the whole of the words look onward to the first and blest
resurrection.
Not till then, as
our Lord argues, will God manifest Himself to be the
God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. God
is the God of the living; not
of the dead.
And the
patriarchs are still [in
Hades] among
the dead.
Not
till God has
clothed
him in immortal and glorious flesh,
will Jacob be Jacob
again. Up
till that day Jacob is
divided, and cannot be pointed out as visible in
one place. Not
yet are all traces of the curse and of sin put
away. Nor
will they be till resurrection.
To that then,
and to the thousand years of bliss to be enjoyed by the blessed risen,
the words look onward; as we see in Matt.
8: 11;
and Luke 13: 28.
Two
titles
are given by Nathanael to Jesus on this occasion,
One an earthly – ‘King of
Israel,’ one a heavenly – ‘Son
of [Page 57] God.’
So Paul points out to our notice that two
heritages await the
patriarchs. The
land they are to enjoy
is the land they saw, stood on, lay down on; and
But,
as
He proceeds to say (Heb.
11: 13-16), they
looked for an unseen city in heaven, wherein God,
well pleased with their
confessed position as strangers and pilgrims here,
has prepared an abode.
To
this
day-star, then, are
we to turn our eye.
We, too, are and pilgrims on the earth. The
Saviour, when He thus spoke, was also a
stranger and pilgrim, without settled possessions or
abode. Let
us own Him in both His natures – ‘Son
of Man,’
and Son of God;
and in all the glories which flow from those
natures, and the triumphs achieved
in them! Let
us move by faith now into
the Holiest, through the ascended Priest, of whom
the Holy Ghost bears witness;
and let us look for His coming down from the heaven
in His power as
Resurrection and Life!
*
*
*
CHAPTER 2
[Page 58]
1, 2. ‘And
the third day there was a marriage in Cana of
Galilee,
and the mother of Jesus was there.
Now
Jesus and His disciples were invited to the
marriage.’
We
may
regard this history from two main points of view.
1.
As
a refutation of error in regard of the person and
doctrine of Jesus.
2.
As
typical and prophetic.
There
were
those in John’s day who refused marriage, animal
food, and wine, as things
evil in themselves. They had false views concerning
God and sin. In
their
eyes matter was the cause
of sin; and to seek to be delivered from it was the
highest aim of the wise
man. Hence
they were led to imagine,
that evil sprang out of the Creator, and was owing
to His want of intelligence,
or want of power in forming the things we see.
They did not believe in creation properly so called, for they supposed matter to be eternal.
The Holy Spirit, then, in His wisdom, has
shown us the Son of God sanctioning marriage, animal food, and wine in this
Gospel. Jesus
never was married Himself, but he
sanctions it by His presence.
The Holy
Spirit warns us, that evil spirits will go forth in
the latter day, teaching
that marriage is evil; and to be abstained from, in
common with animal food and
wine, by all who are upright, and who know the truth
(1
Tim. 4: 1-6).
‘The third day’ - that is
to be reckoned from Jesus’
reply to Nathanael - and this miracle was the result
of the promise that he ‘should
see greater things.’
[Page
59]
In
this
section of our Gospel we have also the truth stated
on another point of
the utmost moment to us.
Two different
currents of error concerning our Lord’s mother,
early set in.
1.
One
party taught, that our Lord took nothing of His
mother’s substance.
He was born of her, it was true; but He
passed through her, to use their figure, only ‘as
water through a pipe.’
His body
was not like our body.
It was ‘a heavenly;’
a doctrine taught
by some in our day.
The
Holy
Spirit, then, here owns Mary as the mother of Jesus.
2.
But
if Mary were really His mother, and the Saviour took
a body of her
substance, does she not take a stand loftily above
all other women?
May she not, by virtue of this her
relationship, claim to have all her petitions
granted by her Son?
Can Jesus refuse anything to His
mother?
Do we not do well, then,
to pray to her, rather than to Him?*
*
Joseph does not
appear. He
was no doubt dead.
Such
a
course of thought and feeling early arose, and grew
in the nominal church;
specially after that the worldly entered, in crowds, into the Church under
[Page 60]
3.
‘And when the wine
failed, the mother of Jesus saith unto Him, “They
have no wine.”
Jesus saith unto her, “What have I to do
with
thee, woman?
My hour is not yet come.”’
Wine
-
so suited to the needs of a wedding-feast - failed. Why are we
not told what was the cause of it?
Because it was not in the line of the [Holy] Spirit’s counsel.
You or I, reader, had we written an account
of this incident, should
probably have gone into some detail as to the
reason. But
the wisdom of the Spirit of God has left
it out. Scripture
is inspired, in what
it omits, as well as in what it inserts.
We
know
only the fact, ‘Wine failed.’ How great
a vexation was that to both the
bridegroom and bride!
At a time when it
were so greatly to be desired for the happiness of
the wedded pair, that all
should move on smoothly!
See in this
incident, that cheeks and trouble must be looked for
in wedded life.
But it gives us also a lesson of the most
blessed import to all.
Out of this great
vexation rightly met
arose the
chief glory
of the wedding of
Mary would enlist our Lord
to supply the need.
From this it would seem, that her Son had
put
forth His power in miracle before that day; or at
least that He had obtained
such marked supplies in answer to prayer, as to lead
her to suggest that He
would interpose His help then. But the Saviour
repels even this indirect appeal
of His mother.
He rebukes her
interference in this matter.
He calls
her ‘woman.’ She is not
to counsel Him!
God the Father is the one source of direction
to Him. He
does not exalt her: He abases
her. That
teaches us, then, that it
is vain, it
is wicked to
look to Mary as possessing power over her Son.
It is contrary
to Scripture, to
suppose, that Jesus ‘cannot
deny His mother anything.’
It
is
unscriptural to call her ‘the
mother of God.’
Her true title is ‘the
mother
of Jesus.’
It is unholy
and vain to address prayer to her.
She
does not know the prayer, she cannot aid those
who idolatrously worship her.
How fearfully this evil practice has
grown,
many know. Mary
is really the God
of Romanists on the Continent.
She is
represented as the mother, while Jesus is shown.
only as the infant.
And now in some places her image appears
alone.
She
is the great object of worship!
‘What have I to do with
thee?’ is a rebuke addressed
to her improper interference.
The like
phrase we find in 2
Sam. 1, 6, 9. 10, 19, 21, 22;
Luke 4: 34; 8: 28.
It is easy to
understand why, in face of such passages as these,
Mary-worship could not
prosper; and why, therefore, the Scripture must be
removed, wherever Romanism
would flourish.
Christ does not say ‘mother,’
as she does not say ‘Son.’ He wishes
her to learn, that in His Father’s
work, the ties of the flesh are not to limit or
guide Him.
Jesus intimates, that He
would do all in its suited
time; and that this
must be waited for.
Mary submits to this reproof without a
murmur. She
knew her place better than
do her worshippers; and she does not venture a word
in defence of her supposed
rights as a mother.
But Mary has left
behind her [Page 62] a word addressed to the servants to whom she turns.
‘Do
whatever my Son
tells you!’ She
has then no command of her own to
give. All merges in her Son.
They
therefore most effectually
honour Mary
who obey Christ.
From
this
word of hers it would seem natural to suppose that
Mary was a relative of
the married pair, was entrusted with the
arrangements of the feast, and had
full control over the servants.
Her
words prepare the servants to obey any command of
Christ, however strange or
startling. ‘Fill
them with water!’ and ‘Draw out now!’ - without
doubt were strange words to
them. ‘Water
is
not wanted, wine is.’ We must
not be surprised if God’s way is unlike
ours, though the completion of His words shall fully
justify it.
Large
supplies
of water were needed in Jewish houses.
These were used by our Lord on this occasion. The
calculations of the quantity of water
found in the six water-pots, vary between sixty and
one hundred and twenty
gallons. The
Lord makes use of human
agency as far as He can.
He could have
filled the jars with wine at once.
He
prefers to use the servants.
They cannot
turn the water into wine.
But they can
fill the jars with water.
He commands
it, and they do it.
God is pleased to
use human instruments.
To be employed by
Him is our glory.
To do what we can, and
look to Christ to bless it, is our part.
Mother, you cannot convert your child; but
you can teach it about Jesus
and its relations to God the Saviour.
And then you can ask in much hope, ‘Lord,
I
have done my little part; I have filled the jar
with water. Do
Thou turn it into wine!’
Sunday
School
teacher – ‘Fill the little
vessels each Sunday with
the water of God’s truth!
Then look up for the blessing which you
cannot give!’
At
the
Saviour’s word, comes instant change of the water,
and its presentation to
the president of the feast. Christ upholds
authority, even in such a trivial
matter as this.
It seems that the water
while on the way to the president, was transmuted
into wine. So
Jesus says to the ten lepers, ‘Go,
show yourselves [Page 63]
to the priests.’ And as they in obedience went, they were
cleansed. The
president of the feast
seems to have been a sort of master of the
ceremonies, who arranged the
drinking.
The wine was so good as to
attract the notice of the
president, and to lead him to praise the bridegroom
before the guests. It was
not common at feasts to reserve the best wine for
the last. On
the contrary, the best was usually
produced first, and when men had drank so much as to
be unable to discriminate,
the inferior sort was supplied.
But it
was otherwise on this and it redounded to his
credit.
The president of the feast
made the observation quite
impartially; he was not led to do it by a knowledge
of its miraculous
source. He
took it for granted that it
was supplied in the ordinary way.
But if
so, may we not say: ‘The wine came on the table in
the usual course of
things?’ No!
there were witnesses of its
divine origin in the servants who drew the water.
From
the
expression ‘who had drawn the water,’
I should conclude that the liquid when
first they drew it out of the jar was water,
and that it was turned into wine on
its passage to the master of the ceremonies.
Observe, that our Lord’s
sympathies seem to
be with those who
serve. They
know a secret which is
hidden, for a time at least, from the guests.
How quietly, how un-theatrically our Lord’s
wonders are wrought!
11.
‘This beginning of signs
did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and
manifested
His glory and His
disciples believed on Him.’
This work of Jesus then was
one of the signs of His mission
given Him by the Father to do, as proof of His being
sent by Him. It
was designedly bringing our Lord into
comparison with and the prophets.
As to
Moses were given signs, in token of the mission to
Now
Moses’
power over the waters was seen in various ways. When he
was sent to
But
now
has come an era of greater blessing.
‘Law came by Moses;
grace and truth by Jesus
Christ.’
John Baptist comes first
‘in the way of righteousness;’
stern and rugged,
dwelling in the desert, not living like other men -
water his only drink, a
Nazarite from his birth.
He was suited
to rouse the nation to a sense of their sin. But
then grace was sent to visit
them in the person of Jesus Christ.
Accordingly our Lord sympathises with all
that is good among men.
He will eat their bread, and drink their
wine. He
is the bearer of good news,
against our desert.
He is found then,
not interfering in any combat for
He
turns
water into wine. This, I suppose, is
prophetic. During the
Saviour’s absence of two days (or two
thousand
years) wine
is to fail.
The
joys
of earth are to be smitten.
Even wines shall fail (Is.
24: 11; Jer. 48:
53).
Then, on the third day, when His
own marriage is come, shall the Lord
interfere in mercy to produce a new
supply. And
the best shall come last;
unlike the usual course of things, and bearing the
token of a divine hand.
The
water
of six days purification shall end in the wine of
millennial joy!
Thus
Jesus
‘manifested
His
glory:’ a very significant word,
specially in our day.
First, He does it quite independently: in
that unlike Moses.
Moses, both in
smiting of the foe, and in [Page 65] the helping of his friends, is dependent.
He is taught what to do.
And what he does is instrumental only.
Jesus acts as one possessed
of power and intelligence
in full. He
is at no loss.
He gives His orders, as a general directs his
soldiers in some well-understood operation of war.
‘Manifested His glory.’ This is
not said of Moses or Elijah, or of
any mere man. They
have no proper glory
to manifest. But
this is very much in
the strain of the passage quoted by John Baptist
concerning Christ and himself
(Is. 40: 8).
There we read, verse
5 ‘And
the glory of the Lord shall be
revealed.’
It
is not yet – ‘and all flesh
shall see it together.’
But
here is its beginning.
And shall we
refuse to believe that the word of Joel, (3:
18)
in the day of glory shall be literally fulfilled? ‘The
mountains shall
drop new wine, and the hills shall
flow with milk.’
This
making
of wine was a manifestation of His glory.
The amount of it was above a hundred
gallons
probably; and that of the best kind, of good taste,
and generous in
quality. Now
how is this reconcilable
with teetotalism?
Teetotalism claims to
be a great discovery; a great plaster for one of the
world’s sores, a
preparation for the Gospel.
It would put
down drunkenness, not by making men temperate, but by entirely putting
away wine. When
it has arrived at its full height, it denounces wine as evil.
‘The wise and good
should never [partake]
of it.’
But how then does it
reconcile its views with Gospel
facts and doctrines?
It assumes, that
the wine which Jesus made, and which He commends to
His disciples to take, is devoid
of alcohol, or the intoxicating principle.
But
this
is begging the question.
It is not
granted. It
cannot be proved.
It is against the Scripture facts – the
intoxication of Noah, of
Moreover,
even
if there were ‘non-alcoholic
wines,’ Jesus
must have distinguished them from ordinary ones;
else on teetotal principles,
He would be guilty of any disorder that would follow
from their use.
‘Mind, this wine
which I have made, is devoid of that evil
principle - alcohol.’
And if so, the taster of the feast would
never have commended it as good.
It does
not require much discrimination to distinguish
between wines which may
intoxicate, and syrup which is simply sweet.
But such a distinction, while it would have
saved the teetotal cause,
would have laid itself open to the charge of folly. ‘Charioteer,
why
drive so near the perilous edge?
Jesus,
Master, enlarge on the glories of simple water!
Teach Thy disciples to turn away from
approaching a precipice, over
which so many fall and are lost!’
Our
Lord
made a hundred and twenty gallons of wine, and this
was the first ray of
His glory! A
teetotaller would have
manifested his glory by turning a hundred and twenty
gallons of wine into water!
The
spirit of the Gospel then is
totally opposed to the leaven of teetotalism. Beware,
Christians,
of its latest development - Good Templarism! It will
one day openly turn against Christ!
How
large
a supply of wine was this!
Do we
not see in this gift an occasion for the fulfilment
of that word of the
Psalmist – ‘I was the song
of the drunkard?’
Here
we
touch upon a deep and most momentous question. In the drunkenness which so prevails, who is in fault? God or man?
(1)
If wine be good in itself, to be used in
moderation, the
fault lies in him who abuses it.
(2) If
wine be evil, and never to be
touched without pollution and mischief, the fault is in God the Creator. Without any preparation on
man’s part, grape juice ferments.
Was
not God wrong then in putting within man’s reach
such a weapon?
Was He not faulty as the God of Israel, [Page
67] in
requiring it daily to be used
in His sacrifices?
He who prohibits
honey and leaven, commands wine!
No; the evil is not in the
Creator, but in man; and
God means to show the extreme evil that is in man,
by the awful results of
drink. God
does not intend us by our
self-devised manoeuvres to set right a sinful world.
JESUS, THE
THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES.
12. ‘After
this He went down to
12.
‘His mother and
brethren.’
In order to glorify Mary, it is asserted,
that after the birth of Jesus her first-born, she
had no other child.
But there is evidence of weight against
this. On
the contrary, Scripture
teaches, that she had other children, and
great
was the surprise of the men of
‘The Passover of the Jews was
near.’
At a Passover our Lord’s ministry at
‘Jesus went up to
He
found
the temple in an evil state.
It
was really a cattle-market, and money-changers’
exchange. This
justly offended Him, and He at once puts
it down. His
interference was a work
suited to the Passover feast.
For that
was the required [Page 68] putting away of leaven. The leaven
(in its spiritual sense) had
penetrated even the temple.
The leaven
of covetousness was settled there.
And
covetousness is idolatry.
So that while
there were none of the old idols wherewith former
kings of
Jesus
made
a scourge out of rushes (on which probably the
beasts laid down), and
drove them all out.
How could one man,
and that an unknown person, effect so great a work? It was a
miracle. These
dealers had paid for their standing in
the temple, and were therefore warranted by the
priests. How
was it they did not refuse to depart?
Why did not the whole of them band together
to drive out Him and His disciples?
‘Who are you? What
right have you to interfere?
The chief priests have sold us our
standing! We
will not move for you!’
Let anyone try thus to interfere at
Jesus
speaks
with authority: ‘Take these
things hence!’
and He is obeyed, though apparently only a peasant
of
16.
‘Make not My Father’s house
a house of traffic.’
Our
Lord
then puts forth this supernatural agency in the
temple in the right of a
Son in possession of His Father’s house; and zealous
for its perfection.
‘Are not we to understand
hereby, that there is a peculiar
holiness attaching to places of worship now?’
No! There is
no material house built by man which
God is owning.
The only House of
God
now is a spiritual house, made up of living
stones (1
Peter 2: 5).
Jesus
carefully teaches the woman of
These
words
are of deepest moment.
Jesus then
owns the God of the Jews as His Father. To
most now this is a simple [Page
69]
truth which we have never heard
questioned. But
it was of the deepest
importance in John’s day, for there were those who
sought, in their vain
reasonings, to separate between the Creator and God
of the Jews, on the one
hand; and the Father if Christ, on the other.
‘The Men of
Intelligence’ maligned the
Creator and hated the God of the Jews, and the
sacrificial system of worship in
The
wisdom
of God therefore has caused these words to be
written for us, to
instruct us in the contrary truth. Jesus Christ, the
Eternal Son of the Father,
the Creator of all things, owns the God of Israel as
His Father, and the temple
at
Jesus
cleansed
the temple. He
would have the
feelings, and words, and noises of buying and
selling kept away from the place
of worship. How
would worshippers be
humbled when coming up to see the house of Jehovah,
to find the turmoil of a
cattle market, where they hoped for the quietude of
adoration!
But,
after
the present cleansing, the same scene of evil
returned. The
thing was too profitable to the sellers,
and to the Chief Priests, to be quietly given up. Hence the
Saviour cleanses it again at the
close of His career. Then
He uses severer language;
and yet more fully confirms Jewish and millennial
hopes.
He cites the text which tells
of
the millennial [Page
70] glory of
Jesus,
as
still waiting for the people’s repentance, calls the
temple ‘My Father’s house’;
but at last, when they have fully
rejected Him, He calls it on leaving it, ‘Your house’; and it was given
over to the enemy’s
desolation. A
prophet might have said ‘Our
Father’s house’; but Jesus signalises His
special
glory and relation to God by ‘My
Father.’
The
destruction
of the house, and of the city, would ensue on their
unbelief. God
would smite them, as He had smitten
Jesus
cleanses
the temple with a scourge of rushes; but they who
will not mind the
scourge of rushes will find the heavier one of
scorpions. In
the boldness which led one man, and that
all but unknown, to set himself against the evil
practices of his nation in
their stronghold, the disciples saw the fearless
energy wherewith Jesus began
to imperil his life, and was content to do so.
Where others trembled, He advanced alone and
won the day. But
would not the reaction of the great, the
priests, the learned, overwhelm him?
17.
‘His disciples remembered
that it was written – “Zeal
for thine house devoureth me.”’
This
action
of the Saviour then was foreseen and foretold in the
Old Testament.
Where is the passage to be found which [Page
71]
struck the disciples as fulfilled
on this occasion?
It is found in Psalm
69., which is several times over applied to
our Lord in New Testament.
It seems in
its opening words to refer to Saviour’s death. Jesus
complains of the multitude
of those hate Him, 5: 4
(John 15: 25).
He confesses our sins as His own, 5.
He had borne reproach for his Father’s sake (Romans
15:
3). His
brethren did not
believe on Him; His mother’s own children, 8 (John 7: 5).
Then comes the passage cited here.
‘I was the song of
the drunkards,’ 5:
12, not unlikely refers to the miracle of
the
wine, last considered.
The drinkers of
This
incident
then of cleansing the temple shows how far was our
Lord from despising
the Jewish worship and customs.
On the
contrary, a self-consuming zeal for all that was His
Father’s led Him on
against all dangers. But this bold and powerful
action produces
resistance. The
Jews ask of Him some
supernatural sign to prove that He had a right thus
to interfere with the
temple arrangements.
A prophet might so
act, indeed. But
let Him prove his
prophetic warrant by some miracle!
19.
‘Jesus answered and said
unto them, - “Destroy this
Our
Lord's
reply is enigmatical, and was not understood.
They understood him to be speaking of the
literal temple, and He was referring to one higher
and better. This
is His manner.
So to the Samaritan woman He speaks of a
better water, and to His disciples of another food
than they thought, and of a
deeper sleep on Lazarus’s part than they were
prepared for. This
manner of the Saviour is expounded for
us - as to its root and [Page 72] principle - in that word – ‘The wind bloweth
where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound
thereof, but canst not tell whence
it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one
that is born of the Spirit,’
John 3: 8.
This was especially true of Him who was
especially born of the Spirit.
The
Saviour
then foretells - as John, his inspired commentator,
teaches us - the
Jews’ putting Him to death.
‘He was speaking of
the temple of His body.’
His body was the
Jesus
next
foretold the sin of
The
leaders
of
The Jews’ desecration of the literal
temple, persisted in after its second cleansing, was
a sign of its being
destroyed by the righteous indignation of God, as He
foretold in the
prophets. But on the third day (that is, after two thousand years), Christ will
rebuild it.
‘For one day is with the Lord as a
thousand years.’ The
destruction of Christ’s body involved
also the destruction of the inferior temple; and
Jesus foretold it on more than
one occasion (Matt. 22:
7; 24: 2).
Moreover, the two temples were so
sympathetically united, that when Jesus died, the
literal temple was rocked by
an earthquake, and its veil was rent.
And
now
let us glance at the beautiful significance of this
incident in relation to
the previous history and economy of Moses.
God had made Aaron his priest: He called him
out by the inspired lips of
Moses, and had consecrated him by peculiar rites to
move in His house.
He had fenced off all others from that post
of honour and communion by the threat of death.
But the spirit within us lusts to envy.
Levites sought to equal themselves with Aaron
– ‘Were not all the congregation holy?
Why did he exalt himself, as if he were
better than others?’
They dared contest the point before
Jehovah;
and were cut off, with their offending censers in
their hand, by fire from
God. But
Who
are
priests now? Who are now properly consecrated? The men
who believe in Jesus’ death and
resurrection, and who are consecrated by blood and
water. Thus,
Paul, by the [Holy] Spirit, describes the
new priests, and instructs us
in their right to enter now into the Holiest of all
of the
The
Jews
understood not this word of Christ.
A veil was on their heart, which veil is done
away only in Christ.
And these were rejecting Him.
Jesus’ act and words were, to them, a great
offence. His
words, distorted in an
essential point, were brought against Him three
years after, as the ground for
putting Him to death.
Our Lord calls on them to destroy the temple, and He would rebuild it.
But they allege His words, as though He had
said He would destroy the temple.
Hence the
strange circumstance, that at the very moment when
they were doing what He
foretold that they would wickedly do, and which He
would not interfere to stop,
they shouted against Him, as if He were both a
sacrilegious boaster, and a
powerless deceiver!
‘Ah, [Page
75] Thou that destroyest the
22. ‘When,
then, He was risen [out] from among the dead, His
disciples remembered that He had said this; and
they believed the Scripture,
and the word which Jesus spake.’
John sees in the [first] resurrection
the fulfilment of our Lord’s words.
Nothing
short of resurrection shall, or can
settle all.
Death is the temple’s
un-building. But
the spirit- [i.e.,
the disembodied
soul’s] state
is not final
counsel. Nor
does Jesus so regard
it. The
temple shall not be in ruins for
ever. The
man, body and soul united, shall triumph over death.
Jesus is Resurrection as well as Life. Thus
Christ is in entire accord with the
Scripture. The
Scripture and Jesus’
saying both agree.
The
23- 25.
‘Now when He was in
It appears probable to me,
that great stress of
objection was laid by unbelievers of ancient times
against John’s doctrine of
Jesus’ Godhead, arising out of the fact that Jesus
chose Judas to be one of the
twelve. Accordingly,
John, in answer
hereto, testifies here to Jesus’ divine knowledge of
men. He
gives also some striking cases of it;
positively, in his interviews with Peter, Nathanael,
and Nicodemus; negatively,
here; that is, in His not trusting those of
Jesus
did
‘signs’ not a few in
Our
Lord
did not trust these believers.
Whence some have concluded that their faith
was not real. But
is every one who really believes to the
saving of his soul, trustworthy?
Can you
rest on him with implicit confidence, as one who
will never deceive you,
defraud you, never betray you?
Alas,
no! What
says Paul? (1 Cor. 6: 8)
‘Nay, ye do wrong,
and defraud, and that your
brethren.’ Could
Jesus implicitly trust the
twelve? Did
not they all flee?
Did not Peter curse and swear – ‘I
know not the man?’
The same class of persons is named again, in
chap.
12: 42, 43.
They believed,
without confessing Christ.
Are all who
do not confess Christ, lost? Surely not!
They
will lose reward,
because they owned
not Christ before men; they will
be [eternally]
saved, because they believed.
*
*
*
CHAPTER 3
[Page 77]
1, 2. ‘Now
there was a man of the Pharisees - Nicodemus was
his
name, ruler of the Jews.
He came to Him
(Jesus) by night.’
A specimen is now given us
of one of these, and of the
Saviour’ knowledge of him.
He was one of
the strictest sect, a member the Sanhedrim, a
teacher of the law.
But he was afraid openly to confess
Christ. He
came, therefore, ‘by night;’
not
desiring to lose caste with his friends, the
Pharisees, by
taking sides openly with a teacher who
was voted to be ‘not
respectable,’ an ‘itinerant
instructor’; one who never joined
Himself
to the Pharisaic sect, and was never educated in
their schools.
2. ‘He
said unto Him, “Rabbi, we know that Thou hast come
(as) a
teacher from God; for none can do these signs
which Thou art doing, except God
be him.”’
The
speech
of Nicodemus was candid.
It was
going much further than his friends were willing to
admit, at least
publicly. The
miraculous signs were the
proofs of Jesus’ mission as surely as those of
Moses. Nicodemus
owns their reality; and the
inference thence derivable.
Jesus was a teacher sent by
God. God
was on His side.
That was proved by His credentials of
miracle. All
that He said was true: but
quite insufficient.
Jesus might be all that,
and yet no more than Moses or Elijah.
John Baptist was a ‘man
sent from God.’
Yet he cannot save us.
God was with Joseph, and with Samuel, yet
they cannot deliver us.
But if Christ be
nothing more, He can no more save us than the Law or
the Prophets.
It is not learning,
but life that man needs: not teaching, but a change within.
[Page 78]
3. ‘Jesus
answered and said unto him, “Verily, verily, I say
unto
thee, except a man be begotten from above* he
cannot see the
*
This does not in
other occurrences signify “again,”
but “from above,” It is
indeed a second birth, but by
implication only.
With a new life a new
birth.
What
is
the sense of these words?
Much turns
on what is meant by ‘the
kingdom.’
Does it mean (1) the present state of
mystery; or (2) the future one of glory?
It is generally assumed to mean the kingdom
in mystery. I
suppose it to intend the [future] kingdom of
glory; for which the Jews in general
were looking, and of which
alone their prophets spoke.
For this
view the previous context - (1) Jesus’ reply to
Nathanael, (2) His miracle at
the marriage, and (3) His purification of God’s
temple, have prepared us.
Our
Lord
is here answering, not Nicodemus’ words,
but his spirit.
He is discovering His knowledge of the man,
of his good points, of his ignorance, and of his
sincerity. He
came, one should judge, to
enquire of our Lord about the [millennial] kingdom of glory,
and how a man might enter it.
Jesus
shows
that He did not feel flattered by his words, or by
his standing. It
did not move Him, that He was named a
Rabbi (or teacher), by a man of such rank.
He has to tell the Pharisee a humbling truth
- that he needed a complete
and divine change before he could have part in those
‘days
of heaven on the earth,’ of which Moses
dropped hints, and of which the
Prophets of Israel had spoken more clearly.
By
‘the
Now
it
is not impossible, that persons un-immersed should
enter the Church.
Thousands have done so.
But in Jesus’ sense, the thing is
impossible;
for it
depends, not on man’s fallible
eye and hand; but on the
purpose and execution of God, the
Infallible
Judge, [relative
to one’s
entrance or exclusion]
in a day to come.*
[* NOTE. That is, after
the time of Death but before
the time of Resurrection, Christ’s judgment will
determine who will be “accounted
worthy” of the “age”
and “Resurrection”
to come: Luke 20: 35. cf.
Phil.
3: 11; Rev. 20: 4-6.]
To
return
to verse 3. Our
translation has ‘Except
he be born
again.’
More strictly, it is – ‘Except
he be begotten
from above.’ This
refers to the regeneration of the Holy Spirit.
Man is the child of Adam, by natural
production. He
needs to be a son of God, in order to have
part, as
one of the risen [or
resurrected], in the Kingdom
of millennial glory.
Natural birth introduces into the kingdoms
of
the earth and of men.
Heavenly
birth must give us a
view of, and entry into, the millennial
glory of the first
resurrection.
At
this
point, John touches on the great topic of the first
three Gospels.
‘The
4. ‘Nicodemus
saith to Him – “How can a man be begotten when
old?
can he enter the second time into his mother’s
womb, and be begotten?”’
The Pharisee thus implies
the foolishness of our
Lord’s words. ‘The
thing was naturally impossible.
What
could He mean?’
5. ‘Jesus
answered – “Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
except a
man be begotten (born) out of water and wind, he
cannot enter into the
Here
the
Saviour divides into two parts that which at first
He expressed
un-dividedly. And
He asserts His
doctrine as strongly as before.
At
this
point we have to wrestle first against false views,
before propounding the
true.
What
is
the meaning then of being ‘born
out of water and [Page
80]
wind?’*
Some would
tell us – ‘Water and the
Spirit only mean one thing. They
signify
the soul’s cleansing by the Word of God, the
instrument of the Holy
Spirit.’
* ‘Wind’ is the word used by our Lord.
The Saviour put the sentiment, on purpose, in
a mysterious way.
It
is
not so. ‘Water and the wind’ do not mean the same
thing as the water alone.
A second point
is added in verse 5
to the Saviour’s
announcement in verse 3. This is
proved by an addition on both sides
of the equation. At first Jesus says, that ‘Regeneration
by
the [Holy]
Spirit is absolutely
necessary in order to see the
Kingdom.’
Nicodemus denies the possibility of a
second
birth. Then
Jesus partly explains
Himself. He
adds to the birth of the Spirit - the
birth
out of water.
The result
is a stronger statement, on the other side, of the
result of such birth.
‘Except a man be
born
out of water and the Spirit,
he cannot enter into the
This
truth
is seen more evidently still, when we translate in verse eight, the
Greek word for ‘Spirit’ by the
same English word.
Our translators give
it there its usual meaning, and we have – ‘The
wind bloweth
where it listeth, and thou
hearest the sound thereof.’
Now
though Jesus meant ‘the
Spirit,’ he said ‘the wind.’
He was designedly speaking to Nicodemus in
a
mysterious manner, abasing the pretensions of the
Jewish teacher.
Render the fifth
verse in the same way as in the eighth,
and the absurdity of the proposed explanation
appears. ‘Except a man be begotten out
of
water
and wind,
he cannot enter
into the
Our
Lord
is here touching on the analogy between the first
birth and the
second. A
man has two parents: and Jesus notes that the wind - the Spirit of God
- takes the place of the father, and the water the place of the mother. To
affirm that only
one object is intended by the two,
destroys the intended analogy.
Again,
‘water’ does not mean
‘the
Word of God.’
The [Page
81]
passage (Eph.
5: 26), to which appeal is commonly made,
does not prove it, as has been
shown in the tract, ‘The Bride’s Bath.’ There are three
witnesses which God has raised up to His
Son – ‘The
Spirit, the
Water, and
the Blood.’
If the water means only the Spirit, there are
not Three witnesses; but only two.
The same argument, with some little
modification, applies also to that
comment which would make the water signify the Word
of God. That
would be virtually identifying it with
the Holy Ghost.
For the Holy Ghost saves
the soul by means of the Word of God.
The
water
then, we affirm, is literal water.
This is proved - (1) By a first-principle
of
interpretation.
Every word is to taken
literally in the first instance.
It is
only in case of absurdity following, that we may
resort to figurative
interpretation.
But the taking ‘water’
literally here gives not only a good sense, but
the very best.
(2)
Thus we are brought into contact and agreement with
other three Gospels.
John Baptist preceded our Lord in teaching
the coming [Millennial]
There
is
indeed this difference, John taught
(3)
‘Water’
is
literally taken in
both the preceding and following context in John,
and refers to immersion.
‘Why immerseth thou then?’
said the Pharisees to John
Baptist. ‘John
answered them – “I indeed immerse in
water.”’
[Page 82]
This
was
the reply given in
These
words
of our Lord then are most pertinent to convince
Nicodemus of error and
sin. Jesus
does in effect say – ‘There
is a birth which is possible to a man even when
old, a
birth out of the womb of the waters.
It
is a birth which God commanded to
all those who wish to enter
the millennial Kingdom of glory.’ And this
was of especial force.
Had Nicodemus accepted John’s testimony, or
that of Jesus concerning the Kingdom, he would have
been so born out of water,
and would not have rested on the supposed
impossibility of a second birth when
old. But
Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and
the Pharisees refused John’s message and rite (Luke
7: 28-30).
Thus rejecting God’s
previous word, he stumbles at a further one.
‘He that hath, to him
shall be given.’ To
the single eye shall be abundance of light.
But here was not the single eye, and in this
case therefore the man
stumbles. John
was to manifest the
Saviour to
The
succeeding context
also speaks of water literally,
and in connexion with immersion, ‘Jesus,
and His
disciples came into the
*
I do not mean
that He did so personally, of course (John
4: 1, 2).
[Page
88]
‘John also was immersing in Enon, near to Salim, because there was much water there;
and they came and were immersed,’
John 3: 23.
Here then again water is
literal, and it is in connexion with the rite of immersion.
4. Moreover,
after the descent of the Holy
Ghost, and the teaching of the
5.
When again, Paul. speaks of renewal by the Holy
Ghost, he adds to it a notice
of baptism (Tit. 3: 5).
‘According to His mercy He
saved us by the bath of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Ghost.’
But
it
is not only the
literality of the water which is in favour of this
view, but the striking
agreement with the figure of birth which
is
found in that immersion which God
has commanded to
follow immediately upon
the reception of the doctrine of the future
Kingdom of glory.
The rite of immersion explains in clearest
way our Lord’s allusions here.
The
burial under waters attests death. The coming forth out
of
the waters is birth. Thus
we have in
our Lord’s words, first the Holy Spirit’s secret
imparting of new life to the
soul, as the mysterious and invisible wind.
The Spirit takes the place of the father; the
water, the place of the
mother, out of whose womb the child of God visibly
comes forth. Thus
there is first new life, then new birth. It is a
visible testimony given by the
renewed man both to the world, and to the Church. ‘Once
was I dead;
now I am alive to God.
I wish to confess
my change.’
In the Epistles,
generally stands exhibited as attached to Christ’s work
for
us; and therefore it
is presented as related to the Saviour’s death and resurrection. But
here our Lord connects it with the [Holy] Spirit’s work in
us; and then it appears as death to the
old nature; birth to the new and divine.
A
child springs from both his parents; a Greek would
say ‘out of.’ This word
especially
applies to the mother. Now our Lord was speaking of
the birth of men to
God. Nicodemus
objects, and starts a
supposed impossibility with regard to the mother’s
part
in
human birth.
Jesus then
explains. He
gives [Page
84] the
analogies which connect man’s
spiritual birth with his natural.
There
are two factors in it.
The Holy Ghost’s
power communicates secretly [spiritual]
life to the soul of man.
But the Most High has arranged that there
shall be a visible part in man’s [eternal] salvation and renewal. He has
appointed water to take the mother’s
place. Out
of it the [obedient] child of
God is to be born.
But water does not
actively communicate life spiritual.
Birth does not produce life, but only
manifests it. The
water is only a passive element.
The Holy Ghost then is really the spiritual
father of each son of God; the water of baptism is -
figuratively and
emblematically only - his mother, out of whom he is
born.
But
it
may be said, ‘So taken,
this passage teaches
baptismal regeneration; for here the water appears first, as though it were the cause of spiritual life.’
We
answer,
It is not true!
The Spirit’s
regeneration is spoken of first and alone.’
Verse 8
precedes verse 5;
and in verse 3,
you have the Spirit’s agency alone named.
It
is only when Nicodemus refused Christ’s word as
impossible, that the Saviour
introduces the birth out of water.
And
in verse 5, the
‘water’
precedes the Spirit (or wind), because in the water
lay the proof of the possibility of a new
birth; and it attested the
truth to the senses of even the unconverted.
For God speaks in His ordinances by signs.
He tells of inward and invisible realities
by
outward tokens.
To apply those tokens
where there is the reality, is good, and according
to Christ’s mind.
But to give the sign where there is not the reality, is a lie; and it works immense mischief.
To set the sign of new birth and new life
where there is confessedly only the old flesh lying
under the death of
nature, is a lie.
And it draws on this further falsehood: it
leads men to imagine, that water sprinkled, or
poured on the head, gives new
life, and a divine nature.
Thus thousands perish, trusting they are the children of God, because an
unwarranted ceremony has been performed on
them.
Thus ministers
who sprinkle
infants are led to believe, that by the
ceremony which they perform, life
spiritual is communicated to the
child; and they assert, that thus a son of Adam
becomes [Page 85]
a son of God. This is
not only contrary to the order of God
but a full
and manifest contradiction to
the Scripture.
For the Saviour is
here asserting to Nicodemus the sovereign action of
the Divine Agent in regeneration.
It is the
[Holy]
Spirit of God, who
regenerates, and He is as little capable of being
subjected to man’s will as
the wind. But
baptismal
regenerationists teach, that it is the water
- an
element within man’s control - to which
the Spirit is necessarily
attached; so that whomsoever they sprinkle, the
Holy Ghost must renew.
Here, then, is manifest contradiction. Whom shall
I believe?
6. ‘That
which is begotten of the flesh is flesh, and that
which
is begotten of the Spirit (wind) is
spirit
(wind).’
John, in this narrative, is
combating ideas then
taught, that the acceptance or refusal of the
Saviour’s teaching was due to
tendencies at birth (Iren.
p. 81 and 90 ;
Hippol. 290).
Thus divine
regeneration was identified by theorists with
differences in the flesh.
Against this error, John (in the opening of
his Gospel) asserts the refusal of Christ by the
world at large, and especially
by His own people of
There
was
no greater natural disposition in Nicodemus to
accept Christ, than in any
other son of Abraham, or son of Adam.
Our
Lord
next discovers to Nicodemus the folly of his speech. Even if it
were possible for a man to be born
again after the fashion he indicated, it would avail
him nothing. The
steam cannot rise above its fountain; and
therefore this second birth of the flesh would still
leave a man ‘flesh’
only, possessed [only] of fallen human
nature, unfit for the kingdom of
glory. This
truth was shown at once on
Adam’s fall. Adam
was created in [Page
86] the
image of God. But,
after his sin, he begat a son after His
own image. And
the character of that
nature so fallen is described in few and terrible
words just before the judgment
of God fell on it – ‘Every
imagination of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil continually.’
The New
Testament confirms
this, describing the works of the flesh as only evil
(Gal.
5: 19-21).
In
this
principle we find uncovered to us the reason why all
previous dispensations
of God, and all His trials of men, whether
individuals or nations, ended in
failures. There
was a deep-seated inward
cause, which was not removed by all these outward
means. Man
is slow to believe that every creature,
and much more each fallen creature, is prone to
evil, and without strength for
good. Therefore,
God took the best of
the nations, the seed of Abraham His friend, and put
them to the proof for two
thousand years; manifesting to us by their
wilfulness, disobedience, idolatry,
and all other forms of evil, how totally corrupt is
the fallen nature of
man.
Herein
lies
the reason of the repeal of the old dispensation of
Moses. It
was the trial of the flesh.
It was designed to prove to men’s slow
hearts
how deep the mischief entailed by the fall, how
incurable by any moral outward
means. The
flesh then is now set aside,
as profiting nought.
To be a son of
Abraham after the flesh is nothing now.
And ‘the children of the flesh
are not the children of God,’
Rom.
9: 8.
Hence
God does not accept the baptism (sprinkling) of
infants. For
they
are yet only children of the flesh, not
sons of God begotten of the
Spirit, and believing on the Son of God. The
children of the believer
and of the unbeliever occupy the same
spiritual level before God.
Both are
only flesh born of the flesh.
And in the
flesh ‘dwells no good thing.’ ‘They
that
are
in the flesh cannot please God,’
Rom. 8: 8.
‘The flesh’
here signifies the whole man, such as he is when he
becomes a subject of one of
the kingdoms of the world.
This too is
the reason why the kingdoms of men must be put down
by Christ. They
[Page 87] are composed - both rulers and
subjects - of fallen flesh alone.
They
are now under a trial, which will end in their
corporate rejection of
Christ. Then
the Most High will
supersede them by the Kingdom of God, in which the
rulers will be renewed men, begotten of the Spirit, born also out of the tomb, like Christ Himself;
and their subjects in
that day will be
persons in flesh and blood, but in general, men
renewed by the Holy Spirit.
It
should
be observed, that after the fifth
verse,
Jesus in His conversation with Nicodemus speaks no
more of ‘water.’ He does
not say – ‘That which is
born out of the water is
water.’
He notes only the ‘flesh’
and ‘the Spirit’
(‘the wind’). The
first generation is of the
flesh; the second, which communicates spiritual
life, is effected by the Spirit
of God. The
birth out of water comes in
after spiritual life has been bestowed, to exhibit
the new nature.
It requires a higher being
than man to impart His holy
nature. He
only is a son of God who has
been begotten by the Spirit of God.
The
begotten by the Spirit is spirit.
This divine life granted by grace dies
not; but though thwarted and checked
by the old nature and by the world, will
continue for ever.
How
strange
to the men of the apostles’ days was the change of
Saul, the
persecutor, into Paul the apostle! How came it to
pass that the hater of Jesus
the Nazarite, who slew His people, and cursed and
blasphemed Jesus, the stout
upholder of the old of Judaism, and of the
traditions of the fathers, at length
renounced it, giving up all his hopes from this
world to become not only a
follower of Christ, but a preacher of His Gospel? How came
it that he was found enduring
suffering and daring death every day, if only he
might preach the faith which
once he destroyed?
Whence came this
startling change? This transforming of the wolf into
the dove? We say – ‘Here is
an example of the birth from above; of the being
begotten of the Spirit of God, and being born out
of the water’ (Acts
9: 18; 16).
Thenceforward earth and its toys faded; he lived for the
heavenly things.
[Page
88]
Reader, are you so begotton
of God?
Are
you
begotten of God, yet not as yet born out of
water?
If so,
there is a
command given by Christ, to
which it becomes you to bow.
7-8. ‘Wonder
not, that I said to you - “Ye
must be begotten from above.
The wind blows where it wills, and thou
hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence
it cometh and whither it
goeth; so is every one that is begotten by the
Spirit (wind).”’
The
words
of our Lord astonished Nicodemus, yet he might have
been prepared for
them; had he duly received all the statements of the
Old Testament bearing on
this, he would have found our Lord’s words by no
means incredible.
1. But this statement shocked his Jewish pride.
What! a Jew, a Pharisee, a learned man, a
leader and teacher of his nation, require in his old
age of wisdom to begin
again! As
if the heathen and the publican
were as good as he!
2. To need this new birth too, in order to have any part in the millennial Kingdom of
Messiah,
which the
Jews were anticipating and regarding as their own by right of birth!
Were
they
not sons of Abraham?
Were not the
promises theirs?
3. Begotten from above! How
was
that possible?
Jesus applies to the men
of
That ‘ye’ is
emphatic, and very significant, as
excluding the Saviour from the necessity of such a
birth, while it includes all
others. Christ
needed no second birth,
in order to become the Son of God.
He
says, not therefore, ‘We
must be born
again,’ but ‘ye.’
He
had no fallen nature to put off.
When
the
Spirit came on Jesus at the
He,
therefore,
distinguishes between Himself and the sons of men,
yea, even the
sons of Abraham.
Nor on this occasion
alone - See chap. 7:
14, 15, 23, 24.
[Page 89]
In
making
this distinction, He is unlike His Apostles.
They put themselves in this respect on the
same level with those whom they address.
‘Among whom
(the dead in sin) we all had our conduct in time past, in the
lusts of our flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh
and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others,’ Eph.
2: 3.
‘For we ourselves j
were once foolish, disobedient, deceived,
serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in
malice and envy, hateful and hating one another,’
Tit. 3: 3.
And then Paul ascribes the change in the
elect as due to the working of
God’s Spirit. This
difference then in
standing, and result, is due to a different nature
possessed by Jesus.
It is the object of this Gospel to exhibit
the Saviour as standing loftily above the sons of
men.
Though
regeneration
is needed for the kingdom of glory, yet work of the
Spirit is
something that cannot be controlled by man.
The
natural
wind is something in whose existence we believe, for
we hear it while
we cannot see it.
Its motions are to us
a mystery. Whence
it starts, and whither
it journeys, none knows, even in this day of the
close study of nature. Science
can suggest some general ideas about
its wider movements; but why to-day the wind is
blowing South-West, and
to-morrow North-East; why to-day there is a
hurricane, and yesterday not a
breath was stirring, we cannot tell.
These
words
of Jesus then set forth salvation in its sovereignty
as proceeding from
the will of God, who gives no account of His
matters. Yet
this sovereign action of the [Holy] Spirit is that
side of the gospel which is oftenest presented by
gospel preaching when seeking
to draw men to God.
And the issue is oft
very perplexing both to the speaker and to the
hearers who are wrought on by
it. ‘How can I
call on any to be converted, when the power of
conversion depends not on their
will, but on the Spirit’s?’
So on
the hearer’s side, likewise – ‘I
wish “to be
converted,” but the very phrase – “to be
converted” - shows that I am passive in the matter. Show
me
something in the affair of salvation in which I
can be active, and I am ready
to move. But
conversion, [Page
90]
as you tell me, is
something mysterious in its origin, and beyond my
control. “The Spirit blows where He wills,” not where
I will.’
To
meet
this objection there often arises a lowering of the
Gospel-call, as if it
was not required of the sinner to turn at once to
God, but to wait in the way
of attendance on the means of grace, till the
sovereign time of God’s good
pleasure is come.
But no such sentiment
occurs in the Acts.
Apostles urge men at
once to believe, and to accept the good news. They do not regard
them as
persons who could only wait, till God’s time for
their renewal was [to] come.
They never urge them to wait.
They say, ‘Repent!
Repent, and be baptized.’
‘God commandeth
all men everywhere to repent,’ Acts
17:
30; 26: 19, 20.
And ordinarily
then, hearers turned that very day to God, and were
baptized at once.
What
is
the reason of this?
Because
the
Gospel has another side, and one quite open to all
the sons of men.
And that attaches
to the work of Jesus
Christ. This,
the closed and sovereign side,
turns on the work, the mysterious and unconditional
work of the
Holy
Ghost. The
work of Christ is His dying for the
sin of the world, and His exaltation to the right
hand of God, on purpose to
grant salvation to all who will seek it.
Hence,
when
the multitude at Pentecost listen to the Gospel for
the first time, they
find it to be a testimony about the death and
resurrection of Jesus. Conscience
accuses
them of their sin against the Son of God, and they
cry out - ‘Men and brethren,
what shall we do?’
The answer is not - You cannot be saved, save by the sovereign work of the Holy
Ghost, for which you must wait God’s time; and
perhaps after all your waiting,
you are to perish as being not one of His elect’ But it is
– ‘Repent, and
be baptized every
one
of you in the name of
Jesus Christ, unto (the reception of) the
forgiveness of sins.’ On
the next occasion, Peter says- ‘Repent,
and turn ye [not passive voice] that your sins may
be blotted out.’ To
Saul, Ananias, Christ’s Messenger
presents the work of Jesus, and the forgiveness of
sin (22: 16).
[Page 91]
So Paul at
‘Why then’ - it may
be said – ‘did Jesus
present this truth at the very
first to Nicodemus?’
And the answer is not difficult.
It was to humble the pride of this ruler of
8. ‘So
is every one that is begotten of the Spirit.’
It seems to me, that these words have two main
references
-
1. Primarily
in regard of the persons
renewed. Why
this man is regenerated, and those
are left still in the blindness and unbelief of
nature, is a mystery not to be
fathomed. It
discovers an Agent whom man
can no more control than he can the motions of the
wind. It
turns upon the Almighty inscrutable will
of a Divine Person.
Here is the Agency
of One stronger than man, whose movements the sons
of men cannot regulate,
cannot calculate on.
Here is a
generation not dependent on the will of man - a
birth not of the flesh.
2.
Secondly, in respect of the
qualities and words of those so begotten
of the Spirit.
They take after their heavenly Parent. As the
Holy Ghost, that real and Almighty
Agent, is inscrutable and [Page 92] mysterious, so mysterious, so difficult of comprehension by the men of
the flesh, are the words and acts of those begotten
of the Spirit.
Worldly men hear new principles announced by
them, they see new deeds, and find a new style of
sentiment and conversation,
such as never appeared before in the man.
Yes! He
is a ‘new creature.’
3. Now if this be true in a lower degree of men, when born again of the
Holy Spirit, it was true in the fullest sense of
Christ Himself.
He was not born of the Spirit, in the sense
of being regenerate, as the saved now are; but He
was begotten by the Holy
Spirit of Mary.
To Him, then, the same
truth applies in fullest measure.
Did
Nicodemus find His words mysterious?
Were His actions often so?
Do we
find it difficult - even we the renewed sons of God
- to comprehend some of the
words of Jesus?
This is because, He in a
sense peculiar to Himself, was born of the Spirit. His words,
therefore (and specially those given
in this Gospel), and His acts are often mysterious. Not only
was Jesus born of the Spirit; but
the Spirit, master of all the secrets of God, came
upon Him at His
baptism. Thus
the thoughts of God have
been translated into the words of men.
What wonder if in them we find depth and
mystery?
Nicodemus still objects – ‘How is it
possible for these things to take place?’*
* [See Greek word …]
Jesus
reproves
him now for his ignorance.
As a
teacher of
The
Saviour
also assumes, that teachers have more need of light
than others,
specially on fundamental points.
11. ‘Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, that we speak what we
know,
and testify what we have seen, and ye receive not
our testimony.’
Our
Lord
now insists on the acceptance which is due to His
testimony, and the
grounds of such acceptance. Nicodemus had confessed
Him a teacher; He now
begins to teach concerning Himself and His work.
Nicodemus
had
said – ‘We know.’ Jesus answers with a
stronger – ‘We know.’ Why does our Lord use
the
plural? Opinions
are divided. But
I see no reason for doubting that Jesus
refers to the witnessing of Himself and John
Baptist. In
the opening of the Gospel, John is
presented to us as the witness sent of God.
He bore witness. ‘I
saw the Spirit descending
out of heaven like a dove, and it abode on Him.’ God gave
him this as the signal of the
person, who was by his means to be manifested to
The
Rabbis
were doubtful teachers, using the authority of this
man, and of that for
their sayings, and finding oft Hillel opposed to
Shammai, and Jonathan to
Meir. Christ
requires acceptance of His
words as certain truth, resulting from the testimony
of an eye-witness.
This boldness and confidence of teaching
startled the multitudes.
Jesus dared to
set His authority against the words of Moses himself
(Matt.
7: 28, 29).
Probably
Nicodemus
thought he had gone a long way in Jesus’ favour, by
confessing Him a
teacher sent from God; but he has to learn, that
that is so far short of the
full truth and of the testimony of God, that it
passes for unbelief.
The Lord Jesus accuses of unbelief, not
Nicodemus alone, but those in whose name Nicodemus
had spoken. Jesus
says, ‘I say to
thee,’ – ‘Ye
receive
not our testimony.’
None accepts
Jesus as a teacher, who does not own His deity.
12. ‘If
I told you of the earthly things, and ye, believe
not, how
will ye believe if I tell you of the heavenly
things?’
The
Son
of God had been speaking of the earthly department
of the kingdom of God;
of that part of it with which the prophets of the
Old Testament were engaged,
and which was the most easy to be understood, as
conversant with the
arrangements of Israel and the earth.
But
there
was another department of it - the heavenly; and the
counsels of God
about it were more alien from the thoughts of
[Page 95]
Thus
Jesus
confirms His previous hint about
the millennial glory,
as being the union of heaven and earth in
Himself.
Accordingly the unbelief of
Hence
too
we learn, that faith is the reception of a
testimony. John
and Jesus bore witness: but their united
testimony was refused: to receive it would have been
faith.
13. ‘And
none hath
ascended into heaven, but He that
came down out of the heaven, the Son of Man, who
is in the heaven.’
But
how
can the heavenly things be known by men on earth? By eye and
ear witness! The
Saviour now drops the previous plural,
and speaks of Himself alone as
fulfilling these conditions.
This
confirms then our previous interpretation of the
plural, as referring to John
and Himself. His
speaking first of the
ascent into heaven before the descent - as indeed
the whole verse - is full of
mystery. No
doubt it refers to Christ,
as descending out of the heaven to become the
incarnate ‘Son of Man.’ He
was also to ascend to heaven.
But why is
the ascent put first?
I cannot say.
As He came down out of the heaven to become
the Son of Man, so He existed before He appeared as
man.
‘But if He was then residing on
the earth as the Son of Man,
how was He also up in the heaven?’
Again, we are dealing with things too high
for us. But
we see the perfect unity of the person of
Jesus Christ. He
was not two persons;
one of whom was a man,
the son of Mary, who never came clown out of the
heaven, and was not then in
heaven; while the other was a
Divine Being, who came to rest for awhile on the Son
of Man; by no means to be
lifted up under the curse for the endurance of
death, as verses
14-16
teach.
Here
then
the greatness of our salvation gleams out.
May
it
not be rendered – ‘The Son
of Man who was in heaven?’
It is natural to take it so.
But here the Mysterious Master of the wind
is
speaking in mystery.
Perhaps it may lend
some little light, if we set this sentiment beside
one with which we are
familiar. Of
ourselves as believers down
upon the earth, it is said, that we are nevertheless
‘seated
with Christ in the heavenly places.’
But these testimonies which touch on the mode
of existence of the
Godhead, transcend us.
Christ’s
constant
power, and unique telling of things heavenly is His,
because He ever
dwells on high.
Christ can open to us
the heavens, hitherto shut to all others; for He
dwells there. Thus
He has still to elevate the ideas of all
concerning His person and work.
There
seem
to be several references in this verse.
First to a passage in Proverbs
30: 3, 4,
‘I neither learned wisdom,
nor have the knowledge of
the Holy Ones (Heb.). Who hath ascended
up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered
the wind in his fists? who hath
bound the waters in a garment? who hath
established all the ends of the earth?
what is his name, and what is his son’s name, if
thou canst tell?’
Here
is
a word about ‘the Holy Ones’
(plural). Then
comes a notice of God and His Son, and
of the ascent into heaven and descent.
There
is
a second reference to Dent.
30: 12, on which
the Apostle Paul insists, as teaching us faith’s way
of salvation.
There
is
a third reference to Eph.
4: 9, ‘Now that He
ascended, what is it but that He also descended first
into the lower parts
of the earth?’
‘But did not Enoch ascend to
heaven? and Eljah?’ How
then could it be said - ‘None but the Son
of Man ever ascended?’
None
but
Christ cane down out of the heaven of heavens. We
must understand then, that the heaven to which Enoch
and Elijah are gone up, is
not the heaven of heavens, the abode [Page 97]
of Christ. And
we
know that there are several heavens. Moreover,
neither of them have come down
from heaven.
14, 15. ‘And
just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, so
must the Son of Man be lifted up, in order that
whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have eternal life.’
‘The
men of Intelligence’
asserted, that Jesus came as the Son of the Unknown
Father, in the character of
an antagonist of Moses, to deliver men from the
power of the Creator, who was
also God of the Jews.
Here is proof to
the contrary. John
testifies, that Jesus
the Son of God is in sympathy with Moses and the
prophets. Moses, as he says,
wrote of Him. The
Old Testament history
gave, by inspiration of the same Spirit which rested
on Christ, types of the
great redemption.
It is this which gives
life and salt still to those observances of
The
cross
of the Christ is the end of the earthly things, and
the opening of the
heavenly ones - the full proof of
The
Saviour
shows Himself perfectly at home in the Scriptures. He quotes
them as sufficient authority on all
points, both to men and to devils, to friends, or
foes. Let
us then trust them fully!
Our
Lord
gives prominence to a scene in the wilderness, as
discovering God’s plan
of salvation. For
Jesus is not only
needed as a teacher, in which
aspect
Nicodemus was ready to own Him; but He is needed
also as a deliverer from
death. Thus
He brings into view another
failure, under which, in common with the rest of
Let us now look at the points of
resemblance and difference suggested by the
comparison.
[Page 98]
They
were
not required to prepare some medicine to be applied
on the outside, or to
be drank within.
They had but to accept
a remedy fully complete and prepared.
‘Look unto Me,
and be ye saved, all ye ends of the
earth,’ Is.
45: 22.
Sinner! you have laid on you no
preparatory
work, no making yourself better; no waiting for
God’s time! God’s
time is now.
‘Now is the accepted time; now is
the day of salvation.’
What
is
meant by the lifting up of the Son of Man?
There
is
probably a primary reference to
1. Into the Garden sin entered, through the Serpent’s injection of
distrust into the minds of our first parents. God at
once notices their
disobedience, and passes sentence upon the human
culprits and the serpent.
He gives intimation of a Deliverer sprung
peculiarly from the woman, who should avenge Satan’s
trespass by his utter
overthrow. But
the first result of the
conflict would be suffering to the Deliverer: a
consequence hinted also by the
sword of fire, which threatened every one who should
attempt to restore to man,
the sinner, the lost fruit of the tree of life.
Now, that bruising of the heel of the
Champion of man is only another
aspect of the lifting up of the Son of Man.
The lifting up of the Son of Man was
accomplished on the cross.
And it was in the same crucifixion that His
feet wore nailed to the tree.
Thus the bruising
of Messiah’s heels
was
accomplished (Psalm 89:
50, 51).
He who is to be lifted up
is ‘Son of Man’ - really a
man, else He could not atone, He could not suffer
death. God must be glorified
in the same nature that had sinned.
But
so deep
is the fall, that not only a teacher is needed to
the dispel darkness of
ignorance, but a redeemer is needed, enough to break
the fetters in which man
lies, under sentence of death.
This was
humbling news to the Pharisee.
Light
will not cure the bite of the serpent, nor would
instruction prevent the death
of the bitten. Instruction, without a deliverer,
would be only the making known
the certain strides of a death not to be warded off.
Serpent
in
the Garden was pronounced cursed; and a token of
God’s displeasure was there
given, in its going upon its belly.
2. The people of
What
meant
this lifting? The
Law has told us:
it signifies the putting of Satan under the curse of the Law. He
is now seen to be a culprit fixed under the wrath of
God (Deut. 21: 22, 23).
‘And if a man have
committed a sin worthy of
death, and he be put to death, and thou hang him
on a tree: his body shall not
remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in
any wise bury him that day (for
he that is hanged is accursed of God);
and thy land be not defiled,
which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an
inheritance.’
The wrath which Satan has earned by his
lying
and murderousness, is inflicted on him in effigy.
Here
is
advance on
Jesus,
as
the Son of Man, needed to be lifted.
For only thus could the curse of the Law come
on Him. He
had perfectly observed the Law, and earned
its blessing - eternal life.
How then
could He be pierced by its curse?
By crucifixion, that death
upon a tree, which is pronounced accursed by God (Gal.
3: 10-13) ‘For as
many as are of the works of
the Law are under the curse: for it is written,
Cursed is every one that
continueth not in all things which are written in
the book of the Law to do
them.’
[Page
101] But
that no man is justified by
the Law in the sight of God, is evident:
for, the just shall live
by faith. And
the Law is not of faith:
but, the man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ
hath redeemed us from the curse of the
Law, being
made
a curse for us:
for it is
written, Cursed is every one that
hangeth on a ‘tree.’
That
mode of His death the Saviour more than once
predicted in this Gospel (8:
28; 12: 33).
And its fulfilment was the more remarkable,
because His first
condemnation by Caiaphas, was for blasphemy; and had
But
how
is man, the Serpent’s dupe, to be delivered from the
curse? By
the Surety’s bearing the curse; by the
Lord of life stooping to death, the penalty, and
exhausting it.
The
lifting
up then is to Jesus the same thing that it was to
the serpent. It
was the setting Him under the judicial
curse of God:
the double curse of
The
sin
of
What
was
the thing that was commanded to be lifted, under the
Law?
A
dead piece of brass, incapable of feeling; a
representative only of the real
offender. It
was but a figurative
infliction of justice upon the serpent.
But under the Gospel, the One lifted is a
real Person - the Son of Man,
and Son of God.
He bears not the figure
of the curse, but its reality, even unto death.
What
was
the result of this lifting, on the one hand; and of
the bitten ones
looking, on the other?
In
the
desert, life came to those who were bitten, and who
were thus set under the
wrath of God and the endurance of the [Page 102]
penalty - or under death.
Thus Jehovah showed His intention to save
the
lost.
That
was
not God’s plan; nor would it have conveyed to us the
hope afforded by the
actual deliverance.
In His own way God
is proving that those under sentence of death, under
guilt, and the curse,
shall yet be saved.
A single look of the
natural eye at the serpent of brass, brought new
life to those entering the
valley of the shadow of death.
In
our
day the eye of faith is to be
turned upon the cross of Christ, and life spiritual
will begin, in the
forgiveness of sin; and love to God will take the
place of enmity.
We see in the Saviour’s crucifixion, the
promised Deliverer of the garden come, and the heel
of Him who is to prove our
Rescuer, bruised under the curse and death.
We are assured, therefore, that the judgment
upon the Serpent and his
seed is on its way, and will finally and for over
overtake him. This,
therefore, gives us a double
consolation. Satan
shall one day be shut
up under the wrath of heaven, far from the Paradise
of God, and unable to tempt
or to deceive any more. But already the Son of Man
has borne the curse due to
us, and entered on the blessing.
The
cross of Christ discovers to us on the one hand the
wickedness of man and
Satan; and, on the other, the mercy and justice of
God. This
exaltation of Jesus on the cross proves
that
‘Must
be lifted up.’
Wherein lies the necessity?
In the claims of Law, and of God’s truth
and
justice, as the Governor of all.
Here
lies the failure of all other systems of religion;
specially of those which
push aside the atonement.
They refuse to
own the justice of God as
the
Governor,
and man’s breaches
of Law, as putting him under the penalty for ever. They
regard God as a Father; sin as a disease
only; and man as unfortunate, rather than a culprit. But
Scripture shows the stern truth of man’s
position. Hence
the cup could not pass [Page
103]
away from Christ, if man were to
be redeemed. If
Jesus suffered not.
there was nothing but man’s perdition under the just
penalties of broken Law.
In
that day of
Moses, the comfort and blessing
of the scene were confined to bitten men of
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.’
With what
intent was the Only-begotten given?
That
by
trusting Him, men may be saved.
It is
now assumed, that all in the world, Jew and Gentile
alike, answer to the
serpent-bitten of the Jewish camp.
All
are murmurers, and under death.
This
state of things the Gospel does not bring; it finds. The Law does
not
produce it. It
finds man already under
sin and judgment; at enmity against God within, as
well as under His judgment
without. Into
this state of misery,
grace, finding man under woe, comes.
The
Substitute gives to Law all its dues, that Law may
without reluctance deliver
up its prisoners, not to death, but to eternal life.
Something
is
needed. If
the sinner be left to
himself, he ‘perishes.’ What is
meant by that?
Does it mean annihilation?
No! Neither
in
ordinary speech, nor in Scripture does perishing
mean that, whether as
spoken of man, or of anything else.
‘The Laocoon
frigate foundered at sea, and all souls on board perished.’ Does
that mean their annihilation?
Of course
not! Neither body nor
soul is annihilated.
But
their well-being, considered as living men, was
taken away. This
is its usual sense, in ninety-nine times
out of a hundred.
So then ‘perishing,’
or being ‘destroyed’
(they are the two renderings of the same Greek
word), means the withdrawal, not
of his being by
annihilation; but of his well-being
(or welfare), by his
perdition.
[Page 104]
A
look of the bitten at the serpent of brass was
instant life. Faith’s
first look at Christ imparts eternal
life. This
is a gift worthy of God! It
would
have been a great boon to give man a thousand years
of bliss, if after
that he was to drop into nothing.
But
endless life! - life prolonged till thousands of
years are like the sands of
the sea-shore unnumbered - this was a divine
gift, worthy of God’s bounty, and one
which
could only be procured for us by a Divine Person. We are
accustomed to speak of ‘eternal
life’ without weighing what it means, and
how
it comes to us.
Eternal life then is something
that no creature can deserve. Not
even an un-fallen angel, who has for
seven thousand years unfalteringly and without
blemish served God, can deserve
eternal life. Nay,
he cannot deserve a
single day’s life!
If God were to take
away his life to-day, he would be guilty of no
injustice. The
angel, it is true, has never sinned; he
has given to God his entire obedience.
Good! But he was bound to do all that.
He has paid his debt, and no more!
God owes him nothing.
Whence it is self-evident,
that the taking away of
existence is not God’s counsel concerning the
wicked. They
owe Him much, and they keep it
back. They
have much transgressed His
laws, and as the Governor He is bound to repay them
wrath. But
the removal
of existence is not wrath!
Existence might be taken away from one who
has never sinned.
Then it cannot be
God’s threatened wrath on the sinner.
It
displays no displeasure on God’s part; it produces
no suffering on the one who
ceases to be. The
character of God as
the Just Governor demands satisfaction when His Law
is broken. In
fact, every law carries with it a penalty,
whereby it is guarded against violation.
The Law-giver who enacts the command is bound
to inflict the penalty.
The transgressor owes that debt of
satisfaction to the Governor.
The
Great
Governor owes it to Himself to demand
satisfaction. It
is God’s prerogative to take vengeance.
‘Vengeance is Mine, I
will repay; saith the
Lord. It
is a fearful thing to fall into
the hands of the living God.’
‘Fury of fire’
is to assail the adversaries (Heb.
10: 27).
[Page
105]
17.
‘For God sent not
His
Only-begotten Son into the world to condemn the
world, but that the world might
be saved by Him.’
In all this interview there
was much to shock and to
break up the Jewish ideas of Nicodemus.
He expected a Messiah the Son of David,
entirely Israelite in his
sympathies, who should come to condemn and slay the
Gentiles because of their
idolatry, but to save
[Page 106]
‘The world,’ in the
writings of John, always means the
party opposite to the elect.
‘Now is the judgment
of this
world;
now shall the
prince of this world
be cast
out.’
‘How
is it thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and not
unto the world?’
John 14: 22. ‘Because
ye are not of the
world, but I have chosen you out
of the world,
therefore doth the
world
hate you,’ 15:
19. ‘Ye shall
be sorrowful, but the
world
shall rejoice; ye shall
be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into
joy,’ 16: 20.
‘I pray not
for the world, but for the men that Thou hast given me out of the world,’
17: 6-9.
‘The world,’
in John, means the circle of
those to whom the Gospel of God’s grace has been
presented, while they have not
accepted it.
To
make
‘the world’ signify ‘the elect’ produces
absurdity in these and other passages.
God gave His only begotten Son for the
elect,
that ‘whosoever
believeth on Him should not perish.’
Whence it would follow that not all the
elect
would believe and be saved.
‘Because ye are not of the elect, but I have
chosen you out of the elect, therefore
the
elect
hate you,’ 15:
19.
17. ‘For
God sent not His Son into the world in order that
He
should condemn the world; but in order that the
world should be saved by Him.’
The
design
of Christ’s sending is here stated.
This is of the utmost moment.
Salvation was the counsel of the Father, the
execution of the Son.
The idea which recurs the most frequently
in
this Gospel is Christ’s being sent.
Hence the Father must be One Person, the Sender; the Son, who is sent, must be another.
Hence
those schemes which affirm the unity of the Godhead, to the exclusion of more persons than one, deny
the Gospel at its root.
This the Unitarians
do; and the Swedenborgians,
who are mystic
Unitarians. The
Old Testament was the
proclamation of God’s oneness, against the many gods
of heathenism.
The New Testament is the discovery to us,
that within that unity of the Divine Nature there is
a Trinity of Persons.
He who denies this may be a Jew, but cannot
be a Christian.
Let us notice then the design of
Christ’s sending. First, in [Page 107] its contradiction of false views.
(1) The Jews imagined, that
Messiah would come to condemn and slay the Gentiles,
and to glorify
Now,
it
is true, that Messiah shall do at last as the Jews
thought. But
not till the atonement had been prepared;
on the foundation of which God can be just, and yet
justify the believer in
Jesus. Thus,
when God would deliver
Israel out of Egypt, He first provided the Lamb and
its blood, that by means
thereof the Israelite first-born might be atoned for
and saved, while the
Egyptian first-born were smitten.
But
while
(2) This is in
contradiction too of the ideas of
‘the Men of Intelligence.’ According to their
theories, sin was the result of a soul’s being
plunged into a body of
matter. It
was the fault of the Creator, not of
the creature. It
was due either to the Creator’s ignorance,
His powerlessness against the mischief that dwells
in matter, or His being
positively evil.
Different sections of
these dreamers took up different views concerning
this defect of the
Creator. But
all laid the blame on the
Creator, whom they identified with the God of the
Jews. According to their
fancies then, Jesus came down from the Supreme God -
a God higher than that of
the Jews - on purpose to deliver men, not [Page 108]
from sin
and guilt, for which they
were
justly condemned; but from matter.
The
Saviour,
therefore, with a word overturns this folly; and
shows that His
Father, who was the God of Israel, and the Governor
of the world, sent His Son
to save the lost, to deliver man from the just
penalty of sin arising from
their broach of His laws; and to sanctify their
fallen souls.
Jesus
is
indeed coming to judge the world, and to condemn it:
but, that is to be only
at His Second Advent!
His first coming
was not to condemn, but to save.
And
now
let us distinguish between God’s benevolent
intention
in the mission of His Son; and the actual
result.
1.
The
intention of God as the Governor of the world,
offering means of salvation
to men, is as wide as the Arminian pleases.
It is in order that any or all of fallen men
may be saved. The
Son of God offers to each guilty son of
Adam pardon and peace.
Is not that
enough? No!
So great is the enmity of
the human heart, it refuses this Great Person and
His geat gift.
Thus, each so addressed will at last be
justly
damned.
2.
But
this God’s intention as Governor of the world would
not produce the
salvation of any one, if he were left to his own
choice. Therefore,
within this wide invitation there
lies a further intent and choice of God.
He decrees, as the Great Benefactor, the actual salvation
of some. He
foresaw the rejection of His Son by all
the guilty; therefore, He determined from all
eternity whom He would renew,
whom He would lead, by His Holy Spirit’s operation
upon their renewed souls, to
Christ, and finally save.
Here the
Calvinist is at home.
But the Arminian
view is likewise necessary to God’s glory.
It is necessary to prove the bitter enmity of
man’s heart, and the real
invitation of God, which invitation man, left to his
own choice, unreasonably
and with fatal effect, refuses.
Thus
then
let us watch against opposite errors.
Many in our day are imagining, that the
Gospel has utterly failed of its
intent, because so few are saved.
And
hence they seek the reason [Page 109] in the defects of present agencies for preaching the Gospel; and say
that it is only owing to the carelessness of
Christians, or the faults of the
preachers of the Gospel, that the whole world is not
led to Christ.
This is quite a mistake.
Though apostles, great as Paul, Peter, and
John, were to go forth, gifted with supernatural
knowledge, utterance and
miracles, they would not turn all who heard them to
the faith. Though
every Church of Christ in every land
were as holy as the Church of Jerusalem, and
possessed of - what we have not -
the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, the world,
while it would be much more
enlightened, would not be won to Christ.
It would only be roused to bitter enmity
against believers, and to
bloodshed. Did
the Church at
Still
let
us guard against rushing into the opposing view. Some
extreme ones set themselves against all
extra effort, indeed against any effort at all.
‘God has His own
elect, and one means or by
another they will all be brought in; though every
believer is dosing at his
post, and every minister of the Gospel preaches as
drowsily as you please.’
It
is
true then, that some are perishing for want of
hearing the Gospel.
Go then, proclaim it, and out of the many
who
hear, some will believe!
But
do
not thence gather, that the only or chief obstacle
that must be removed is
ignorance; and that our only effort is to be to make
the Gospel attractive, so
that men shall accept it.
It is not
so. There
is another and far more deeply
rooted obstacle, which Jesus notices in verses 19,
20. It
is the enmity of the
fallen heart against God.
And that shows
itself in the case of the majority of the hearers. Those who
have heard, refuse on various
pretences to accept the call of God.
Ignorance of the Gospel in some places is
removed in great measure.
Men can state clearly God’s way of saving
sinners; [Page 110] yet
they are lost! It
is not that they do not know the
terms, but that they will not have them.
Ask city-missionaries! And they will tell
you, that the great majority
of those with whom they come in contact, refuse to
be saved in God’s way.
Now
this
is just what the scriptures of the New Testament
teach and suppose.
Do they instruct us, that, unless
there be overwhelming faults in preachers and
churches, all mankind will accept
the Gospel?
By no means! Jesus
tells us - what is the great feature of our day – ‘Many
are called, but few are chosen.’ And
it is only the few chosen who accept
the Gospel. Gather
then thousands to
hear the word!
Visit every house; let
none in your city or neighbourhood be without a call
to accept Christ!
Still only the few will accept.
Ours is a dispensation of election.
This
is
proved by the statements of that great missionary,
Paul. He
preached Christ to
Just
listen
also to his own statement about results.
Does he expect that all who hear will believe
and live? Nay. ‘If
by any means I may provoke to emulation them which
are my
flesh, and might save some of them,’
Rom. 11: 14. Even
so (as
it regards
The
last
and most fearful indignation will fall on those, who
having heard the
truth, refuse it (2
Thess. 2: 10). On such
God will send an energy of delusion leading them to
hug the devil’s deceit,
which is death.
Such also was the Saviour’s
anticipation and
prediction, when He sent out the twelve apostles to
18.
‘He that believeth
on
Him is not condemned; but he that believeth is
condemned already; because
he hath not believed on the name of the
Only-begotten Son of God.’
All. men are
under condemnation, as fallen sons of fallen Adam. There is
no way out from this condemnation by
obedience to Law.
Those who are set like
Faith
then,
or unbelief, is now the question of questions.
(1)
The
unbeliever is condemned as a limb of
unbelieving Adam. He
has derived from Adam the conscience which his
father stole by
disobedience. And
that conscience
condemns him as disobedient to its calls.
He hides, consequently, from God, when God
draws near. He
vainly attempts to defend himself from the
Divine accusations of guilt.
His own
personal offences also come up.
He is in
debt to the
Great Governor; a debt which he
can never pay.
He is guilty, too, of a
greater offence than any of the heathen; for he has rejected the testimony to
the Son of God.
(2) He is under
condemnation, because of his enmity against
God. This
grows with every year while he lives in
sin; with every day of his unbelief in Jesus, as the
only-begotten Son of
God. By
unbelief in God’s creative
goodness,
came in the
disobedience of
He is judged already.
This is illustrated by bitten
He perished
with
his blood on his own head, who would not look, or
who delayed to do
so. Every
one then now is dying under
the sentence of justice, who has never heard of the
Gospel.
[Page
113]
His
own
acts and his father’s condemn him.
But he dies with heavier guilt by far, who has heard of mercy, and
will
not at
once
accept it.
Great as is the Deliverer sent, and the
salvation offered, so great is the sin of the delay,
or of the refusal to
receive Him and His redemption.
The man
who has but once heard the Gospel and deferred it,
or put it aside on any
pretence, is heavier in sin than the devils
themselves. For
they have never had mercy offered; much
less mercy through so great a Saviour!
Who
is
Jesus? Many
will confess Him a good
man, a great teacher, a perfect example.
All that is true; but all below the point
required for salvation.
Nicodemus had owned some of this.
So that Jesus here states the superiority
of
His person above all other sons of God.
He is ‘the Only-begotten’ of God’s
sons. He
therefore who is an Unitarian,
is lost. For
he refuses the name of the Only-begotten
Son of God.
Jesus is to him, not
the Son of God by nature, but a son of God on the
same ground as many other
sons; although He be the chief of them.
He is not therefore the ‘Only-begotten’
to him, though he may confess Him best-begotten.
See
again,
the error of those who think, that non-elect men are
not required to
believe on Christ, and are not guilty, if they do
not. Our
Lord says, that the reason of final and
unalterable condemnation is, that men will not believe. Well, but
hyper-Calvinists say – ‘How
can a man justly be condemned, for not doing what
he cannot
do?
Does not Scripture say: That
the ungodly are dead in trespasses and sins?
And how can a dead man do ought?’
To
this
it would be enough to reply: ‘This
must be faulty
reasoning, for it contradicts the assertion of the
Son of God.’
And there we might be content to leave
it. It
would be enough to confute the
hyper-Calvinist.
But as there is a clear
way out of this boasted reasoning, and as there are
some sincere ones who are
caught by its fallacy, let us for a few minutes
examine the argument.
Frst
then
- When Paul by the Spirit speaks of himself and
others as by nature dead
in sins, does he mean by that to assert, [Page 114]
that they ceased to be responsible, and had got
beyond judgment?
By no means!
He
testifies to their being ‘dead’
as regards true feelings towards God, but not as
being thereby relieved from responsibility. On the
contrary, in the two chief Epistles
which describe men as ‘dead,’
the Apostle speaks
of their conduct as being exceedingly evil, and
drawing down God’s wrath upon
them (Eph. 4: 17-19; 5:
6, 7, 11 ; Col. 2: 13).
Colossians 2:
13,
speaks of the death in sins, but chap.
3. ver. 6,
speaks of God’s just judgment as about to fall on
sinners, because of their
activity of disobedience.
To God and to
good they are dead; to evil they are alive.
And for this life of evil, and for this
deadness to God’s calls, they
will be judged and condemned.
Else it
would follow, that the worse a man became, the less
responsible and the less
liable to judgment he would be!
And so
the devil and his angels, as being seared of
conscience, ought not to be
accused, or judged at all!
The whole mistake lies in saying that
they cannot believe,
and so are not responsible. There are
two
senses to the word ‘cannot’;
and it is from
confounding the two ‘cannots’
that the mischief
arises. For
one of the two ‘cannots’
a man is justly excused; the other is no
good excuse. Indeed,
‘cannot’ is a word
not properly and strictly used of
the sinner’s refusal, which is owing to his disinclination
of heart.
There
is
a ‘cannot’ spoken of
the body;
there is
a ‘cannot’
said of the soul or will.
Here is a
groom, to whom his master calls – ‘John,
bring me the horse!’
John does not come!
He goes to see what is the reason, and John
says – ‘Master, I was
hasting to come, but the horse
has kicked me and broken my right leg.’
He says, and justly – ‘I
cannot.’ His
will is ready to do so, but his body is out of order; it will not fulfil the desires of his soul. He is not
responsible. He
ought not to be punished for any such
inability.
But,
here
is a slothful apprentice.
On a cold
and dark winter’s morning, his master calls him to
get up. He
lies still in bed.
His master, offended, asks him – ‘Why
he did not get up in proper time?’
He says – ‘I
cannot.’
What hindered him? [Page 115] A paralyzed body? No, but
a
lazy will. He then is
responsible, fit to be punished.
We utterly refuse his silly excuse.
So
Jesus interprets a similar matter for us.
He tells us of the man in bed who is called
on to lend his friend three
loaves at midnight.
The person asked
replies – ‘I cannot rise and
give thee.’
Which ‘cannot’
do we find in this case?
‘Cannot’ of
the body?
or ‘cannot’ of the will?
‘Cannot’ of
the will
- clearly. And
so Jesus states it.
‘I say unto you -
though he WILL
not rise and give him
because he is his friend, yet because of his
importunity he will rise and give
him as many as he needeth,’ Luke
11: 8.
In such a case then, there
is responsibility.
The
will is wrong. So
is it in the case of the sinner.
And for
this perverse and unbelieving will he is justly to
be smitten. Then
take this match in your hand, and you will
blow to pieces the sinner’s excuses, and the
reasonings of those who would
excuse him. The
sinner can obey Christ, if
he
wills. He
can ask Christ’s pardon, if he
wills,
just as He could say
to you or me, after offending – ‘I
beg your pardon.’
He will
not. Here
then is his guilt. Here
his just damnation.
He is not a poor
unfortunate, who, against his will, is driven to
perdition. He
is a high-minded rebel, who will not stoop
at God’s call.
If
anyone
of the bitten perished in the camp of
19. ‘But
this is the
condemnation, that the Light is come into the
world, and men love the darkness
more than the Light, because their works were evil.’
1. The just, the
all-sufficient ground
of the final condemnation of those who
have heard the Gospel will be, that when light and
darkness were both presented
to them, they accepted the darkness, and refused the
light. That bespeaks an
evil will. The
whole man therefore is
evil. When
the Gospel is neglected or
rejected, there is a second condemnation.
[Page 116]
‘The Light’ here is not
Light in general; it is Christ
the Personal Light, of whom John had spoken in the
opening of his Gospel (1:
5, 7, 8).
‘The Light is come
into the world’ -
answers to John’s statements in the opening of his
Gospel (1: 9).
Jesus is also referring to Nicodemus’s words
– ‘We
know that Thou hast come as a
Teacher sent from God.’
Christ
then is here offered to us as coming, not into
Though
the
work of Christ is open to all the world, yet the
blessed results which
might have been anticipated from so great, a
salvation offered, do not
appear. At
this point then we are
introduced to the hindering forces, which prevent a
salvation universal in its
offer from being so in result.
Man is
tested by Christ’s coming, and His evil heart is now
far more shown, than by
The
evil
of our day is seen in this, that it is evil
increasing, and evil chosen, in
spite of the increase of Scriptural light. That supposes the
hardening of soul in wickedness, and consequently,
the heaviness of the
judgment of God, which will follow upon the
rejection of His Son.
Why are the masses slipping
away? Why
will they not come [Page
117] to
church and chapel?
‘Because their
deeds
are evil.’
Because they have
chosen the world and Satan, and mean to live the
lusts of their heart.
This is increasingly the case.
Many may come out to hear some novelty. But the
ordinary current of religious appeals
does not please the majority of hearers.
Most seem to think that the great evil of our
day is religious
ignorance. That it is widely diffused, is true.
But that religious knowledge is more widely
diffused, and pressed on
men’s attention than formerly, is true also.
By far the major part of those who have been
awakened so far as to
listen to God’s truth, choose to go on in sin.
If a man has determined to
go on in drunkenness, he
will get out of the way of one who comes to seek to
turn him out of the path.
A
man is responsible for his choice, and will be condemned for it justly, if it is evil.
His deliberate choice shows what he is. Then,
light and darkness being both offered,
he prefers the darkness.
Herein lies his
condemnation. We
trace a man’s
responsibility up to his choice; his choice shows
how his heart is fixed.
The heart tells us what the man is.
And on that ground he will be condemned justly, even to his own eyes, at the
great day.
The
Saviour,
then, is giving us the true ground of His own
rejection by
Vainly
does
any scheme, which cannot change man wholly, profess
to set him right.
The
refusal
of the Perfect One by men, shows that man, such as
he is, is
irreclaimable.
He has been tried in the
Garden, without Law; then under Law; afterwards
under the grace of Christ; and
in all of these trials his evil has displayed itself
more and more.
When it is a question between Christ and
Belial, man prefers Belial.
‘Jesus or Barabbas!
- which will ye?’
‘Not this
[Page 118] man, but
Belial’s son - Barabbas!’ When Jesus
ejects the demons from the
devil-possessed ones of
20.
‘For every one that doeth
evil hateth the light, and
cometh not to the light, lest his deeds should be
reproved.’
Here
is
the reason assigned to Nicodemus, why his great
friends and
fellow-countrymen refused Christ.
Their
choice was evil.
They feared the Saviour
as light. It
was so in the Garden of
Eden. The
guilty pair sought to hide
themselves from the light.
For they knew
that their evil deed would condemn them.
So evil-doers among men now seek natural
darkness, as more suited to
their deeds. The
deeds then of Jesus’
enemies were evil, as He tells them.
Hence they hated Him who is Light.
And their hatred was to them a sufficient
reason for their keeping away
from Christ. They
would not come to
Jesus, for He declared their evil ways, and their
unrighteousness, and their
lying under the curse.
How solemnly He
laid their leaders under the ‘woes’
of a broken
law!
The
awakened
sinner, subjected to the testimony of Christ, feels
like a man
carrying bags of gunpowder, who is being pulled into
a smithy, while sparks are
flying in all directions, anyone of which may blow
him to pieces, because of
the explosive powder which he bears.
21.
‘But He that doeth the truth
cometh to the light, that
his works may be made manifest, that they are
wrought in God.’
The
expression
– ‘The Light,’ now
takes the place of
‘the Son of God;’
because Jesus is the Personal
Light, in whom it all
[Page
119]
centres and dwells.
We have here, then, a word to Nicodemus,
partly of encouragement, and partly of rebuke.
(1) He came indeed to Christ, and so far he
was a son of light, willing
to be taught; on his way to accept the truth and to
do it. For
Scripture truth is not merely, or
chiefly, intellectual.
It is truth, not
merely to be known, but to be acted out or done. But Jesus represents
to
him, that his comrades’ refusal to come to Himself,
in place of being any
witness against Himself, or any evidence that He was
not sent of God, and not
the Prophet promised to the fathers, was a testimony
against themselves; as
condemned, and children of the darkness.
(2)
Still
more rebukable was his coming ‘by
night.’
He came to visit the Light in the time of
the
darkness, as if his act in so doing was partly evil. Hence
Jesus reproves him.
He ought to testify to Christ the Light in
the open day. Was
his work in coming to
Christ a good work?
Then let him avouch
it openly. Was
Christ the teacher sent
from God? Then
let Nicodemus be a son of
light openly owning Him!
Thus ministers
now should call on all who secretly believe in
Jesus, to come out from the
world which is darkness, under the governance of the
Prince of Darkness, and
openly to take their stand on the side of the Son of
God. The Saviour’s rite and sign of transition from Satan to Himself is
baptism. Against
that rite, when
celebrated as Scripture directs, the world has
great enmity; because it is a
witness against the world as being the place of
darkness, which at God’s
command is to be left.
Infant-sprinkling, on the contrary, both in
its results, as implying
that everybody is a Christian; and in its very
sign, as not exhibiting death to
the old man, and resurrection to the new, is
better received.
What
a
mercy, when our works do not condemn us, though
looked at in the light of
Christ’s word!
Reader, are you candid?
willing to test all by God’s truth?
’Tis
the sign of your being right.
How
are
our works to be done?
‘In God.’ If we
are on the right ground, we are in Christ: not in
Adam, not in Moses.
Only as we are branches in Christ the true
vine, are our works good, or wrought in God.
[Page 120]
Thus
Nicodemus
finds all his previous ideas overturned.
He has learned that his Pharisaic comrades,
in place of being legitimate judges of Jesus, were
themselves judged and
condemned, as serpent-bitten murmurers, lying under
death and the curse of
Moses’ law, in which they trusted; and also as sons
of Darkness and Satan,
refused of God, because choosers of the darkness,
and unwilling to come to the
Light.
22-25. ‘After
these things came Jesus and His disciples into the
*
The true
reading.
We
have
now John Baptist’s final testimony in Christ’s
favour; showing that (as
the Evangelist had said) he was not the Light
himself, but only a witness to
Christ the Light, in order that they might be led to
Christ to be saved.
It is, subordinately, the apostle John’s
vindication of himself, in leaving his original
master the Baptist, to attach
himself to the Christ.
The
water-baptism
of John is, in substance, the same as the
water-baptism of
Christ. John
and Jesus baptise
together. John
does not cease immersing,
because Christ has begun to immerse.
Christ does not separate his immersion from
John’s. The
disciples of John do not say, that Jesus
is holding a different doctrine, or practising a
different rite from their
master.
Here,
for
the first time, we learn, that not only did Jesus,
after John’s
imprisonment, take up the Baptist’s call on Israel
to seek the kingdom of
millennial glory, but that he also urged on those
who accepted the doctrine,
the fulfilment of the rite of immersion, which was
the outward testimony that a
man accepted the good news. The three previous
Evangelists testified to John’s
baptism, and to Jesus’ acceptance of it for Himself;
but to the Saviour’s own
enforcement of the new rite, both before and after
John’s imprisonment, they
had not testified.
The
present
passage confirms our belief, that the birth out of
water refers to
baptism. Jesus,
instantly after His
teaching of [Page 121] Nicodemus on this point, is seen to be practising the rite.
And had Nicodemus fully received Christ as
the Light, he would have come to Him for this
ordinance, and have received it
from Him. Jesus
and John Baptist were
both together inviting men to the Kingdom, and
immersing in
We
form
part of the camp of God’s better
Where
the
places Enon and Salim are, has been disputed.
But the map of the Palestine Exploration
Society shows that they have been discovered.
In the words of verse
23, we see that
baptism is immersion.
John frequented
this spot, because it was suited to immersion.
It
was suited to
immersion, because ‘there
was much water there.’
Now, neither sprinkling nor pouring
require
much water; but immersion does.
A
pint-basin will suffice for pouring or sprinkling;
but to immerse, requires
some three or four hundred gallons.
That
is, immersion requires from 3,000 4.000 times as
much water as sprinkling or
pouring. Therefore
that is the
Scriptural way of baptising.
The
pint-basin then, or the font, is a
condemnation of those who use it, as appears by
the very first sight of this
passage.
24.
‘For John was not as yet
cast into prison.’
The
former
Gospels give us our Lord’s ministry in Galilee,
which did not begin till
after John’s imprisonment, and after ,the Saviour’s
leaving Judea, because of
the danger of too quickly stirring His enemies at
and around Jerusalem.
But the Redeemer’s ministry, in our
apostle’s
view of it, had begun before.
Many make
difficulties with God’s word, because, instead of
learning how God treats the
life and deeds of His Son,
they [Page
122]
assume that His biography, must be
constructed on ordinary human
principles. Here
they err.
The
passage
now to be considered is evidently designed
controversially.
It gives us John Baptist’s own negative to
the false views of some of his disciples - that the
Baptist was the equal of
Jesus, or even His superior.
John the
Apostle, at the beginning of his Gospel had stated
the inferiority of John as
compared with our Lord (1:
6, 8).
But
now
we have the Baptist's own decision on the point - a
sentence which ought to
be decisive with John’s disciples.
The
origin of the saying is given us.
It
arose out of the proximity of the baptisms of John
and Jesus. This would
naturally introduce a question as to the relative
importance of the two
immersions. So
much seems to be implied
in the statement of verse
25, that the
question arose about ‘purifying.’ The
John’s
disciples
are jealous of Jesus’ increasing fame and power. They see
in it the growing inferiority of
their beloved teacher; and John’s loss is felt by
them as their loss also.
26. ‘And
they came to John and said to Him – “Rabbi, He
that was
with thee beyond
Their feelings of envy are
manifest on the surface.
They [Page 123] would stir
up John’s displeasure, and elicit a
word of rebuke concerning this upstart, who was
eclipsing his glory.
They regard Jesus as only an underling and
disciple of John.
Was He not baptised by
John? and therefore only a learner from John,
indebted to him for His preparation
for the coming kingdom?
Moreover, they
regarded His conduct as unwarranted, a presuming
upon the Baptist’s favourable
word concerning Him, to set up for Himself as John’s
equal or superior.
It would seem then that the Baptist’s
previous testimonies to Christ had been made in the
presence of many.
It is not improbable that the opposing Jew
had cited these witnessings of their Master against
the disciples; and that
they felt themselves quite at a loss for a reply.
They
regard
Jesus’ immersion as an invasion of the province,
originally and solely
confided to the Baptist. What right had Jesus to set
up another baptism so
closely resembling theirs?
Moreover -
and this is the final sting in the matter - this
invasion of their Master’s
office, instead of being resented by all
right-minded Jews, was accepted by
them!
They
so
identify their own glory with their Master’s as to
feel a diminution of
their own when John’s was lessened.
But,
John was to be the morning star, swallowed up by the
exceeding brightness of
the sun.
17-30.
‘John answered and
said – “A man can receive nothing, except it be
given him from heaven. Ye
yourselves bear me witness, that I said – ‘I am
not the Christ, but that I have
been sent before Him.’
He that hath the
Bride is the Bridegroom, but the friend of the
Bridegroom who standeth and
heareth Him, rejoiceth greatly because of the
voice of the Bridegroom: This my
joy, therefore, is fulfilled.
He must
increase, but I must decrease.”’
We
may
divide the answer of the Baptist into three parts. In the
first place he adjusts the relative
places to be given to Jesus and to himself.
Here he takes far the lowest place, assigning
to Christ as of right the
chief one (27-30).
In the second division he
gives to Jesus the superior
nature and range of testimony.
Christ
was from above, and His witnessing was of the things
heavenly, among which He
had [Page 124] dwelt from
eternity. But
John was only the mere man
born on earth, and speaking from the lower sphere of
things (31-34).
Lastly,
John
unfolds to us the Trinity, and assigns to Jesus a
place in the Godhead.
This truth whosoever refuses must perish.
The
reply
of John does him great honour.
He
proves himself superior to jealousy and envy.
The enquiry concerning the relative standing
and importance of two
servants of God is often one involving many
difficulties. Between
them and their equals, specially if
they be teachers, oft springs up controversy of
great bitterness.
John
allays
envy on the part of his disciples, by tracing all
power and all success in
the use of them, to the supreme ordination and gift
of God. If
then Jesus began to outdo John in the
greatness of his fame and power, it must be traced
at length to the ordination
of the Most High.
We do well to remember
this, that gift and the popularity attendant thereon
as its shadow, are both
the boon of God.
Gift and popularity are
often so disproportionate as to create surprise.
This
general
principle then applies both to John Baptist, and to
Jesus. John
Baptist’s former greatness was of God’s
gift. Jesus’
increasing greatness was
also of God’s ordination.
The Baptist,
therefore, beheld in it the arrangement of the Most
High, which was to be
submitted to with a ready mind.
Behold a
lesson which most at some time of their history
need. ‘The spirit that
dwelleth in us lusteth to envy.
But He
giveth more grace.’ See here announced the
truth whereby we are to allay
envy, and to get the victory over its risings - that
the differences of
abilities, and the different acceptances which those
abilities achieve for
themselves, are due to the decision and arrangement
of the Lord of all.
To Him then it is fitting that we
submit. May
He not do what He wills with
His own?
A
man may make great pretensions, yet in fact he has
nothing, either in the way
of internal capacity, or of influence upon his
fellows, but what is given him
by God.
The Baptist would not take
a position above that which
had [Page 125]
been assigned him by God.
Moreover, he could attest that he had all
along held to one and the same testimony, that he
was not the Christ, but only
one sent to prepare His way.
The same
testimony we learn from the other Gospels; and
specially from the record in
Luke.
Jesus
was
the Anointed of God, the true Christ, and John
Baptist is the witness of
the anointing.
For Jesus was anointed
with the Holy Spirit in the presence of the Baptist,
and after His immersion.
‘He that hath the Bride is the
Bridegroom.’
This seems to refer us back to those Old
Testament Scriptures which describe
The
last
quotation supposes Jesus to be Jehovah.
Probably there is also a reference to the forty-fifth
Psalm, which describes Christ as the
King of Glory coming in His kingdom.
John was not the Bridegroom, but only His
friend. Does
the Bride here signify the Church? or
‘The friend of the Bridegroom
that standeth and heareth his
voice.’
It seems probable from
this, and from the similar expressions here employed
to those made use of by
Christ in His conversation with Nicodemus, that
those of John’s disciples who
had joined Jesus had, when their respective
encampments were near together, as
now, told John Baptist some of the words uttered by
our Lord. Those
words showed Jesus to be asserting [Page
126] the
place of the Bridegroom, and
of the comer down from heaven.
And John
was glad.
Thus
grace
gives John the victory.
He knows
his God-given place, and is content to keep it.
He turns against his disciples their appeal
to his former witness to
Jesus. Had
he witnessed to Jesus?
He had, as they knew, at the same time
testified his own inferiority.
That
which
wounds the proud man, may be a joy to the humble. Let us bow
to the Divine disposal!
We
may
compare this incident with one in Moses’ life. When Moses
complains of the weight of
responsibility laid upon him, God promises to take
of the Spirit that was upon
the Mediator, and to bestow it on others beside him. He then
pours out of the Spirit on seventy of
the elders, who at once begin to prophesy.
But Joshua is envious of the prophesying of
Eldad and Medad, and asks
Moses to forbid them.
His answer bears
the proof of a beautiful spirit – ‘Enviest
thou for my
sake? Would God that all the Lord’s people were
prophets, and that the Lord
would put His Spirit on them!’ In
those words Moses admits that so
far the Lord’s people might be made equal with him. John
Baptist, on the other hand, while
displaying the same noble, un-envious disposition,
bears testimony to his own
inferiority, and the inferiority of all others, in respect of Jesus. He had been appointed as the friend of the Bridegroom to lead the Bride
to Christ.
But that duty
over, his own position of dignity was lost.
The chief part now was assigned to the
Bridegroom. It
was He who must speak directly to the
Bride. But
in those His words John
rejoiced.
30. ‘He
must increase, I must decrease.’
Yes!
he
had truly discerned his place.
God in
wisdom had not bestowed on John Baptist the gift of
miracle; lest, even if he
remained firm to his subordinate position, others
should suppose him the equal
of the Son. This
testimony was speedily
confirmed by the course of events.
John
Baptist was soon after cast into prison,
disappearing from public testimony;
and speedily [Page 127] the sword of the executioner finished his valuable life.
Jesus, on the contrary, after John’s
imprisonment, began more fully and publicly His
career and His fame; and His
disciples and His doctrine took a more decided
growth. How
well it is, when we see the place God has
given us, and are content to own the superiority,
mental or practical, which
God has bestowed on others.
The
‘must’ rests
on the Divine decree.
So God has ordained it, and it must come to
pass;
fittingly too; for how great is the superiority of
Jesus’ nature to that of the
sons of men!
The
next
verse assigns the reason for John’s decrease.
It was deep-seated, and turned on
superiority
of nature and of sphere in Jesus.
31. ‘He
that cometh from above is above all: he that is of
the
earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: He
that cometh out of the heaven
is above all.’
John
was
the mere man who had no existence till he was born. Jesus was
in heaven, ere He descended to take
His place on the earth as a man.
Here
was a ground of indisputable superiority.
Jesus was from heaven: John from earth.
John was therefore earthly in origin, and
therefore, also in the range
and sphere of his knowledge and testimony.
He knew only what had been infused into his
mind since he was upon
earth. But
the superiority of Jesus, was
His eternal and heavenly existence.
Jesus not only exceeded John, but all the
sons of men, by virtue of this
His pre-existence.
32-34. ‘And
what He hath seen and heard, that He testifieth;
and no
man receiveth His testimony.
He that
hath received His testimony, hath set to his seal
that God is true.
For He whom God hath sent speaketh the
words
of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure
unto him.’
The
Saviour
was bearing witness of the things of the heaven,
well known to Him who
was in the Father’s bosom from eternity.
Yet the men of earth would not accept this
wonderful testimony.
It was too lofty for them.
The light shone in the darkness; but the
darkness refused it.
Few were they who
would accept it.
To this John had
already alluded.
‘He hath sealed that God is true.’ Jezebel,
in sealing [Page
128] the
letters to the elders of
Naboth’s city with Ahab’s seal, attested that they
were from Ahab.
So in our day the signature and seal of
inferiors or equals attests the truth of some
document. ‘I hereby certify,
that the bearer of this - Thomas Adams - has been
seven years in my employ, and
is a trustworthy man. - JAS. ROBINSON.’
So
we,
in believing on Christ, give honour to the Father
who sent the Son.
God says- ‘This is
My
Son: hear Him.’
We believing,
attest it. We
sign and seal it.
‘God is true! Jesus is
the Only-begotten Son of God.’
The
world
and
But
as
God had really sent John Baptist, and John Baptist
testified to Christ, so
the receiver of Christ owned God’s mission of Jesus. The Lord
had foretold the coming of a Great
One and a Deliverer, and had sent His servant the
Baptist to give notice that
He was come. Thus
the receiver of Christ
confessed the truth of God, as shown in the promises
and prophecies of the Old
Testament. ‘Now
I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the
circumcision for the truth of
God, to confirm the promises made unto the
fathers; and that the Gentiles
should glorify God for His mercy,’ Rom.
15.
‘For He whom God sent,
speaketh the words of God.’
Jesus
then
spoke not only the things of heaven, as an eye and
ear witness, but spoke
the words of God.
He spake as the Father
taught Him, and, in the strictest sense, they were
the words of God.
By these words, the plenary inspiration of
the Saviour’s sayings is guaranteed.
To
other
messengers of old, God had given the Spirit, by
measure and in part.
But on Christ rested the ineffable fulness
of
the Spirit.
[Page 129]
35. ‘The
Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things
into His
hand.’
This
verse
gives us the reason why the Spirit is so given to
Christ, and is, by Him,
capable of being received in all its fulness.
For in no son of man could the fulness of the
Godhead dwell.
We have here the Trinity.
In this single word – ‘THE SON’ - learned by John at the
36.
‘He that believeth
on
the Son hath everlasting life; but he that
believeth not the Son, shall not see
life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.’
True
views
of the Son are of eternal moment.
Life or death turns on them.
The
acceptance of God’s testimony about His Son, is
life; life for evermore.
But he who refuses the testimony of the
Son,
shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on
him. As
unbelief brought death, so faith brings
life. All,
as unbelievers, lie under the
wrath of God. Thus
John Baptist upholds
our Lord’s words to Nicodemus.
All are
perishing under wrath. Only Christ can deliver.
And we belong to Christ only by faith.
Wrath is a feeling of God, exhibited evermore
in punishment on the
guilty.
Here is love to the Son, and to
those in Him; wrath upon all others.
*
*
*
JOHN CHAPTER 4
[Page 130]
1-3. ‘When
therefore the Lord knew that the Pharisees had
heard
that Jesus is making and immersing more disciples
than John (although Jesus
Himself immersed not, but His disciples), He left
Judea and went again into
Galilee.’
The
work
of Jesus early attracted the jealous observation of
the leaders of
Judaism. They
felt that the movement
begun by John Baptist and Jesus, was unfriendly to
their principles and
interests. It
set up a higher standard
than theirs; it took the leadership out of their
hands. At
this period, the miracles of our Lord
attracted to Him more attention than to John.
The concourse to him was very considerable;
and the friends of the
Pharisees advertise them of it.
Jesus
then becomes a greater object of suspicion to them
than John Baptist.
Our Lord’s teaching was farther removed
from
Moses and his principles, than John’s.
And, while John never made his appearance in
Our
Lord,
in His wisdom, aware of the hostile feelings of the
Pharisees (without
any intelligence given directly to Him, for He is ‘the
Lord’), retires from a post so near to the
metropolis. In
the two different words, whereby the
Evangelist on the one hand names Him, and the
Pharisees call Him on the other,
we see the vast gulf which separated their
estimation of Him.
To the Apostle, Jesus is the ‘Lord.’ That is
the name and estimation of a disciple.
To the Pharisees, He is simply ‘Jesus.’ For they
regarded Him as the man merely.
The words of the report, as
carried to the Pharisees,
are [Page 131] given us – ‘Jesus is making and immersing
more disciples than John!’
Observe
how these simple words correct an error quite
natural to those
who sprinkle infants.
They propose to
constitute disciples by a ceremony, without any
knowledge on their part of the
principles of the teacher; a thing which is quite
contrary to the idea of a
disciple. ‘Make
disciples (they would say) by
baptising.’ But
that
is not Christ’s plan.
With Him the
reality
preceded the sign.
Jesus
‘made the
disciple’
by instruction and persuasion, before
He immersed him.
This, then,
is the rule for us.
First must come
conviction and faith: then the immersion of the
candidate.
But
in
this report to the Pharisees there was one element
of error, which the
Evangelist corrects.
We should have naturally
supposed from these words, that Jesus immersed with
His own hand those who
accepted His testimony about the coming
[Page 132]
Why,
then,
did not Jesus immerse with His own hands, as John
did? I
think we may gather, that it was in order
not to create any confusion between the baptism of
water and the baptism of the
Spirit. For
in this Gospel, Jesus is
singled out as the baptiser in the Spirit, in
contradistinction to John, who
had power over the element of water alone.
Jesus was marked out to John, as the designed immerser in
the Spirit and in fire: as we find it afterwards
fulfilled at Pentecost.
As Jesus also is ‘the
Son,’ into whose name the disciple is to be
immersed, it was less proper
that He should be Himself the immerser.
In
His
wisdom, then, He would go into
4, 5. ‘And
He must needs go through
Now
John
is the great witness, in his Gospel, of the
Saviour’s mission of mercy to
the world. And
5, 6.
‘He cometh
therefore
unto a city of
The
city
here called ‘Sychar,’
was doubtless the one
anciently known as Shechem.
The name of
Sychar was probably a change, due to the enmity of
the Jews. While
Shechem signifies ‘a
shoulder,’ Sychar might mean either ‘a lie,’ or ‘drunken.’ Such would
naturally be the change made by
enmity.
The
spot
given by Jacob to Joseph his son, refers to the
passage in Gen. 33: 19,
where dying Jacob names it; and to Joshua
24: 32.
Yet there is one feature about the passage in
Gen.
33., which it is not easy to reconcile with
Gen.
48: 22, if they refer to the same spot.
For the one speaks of purchase; the other of
force.
This
acquisition
of the land and of the well is named, because of the
allusion to it
in the interview which follows.
‘Jacob’s well was there.’ It was
probably dug by the patriarch, that he
might be independent of the tribes around, who often
showed their displeasure at
the presence of these strange Hebrews.
It is to this that Moses, I suppose, alludes,
in his general blessing of
6. ‘Jesus
then fatigued by his journey, was sitting thus
upon the
well.’
The
little
word ‘weary,’ or ‘fatigued,’ carries with it doctrine of much moment - doctrine of
especial import in that day, when Gnosticism was
flourishing. From
this passage we learn that Jesus, as a
man, was subject to all the sinless infirmities of
human nature. In
some of the false doctrines abroad, Jesus
was so regarded as being the Son of God, as not to
be also the Son of
‘He sat thus on the well.’ He was
content to rest Himself on the first
place he could find.
The well’s rim
afforded Him a seat, though not originally designed
for that purpose.
What time of the day it was, is doubted. It
depends upon whether the reckoning was after the
Jewish or Roman mode.
If according to the Jewish reckoning as in
the other Gospels, the time - the sixth hour – would
be about mid-day.
If according to the ]Roman mode, it was six
in the evening.
The evening was
generally the time of drawing water.
A
woman comes for that purpose, out of
8. ‘For
the disciples were gone away into the city to buy
food.’
His disciples’ absence in
the city to procure
provisions, seems to have given occasion to the
Saviour to make this request;
else they probably would have been able to procure
for our Lord, by bucket and
rope, this water which He needed.
Perhaps, also, the notice of this verse is
designed to hint, that in
their presence the Saviour would not thus have
entered into discourse with [Page
135] the
woman. Certain
it is, that on the disciples’ coming
up, the interview ceased; and that, under ordinary
circumstances, they would
have been astonished to find their Master talking in
private to a woman; though
it was at mid-day.
The
woman
is surprised to find that this Jew - as she knew Him
by His dress to be -
stoops to ask water of her. Generally, the Jews
stood on their superiority, and
hated the Samaritans.
Indeed, they had
received many injuries from them - the Samaritans
pretending, when the Jews were
in favour, that they, too, were Jews; and when the
Jews were persecuted by the
Gentiles, they declared themselves Gentiles, and
persecuted the Jews. Moreover,
the very existence of the Samaritans was an eyesore
to the Jews. It
was a testimony to their fathers’
sin. For
it was because of the idolatry
of the ten tribes that they were removed from their
land, and these foreigners
were made to take possession of it.
As
we learn from the Old Testament, these nations who
were brought in to possess
the land, mixed together the worship of false gods
with that of the true.
How completely had the promises of Moses,
and
the hopes of Israel of blessing in their land broken
down, when the true
possessors were swept away to another land, and
foreigners were brought in to
hold it against Israel - foreigners and enemies! Why was
this?
It was the just consequence of the principle
under which
10.
‘Jesus answered and said
unto her – “If thou hadst
known the gift of God, and who it is that saith to
thee, give Me to drink,”
thou wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have
given thee living water.’
The
Saviour
is love, and does not take offence even at this
refusal of so small a
gift. He
came, in His humiliation, to
suffer the discourtesies of men, as well as their
bitter persecutions.
And now, He graciously turns the tables. If she
will not give to Him a trifle of
earth, he would teach her of God His Father; the
gracious Giver, the only
really ‘Good’ or ‘Bountiful.’
He would tell her of the Holy Spirit, the
gift of God to the unworthy.
She is
surprised that the Jew confesses thirst to a foe. Jesus [Page 136]
shows that she is really the needy and thirsty one,
and Himself the true giver of satisfaction.
She
has
despised Him as a common Jew, but now He graciously
unfolds to her His
greatness. Jesus
is continually obliged
to testify to Himself; for flesh and blood do not,
as the prophet said, see His
glories. The
Father would have Him so
bear witness. For
He is the Great, the
Only Deliverer; and it is on His reception or
rejection, that salvation or
damnation turns.
It was wonderful that
He who had created all, had given to all life and
breath, water and food,
should yet stoop to be in want; when the least
forth-putting of His power of
miracle, the least intimation to His angels, would
have brought abundant and
constant supplies.
But He came on earth
to be a man, in all His loneliness and sorrows.
Satan tempted Him so to help Himself by
miracle; but was refused.
He would suffer, as well as do, the
Father’s
will. He
would become poor, that we,
through His poverty, might become rich.
Poor believer, see how much better off in
temporal things you are, than
was the Son of the Father, the Lord of heaven and
earth!
Had
the
woman seen with faith’s eye, she would have beheld
in the wearied, thirsty
traveller, one who was beyond all measure rich; and
able to supply her higher
needs. She
would have turned to ask of
Him, and He, unlike her cold selfishness, and in
spite of her rude refusal,
would have given to her ‘living
water.’
Water of a fountain, is ‘living
water’; as opposed to the stagnant water of
a
reservoir or well.
But, beneath this outside
meaning, which it bears in the books of Moses, there
was a deeper one.
The
Holy Spirit and His gifts, the fruit of Christ’s
descent and
reconciliation to God by Him, was speedily to come
in. But
though Christ, the smitten Rock, is the
source of that water, we
are to ask
for it, as the way to receive from Him.
11.
‘The woman saith
unto
Him – “Sir, thou hast not even a bucket, and the
well is deep.
Whence then hast thou the living water?”’
The
woman
does not comprehend the deeper gift of our Lord; and
supposing Him to
refer to literal water, suggests the [Page 137]
difficulties in the way of fulfilling His
promise. He
had no bucket, as an
instrument for drawing water; and, even if He had,
it would be of very little
use, since it required a long rope to let down the
bucket to the water.
The
well
is one hundred and five feet deep, with five feet of
water.
12.
‘Art thou greater
than our father Jacob, who gave us the well; and
himself used to drink of it,
and his sons, and his cattle?’*
*How she inadvertently
overturns the praise of this
wonderful well, by telling us that the cattle drank
of it, as well as their
master! Of
our
well, the cattle
cannot drink.
‘Surely, you do not mean to set
yourself up as more
perspicacious than Jacob; or able to give better
water than that which
contented the patriarch! '
The
woman
confidently ranges herself among the people of
Vain,
now,
is all boasting in mother or father, or descent of
men. Are
you a son of God?
Is He your
Father? If
not, all is vain!
If He be, let the worldly boast of the
flesh! Your
parentage is high as heaven
above theirs!
Jacob
dwelt,
and Joseph was buried, in
14.
‘Jesus answered, and said
unto her – “Whosoever
drinketh of this water,
will thirst
again; but whosoever will drink of the water that
I will give him, shall not
thirst for ever; but the water that I will give
him, shall be in him a fountain
of water, leaping up into eternal life.”’
The
water
of Jacob’s well was earthly, suited to the wants of
a dying body, and
requiring perpetually to be applied.
So [Page
138] it
is with all pleasures, short
of those which are in God.
But the
heavenly water of Christ’s gift would supply a
higher need, a nobler life; and
continuously. I
do not think it should
be – ‘Shall never thirst;’ but - ‘Will not thirst for
ever.’ He
may thirst in time, but, in the coming
eternity of glory, he shall have no more thirst. Thus the
word would connect itself with the
second part of Rev. 7.;
or the description
of the Great Multitude before the throne.
Ascended thither, they shall ‘hunger
no more neither
thirst any more.’ See
also Rev.
21: 6.
In
the
promise of ‘the fount of
living water leaping up
unto everlasting life,’ we have, I believe,
a picture not only of the
internal operations of the Holy Spirit as imparting
spiritual life, but also of
the bestowal of the miraculous gifts of the Holy
Ghost after faith.
So that, to complete our view of the sense
of
these words, we must look onward to the Acts of the
Apostles, and to the
description of the results produced in Samaria after
our Lord’s ascension, by
the preaching of His Gospel there by Philip (Acts
8:
5-25).
Philip preaches to
them the Christ, and His future kingdom. He gives
them
both the doctrine, and its effects in miracle and
blessing. The result of this
‘water’ is great
joy. But
still there is lacking to
Philip
tells
them who was the wondrous stranger that had visited
their land. He
preached ‘the
These
gifts
then, specially those of inspiration, were a
fountain of water,
continually welling forth new discoveries of God,
and taking away the desires
of earthly things.
The loss of these
gifts forms the difference between ourselves and the
gifted of Apostolic
days. We
who study the Scripture now are
like the woman of
[Page 140]
Jesus’
fountain then
is
better than Jacob’s well; and its extent of bestowal ranges far beyond
15.
‘The woman saith
unto
Him, “Lord, give me this water in order that I may
not thirst, nor come hither
to draw.”’
The
woman
still takes our Lord’s words literally, and only
desires to be saved from
frequent natural thirst, and the labour of drawing
water to quench it day by
day.
16.
‘Jesus saith to
her, “Go
call thy husband and come hither.”
The
Saviour
has awakened the woman’s curiosity by His spiritual
words; but now He
would address Himself to her conscience; that she
may really receive the truth,
as one who is a sinner, and lost without it.
Many have the truth in their understanding
without its affecting their
heart. Jesus,
then, by this simple
command convinces her of her sin, and of His own
prophetic knowledge of her.
17, 18.
‘The woman answered
and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus saith to her,
“Well hast thou said, ‘I
have no husband;’ for thou hast had five husbands,
and he whom thou now hast is
not thy husband; in that saidst thou truly.”’
This
reply
of the woman seems designed to put our Lord to the
proof, whether He were
possessed of supernatural prophetic knowledge, or
no. It
was tempting Christ.
Could not He thus be convicted of
ignorance,
in regard of a matter open to the senses?
This she attempted, but was foiled by the
Divine knowledge of our Lord.
Jesus
points
out in what sense her words could be taken with
truth. For
she could, had it suited her, have said
also that she had a husband.
Jesus then leads her to consider the
unlawful
life she was leading with one to whom she was not
married. It
was true in one sense, that he was not her
husband. And
now [Page
141]
Jesus unfolds to her His knowledge of her past life.
‘Five husbands!’ And this ‘a woman of
This
is
her confession of guilt - quite tacit, but real. ‘He
told her all that
ever she did.’
19, 20. ‘The
woman saith to him – “Sir, I perceive that thou
art a
prophet. Our
fathers worshipped in this
mountain; and ye say, that in
The
pressure
on her conscience, and her sense of the greatness of
the person with
whom she has to deal, are waxing stronger.
Apparently, to shift the conversation, and
perhaps also to get a reply
on a matter in which she felt in doubt, she would
ask concerning the proper
place of worship.
There was a
controversy between the Jews and Samaritans about
the proper spot.
The Samaritans, in their hatred to
Now,
it
was true, that the patriarchs were at liberty to
pitch their tent, and erect
their altar anywhere in the land. But after that the
covenant of Sinai was
given, God’s altar was to be at one spot alone.
But,
now,
the Saviour discloses to us a new dispensation, in
which, at this moment,
we stand. The
new dispensation distances
both the old
questions of place.
God’s counsels are still [page
142]
moving onward, and it becomes us to take our stand always there, where we can abide
with God.
21, 22.
‘Jesus said unto
her –
“Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh, when neither
in this mountain, nor at
These
few
words introduce a new revelation of God, and abide
in force to this
day. These
fleet words, uttered ages
ago, still control the worship of God.
Uttered almost in a desert, with only one to
listen, they are now rolling
all round the world; and their echoes run on from
age to age. ‘The Lord was with
him,’ it is said of Samuel,
‘and did let none of His
words fall to the ground.’
How much more is it true of our Lord? ‘Heaven
and earth
shall pass away; but My words shall not pass away.’
Jesus
is
contented to reveal this His counsel, even to a
woman - a sinner, and a
Samaritan. What
a proof that the flesh
profiteth nothing, that this grave and comprehensive
truth is not uttered to
the wise men of
‘You have owned Me a prophet.
Then hear My prophetic oracle, and accept
it.’ ‘Woman, believe
me.’ The
change in the character of worship
can only come by revelation, proceeding from the
discoveries made to us by the
Son of God. To
Abraham, God was
revealing Himself as the God of earth. To
To
Abraham,
God revealed Himself as El Shaddai, or ‘the
bountiful
God,’ possessor of heaven and earth.
To
Christ
as
the Prophet, ‘the prophet
like Moses,’
supersedes Moses, and introduces, like him, a new
dispensation. He
asks faith. ‘Woman believe
These
words
are a repeal of Judaism, or ‘the
Jews’ religion.’
That was Jehovah, God of Israel, choosing a
nation out of earth, and manifesting Himself as
their God, by their redemption
out of slavery, and their settling in a portion of
earth chosen for them.
In the spot which He selected amid their
land, there would He dwell; and to that, as a centre
of union, the twelve
tribes were to go up to worship.
Gentiles, who would serve and know the true
God, were to go up thither
also. There
dwelt Jehovah, the God of
Israel.
But,
now,
better things are come.
The wall of
partition between Jew and Gentile, which God’s own
hand had reared, is now
thrown down. The
Lord is seeking for
true worship. Questions
about the place
of worship, of much moment under the Law, are now of
no importance.
In our time, no one spot of earth is holier
than another. ‘I
will that the men pray everywhere, lifting
up
holy hands without wrath or doubting.’
The
reason
is given in those words – ‘Ye
shall worship the
Father.’ This
change in the revelation of our God,
introduces a change in the character of the worship. God is not
now [Page 144]
Jehovah, God of armies, ‘destroying foes; but the
Father, revealing Himself in grace; the ‘Father
in
heaven,’
to whom all
places on earth are of small moment.
For, indeed, the truth comes forth now, not
from Moses the servant, but
from Christ the Son. None but the Son could worthily
reveal the Father.
Here,
then,
Jesus’ relation to
The
Samaritans,
receiving only the five books of Moses, and refusing
the prophets,
knew not whereabouts they stood.
The
choice of
The chief dignity of the
Jew consisted in this, that
out from his nation, salvation was to come.
The Redeemer of Men was to be a son of
23.
‘But the hour
cometh,
and now is, when the true worshippers shall
worship the Father in spirit and in
truth.’
Observe - this statement leaves room
for a change of dispensation back again to the
locality of
But
here,
an objection raised by our anti-millenarian friends,
which seems to them
unanswerable, comes in:- ‘And
how can you imagine and
teach, that after this higher and real worship, the old
and carnal religion
of place, of vestments, of
circumcision, of the blood of bulls and of goats,
is to return?
That would be Judaism repeated!
And would you cast us back in your
millennial
scheme upon a dispensation worn out and repealed?
Thus you are self-refuted!’
Our
reply
is - that at
different
times, God has different arrangements relating to
this earth, and the
true worship of Himself - that His counsels
unfold, and take from time to time
a larger and loftier sweep - that the
present
dispensation, therefore, will be superseded by
something better far
than that of the present day.
The point
of the error lies in supposing that the Gentiles
and the Jews, during the
millennial day, will be Christians! Then, indeed, the
introduction of these ancient principles [Page 146] and rites would be a confusion, and a sad going back in
the things of God!
But this confusion
does not lie with us, but with our opponents.
Once discriminate, as God does, and the
difficulty is disentangled.
It
is
seen that the millennial day, far from being a
stepping back in the scheme of
God, is a great advance.
For God rewards
men as divided into three classes: (1) ‘the
Jews,
(2) the Gentiles,
and (3) the
(2) Now, when Christ returns to take
His Kingdom, the Church ceases; Christianity comes
to an end. Its
fundamental position is, ‘We
walk by faith, not by sight,’ 2 Cor. 5: 7.
But when Christ comes, it is ‘sight, not
faith.’
Then
Baptism and the Supper cease.
The Supper is only till Christ comes
(1
Cor. 11: 26).
Baptism, or the burial of the flesh, will
be
unsuited to a time of enjoyment of the earth.
Moreover,
that will be a time,
not of grace, but of justice; the transgressor
being broken at once, as a
potter’s vessel, with a rod of iron.
When Christ comes, His faithful
servants are called no longer to suffer with Him, but to reign in resurrection-bodies.
This, then, is mighty advance in their
case.
(2)
Then as it
regards
(3)
The
same advance shall be
found, in regard of the Gentiles.
The remnant of the Gentiles shall
own the superiority of
Our
Lord’s words then leave, manifestly, the
room for this. He does
not say, that this partial dispensation of election, this time of faith and
suffering, this sojourn in the wilderness is to
last for ever.
The land is to be reached; the reward
of His [faithful]
servants will come.
23.
‘But the hour is
coming, and now is, when the true worshippers
shall worship the Father in
spirit and truth; for moreover the Father is
seeking such as His worshippers.’
The
Saviour
accepts the system of
A religion of the outer
man, while the inner man is
alienated from the love of God, is abhorrent to Him.
Worship, in order [Page
149] to
be accepted, must be
based on true views of the nature of
God. How
hateful to Him Israel’s
idolatrous comparing of His glory to an ox that
eateth grass! The
worship which they founded hereon aroused
His indignation.
‘They shall worship the Father.’
The
name of God is now first revealed to those newly
begotten by the Spirit to
faith in the Son of God (John
1: 12).
Jehovah is at once their God and their
Father. How
displeasing to God, then,
must be the worship of many!
The Most
High had put aside the old and false worship, and
was now looking, even in
Jesus
holds
and teaches two great truths.
To
Israelite
worshippers
were the old and unreal worshippers.
They know not the name of God; and, whoever
knows it not cannot be a true worshipper.
The Most High is now ‘the
Father;’
Lord of Grace, but only to be known
through the Son. This new
name
of God is to be met by true worship - the devout
reverence of heart, suited to
the God of all, and to the grace which has met us
Gentiles with His salvation.
There are, then, two classes of
worshippers. Those
who kneel and say
prayers, and utter praises; but they are learnt by
rote, and flow only from the
lips, and not from the heart.
There are
those, also, who render the reverence due to the
Majesty of the Creator, and
love to our Redeemer-God, for His bounty towards the
sinful and lost.
This is the only worship ‘in
Spirit and in truth.’ The [page
150] old
worship of the knee and lips
is superannuated.
The
worship of the slave is
grown old, and set aside.
It is now the worship of regenerated sons
offered to the Father, through Jesus Christ the Son
of God. It
is not, that all men are sons of God,
because they are created beings. No, it is only as
new created, and as sons
accepting Jesus as the Son of God, that we can know
the Father, or draw near
with confidence.
In
these
few simple words, the Saviour antiquates the worship
of
26: 14)
‘I have hearkened
to the voice of the Lord my God, and have
done according to all that Thou hast commanded me.’
It
was
also the system of shadows, preparing the way for the coming of Christ, the substance.
It was the religion of the shell and the
outside,
telling of the kernel which was to appear in due
time. But
now the worship of God is to be that of
the spirit of man; the worship of affection founded
on the faith that the Son
of God has come, who is the reality of all these
types. It
is the drawing near to a Father on high,
through the Spirit of God, who has infused into us
the true spirit of love and
obedience, which should characterise sons.
The
Most
High, now revealed as ‘the
Father,’ is
seeking sons - they alone being true worshippers.
The circumcision in the flesh made by
hands,
is refused. ‘We are the circumcision who worship
God by the Spirit, and put
no confidence in the flesh.’
The
Father’s
heart can only be satisfied, by the answering
affections of sons.
He is seeking true worshippers. They alone
correspond to His desires.
The heart of
the worshipper must respond to the heart of his God. Has not
his God loved and saved him?
[Page 151]
The
Father is
seeking them.
God
is
seeking. These
worshippers are
precious even to God.
Let them be so
also to us!
24. ‘God
is spirit, and they who worship Him, must worship
Him in
spirit and in truth.’*
*
The reason of
this new worship rests not only on God’s
will, but, deeper still, on His nature.
His will springs from His nature.
This
is
a revelation of the inner nature of the three
Persons in the Godhead.
God is, in essence, spirit; supremely above
men, who are flesh.
He is present
everywhere - invisible, yet seeing all; unheard by
the sons of men, though
hearing all; upholding all, though His hands are not
seen. He
is not confined to one spot of earth, as
some of
How
awful
then, the wickedness of the ritualist!
He is going back to the flesh, and to the
letter! He
is taking up with the shadows of the old
and worn-out dispensation.
His holy
place is down below; his priesthood is one given
by man; and to be marked by
dresses and colours, by postures and mutterings.
And,
forasmuch
as he cannot take up exactly the old sacrifices and
rites of Moses, he is thrown upon feasts and fasts, dresses and sanctuaries of his own
devising: which, as Paul tells us, is in
substance, a return to old heathenism.
[Page 152]
This
worship
of the flesh and of the shadow then, is rejected by
God. ‘In vain do they
worship Me, teaching
for doctrines the
commandments of men.’ And
it is the worship of the slave, and
not of the son.
It is the rejection of
the priesthood and present intercession of Christ on
high, Who gives access to all
believers unto the presence of God, as sons accepted
and forgiven. Ritualism
throws the worshippers
off from nearness to God.
Only ‘the priest’
may draw nigh!
‘You, the laity,
keep aloof! I offer prayers for you!’
This, then, is a giving up the place of sons,
and the spirit of a
son. Ritualist
worshippers are still
sinners un-forgiven who have to toil upward to a
hidden God, seated amid the
clouds and fires of Sinai.
They are in voluntary bondage to the beggarly elements of the world;
holding all the while in their hand the
scripture of the New Testament, which
declares the freedom of full access to God, and
the hatefulness of formal
service and will-worship, which set aside Christ. But for
us, ‘there is
now, therefore, no condemnation to them that are
in Christ Jesus.’
‘Let us draw
near
with a true heart, in
full assurance of faith; having our hearts
sprinkled from an evil conscience,
and our body bathed in pure water,’ Heb. 10:
21. (Greek).
The
old
system of Mosaic ceremony once had life in it, for
it was given of God; and
it was something that could feed the soul, because
it testified of a Christ to
come.
But after that the Son of God has come,
and has fulfilled, as the substance, these types;
and after God has discarded these shadows expressly, it is both folly and
wickedness. It
is to leave the bread of
God for the husks of the world.
It is to
go back to the slave’s cell, and to put oneself
under the lash, after the son’s
robe and access to the Father’s house have been
given.
Ritualists are worshipping, on exactly
the opposite system to that here indicated – ‘spirit
and truth.’
It is worship of the flesh amidst
the shadows of
falsehood. It
is in direct contrariety to that word
- that the worshippers of the true God ‘must
worship’
(if they would be accepted), ‘in
spirit and in truth.’
It is the worship of the
senses, and of the
imagination. There [Page 153] must be the cross and the crucifix.
Thus
idolatry is coming in.
There is worship of
the Virgin, because she was mother of our Lord,
after the flesh; and then there
follow other demi-gods, thrusting the true God out
of His place.
From
such ‘holding the form of
godliness, and denying the
power thereof, turn away.’
True worship and salvation go together: false
worship and destruction!
25, 26.
‘The woman saith
unto
Him – “I know that Messiah is coming, who is
called Christ; when He shall have
come, He will tell us all things.”
Jesus
saith unto her – “I am He that am speaking to thee.”’
It
appears
then, that they who only received the five books of
Moses, refusing the
greater light of the prophets, could yet see
clearly, where not blinded by
prejudice, that a greater than Moses was to be
expected, who would clear up the
difficulties, real and theoretic, in regard of
religion, which Moses was unable
to solve. This
might have been gathered
from Deuteronomy.
That which
‘To him that hath shall be given.’ This we
see in the case of this
Samaritan. The
Saviour at once declares
to her that truth which He withheld from His
captious foes.
This
word
of the Saviour seems to me one of the main reasons
on account of which
John gives us this story.
How much turns on true
views of prophecy!
How
could
the coming of Messiah be known?
By
acceptance of the Divine testimony.
The
future can only be known by God’s testimony.
He knows it; we know it only through Him.
[Page
154]
‘But if the Samaritans accepted
only the first five books of
Moses, how did they become possessed of this
knowledge?’
They might find a testimony sufficiently
explicit in Deut. 18:
18. The
light which was possessed by the
neighbouring Jews would in some way be reflected to
them.
Our
Lord
had twice said of a new dispensation ‘It
is coming’
(21-23).
The woman connects the change, and rightly,
with the coming of a new person to
introduce it. Messiah,
she expected, would teach them by
word of mouth: would teach, not
The
Saviour’s
reply was very frank and clear.
What reply we get from God depends much on
the spirit in which we go to
Him; whether we come in sincerity or not.
Thus God answers severely the impenitent
elders of
From
the
refusers of His testimony and blasphemers of His
Spirit, He commands the
disciples to withhold the proclamation of this title
of Messiah (Matt. 16: 20).
‘He that hath to him
shall be given, and he
shall have abundantly; but from him that hath not
shall be taken away even that
which he seemeth to have.’
But
to
one who accepts that great truth of prophecy –
Messiah’s coming [reign] - He speaks
directly, and with the utmost clearness.
And we, too, may say – ‘We know that Messiah is coming; not now to tell us our line of duty, but to requite us according to our
works.’
Let us
hold fast then this piece of knowledge.
It is the basis of a Christian life.
It
was
principally, shall we say, without denying other
reasons, because of this testimony
from our Lord’s mouth, that John cites this
conversation. For
to prove that ‘Jesus
is the Christ’ is, as the Spirit tells us,
the great reason of John’s
writing this book (20:
30, 31).
On the reception or denial of this great
truth turns eternal life, or eternal wrath (John
2:
22, 23; 5: 2).
Now,
there
were in John’s day two great classes of adversaries
to this foundation of
the faith. There
were (1) The Jews,
who accepted by profession Moses and the prophets;
who believed [Page
155]
that a great Deliverer of
David's line was coming; but who denied that Jesus
the Nazarite was that
person. This
position the Jews, where
they have not given up all faith, hold to this day. (2) But
there was a class of Gentile
adversaries, who, quite ignorant probably
of Moses and the prophets,
yet heard great things concerning Jesus and His
disciples; and were compelled
to come to some conclusions about Him.
These distinguished Jesus from the Christ. For only thus would
their
unbelieving theories about God and matter as the
cause of sin, stand.
Jesus to them was the mere man, born as all
others, on whom a Heavenly Being came with intent to
give disclosures
concerning the true God, the Father of the Christ -
a God superior to the
Creator, the God of Israel; and hostile to Him.
The Christ then in their view neither was
born, nor died.
He was not born, because matter was to them the source of all evil.
And matter was the instrument of the
inferior
God, the Creator.
Hence ‘the Christ’
came upon one who was thirty years old, in
order to make Him the instrument of His disclosures
to man. But
neither did ‘the
Christ’ die; for when the
Jews in their race came to seize Jesus - the Christ, who had
provoked the combat, fled away; the Demigod left His
poor victim – the man - to
suffer! These
men owned not the
sinfulness of man, or the justice of a Holy God,
which demanded the
atonement. This
distinction then, this
severance, where God had united, overthrew the
Gospel. It
seemed to admit the facts, while by a
perverse interpretation it gave them a meaning quite
opposite to the
truth. Against
this system John at
Accordingly in this
narrative the proofs of both the
Saviour’s natures are presented.
He is a
man; for He is hungry, thirsty, [Page 156] fatigued. He is more than
a
man; a greater than Jacob, or any of the Patriarchs,
the giver of heavenly
water, the revealer of God as the Father, Himself
being the Son, the Anointed
of the Spirit.
27.
‘And upon this came
His disciples, and were wondering why He was
talking with a woman; none
nevertheless said – “What seekest thou? or why
talkest Thou with her?”’
The
conversation
is broken off at the seventh, or completing reply. God has so
arranged, that this interruption
should not occur before then.
The
disciples were surprised to find our Lord talking with
a woman. The
customs of the East are to this day unfavourable to
it. The
doctrine of the Jewish Rabbis is against
it. The
Law is more severe in its
attitude towards women than the Gospel is, and the
Rabbis had gone beyond the
Law. They still retain their contempt of woman, and
their distrust of her.
Great things has our Lord effected for men
in
this direction.
Where the Gospel has not
entered, the degradation of woman before man
continues to this day.
Once when giving away Testaments at Sora in
We
should
not render ‘with the woman.’ There
is no
article; there was nothing that the disciples knew
about this woman in
particular, that should make it remarkable that He
talked with her.
For as strangers they knew not her
character;
and all they saw was that she was a woman.
The
Rabbis
say – ‘Let none hold a
conversation in the
street with a woman, not even with his wife.
Rather burn the words of the Law than teach
them to a woman.’
‘He who instructs
his daughter in the Law, is as he who plays the
fool.’
‘No man salutes a
woman.’
The
disciples
then imagined it beneath the dignity of the Saviour
to stoop to talk
with a woman. They
knew not the grace of
God and His Son, into which we proud sinners must
seek to enter.
[Page 157]
As
disciples
they reverence their Teacher, and do not press Him for an explanation, which nevertheless He presently
condescends to give.
From this we may
gather the suggestion, confirmed by some other
incidents of His life, that our
Lord impressed His disciples with an undefined sense
of His superiority, which
made them slow to treat Him as an ordinary man.
It is thus indeed that we must often treat
our God. He
acts in a way that we do not expect, and
cannot understand.
But we may not
murmur. Silence
seems at times the only
fitting attitude.
‘I was dumb, and
opened not my mouth because Thou didst it.’ One day
these clouds shall be scattered.
‘What I do thou
knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.’ God must
judge; He cannot be judged, or He
will at last prevail.
‘That thou mightest
overcome when thou art judged.’
28, 29.
‘The woman
therefore
left her waterpot, and went off into the city, and
saith to the men – “Come,
see a man that told me all things that ever I did. Is not
this the Christ?”’
Her
first
errand to the well is forgotten.
Its
importance has dwindled to a point.
She
therefore leaves her waterpot, the sign of her
worldly errand, and of her
former attitude towards God and His Son.
The vessel may be stolen.
Never
mind! Her
thoughts are not of earth now,
but of Christ and of heaven.
The
Messiah, whom all are talking about, is come!
What is a waterpot compared with that?
Brief is the opportunity, and not to be
recalled. A
new waterpot may be had any day.
This leaving of the old because of the new
and its superior importance, is characteristic.
So should it be with the believer.
When he has found Christ his waterpot may be
left; his old objects of
pursuit have diminished greatly.
It were
well for him if he engages, as this woman did, in
seeking to lead others to
Christ. That
is her new errand; and it
brooks no delay, and it thrusts aside the smaller
one. So
Peter, and James, and John, at the call of
Jesus left their nets and ship, and followed Him.
Thus at the news of Jesus
passing by and calling Him, the blind man casts away
his garment in order to
get his sight.
[Page 158]
Her
errand
is now to the city, not to her husband.
She has a message which she can and does
bear. She
raises a report about the wonderful man
who has spoken to her.
And great are the
effects of the message.
The messenger
was weak, and doubtless of small reputation, yet she
is listened to, for their
minds are prepared.
A
single spark falling on dry gunpowder will cause a
mighty explosion.
And here is the wonder which is brought
into
view afterwards, and noticed in Ez.
3: 6,
that the message which
Observe
again,
here is sudden conversion, a
truth constantly attested in the word of God;
refused only by those who think
it a matter of argument, and of a long process of
conviction. But
if an unconverted man be dead, there must
be a definite instant in which he became alive, by
the operation of the Spirit
of God upon his heart.
Being
won
herself to the truth, she seeks to win others. 0 that all
would do so! Eve,
when won over to the devil’s falsehood,
first eats herself, and then proves the tempter to
her husband! Behold
now the blessed contrast of grace!
See faith in the Son incarnate; and the
taper
once lit, it begins to shine for others.
‘Come,
see’ - is her
prevailing word – ‘and judge
for yourselves.’
That was Philip’s saying to prejudiced
Nathanael, and with him also it prevailed.
What hosts of false stories would be
scattered, if men would but come
and judge for themselves!
It was a question
which nearly concerned the Samaritans – ‘Come
and
see. He
is certainly a prophet.
He ranged all my sins [Page
159] before
me! Can
He be the Messiah of whom the
world is talking?
Come and judge!’
To
The
Samaritan
woman gives to her citizens the evidence which is
satisfactory to
herself. Jesus
had proved Himself the
coming prophet by His knowledge of all her past
life. Might
not this then be the Christ whom all
were expecting?
Where God opens
the way, a very ordinary messenger will achieve
great things.
Men greater than Luther in native powers
have
achieved vastly less than He did.
It
was because God had prepared the men of His day to listen, that His witness
was so extensively blessed.
Many
missionaries now in
The
Samaritans
have heard and talked much about this Christ; and
the possibility
that He might be at their doors stirs them to come
and see.
31-34.
‘In the meanwhile His
disciples prayed Him, saying –
“Rabbi, eat!
But He said unto them – “I have
food to eat that ye know not of.”
The
disciples therefore said one to another – “Hath
anyone brought Him ought to
eat?” Jesus
saith to them – “My food is
to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish
His work.”’
‘Meanwhile’ - that word is
designed to call attention
to the interval between the woman’s departure, and
the Samaritans’ coming.
The disciples are convinced of their
Master’s
hunger and fatigue by their own; and having now
procured provisions, they are
desirous that their teacher should be satisfied out
of the supply they have
brought. But
Jesus is so interested in
the great work of saving souls, that for it He
dismisses the call of
hunger. The
woman has given Him greater
joy and strength than any food.
His
wearied frame is alive with new [Page 160] energy.
For the
great object of His mission is now accomplishing. This
sinner has given Him joy, for she has
accepted the tidings of the Saviour come.
And she is gone on His errand to the city;
and He knows her testimony,
and is expecting with vivid interest its success. Food then
is of second-rate importance to Him
now, even as the woman has left her waterpot.
This event was more than the supply of food
to the body. But
the disciples have not His feelings, know
not His success, and are occupied solely about
things seen. Therefore
this figurative expression of
Jesus’ joy they take, as did the woman, literally;
and miss its point.
‘It is no wonder,’ says Augustine, ‘that the woman understood not
the water of which Jesus spoke, when His disciples
understand not the food of
which He speaks.’
But
the
Saviour knows their misunderstanding, and does not
allow it to
continue. Now
comes forth the great
master-principle of our Lord’s life.
He
was bent on achieving His Father’s purpose.
Eliezer, Abraham’s steward, is so bent on
fulfilling his master’s
purpose, that he will not eat till he has told his
errand; although a spread
table is before him.
Only with our Lord
this was ever and always the great object of His
life. Here
is vast superiority to all the sons of
men. They
are set on their own purposes,
finishing their own work, and raising their own
glory; He was content to take
the place of the Father’s servant.
He is
sent. He
is come to do another’s
will. He
acts not through terror, but
love. It
is His delight to do it.
The first Adam turned aside, for he would
be
independent of Him that made him.
But
Jesus, the obedient Son, seeks to obey His Father. He has a
work given Him to do; and but a
brief time to do it in.
He therefore is
ever intent upon it.
Disciples
in
Jesus’ absence had had their meal.
Jesus had had His in working for His Father,
and seeing the blest fruits
thereof. We
may learn hence, that the
labourers for God should have such delight in their
work, as to be ready to
suffer some privations, inconveniences, or
hardships, where the ingathering of
souls requires it.
[Page 161]
Our
Lord always
set before Himself the
doing of His Father’s will as the great aim of His
life. But
He beholds also the accomplishment of it
in His death. Jesus’
life was not broken
off, till He had done the work which the Father gave
Him to do. He
hints then, that during their absence He
had been engaged in doing the Father’s will in the
instruction of this
woman. Great
is His delight over one
sinner brought in, and over others on their way to
it!
And
as
some duties are much pleasanter than others, so here
is His Spirit refreshed
by finding souls ready to accept the testimony to
the Father and the Son.
The Lord make us of one mind with the
Saviour
in this! Let
us not seek to make
ourselves a great name, to be original, independent,
great thinkers, free
actors, owning no master, self-reliant.
All this is the vanity of the flesh; and God
blasts it. It
is not a gathering with Him; it scatters.
The only place we poor sinners can occupy
is
to be servants of the living God, seeking to glorify
the Son of God, who is
God’s great centre.
Be not intent on
your own glory.
‘Them that honour Me, I will honour; and they that despise Me shall be
lightly
esteemed.’
He
who, is puffed up with the
thought of great power, seeks to do his own will,
is really ridden (wild colt
as he is) by Satan, who is spurring him to his own
purposes, and will let him
perish without regard when his emptiness is made
manifest. Let
us seek to find our joy in doing the
Father’s will!
Our own will leads into
sin.
35, 36. ‘Say
not ye, that there are yet four months, and then
comes
the harvest; behold I say to you, “Lift up your
eyes and look upon the lands;
for they are white for harvest already.
And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and
gathereth together fruit for
life eternal, in order that the sower and the
reaper should rejoice together.”’
The
natural
eye of man can see the bud, say, of a lily.
But it needs the glass of a microscope to
see
the future flower, packed in the envelope of its
inner leaves. The
glory of our Lord is, that He sees the
seeds of the greater things to come, in the little
circumstances around
Him. And
so, in this conversation with
the Samaritan woman, and its fruits, He discerns the
principle of [Page
162] the
Gospel, and His soul reaches
on to its great spread in the dispensation, whose
beginning He had foretold to
the woman; and beyond it, to the day of rest, rejoicing, and glory,
after the time of labour should be over.
The
wisdom
of our Lord appears, in His constantly making use of
the circumstances
around Him, to illustrate the truth to be taught. So, to the
fishermen about to be employed as
apostles, He says, with a similar meaning: ‘Follow
Me,
and I will make you fishers of men.’ So,
‘Now do ye
Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup, and
of the platter,’
when at a dinner table.
When out of doors, and in spring, He says:
‘Behold the fig tree, and
all the trees.’ At the well,
Jesus speaks of ‘living
water.’
The
fields
wore as yet only ‘white for
harvest;’ the
apostles were not to go in to reap, till Jesus’
life-work on earth was
over. Not
till the Spirit had come down,
would the men of
Jesus
then,
with far-reaching vision, is comparing together
things natural and
spiritual. As
it regarded the natural
harvest, there were four months still to wait.
It was only December, therefore.
Perhaps the blade was but risen out of the
ground, and quite green.
But His eye was on the spiritual [Page
163]
harvest. That
was to Him - the true harvest.
And there His disciples even were dull of sight. He
beheld,
in the fruits of this woman’s testimony, the
spiritual harvest already
at the doors. ‘Lift
up your eyes.’ Behold, herein, a reference
to the woman’s tidings in its
effect on the faith of many of that city.
Specially his is noticeable, when we
translate accurately – ‘They
went out of the city, and were coming to Him.’ Thus John
relates what happened, while
this coming of the Samaritans was taking
place, on purpose to give us
the clue towards understanding the Saviour’s words. Jesus had
begun His work there, by the
converse with the Samaritan; but it had yet greatly
to unfold itself, before
its completion.
To
an
instructed spiritual eye, this coming of the
Samaritans to Christ, was a
proof of the spiritual harvest of the Gospel, close
at hand. This,
the Saviour deduces, from the
acceptance of His words by the Samaritan woman; and
from the ready attention
which the men of the city gave to her words on
behalf of Christ.
It
is
surprising to see in how many directions
commentators oft go astray.
This
passage is a riddle to all who accept not the
millennial
doctrine. Some make Christ the sower, and the fruit and the reward to be the
same thing; their only idea being, that
the present dispensation of mystery
is the real [and
only]
This passage can only truly be
comprehended, when we see that Jesus is speaking of
three grand dispensations of God. (1) that of sowing; (2) that of
reaping - which is now; and (3) that of the
rest and joy of harvest-time,
or the millennial
reward.
The
apostles
were the reapers, ready to go in, sickle in hand. Accordingly,
the history of the proclamation
of the Gospel in
Division
of
labour is a fruit of civilization.
It
is also a part of God’s counsels, in regard of His
work in the Church.
Not all labourers are fit for every
spiritual
work. But
then will be unity of joy, and
the time of reward will be the same.
God’s coming kingdom is so great, that it
demands, and is preparing, a
great variety of offices and employments of trust. God has
made the great variety, and will own
in that great day, whatever work He can.
This is the ray of light which He
throws athwart the sombre picture, which He presents
to the eye of the twelve, on
sending them forth to preach the kingdom
(Matt. 10.).
They would be rejected oft by house and
city: tried for their lives by
kings, and unable to find peace on earth.
Sad work!
But at the close, He
speaks of the reward of
prophet and righteous man; and promises, that
those who help and encourage them
on their way, shall, with them, partake of the
same reward. Nay, that
the
least gift rendered by the poorest to a disciple,
shall not fail to be
remembered.
The great principle of
the adjustment of places and glories in the coming
kingdom, is - ‘Each
shall
receive his own reward according to his own labour’
1
Cor. 3: 8-14.
Can anything, be more clear, and more
express? The last of the apostles, in one of his
latest words, says – ‘Take heed to
yourselves, that we lose not the things that we
have wrought, but that we
receive a full reward,’ John
2: 8.
The
farm-labourers
of men collect food from the fields; and for safety,
lodge it in
garners for the year’s supply. It is food [Page 165]
for earthly life.
But the spiritual labourer in God’s field,
gathers a higher class of
sheaves than those of nature, and collects them for
a better, even a secure and
eternal granary, and the mansions of eternal life. Now as
there is a time of natural joy, when
the last wagon-load. of the field’s produce has been
placed in security in the
barn, and the more benevolent farmers assemble their
labourers to sup together,
and to rejoice over the success of the year; so, in
a higher sense, the
Lord has provided a time of
joy for
His labourers.
Earthly things are, in many respects, like heavenly. Our Lord
is, herein, pointing out features of
resemblance stronger, and more in number, than the
features of difference.
There
is to be an assemblage at last of God’s workmen. This is
stated in such passages as Luke
13: 28-30; Rev. 11: 18; and Matt.
8: 11, 12.
Apostles and their followers are reapers;
but, if so, who are the
sowers? The
saints of former
generations; the patriarchs; Moses, and the
prophets! There
is to be a rejoicing together at last of God’s
worthies, both of the Old
Testament, and of the New.
This
is
a great truth for us.
It is a great principle also, overthrowing the speculations of those
errorists whom we have had so oft to notice. The Law,
the Prophets, and the Gospel, are
all from the one hand of Jehovah.
The
God of the Old Testament, and the God of the New, is
one God. The
force of this truth is lightly felt now,
because the difference, reaching even to contrast
and opposition between
Christ’s commands and those of Moses, and the
opposite line of conduct
commanded to the Christian, as compared with the Jew
- the man of the earthly
calling - is not seen.
When once this
contrast is felt, the old deceit that there are two
gods, opposed one to
another, will again appear.
The millennial day will bring into full proof the unity of the Great
God, whom both Moses and the Son served. Matt. 5:
10-12 affirms this.
The prophets
and the Saviour’s disciples, are together to
rejoice in the kingdom of heaven.
But
God’s
harvest takes a longer time to ripen than the
natural. The
work of the reaper is still going on on
His farm and a joyful thing it is, to be permitted
to engage in it.
[Page 166]
But let no one say, that pleasure
in work
is wages. Any
labourer knows the difference.
Would you find a farmer able to dismiss his
men after harvest without payment, by saying, - ‘Well
now, lads, you have had such beautiful weather,
and have been so happy among
yourselves as you worked side by side, that you
cannot expect, or even wish,
for wages?’
Methinks labourers so
appealed to, far from being satisfied with such a
speech, would rather imagine
that their employer had taken leave of his senses. Anyone
would reply – ‘Well, sir, ’tis true we have had fair weather, and pleasant companions;
but they are neither of them our wages.
And we have been sorely tired oft, at the
end of a hard day’s work; for
you won’t deny we have cut a good many acres, and
not spared our toil!’
Those
only
would be likely to affirm that we are not to look
for wages, who are
getting on well with the world, and are not
doing the Lord’s work in
the spirit and fulness of the Master’s doctrine. Else the
trials
in the Lord’s work, arising from indifference,
hardships, false
accusations, weariness, disappointments,
persecutions in various shapes, lead
the true labourer oft to look out for ‘the
rest
that remaineth for the people of
God.’ Work is good; work for
Christ
is sometimes pleasant.
But God Himself
distinguishes between pleasant labour, and
pleasanter rest. We
read of our
God, that for six days he laboured, and it was
pleasant labour; but it was on
the seventh
day that ‘He rested, and was refreshed.’
In
our Lord’s words, the difference is noted between
reaping time and payment.
The
sowers
have passed away from earth; the reapers alone are
now on earth. It is only in resurrection,
that the time of joy for God’s servants can come. Hence,
each description of that day, gives us
the union of the living saints, and of the
departed in the first resurrection, and the [Messianic] kingdom.
Our Lord’s own joy, and that of His
disciples, is to be in a
day to come, after His
adjudication of each, and the sentence to His
approved
ones – ‘Enter into the joy of your
Lord.’
You workers for God then, hold
on, and hold out!
You get trials enough by the way!
But
look onward! Beyond [Page
167] work, with its varied scenes of
encouragement and of discouragement, comes reward! Here
there are glimpses of joy, but the river
of joy will flow only in a future day.
It were a saddening thought for Paul in
the dungeon of Rome, and with the sword over his
neck, all having fallen away
from his side, that his only wages was his work. The
work,
which he so forcibly describes, led him into dangers
and sufferings continual,
and into perpetual conflict.
No! He
knew better. This
scene was only the severe training and
the labour of the race; his eye was on the crown
therefore to follow and to be
given in
another day.
(2
Tim. 4: 8)
‘The Lord, the
Righteous Judge, shall give me’
(not in this day) but ‘in that day.’ This
figure of
the harvest finds its justification in the 0ld
Testament feast of Tabernacles,
which comes after the fruits of
the earth are gathered in.
37. ‘For
herein is the saying true, that the sower is one
party,
and the reaper is another.
I sent you to
reap that whereon ye laboured not.
Others have laboured, and ye have entered
into their labours.’
This
is
a common proverb among men.
Such is
the uncertainty of life, that in the short interval
of six or seven months
between sowing and reaping, the one who laboured at
putting in the wheat often
does not ingather the sheaves.
The sower
dies ere the harvest is gathered into the garner. A hostile
troop rushes into the land, and
carries off the crop against the will of the sower.
Yon family has decided on
emigration. They leave the country.
They
have sowed; others will reap.
Much more
is this true in the spiritual harvest of God.
For His year is a year of an interval of
thousands of years.
With Him ‘one day
is
as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one
day.’
And, as compared with a thousand years, man’s
life now is brief indeed.
The sowing
patriarchs, Moses and the prophets, had occupied
four thousand years, and the reaping
now is occupying nearly two thousand.
The law and the prophets had sown God’s word,
and now a new scene had
begun, which was to outlive the duration of many
sons of men. [Page
168] The reaping is not over yet; the paying of the wages is not come. Nor is it
to be looked for till the end of
the day of grace, and the ingathering of the wheat
into God’s garner in the day
of judgment.
The
evidence
of the sowing has come before us in the Lord’s words
with the
Samaritan. She
had learned of Moses, in some
measure, how God was to be worshipped.
She was no idolater.
Some rays
from Moses and the prophets in relation to the
future and the better
dispensation of Messiah’s teaching and reign had
penetrated her soul.
She was ready to admit that the Messiah had
come. Her
countrymen, too, had been
wrought on in the same way.
They knew
something, they were expecting more, as the result
of the foundation-truths
laid by Moses and the prophets.
In
these
words, then, our Lord is not the sower, but the
Master of the
Harvest. A
sower does not commission
reapers to reap.
But here we have, ‘I
sent you.’ And the
Great Master will at last rejoice in the
joy of His work accomplished, and its security; and
in the joy of the
workmen. ‘We are
co-workers with God.’
The
reapers
are apostles, and all evangelists and ministers of
the Gospel since
that day. They
are placed in a more
favourable situation in their ministry of the truth,
because of the previous
teaching and reception of foundation-truths.
They are sent to bring in souls, and their
efforts are made successful
by virtue of the former instructions given.
Souls are in general more easily led to
Christ in countries where
Christianity has been nominally accepted, than in
lands where formerly there
had been only blank heathenism, and where the first
elements of truth have to
be acquired.
Thus
the
Master assumes, as a truth not to be disputed, that
the 0ld Testament and
the New both come from one hand.
The
patriarchs and the Law are the preparation for the
coming of the Son of God and
His good news.
God’s demands go first,
to prove to proud man that he
must be saved, not by his own goodness, but through
God’s grace. This
is to us (thank God) [Page
169] a
first truth. It
is the breaking up of the hard soil by the
ploughshare, and then the seed is to
be cast in.
But
in
John’s day these truths were refused.
Clever speculators of un-humbled hearts,
laboured to set the Law against
the Gospel; and to deny the oneness of the scheme,
and of the God that devised
and executed it.
These errors will come
back again. Therefore,
hold fast the
contrary truth.
And not only so.
Let each see for himself the foundations
deep
and sure on which the truth rests in the Word of
God; that not only his own
faith may not be shaken, but that he may be able to
convict and silence
gainsayers.
The
oneness
of the God, from whom the Law and the Gospel came,
seems to me especially
taught in the last book of Scripture a book which
also came from the hand of
John. He
tells us of the awful ending of
this dispensation of grace, and of the incoming of a
new one in the terrors of
justice. He
assures us, therefore, that
One who is both ‘First and
Last, Alpha and Omega,’
has strung all the dispensations, as so many pearls,
on the same thread of
gold.
‘I
sent you to reap.’ This seems
to be the prophetic past, such as
we often meet in the Scriptures of the prophets. ‘He
is
come
to Aiath, He is
passed
to Migron; at
Mich-mash He hath laid up His
carriages’ [baggage] Is.
10: 28.
‘Put ye in the
sickle, for the harvest is ripe:
Come, get you down, for the
press is full, the vats overflow, for their wickedness is great,’ Joel
3:
13.
The
Saviour
would keep His apostles humble, when they saw great
results arising out
of their ministry.
They had not produced this earnest desire to hear, out of which came
the turning of so many to Christ.
The
awakening at Sychar was due to voices and hands that
were silent and
mouldering. Thus
the great results of
Paul’s preaching were due, in no small measure, to
the previous teachings of
the Old Testament writers.
Paul at each
place found a synagogue, and there to those first
elements of truth were gathered
Jews and the devout among the Gentiles, who [Page 170]
were enlightened by Moses and the Prophets, yet
disposed to
hear of the coming of Him on whom the
hopes of
So
it
is now in a like sense, though not exactly the same. What is
the reason of Moody’s great
success? He
has the reaper’s arm and
sickle; and he has gathered in where others have
sown. He
has pressed souls to decision who formerly
have been instructed about Christ, but had not
actually received Him.
These
words
of the Saviour also look onward to the days of the [Holy]
Spirit’s
descent, and of Christ’s commission to Apostles to
travel away from Jerusalem
to Samaria, and then boldly to ply the
sickle
where He had begun to reap.
The
Son
of God then commissions His ‘disciples’
(they
are not designated as ‘apostles’ in this connection)
to carry out the previous
teachings of His elder servants.
There
were three spheres in which they would be especially
called to labour:- (1)
Yet
apostles
did not go; no, not even when the persecution about
Stephen broke up
the Church at
39-42. ‘And
many of the Samaritans of that city believed on
him for
the saying of the woman, which testified, “He told
me all that ever I did.”
So when the Samaritans were come unto
Him,
they besought Him that He would tarry with them;
and he abode there two days. And
many
more believed because of His own word. And said
unto the woman, “Now we
believe, not because of thy saying: for we have
heard Him ourselves, and know
that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the
world.”’
We
are
then led to see the effects produced at the moment
in this city. Many
believed in Jesus as the Messiah,
because of the feeble testimony to His prophetic
powers given by the
woman. How
joyful to find that our weak
hand has been owned to lead others to faith!
She saw no miracle wrought by Jesus, and yet
both believed herself, and
led others to do so.
The
Samaritans
desire further acquaintance with Christ, and ask Him
to stay with
them. This
showed their zeal.
We do not often find such a petition
addressed to Christ by any city.
The
Lord in
The
Saviour
is gracious, and cannot refuse the prayer of faith,
although He was not
sent then to Samaritans. But if before His death He
can stay there two days,
apostles, after the barrier of Judaism was removed,
after the word of command
had been given, and the Spirit come, might have gone
and abode there a long
while.
From
this
passage we may learn - that it is a piece of
Christian wisdom to stay
awhile where there is an open door, and a desire for
further instruction.
Such cases are few and far between; and
this
is an intimation of future success about to begin,
as well as a field of
labour.
[Page 172]
During
His
stay at Sychar began our Lord’s own proper ministry
among the people.
The woman led them to Christ; but their
experience of what He was Himself greatly advanced
beyond the woman’s
testimony. They
now tell the woman that their
faith had found a better anchor-hold than her talk. Yet we see
that a woman’s testimony may be
blest. She
does not preach, but her
testimony in private is owned of God.
To
believe without seeing is blessed; for Christ has
said so. But
there was an especial force and joy in
the doctrine, when the Lord Himself was both seen
and heard by men of faith.
‘We know that He is indeed the
Saviour of the world.’
There was something about His person, His
ways, His words, His spirit, that was unlike any
Jew, or any man they had ever
before seen. If
enemies, sent to take
Christ, confessed that none they had ever heard
spoke as He did, and were
deterred thereby from seizing him, though sent on
that very errand; what must
have been the effect on those souls prepared to
accept Messiah? They seized on
some testimony of Christ, which He gave them
concerning the new dispensation
about to begin, as He had at first notified to the
woman. That
was good news to them.
The
Jews were in general, to the Samaritans, cold and
repulsive;
righteous men in their own estimation, despising
and hating these pretenders.
But now the Samaritans had found One who was
really the Righteens One, yet full
of grace and truth.
They learn that He
has messages of grace for others beside
Christ
is
‘the Saviour of the world.’
He
came to save, not the Jews only, but Gentiles also. This is an
answer to any who should say, that
the mission to the Gentiles was an after thought,
forced on Christ, by the
unsuccessfulness of His appeal to
43. ‘But
after the two days, He went out thence, and went
away
into
But
the
Lord would not tarry long in
The
Samaritans
received our Saviour on His own word, without
demanding a sign.
His own countrymen would accept Him, only
on
account of the miracles He wrought.
Difficulties
there
are in this passage. (1) ‘Jesus
went, for
He said’: We should expect, ‘although
He knew.’
What was ‘His own
country?’
The
miracles
of Moses were God’s signals, that He was the
Deliverer appointed to
rescue
45. ‘Then
when He was come into Galilee, the Galileans
received
Him, having seen all the things that he did at
The
Galileans
received Jesus, it was true; but it was because of
His miracles
wrought elsewhere.
But the signs did not
lead them to Christ Himself; and they required yet
further wonders, to keep
them by His side.
Jesus then reproaches
They
were
observant of God’s commands by Moses, of the
threefold pilgrimages every
year, though they had the farthest distance to
travel. In
HEALING THE COURTIER’ SON.
46-54. ‘So
Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where He
made the
water wine. And
there was a certain
nobleman, whose son was sick at
Jesus
returns
to
The
nobleman
has some faith.
He has heard of
Jesus’ past works of wonder, and believes He can
help in this emergency.
But his faith is weak.
The Lord must come to the spot.
His word cannot heal one so far away.
Jesus
replies
with a word of rebuke, apparently intended for the
Galileans in general
- and their weakness of faith, as compared with the
credit given Him by the
Samaritans.
The
courtier
is not thrown off from the Saviour by this rebuke;
though Naaman went
away in a rage, at a far less trial.
And
he believes the word of Jesus, without anything
seen, or anything to be done by
Him. But
this sign received for his son,
leads him really to accept Christ for himself.
What a blessing was that sickness which
troubled the household, only to
rest it on a better foundation Christian father and
mother, take your child to
Christ! See
the blessings that come to
the prayers of intercession!
And, like
the troubled father, leave your care with Christ. Be not
anxious! ‘But with prayer and
thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to
God’ and the peace of
God shall guard your heart (Phil.
4.). The
ways of God are not our ways.
The
nobleman is tested and tried, ere the answer comes. And then
he sees that Jesus is something more
than a prophet who works wonders.
The
courtier
will not take the general observation as an answer
to himself.
His
case is pressing.
He will be satisfied
with nought but a reply to his petition.
His distress of soul swallows up all other
thoughts. Jesus
must come down to the edge of the lake,
else his son could not be healed.
But
the Saviour exceeds his expectations, after putting
his faith to a sorer test.
‘Go, your son is recovered!’ ‘He
believed’
- faith comes first.
‘He went’ -
peace and obedience
follow.
Had he not believed, he would have still
stood by Christ, not satisfied
till the Saviour went with him.
So was
it with the Shunammite.
She would not
leave the prophet; Gehazi and his staff may go!
Her hope is in him.
Anxiety
was
over, as soon as the nobleman trusted the word of
Christ. Still,
he did not anticipate an instant and
perfect cure.
‘When did
my son begin to amend?’
is his question.
But he finds at last he
has to do with ‘the Eternal
Life,’ who was with
the Father, and is now manifested to us children of
sin and death. [Page
178] Jesus gives him two lessons - (1) the first, of instruction; (2) the
second, of consolation; attended with the finger of power.
‘Blessed are those who have not
seen, and yet believe.’
For many who saw signs in that day, did not
believe. Even when Lazarus, at Christ’s call, came
forth from the tomb, some
went their way to inform the enemies against Jesus. While,
then, miracle is a mighty call from
God, and was oft effectual (the only instances of
the conversion of whole towns
being where healings had taken place), yet, of
themselves, even these avail not
to bring faith.
But, so much the greater
will be the condemnation, as unbelief is held fast
against evidence to the
contrary.
The
nobleman’s
faith is confirmed on the way.
His servants come to tell him of the child’s
rescue from death. ‘Thy son
liveth.’
He had not died.
But this is the
Hebrew way of expressing recovery: a new lease of
life. It
is used, too, of resurrection out of death
(Rev. 20: 4-6*).
The servants’ conduct was
good. They
had so their master’s
interests at heart, and so delight to give him
pleasure and to remove his
anxiety, as to travel on purpose to meet him.
*
The true reading.
He
naturally
enquires: ‘When did the lad
begin to get
better?’
It was at the moment
when Jesus spoke the word.
He who said
to the light – ‘Let light be,’
and it came; now
shows Himself lord of life also.
He bids
disease depart, and it goes.
The
nobleman connects together the Saviour’s word at a
distance, with the departure
of the fever. ‘The
Light was the Life of men.’
It is He who shall prolong life against the inroads of death, during
the millennial day.
The correspondence between the word and the
cure, was not a chance that
happened, but the forth-putting of divine power. It was a
sudden and entire recovery.
The
father
believes the connection of the two events.
They were bound together as cause and
effect. He
therefore ‘believed’ -
himself and his household.
Some
few,
of the great of the world, accept Jesus.
[Page 179]
54. ‘This
is again the second sign which Jesus did, on
coming out
of Judea into
Jesus’
miracles
in
In
the
special miracles, by which God commended the
ministry of Paul to the
Ephesians, we are told that there must be some
tangible connexion with Paul, to
effect the result: Acts
19: 11, 12, ‘And
God used to do not the ordinary miracles by the
hands of
Paul. So
that even to the sick were
borne fron his flesh, handkerchiefs
or
aprons; and the diseases departed, and the evil
spirits went out.’
Hence
the
Saviour notes, as possessed of surprising faith, the
Roman centurion, who
could tell our Lord that it needed but a word on His
part, to bid the disorder
depart; because the
diseases were
as attentive to His will
as the soldiers and servants of the centurion’s
household were to their
master’s orders.
The design of
miracle is to produce trust in God, through His Son
Jesus. God
finds men distrusting His goodliess -
misrepresenting His character - disbelieving His
word. The
aim of God the Father, the Son, and the
Spirit, is to produce faith. Unbelief is spiritual
death and condemnation.
Faith is life and joy.
John wrote this Gospel, with a view to
produce faith in God, through the words and works of
His Son, who is the ‘Eternal
Life, that was with the Father, and was made
manifest
to us.’
*
*
*
CHAPTER 5
[Page 180]
1, 2. ‘After
these things, there was a feast of the Jews, and
Jesus
went up to
We
have
now Jesus arrived in Jerusalem; and the increasing
displeasure of Israel
against Him is drawn out by His works of grace on
the Sabbath; and, still more,
by His manifestation to them of the principles on
which He did so.
This
narrative
is designed, as one of its main reasons, to teach us
the insufficiency
of the Law - bring peace, rest, and healing to its
most zealous observers: and
the need of the Son’ coming in grace.
et
it shows us, too, how the zealots for Moses resisted
this grace, and sought to
destroy the Giver.
3, 4. ‘In
these lay a great multitude of sick folk, of
blind, halt,
withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For
an angel went down at a
certain season into the pool, and troubled the
water: whosoever then first
after the troubling of the water stepped in was
made whole of whatsoever
disease he had.’
God
had
promised at the opening of
But
[Page 181]
Law
cannot
give the sinner freedom from the wrath of God; or
rest, or strength, or
deliverance. It
is designed to discover
man’s emptiness; not to enrich him; to humble, not
to exalt. Nor
can Law give to God rest, or teach man to
work or to rest with God.
It cannot
discover God as ‘the Father.’ The men of
Law refuse this new and gracious
title of God.
Let
us
be thankful, if God gives us health!
How
great a mercy it is, yet how little regarded!
Let us use it in His service!
Why
was
this great multitude gathered there?
In the hope of a cure.
How was it
obtained? Our
text says, by the descent
of an angel, at uncertain times.
Some
have doubted about the authenticity of verse
4;
and this passage is omitted in some good
manuscripts. For
myself, I accept it as established on
good authority, and as necessary to make sense.
How
much
will men give, do and suffer, when in pain and
sickness, in the hope of a
cure? Here
God was pleased to give a
small and precarious help, to His people at
Out
of
this multitude, Jesus, in His sovereignty, singles
out one case; a case of
peculiar interest and sadness. For thirty-eight years, the man had been powerless!
Let us, who for that time have had the free
use of our limbs, give God
thanks!
The
Saviour
would display, then, His grace and power.
‘Wilt thou be made
whole?’
Not a doubt but he
desired it! Yet
Jesus hereby draws out
to our notice the hopelessness he felt himself.
‘Wilt thou be made whole?’ Not –
‘Come, heal thyself!’
Law had put that long enough before Him, and
in vain.
This
is
our Lord’s word still, to the sick of soul.
‘Wilt thou
(hast thou the wish to?) be
made whole?’
God will not save [Page 182] a man against his will. He
who prefers
darkness and death, may have his own way; for the
Most High desires to prove to
us the utter enmity of man’s heart, which displays
itself in such careless
disregard, or such frantic resistance to His offers
of salvation. This
is to be noted, in opposition to those
who think that salvation is so sovereign a thing,
that it is not offered as an
object to man’s choice, if he will; and, that the
refusal does not increase his
damnation. Is
there any reader who desires
to be healed? He
can be, at once! It
is not that he (poor sheep) is obliged to
run to and fro in vain quest of the Shepherd.
Christ has come as the Good Shepherd, to
seek and to save him!
This
sick
man is a picture of
A
hope was presented to
The
impotent
man’s reply shows, that his case, in the very
presence of a possible
cure, was, to the human eye, hopeless.
Those whose disorders did not affect their
lower limbs, were able at
once, on the disturbance of the water, to descend,
and obtain a cure.
But he could not move so fast.
And there was none to help him toward a
trial. ‘Each one
for himself!’
It is probable
then, that there was on his face a look of despair,
which led Jesus to show him
that the cure was within his reach, though from
another quarter than that which
he expected. This
man [Page
183]
then, is a picture of the
spiritual state of multitudes under the Law.
Wishing for healing, but prevented from
attaining it by weakness.
The Law presented to man the way of life by
obedience. ‘Do
and live.’
But owing to his
weakness, as well as his depravity, there was no
winning it thereby.
‘The flesh is weak.’ Hence, the
Scripture says, ‘When we
were yet without
strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly,’ Rom.
5: 6.
How
difficult
the cure of a disease of nearly forty years’
standing! Yet
the Lord can cure a spiritual disorder of
longer duration still.
Jesus then issues
His command -
8. ‘Rise,
take up thy bed, and walk.’
If
the
man had been perverse, he might have said, ‘How
can I rise?
How can I lift my
bed? Why
do You mock my infirmity?’
But he did not.
He attempted to obey the word, and found
strength in so doing.
9.
‘And immediately the man was
made whole, and took up
his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the
sabbath.’
He comes and speaks, not as
Moses the servant, but as
‘Jehovah, the Healer.’ He does
not pray- ‘Lord,
heal this poor sufferer.’ He
speaks, and it is done.
He commands, and it stands fast.
Moses is obliged to say of his sister
Miriam
– ‘Heal her now, 0 Lord, I
beseech thee.’ But
this prophet greater than Moses says‑ ‘Rise and
walk!’
The
order
to carry his bed (strong proof of his cure!) brought
on the controversy
which is presently detailed. The Saviour did it
designedly. ‘On the same day was
a Sabbath.’
The whole
day probably was not a Sabbath.
But their Sabbath began at six of the previous
evening. So
that this cure would have been effected at
some time after sunset.
There were
special Sabbaths attached to the Jewish feasts.
The
Jews
at once resent this breach of the Sabbath.
No burthen was to be borne on the
Sabbath-day; no servile work done (Neh.
13: 19; Jer. 17: 21).
The Jews were not wrong then in making the
complaint. They were wrong, in refusing the
Saviour’s justification of the
command. The [Page 184] man at once transfers the blame, if blame there were, to Him Who by
supernatural energy had wrought the cure.
Here was his warrant to do as he had done. The man
shakes himself free of their
reproaches by appealing to the word of his
deliverer! So,
reader, with us.
We have only to obey Christ.
‘Let no man judge
you
in respect of meat or drink, festival, new moon or
Sabbath!’ These
belong to Moses’ men.
Christ has fulfilled them for us.
We are not under Law, much less under the
traditions of men; but under Christ and
Grace!
12, 13. ‘Then
asked they him, “What man is that which said unto
thee,
Take up thy bed, and walk?”
And he that
was healed wist not who it was: for Jesus had
conveyed Himself away, a
multitude being in that place.’
Their
reproach,
then, and displeasure lighted on our Lord.
As yet, indeed, the cured man could not
tell
them who it was that had healed him.* But miracles
were not so plentiful in
that day, as to leave the intelligent in doubt who it was.
*
Observe how the
different mode of stating the matter
shows the heart.
The cure done says, ‘He
that made
me whole, said.’ They
say, ‘Who bade thee take up thy
bed?’ For
there
lay
the grievance to them,
which the miracle could not atone for.
Observe
the
Saviour’ modesty, His contrariety to man’s usual
glorification of
Himself. He
would make no theatric use
of miracle. He
healed but one of the many;
He bid him leave the place; and Himself left it
also. Jesus did not desire to
collect a multitude.
That is foretold by
the prophet as one of the peculiarities of this
special servant of God (Is.
42: 1).
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 unto thee.”’
The
Saviour
afterwards finds him in the temple.
This shows that our Lord was accustomed to
resort thither.
It was His Father’s house.
It speaks well for the healed one, that he
used his now-found power to go thither.
It would seem that he came to give God
thanks; perhaps to offer an
offering of thanksgiving.
Let us, when God
has appeared on our behalf, render Him the just dues
of praise!
The
Lord’s
third word to him is one of warning.
He was [Page 185] rejoicing in his recovered power.
It was well. ‘Sin no
more; lest a worse thing
come to thee.’
Let him beware of
sin. Returning
to that, he would have a
relapse of his disorder, and no further cure.
Probably too, the Saviour, beneath these
words, designs him to
understand that still worse penalties attach to sin
than the present disorders
which it induces on the body. Sickness and infirmity
are bad; but woe to those
who enter unforgiven on the fiery place of torment
for the lost! Thirty-eight
years of penalty are sad; but
what shall the eternity of suffering for unforgiven
sin be? Sickness, pain, and
death, are the consequences of sin.
Often
the sickness corresponds
to the sin. Law
threatens disease as the
result of sin.
Jesus
would keep him in the right path by both
gratitude and fear.
Gratitude for the benefit he enjoyed; the
delightful sense of limbs moving in strength and
freedom at his will; and the
fear of offending Him by whose word he was
healed.
The
healed
one reveals to the enemies of Christ the name of his
Healer. But
he does not say, ‘It is Jesus who broke the Sabbath, and told me to do so.’
16. ‘And
for this cause the Jews were persecuting Jesus,
because
He used to do these things on the Sabbath.’
This
verse
lets us know, that such healings on the Sabbath were
customary with the
Lord Jesus. This
is the force of the
imperfect tense.
What may we then
consider was our Lord’s meaning in so doing?
1. He wished them to see, that a new dispensation had begun. He would
have them learn that the foretold prophet, like unto
Moses, had come.
He called in question, then, or set aside,
the old token of the covenant. For the Sabbath was to be to
2. He was calling in question
Yet
this
miracle ought to have proved to them the sad in
sufficiencies of the
Law. Here
was a circumcised Jew, who ha
been smitten for sin; but neither priest nor
sacrifice, neither
So Jesus did well, and was persecuted
for it. It will be our lot too, if we walk in the Master’s steps.
This is our calling our strange and
seemingly
unreasonable calling; quite the contrast to Law, and
to its promises of all
earthly blessings of obedience.
But if
the walk of the Christian in following
now a rejected Christ is strange, strange also,
even to admiration, will be the
glory attendant on it in the day to come!
Ought
not
the power of miracle attendant on this practice of
our Lord, to have proved
to them how wrong they were?
Whose power
was it, that thus, in God’s own city, healed?
Did not the God of Israel thus attest, that
it was His will and counsel
that so it should be?
But the Jews were
not in the mood quietly and patiently to enquire
what were our Lord’s reasons
for so doing. As
if they knew all, and
as if Moses were all-sufficient, they persecute the
Son of God. The
men of Moses stand by Law, by their own
righteousness, and a heritage on earth.
How many there are who plead still for ‘the
Sabbath,’
as if we
were still under Moses’ Law; and not under Christ
and grace!
[Page 187]
‘But are we not to obey at all times the moral law?’ What
do you mean by ‘the moral
law?’ ‘The
Ten
Commandments, to be sure!’ No,
friend, no!
To
call
the Ton Commandments ‘the
moral law’ is to
speak without Scripture.
They are the
core of the old covenant made with
17. ‘But
Jesus answered them – “My Father is working up to
the
present moment, and I am working too.”
These
words
are a reference to the history of God’s creating all
in six days, and to
the resting of the Most High on the seventh day. The Sabbath, as given to
Jesus
then
displays His Father and Himself, as taking quite
another attitude than
under Moses. Moses
spoke of God’s
creation-work and rest as complete; but Jesus speaks of His Father and Himself as at work. Could
God
have satisfaction and rest in creation, after
Satan His enemy had come in,
and brought in restlessness, lawlessness,
judgment, and death?
No!
God is the God of life.
He began
again then to work a new work, on principles never
to be disturbed by any
foe. He
is at work in redemption.
The
new
creation shall rest on the finished work of Christ. The
Great Potter, after His
first vessel is marred in His hands, [Page 188]
is at work
anew to frame a better vessel, never to be
destroyed; something in which He
shall be able to rest.
After six days of
redemption-work, He shall bring in, on the seventh
day, a time of satisfaction,
and of rest in His redemption-work so far
accomplished.
Happy are those whom He shall then call to
be
with Him in the redemption-rest of the millennial
day! Jesus has
already brought in a work of atonement and
obedience, in which God rests with
full satisfaction.
And He presents it to
us, that we also may rest with Him in it.
We are to rest from all attempts at
justifying ourselves under Law.
The work of Christ is complete; complete
for
us. We
have but to put on the robe He
has made. Some
of my readers have
probably done so.
We have come out from
Law to grace. We
rest with full
satisfaction in the work of the Son of God; we are
quiet from all attempts at working
to obtain righteousness.
But God is also working still; Christ has called us to be His servants; and
has given us work to do till He comes back, and bids
us cease. ‘Son, go
work to-day in my vineyard.’
‘Occupy till I come.’
Let us work then with God now, that He
may call us to rest with Him, when His
redemption-rest of the thousand years is
come! ‘Let us labour therefore to enter into
that rest,
lest any fail, after the same example of
disobedience.’
In
this
passage of John it is implied, that Jesus and His
Father are the Creators. The original rest is gone because of sin; God’s work is begun anew,
with a view to redemption.
He is the
giver of the Sabbath-law, and therefore Lord of
the Sabbath.
As the old Sabbath could not give the
sinner
rest, it is set aside.
The
believer keeps the ‘Lord’s
day.’
The
Jews
believed that God was satisfied with them, and
resting in the old covenant
and its Sabbath; that He was well pleased with their
observance of it.
They were resting in, and with Jehovah, and
He in them. Jesus
assures them of their
mistake. God
was not at rest, but at
work. Law
can give rest neither to God nor to a
fallen creature.
The prophet says of
another day - ‘He shall rest
in His love,’ Zeph.
3:
17. But
Law, applied to sons [Page
189] of
Adam only, brings in sin,
judgment, and death.
Jehovah could find
no rest in
Was
there
no rest for God in the Law, or in
But
the
Father’s work and the Son’s was not the kind of work
which the Law
forbade. The
Most High was not indeed
subject to the Law of Moses.
But that
which the Law forbade was ‘servile
work,’
work, such as is done by servants. But
this was master-work; such as the Lord of all alone could do!
And it is by that alone, in spite of man’s
cavils, unbelief, and dissatisfaction, that the
eternal rest can come.
It is only in the new name of the Father,
manifested in
grace by the Son, that
rest can come.
‘Come
unto Me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden,
and I will give
you rest.’
Law’s
Sabbath
was God’s demand of rest from
man. And
he knew not the true rest, and
could not give it to God, and could not find it in
himself, as this poor
powerless cripple showed.
The Son,
therefore, must give to the weary and un-restful
true repose within; and at
last bring full rest of body and soul in that
redemption, which is God’s
finished work.
Law kept the sinner still
infirm. He
must be delivered from Law
into grace, before he could find strength and
repose.
18. ‘For
this cause therefore still more the Jews sought to
slay
Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but
called God also His own Father,
making Himself equal with God.’
1. Jesus then, as they saw, was setting aside Moses and the old covenant,
and them as no longer God’s people, and not the only
ones in whom He could find
pleasure. They
therefore rose in enmity
against Him. They
would not take the
place of sinners weighed in Law and found empty. They
persecute, therefore, and seek to slay
their Benefactor. They will not confess [Page 190]
that Moses can be changed, or anything better
arise. Spite
of two thousand years of failure
and of trouble brought in by Law upon them, they
cling to the rod of iron; as
if the deserts of the soils were any better, or
could produce more blessed
fruits than the deservings of their fathers.
Jesus should die, as a breaker of the
Sabbath. But
what, then, of this miraculous cure?
Did it not seem as if the Maker of the
Sabbath attested His good pleasure in the Breaker of
the Sabbath? Here
was their stumbling.
2. But His defence of Himself in so doing exasperated them. In place of
confessing His sin, He in effect declared, that in
this exercise of power He
was above and beyond the bonds of Law, as truly as
Jehovah their God.
He asserted that He was not a figurative
but
the real Son of God; in such a sense as that, if God
did not break the Sabbath
by carrying on the processes of nature in making His
sun to rise and set, and
keeping up the beating of their hearts within their
bosoms, neither did He!
This
drew
out anew name and manifestation of God.
The New Testament is founded on a new name of
God. And Jesus in this and
the next four chapters is engaged in testifying to
the Jews by work and by word
this new name of God.
In fact, all
dispensations must ultimately rest upon the name of
God which is being manifested.
Such as is the name of God, such is the kind of work
He works; and such will
hereafter be the kind of rest brought in.
The
Father
and the Son are two persons, but indissolubly united
in love and
nature. That
is the testimony of this Gospel;
and man’s resistance of this, and wrecking himself
against it, is
manifest. This
enmity will at length
reach its highest point, in the person of one
pervaded by the spirit of Satan,
who will deny the Father, and the Son; at whose
coming, men will shout with
delight, and at length be led to fight against God.
Man
desires
to be a God to himself - to do his own will, and to
own no lord; to be
un-derived, original, pleasing himself alone, and
displaying his freedom by
despising and breaking [Page 191] the commands of God. But
thus
he proclaims his emptiness, his restlessness, his
captivity to Satan.
The
Jews,
as they stood by the old covenant, and its rest
enforced by the penalty
of death, defended the great truth of the Unity of
God. But
they would not allow that in the unity of
the Godhead there might be also a plurality - a
Father and a Son.
Moses was engaged chiefly in testifying to
the fathers the oneness of the Godhead, in
opposition to the idolatries of the
nations around, which degraded the Deity by their
innumerable godships.
That truth their fathers refused, and were
continually smitten for it, till at length they were
swept off from the Holy
Land captives to
But
this
testimony of Jesus the men of Law refused, and so
remain under Law and its
curse. They
were ancient Unitarians, and
standing on one truth, they fought against its
sister. Thus
all who refuse the doctrine of the
Trinity in Unity remain sinners condemned under Law. They will
abide by the consequence of their
own work, tried by God’s justice.
They
refuse the Son, whose revelation has brought in the
Gospel; and hence, as
unbelievers, they ‘shall not see life, but the wrath of God
abideth on them.’
[Page 192]
‘He said that God was HIS OWN FATHER,
making Himself equal with God.’
A
man might blasphemously and out of his own heart
assert his essential
deity. One
will do it in the latter day,
as Jesus here notices.
But in our Lord
there was not one of those evil principles from
which such sin could flow.
Satan sought to dissever Jesus from His
obedience and subjection to the Father, now by
unbelief, now by presumption.
But he failed.
The Saviour saw no goodness or joy in being
disconnected from God.
His joy was,
subordinately to follow out the Father’s will.
How this should teach us that true glory and true
happiness consist, not in self-reliance, not in
proud living to self, but in
acting out the will of God. Did Jesus feel it no
degradation to carry out the Father’s will, and
not His own?
Then our glory is not to be first and
chief,
and to have our own way; but to walk lowly and
humbly in the path of subjection
to God.
We
are
either at peace with God, or enemies to the Father
and to the Son,
according as we accept or reject the Trinity.
For the Father and the Son are to live
together evermore with the Spirit
in blissful union.
He, then, who
declares Jesus to blaspheme in asserting equality
with the Father, cannot live
at peace with the Son or with the Father, who gave
Him and gives Him evermore
this place! Hence
the Father must
express by the flames of hell-fire his displeasure
at these rebels against His
Son and Himself.
They fight against God
now; they are prisoners of war in His dungeons
evermore!
‘Making Himself equal with God.’ That was
true. Jesus,
far from denying the charge, in the
ensuing verses more and more clearly and roundly
asserts it. Now,
if it had been a mistake, it was His
duty to have at once corrected them; to have
declared that they had entirely
misapprehended Him, and that He neither was, nor
professed to be, anything more
than a man like themselves.
What a sin
is it, for a sinful man to make himself equal with
God! Folly,
blasphemy, impiety!
When such a mistake has arisen, with regard
to those [Page 193] that are
men - and holy men, they at once, and with horror, disclaim any such idea as that they are God, and equal with
Him. Thus
Peter refused worship, even
when an angel had bid Cornelius to send for him, and
had taught him to listen
at Peter’s lips, for the word which should save him. Thus Paul
and Barnabas refuse with horror the
worship which was about to be rendered to them, on
the supposition that they
were gods. All
the three say- ‘Do not so! We
are men like yourselves.’ Does
Jesus do so? Nay,
He never refuses.
He always accepts the worship due to God
alone! He
sometimes calls for it, as in
the contest here.
In this place, He goes
on to elevate His own pretensions; declaring that
there was nothing that God
either knew or did, that He did not know, and could
not do; and that the works
peculiar to Godhead, requiring Almighty knowledge
and power, were
assigned
by His Father to Him to
perform, on purpose that He might receive the
worship due to God alone!
All
through
the Saviour’s life, this accusation went on
deepening; and, at length,
was made the capital charge against Him before
Caiaphas. They
shouted - ‘Blasphemy!’
against
Him, when He confessed His Sonship then; and would
have stoned Him as a
blasphemer then and there, had the power been in
their hands. What
is to be said then, when the Father
raises from the dead on the third day, this accused
‘blasphemer’?
The charge of men is gloriously refuted! His claims
are evidently established.
They
are unbelievers, and no
Christians, yea, enemies of Christ, who refuse
this.
Let
us
now see how our Lord goes on to enlarge on this
prime topic of the Christian
faith, which John was commissioned so fully to
proclaim.
19. ‘Verily,
verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing
from
Himself, but what He seeth the Father doing; for
whatsoever He doeth, these
things also the Son doeth in like manner.’
‘The Son can do nothing from
Himself.’
This is said of the inner necessity arising from His divine nature.
It is the incommunicable glory of the
Creator, that He cannot change to evil.
It
is the constant imperfection
of the creature, that he [Page
194] is ever liable to change; he
has in himself no supply of power to continue
upright. If
God do not uphold him of grace, he falls.
The
Son
can do nothing from Himself.
How
different is the case with the sons of human nature! How oft
they are unlike their fathers! their
sorrows! not their joy.
They esteem it
their glory to do just the contrary to their
father’s will.
But it is sin, and will be their sorrow
hereafter!
Jesus
proceeds
to correct their mistakes, if they would but accept
His testimony;
and, certainly, man never spake so before or since. They
supposed the Lord Jesus to be a wilful,
vain man who, out of His own proud heart, was
exalting Himself, to the
displeasure of the Most High.
And, with
regard to all others, it would have been so.
For man is wilfully independent, and socks to
frame his plans, and to
carry them out without any regard to God.
They
sought
to slay Him! How
great their
sin! Cain
was a son of the Wicked One,
to slay one in the image of God.
How
much worse were they, to plot against the
Only-begotten Son - the image of the
Father!
The
Saviour’s
work as a boy, in the workshop of His reputed and
legal father
Joseph, may feebly illustrate this 19th
verse
to us. He
imitated, according to the
measure of His increasing knowledge and strength,
the works of Joseph, in the
use of his materials and tools.
Joseph
instructed Him; He caught the idea, carried it out,
and so helped him
greatly. While
Joseph worked from morn
till eve, He wrought too.
When Joseph
rested, Jesus rested also.
The
Heavenly
Father pointed out new and more glorious works to
His Son; and He
evermore wrought them. The Father continually made
known to Him His counsels,
and the needs of His works; and the Son corresponded
thereto, in His
operations. The
Father delights to make
known all; the Son, to follow out thereafter, all He
sees. It
would seem that the Saviour’s human
perception of His Father’s designs continually
increased. Certainly,
the greatness of His work keeps [Page
195]
increasing from His birth to His
ascension. Then
He received again the
glory, which He had awhile put off to become man.
There
is
one way in which we may ourselves enter into these
words of our Lord, by
putting ourselves into a like relation with Him. The
more fully a believer sets
himself to understand, and to do the will of
Christ, the more will his
intelligence of His will increase, and the power
also to act it out. Each
increase
of grace ordinarily enlarges his sphere of
action, and his usefulness.
This seems affirmed in John
14: 12.
It is seen, both positively and negatively,
in the Acts.
Behold how Barnabas increases, up to the hour
with his quarrel with
Paul: and how, thenceforward, we take leave of him. Behold
Paul’s constant advance in light,
force, sphere, and success, as he unselfishly acts
out the will of Christ.
Parents!
your
children take after you - insensibly fall into your
ways - are guided by
you as examples.
What example are you
setting them? Are
you showing them, by
your ways and words, the path of life? or the ways
of death? How
to live to God ? or how to follow their
own hearts’ lusts?
The
Father
is here the law of the Son’s acting; His example,
and also His motive to
act. This
healing was the act - not independently
by Jesus - but according to the Father’s counsel. As if the
Saviour said – ‘You accuse
me of sin. Sin is lawlessness in its own nature;
independence of the will of God.
It is
self exalted, and not God.
This is true
of the fallen angels; and of Adam and his sons.
But in Me this cannot have place: for
un-changeably, by the perfection
of the Godhead, I love My Father, and cannot cease
to do so. I
have no wish but His.
I do whatever He does.
I find delight in whatever He would have
done. And
My nature is as immutably good
as His. If
works of healing be the
Father’s counsel, I do them.
Is He
turning from Law to grace?
So am I That
I am, then, working signs of grace on the old
Sabbath, is a proof that the
Father is leaving the Law, and the men of Law.’
Jesus
is
‘equal with God.’ They
understood Him aright to assert it.
They were wrong in saying – ‘He
made
Himself equal [Page 196] with God.’
Nay, He was the Eternal Life, who was from
the beginning with the Father.
Equal in
nature and power; and hence, to receive equal honour
and adoration.
Which
is
the truth? Is
Jesus one who claims
impiously divine honours?
How, then, can
He be a good man?
Or is He really the
Eternal Son of the Father – ‘very
God of very God
begotten not made’? If so, what will become
of those who refuse Him in
this His claim?
Lawlessness
-
a careless and irreverent disconnection with God -
refusal of His commands
and threats, are characteristic of a sinful man. But Jesus
here testifies, that with Himself it
was not so. In
all things, He was
showing Himself the self-abased Son - the Servant of
the Father - minding the
mission on which He had been sent; and careful to do
only His will.
Such was His divine nature, such His intimate
love of the Father, and unchangeable oneness with
Him, that to act in man’s
sinful independency of God, was impossible to Him. The Son
could not act thus in isolation from
the Father. But
then, on the other hand,
how could He refrain from doing what the Father did. Was it
right in the Father thus to work?
It was right in Him also.
And nothing could, or would prevent it. Thus He
claims for Himself a sight beyond man’s.
He saw the Father at work in grace, where
God is love.
That is His nature evermore.
But
love [Page 197] supposes an
object to be loved.
We could not
understand the blessedness of One, wholly alone and
yet full of love.
This truth then supposes the Trinity. The Father
had ever the Son, as the object of
His love: and the Spirit was the object of love to
the Father and the Son.
This is not the discovery of reason; but
the
premises once given by Scripture, this naturally
follows.
The
Father
then, evermore displayed to His Son His counsels,
and the Son delighted
to act them. There
is the everlasting
intercourse of love between each Person of the
Godhead. God
could not be everlastingly a Father, if
He had not had from everlasting a Son.
It
is
the characteristic of love, to impart to the beloved
one a knowledge of his
plans and counsels. Dalilah treacherously employs
this tendency to ruin Samson
– ‘How canst thou say, I
love thee, and thou hast not
told me wherein thy great strength lieth?’
God
is
love. He eternally rejoiced in His Son.
But it is the Father’s counsel, to have other
sons born again of His
Spirit, who shall be companions of His Eternal Son
and possessed of like glory
and power with Him!
We are they.
Let us realise and rejoice in this design
of
God, and act in the Spirit of the Son, whom God
loves!
20. ‘For
the Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him all
things
which Himself is doing, and greater works than
these will He do, that ye may
marvel.’
More and more clearly does
Jesus rectify their
mistakes. They
thought that they saw in the
Saviour a man who was usurping, to God’s grievous
displeasure and indignation,
the titles and glories of the Most High; and that
therefore they were
righteous, and well pleasing to
God in hating such an impious one, and in seeking to
cut Him off from the
earth. Against
that false idea run our
Lord’s words in this verse – ‘You
think God must hate
Me, for My impious words and deeds.
It
is not so. God
loves me, for I am His
Son, His only Son, possessed of His nature in a way no other is.
He
approves me.
My deeds and [Page
198]
words are not sins
which have made Him My enemy.
His love
to Me continues ever.
He loves
‘Just as among human fathers and
sons, so is it with My
heavenly Father and
As
the
son covets to know the father’s counsels, and is met
by the father’s
regularly informing him of his plans, so was it with
Jesus and His Heavenly
Father. The
Son was aware of all His
counsels.
In
place
of God’s cutting off by judgment the Saviour, as a
rival and usurper, His
enemies would see that God would give Him to do
greater works still.
To give strength to one who was for years
infirm, was a work of grace.
But men
might in some measure imitate that.
Jesus would raise the dead by His
power.
Here is a gulf which human love or energy
cannot overleap.
It is a work peculiar to God.
As death was God’s original sentence
against
sin, so, to deliver a sinner out of the grasp of
death is a work that belongs
to God alone. It
is a key which He keeps
Himself. This
Gospel then presents to us
a new instance in which the Saviour gave life to the
dead; yea, to one on whom
corruption had already begun.
It was a
work, as He said, designed to glorify Himself as the
Son of God. Hence
He would not step in to arrest the
course of disease; but would allow Death, the lion,
to bear away his prey to
his den, that he might as a [Page 199] greater than Samson, display his power in plucking the prey out of his
ravening jaws.
‘That ye may wonder.’ Not – ‘that
ye may believe.’ Many marvelled of
old,
and many wonder now, who do not believe.
But it is not wonderment which saves the
soul. It
is trusting God’s Son, and believing His
word. As the Jews would not acknowledge Jesus’
Sonship, so the works which
should have led them to believe, would only be so
many difficulties in their
path through which they would burst on their way to
death. ‘This man doeth many
miracles.’
‘But we
must kill Him to save our nation.’
‘That ye may wonder.’
There
will
be the wonder of rapture felt by the saints at their
coming forth from the
tombs by the Saviour’s power; the wonder of horror
to those who rise at ‘the
resurrection of damnation.’
How forcibly and fully this agrees with
Paul’s word – ‘Behold ye
despisers, and wonder and perish,
for I work a work in your days, a work
which ye will in no wise believe, though a man
declare it unto you.’
The
question now is not ‘Who
will believe in death?’
But,
‘Who will accept
God’s
testimony of resurrection
future,
founded on a resurrection past?’
21. ‘For
as the Father raiseth up the dead and giveth life,
so the
Son giveth life to whom He will.’
This
life-giving
is of two kinds.
(1)
Spiritual, going on now.
(2) Physical,
to take place in the coming day.
Is not
this the assertion of Godhead in tones unmistakable? Is not the
communication of life to the dead
the work of God alone?
But one may say‑
- ‘Did not Elijah raise the
Sareptan’s child?
Did not Elisha raise the Shunammite’s? And did
not Peter call back Dorcas from the
tomb?’
True. Yet
no one of these miracles came up to the
claims asserted here.
Our Lord here
tells us, that the communication of life to the dead
was a power within Him, a
power He always possessed, and which He could at a
moment put forth, when,
where, and on whom He would.
‘Maiden, I say to thee
arise.’
‘Young
man, I say unto thee arise.’ [Page 200] ‘Lazarus,
come
forth!’
It was a power which
was always and everywhere His, as truly as it was
always and everywhere the
attribute of God the Father.
Now durst
Elijah have said so? or Elisha?
No! Elisha
confesses his ignorance of the
occasion of the Shunammite’s visit, and in vain he
seeks to drive away death by
his staff, borne by his servant Gehazi.
The prophets could not raise whom they would. They
prayed; and these eminent chiefs of the
sons of faith, in a few and rare cases, after
prayer, by the power of God
succeeded in
recalling the
departed [animating*] spirit to its clay
tenement.
[* James
2:
26. cf. Luke
8: 55.]
‘Whom He will.’ This was a
rebuke to their vain idea of
coercing or hindering Him.
He showed His
choice, in saving the one amidst the multitude of
the sick at
The
prophets
always attested that it was only derived power, a
virtue not theirs by
nature; not theirs because they were of God’s
nature, possessed of equal
knowledge and power with Him!
Quite the
contrary! When
Peter has cured the
infirm man on the
22, 23. ‘For
neither doth the Father judge any, but hath
committed all
judgment to the Son, in order that all may honour
the Son, even as they should
honour the Father.
He that honoureth not
the Son, honoureth not the Father who sent Him.’
Jesus, instead of retracting His
obnoxious declaration of equality with God,
reasserts and expands it.
His power to raise the dead, and His
freedom
to do so, were equal to the Father’s.
The twenty-second verse adds then the
affirmed possession of another
attribute of the Godhead - the final judging of men. This is
closely connected with giving life,
both in the thing itself, and in the expression of
it here. The
giving of life spiritual takes the [Page
201] man
out of the judgment which
shall fall on the wicked.
The bestowing
of life in resurrection on the wicked is in order to
their judgment.
Most of mankind are under natural death, and
in order to be judged they must be brought to life
again. Jesus
then will raise to life both the
righteous and the wicked; the one unto life eternal,
the other to
condemnation. He
who can impart life is
the Possessor of Almighty Power, and can also judge;
knowing all things, He can
pass sentence perfectly on each case; and further,
can carry the sentence into
execution.
With
what
design are these two offices of the Godhead
exercised by the Son?
The
Father has given the Son His own work to
do, in order that the worship which is due to
God alone may be rendered to
Christ!
This is indeed asserting equality with God, and pressing the
consequences of such majesty on the sons of men! Where, then, are they found, the ancient and the modern
Unitarians? They are fighters against God and His Son; guilty of the highest
treason.
They are setting themselves
against God’s plans; against His testimony to
those plans, and against the
glory of the Son by whom they were made, and by whom they are to be judged.
How shall they meet God who are the
slanderers, or the refusers of His Son?
All must honour the Son; either willingly,
as saved by Him, or by
constraint, as those who fear the wrath of the
judge.
Here
the
Saviour calls for the inner reverence and the
outward worship which is the
due of God alone.
Was He right?
We ask only - Did He rise from the dead, the first of [those who will be raised
at the] the
first resurrection?
Did the Father raise Him?
If He did, the Father confirms His
claims. And
on our acceptance of this
truth, and of Christ’s Lordship, our eternal life is
made to turn (Rom. 10: 9).
It was because of his sin against this truth,
that Paul accounts himself
chief of sinners.
And when converted,
his first discourses were directed to prove that ‘Jesus
is the Son of God.’ (Acts
9: 20).
Thus
the
Saviour throws back on His enemies the accusation of
blasphemy. It
was they who, in refusing Him, blasphemed
the Son!
[Page 202]
Our
Evangelist
caught, and laid up in his soul, these testimonies
of our Lord; and
they come forth in his epistles as the great
antidote to the errors abroad (1
John 2: 23; 2 John 9).
How
simple
and awfully distinct is the line between life and
death on the
railway! Stand
here, and the train will
run over and crush you!
Take three
paces, and you are in safety!
The
express way pass by with rush and roar, shaking the
earth; but you are
safe. So
it is but to believe God’s word
by Christ, and you are off the ground of death, and
set on that of life!
The
worship
due to God belongs to Christ; First, as He is
Creator and Preserver of
all, and all things were made by Him and for Him. Secondly,
because Christ will raise all men
from the dead, and dispose of them according to His
pleasure at the judgment
day. Those
who resist this testimony and
deny this worship, are the enemies whom Christ will
at last slay; as refusing
to have Him reign over them who has been appointed
to that end by the Father.
And this is all the more heinous and awful,
that Jesus has proved His saying, true by His
resurrection.
Thus,
then,
these ancient Unitarians, and the modern ones are
denying homage to the
true God. Vainly
do they speak of God as
the Father, while they refuse equal worship to the
Son. The
Jews thought they were right in resisting
such blasphemous claims, and openly called Jesus a
blasphemer. The
modern Unitarians dare not do so, and
hence they are obliged to deny that our Lord made
any claims amounting to the
possession of Godhead, and to the reception of
divine worship.
But this passage, and others like it, prove
the contrary.
None
can
know God now, none can honour God, who does not
believe the Trinity in
Unity. The
Lord is only to be known now
in ‘the Son’; a
person of like powers, and
worthy of equal adoration with the Father.
So John Baptist had said in effect (3:
35,
36). The
Jews were judging our
Lord; but He pronounces their doom.
They
knew not God, because they refused Himself as the
Son of God. To
honour the Father, and speak against the
Son, is alike foolish, and ruinous, and wicked.
[Page 203]
The
same
condemnation embraces the Swedenborgian (or the
mystic Unitarian).
He denies that there is more than one
Person
in the Godhead, although many passages speak of
plurality. ‘The Son of God is
only the human body with which the Father clothed
Himself when He became
man! Moreover,
as soon as He had taken
this body from Mary, which was filled with all
manner of evil and sinful
dispositions, He set Himself to put it off Him by
degrees, till at length at
the cross the last atoms of the human body were
put off!’
How utterly this is at variance with the
Scripture, a very little attention will discover.
In
Swedenborg’s
theory, the Father is
wrestling against the evil ‘Son,’
which He perfectly hates; and seeks to put away,
after having voluntarily
united it to Himself. Now
the whole of John tells us, that the
Son was eternally God with the Father, possessed of
His love evermore.
On such false views, how did the Father
give
to sinners the Son?
What good did it do
them? And
again, how could it be true
that God sent His Son? It
was the
Father
who came
Himself,
not who sent
another. How,
lastly, can any worship the Son equally with the
Father,
when at the present
time, and since the cross, the Son, according to
this deadly error, has no
existence?
Here then the question is
narrowed; and is very
simple, though all eternity depends on the answer –
‘Was
Jesus Christ a blasphemer, who impiously took to
Himself the attributes of the
Godhead, and required worship of men on account of
them? Or
is there in the Unity of the Godhead an Eternal
Son,
as well as an Eternal
Father? to
Whom, as possessed
of all God’s attributes, the worship due to God
alone, is to be paid?’
How do men legitimately
honour God? By
obedience, by prayer, by praise.
The
worship then of prayer, of
praise, and obedience, is due to the Son of God,
to the same extent and in the
same mode as that rendered to the Father.
Does my reader worship the
Father and the Son by the
Spirit? Some
do not. They talk of ‘Almighty
God’ - a title taken by the Most High in
Abraham’s days, but fallen into [Page 204] disuse and abeyance now, because the knowledge of God possessed in
Abraham’s day is not saving now.
‘He who refuses the Son has not
the Father.’
His God and the God of the New Testament
are
not the same. This unbelief was the condition of the
Jews of old. They
thought that in resisting the claims of
Christ they were honouring God.
Jesus
tells them they were running counter to His Father’s
plans, and to the Son’s
testimony! How
needful it is with all
clearness to insist on this point.
Eternal life or perdition turn on the
acceptance or refusal of the new
name of God, as Father, Son, and [Holy] Spirit.
Did
Jesus wickedly exalt Himself? or did God exalt Him? and wicked men refuse His glory?
By that very refusal discovering their
unbelief, and drawing down on their heads perdition? Do you, my
reader, own the Son as God?
Do you give Him the worship due to God?
24.
‘Verily, verily, I say unto
you, that he that heareth
My word, and believeth Him that sent Me, hath
eternal life, and cometh not into
condemnation, but hath passed out from death into
life.’
Eternal
life
rests upon faith in Christ, and on His testimony
about the Godhead.
No man, then, is a disciple of Christ, who
refuses His doctrine about Himself as the Son sent
from heaven by the
Father. He
is no disciple of Christ who
declares Him a good man, or the best of men; and
admits lie more.
First, we deny that He is a good man, if He be not
God!
He blasphemously asserted
equality with God; impiously received religious
worship. Secondly, should you
call that man a disciple of Sir Isaae Newton who
should say ‘Sir Isaac
Newton was a very good-living man and a good
astronomer’ - while yet he should assert
that the sun moved round the
earth, and that there is no such thing as
gravitation? ‘Of course not,’
you would say.
These are the chief
truths taught by that man of science; and he who
refuses them is no disciple of
Sir Isaac’s. So,
then, he is no disciple
of Christ, who rejects his reiterated testimony
about the Godhead, and about
Himself as one of the Persons of the Godhead.
Jesus
may
well challenge an obedience to His voice.
For [Page 205] this is He of whom Moses wrote, ‘Unto
Him shall ye
hearken, and
whosoever will not
hearken unto the words which He shall speak in My
name, I will require it of him.’
To
hear the voice of Moses now will not give life.
Jesus,
with
His solemn reiteration, introduces another aspect of
the truth. Before,
He spoke of the Father and the
Son. Now,
He quietly assumes Himself to
be that Son of whom He spoke.
‘He that heareth My
word.’
The
hearing
in this verse is spiritual listening and acceptance
of the heart. In
listening to Christ a man is also believing the
Father's testimony.
So on the Mount of Transfiguration the
Father
made over all His authority to His Son.
‘This is my beloved Son, HEAR HIM.’ Every
word
of our Lord then comes with all the Father’s
authority. There are two witnesses;
yea, three - the Father, the Son,
the [Holy]
Spirit!
The
result
of faith is ‘eternal life’
already
begun. It is a present
possession. Eternal
life is at once bestowed as a
gift. Law
proposed life as
the result of perfect obedience,
but
it never was attained thereby.
Now, life
‘eternal life’ comes as the gift at
once on faith. To
believe you have attained eternal life as the
result of your obedience, would
be presumption indeed and unbelief in God’s Word. But to
say ‘God
gives eternal life of grace, and I accept His
testimony and have the gift,’
is not presumption, but faith; humble faith, which
rests on God’s Word, and is
happy through it.
Life
spiritual
is began already in the believer’s soul.
Faith is life; unbelief is death within, and
condemnation and the curse lying
on the soul from without.
Those
to
whom God gives eternal life, He at once absolves
from the judgment of the
wicked.
‘He cometh not into judgment.’ The importance of accurate translation is shown here.
The present tense of the original has
been
changed into the future.
The word ‘condemnation’
has been given, instead of the usual
word ‘judgment.’
Many,
in consequence, accepting
the last rendering, and overlooking, or refusing
the other, affirm, that the
believer will never be judged by [Page 206]
Christ! But
that is not true. He
will
be judged; not indeed as the wicked, for [everlasting] life or death, and
not before the great white throne;
but ‘before the judgment
seat of the Christ’
(Rom. 14: 10-12; 2 Cor,
5: 10).
What
this
passage asserts, is, that the believer, possessed of
eternal life, comes
out from judgment, and the curse of Law, into the
place and acceptance of the
Son. He
is under grace; He is justified;
He is beloved of God.
It runs parallel
with
‘But is passed out from death
into life.’
Where
are
all men by birth?
Under judgment and
condemnation; and within, their souls are dead
toward God. They have no love to
Him, no movements of obedience toward Him, nor faith
in Him; any more than the
dead have any interest in the things of life, or
possess any motion or warmth,
But
if
unbelievers are dead to God, are they not also
without responsibility?
Are they not poor unfortunate creatures,
who
cannot help sinning, and so cannot be punished?
Nay! Scripture asserts the contrary.
And the idea arises from forcing the
figure
of death. Unbelievers
are ‘dead,’ as
regards the entireness and criminality of
unbelief; but they are not dead as regards their
responsibility.
‘For
how then shall
God judge the world?’
Rom.
3:
6.
‘But of what use is it to call
on the dead to repent and
believe?’
Of what good was it for
Christ to call on Lazarus to come out of his tomb?
or to say to the young man
of Nain ‘Arise’?
There
lies our
reason for calling on the spiritually dead to
arise. Through
God’s favour to some of
them, and by His mighty power put forth on their
behalf, some answer to the
call and live!
Faith,
then,
crosses the spiritual river, on one side of which
lies the land of death,
on the other, the land of life. In this, behold a
reference to the history of
Abraham. He
was called, ‘the Hebrew,’
or ‘passer over.’ For he, at
God’s word, had by faith crossed
over the river, which was the boundary of the land
of his birth, in order to
travel to God’s land.
So
The
believer
now is also an ‘Hebrew,’
a passer over
from the land of death to the country of life.
But all those who abide where they were by
birth, are under death and
judgment. Hear
the Saviour’s word, ye
dwellers in death, come out to the land of life!
25.
‘Verily, verily, I say unto
you, the hour cometh, and
now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the
Son of God, and they that
hear shall live.’
Behold
again
a new and solemn attestation of truth, which rests
on our Lord’s own
witness alone.
‘The hour cometh.’
It especially commenced at Pentecost, when
the Spirit began His
testimony to Christ, and thousands came to life.
‘And now is.’
This seems to refer to the Saviour’s own
ministry.
‘The hour.’
God
arranges, according to His own wise counsels, the
dispensations, which are as
the hours of His great day.
And long as
they seem to us, they are but hours, compared with
eternity.
‘The dead shall hear.’
Here the spiritually dead are referred to. Christ’s
own voice would be accepted by
seine, and the Spirit at Pentecost was to speak in
Christ’s stead, and for
Christ.
How
can
‘the Son of God’ here
be taken, save in the
sense of Deity?
Faith in Him gives
eternal life! Listen
to what He says,
and, as of old, unbelief in God brought death and
judgment; so now faith in God
as revealed in His Son, the second Adam, brings life
spiritual; and by and by,
the undoing of death in resurrection.
This
passage
would seem to refer to the saints in their two
resurrections; the
spiritual first, and then the physical.
In this verse, it is only the hearers of the
voice who rise.
That seems clearly to show, that it refers to
spiritual hearing; for all will hear the physical
call, whether believers or
unbelievers.
[Page
208]
26.
‘For as the Father hath life
in Himself, so He gave to
the Son also to have life in Himself, and He gave
Him authority even to execute
judgment, because He is Son of man.’
‘The Son,’ is Christ’s
eternal nine. He
has life in Himself.
We have not life in ourselves; but in God
we
live, and from God.
It is because of
this possession of life, that Jesus is able to give
both spiritual and
resurrection life.
God is life: He is
the Being of eternity.
Life is His
essence and nature.
Death, on the
contrary, shows distance from God, and His sentence
of displeasure on sin.
The
Father
derives not life from the Son, but the Son from the
Father; nevertheless,
He possesses it in another sense, than as it is
possessed by the creatures.
Paul must say, ‘I live,
yet not
I,
but Christ
liveth in me.’ Thus the words of the
Psalmist, ‘With thee is the fountain of life,’
apply
to Christ.
The Father is Life,
the Son is also Life; but the Father has it in
Himself, not from the Son; the
Son has Life in Himself, but from the Father.
The Father gives the Son
all, the Son gives back
all. The
Father not only loves the Son
infinitely; the Son also infinitely loves the
Father.
God is life, possessed of
it eternally and
independently.
From Him proceed all the
streams of it which the creatures possess.
He gave to the Son out of this fulness. (It is not ‘He hath given;’
that would lead us to
think that Jesus was speaking of something lately
bestowed). But
in
the Greek it is the aorist; and that proves
Jesus to be speaking of
something, which is His eternally as Son of God. ‘But
if it was
given, how can it be eternal?’ Yet men
speak of ‘eternal decrees’ without any misgiving, and the one is loaded with
the same difficulty as the other.
We are
here touching on the mysterious subject of the
Godhead, and the
intercommunication of the Three Persons; on which
subject we must move
reverently and humbly. We
can go no
further than the words ‘lead
us by the hand.’
Yet it seems clear that the Father is as
the
ancients speak, ‘the
fountain of Deity.’
The Son derives His divine nature from the Father.
The Holy Ghost [Page 209] derives His from the Father and the Son.
These glimpses of the intercommunication of
nature, difficult as they may be, help us to steer
clear of a greater
difficulty. For
if there be not this
mutual interdependence of the Three Persons, and we
consider them entirely
independent one of the other, we have made three
Gods instead of One.
Here then is the wisdom of the Most
High. He
preserves to our view both the
unity of the Godhead, and the distinction of the
Persons. ‘The Son’ then
is distinguished from creatures by having in Himself
the power of life but He
has this attribute of Deity by communication from
the Father.
In
this
there seems a reference to Dan.
7: 13, 14,
where all judgment is bestowed on Christ, as Son of
Man. Man is to rule
all. The
secret of this is, that it is
the Son of God, become Son of man, to whom the
sceptre is entrusted.
‘You
are
but a man,’ would His Jewish enemies say.
‘Aye, but I shall judge, not merely although I am a man, but because
I am so.’
There are two phases of the judgment of
Christ - one, now, in relation to a man’s present
state, as acceptable to God,
or the reverse; the other, the final and
irreversible decision, or
sentence.
But
there
is another glory bestowed on Him, because He is ‘Son
of Man.’ This, then, is clearly the
consequence of His taking
flesh. It
is fitting that God should
judge. He
must see that His subjects are
obedient; and that His laws are not broken, without
damage and woe to the
breaker. The
penalty, in short, must be
inflicted. Yet,
it is fitting, too, that
while the Judge should be God, and therefore
possessed of the knowledge of
infinite details, and infinite justice to weigh
every case, man should be tried
by a man whom he can see, and before whom he can
utter his defence, if he
dares. Thus
we see that God has arranged
all, after the counsels of His infinite wisdom.
Seemingly incompatible perfections meet in
the one Person of
Christ. He
is ‘the
Son of God.’ He is ‘the Son of man.’ This is a
glory with which He is invested, in
consideration of His stooping to become man.
Probably, also, there is a reference to [Page 210]
Ps, 8., where the
plan of God appears, that all things in heaven and
earth shall be ruled over by
man, ' the Son of Man.' As evil entered through man,
so all shall be finally
adjusted by a mall.
28.
‘Wonder not at this; for the
hour is coming, in which
all that are in the tombs shall hear His voice,
and shall come forth: They that
did good, into the resurrection of life; and they
that did evil, unto the
resurrection of judgment.’
Jesus
says
in effect – ‘At this assertion concerning My power
of life, and of
judgment, wonder not.’
Far from seeking
to unsay His claims of Deity, at which they fretted,
He continues to unfold
them farther. They were judging Him;
but He assures them He shall judge them, and
all
mankind. And
to this end, He will
communicate life in resurrection, to all the dead. They are ‘in
the tombs.’
This speaks of their bodies.
They
are in Hades, as it regards their souls.
It
is
not, as the Spiritists assert, that death is
resurrection; and that the soul’s
rising out of the corpse, is resurrection.
The body is
not to be
left for ever in the tomb; or the
soul in the place of departed souls.
The
man,
made up of body and soul, is to be re-knit.
Some
will
not hear the voice of the Son of God in the Gospel. But all must hear His voice recall them from the tomb: all must hear His
voice pronounce their doom.
For
this
cause, the resurrection of Lazarus is the crowning
miracle of the Gospel,
and illustrates this passage throughout.
Our Lord will, in a coming hour, call
to the dead, as of old He called to Lazarus.
Then they shall come forth out of their
tombs, as Lazarus did - clad
with their bodies, never more to be
put off.
But there is a distinction among those who rise - a moral distinction. There is,
first, the resurrection of the righteous; then of the wicked.
This
denotes the better [millennial] day begun.
There
are two resurrections: one,
a thousand years before the other, as Rev.
20.
proves. The first resurrection is one of reward. It is ‘the resurrection of
the righteous,’ Luke
14: 14.
There is no limitation in our Lord’s words,
of the blessedness of resurrection [Page
211] to
‘In the graves.’
Here
is another
word than that word Hades,
which is often wrongly translated ‘grave.’ Hades
is never used but in the singular, because the great
place of the souls
of the dead is one: the
vast interior of our globe.
Here the word is not only different, but
the
single places of individual bodies
are named, because graves are
many. This
work of resurrection is
spoken of as the chief.
It will engage
every eye and heart, as being visible.
And entry on that millennial glory is not to be granted to simple faith;
but to the fruits of faith, or good works. It is never said – ‘Blessed are they that
believe; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’
For
that is a different day to this; and its principle
is the rewarding each
according to [the
disciples’] works. Hence
we have the distinction into two
judgments, and two resurrections.
But
some
resist this doctrine, on the ground that both are
said to take place in
the same ‘hour.’
True, yet the spiritual resurrection of verse 25, which has
been going on for two
thousand, years nearly, is called an ‘hour.’
Jesus
does not say as before, - ‘They
that hear, shall
come forth;’ for all will.
Jesus
does not say in verse
28, as He did in verse
25 – ‘The hour
cometh, and now is,’ as He
does in the former case.
For the hour of
resurrection has yet to come.
It belongs
to another day.
There is no doubt that our Lord is speaking of
physical resurrection here; for He speaks of all
the dead as coming forth from
the tombs.
The
spiritual resurrection [i.e., regeneration] is a matter of
God’s election; the
physical is for all;
and those [bodies]
who partake of it, both for good and for evil,
are in the tombs.
‘They shall hear His voice.’ Hence,
this Gospel gives us the history of
the Saviour’s raising one from the tomb; and of His
shout, at which the dead
man awoke. The
other two instances of
resurrection wrought by Him were of dead persons not
in the tomb; though one
was on the way to it.
Also Peter’s
raising of Dorcas, and Paul’s raising of Eutychus,
took place immediately, [Page
212] or
soon after death; and before
the body, as smitten with corruption, was consigned
to the tomb. Also,
we have Lazarus’ coming forth out of
the tomb, in the garments suited thereto.
His was also the case of the doer of good
called forth; one of the
Saviour’s friends called to the resurrection of
life; while soon after followed
the supper at Bethany; at which the living, and one
of the departed, sat at the
table with the Saviour.
The resurrection of others, is the resurrection ‘of
judgment’ - not necessarily ‘of damnation.’
Some
[regenerate]
believers will be excluded from the first
resurrection, because they have not
done good, or because they have done evil.
For
not a few have died as soon
as they believed; and therefore, if
good
works are necessary to entrance into the
millennial kingdom, they will not
enter, because of the deficiency. Others
have
been put out of communion, as doers of evil works,
and have died while
excommunicate.
These,
then, must arise at ‘the resurrection of
judgment.’ But
they will not be lost; for their names
are in ‘the book of life’.
30.
‘I can do from Myself
nothing: as I hear, I judge; and
My judgment is just; because I seek not My own
will, but the will of Him that
sent Me.’
‘I can do nothing of Myself: but
only as from God.’
Here we have the negative warrant.
‘I give sentence,
only as I heard it from My Father.’
Here is the positive warrant.
The
Jews thought to sever between Jesus and God. He
denies that it is
possible. Satan
attempted it, and failed.
They, therefore, in condemning Him, were
condemning God.
They were attempting to
slay the Prince of Life, the Lord of Truth; their
Judge, who would raise them
to condemn them.
Jesus the Son judges as
the Father does.
There is no appeal from
the one to the other.
In this second part of His
discourse, Jesus accuses
the Jews and shows how they stood out against
testimonies given of God, to
which they ought long ago to have submitted.
‘I judge.’
Here
is the Saviour’s present judgment,
looking on to the future and final one.
‘I know you, that ye
have not the love of God in
you.’
‘If
ye believe not that I am, ye shall die in [Page 213]
your sins.’
‘Thy sins are
forgiven thee.’
‘The works thereof
are evil.’
Here are the judgments of God.
The
Saviour’s
words shine by their own light!
Such lofty claims; and yet such self-denial!
In
this
30th verse Jesus
shelters Himself
behind the Father.
They could not
condemn His works, or His ways, without condemning
the works and ways of the
Father. And
the power exerted - whose
was it?
Jesus
is,
all through, willingly subordinate to the Father. He knows
and does nothing independently of
His Father’s counsel and will.
As He
heard from His Father, He judged.
Jesus
was already judging these cavillers; and His
judgment was righteous.
For it was only an echo of the Father’s
judgment about them.
The Saviour was not
led as men are, by a sense of self-interest to
decide all things.
He was bent on doing the will of God alone;
and therefore, was not moved out of His straight
course, by the ill motives of
the flesh.
‘But is not this contrary to Is. 11: 3?
“He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes,
neither reprove after the hearing of His ears.”’
No!
Those words of the Jewish prophet refer to
the Saviour’s superiority above the sons of men; so
that He was not dependent on
the witness of eye and ear alone, which often
deceives us children of the
fall. The
sentiment touches such cases
as the question about the tribute-money.
There, many would have been taken in by the
apparent sincerity of the
questioners, and been thrown off their guard by the
flattery with which the
question was presented.
But the Saviour
looked the questioners, and thus He discerned the
contrariety between their
fair words and their evil spirit; therefore He
rebuked them for their
hypocrisy. But
when, as here, the
Saviour says -
‘He
judges as He hears’ - it refers to the
Lord’s perception of His Father’s
judgment in each case.
Thus the two
accounts in reality agree.
Our Lord
heard as man the words of the sons of men; but He
was not dependent for His
judgment on the words alone which his questioners
uttered, but He listened [Page
214] to
the unerring decision of God
His Father. Thus
then, while His foes
were condemning Him as a Sabbath-breaker and
blasphemer, the Father whose cause
they fancied they were maintaining, was condemning
them as blasphemers of His
Son, and as attempting to hinder His work.
31, ‘If
I bear witness of Myself My witness is not true.’
Jesus
was
not, moved by the motives of fallen humanity.
It was not pride, or vain glory that led
him
to speak thus.
But men would reply – ‘In
all this you are only testifying to yourself, and
we
discredit self-praise, and lofty claims made by
men.’
But this sentiment of our Lord was uttered on
the basis of the cure already wrought.
32.
‘There is another that
beareth witness concerning Me,
and I know that the witness which He witnesseth of
Me is true.’
This
refers
evidently to the Father.
It is
shown by the present tense.
The Father’s
witness to the Son abides. That of John Baptist to
our Lord is spoken of in the
past. ‘The
Father bears witness:’ His testimony
abides, as He Himself does.
But of John Baptist it is said - ‘He
bare
witness to the truth.’ The
Father
witnesses to the Son.
‘And I know that His witness
which He witnesseth concerning
Me is true.’
As the Father
upholds the Son, so the Son upholds the truth of the
Father. The
Father witnesses to the Son.
The Son attests the truth of the Father’s
witness. Whatever
He had caused to be
written of Him in the 0ld Testament prophets was
true. And
again, the Spirit witnesses both to the
Son and to the Father.
33-35. ‘Ye
sent to John, and he bare witness to the truth. But I
receive not the testimony from man, but
these things I say that ye might be saved.
He was the burning and shining lamp, and ye
were willing for a season to
rejoice in his light.’
Here
the
due place is given by our Lord to the Baptist. This was
the more necessary, because there
were many in that day who gave too high a place to
the Forerunner.
John takes before Christ the humble place of
a servant. Jesus
lays some [Page
215]
little stress on this, because
John was with them a prophet, and a great man, by
whose judgment the whole
question was to be decided.
Why was it
then that they had not listened to John? While then
man is but a poor witness
to the Deity, the Saviour is willing to stoop from
His lofty height in grace to
them.
They
had
themselves sought a testimony; and had they listened
to that of John, they
would have accepted this also.
But John
Baptist was not to their taste any more than Christ.
How
lofty
the stand which the unarmed Saviour takes in the
presence of His foes! He
does not insist on John’s witness.
He mentions it solely for their sakes that
they might believe.
For they would be
lost if they refused His witness.
Scripture,
in
Malachi, had foretold a messenger, who should bear
witness to the Lord.
John was that foretold messenger.
How wisely God did not assign to John
Baptist
the doing of any miracle!
How many would
then have gone astray!
John
came
as a preacher of repentance; but they did not
repent. They
rejoiced in the hopes of the coming
kingdom, but they did not take the appointed steps
towards it.
‘You think the matter is to be
decided by the judgment of
men, and their testimony.
Why then do
you not listen to the testimony of John Baptist?’ This also
the Lord uses as a weapon in the
other Gospels.
But they desired not to
be convinced.
They
thought
more highly of John than of Jesus Himself.
But our Lord would let them know that while
John was but the earthly ‘lamp,’
He was Himself
the luminary of the world.
John Baptist
is upheld nevertheless by our Lord, as one of the
greatest among the sons of
men. Looked at as one among them he was ‘burning’ with the zeal for God
and His kingdom.
He was ‘shining’
also, possessed of intelligence given of God
to lead
Thus
our
Evangelist confirms by our Lord’s word His saying
about John Baptist, that
he was not (as some mistakenly thought) the Light,
or ‘Light
Itself,’ but only ‘the
lamp,’ a witness
to the Light in order to lead others to believe on
Christ.
[Page
216]
For
a
time it seemed as if the nation would be won over to
walk by his light to
Christ. But
those days were past, and the leaders of the people were causing them to err.
From
the
words it would appear that John was already dead.
How sad when the best means
of grace fail of their
end!
John
was
a powerful witness, by whose light they might have
been saved. But
his rejection led on to the rejection of
Christ. one wrong choice leads on to many more; and
man’s pushing aside of
mercies increases his woeful doom.
How
little most think of God’s calls of grace!
They slight them, because they are so common:
but the Lord thinks
greatly of them.
What would not
multitudes give to possess but a little of the
privileges granted to them!
36 ‘But
I have greater witness than that of John: for the
works
which the Father hath given Me, that I should
complete them, the works
themselves that I do, bear witness of Me, that the
Father hath sent Me.’
‘If we receive the witness of
men, the witness of God is
greater.’
It was true that John
was inspired of God; but they did not think so; and
the Saviour seems to be
taking them upon their own ground.
Our
Lord, in these verses, is massing before them the
evidence on which they ought
to receive Him: and which, if they refused, would be
their eternal
condemnation.
He
appeals,
then, to His ‘works.’ ‘We may
consider this expression in general,
as importing our Lord’s life. And next, more
specially, as the miraculous signs
given Him to perform.
The
miracle
at
37, 38. ‘And
the Father who sent Me, He Himself hath borne
witness of
Me. You
never at any time, heard His
voice, or saw His shape.
And [I
add], you have not His word
abiding in you; for whom He
sent, ye receive not.’
We
have
here a difficult passage.
This can
only refer to some personal, direct testimony
of
the Father. For
Jesus opposes it to
the indirect witness of His works.
The
words, ‘His voice,’ ‘His
shape,’ refer clearly to the shape of the dove, and the voice of the Father. To
Moses it was given to see the back of God; but on
Jesus came the fulness of the
Godhead to dwell.
And the voice of the Father,
who will accept perfection alone, bears witness to
His entire joy in the Son.
Here
we
behold the manifest personal difference between the
Father and the Son.
Jesus, meeting the objection that He was
only
testifying to Himself, declares that ‘the
Father who
sent Him had witnessed to Him.’
That had occurred at His baptism.
So also 8: 17,
18. Thus
Scripture contradicts the Spirit of
Antichrist, whether manifested in the rationalistic
Unitarian, and the
Christadelphian; or in the mystic Swedenborgian. The denial
of the Father, and the Son, is the
proof of Anti-Christianity.
It is on
this sending of the Son by the Father,
that our present
dispensation of grace and mercy turns.
The Saviour
asserts a direct witness of the Father given to Him. This
refers, we suppose, to the Father’s
voice to Jesus out of heaven, given at the Saviour’s
baptism. It
might be said, indeed, that that voice was
not heard, and the sight not the one they expected;
and that the vision was
beheld, so far as we know, by Jesus and John Baptist
alone. But
oven if so, the [Page
218]
witness of the Son and Spirit to
that voice was enough.
In it behold
somewhat answering to what we read as the chief
evidence to be given to Moses (Ex.
19: 9).
God would speak to Moses in their presence. And that was to be to
How little the
outward testimony availed to unbelievers, we see in
the voice from heaven (12:
27).
Not one, that we read, was converted thereby.
39, 40. ‘Ye
search the Scriptures, because ye think that in
them ye
have eternal life; and it is they which testify of
Me. And
ye will not come to Me, that ye might
have life.’
Are
we
to read ‘searc!’ as - (1) imperative?
or as (2) indicative? ‘Ye search.’
Either gives a good sense.
To me,
the emphatic ‘ye’
seems to give the idea of the indicative being used, especially taken in
connection with verse
40 – ‘You search
the Scriptures, which you vainly think will give
you eternal life by your own obedience to Law
apart from Me.
They will give you life, if they lead you
to Me, of
whom they testify.
But not otherwise.’
[Page 219]
Had
Our
Lord meant
– ‘Search the Scriptures’
- He would have said too – ‘for
in them you have (not – “You think you have”) eternal life.’
They desired life; but they would not have it
on terms, which confessed
themselves bankrupt.
Jesus supposes,
that to have entered into the spirit and conclusions
of the Old Testament, must
necessarily have led them to Himself.
Our
Lord’s
complaint then is, that they rested in the letter,
and missed the true
meaning. They
imagined that they were to
be saved by their own obedience, and not by
Messiah’s resurrection.
The Old Testament then especially deals, in
its undertone, with eternal life as God’s gift,
through the resurrection of the
Son.
The
Scriptures
witnessed of Christ as the Giver of eternal life. The
Scriptures then referred those who
searched them, to Christ.
The Jews
searched them, as desirous of eternal life and yet
refused Him of Whom they
witnessed, and Who alone could give it.
They studied the doctor’s prescription, but
never took it; infallible
cure as it was!
They pored over the
inscription on the mile-stone; but they never took
the road it pointed out.
Christ
is
the key to the Scriptures.
He who
refuses Christ, cannot know them.
How
many read Scripture, but discern not its meaning! They are
so occupied with the nut-leaves,
that they do not see, and much less pick, the nuts!
The
Law
of Moses set before man ‘life,’
that is, ‘eternal life,’
as the prize of his entire obedience to
Law (Lev. 18: 5). If he
perfectly obeyed, he should live; and
if he incessantly obeyed, his life would be eternal. But he
must always be under the slavery of
Law. His
work never could be completed (Dent.
30: 15, 16, 19).
But they were disobedient, and had won only
death. Hence
the Lord promises righteousness; and with
it, and as the consequence of
it, eternal
life. Jesus
(observe) does not rebuke them, as
foolishly supposing that the Law and the prophets
offered eternal life; but
only, that they refused ‘the
righteousness of God,’
provided for sinners in Himself; to which belong
life and salvation eternal (Prov.
12: 28; Ez. 13: 22; Hab. 2: 4; Ps. 24: 5; Is. 45:
17; 61: 10).
[Page 220]
Those
Scriptures
bore witness to Christ, as the resurrection and
salvation of all
that received Him.
They were designed to
lead
The
Law
and the prophets then were not, as many of the
errorists of John’s day
asserted, derived from another God than the Father
of our Lord. They
were part of the great scheme which was
intended to glorify the Son. Our Lord and His
Apostles fearlessly, to friend
and foe alike, appeal to Scripture.
This
is God’s word, given by His inspiration.
You may rest upon it for time and eternity. Turn away
from a ministry which makes light
of it, cavils at it, or sets up the traditions of
men, or the reasonings of men
instead. The
Scriptures as their great
end, lead on to Christ.
They
testify
prophetically His history, His character, His birth,
its place, His dwelling,
His death, His resurrection.
Is it not
strange to hear the Jews alleging against Christ a
Scripture which was really
in His favour?
This we shall see in
chapter 7: 41, 42.
But they carelessly took things at their
first aspect, and made no enquiry.
The
Jews’
trust in the Scripture, however, made them set up
its letter against Him
of whom it was designed all through to testify.
Law, as its first lesson, demanded of man
obedience as the way to life.
And here many halted, and vainly supposed
that
they could stand before the God of justice, and be
saved by works.
Its witnessing to man’s sinfulness, and to
the necessity of a deliverer was overlooked.
They were trusting in the
letter (or the Law) which
kills, and refused Christ, the spirit and deeper
meaning of the Law, which
gives life. They
rested in their own
performances, and so refused the Lord as their
Righteousness when He came as
was foretold; even after the Palms and the Prophets
had asserted the condemnation
of all, even God’s best servants.
The
earlier historic books had stated the same by
details of facts touching the
best of men.
[Page 221]
The
written
word
of God is of the same
spirit and principle as the Son of God, the personal Word made flesh. The real
acceptance of the written
word would have made room for the acceptance of the
Personal Word. Refusal of
Christ, on the other hand, to prepare for Whom the
Law and Prophets were given,
was proof that they really had not accepted the
written word.
To
keep
aloof from Christ is to lose eternal life; to come
to Him is to gain
it. ‘Ye will not.’
It is the proof of an evil heart of
unbelief. The
will
is wrong; here lies sin.
The
Law
offered eternal life, but through a man’s merits. That was
not good news.
But after any was convicted of sin, as David
was; then came the tidings of a Deliverer and His
righteousness, and through
that eternal life.
Here was the good
news: but this they accepted not.
They
preferred man’s bargain with God at
Sinai, to accepting the promise He had made.
‘Ye will not come to Me, that ye
might have life.’
In Christ was the eternal life, which they
sought in vain in the letter of the Law, apart from
Him. ‘The letter killeth.’
The
Law, that is, can only slay sinful man.
But they looked for life from that which was
only to sinners the weapon
of death. ‘Judgments
whereby they should not live.’ The
prophets
testify, on the contrary, that it is ‘by a looking
to the Son of God
alone that life and salvation are to be had (Is.
45:
22; 55: 1-3; Amos 5: 4).
And
this word of our Lord is adduced to show what John
testifies in his opening
statements - that ‘In Him was life.’
Scriptures
and
preachers urged and urge still men to come to
Christ. But
they will not come.
Our Lord traces the malady to the heart and
its choice, and there leaves it.
There
is sin thence will come its doom.
Who
is
this that speaks of life eternal as something to be
obtained not even in
Scripture, but only in Himself, as if He were the
Great Person of whom all
Scripture testified?
Is it a mere man
that speaks so?
‘If any love not Christ they are cursed.’
How
does
Christ give life?
(1) He has it in
Himself, for he is Life.
(2) He renews
the soul within by His Spirit.
(3) [Page
222] He
gives the title to eternal
life, by His great work in life and death.
As one with Him, believers have justification
in His name. Life
is not in ourselves, but death only; as
with the serpent - bitten in the desert.
Life must come to us from without.
‘Ye will not.’ Words of
sorrow to Him, but of woe to
them! Those
who read the Scriptures
aright are led from Law and self to Christ for life. ‘I
through Law died
to Law, that
I might live to God.’
And then Paul proceeds to show that his old
self was crucified with Christ, and he lived by the
power of Christ, and that
Christ lived in him (Gal.
2).
This
passage
shows the freedom of the will
of man, and his responsibility.
His
destruction is due to his own evil choice.
And death is the righteous result of his sin. Life
is
offered in Christ, but He will not come to the
Deliverer of whom it
speaks. Life
can be had only of Christ,
and yet men will turn any way rather than to Him.
Why will men be lost?
Because they choose death rather than
life. This
word speaks then also of the
will enslaved to
wickedness, and choosing evil
through enmity to God and to His Son.
In
one sense then the will is free; that is,
a
man is not compelled by a force outside him to
choose against his will.
His life shows his choice.
His own tendency and persistent choice is
death. But
in another point of view,
since there is a strong current of enmity within, and man chooses according to that deadly principle of unbelief
which destroys him, we say his will is enslaved. This strong bias of
the
will, far from excusing him, is the just ground of
his condemnation.
The will of man is at enmity with God. Here is an
implied call to come to Christ for
life. Every
one who will shall find
life.
41, 42. ‘I
receive not honour from men.
But I recognise you, that ye have not the
love of God in you.’
These
claims
of the Saviour the Jews misinterpreted, as if He
were seeking honour
from them, and was displeased because his vanity was
touched. The
Lord loftily rejects such an idea.
That was their motive,
not His. The
two stood on opposite [Page
223]
rounds. And
from His higher stand He could judge of,
and condemn their lower one.
He sought
His Father’s glory, and desired their salvation. They
sought the honour of men, rejected the
Son, and sought His death.
The love of
God was the Saviour’s prime motive.
That, however, they were destitute of.
This searcher of hearts could discover that
at once. The
Law required as the chief principle of
obedience, Love of God, with all the heart.
But herein they were condemned, as destitute
of the only true mainspring
of life. The
Scriptures testify, that
not only is there the absence of the love of God but
the presence of enmity in
the natural heart (
Thus
our
Lord explained their refusal.
It was
deep-seated; the logic of the heart.
He
loved
God; they
hated
God. They
hated the Son; but the Son is the image
of the Father, and love and enmity soon part
company. Jesus knew it (1) by
knowing the heart; (2) by the evidence of their
conduct, their hostility to Him
increasing as He was more known.
How
could they love God, when they loved not Him whom
God loved, Whom He sent to
save them, and Who perfectly resembled God.
No
love
of God! Here
is condemnation.
Love of God with all the heart, is the
first
demand of Law.
Without that, is no true
obedience. Spite
of God’s natural
mercies to them as men, spite of their
spiritual privileges as Jews, there was in them no love of God!
Now
if
43.
‘I am come in My Father’s
name, and ye receive Me not,
if another come in his own name, him ye will
receive.’
This
is
closely connected with what precedes.
Jesus came as the Father’s servant, seeking
His glory, doing His will,
and fulfilling His word.
But that was
not to the taste of the men of
‘Another is coming.’
One of an opposite spirit, glorifying
himself, flattering men's pride
and vanity, declaring himself independent of all. ‘He
is the one and
only God, owning no superior or equal.’
Denying, as Paul says, every God, and object
of worship; requiring -
though but a sinful man - all worship to be rendered
to himself. Seating
himself in the
‘Another.’ As Jesus
was an individual – God’s true
Christ – so will the false Christ be an individual. It is not
the popes then, or any succession
of men.
He
would
‘come in his own name,’
out of the
prompting of his own evil ambition.
He
is sent by none.
Not with works of
power, and words of grace from the Father, but with
Satan’s voice of blasphemy,
and works of deceit.
Not for the glory
of God, and the salvation of men, but to glorify
himself, and destroy men.
Not in accordance with the Scriptures which
speak of the Christ, but to fulfil the words of God
about the evil day.
The
two
opposing tendencies, between the Christ and the
Antichrist, will come to a
marked and opposite ending.
The refused
of the Christ and the Father, will end in the
reception of the devil and his
son.
He
will
be ‘the man of sin,’
as Jesus was ‘the Man of
Holiness.’
He will be Satan’s King, as Jesus is God’s
anointed One. As
Jesus was the obedient One, he will be the
perverse and lawless one, who will do his own will.
The
Popes
do not come in their own name, as He will.
They come in the name of Peter, and of
Christ
- perversely alleged, it is true; but neither in
their doctrine, nor in their
spirit, nor in [Page 225] their credentials, are they
like this man.
For the Popes own the
Father, and the Son; and ‘that
Jesus Christ is come in
the flesh,’ 1
John 2. 4.
‘Him
ye
will receive.’ Then will come the
punishment of God, because of their
sin. As
they would not have the Holy
One, they will seize on the unholy and false one. They
refuse the true Christ.
Then an energy of delusion will carry them
away to worship and obey Satan and his king.
They refuse the gentle fountain of
This
word
of our Lord has been partially fulfilled already
False Christs have arisen
(some say as many as sixty-four), not possessed of
powers of miracle.
But
Our
Lord
they would stone, mock, and crucify.
The false Christ they adore with all their
hearts! They
will, at his mark their foreheads and
right hands, and worship before his statue.
To do this, is irrecoverable damnation, As,
to worship the true Son of
God, is eternal life; so, to adore this limb of the
Devil, is to be damned
beyond repentance.
[Page
226]
Hence we learn, that the
world and the Jew will not be
converted by the Gospel.
Now is the day
of mercy through the Son of God; but only the elect
accept the Son.
But another day, the day of wrath, is close
at hand, when
All
then,
who in this day deny the Trinity, are getting ready
to throw themselves
into the arms of the Lawless One of unbelief.
If I mistake not, this is the meaning of the
two goats, which were
presented on the Day of Atonement.
The
one was the Lord’s and it was slain - type of the
true Christ, and His
sacrifice for sin.
The other was ‘for
Azazel;’ and on its head were all the sins
of
44.
‘How can YE
believe, who receive glory from one another; and
seek not the glory which comes
from the only God?’
The
Lord
Jesus points out the root-difference between Himself
and them. His
heart, and His constant choice, were opposite
to theirs. Jesus
sought, at all hazards,
and as the object of His life, the glory of the
Father. They
sought the glory of fallen, sinful men,
who are the enemies of God.
They
were
of the world, and sought the world's applause. And hence
they were obliged to think, and
act, and choose as the world does.
To
forsake that, would be to be rejected by the world:
to lose the clearest object
of their hearts, the pursuit of their lives - a good
reputation in
The
way
to join Jesus and His disciples, was to accept
immersion; and the great and
learned of the nation looked with dislike and
contempt upon it.
It was to abandon one’s own good works, as
the way to salvation; and the Pharisees would not do
that. They
despised those who did so.
It was to put everything to peril.
If the great and learned so treated the
Master, that His life was in jeopardy how much more
with His followers?
The
law
of this land says – ‘The
sovereign is the fountain
of honour.’
From Him come rank,
titles, decorations.
How
much
rather is it true, that the King of kings is the
true fountain of
honour! We
must not seek it now from the
world, or even from the Church.
But let
us covet and seek the abiding glory which God shall
give.
God
is
one, and demands the whole heart.
The
many gods of nature and heathenism, with their
united powers, are so many
falsities springing out of a divided heart.
To
seek
glory from any one, or any party, you must take his
level; esteem what he
does; and despise, and refuse, what his party does. And the
breach between our Lord and His foes
was daily getting wider.
They would not
therefore listen to the claims of Jesus, whether
presented in His words or
deeds. They
fenced off the appeals of
conscience. Nothing
should induce them
to break with their party.
They would
not seek the glory of the One True God.
To that they preferred the glory which comes
from their sinful fellows.
That
then was their God.
This they followed as the one object of
life,
and that being wrong all was wrong.
So
the covetous man is an idolater.
They were thus brought into
opposition with the first
demand of their Law.
‘Thou shalt have
none other Gods but
[Page 228]
And
while
that was the case, ‘they
could not believe.’
‘They could not.’ ‘But how
are they responsible, and to be blamed if they
could not do otherwise?’
Here we have another example of the
necessity
of distinguishing the two ‘cans.’ When the
will of the man is right, and his body alone is
in fault, the man is not to be
blamed. ‘Master,
I would go on your
errands, but I am so set fast with
rheumatism that I cannot move
hand or foot.’ Here
the will is right, the body alone is
wrong. The
physical
‘can’ hinders. Let
him
alone; blame him not!
But
was
it so here? Was
the will right?
No.
Jesus is reproaching them because their will
and its choice were wrong.
It was no fault of the body which prevented, it was
the disinclination of the soul.
Here
then is the moral ‘can.’
They could if they would, but they would not.
Thus
then Jesus condemns them for this evil choice; that
[if]
persisted in, they would be lost.
Faith
or
unbelief turns much less on the amount of evidence,
than on the state of the
heart. Does
any say – ‘I cannot believe.’ It
is
only, ‘I will
not.’
The will is at fault; there is the sin; and
thereon turns the condemnation.
The
same
is true of very many now.
Their
evil heart loves the world, and pursues its glory. They are
at enmity with God, and desire not the glory which comes from Him.
The
same
barrier stands in the way of believing now, as truly
as it did then.
For the world and its Lord are the same
morally now that they were then.
Those
who will pursue the things seen and temporal, must
push aside the things unseen
and eternal. ‘The friendship
of the world is enmity
with God. Whosoever
therefore wishes to
be the friend of the world, is the enemy of God.’ If you
wish to be respected and admired, to
have a good reputation for wisdom and good sense,
you must choose with the
world; you must move in its ranks.
But
the Christian is to walk by faith, not by sight,
while the world walks by
sight, and not by faith.
Man
is
by nature ambitious, desirous of a good reputation;
and to advance before
his fellows. The
feeling in itself is
not evil. Only,
as found in man
un-renewed it leads astray, because He [Page 229]
knows not whence the true honour is to come, and how
to please God.
Nor when he has heard it,
does he desire it.
His
aim is to get on now, and
among men. But if we desire true glory, the
glory which God and Christ shall give, we
cannot be too ambitious.
Jesus Himself points out the way
to it by
His life, and by His words.
Give up all
desire of the world’s applause (1
Cor. 3: 18-20).
The
day
of God’s giving thrones and crowns
is at hand.
See then, Christian, what is to be the
principle of your life!
See what was the
principle of our Lord’s conduct. He sought the glory
of His God and
Father. This
led Him into collision with
the world, both in word and deed. And
the
Father was well pleased with His Son for His
choice, and the conduct to
which it led.
It required the Lord
Jesus to give up much which man esteems; but to
please His Father He
cared not how much He offended men [with
truth].
And soon His career of trouble and strife
was
over; and His glory abides evermore. Then move on
the same path,
Christian! It
will cause you to be
accounted a fool, or a rogue, or a fanatic.
But that is but for a brief time.
The breath of your foes is only in their
nostrils. The
words and crown of true glory shall one day be
given by God, when the day of
reward has arrived. Then the
glory of the world will have come to
nought; and its great men, and their Great Leader
Satan will for ever be lying
under the wrath of God.
Is there any
reader who sees that God has by His Son commanded
baptism, as the token of
faith in the Son of God, and of abandoning the
world? ‘But people dislike
it so. Some
ridicule it as folly; some
as being righteous overmuch, some as pride and
presumption, setting yourself
above those who know much more than you!’ Well, it
is true that baptism (or the
immersion of the believer) is everywhere spoken
against. It
is such a marked, such an individual coming
out from the world, and bearing testimony against
it, that it carries much
reproach. God and His Christ foresaw it, intended it should be so. Which
then will you choose?
To seek the approval of God, or that of
the
world? You must make your choice.
You
must either [Page
230] obey in faith, and lose your reputation for good sense, and other good
qualities; or you must displease God and His Son by
disobeying. Which
shall it be? That
pleasure or displeasure will be shown in a day to
come, when the world’s glory
will have vanished. Choose
then with
Christ! There is peace now, and glory [in the age to come]
by-and-bye!
‘Glory from the only God.’ That is
the true translation. Jesus then
asserts the unity of God, as well as the Trinity.
There
are
not, as heathens suppose, gods many.
There is but One: all beings beside owe their
origin to Him, the
Creator. This
is His distinguishing
glory. Because
of this, He alone is to
be worshipped and obeyed.
We, as
creatures, belong wholly to Him.
How
is
it that so many are regular hearers of God’s word?
oft affected by it;
intelligent and amiable?
But they never
leave their position.
Conscience oft
presses them; the word of God smites hard on their
souls. They
wish to be saved.
One hopes continually they will join the
ranks of Christ.
They seem half
persuaded at times. But they never come out.
Why? What
hinders? The
vessel is held to its present place by
the deep, unseen anchor, against the force of wind
and tide. That
anchor is the love of human honour.
For it, they sacrifice present peace, and
future glory and happiness.
In a
desolate island, with none to see, perhaps they
might be Christ’s.
But they have a character to lose.
They cannot sacrifice
that.
They
could not endure the ridicule of belonging to ‘the
saints!’ With
this compass on board, they will
never make the haven of salvation they will be
wrecked on the rocks of
unbelief. Come
out, man Give up the
worthless applause of evil men, the enemies of God. Seek the
glory that will last!
The glory of the world ends in the
bottomless
pit, and the eternal lake of fire!
45. ‘Do
not suppose that I will accuse you to the Father:
there is
one who accuses you, Moses, in whom ye hope.’
Jesus
came
in grace, and patiently bore their accusations and
persecutions. There
was no need to accuse them, nor did He
desire it.
[Page
231]
They
might,
and doubtless did say in their hearts ‘He
hates
us, because we will not own Him, and so He will do
His worst against us.’
The Saviour denies this natural thought.
They
leaned
on Moses; but Moses could only accuse them.
They refused Christ, who alone could
save. They
thought they were righteous,
and hoped Moses would give them eternal life.
They thought they were unimpeachable
defenders of the truth; for did
they not stand up for the Unity of God?
Did they not refuse idols and idolaters?
How sad, that they clung to Moses, who could
only destroy them as
transgressors; refused the Son of God; and made a
god out of their love of
human reputation!
They
would
stand by Jehovah, the God of Moses, the God of
Israel. They
were, however, by Him rejected.
His prophets had pronounced against them
the
sentence: ‘Lo Ammi’;
‘Not
my people.’
Measured by law, they
wore undone. Judged
by the God of
Justice, they must perish.
But God was
now revealing Himself as the God of grace.
His Son come in goodness, was proclaiming ‘the
Father,’ the God of mercy and loving
kindness. Him they refused - to
their own perdition.
They would meet the
claims of Jehovah at His throne of righteousness,
and therefore they must
perish as sinners.
They
boasted
in Moses: they glorified themselves in being steady
disciples of the Law,
not chaff blown about by every fanatic.
‘We are Moses’
disciples.’
But they were not.
For Moses had told them he was to hand them
on to be taught by another.
How sad
then, when in our day men are going back to Law, and
its fleshly traditions!
Moses
witnessed
against them, (1) that they had not observed the Law
in perfection;
and that being thus under the curse (2) they would
not put themselves under the
Deliverer. ‘I through Law,
died to Law, that I might
live to God,’ says Paul.
Moses
takes
leave of the people with a prediction of their
unbelief. His
song was to be placed beside the ark as a
witness against them
(Deut. 31: 21-26).
[Page 232]
Until
Law
has done its work in ruining the sinner’s pride, he
is not prepared for
grace. No
one really believes the law,
who sees not himself condemned thereby, in nature,
and in practice.
Here
Jesus
testifies, that the first five books of Scripture
are written by
Moses. This
is our answer against
Colenzo, and infidels in general.
How
can
any be saved? Only
by being brought
from under the Law, to stand in grace.
Only Christ, by His obedience and His
sacrifice unto death, can give Law
all its dues, and thus set us free from the curse;
and give us the acceptance
and the heritage of sons of God.
You cannot,
sinner, be saved by Moses, and your obedience to the
ten commandments.
Moses can only accuse you before the
throne. You
have never for an hour kept
his chief principles - the love of God, with all the
heart, and of your
neighbour as yourself.
For
those
who will not listen to God’s truth, and grace in
Christ, there remains
only to cite them before God’s tribunal.
Called to answer for life or death before the
great white throne, with
all their sins upon them - sins written against them
in the books of God - they
will justly be damned.
And the measure
of severity of damnation will be to each, the amount
of sins. To
trust in Moses, and refuse Christ and His
work, is to deserve eternal woo.
Moses
accused
There
was
one special sin, on which our Lord had His eye. Moses
taught, in effect, that His commands
were only to continue in force till one of
[Page
233]
46, 47. ‘For
had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me;
for he
wrote of Me.
But if ye believe not his
writings, how shall ye believe My words?’
A
right spirit, smarting under a sense of sin, would
have seized on the hopes
hold out to Abraham; unconditional promises, in
which a sinner may trust.
They would have rested in the promised
Deliverer, the Seed of the Woman, the
But
where
Moses does not humble men as a witness to the God of
awful justice, and a
witness of our sinfulness and need of mercy, there
Christ is not welcomed.
He who thinks to win eternal life by his
deeds tested by Law, will not accept eternal life as
a gift through Christ.
Jesus
then
points out to them their danger.
They trusted for acceptance, through Moses’
testimony in their
favour. He
was really an accuser, able
to destroy them righteously.
‘You cry out against Me as an
enemy of Moses, a transgressor
of his Law. You
will find to your
eternal cost, that Moses himself will condemn you,
his professed partizans.’
Faith
in
Moses would have led on to faith in Christ.
This was God’s gracious design.
‘The Law made
nothing perfect.’
Unbelief in Christ was really unbelief in
Moses. Every
true Jew becomes, by way of
consequence, a Christian.
Every false
Jew instinctively refuses the Gospel.
Jesus
proves
that Moses was their accuser.
For
Moses wrote of Christ, and would lead on His people
to obey Messiah.
Refusing Messiah, they refused Moses.
*
*
*
CHAPTER 6
[Page 234]
FEEDING
THE FIVE
THOUSAND
1-4. ‘After
these things, Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee,
which
is the
John’s
Gospel
supposes the previous appearance of the other three
Gospels. It
takes for granted our Lord’s return to
Galilee after His sojourn at
Jesus
could
not go up now to
The
miracle
before us is related by all four Evangelists.
But John gives it, by way of introducing
the
Saviour’s discourse which follows, in which He shows
Himself to be the true
fulfilment of things given in type under Moses and
the prophets.
Our
Lord’s
power is here virtually compared with that of Moses
and Elisha; and His
great superiority is manifested.
Moses,
after
being in peril at last through Pharaoh’s anger,
leads out
In
the
Gospel, our Lord, in peril after the slaying of His
forerunner by Herod,
retreats into a desert region.
He
crosses the sea, that His power over the water and
the land may be seen.
[Page 235]
The
sea
is called the
‘
A
great multitude of old was led by Moses; a multitude
is led by our Lord.
Though seemingly but a peasant, His powers
of
miracle, greater than those of Moses or Elijah,
attracted very many to follow
Him. Many
brought the sick to be
cured. Jesus
had crossed the sea to get
some rest for Himself and the disciples.
But the people followed Him on foot, round
the lake. Many
were drawn to see the daily miracles of
healing ‘which He used to do on the sick.’ These
were
tokens of a dispensation of mercy, far higher than
the miracles of Moses,
which were oft inflictions of disease or death on
Gentiles, or offenders of
The
Saviour
then went up to the mountain - probably
This
scene
may remind us of the feast of the seventy-two elders
on Horeb (Ex. 24.).
‘The
Passover,
the chief feast of the Jews, was near.’
Observe,
Christians!
feasts are Jewish matters. John and
Paul had
left Judaism, and its feasts.
Paul warns
us against them.
The Saviour’s absence
makes this day to be no feast time.
‘Then shall they fast in those days,’ - of the Bridegroom’s absence.
The Christian’s feast is to come.
Here
again,
the Lord’s resemblance to Moses appears.
It was about the time of the Passover, that
This
note
of the apostle in verses
1-4, is
inserted to give us a clue to our Lord’s words in
the discourse which follows.
5, 6. ‘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?” And this He said to prove him: for He
Himself knew what He would do.’
‘A great multitude was coming to
Him.’
Perhaps, on its way to
The
Saviour’s
mind was bent on feeding this great crowd and He
would show that
there was no human means of so doing.
This point comes to light from the question
to Philip, and his answer.
This
question
we are told did not arise from Jesus’ ignorance, but
was uttered to
put Philip to the proof.
Moses, in like
circumstances in the desert, was at his wits’ end. Hence, the
Lord appears on His behalf to give
Philip’s
reply
shows the destitution of necessary means.
It would require a far greater sum than they
had, to give but a mouthful
or two to so great a number.
Here we see
the grace of the new dispensation.
Our
Lord deals with His disciples as friends; and speaks
to them of the
circumstances in which they are found.
7-9. ‘Philip
answered Him, “Two hundred pennyworth of bread are
not
sufficient for them, that every one of them may
take a little.”
One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon
Peter’s
brother, saith unto Him, “There is a lad here,
which hath five barley loaves,
and two small fishes: but what are they among so
many?”’
Philip
looks
only to ordinary means, and discerns not the
supernatural resources of
Christ.
[Page
237]
It seems
probable that the lad was a
suttler, or baker's boy, who followed the multitude
in the hope of selling his
wares. The
miracle was closely connected
with the blessing of the
provision.
Moses,
in
like circumstances, doubts even the power of God to
fulfil His word (Num.
11: 17-22).
Here our Lord takes the place, not of Moses
in unbelief, but of Jehovah;
spreading the feast, as of old, for
It
was
the necessity of the multitude that drew forth this
miracle. ‘Man’s extremity
is God’s opportunity.’ When human
means fail, we may look for the interference of God.
We
see
that the Saviour interests Himself and His Apostles
even in the bodily
necessities of men.
And the desert, the place of difficulty, is also the place of God’s glory.
How
apt
we are to limit ourselves in all cases by visible
means, and how little we
regard the infinite wisdom, power, and goodness of
God! Philip
looks at the want of money; Andrew at
the lack of food.
We look at means.
When they fail what can we do?
It becomes us to trace our daily food to
God’s
hand. Each
creature is sanctified to us
by the word of God and prayer.
In
spite
of the manifest want of provisions in the desert,
infidels have supposed,
in order to get rid of the miracle, that Jesus and
the disciples shared what
they had with the multitude.
So that
others, led by His example, did the same; and all
were fed. This
is all fancy. They
forget to tell us, why then did the
people think Him Messiah, and wish to make Him King?
In
what
follows our Lord is tacitly compared to Elisha (2
Kings 4: 42-44).
A friend of the
prophet brings him bread of the firstfruits, twenty
barley loaves and some ears
of corn. But,
says the steward, ‘What are
they to set before a hundred men?’
The prophet replies, ‘Thus saith the Lord, “They
shall eat, and leave thereof.”’
In
our
Gospel, Andrew announces to our Lord the state of
destitution in which this
great assembly was found. There were, as far as they
knew, only five barley
cakes and two small [Page 238] fishes (making up together the perfect seven): but what were they
among so many?
Out
of
these should spring the supply of their need - a
lesson to us, to use what
we have, however inadequate apparently the means.
But
here
a new difficulty arises - How shall the food be
meted out? If
the supply were to be given from Christ’s
hand directly, what pushing and thrusting to get the
food, and then to get
outside of the multitude that was still hungry; with
the danger of having the
portion given snatched away, in the struggle to get
out of the crowd.
Here was a serious difficulty; but so
simply,
wisely, and effectually was it met, that most pass
it by, and do not e’en
notice it.
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.’
Jesus
meets
the emergency by bidding the guests to seat
themselves. They
were to be waited on by His servants,
the disciples, in place of having to seek their
food. They
are seated on the green grass, for it is
early spring. Later
in the year, all
greenness is gone through the great heat.
We learn also, that there was order in the
arrangements of the
guests. They
are seated, in ranks, by
fifties in a company.
This rendered them
easier to be waited on: and quite easy was it to
count the numbers.
There were a hundred companies of fifty
each!
Here again was a tacit reference to
11.
‘And Jesus took the loaves;
and when He had given
thanks He distributed to the disciples, and the
disciples to them that were set
down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they
would.’
Our
Lord,
before serving the food, gives thanks in the
presence of all the
multitude. They
can see Him, for He is
on higher ground.
He gives thanks, for
He is Son of Man, and traces all the benefits He
enjoys to God His Father.
He does so to teach disciples to do the
same. Without God’s blessing, there would not be food, or we
might be unable to partake it, if we had it.
[Page 239]
Then
He distributes
to the guests at His
vast table. How
the bread was
multiplied, we know not.
But the Saviour
made the task of waiting on the multitude to devolve
on His disciples.
That was the higher lot; for, ‘it
is more blessed to give than to receive.’ Thus also
He would leave us a lesson,
instructing us to supply, as far as we may, the
spiritual need of the people
about us.
He
gives
‘likewise of the fishes, as much as they desired.’
This
point
was very important in John’s day, and will be again. For
Christians will have to contend against a
system, professing to be more spiritual and gracious
than Christianity, yet
asserting principles destructive both of the Old
Testament and the New.
‘Is it lawful to kill
creatures for our food? It is
bad enough to
slay the herds and flocks which man feeds; but is
it not much to go down to the
waters, and thence attract by craft, or take by
force, the harmless inhabitants
of the waters?
Is it not a proof of
barbarism? Is
it not an offence against
the Creator?
Did He make creatures for
us to destroy?
Does not this diet, not
only spring from evil, but increase sin?
If man fed on vegetable diet alone, would
He not be purer, and more healthful,
and more merciful?
Does not this preying
on living creatures make him crafty and
bloodthirsty?
Yes!
If you wish to know God, ought you not to
abstain from practices which
may be permitted in a sense to the ignorant and
common rabble?’
Thus
will
evil spirits, inspiring some of the sons of men,
lead in the latter day to
abandon the word and doctrine of God.
In
the matter of food Satan deceived our first parents. On the
ground will he assault men again in
the latter day, as his plans ripen; and will bring
them into collision with
their God and Saviour.
It
becomes
us then, to be aware of his devices, and to know the
poisonous quality
of this seemingly merciful and beautiful doctrine.
We
must
reply then in substance as follows.
The use of animal food is indeed a sign of
the entry of sin.
For only [Page 240]
the vegetables of earth were at first given to man
as
his food. But
after sin had entered, and
after the judgment of the flood had (apparently)
altered the system of the
world, and shortened human life, the Most High
bestowed all the animal creation
on man to form part of his support (Gen.
9: 3).
Under the Law, God narrowed the kinds of
animals allowed as sustenance to
The
Son
of God made flesh still continues His sanction to
the use of animal
food. He
eats of animal food; He gives
it to others. He
bids Peter take a hook,
and catch a fish.
Even after His
resurrection our Lord partakes of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. Thus again, He allows
the
bees to be killed by hundreds in order to get their
honey. And
His last miracle in this Gospel is a
miraculous draught of fishes, and a breakfast on
them with His disciples.
Those,
therefore,
who call in question or deny the lawfulness of
eating flesh, must
break with both the Old Testament and the New.
They cannot be disciples of Jesus, or even of
Moses. And
indeed to this destructive doctrine there
belongs a farther reach of mischief than at first
appears. If
it be not lawful to slay and eat of animals,
neither is it lawful to slay them in sacrifice. Under Moses the two
things went
together. Some
of the sacrifices were in part consumed
on the altar, as a sweet savour to God; part was
eaten by the offerer and the
priests. If
then to slay living creatures
be sinful, the whole religious system of Moses is sinful too. This
will also be asserted.
There will be a
refusal of the Mosaic Law as bloody and cruel.
There must then be a refusal of the God who
gave it. Thus,
then, the way of approach to God by
blood, or the way of atonement common to both
the Old Testament and the New,
must be set aside. And
then we have reached what Scripture
speaks of as [Page 241] ‘the way of Cain.’
He would not offer sacrifices of blood. ‘It
was impossible
that a merciful God could take delight in the
agonies and death of an innocent
creature.’
He resisted therefore
the true way of approach to Jehovah.
Confident in his reasoning, he dared try his
system in God’s presence,
was refused; but would not yield.
So it will be in the latter day (Jude
11). How does
Cain’s example expose the hypocrisy
of the doctrine!
He who is so gentle as
to refuse to shed blood at God’s command, is so
exasperated at the Lord’s
acceptance of his brother as to slay him!
Thus does this system - while it refuses to
own the Fall, the sin which
dwells in man over since, and the only way of
approach to God the righteous -
manifest in black colours the reality of what it
denies (1 Tim. 3: 16; 4:
1).
The two things - the
peculiarities of our present
dispensation, and the falling away from them, are
thus brought into contact in
the context.
12, 13. ‘When
they were filled, he said unto His disciples,
“Gather up
the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.” Therefore
they gathered them together, and
filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the
five barley loaves, which
remained over and above unto them that had eaten.’
Thus
the
Saviour fed 5000.
Thus our Lord
fulfilled His word – ‘Seek first the
Though
the
supply was miraculous, there is to be no waste. This is a
principle of daily application,
embodied in the saying – ‘Waste
not, want not.’
[Page
242]
Thus,
too,
the reality of the miracle was substantiated.
Thus it was brought into contact and
comparison with the miracle of Elisha.
Something was to be left after the meal of a
hundred men on twenty
barley cakes, but how much we are not told.
Herein
see
the superiority of Jesus to Moses in the supply of
manna. Then
there was ‘nothing
over,’
however much,
or however little, a man gathered.
Moreover, it would not keep till the next
day, save for the Sabbath (Ex.
16: 16-20).
To give is the way by
which faith gains. ‘There is that
scattereth, and yet increaseth; there is that
withholdeth more than is meet,
but it tendeth to poverty.’
Here
while
the whole provision could at first have been easily
put into one basket,
the remainder, after the repast of 5000, is twelve
baskets full. In
the twelve baskets is
doubtless a tacit reference to God’s future
supply of the twelve tribes, when,
in the day of restoration, He shall take them
again to their own land under the
conduct and rule of the true Son of David; and to His
feeding
the fugitives of Israel in the desert during the
days of Antichrist
(Rev. 12: 6-14).
The
effect
on the multitudes is to lead them to Jewish thoughts
and desires of the
flesh. Such
a leader would be an
excellent one to follow; for He carried with Him a
supply like Elijah’s; and
who could withstand the onset of troops backed by
miracle? The
Saviour foresaw this danger, and refused
to acquiesce in being so made king.
With
wisdom therefore, and simplicity, He disarranges
their plans. He
sends away the disciples, and Himself
withdraws to the Mount.
14,15. ‘Then
those men, when they had seen the miracle that
Jesus
did, said – “This is of a truth the Prophet, that
is to come into the
world.” When
Jesus therefore perceived
that they would come and take Him by force, to
make Him king, He departed again
into the mountain Himself alone.’
They
are
more struck with this miracle, than with all the
previous ones.
It came home to every bosom; and the
greatness of the multitude raised the general
feeling of admiration
This was, then, the prophet like Moses; the
prophet of whom Moses wrote.
He could
provide for them always, as did Moses,
[Page
243] without labour on their
part. Why not make Him their king
and
deliverer from the Romans?
They do not
see Him to be more than man; or greater than Moses. They go
only as far as flesh and blood can (Matt.
16: 14-17). And Jesus is not
content
therewith.
They
seem
to have felt obscurely, that the doctrine of the
Saviour, and His general
bearing, were such, that He would not of His own
will, and unless compelled,
accept their proposal.
But Christ’s kingly days [upon this
earth during the millennium] were not to come
till His priestly sacrifice and
work had been wrought. Christ is to be King in [and after] resurrection, and
thus to be supreme above all
former kings.
But death - the death for
sin, and through sin - is to precede [His
second
advent].
Jesus perceives by divine intimation,
their counsel; and would set it aside.
He
would not [then] take the kingdom
from Satan.
Now
He will not receive the honour from men - as He
said. Their
thoughts were fleshly and low, even as
when the nation desired a king, in the days of Saul. Christ was
to be God’s king. ‘Yet
have I
set my King, on My holy Mount of
The
Saviour
then, disconcerts the plan.
He
sends away the apostles.
They would, no
doubt, have been glad to have helped the scheme of
the multitude.
And He Himself then retreats the solitude of
the Mount, to pray.
In God’s wisdom, the
name of the Mount is not given us.
16-18. ‘Now
when even was come, His disciples went down unto
the sea,
and entered into the ship, and were going over the
sea towards
We
have
next the scene on the sea.
The disciples,
like men in general, are unable, effectually, to
contend with the obstacles of
wind and wave.
They toil in rowing,
against increasing [Page 244] winds and waves. Though
the
Saviour had given the order to cross the water, they
meet only with difficulty.
We must not judge by circumstances, when we
have the guidance of God’s commands.
It
did not prove Judas to be right, that when he went
to sell our Lord, he found
the council sitting, and willing at once to agree to
his terms.
19. ‘So
when they had rowed about five and twenty or
thirty
furlongs, they beheld Jesus walking on the sea,
and drawing nigh unto the ship,
and they were afraid.’
They
were
expecting our Lord; for He had given them (Mark 6: 45)
the intimation, that
after the departure of the multitude, He would
return to them.
All
night,
till the fourth watch, they contend with small
result against the
increasing force.
At length the Lord,
who has beheld them from above (though they saw not
Him), descends the Mount,
and walks the sea.
He is not detained,
as they are. He
draws near them, for He
meant to come to them.
They think it
must be some apparition, and are affrighted.
For how can man walk the waters?
He may swim in calm water, but how deeply he
is immersed!
The
Saviour
reassures them. ‘It
is I: fear not!’
How often that which we much feared, has
brought us much of blessing!
‘All things are
working together for good’ to those who
are God’s. The
Lord is in the troubles
with us. But
this applies to those alone
who are Christ’s.
Then
they
are most willing to receive Him into the ship,* as
before they were
willing to get out of His way. And as soon as He
touches the ship, it has
arrived at its port.
Here is a new
miracle. They
had advanced but half-way
across, with all their striving; but as soon as the
Saviour joins them, at once
the goal is reached.
The bark receives
more from Christ than Christ receives from the bark.
*
Here is the
answer to those who would make John at variance with
the other three gospels. [The
Greek word
…] refers to the point of
Jesus’ entry on the
vessel. So
that [it]
means what the Evangelist supposes.
[Page 245]
In this
incident, the Saviour is tacitly
compared with some of the great of old.
1. With Aaron.
Moses bids him and the seventy elders
stay on the top of the Mount, till he comes back. But
Aaron’s faith and patience fail.
He goes down the Mount, and there he is
made
the tool of the unbelieving multitude, and becomes
the priest of an idol.
His first unbelief prepares for his last
crime, beneath which he had perished but for the
prayer of the Mediator.
But our Lord goes up the Mount, and, in
converse with His God escapes the pressure of
unbelief from the ignorant crowd
below.
2. With Moses. We have
noticed
it concerning the manna.
But there is a
further comparison.
Moses and his people
are shut in by the sea in front, and the host of
foes is behind.
Then by God’s command taking and lifting his
rod, the waters part by a strong wind, the sea-floor
is dried, and the people
pass through, while the enemy is drowned; after the
Lord has, in the morning
watch, looked out on the foe, and troubled them.
Our Lord, un-possessed of
Moses’ rod, does not open
the waters for others to pass through, but Himself
walked on them.
This was a greater miracle than opening
them. Job
(9:
8) speaks of this walking the waves as the
act of God alone.
Jesus proves, by Peter’s example, His power
of communicating this miraculous ability to others. But as yet
He does not try thus the
disciples’ faith.
It is in the morning
watch that He comes, not to destroy but comfort
struggling friends.
It is the day of grace.
But Moses does not bring
3. We should compare our Lord
also with Jonah.
He
fees the command of the Most High, for his mission
will not be to his own
glorification.
Then comes the storm, as
a judgment sent
on his account; and in
it he is swallowed up. Here the [Page 246] storm comes, rages only while Jesus is away, and ceases at His
word. He
does not flee from doing the
Lord’s will as Jonah did, but self-denyingly
performs it. He
is not swallowed up by the storm, but
rules both wave and wind.
He loads the
mariners to their desired haven.
The
mariners
of old were obliged to cast Jonah out of the ship
against their
desire. The
disciples, their fear once
assuaged, wish to receive Christ into the ship, and
His presence stills the
storm, and brings them to land. Thus the Saviour
puts forth the attributes of
the Godhead. His
power over sea and wave
is attested by Psalm 107:
23-31.
But few perceive who it is that does so,
though Matthew tells us, that on this occasion the
ship’s crew worshipped Him,
saying – ‘Truly Thou art the
Son of God,’ Matt.
14: 33.
4. This scene is also typical. The
Saviour and His disciples separated at
last at the
We
are
now introduced to the perplexity of the multitude
left behind. What
had become of Jesus? They do not find
Him on [Page 247] the
mountain. He
had not crossed in the boat
in which the disciples left, they know. Where then
could He be? The sea stretched
between Him and His Apostles, and without a boat
they esteem it impossible for
any to traverse the sea.
What were they
to do?
They
at
length made up their minds to take the same route
which the Apostles had
done. As
the Master would doubtless rejoin
His disciples, in finding them they would find Him. To further
this design, there came boats the
next morning from Tiberias, on the western side of
the lake, and these vessels
came to the spot where the multitude had been fed. If they
would seek Jesus therefore, they had
better cross the lake in these vessels, than travel
on foot all the way round
the lake by land.
After, apparently, a
further search round the spot where they were, they
embark, cross the lake, and
find to their surprise the Saviour at the further
side already!
They
express
that surprise, but Jesus does not unfold to them the
history of the
preceding night.
He sought not glory of
men. He
was about to state truths, which
instead of leading them to Him, would drive them
away. Thus was fulfilled Psalm
77: 19, ‘Thy way is in the sea, and Thy path in the
great waters, and Thy footsteps were not known.’
But
how
could 5,000 be transported across in a few small
boats?
This supposes what is
untrue and unlikely, that they all stayed at the
spot in spite of Jesus’
dismissing them.
It was only some of the
most hardy and most bent on carrying out their plans
who stayed there.
The vessels from Tiberias carried probably
those who hoped to find Jesus on the eastern side of
the lake. But
when they learned He was there no longer,
they are at once ready to depart, and to take others
back with them.
The limitation supposed in this answer to the
difficulty raised, is actually given by John.
‘When the multitude that was standing on the
other side of the sea.’
They are
opposed to those who at evening went away. The
others stayed, because they
hoped for our Lord’s return.
The motives
for their tarrying [Page 248] are first given, and then we are told why and how they departed, on
their expectation being defeated.
It is
noticed that the Saviour’s blessing had created the
abundance. The
reference is to Prov.
10: 22, ‘The
blessing of the Lord, it maketh
rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it.’
Here also He is called ‘the
Lord.’
These
circumstances
are the groundwork of the discourse in
On
finding
that our Lord had crossed the sea in a way which
they could not
comprehend, they asked for an explanation of the
time and manner in which He
had effected it.
But He would not
gratify their curiosity.
The
Saviour,
in the discourse which follows, is bent on removing
from the minds of
the people who were following Him, the low motives
which were actuating them in
so doing, and these He points out.
It
was right to follow Him, if they did so on the
higher and spiritual motives
which centred in Himself.
They call Him,
‘Rabbi.’
They see in Him only the Teacher; the
Scripture calls Him ‘Lord’
(verse 23).
26, 27. ‘Jesus
answered them and said, “Verily, verily, I say
unto
you, ye
are seeking Me, not because
ye see signs, but because ye ate of the loaves and
were filled.
Work
not for the food which perishes, but for the
food which abides unto eternal*
life, which
the Son of
Man shall give you: for Him God the Father hath
sealed.”’
[* NOTE. Greek,
- ‘aionian’
life. In
this contest the adjective
before ‘life,’ should
be translated ‘age-lasting’
instead of ‘eternal’. We do
not ‘work’
for ‘eternal life’;
but the nature of our works have everything to do relative to entering
or being excluded entrance into
the ‘age-lasting’ Messianic era to come:
Luke 20: 35.
cf.
Matt. 5: 20; Tit. 1: 2;
Heb. 5: 9.
An alternative reading to that of Mr.
Govett’s would read as follows:-]
1.
Jesus
is not flattered by their seeking Him.
He discerns the low motive.
He
judged not by the sight of His eyes.
He
saw that they came to Him, not from motives which He
could approve; but for
reasons, which when removed, they would leave Him
entirely. He
did not desire these worldly
followers [disciples],
and would test them.
God is a
searcher of the motives of the heart.
He
would show to the sinner himself, if
by any means He
might bring men off from trusting themselves.
They
were
seeking Him, not even because He was the worker of
signs; but because they
wished to live a life of ease, without labour, and
without pay. But
this
miracle was only a sign - it was the witness to
something greater, which
it signified.
The [Page 249]
Jews were
resting in the sign, not regarding the further truth
it signified, nay, and the
Person whom it
was designed to magnify as
the leader and feeder of God’s people.
They had no hunger of soul; felt no need of such a
Spiritual Saviour as our
Lord. Provided
they had the bread of
earth, they
cared not for that of [the
kingdom of]
heaven. We,
too, are in like danger
of overlooking the Giver in His gifts [and
crowns].
Jesus is now the
feeder of a
spiritual people to whom earth is a wilderness.
Is
it
not true still, that many are led to Church and
Chapel for the sake of
worldly advantages, not spiritual food?
God is the weigher of motives, the searcher
of hearts. This
seeking Christ that He might fill their
stomachs anew, was not pleasing to Him.
He did not intend continually so to feed
them. But
if
the worldly food was worthy
of such diligent search and labour, how much
more the spiritual food!
This
last
nutriment Jesus came down from heaven on purpose to
give. For
this food would abide for ever.
It was with a view to their seeking the
spiritual, that the material feast had been
presented. And
they
wholly missed His mind and
His Fathers, if they did not seek and find it. Jesus had
power, not only on the food which
feeds the body, but on that which feeds the soul;
yea, the reception of which
for the first time, gives eternal life.
This He would give, in accordance with the
Prophet’s word (Is. 55:
1); and in opposition to the world, which
only sells its food. And yet
the given food is immeasurably
Superior to the bought food.
They
wee
not wrong in coming to Him directly, and not through
the mediation of His
Apostles. They
came to the right Person,
but not for the right thing. They might daily feed
on
loaves made by miracle, and yet perish eternally. They could
not perish for ever, if they fed
of the true bread.
It would abide in
them ever. Jesus
does not forbid their
labouring to gain their daily bread.
He
came not to repeal the original sentence of the
garden on sinners.
The
New Testament as well as the Old commands to labour. ‘Let him that stole steal no
more, but rather let him labour,’ Eph.
4:
28.
Paul set the [Page 250]
example (1 Cor. 4: 12)
when he might have been maintained
by others (1 Thess. 2:
9; 4: 11; 2 Thess. 3: 8-12.)*
[* NOTE. “Recognition
of the fact that honest faith in God does not
compel mechanical adhesion to lines adopted by
others, or indeed to any hard
and fast line, but rather to a readiness of mind
to apprehend what God would
have done under particular circumstances and at
special times.
For instance, should He, to test faith, withhold funds for the maintenance of the work, His object in so doing
might conceivably be either to call attention
to some failure in attitude or
conduct, to indicate the necessity of closing
down some branch of the work not
fully in His plan, to call a halt in the work
as a whole in order to give the
opportunity of united and believing prayer, to
awaken His people in general to
a sense of their full dependence on Him for
supplies, to call forth special
sacrifice of substance or other reason.
Hence the vital thing at all times and
specially at times when faith is
tested is to wait
on God for special
guidance and
to follow it,
regardless of the criticism it may possibly
provoke from those who judge only
from the outside.” SALUEL
H.
WILKINSON.]
The
Giver
was ‘the Son of Man.’
The Spirit in John keeps in view the great
object of this Gospel, which is, as He tells us, to
prove in various ways that
‘Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of God,’ 20:
31.
On
Gnostic
principles our Lord should have said – ‘What
the
Christ the Son
of God shall give you.’ For they
divided Jesus Christ into two
persons; affirming that to be true of
the one Person, which was not of the other. Their ‘Christ’
never became really man.
He came as a
spirit upon the man Jesus.
But the
Christ of their theory was never really ‘Son
of Man.’
He came upon a man after his birth, and
left
him before his death, thus undoing the great scheme
of God in atonement,
wrecking all Christian hopes, and giving a new and
false view of the character
of God. To
overthrow this error the
Evangelist says generally through this Gospel – ‘Jesus’
said or did this or that.
Yet by that
title He shows that He means the Lord the Son of
God.
‘The Father hath sealed Him
(I mean) God.’
The miracles Jesus wrought, and the way in
which He wrought them, so different from that of
Moses and the prophets, were
intended to fix attention on His Person, as superior
to all others; and to commend
Him to their notice, as Son of God.
The
Father commended Him to
God
displayed
Himself to
28, 29. ‘They
said, therefore, to Him, “What shall we do, that
we may
work the works of God?”
Jesus answered
and said unto them, “This is the work of God, that
ye believe on Him whom He
sent.”’
The
men
of the Law understand Jesus literally.
To them Moses’ Law was a system of labour by which eternal life was to be won.
Moses commanded one set of works, and they
expected Jesus to set up some new line of
ceremonies, to be observed by those
who wished to know and to please God.
‘The works of God’
are the works acceptable to, and
commanded by God; just as the works of men are those
commanded by, and
acceptable to men.
‘Salvation is by
our works and deservings,’ was the
imagination of the men of Law; in spite of John
Baptist’s teaching, both by
word and by rite, the contrary.
The men
of nature and of Law cannot comprehend, and will not
receive, grace. They fix
their eyes on what they are to do for God as
the
price of salvation.
They do not look
to what
He
has done for them,
which
only waits their acceptance.
The
Saviour
then with strong words seeks to disabuse them of
their error. There
was one thing which they were being
called on to accept, and until they had done so,
none of their works [Page
252]
were aught but dead works,
unacceptable to the living God.
The
great test was before them: would they accept Jesus
as the Son of God, the sent
One, foretold by Moses and the Prophets?
All turned on that, and all turns on that
now. No
ceremonies or deeds that
Is
faith
then a ‘work’?
No! It is in
contrast to works.
But our Lord uses it
by way of allusion to their question. Instead of the
many works taught by
Moses, Jesus commands faith in Himself.
Till He is accepted for what He presents
Himself, no work acceptable to
the Most High can be wrought.
The Gospel
of God, providing righteousness for the unrighteous,
has come in. It
has taken the place of man’s righteousness
as measured by Law.
This text is by the
apostle Paul expanded, to teach us that we are
called not to work out our own
righteousness, but to accept Christ’s; not to build
an ark, but to enter into
an ark already built.
Have you received
Christ, reader, as the worker of an accepted work,
to which you can add nothing, which
you are called on to
receive? This
is the Son’s call on
unbelievers – ‘Believe!’ This is
the one great duty, until which all
working is vain and displeasing, as the result of
unbelief.
‘Must not the Most High be
pleased with those embroidered
dresses, and gold and jewels, and flowers and
fruits, set on
His altar in His house?’
No! Is it
wrought by unbelievers, it is a dead work,
hateful to the living
God. It
is a vain busying themselves, by those
who overlook or refuse the Son of God.
If wrought by believers, it is vain worship
displeasing to God, a
turning back to the shadows of Law, from which the
Gospel was designed to set
men free (Gal. 4.).
Of
course
this is not meant to stay those who already
believe, from working for God. That
is
their duty and their privilege.
Jesus
Himself delighted to do the Father’s will.
It was Paul’s privilege to work for Christ. ‘Faith
without works is idler [‘dead’]’.
[Page 253]
This
shows
the vast gulf which lies between the men of
unbelief, and the men of
faith. This must be the line evermore drawn, and
kept strong and deep.
It is one which the Most High Himself
draws. Those
on the side of unbelief are
enemies of God on their way to perdition. Those
on the side of faith are His saved ones,
His sons, who can now, as alive, as cleansed, as
accepted through Christ, begin
to serve Him. Belief
in Moses was the
testing point of Israel in
30, 31. ‘They
said then – “What sign showest THOU therefore? What
dost Thou work?
Our fathers ate the manna in the
wilderness;
as it is written, Bread out of the heaven gave He
them to eat.”’
This
was
an evident comparison of our Lord with Moses, and to
His disadvantage.
Jesus had given them only one meal of
common
earthly food. Moses
had given their
nation heavenly food for forty years!
If
He wished to be equal with Moses, and to be obeyed
as their ancient leader was,
He had much to do yet.
32, 33. ‘Jesus
said therefore to them, “Verily, verily, I say
unto
you, not Moses gave you the bread out of the
heaven; but My Father is giving
you the true bread out of the heaven.
For the bread of God is that which cometh
down out of the heaven, and
giveth life to the world.”’
Jesus’ reply admits in
part, in part refuses their
statement (1) It was not Moses that gave the manna,
but God. (2) It was not the
true bread out of the heaven of heavens from the
Father. It
did not meet the entire necessities of
man, as a being possessed of spirit as well as soul,
and destined to endless
life. (3)
God was now manifesting
Himself, not as Jehovah, the God of Israel; but as
the Father, as displayed in
the Son. (4)
The mission of Moses was
but to one people, and only to show man’s
condemnation under Law.
Now God was about to give life to those unable
to earn aught but death.
And therefore
the salvation of Jesus was for the wide world.
All are alike guilty, [Page 254] and unable to save themselves; all alike are met now by the exhibition
of His Saviour.
Had
Jesus
touched further on Psalm
78., there
was much in it to confirm His saying.
For the Psalmist declares that these
ancient facts of
God,
My
Father, ‘is giving,’
in opposition to the
past bestowal of the manna on their fathers.
The bread of heaven now is open to us.
Let us seek the manna daily!
Ver. 33 shows that the
greater gift is connected with a more excellent name
of God than was known to
Moses. It is the gift of ‘the
Father,’ for (1)
it comes down out of the real heaven, and (2)
bestows life. Here
we have presented to us its superior (1)
origin, and its superior (2) effect. Ordinary food comes
out of
the earth, and is perishable in itself, and in its
effects on the frame.
This is not so.
The working for this better food is the
coming
diligently to Him who gives.
How many
work for this?
How many are using their
best efforts, only in order to earthly bread!
How unsatisfactory is such a life, soon
quenched in death, and leaving
only sins and judgment behind it.
Earthly bread can only continue mortal life. Heavenly
bread gives a life which is eternal. Much is it needed, for the world is under
sin and death.
Probably
it
should be translated ‘that
came down,’ and
not ‘he.’
It is the ambiguity of the expression which
led the Jews to say what
they did in the next verse.
Not till the
35th verse does
the Saviour say it was
Himself. Our Lord is silently carrying out a
comparison with the manna of the
Old Testament of which they made their boast, and is
showing the superiority of
the new bread to the old.
That
bread
was not, in the highest sense, ‘the
broad of life.’
It did indeed, as ordinary bread does, sustain life
already existing.
But it did not, as the true bread, impart life.
For none can accept Christ by faith without
receiving spiritual
life. [Page 255]
It ‘gives life to the world.’ For the
world is dead.
Here, though the Jew saw it not,
34. ‘Then
said they unto Him,
“Lord, evermore give us this bread”’
The Jews then ask for this
heavenly bread, not
perceiving our Lord’s meaning.
The case
is parallel with that of the woman of
The manna came down out of
the lower heaven: Christ
out the heaven of heavens, the Father’s abode. Till
Jesus left heaven and
became man, this bread was not visible, tangible, or
eatable by us.
And after Christ is come to us,
we must come to Him in heart.
3-5.
‘Jesus
said unto them, “I am
the bread of life: He that cometh to Me shall not
hunger, and He that believeth
on Me shall not thirst.”’
The
true
antitype of the manna is a Divine Person.
But he would experience His power to save
must accept Him.
Here is a reference to the manna.
Vainly did it fall around the camp, if
The
reception
of Christ takes away that restless seeking after
some good on which
our souls may rest; which all the unconverted feel. Nothing
will satisfy the desires of men but
the filling the soul with God; and God is only known
in His Son. The
powerlessness of earthly things to
satisfy is proved at large by Solomon in
Ecclesiastes.
But
Here
is a reference to the
passage Is. 49: 10.
Jesus
was
then present visibly and bodily, yet He has to say
to those even who sought
and came to Him bodily, that they had not yet come
to Him in spirit.
36. ‘But
I told you that ye have
even seen Me, and believe not.’
They
said
– ‘What sign showest Thou
then that we may see and believe
Thee?’ (ver.
30). Jesus
assures them that the
two were far apart.
They had seen, but
without faith.
The
manna
was wilderness food. It ceased
when they entered the land.
So Christ would let us know Himself as our
support through our journey to the Father’s house.
It
was
not thus with
Jesus
then
reproaches the men of that day, that even when He
was set before them,
visibly and tangibly, they would not accept Him.
We
who
believe, may rejoice at the contrast between
ourselves and the Jews.
We are blessed, for we have not seen, yet
do
believe. We
believe in Jesus as the
Anointed One of God, our salvation.
Many
think
that if they had seen Christ and His miracles, and
heard from His own
lips what we do now, they would have believed.
They are mistaken.
If they will
not credit the good and sufficient evidence
presented to us, neither would they
have believed then.
It is the
distrustful heart of enmity which is at fault.
‘Ye believe not.’
Here was their sin.
Here the ground
of just reproach then, and of eternal perdition
hereafter. The Lord of wisdom
traces their sin up to their evil will, and there
leaves it. Here
is the ground of damnation.
Hyper-Calvinists speak in terms of scorn of all
calling on the non-elect to
believe. They
have even coined a term of
ridicule. With
them it is ‘duty faith,’
which is demanded of the world in general.
Let us then look a
moment at the matter.
Faith is due to God, or nothing is. He
is
the True Witness; and ought not a true witness to be believed?
He speaks the truth with sufficient evidence. And ought not
the truth manifested in
its evidence to be received?
Is it not
an offence to man to refuse to believe him, when he
is true in character, and
in a special instance speaks the truth?
Much more is it an offence against God, and
He feels it to be an insult,
when men will not accept His testimony.
If we receive the testimony of men, how much
more that of God? (John
10: 25).
Moreover, God puts in His
claim for faith. He
commands all men
to believe and to show the
repentance which follows on faith.
Let
me then offer a few texts on three points closely
connected with the subject.
1.
Our
Lord calls for faith, and reproaches for unbelief those who do not render it and accept His testimony –
‘Repent ye, and believe the
Gospel,’ Mark
1: 15; ‘0 faithless
and perverse [Page 258] generation,’ Matt.
17:
17. Also
in Acts 17.; Matt. 21:
32; Luke 22: 67.
This call applies both to the entire
unbelief
of the un-converted, and
to the partial unbelief of
the converted (Luke
8: 25; Mark 16:
14-16; Heb. 3: 12).
‘He that believeth
not, hath made God a liar, because he
believed not the record that God gave of His Son,’
1 John 5: 10.
2.
Our
Lord pronounces unbelief the chief of sins (John 16: 9).
Those who believe not are guilty, and already
condemned
because of it (John
3: 18-36; 12: 37-48).
3.
It
will be the just reason of eternal damnation (John
8: 21). ‘He that
believeth not shall be damned,’
Mark 16: 16.
It is part of the statement of the Gospel. See also Luke 12:
46; Acts 13: 41; Rom. 11: 20; Rev. 21: 8.
God is so displeased at this
unbelief, that power is given to Satan at last to
deceive to perdition those
who refuse to believe (2
Thess. 2: 9-13.)
Faith
then
is really a duty to be urged on all men, without
which they will perish in
their sins.
‘But then the Scripture says
also of the non-elect, that they
“cannot believe.”
Why then do you
urge a man to do what he cannot do?’
The
answer
is very important, and though it has been given
before, I repeat it;
there are two ‘cannots.’
One
of
the two is a good and sufficient excuse; and the
other is no valid excuse at
all. It
is for want of distinguishing
these two ‘cannots,’
that the minds of most are
in a perpetual fog on this great question.
‘Where the will is wrong,’ (John 5: 44),
there is no excuse.
Even thus it is with
the refusal of the unbeliever to credit God.
What hinders is a perverse will, and for this
he will be lost.
It is his sin: here lies the reason for his
damnation. If
this want of inclination
were a good excuse, the devil would be the most
excusable of all sinners; for ‘he cannot cease sinning;’ that is, his soul is so evil, that despite
all God’s claims, calls, threats, he is fully bent
on transgressing.
If this were an excuse, the more
unbelieving
and disobedient any becomes, the less he ought to be blamed by men, or punished by God.
[Page
259]
We,
however,
joyfully own, that beyond God’s claim on men for faith, there is a gift - faith which is possessed by the
elect, the called according to His purpose (Acts
13:
48).
37, 38. ‘Everything
that the Father giveth Me shall reach Me, and him
that cometh to Me, I will not cast out. For I came
down from heaven not to do
mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.’
But
though
they would not come to Jesus, He would not be left
destitute of saved
ones. The
Father, who has absolute
control over all His creatures, who changes evil
natures to good at His pleasure,
has determined to give some to Christ, and that from
eternity, as the reward of
His great work.
These shall not fail to
come to Christ.
Here the word used is a
different one from what follows in the next clause. It is
stronger. It
means, that they shall not only start on
their way to Him, but shall arrive at Himself.
The
expression
used is singular. ‘Everything’
- both
here, and in ver. 39. May we not
say that the saved are here looked
as a mass? Is
there not a reference in
these words to Noah and that wondrous day, when the
saved of all the creation
travelled to the deliverer, reached him, and entered
his ark? There
was a secret action of the Creator
there on the will of the creature, and they answered
that drawing and were
saved.
God disposes of all things
according to His own
will. He
elected from all eternity whom
He would; not on foreseen grace, but according to
His own counsels of renewing
the souls of whom He would.
The Jews thought to prove
an utter contrariety between
Jesus and God.
He affirms, on the
contrary, the entire unanimity between Himself and
the Father. He
was waiting on the Father’s will
concerning those who would believe, and come to Him;
and those who would not.
Verse 37 gives us the
success of Christ’s work.
Despite all
the ignorance and enmity of men and devils, God is
supreme. He renews the
nature, and then the will is
won. The
Jews gloried in their independence.
It would be their ruin.
[Page 260]
God
has
given His elect to Christ: in due time He calls
them. He
attracts them to the Son, He teaches
them. He
leaves them not, while any part
of them is in captivity to evil.
His
ships, despite pirates and rocks, quick-sands and
storms, shall make the port
of everlasting life.
Here
is
absolute election.
God’s chosen,
given to Christ before the ages, shall not fail of
eternal salvation. The Most
High intends the end, uses the means, and changes
the perverse nature unto
obedience. God
makes willing the saved.
Here Jesus abases their proud thoughts. Their
disdain of Him was the result of their
not being God’s chosen.
‘I will not cast out.’
As the king does the unworthy guest in the
parable of the
Wedding-feast.
The Father and the Son
are of one mind concerning the preciousness of these
jewels of salvation, and
Christ will take care they shall not be lost.
From the moment they come to Christ He
sustains them, as being Himself
the broad of life; and will not cease to care for
them, till He has rescued
them eternally, and inducted them into bodies of
resurrection glory.
All
others
choose the way of death against every call, motive,
threat. Any
who will come to Christ shall be
saved. But
all, save the elect, prefer
to remain away.
While the perdition of
the lost is of their own choice, the
salvation of the saved is the result of God’s gift. The
rolling stone once in motion goes down to
the bottom with still increasing speed.
But if you would lift it to the top of the
hill, you must first stop it;
and then, against the force of its natural tendency,
roll it upward.
The
not
casting out whoever comes, is a word of comfort to
the sinner who draws
near with trembling to Christ.
He has
perplexed himself with the vain question – ‘Am
I one
of God’s elect? which
he cannot solve himself,
or anyone for him.
So he ventures to
come just as he is.’
Then his
coming proves Him (1) elect of the Father, and (2)
accepted of the Son.
All are called to come to Christ, are
commanded, and bound to come (Acts
17: 30).
They will perish if they do not.
Past sin, in place of being a barrier
against
coming to Christ, is the warrant to go
to
[Page 261] Him.
What would you think of one ill with fever
who should say – ‘I wish to
go to the doctor, but will
he receive me?
For I am so ill!’
To be
sure! What
are doctors for?
Are you first to cure yourself? and then to
go for the doctor’s help when you don’t want it? What was
the warrant for
Indeed
the
Saviour’s will in this matter was subordinate. He was the
servant and agent of the
Father. What
then was that will?
39, 40. ‘Now
this is the will of Him that sent Me, that of
everything
which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but
raise it up on the last
day. For
this is the will of My Father,
that everyone who beholdeth the Son and believeth
on Him, have eternal life;
and I will raise him up on the last day.’
We
can
in some measure understand how this discourse
fretted and threw off the
Jews from Christ.
They did not hear from
Him what they wished; they did hear what displeased
them. They
were ready to welcome a new Moses and
Joshua combined; one that would enact new political
and ceremonial laws, that
would feed them by miracle, embody them as an army,
and lead them forth to
victory over the Gentiles.
But
for
the preparatory work, which must lay the foundation
of all their hopes,
they were quite unready.
At the deeper
truths, about man universally and the new aspect of
God which the Gospel and
its atonement brings, they recoiled.
The
divine
greatness of Him who appeared in so lowly a form as
far as regarded the
world, they were unwilling to credit.
And yet there was such divine power put
forth, as kept them in suspense.
‘Hath given me.’ From
eternity. Here
is a reference to Is.
8: 18, ‘Behold, I,
and
the
children
whom the Lord hath given me.’ The
drawing, on the other hand, takes place
in time.
The
Saviour
spoke before of the raising of all the dead.
Now He speaks of the resurrection of the
believers of this dispensation; therefore, He adds,
‘at
the last day.’
[Page 262]
The
Saviour
is clothed with sufficient power to carry to a
complete and
eternal deliverance, the elect of
the Father.
‘Every
one which beholdeth the Son, and believeth on Him.’
The
Jews
saw
Christ and believed not. The saved must contemplate Christ,
and believe. Eternal
life
is already begun in the soul.
It
will come to completion, at the rising up of the
body. Christ
consoles Himself amidst the cavilling
unbelief of Israel, that it was because they were
not the chosen of God, but
only seed of the fallen Adam, and of the old
serpent; and thus they gainsayed
Him.
He
so
greatly values the Father’s gift, that He can but
receive and welcome every
one that comes to Him.
This
putting
off the hopes of His followers to another day beyond
this present life,
was another stumbling-block.
The rewards
of obedience to Moses were here and now in this earth,
and during this life.
In these words of
our Lord it is supposed that death was to intervene,
and that He was to raise
from the dead His followers by millions; a thing
which neither Moses nor Joshua
in a single instance did.
‘I will raise him up.’
It
appears,
then, that for
the
disciple to
abide in the
spirit-state, would be a loss to him, and to
Christ.
Christ’s work is to restore the
whole man - body and soul - out of the
hand of death. The Father acts in
this matter, as the Great
Originator; the Son, as the Executor of the Father’s
counsels. Divine
power is needed for this promised
resurrection. Who
but one of Almighty
power and universal knowledge, could recognize the
millions that are His, and
by a word raise them?
Observe
the
marks of being given by the Father to the Son. The first,
and supreme point is, the
beholding in Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God,
co-equal with the Father.
Here the Jews failed.
They saw the Lord with their bodily eyes,
but
though evidences of His dignity were given in
various ways, they would not
accept the testimony.
As Isaiah says, ‘They
saw, but understood not.’
They owned Jesus as the man, but as ‘the Son’ in His own sense,
and in the sense of the Father, they refused.
[Page
263]
They
did
not believe on Him.
As if Israel,
when Moses came to them, had agreed to confess him,
as the son of Pharaoh’s
daughter; but refused to own him as one sent by
Jehovah from the burning bush
to deliver them out of Pharaoh’s hand.
God would have regarded
They
perceived
that He claimed an origin beyond that of other men. They ask
no explanation; they undertake no
investigation, but condemn at once, on the first
aspect of the matter. ‘Why
then did not our Lord, knowing their ideas, and
the
contrary truth, not expound it to them?’
Because they were not sincere enquirers, and
would have stumbled yet the
more at His disclosures.
We are not to
throw our pearls before swine.
This
resurrection
at the last day then is the result of eating the
true manna, that
is of believing on Jesus as the Son of God.
Four times over in this chapter is it brought
before us. Now
eternal life is only to be enjoyed in its
fulness in resurrection.
‘But (some one may say) does
not this resurrection on the last day
imply,
that all believers will enjoy the thousand years?’
If
so, these passages would be in contradiction with
John
3: 3-5, and other texts of the other
Gospels. All
[‘accounted
worthy’]
believers will indeed be raised by Christ at His
coming; but whether they enjoy
the
thousand years or no depends, not on their faith,
but on their works.
All, believers and others, will be
raised at the end of the last day,
even if they
have no resurrection at
the beginning of it.
41, 42. ‘The
Jews then murmured at Him, because He said, I am
the
bread which came down from heaven.
And
they said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph,
whose father and mother we
know? how is it then that He saith, I came down
from heaven?”’
We
see
how the Jews stumbled at these assertions of our
Lord. They
judged according to the flesh and the
world; therefore they made one truth to beat down another.
This is constantly done now as then. When two
truths are seemingly opposed
to another, one party seizes on one side, one on
the other.
The cannons of the same battery are
turned
against one another. [Page 264] This is the first occasion on which our Lord’s opponents are called ‘the Jews.’
Jesus
was
to them the mere man, born as any other.
How then could He speak of His pre-existence,
and of His dwelling in
heaven ere He descended to earth?
See
how easily an error slips under the cloak of a
truth! They
knew His mother, they knew not His Father.
Jesus
does not enlighten them on His supernatural birth. In their
then state of mind it would have
only called forth scoffs and blasphemy.
They
understood
our Lord’s words, but disliked them, and therefore
set themselves
against Him. That
His glory as the Son
of God should rise so loftily above themselves, that
He exceeded in glory
Moses, the Patriarchs, and Prophets, and that they
must come to Him, and depend
on Him as possessed of Godhead equal with the
Father, whom they called ‘their
God,’ was to them insufferable.
The Saviour shows that their condemnation
of
Him disquieted Him not.
It only proved
their own foretold blindness, and near perdition.
Thus
the
truth is stated both positively and negatively. (1)
All God’s elect will
come to Christ.
(2) None - not so elected -
will come, despite all the moral means brought to
bear on them. As
the prophet said – ‘They
only who were taught of God would be His,’
but of
all such He would not lose one.
43, 44. ‘Jesus
answered and said unto them – “Murmur not among
yourselves. None
can come to Me, except
the Father which sent Me draw him, and I will
raise him up at the last day.”’
They
thought
that, in their thus judging, they were condemning
Christ as either
impious, or arrogantly and falsely setting Himself
up. But
He assures them that these doubts and objections
were really condemning themselves,
were proving themselves untaught of God, and judging themselves to be unworthy of eternal
life. They were murmurers, like their fathers in the
wilderness against God and
Moses. So
great is the enmity of the
human heart against the Most High, that each one now
refuses this new discovery
of God, and none ever overcomes that enmity, unless
divine grace renew the evil
will. This
is the [Page
265]
sense of ‘can’ in
this place. Does Jesus mean to say that
however much the Jews were willing to receive His
testimony, there was a power
outside themselves which would prevent
their accepting Him? as when a
prisoner earnestly desires to escape out of prison,
but is detained by force
from without; by chains and cell, by prison and
sentinels? Certainly
not!
Then
does
he mean that this, ‘cannot’
excused them,
and would be their righteous defence against
punishment in the judgment
day? By
no means! He
tells them that if they believed not, they
would die in their sins.
Their doom
would be severer than that of
Thus
both
statements are true.
(1) A man’s damnation is
entirely from himself, due to
his evil heart, and his own sins, and unbelief.
(2) His salvation, his
turning to God are in all cases due to God’s
gracious actings
in renewing his nature, and turning his
will.
45. ‘It
is written in the prophets, “And they shall be all
taught
of God.” Everyone
therefore that hath
heard from the Father and learned, cometh unto Me.”’
This
45th verse
explains more fully the drawing
of God. It
is His teaching.
He engages not the feelings alone, but the
understanding also, by the exhibition of truth.
This hearing of truth from God, and accepting
it, makes a man a true
disciple.
‘The Prophets.’
The Saviour quotes them as inspired by His
Father. Thus
He opposes the Gnostic blasphemy about
them, as though they were inspired by a spirit not
of God. These
words comes from Is.
54: 13; the sequel to the description of
the
Lord’s sufferings (Is.
53.). ‘Great shall
be the peace of Thy children,’ as the result of this teaching.
[Page 266]
He
who
commissioned the Christ to come as Saviour,
designated also the souls that
were to be saved, as the result of His sending.
Blessedness or perdition rests on receiving
or refusing the Son, the
sent of the Father.
If
Jesus
thus rests on the Scripture, so should we.
If He so oft proves His words by quotation
from it, how much more should uninspired preachers? It is the
Word of God. Have
you, my reader, been a murmurer against
the Word of God?
Now uphold it, and give
thanks for it, and pray to understand it!
The
caviller
will perish. How
strange that
guilty culprits should rise up against their Judge,
as if they would judge
Him! They
will learn their folly one
day, and too late.
Faith
is
called for by Christ, the greater than Moses, and
the effect is eternal
life, the gift of God; in contrast with the offer of
life, as the result of
obedience to Law – ‘Do and
live!’
Had
Already
Jehovah
was beginning that work on the souls of some in
Here,
reader,
is the turning point for life and death.
Have you come to the Son for the
forgiveness
of sins?
[Page 267]
46. ‘Not
that any hath seen the Father, save He that is
from
God. He
hath seen the Father.’
It
might
be imagined from the former verse, that seeing the
Father and hearing
Him, was a privilege enjoyed by all believers and
sons of God, in the same
sense and to the same extent as by Christ Himself. This
mistake is therefore here
corrected. In
the sense here implied by
the Saviour, none has over seen God the Father.
As Paul says, He dwells ‘in
light
unapproachable, whom none hath seen or can see.’ Did the
Saviour mean to say, that the Father
made such a personal revelation of Himself as He is,
and so directly spake to
each believer, as to render unnecessary the teaching
of the Son? Far
from it!
‘He who is from
God.’ (Gk.
…).
This refers to Jesus’ pre-existent
glory. ‘The Word
was with
God’.
The first preposition
denotes the Saviour’s motion away from His former
place.
47-50. ‘Verily,
verily, I say unto you, “He that believeth on Me,
hath
eternal life.
I am the bread of
life. Your
fathers used to eat in the
wilderness manna and died.
This is the
bread that cometh down out of the heaven, that a
man eat thereof, and die not.”’
How strange must that word have sounded - ‘Your
fathers!’
That was to sever Himself from them.
Are you no Jew then?
Were not our fathers your fathers also?’ Apostles
said, ‘our fathers.’
The Saviour has still to
enforce on them the greatness
of His Person.
Accepted, He is life
eternal; rejected, the man must perish in his sins. This
eternal life begins at once on faith.
He
now
exhibits the superiority of Himself, as the bread of
heaven over the manna
of Moses, to which they had made appeal, as the
proof of the superiority of
Moses above Himself.
Moses had to
receive the bread of heaven for himself, and for
from God. Jesus
Himself was the bread of heaven.
The bread is known to be the true bread, by
(1) its source, heaven; its purpose,
to give life, and (3) its effects; the eater
thereof dies not.
Moses had no other than human life; he had
none to impart to
51. ‘I
am the living bread that came down out of
the heaven, if any eat of this bread,
he shall live for ever.’
Jesus
is
bread possessed of life in itself, which
communicates life eternal to the
eaters. This
living nature is peculiarly
characteristic of God.
Our God is the
living God, and Christ is, as His Son, possessed of
life essential.
Jesus’
descent
from heaven was vastly superior to the mere falling
of the manna from
the sky. It
was on His part of set
choice; the choice of grace, and the counsel of the
Father. Here
His previous existence comes again into
view. As
the manna was in the heaven
before it fell from it, so Jesus lived above with
His Father before He made His
appearance on earth, as the Son of Man.
It was great grace to give to man the bread
of angels; greater far to
give Christ, to be to us spiritual and eternal life. But vainly
did the manna fall around the
tents of
51.
‘And the bread which I will
give is My flesh, which I
will give for the life of the world.’
Here
the
oneness of the Person of Christ is seen.
The old errorists and some modern ones
divided Jesus from the Christ. They were two
persons, as John
Wroe, a Southcotite, taught.
‘The Christ gave
the life of Jesus to save men.’
[Page 269]
Instead
of
saying – ‘The bread which I
will give is Myself,’ He says
‘is
My flesh.’ When this word is objected to,
He (as in the parallel case
with Nicodemus) expands ‘flesh’
into ‘flesh and blood.’ He here
presents, too, His atoning death, as
in the word to Nicodemus.
‘The flesh’
was then His living body.
But He would allow the blood to be drained
away from it, thus setting the flesh and blood apart
in death.
Have we not here a further
reference to the scene of
the manna?
Jesus
at
that moment was the unbroken
loaf. To
be our support, the loaf must be broken,
in order to be eaten.
Many in our day are resting
on the Incarnation, as if
that was everything.
So they can talk about Christ being ‘joined to universal humanity.’ But the
Saviour stops not short of His death
for sin. It
is not – ‘My flesh which I
have assumed for you.’ But
‘My flesh, which I will give.’
The
Evangelist
has noted in ver. 4,
that the
passover, the old feast of the Law, was near.
Jesus then at this point passes beyond His
previous consideration of
Himself as answering to, and going beyond, the manna of the desert; and now He presents Himself to
Would
What
relation
then do these words bear to the Supper of the Lord? Great
difference of opinion obtains here.
For
myself,
I doubt not, that the Supper was instituted to bear
witness to the
Church of the same truth which is here presented. It is
this. The paschal-lamb was doubly
[Page 271]
This
testimony
then was repulsive to Jesus’ hearers.
They could not comprehend its depths; nor did
they desire to do so.
It ran counter to all their plans and
hopes.
52.
‘The Jews therefore were
contending among themselves,
saying: “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?”’
Only
in
and after death! And they refused a suffering and
rising Messiah.
The Apostles themselves were stunned at
Jesus’ death; and had well nigh given up hope.
They saw not the depth of human sin, or the
strict severity of Infinite
Justice. The
words staggered them
therefore. Jesus
was to them uttering
hard sayings, which matter-of-fact men like
themselves could not accept.
The
‘How’ of unbelief
again rises into view, as in
the word of Nicodemus about the regeneration and new
birth.
The
murmurs
produced by the Saviour’s former words, now, by the new fuel added, burst out into a flame of quarrel.
53-55. ‘Jesus
said therefore to them, “Verily, verily, I say
unto
you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man,
and drink His blood, ye have
not life in yourselves.
He that eateth
My flesh, and drinketh My blood hath eternal life,
and I will raise him up at
the last day.
For My flesh is true food,
and My blood true drink.”’
The Saviour now in answer
to their objection expands
our view of Himself as the true Paschal-Lamb, which
goes very much deeper than
the manna. He
now first speaks of the blood separate
from the flesh.
Living man is in this life a compound flesh
and blood. Now
Jesus speaks of the blood
as being severed from the flesh. This of course
supposes His death.
The drinking
of the victim’s blood was
something quite unknown to the Law, and forbidden by
it (Gen. 9: 4; Lev. 7:
14; Deut. 12: 23).
The blood, which is the life, belongs to
God. It
is given on the altar to atone
for souls. That
was its constant
destination, according to the Law.
But
now atonement is so completely made,
that
we are possessed of, and drink of, the life of the
Mediator, who has brought us
near. We
are no longer children of
death, whose lives are forfeit.
Whoever
partakes [page 272] not of a
Christ slain, dies in his own sins, and must abide
under death.
Jesus
foretells
His voluntary death, and His violent death. Most
deaths occur without the breaking of the
flesh, and the pouring out of the blood in
consequence.
Flesh
and
blood ordinarily are united together in the living. But in
order that blood may be drank and
flesh eaten, the blood must be drawn off, leaving
the flesh bloodless; and that
supposes death.
So then the Saviour is
to deliver us, and to be our spiritual support, only
as one Who has passed
through death for us, giving His blood as the
ransom-price. But
if so, two most decisive consequences
follow: (1) God is just, for if Christ would deliver
us, though the Beloved and
perfect One, He must die the violent death demanded
by Law. (2) God is gracious, for here
He gives to us that which is
to Him the most precious of all things.
Also it follows with regard to man (1) that
he is sinful, and (2) unable
to deliver himself, whether found under Law, as the
Jews; or without Law, as
the Gentiles.
The
eating
His slain flesh implies faith in Jesus as Messiah
slain for sin; slain
for
our sin.
The
Saviour
while living could not save us from wrath, could not
be our spiritual
sustenance. Alive,
He was the righteous
Jew, severed from the Gentile.
It was
only by His death in our stead, and His resurrection
into another life beyond
death, that He can be to us the Saviour.
This is strongly brought out in John
12: 24.
There we see that Jesus came to bring us,
not
the extension of life in a body of flesh and blood,
but life in resurrection,
after death is vanquished, and ourselves are knit to
Him, the Son of Man raised
from the dead.
The
blood
is now spoken of apart from the flesh.
We drink [the
‘fruit
of the vine,’ typical of]
Christ’s
blood, or the blood of the Son of Man, when we
accept cordially and rejoice in
Christ’s blood as shed to atone to God for our sins,
and Himself given to be
the spirit of our life.
This
truth
then is set forth to us in emblem in the
Lord’s Supper. There we
are
shown to be the men of faith accepting (in perfect
contrast to
But
if
Messiah was to be slain as the Passover-lamb, it
follows that He regarded
all the world, and
In
these
words was altogether a new view of ‘the
Son of
Before
He
reigns over heaven and earth, He has to give His
flesh and blood to redeem
them (Col. 1:
20-22). He will not reign over world
under sin, Satan, and death;
and He can only deliver men by the curse of the
cross endured, and His blood
poured out thereon.
And we call only
come into true fellowship with Him - expressed by
eating and drinking - by our
accepting God’s testimony, this view of redemption
through a Saviour slain, who
is both God and man.
This
truth
is exhibited to our eye purposely in the Lord’s
Supper. We
feed upon a DEAD Christ; a
Christ slain according Father’s
counsels, and the Son’s voluntary offering of to
death. By
this we are not only delivered from the
sword of Divine justice which has fallen on Him in
our stead, but we also take
Jesus as our strength to march through this [Page 274]
world. Thus
we
are severed from the Egyptians, the men of the
world, the men of unbelief, who
regard not God’s threats, and are not under the
provided shelter.
Thus, too, we begin our march out of
This
was
designed as God’s testimony against the false
theories then and since
afloat, which make void the Gospel, which deny the
justice of God, and the
sinfulness and powerlessness of man.
All
salvation turns on the Person of Jesus Christ, as
Son of God and Son of Man,
and His work in obedience and atonement.
Refuse that, and you have no life spiritually,
but lie under death; no
life judicially, being
under sentence of Law as a
transgressor.
These
words
are part of God’s testimony to the Unity of the Son
of Man and Son of
God. Those
who severed Jesus from the
Christ undid His victory over the world.
They spoke of the Christ as leaving Jesus,
after He had by His words,
and His deeds exasperated the Jews into putting Him
to death. If
so, there was no victory over the world;
but injustice, and cowardice vanquished by the fear
of death. Accordingly,
those who held such views, in
time of persecution escaped death at any cost, and
could plead in favour of it
the example of their Christ.
How could
they be expected to dare terrors from which a Divine
Being had fled?
This
truth
then as the central fact of the Gospel, the death of
the Christ for sin,
and our salvation only through that, Jesus, far from
retracting,
redoubles. Here
was the point at which
Christ designed that the men of faith in Himself
should break off from the men
of Law. The
sacrifices of Moses, and the
Passover in especial, were designed to prepare the
way for the true Sacrifice, and
true Paschal-Lamb.
And what Moses thus
predicted in type, the prophets foretold in express
words. And
John, the Forerunner, testified that
Jesus was the Lamb of God’s providing.
Thus
the
men of Moses were by God’s grace forewarned of the
Gospel, and of the Son
of God then before them.
Jesus then [Page
275]
takes up and carries
out more forcibly still the truth
hinted by John.
Till the atoning
death of the Son of Man was complete, Jewish
hopes of the Kingdom could not
be realised.
This then was the testing point
of these men of Law.
Would
they own themselves
sinners, destitute of all hope by their own
obedience, needing an atoning
sacrifice greater than Moses could afford?
Would
they confess that the [millennial] hopes to
which Moses and the Prophets pointed them were
all personally present in the
Person before them?
Would they
confess that the hopes which turned on grace were
come? and that He
who stood before them as Messiah, come
to suffer ere He reigned?
This
test
was refused by the men of Law and of
self-righteousness.
They turned away in pride and unbelief.
This
is the first truth accepted by the Christian.
Here the road forks.
Here
we
behold the Person of Christ - true man, possessed of
real body of flesh and
blood, and deigning voluntarily to give that body
and blood for us.
Here also is One greater than man in His
claims to be possessed of Life in Himself, His
statements of sojourning with
God, of possessing the power to raise dead, backed
by facts of miracle wrought
in His own name; as the feeding of the multitudes,
and walking the waters.
Here
again
He shows the unity of His person.
The man who stood before them, who would give
His flesh and blood, was
also Living Bread that came down from heaven (ver.
51). Thus
the Spirit, through
John, gives a new refutation to that deceit which
made Jesus the mere man, and
Christ another person.
As
then
this is the decisive doctrine which severs between
the Law and the Gospel,
so God in His wisdom has appointed the rite
of the Supper to present it to
our eye, and to keep it in the memory of our heart;
making the Supper, which
celebrates atoning death, our time of visibly
drawing nearer to Him at any
other period.
Our
Lord
speaks of flesh and blood; the one to be eaten, and
the other to be drank
by His disciples.
So then answerably the
Supper presents us with two objects, (1) the flesh [Page 276]
represented by the bread, (2) the blood represented
by the wine. And
at the Institution of
the Supper (which replaces to us the Old Passover),
He says – ‘Take, eat,
this is My body.’
And again – ‘Drink ye all of
this, for this is My blood of the
new covenant, which is being shed for many unto
the remission of sins.’
Who can doubt the designed likeness of
these
words? For
John is following after the
other Gospels, and is taking for granted the
knowledge of their previous
words. And
while he does not mention the
institution of either Baptism or the Lord’s Supper
as rites commanded by
Christ, nevertheless he does drop some words
concerning the doctrinal
signification of each, which are of much import as
showing that these rites
were not sudden and hasty thoughts of the moment on
Christ’s part, but had
their roots long before manifested in our Lord’s
previous discourses.
‘How can a man be born when old?’
says Nicodemus.
Jesus points to the rite of Baptism as both a
death and a birth, which might be experienced even
by the old. ‘How
can this man give us flesh to eat?’
This Jesus answers by pointing to the rite
of
the Supper. These two rites of the Water and the Lord’s
Supper, are designed to prove that Jesus Christ
went through the ‘water’
in baptism;
and through ‘blood’
on the
cross.
These were God’s witnesses against Satan’s
deceits which have been previously named.
The
slain
‘Son
of Man’ is also the
Son of Man of
Psalm 8. and of
Dan.
7., Who is coming again [to this
earth] to
reign. So
far the Jews’ thoughts
were true; for He
is King of kings
coming to rule over them, and men, and angels. They
were
wrong in point of time, for the Christ must first
suffer ere He enter
on His glory.
Thus, too, we see the oneness of the
God of the Old Testament and of the New.
The Old Testament bears witness to the
Deliverer’s
suffering unto death, as well as to His reigning;
though they
to whom the Old Testament was given, refused
one
of these truths in their predicted blindness. And with
what great case and beauty the
Saviour knits together the old
rite and the new? The
Passover He celebrates, and testifies to
Israelites the deliverance of which it speaks as yet
to come to pass in His [Page 277]
Kingdom. And
out of that rite, and at the same table
He raises up another people, who behold in the bread
His broken body, and in
the wine His blood shed.
Verse 53 then, of this
chapter testifies, that all who refuse a Christ
slain for sin are dead of soul,
and must perish in their trespasses at the hands of
the God of Law.
They must be condemned for their acts by God
as the Righteous Governor, and refused an abode with
Himself the Holy, because
their souls are dead in unbelief.
But
verse 54 -
are we to understand that?
‘Whoso eateth My
flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal
life; and I will
raise him up at the
last day.’
‘Does it mean that every one who
receives the
Lord’s Supper
is saved?
Do we mean that no one can partake of
Christ
save in the Supper?’
By
no
means! The
hearers at
Those
who
trust in Jesus slain have already eternal life
begun, and that life will be
perfected in resurrection.
Many
receive
the Lord’s Supper, who, though they eat the bread
and drink the wine,
do not feed by faith on a Saviour slain.
These then have not eternal life.
But
all
who accept Christ as the Passover-Lamb have eternal
begun, and Jesus will
complete it to the sleepers by raising them [out] from the dead ‘at the last
day.’*
What is meant by that?
The Great Day of 1000 years, of which God
has
given us the promise.
[* The
words, ‘last day,’
may refer to a later resurrection - ‘when the thousand
years are finished’ (Rev.
20: 7) and
‘death and Hades gave up the
dead which were in them’
(verse 13).
Since there will be some at that time,
whose names will be
found written in ‘the book
of life’
(verse 12) who
were not accounted worthy to rule
with Him during ‘the Great
Day of 1000 years’.
See. Luke 20:
35;
Phil. 3: 11; Heb. 11: 35b; Luke 14: 14; 22: 28-30;
Rev. 3: 21, etc. ]
[Page 278]
Verse 55 gives the reason
for the two previous statements.
For My
flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. First for
the negative one of verse
53.
As one who never has eaten or drank has he
life, so he who has never
accepted Christ as the Saviour, Son of God slain for
sin, has no spiritual
life. Then
positively (ver. 54),
‘He who does
eat and drink of this true spiritual food has
eternal life’ at once
begun in his soul, and it shall hereafter be
realised in that other part of him
- the body also.
Thus
Jesus
as the food of faith is more truly food than any
which earth can
produce. Earthly
food only sustains natural
life; this imparts elernal life; and
its fruits are to be shown at a future day.
Food is designed to satisfy hunger; drink to
remove thirst.
Now all ordinary food and drink effect these
results but imperfectly for the lower part of man
only, and for a very brief
time. But
faith in Christ slain satiates
spiritual hunger, and satisfies the soul’s thirst. Moreover,
it communicates and sustains a life
which is to last for ever, recalling the body itself
from death. Life
is not complete till it has penetrated
eternally the body, as well as the soul.
Here again behold God’s protest against
deniers of resurrection.
It
will
conduce to our understanding this passage, if we
take a view of human life
and its means of support from the beginning.
1. God set Adam in the Garden of Eden with life bestowed, and the means
of its support without end.
But there
was the threatening of death on disobedience.
The loss of life Adam incurred.
The life he had was sentenced to extinction,
and His body was then to
return to its original - the dust.
The
support of his life was to be taken from the herb of
the field wrung by toll
out of the ground cursed for his sake.
Now that food could not satisfy the soul, or
spirit of man, nor could it
do more than prolong awhile a sentenced or respited
life, a life continually
dwindling from nearly a thousand years to seventy.
2. Then came Moses, leading a people out from
3. Now Jesus the Son of God and Son of Man has come, with greater grace
on God’s part for those who accept Him.
He gives the lost life of the spirit.
He, too, is the support of that spiritual
life once bestowed.
He satisfies both the soul and spirit. With faith
in Him true life spiritual
begins. And
the extending and
strengthening of this life is dependent on further
resting on Christ.
To accept Himself in His gracious offices
and
work for us, to receive and obey His precepts, to be
guided by His commands,
His principles, to be led by the Holy Spirit, to
imitate His example; these are
various ways in which we live on Christ, and find
Himself true food for the
soul, and the satisfaction of a spirit, which can
really be satisfied with God
alone.
56. ‘He
that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth
in Me,
and I in him.’
The
acceptance
continually of the slain Saviour, both God and man,
by daily faith,
is daily support for the new life begun by the
Spirit of God.
The animal food that we take becomes a part
of ourselves, our flesh and blood. But the lamb of
earth on which we feed does
not abide in us, nor do we abide in it.
It has no risen life, no life beyond that
which we have taken away, on
purpose that it may supply us with support of our
life.
Nor
do
we drink its blood.
But
while
the death of Christ ministers to us deliverance from
death, and gives us
peace of soul towards God, and within us, He is also
risen [out]
from the dead,
and abides in that risen life evermore.
So then not only does a dead Christ
give us life,
but a Risen Christ gives us Himself
in
whom to abide. There
is to be entire fellowship between
the Risen Christ and ourselves. He in us, and we in
Him!
[Page
280]
Here
we
come upon the subject of the believer’s abiding in
Christ, on which John
insists so much in his epistles.
There he
teaches that it requires faith in that doctrine of
the Father and the Son, from
which the deceivers of his and other days sought to
draw off the soul (1
John 2: 24).
Keeping the Saviour’s commands is another
feature of the matter (1
John 2: 6).
To this add faith in Jesus’ death for sin,
together with His
sinlessness. The
true practice is to be
raised on a true foundation of
doctrine.
Thus
John explains for us in part these words.
Hengstenberg
says
well – ‘God in the Garden
said to Adam, “In
the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die.” And on that footing, the act
once committed, there is no
recovery of life.
But now God the Second
Adam is saying – “In
the day thou eatest of this Tree of
Life, thou shalt live.”’ And that
life is eternal.
‘The soul of the flesh is in the
blood,'
says Moses.
So we, by accepting Christ fully, drink of
His spirit. We
are to abide
in
Christ. Christ is to abide in us.
In
these
words Jesus characterizes the Father as ‘the
living’ - the source of life.
The
Saviour as the Perfect Son sent from above, has
immediate access to God as the
source of life.
By supplies continually
flowing in from the Father, He lived as the
Mediator. We
have no such direct
supply of life.
It comes to us only through the Son becoming
incarnate for us,
slain and
raised again. But
all who come to the
Son as the source of life, and strength, and grace,
derive it from Him.
Joseph
had direct approach to Pharaoh’s throne, and
accomplished the
monarch’s will.
But if any Egyptian
needed corn, he must go to Joseph.
How much more is this necessary, where what
separates us naturally from
the throne of Divine Majesty, is not merely
inferiority of nature and station,
but sin!
This
eating
of Christ is an adieu to Moses.
Under Moses I am to find all sufficiency in myself
for every duty, and to fulfil every
command. But
if I come to Christ to
abide in Him, and to own Him, I bid adieu to my own
old life, and power; and
repose on what Christ is for me.
Then
His graces flow into me, as the sap into the
vine-branch, and bear fruit.
[Page
281]
It is only through the
spiritual acceptance of Jesus,
as given and sent by the Father, that we are united
to the Son, as the Son is
to the Father.
Christ become man, slain
and risen, is for us men who believe, the principle
of life and strength.
57. ‘As
the living Father sent Me, and I live by means of
the
Father, so he that eateth Me, even he shall live
by Me.’
Jesus
in
these words declares that the relation which He
occupies as the Son sent by
the Father and from His side, is that also which
obtains with regard to the
believer.
The
Father
sent the Son. The
Son sends
believers to be His witnesses to the world.
Jesus then existed before His appearance as
man. As
the Son of Man, He was ever dependent on
the Father, and was subordinate; gladly doing all
the Father’s will.
It is only because the Son has become Man, and has
by His death removed the
obstacles to our life, and by life in resurrection
supplies our various needs,
that we can have the blessing of which the Saviour
speaks. As
Son of God, there was a great gulf between
us in the infiniteness of the perfect holiness of
the Godhead. But
His becoming Man, dying in that manhood,
and in it rising again, have opened and produced the
most perfect channel of
supply and communion for all those who receive Him
as so revealed. The Father
evermore upheld the life of His Son; the Son
evermore upholds the soul that
abides in Him as His Wisdom, His Righteousness, His
Sanctification, and
Redemption.
Here the Saviour drops the
two different views of His
sustaing grace, before mentioned as ‘flesh
and blood,’
and now says – ‘He that
eateth Me, he shall live through Me.’
The Father - the source of
life - has sent the Son,
and thus guarantees the perfect success of His
mission; giving Him life and
force to overcome death and every obstacle.
The Son, on His part, perfectly applies
Himself to meet the Father’s
will.
Thus
the
life of the Father is perfectly manifested on earth,
in the person and
agency of Christ.
He was given, that we
might receive Him and draw out of His fulness. Life
and strength are accessible
to men in Christ, and only
in Him. Hence
death is all around, and reigns over
those who reject [Page 282] Him, whether openly or covertly, in doctrine or practically.
As the food we eat becomes a part of us, so
faith’s reception and resting in Christ makes His
nature abide in us.
In accepting and trusting Him who lives by
God, after having come out from God, we live on God
as He does.
God’s
gift,
to us of a living Christ’s obedience as our
righteousness, is to be met
by our glad acceptance arising out of a sense of our
need of it, both
internally, and before God as our Judge.
God’s gift of a slain
Christ to atone for our sin,
to give life and to strengthen us in grace, is to be
met by a glad acceptance
arising out of a sense of sin’s destroying power. The flesh
of Christ is God’s gift; our eating
is our reception of the offer.
Then come
the effects - (1) Now, in our spirits: (2)
hereafter, in our bodies also.
We
understand
what is meant when we say – ‘Man
doth live
by bread.’
We mean that the life
which we have, is continued and strengthened by
bread as its support.
We
can
understand, too, what God in the Law of Moses said
to
[Page 283]
But
this
fresh trial only proved man’s inability to win for
himself eternal life by
his obedience.
The Law, which proposed
life on obedience, cut short life on disobedience; and did not even permit multitudes of the redeemed people to see
the land of promise!
They found that Law
applied to the sinful brought death!
3.
The
Prophets offered
life, upon repentance
and turning from idolatries and evil ways; for the courses of the nation were those of death (Ezek.
18: 11).
But
the
Gospel
says – ‘Man cannot deliver himself from
the curse and death, which lie
upon himself as the son of Adam Law.
He must
be delivered from death by the curse smiting another
in his stead. He
must receive life spiritual as gift, and
the deliverance of the body in resurrection, from
another. He
must be indebted for daily strength in
duty to another.
‘He that
doeth My commands shall live in them, and by
them’ – said the
Law.
‘He that
believeth in Me, the slain and risen Son of
God and Son of Man, shall live in
Me and by Me’ – says
Christ. ‘For My life shall
be in him divine life and strength.’
58, 59. ‘This is the bread that came down out of the
heaven, not as the fathers used to eat, and died. He that
eateth this bread shall live for
ever.” These
things said He, as He
taught in the synagogue in
Of
great
moment it is to our natural life and body what we
eat of, and what we
drink; and all possessed of any consideration are
persuaded of it.
Some things eaten or drank will cut short
life at once. Some
will not kill, but
will give insufficient nourishment.
Some
will raise terrible disorders dangerous to life.
Now
in
the preceding discourse, our Lord has stated in
various ways, that He is the
Son of God and Son of Man to be slain and raised for
us. That
this, His work, is to be to us
redemption from death, and the support of our
spiritual life. This redemption
and support are received only by faith in His and
the Father’s testimony.
He who refuses belief, shuts out this
nourishment; just as he who refuses to eat bread,
can receive no support to his
body therefrom.
[Page 284]
There
are,
therefore, two great applications of this truth.
1.
First,
in regard to unbelievers in the truth touching the
Saviour, as being the
Son of God and Son of Man, pre-existent with the
Father, as to His divine
nature; and after His incarnation, slain for us. Those who
reject this entirely, as did ‘the
Men of Intelligence’ of that day, and
the Unitarians, Spiritists,
Swedenborgians,
and Christadelphians
of this day, are
under death and the curse, afar from God; and
under greater wrath, because of
their unbelief in the testimony of God. Nor can they, by any
obedience of theirs, escape from death to life.
2.
But
what if one who once accepted these truths, and
received life through
Christ – ‘eternal life’
- afterwards falls away from them; as was the case
with some in John’s day, and
with some in our day?
Then
the truth stated in John
15: 6, applies - withering of spiritual life in this day comes on; and in the day of
God, the fire!
3.
But
there is a third view of much moment to us who are
believers. As
the breath of our bodies depends on the
wholesomeness of the food we eat, and the drink we
take, so does our spiritual
breath depend on the moral food we are in the habit
of taking. We
have life in Christ.
But what if our reading and our pursuits
are
of the earth, and of the flesh?
Shall we
say that the newspaper, with its crimes, its wars,
and its politics, its
engrossment with the earth and the flesh, is fitted
to build up our spiritual
life? Will
it not assimilate the reader
much more to the old Adam than to the new?
What shall we say to the Christian, whose
chosen reading is the
worst? What
do we say of the constant
drinker of spirits?
That that beverage
unfits the stomach for wholesome food, takes away
appetite for it, and
engenders a craving for that which is destructive of
life in the long run.
Just so with the Christian reader of
romances. He
is not eating Christ, but
something hostile to Christ; and spiritual energy,
light, and grace must diminish
continually. Thus
the principle holds
good throughout.
The deniers of the
Father and the Son (such as Unitarians, open and
mystic) are in death
spiritual, lie under the sentence of death from God
[Page 285]
the Judge; and in a future day they must dwell in
the
Second Death, for they refuse Christ as their life.
Let us then feed
on
Christ, and on the Scriptures, which present Him
in His various offices, and
glories, to meet our need.
So shall we
grow in light, and strength, and preparation for
glory!
Christ is to be received by
us as the Son of God
incarnate, who came down out of the heaven to give
us life.
Our Lord in verse
58
shows us the defects of the Law’s ‘bread
of heaven.’
That could sustain a dying life of seventy
years. But
the true bread of God - the
Saviour of the world - gives to the dead a
life which lasts for ever,
and sustains the renewed soul by a food which
increases its health and force
during this present scene.
But it has also a further onlook.
It has regard to the day of the Saviour’s
coming, and the resurrection [out] from among the
dead.
Spiritual
life
is begun in the soul of the believers; it may be
continually increasing,
and it will one day assert its life-giving power in
the resurrection of the
believer.
This
note
concerning the place of our Lord’s discourse is
probably to account for
the falling away of many, in the city of His choice,
from His side.
In
their
case we see an example of conduct contrary to the
eating and drinking
here taught. They
refused Christ,
considered as the antitype of the manna.
For they would not believe in His former life
in heaven before His
appearing on earth.
Much more did they
refuse to accept Him as the Lamb of God – or Messiah
slain to put away sin
-without whom they were lost.
His flesh and this blood
were given of God to meet our
sore need. Both
then ought to be
accepted, or the loss is ours.
The not
receiving this gift is a greater offence than the
original one of the
Garden. No
bread known to nature or the Law
can give life spiritual, and undo death spiritual;
or quench the unsatisfied
craving of the sinner.
The eaters of the
manna ate, and died; the eaters of the Antitype
shall arise from the dead; for
they [Page 286] have life in
Christ the Prince of Life, and when He wills, death
must give up his captives.
60-62. ‘Many
therefore of His disciples when they heard this
said,
“Hard is this saying; who w. hear it?”
Now Jesus knew in Himself that His
disciples are murmuring about this,
and said unto them, “Doth this stumble you?
What then if you see the Son of Man
ascending up where He was before?”’
These
difficult
sayings of our Lord about Himself as the bread of
life coming down
from heaven, and of His flesh and blood to be given
by Himself, and eaten by
those who would live for ever, stumbled many of
those who up to that time had
followed Him.
They
could
not stay and listen to such words; so strange and
impracticable were
they. The
Saviour was aware of it,
without hearing their saying.
They were
stumbled. This
was quite contrary to all
their ideas of the Messiah. ‘A
Messiah who comes down
from heaven, and gives His flesh and blood to be
eaten and drank, without which
there is no spiritual life in any, even in God’s
own people of
In
these
words our Lord points to His ascent, which was seen
by some of His
disciples then present.
That ascent
might help them to understand that part of His words
in which He said, He came
down from heaven. He
had literally come down, but
invisibly. He
would go up again to the
heaven of heavens whence He had come, visibly.
But
that
supposed His resurrection previously.
For the Saviour had testified of His death,
in His flesh rent, and His [Page
287]
blood poured out.
But after such death He should resume His
body, and take it up with Him to heaven.
For it was as ‘the Son of Man,’
possessed
therefore of a human body, that He would go up
to heaven.
But how could flesh ascend to heaven? Is it is
not by its native weight and
earthliness tied here below?
Yes! as
possessed simply of mortal life in us, descendants
of fallen Adam.
But the predicted ascent would be true of
this ‘Son of Man’
sinless, risen, who is also
the Son of God!
Notice
here
the strongly marked unity of the person of Jesus
Christ; for the opposite
is one of the main errors which John had to oppose
and defeat. ‘The
Men of Intelligence’ set aside the flesh or
body
of Jesus Christ. ‘He had no body; He could take
no flesh without defiling
Himself. The
Christ fled from Jesus
before His death, and left Him the mere man.’ Here Jesus
Christ calls Himself, after His
death and resurrection, ‘the
Son Man.’
He speaks of Himself as having been in
heaven
before appearing on the earth.
Although
before His descent to earth He never had been man or
‘Son
of Man,’
but
only ‘Son of God,’
yet now the manhood is
so a part of Himself, that the Saviour combines
together as referring to one
person, whom He calls ‘Son
of Man,’ both His
existence from eternity, and His life after His
taking flesh. Thus
Swedenborg stands refuted.
According to him him ‘the Lord’ (as He always calls Him) was continually putting off His
manhood received from Mary, till at length on the
cross the last remains of it
were removed, and His body was God!
There was therefore no ‘Son
of Man’ who
could ascend, nor indeed any ‘Son
of God:’
it was only the Father.
Moreover, he denies that the Christ can
ever
visibly come again.
Christ has put off
His body. He
will not visibly come to
reign and to judge.
Now
this is by John in
his
Epistle declared
to be one of the
great characteristics of an Antichrist (2
John 7).
[Greek].
63. ‘The
spirit is that which gives life, the flesh
profiteth
nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are
spirit and life.’
Jesus
then
appears to say, that the flesh and blood of which He
spoke to them as
giving life, were not the flesh and blood of [Page 287]
a mere man; neither was the eating and drinking them
any literal eating of the flesh before them.
For that would not impart to their spirits
the eternal life of which He
had been speaking.
But Jesus’ flesh
would be raised from the dead, and united to His
spirit [and soul]; and the Holy Spirit was
on Him. These
words then could only be
accepted and realised by those whom the Holy Spirit
has made alive to God. None
but the men of faith can eat the flesh and drink the
blood of a slain Messiah,
or receive His Spirit.
Our Lord, then,
by referring to His ascension, gives them to
understand that His immortal flesh
(He omits mention of ‘the
blood’ now) would be
withdrawn from them into heaven, so as to be beyond
any carnal eating of it.
It
is
usual to regard these words as if they should be
taken in a general sense –
‘You stumble at the literal
meaning of My words.
They are not so to be taken, but in a
spiritual sense.’
And this
explanation, though refused by many, seems to me the
best. There
must be first the giving of life to the
fallen by the [Holy]
Spirit of God, ere the meaning of Jesus’ mysterious
words can be known.
Jesus was peculiarly born of the Spirit; in
Him then was fully realised the mysteriousness of
His sayings. Now
none but the [regenerate] believer is anything
but flesh and blood; He is
only spirit [soul
and body] as
begotten of the [Holy] Spirit.
Hence the unbeliever stumbles at our Lord’s
words. Faith
is the clue to understanding the words
of Christ. ‘Flesh,’
or the un-renewed, revolt at
His sayings.
64. ‘There
are some of you that believe not.
For Jesus knew from the beginning who
were
they that believed not, and would betray Him.’
Their
murmurings
then were a proof of their unbelief.
Otherwise they, as disciples, would have
listened respectfully to their
Master’s sayings, even when mysterious; backed as
they were with power so
divine. Their
disbelief, then, in
Himself as the Son of God, led to their stumbling at
His mysterious words.
And the root of their unbelief was that
they
accepted not with pleasure the tidings of a Saviour,
the Son of God, come down
from above; and a Saviour, the Son of Man, who was
to give Himself to a violent
death to redeem them.
The scheme of God [Page
289] was
not only strange, but
humbling – ‘What! they, the
people of God, to be destitute
of spiritual life,
and needing the visible poor man
before them, to give them life by His violent
death; and that they were only thus
to partake of it!’
In
these
words, John shows us - in opposition to the fancies
of opponents - that
the Saviour was well aware, both of His violent
death at hand, and of His
resurrection and ascent to God, long before it took
place. Thus
John also accounts to us, how it was
that after the Saviour’s gaining so great a
popularity, and drawing crowds to
hear Him and see His miracles, His hearers left Him,
and allowed Him to fall
into the hands of enemies.
The
facts
concerning Judas seem to have been especially urged
against our Lord’s
foreknowledge. ‘What man
would ever have chosen into
the small number of His most trusted adherents and
friends, one who would prove
a traitor - had he been aware of the future?’ John then
in His Gospel, adduces not a few
words about Judas, and our Lord’s knowledge of his spirit,*
at
a time when as yet there was no visible indication
of it. For
we are now dealing with One, who, though
a man, is not a mere man; or to be tested by
ordinary considerations.
He came down to do, not as other men, His
own
will; but the Father’s.
[* Is
there not a reference hereto the salvation of ‘the
spirit,’ which will occur
amongst
disobedient and apostate believers as they weep,
wail and gnash their teeth at
the loss of the inheritance of firstborn sons of God, ‘in the day
of the Lord Jesus’ (1
Cor. 5:
5)?
“But my servant Caleb, because he
had another spirit with him,
and hath
followed
me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he
went…”)?]
65, 66. ‘And
He said – “For this cause I said to you that none
could
come to Me, except it be given him by the Father.” From
that time many of His disciples went
back, and walked no more with Him.”’
As
the
Saviour’s own knowledge and action were governed by
motives of heaven, and
the will of the Father above, so in regard of the
results of His testimony they
were not left to chance, or the mere operation of
ordinary human causes.
Such is the native enmity of man to God,
and
to His manifestation of Himself in His Son, that it
requires divine power to be
put forth on the soul of man in renewal, ere he will
accept the Sent One of
God.
The effect of this
discourse was to throw off from our
Lord’s ministry and professed subjection to Him, the
great body of His
followers. They
were morally disgusted
with Him. They
found not that which they
sought: they found what they did not seek [Page 290]
- sentiments too ethereal, spiritual, unworldly. They were
like their fathers.
They complained of the manna – ‘Our
soul loatheth
this light bread.’ Thus
Jesus rejected the worldly element
which had nearly wrought Him trouble in the attempt
to make Him a king.
These
words
of mystery were a part of our Lord’s purpose – ‘The
flesh profiteth nothing.’
Though
it were circumcised flesh, the flesh of sons of
Abraham the friend of God, it
availed not to keep them to Christ.
Their spirit was not alive to God, because
not renewed [and
fully enlightened] by
the
Spirit of God.
67-69. ‘Therefore
said Jesus to the twelve - “Do you also wish to go
away?” Simon
Peter answered Him – “Lord,
to whom should we go?
Thou hast the
words of eternal life. And we
believe
and know that Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God.”’
This
defection,
however, was sorrowful even to our Lord.
Might not this turning away propagate
itself
even to the inner circle of the twelve?
He
will ask them therefore – ‘Will
they follow the stream
of the unbelievers?
If they wished, He
would not detain them against their will.’
Peter’s
reply
is ready and wise.
Before we leave
what we hold, we should see what better can replace
it. Could,
then, any of the Scribes and Pharisees
afford them what they found in deeds, in wonders,
and in doctrine in
Jesus? Theirs
were words about earth and
its life. Jesus’
words touched life
heavenly and eternal. Law promised prolonged earthly
life to the obedient; but
who, save Jesus, promised life eternal as the gift
of God to faith?
He
then
proceeds to testify his faith in the person of our
Lord. For
that was the stone of stumbling to those
who left; as the prophet foretold.
The
Christian religion rests on the wonderful facts of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
The resurrection is the result of the
Saviour’s wondrous person, as both
Son of God and Son of
Man. Had
There
is
great variety of reading in Peter’s confession. The
reading followed by our translators is
the best sustained by manuscripts.
Those
manuscripts which read – ‘the
Holy One of God’ -
are less trustworthy.
Jesus accepts this
title thus directly presented to Him.
He
does not distinguish as would the Gnostics – ‘Jesus
is the Man: I
who speak am the Christ.’
70, 71. ‘Jesus
answered them – “Have not I chosen you twelve, and
one
of you is a devil?”
He was speaking of Judas
Iscariot, son of Simon; for he was about to betray
Him; being one of the twelve.’
The
choosing
of the twelve is not named before by John.
His account supposes the three previous
Gospels. In
what sense is the word ‘chose’
here used?
Not as meaning choice to eternal life; for
that took place from all
eternity, and was rather the Father’s choice than
the Son’s. But
it means a choice to be His near
companions and missionaries (Luke
6: 13; Mark 3:
13, 14).
The falling away and
treachery of Judas is no proof of the insecurity of
God’s elect who are chosen
from all eternity to eternal life.
‘One of you is a devil!’ Here is Jesus’
terrible
word about Judas, long ere he discovered himself. We should
naturally conclude, from the
occurrence of the words at this juncture, that he
stumbled at the Saviour’s
discoveries relative to His mission and His high
claims. But
while others went away and left, he
continued with the Saviour.
Jesus spoke
these words apparently to alarm him.
He
would still seem to be a friend of Christ, while he
was secretly His enemy, and
would at length carry out the schemes of those
enemies. Secret
treachery then is the acting of a
devil. Many
seem to abhor the
traitorousness of Judas, who are guilty in the like
sort. They
appear to think that the
guilt of Judas never can belong to any [disciple] now. And true is
that
the person of the Son of God can no more be
exposed to such wickedness.
But the same kind of offence may be
committed
now. Though
Jesus the Risen Head is beyond
the hands of a traitor, His
members on
earth are not.
The
false brethren [Page 292]
of whom Paul
speaks, who put His life in peril, were guilty of
the very same offence. If, after
Peter had been delivered out of
prison, anyone of those assembled at the house of
Mark, to which Peter went at
once upon his escape, had gone to Herod or to the
High Priests - had told them
about it, and given information where to find him,
that would have been just
Judas’ sin over again!
Beware then of
helping the enemies of your brethren, specially by
giving them intelligence
enabling them to trouble and persecute.
Beware!
This is one of the characteristics of the men of the latter day - that
they are ‘traitors’
(2
Tim. 3: 4). They seem your friends,
appear to be your servants; but
really use their knowledge and access to you against
you for your enemies.
This
awful
word concerning Judas, who is said to have gone,
after his suicide, to a
special place in torment, and who is called ‘the son
of perdition’ - hints that
his power for mischief is not ended.
The
word concerning him in Ps.
109: 6, 7 has not
been fully accomplished; and if so, it must be one
day fulfilled.
He is then as I believe, one of the Three
Great Chiefs in wickedness who lead men at last to
their perdition - Judas
being ‘the False Prophet’
of the Apocalypse, who
draws men at last to the worship of the False Christ
and of Satan; the
contriver of the rebellion against God.
‘Iscariot.’
What
is the meaning of the word? It is a name, I believe,
taken from his
birth-place. He
was a man of Kerioth, a
city of
What a light does this case
throw upon the exceeding
wickedness of man!
Judas, set by God in
the fairest position for salvation, turned away to
the blackest iniquity, and
enhances his damnation by that which should have
proved his deliverance!
That he proved traitor was not due to any
evil, or fault in Him [Page 293] whom he betrayed, for Jesus was perfect.
But those who will be led on to good,
specially by companionship with the holy, only the
more thrown back upon
sin. There
is no standing and those who
refuse truth and grace are soon sealed up for
damnation. ‘One of the
twelve’ - yet a devil! No sight of miracles, no listening to perfection of wisdom, no close
observation of perfection of holiness availed to
make him holy. Some have attempted
to defend in part his conduct, as if it were so
black as usually believed,
because, as they think, it is probable that he was
not aware of the extreme
consequences of treachery.
He was (they
say) probably under the impression
that
Jesus, when once He saw the force of the enemies
come take Him prisoner, would
put forth His might to deliver Himself.
Thus he (Judas) should get his money, and yet
his Master would not be
injured! Would
He not be then compelled
to declare Himself the ‘King
of Israel’?
Thus he may have thought that the utmost
evil
he should effect would be the bringing things to a
crisis, sooner than the Lord
intended.
Now
it
is very possible that such may have been some of his
thoughts; although
displeasure at the rebuke he received concerning the
anointing at Bethany,
seems to have been the decisive motive; but he could
only entertain such views
through unbelief of the Saviour’s words, who had
several times assured
disciples that His going to Jerusalem was to end,
not in His taking the
kingdom, but in His seizure by His foes, and His
putting to death.
Moreover, it is frequently the case, nay
generally, that the extent of the mischief done by
sin is not seen.
Could our first parents have known the
endless consequences of present trouble, and future
damnation entailed on their
posterity, they would, we are ready to think, have
paused, ere they ate of the
fruit. But
we do not know.
God is not pleased to show us the full
consequences of any act of sin.
It must
be abstained from, not because we see its long and
heavy train of evil
consequences; but because it is forbidden by our
God. ‘Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself,’ was a principle
clear enough to show Judas the
sinfulness of his career.
[Page 294]
Chapter 7. gives us an
account of another visit of our Lord to
*
*
*
CHAPTER 7
[Page 295]
1. ‘And
after these things Jesus was walking in Galilee,
for He
was unwilling to walk in
Our
Lord’s
movements were now principally in
As, then, they refused the light,
it is withdrawn.
Jesus, in the wisdom of
the serpent, and the harmlessness of the dove,
removes His place of
service. He
came in grace, and therefore
does, not cut off sinners, even when their enmity
breathed death to
Himself. This
principle holds good
still. From
those who hate the light,
and persecute such as hold it, the light is oft
removed. Is
there any reader who hates the light and
resists it? Repent!
or your dwelling
will be in darkness.
2.
‘Now the feast of the Jews,
the tabernacles, was near.’
This was the chief feast of
It
was
the chief feast of ‘the Jews.’
Feasts
do not become, the
3, 4. ‘His
brethren therefore said to Him, “Depart hence, and
go
into
‘His brethren.’ Who were
they? Some
say, ‘His
cousins, or the sons of Joseph by a former
marriage.’
And then Scriptures are brought to prove,
if
possible, that the usual sense of ‘brothers’
is
not to be taken.
Why not? Because the
stream of church-tradition has been running on to
glorify Mary, and not her
Son. We
of this day know to what a
blasphemous height this has risen.
The
sinner is directed for salvation, not to the
Saviour, but to His mother!
Hence, she must be represented as a woman
exalted above all others.
To speak of
her family by Joseph after the birth of our Lord is
pronounced a ‘heresy’
that is, a false doctrine.
Where then is the Scripture which asserts
the
church-tradition?
Nowhere!
Then the word ‘brothers’
is to be taken literally (Matt.
13: 54-56; 12: 46).
These brothers are constantly spoken of in
connection with their mother Mary.
And
one of the Psalms which is applied five or six times
to our Lord, speaks of
them as His ‘mother’s children’ (Ps.
69: 8; Acts
1:
14). They
were four - James
(Jacob), Joses, Simon, and Judas.
All
His lifetime they were [Page 298] unbelievers. After His
resurrection they believed, and became Apostles (1
Cor. 9: 5)
They
proved
their unbelief on this occasion. (1) They
distinguish between the disciples
of Christ and themselves, ‘Thy
disciples.’
Relatives in the flesh they were, but not
in
spirit. (2)
They would counsel the Son
of God, as if He were not led by His Father’s will,
but were moved by the love
of the world’s applause.
They imagine,
that while this was the end He had in view, He was
ignorant enough not to know
how to adapt His conduct to the object He pursued. They wish
to fan His ambition.
‘Was He indeed the
Messiah? How could He expect the nation to be
convinced of it, by a work in distant
and despised
Satan,
and
the men of the world are, as you see, of one mind. ‘Glorify
yourself! Make
a figure before men!’
The Saviour’s time was God’s time, and He was
content to wait for that.
But men of sense and of the world see only
this life, and are guided only by motives of the
world.
Do
we
wonder that we, if believers, are condemned by the
world as fools?
It judges from unbelief’s point of view. Are we
misunderstood even by our brethren of
the Church? We
must look onward to the
day that will rectify all misunderstandings, and to
Judge who will decide all
causes aright.
Man frequently thinks he
can instruct God!
If we are seeking the world’s glory, we are
not following Christ. He was desirous of doing His
Father’s will.
There
was
but one Son of Mary who
was perfect: all the others only sons of Adam the
fallen.
[Page 298]
Jesus
was
tried with the ordinary trials of humanity, that He
might feel for us in
them all, and help us to bear them all.
Our Lord’s brethren took the world’s part
against Him. They
urge Him, as Satan did, with an ‘if.’ ‘If
Thou do these things show Thyself to the world.’ They had
no objection to partake of His
glory, if indeed He would take and rule the world. But now
that the tide seems burning, against
Him, they are bold to exhort and reprove.
Christians, beware of accepting worldly
advice!
Is
any
reader troubled by home-hindrances, and aversions? Be not
cast down! It
was thus with our Lord.
If faith in Him have raised you up enemies
at
home, it has also introduced you to a much larger
family, the family of
God. If
it have rent the ties of earth,
it has bestowed new relationships.
You
mother, brethren, and sisters now are those who hear
the word of God, and keep it.
6-10. ‘Jesus
saith unto them, “My season is not yet present;
but your
season is always ready.
The world cannot
hate you, but Me it hateth; because I testify of
it, that the works thereof are
evil. Go
ye up unto this feast: I am not
going up to this feast; for My season has not yet
been fulfilled.”
While saying these things, He Himself
abode
in
Jesus
then
distinguishes between Himself and them, as they
distinguish between themselves
and the disciples of our Lord.
They took
the place of the worldly, and as such the world
owned them. They
were only flesh born of the flesh, and
moved by its motives.
Their sphere was
the world. Their
prizes such as can be
won in this life. They
saw no further
than their countrymen in regard of this festival. They
beheld not in Christ the Lord of the
feasts, against whom their nation revolted
in heart. Let
them go up to the
feast! They
were in sympathy with their
countrymen, and really on their side in the great
controversy between our
Lord and them. Jesus now sees in
They
arranged
their times at their own pleasure: He by His
Father’s will.
They had not the need of the caution and
withdrawal which was now detaining Him.
They saw not the rooted hatred to Himself and
His Father, which the
Saviour well knew.
They looked to the
Lord’s full acceptance on the ground of His
miracles; but this hope overlooked
the perverse heart of
They who behold not Christ
and His glory,
see only the
world and its glory.
They
did
not believe. Hence,
Jesus judges
that they are of the world.
We must take
our stand with Christ or against Him.
Which is it?
If we are of the
world we are against Christ.
But
how
are we to understand the matter?
Jesus first says He is not going up to the feast, and then He goes up. This has always been a
difficulty. It
was still more striking,
when the text stood, as I suppose it was at first
given by John - ‘I am not going up unto this feast.’* Infidels of early days laid
hold on this, as proving in our Lord ignorance, or
change of purpose, or
untruth. The
force of it was so felt,
that the little word ‘yet’ was added.
‘I am not going up
yet
unto this feast.’
*For the authority for this
reading, see Tregelles.
How
then
are we to apprehend this word of our Lord?
Our
Lord’s
sayings in this Gospel are oft enigmatic.
They are the profound words of one born of
the Spirit, and led of the Father.
His
eye was on God’s counsels towards
He
saw in the Feast of Tabernacles God’s design of
glory in the millennial day. In
the
seventh thousandth year after God’s spiritual
harvest’s ingathering, there
shall be rejoicing and rest.
Then Jesus
Himself also shall be manifested to the world, as
His brethren proposed.
[Page 300]
This
is
the final and glorious aspect of the Tabernacle
feast. So
it is given by Zechariah
14: 16-18.
Then Christ shall be
King of all the earth, and all nations shall bow
down before Him in His temple
at Jerusalem. If I
mistake
not, the Tabernacles look back to the restoration of
They were to pierce the Lord to death
in their unbelief, before
they should
look on Him and mourn (Zech.
12.).
The sword was to awake against the
Shepherd;
desolation to visit the earth, and sore affliction
to try the disciples, before
the day of glory and of the millennial reign
should come (13.).
So then the true season of Tabernacles,
and of the Lord’s manifestation to the world in
glory as its King, had not yet
arrived. The Stone must be rejected by the builders, before it is made visibly
the headstone of the corner.
As though Jesus said- ‘The
time for My glory shall indeed come but the time
of
sacrifice and of humiliation must come first.’ Thus Jesus
teaches us also.
Rejection
first
before exaltation!
Rejection for
Christ’s sake, before we are exalted with Him!
The day of Atonement, according to the
Law, must precede the Feast of Tabernacles. So
then also in its great reality and
antitype. Thus
had the Father ordained.
Jesus, then, was not going up to the
Feast of Tabernacles in its full and prophetic
sense. How
could He, when
The world then is not to be converted
even by the manifestation to it of our Lord’s own
miracles. Much
less is it to be turned to the Lord by
the preaching destitute of miracle, of uninspired
men! Miracle
only aroused the world’s enmity, and
led them to slay the Saviour.
He could
only testify to its evil, seeing that it was led by
Satan. Christ’s
Kingdom cannot come till Satan and his sons are
cut off, and imprisoned below.
Now is the time of testimony to the truth,
and of suffering for the truth.
And testimony to the truth stirs up hatred. The truth is too strong to
be put down by men.
But men
will not have the truth and it is
easier far to kill the disputant, than to answer
his statements and arguments
from Scripture.
‘Me it hateth.’
This is the world’s prevailing attitude
still. Though
part of the world calls itself
Christ’s, it hates Him.
It refuses His
testimony. It
is led by the Wicked
One. The
Old Testament witnesses that
the Lord would have many haters; without a cause;
and that they would be dealt
with in justice unto their destruction, when once
the true season of the feast
of Tabernacles is come (Dent.
32: 41; Ps. 21: 8;
68: 1; 81: 10).
After
the
Saviour’s humbling comes His exaltation, and
manifestation to the world. See
Ps. 97.;
Is. 40. and 66.
Let us seek to have part in
that great day!
Our witness to the world is an unpleasant
testimony; that it is incurably evil, and that all
who would serve Christ must
come out of it.
But if with Christ
we are hated, and suffer, with Him we shall
reign.
Our
Lord,
then, stayed for the present in
The
Saviour
was in spirit saying what Isaiah wrote. Is.
1:
13-15: ‘Bring no
more vain oblations; incense
is an abomination unto Me; the new moons and
Sabbaths, the calling of
assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity
even the solemn meeting.
Your new moons and your appointed feasts
My
soul hateth: they are a trouble unto Me; I am
weary to bear them.
And when ye spread forth your hands, I
will
hide Mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many
prayers, I will not hear: your
hands are full of blood.’
Our
Lord,
then, as the Jew, recognizes the feasts as given of
Jehovah. He
looks onward, too, to their
completion, as foretold by the prophets
(specially the Feast of Tabernacles),
in the millennial day.
11-13.
‘Then the Jews sought Him at
the feast, and said,
“Where is He?”
And there was much
murmuring among the people concerning Him: for
some said, “He is a good man:”
others said, “Nay; but He deceiveth the people.” Howbeit
no man spake openly of Him for fear
of the Jews.’
In
the
eleventh verse we are introduced to the unsettled
and divided state of
feeling about Him.
The Jews thought more
about Him than about the feast.
They
were looking out for this strange Man and His twelve
disciples, amidst the
multitudes that thronged the city.
Some
timidly took our Lord’s part. ‘He
was a good
[Page 303]
14, 15. ‘Now
about the midst of the feast Jesus went up into
the
temple, and taught.
And the Jews marvelled,
saying, “How knoweth this Man letters having never
learned?”’
Jesus,
nevertheless,
would try once more, whether they would receive His
testimony. He
went up into the place of
chief concourse.
He would present
Himself where the nation was commanded to assemble
at the feast. Here was His
boldness. He
was ready to teach, but they
were not ready to listen.
They
were not in the spirit of Isaiah
2: 3, ‘And
many people shall go and say, “Come
ye, and lot us go
up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of
the God of Jacob; and He will
teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His
paths: for out of Zion shall go
forth the law, and the word of the Lord from
Jerusalem.”’ They
were not ready to walk in His paths,
as they and the nation shall be one day.
Jesus
owned
the temple, the priests and sacrifices there.
This is anew shown us, to rectify the false
ideas of some, that Jesus was an enemy to the God of
the Jews, and to His
commands; specially to the law of animal sacrifices. The Jews
were surprised at our Lord’s
teaching. (1)
At the matter
of it; always ready, clear, copious. 2) The style of it; not in a doubtful, halting manner, but with authority. (3) The source
of it. He
had never enrolled Himself as the disciple
of any of their rabbis.
That was the
usual way to knowledge.
Yet He had never
trod that path.
How, then, had He
reached His present height of attainment.
How was He a teacher, who had never been a
pupil? The
Saviour explains the peculiarity in own
case.
In
this,
they might behold the prophet like Moses (Deut.
18:
18). ‘I will
put My words into His mouth; and
He shall speak unto
them all that I command Him.’
This should have decided them in His favour. Jesus,
then, had not derived His views, as have
asserted, from the Essenes, or from any Jewish
school.
He
was
a teacher, and with ‘peculiar
views’ quite
His own. The
source, they owned, was not human.
He,
then, would go [Page 304] farther and tell them that it was divine! Sad, that
they stumbled here, and did not at
once own the explanation! How they would have
triumphed had it been
otherwise! ‘You
pretend to teach; but we know where You got all
You say. Gamaliel
instructed You.
You know nothing but
what he first instilled into You.’
16, 17. ‘Jesus
answered them and said, “My doctrine is not Mine,
but
His that sent Me.
If any man will do His
will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be
of God, or whether I speak
of Myself.”’
Jesus
taught
as the Father had instructed Him, ere He came down
out of the heaven.
He
traces
their refusal of Him and His word, to a moral and
spiritual cause;
putting the principle, however, in its gentlest form,
as if He would win
them to try the matter for themselves.
‘Do you wish to
know the source of My present wisdom and
power of instruction?
It comes from God
My Father. If
you have only a
willingness to act out His will, you shall
speedily have all the evidence as to
the source of My teaching.’
The
Saviour’s teaching was practical.
The
hindrance to its reception was also moral and
practical. They
would not do the will of God; for it
entailed present trial and rejection, by the
religious world of their day.
This
is
a lesson to us also - negatively and positively.
(1)
Why
do so many refuse truths clearly set forth in
Scripture? Not
because there is deficiency of evidence;
not because those doctrines are so obscurely stated,
that the most unbiased
students are divided into parties about their
meaning. It
is because they are so practical, that if
you accept the one clear meaning of Scripture, you
must act on it; and that
acting it out is the obstacle.
Has not
our Lord spoken in the Sermon on the Mount, clearly
enough forbidding His
disciples to fight the world’s battles? (Matt.
43-48).
It is clear enough to
those who are willing to practise this.
But to those who are not willing, the matter
(as lately stated in some
religious periodicals) turns on a text or two, ‘so
obscurely stated, that opposite opinions may be
held about it, and opposite
conduct about it may be justified.’
[Page
305]
Why
does the
doctrine of believers’ immersion encounter so much
adverse argument?
Why is it esteemed so obscure a matter? Because it
is so practical.
‘If it be of God, you
are to do it.’ ‘But I will not do it.
It involves such obloquy, and present loss.’ Then you
are driven back on this intellectual
position – ‘It is not of
God’ - ‑and some
evidence must be sought for, to
entrench me in my resistance to it.
Baptism
as immersion, is a visible burial
to this world, and resurrection to the hopes of a
future age.
Multitudes, then, refuse the rite, because
they refuse the truths which lie at its foundation. Their disobedience
arises
out of an un-subdued will.
They do not
wish to know the will of God, that they may do it.
In any case
then, when we are doubtful about the truth of a
doctrine, let us seek to get a
single eve, or a will ready to do God’s mind. Then
the evidence will be
given. So
that in the last day, all will
be judged according to works.
It is the heart
that has the most to do with a man’s
religious views.
But God’s truths are so humbling, that men
loathe them. Hence, infidels often have clearer
views of Scripture than many
believers, because they have cast off the practice
of them. ‘I can’t understand
how you Christians should take oaths, and go to
law, and fight.
Your Master has prohibited all those
things
in words as clear as could be used.
If I
were a Christian, I should feel obliged to abstain
from what you seem to do without
scruple.’
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 Him.’
The Saviour was not ‘leading
the multitude astray.’
That would
only be done by one who sought his own glory; while
He did not.
Our Lord, then, was no adventurer
seeking His own glory.
He was uttering
truths and doing works which had already brought Him
into peril; and the persistence
in which would prove His death, as was apparent
enough. Was
that to act like a knave?
He was forgetting Himself and his own
present
interest to glorifying His Father. Herein is our
Lord the great wonder.
Man [Page 306]
naturally works for himself and his own glory,
forgetful of God’s.
The Saviour was One
who in all points sought the glory of the Father. The Word
of God does not exalt the teacher of
it. Hence,
most mix with it something of
man.
Christ’s
singleness
of aim for God guaranteed both His doctrine and His
conduct. The
Scribes and Pharisees on the contrary were false and
murderous, for they were
seeking their own glory, aild were full of hatred,
because the glory of God and
of His Son stood in the way of theirs.
He
who
seeks his own glory has to attempt to gain the
approval of men who are
fallen; hence his attempts fall below the standard
of God.
19. ‘Did
not Moses give you the Law? and yet none of you
keepeth
the Law. Why
seek ye to slay Me?’
‘You would set Moses against Me. This man
cannot be of God, for he violates
the Law given by Moses.’
Jesus
then alleges that they who cited Moses against Him,
were themselves violaters
of Moses. ‘Moses
gave you the Law.’
How
remarkable, when in Deut.
33: 4 ver.
it is, ‘Moses commanded
us,’ and so the Jews of our Lord’s day say,
‘Master,
Moses wrote unto us,’ Mark
12: 19.
It
was
commanded in Deut, 31:
10, that Moses’
Law should be read by the Levites to all
But
while
they boasted themselves as Moses’ disciples, none of
them kept the
Law. This
was true of them generally, as
they [Page 307] were the
fallen sons of Adam.
But it was true
also of special portions of that Law brought into
prominence then by the
presence of Jesus.
Moses had assured
them that a prophet like himself would be raised up
to them, to whom they were
to hearken. He
was now before them, but
they would not listen.
He was now before
them as Jehovah the Healer, but at Him they
stumbled. They
refused the testimony to God as the
Father and the Son, in spite of the Scriptures of
the Law and Prophets, which
had hinted at this great discovery.
There were secret things, as Moses confessed,
yet with the Lord.
But when these were revealed, they would
not
accept the message, but would slay the Teacher!
They
were
‘going with the multitude to
do evil,’ Ex.
33: 2.
They were seeking to murder one whose works
of wonder proved Him at
least to be a prophet.
On what ground of
Moses’ Law could such conduct be justifiable?
The multitude replied by
denying that anybody was
wishing to kill Him.
It was all His
fancy, some false fixed melancholy monomania
suggested to Him, and maintained
in His mind by an evil spirit.
Most will
not believe what they cannot see, however true it may be.
21-24. ‘Jesus
answered and said to them, “I did one work, and ye
are
all wondering.
On this account Moses
gave you circumcision (not that it is of Moses,
but of the fathers), and ye on
the Sabbath circumcise a man.
If a man
receive circumcision on the Sabbath, in order that
the Law of Moses be not broken;
are ye angry with Me, because I made an entire man
well on the Sabbath?
Judge not according to sight, but judge
just
judgment.”’
‘You
boast yourselves as
zealous observers of the Law of Moses, and yet you
make no scruple to
transgress even the Sabbath-Law, with the breach
of which you reproach Me, and
wish to put Me to death.
I broke the Sabbath by one work; you
violate
it every week, and you would all of you do it in
the way your countrymen
generally do, if like occasion were offered.’
Moses
gave
the Law, and the Sabbath was a part of it given in
the Decalogue.
The command of circumcision was not of the
same origin. It
was given before Moses.
It was just recognised by the Law in
passing;
yet they violated the Law of the [Page 308] Sabbath by causing a surgeon’s servile work to be done on that
day. If
they were justified in setting
aside a part of the Decalogue by the inferior
command of circumcision, much
more was Christ justified in the Sabbath healing.
You
judge
at the first glance, and regard not the spirit of
the Law.
Moses
was
cited as opposed to Christ.
Here our
Lord makes Moses himself invade the
Sabbath. For
no exception in the Sabbath-Law was made in favour
of circumcision.
Whereas preparation of food was excepted: ‘save that which every man must
eat.’
In requiring circumcision on the eighth day
without exception, Moses would have it done on the
Sabbath. Here
there is work to be done on the Sabbath, according
to Moses’ own law!
These
words
lead us back to John 5. Jesus
omits to notice their denial, and gives
no proof of their untruthfulness.
That
is furnished presently after by some of themselves. But He
turns back to the first great occasion
which the Jews found against Him, when He healed the
sick man of
‘I did one work’
- on the Sabbath -
understood. They
were all wondering at
it. Not,
I believe, at its power, but at
its strangeness, and evil, and wickedness, in their
sight. It
was not more wonderful, as a cure, than
many others which Jesus had wrought.
‘But how could
this wan, who professed so much piety, and in
general obeyed Moses, and stood up for His Law so
openly, disobey it?’
That this is the sense seems proved by the
other description of their feelings about it, ‘Ye are
angry with
If
they
said that they observed this rite, because it was
older than Moses, and
dated back from Abraham’s day, and that it was
necessary; else the child
uncircumcised on that eighth day should be cut off,
as a breaker of the
covenant (Gen. 17.),
then Jesus was free to
reply that He wrought His work, as a carrying out of
a principle greater and
older than any ceremonial Law of Moses, even the
love of His neighbour as
Himself.
Was
Christ’s
healing really a breach of Sabbath-rest?
Was not circumcision so to the person
submitting to the rite?
This cutting and
wounding was a destroying to Him of all rest on that
day.
If cutting and wounding do
not violate the
Sabbath-rest, either in the actors or the
recipients, how much less does
healing by a word, and the removal of the
now-not-needed bed!
If
then
they were right, and no breakers of the Sabbath,
much less was He who
brought to the impotent man health and rest.
Moses’ Sabbath had left the impotent man sick
and restless’ He had by a
word brought to him the repose of health.
And ‘rest’ was
the object of the Sabbath
(Ex. 34: 21; 31: 15;
Deut. 5: 14).
Jesus,
too,
was now touching the root of the matter; denying
that Moses and Law could
bring rest to man the sinner. It
was the work of Christ which alone
could bring in true rest; rest with God in spirit,
to one brought out from
under Law and the curse; rest also in the flesh, and
in the earth. It
was in the very interests of the true Sabbath, the long promised rest of God,
of which Moses gave the distant
indications, that Jesus had wrought that miracle. Thus He
had called attention to the passing
away of the old covenant which left man under sin to
the coming of the better
covenant by Himself.
Therefore He had
healed this man on the Sabbath. Let them [Page 310]
then abide by the real aims of the Law, and not be
carried away by clamour.
If they
justified themselves in their breach of Moses’
Sabbath, they must, in all
justice, justify Him.
25, 26. ‘Then
said some of them of
The
crowd
had ridiculed our Lord for supposing that anybody
wished to kill
Him. But
others know better that it is
not only true, but generally known at
Theirs
was
the opposite wonder, how the rulers, after their
full intention of putting
Him to death, allowed Him untouched to teach in the
most public place of the metropolis,
and on the feast days.
Thus oft
unexpected evidence arises to uphold the truth which
is resisted and refused.
It
was
sad, that they turn over to the rulers the decision,
whether Jesus were the
Christ or no. For
Jesus called on them
to judge, and showed them the elements of proof. This tells
us however, how much of
responsibility rests on the learned and educated in
religious matters.
So
well
was this plot against our Lord’s life known, that
they are astonished at
His daring in showing Himself in so public a place,
and speaking so
boldly. They
can only impute this
seeming carelessness of the rulers to a doubt,
whether, after all, Jesus were
not the Messiah.
27.
‘But as for this fellow, we
know whence He is; but when
the Christ cometh, none knoweth whence He is.’
How
constantly
when there are two truths in a topic, one apparently
opposed to
another, men set up the one against the other; and
will not trouble themselves
to inquire – ‘Whether both are not true?’ How
many
perish because they say, ‘God
is merciful’ -
which is true; while they refuse to own and provide [Page
311] against
the
foremost truth - that God is just also; and that the demands of justice must be satisfied, before mercy is free to act.
It
was
true, then, that they knew, or might know the human
origin of Jesus.
The Scribes had already declared His place
of
birth. The
men of
The
Scripture
had declared that He should be of David’s line. But if
they knew the Man and His lineage, how
could He be Messiah?
For Messiah was to
be of some unknown original.
They cite no
passage of Scripture, yet it was true.
Micah 5: 2,
foretold of the Messiah’s forth goings
as being ‘from everlasting.’
28, 29. ‘Jesus
shouted therefore in the
There
could
be no earthly fulfilment to
our Lord’s words in verses
28, 29.
Joseph, it is probable, was not then
alive. He
never appears after the
Saviour’s infancy.
He then was not the
tender of our Lord on His errand of salvation.
Our Lord’s family were not the authors of His
mission. There
must be, then, a Heavenly Sender with
whom Jesus dwelt before He entered on His mission of
earth.
The
men
born of the flesh seek to exalt themselves, and they
are the originators of
their own scheme of life and the ends they propose. Not so our
Lord. Jesus
was a visible man; and they concluded
therefore, that He was a man and nothing more; but He would let them know that He was more than man, and was
acting by a power above man, both in grace, and
wisdom, and supernatural
energy. The
Sender of Christ was One
invisible, but a real Sender - as real as He who
sent Moses aforetime to
It would seem that the
crowd and the talking was so
tumultuous that Jesus was obliged to lift His voice. He knows
their thoughts and their whisperings
among themselves, and [Page 312] replies to them. His reply
is
in substance – ‘I have two
natures in one of these you
know Me and My origin.
In the other,
you know
Me not, for you know not
God; and unless you did, and that in an infinite
way, you could not know
Me. “None
knoweth whence Messiah is.”
Then that is true
of Me, who am Messiah.
I came from God,
and God you know not.’
Jesus,
then,
concedes that in a certain sense they knew Him and
His origin, as He was
Son of Man. But
He denies it in regard
of the other nature.
He had an existence
with God before He appeared as man.
Nor
did He appear as man, like one part of the angels
who fell, because He chose
the lot of His own accord, thinking it better than
that in which God had set
Him; but He came in deference to the Father’s
desire, and that Father was the
true God, the God of Israel.
But they
judged according to the appearance, and knew not the
true God. Nor
can any who refuses Christ know God.
This
twofold
truth of Jesus’ double nature our Lord presented
afterwards. ‘Whose Son is Messiah?’ ‘David’s.’
‘But if He be David’s Son, how is He David’s LORD?’ At this
they stumbled (Mat. 22:
41.)
The human side of Messiah they know; the
divine they stumble at.
Hence they know not God.
All who attempt to know God while refusing
Jesus to be the Christ, must perish in ignorance of
the Most High.
Jesus
is
from God. John
is giving us words of
Christ, in order to establish the principle which he
asserts at the outset of his
Gospel, that the Saviour was eternally, as the Son
of God, with God.
And if God were true, and Jesus was His
Son,
how fully might His words be trusted as the truth! By virtue
of His Divine nature Jesus loved
the truth and hated iniquity.
How could
any of these words be true, if there be only One
Person in the Godhead?
If
the
Saviour had, according to these objectors, suddenly
landed in
When
it
suited His enemies, they could describe Him as unworthy of belief,
because they know not whence He was (John
9: 20).
‘I
am from Him.’
This refers to Jesus’ pre-existent
knowledge
of God, as possessed of His Divine nature, and then
to His commission.
Moses could have said of God, ‘He
sent me.’
But he could not say that he was with God,
and that for ever, before he
was sent.
30. ‘They
were seeking therefore to arrest Him: but none
laid
hands on Him, because His hour had not yet come.’
It
was
wonderful, that they did not on that occasion arrest
our Lord. It
was their counsel so to do.
But there were two sides to the matter. (1.) The
other Gospels tell us that so strong
was the impression which our Lord by His words and
deeds had made on the
multitude, and so eager were they to listen to Him,
that the Pharisees were
awed by the fear of strife and probably bloodshed,
with danger from the Romans,
had they then arrested Him.
(2.) But
there was also the deeper and Divine root of the
matter. The time fixed by God
had not yet arrived, and before that His enemies had
not leave to seize
Him. He
could not be slain till the
Passover, that He might be pointed out as the true
Lamb of God, the Bearer of
Sin, by the very season and festival at which He
suffered. The
Saviour points out to His foes, when they
came to arrest Him, this twofold truth.
He notes how singular it was that they could
come to Him by night, and
with arms of war, as if He were a robber, while yet
He might apparently have
been apprehended any time in the day while teaching
in the
This is a comforting
thought to the disciple
also. There
are those who are in secret
plotting the bringing back of
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
truth
and the boldness of our Lord inclined many to
believe on Him as the
Christ. And
justly they enquired,
whether more miracles were to be expected when
Messiah came, than those already
wrought by Jesus?
By
the
truth some are repelled and hardened; others
softened and drawn to
God. In
our Lord was truth without
mixture of error, or evil in matter or manner.
Yet the same effects are produced.
This
increasing
tendency of many to own our Lord’s person and
mission impelled His enemies
to more decided steps against Him.
They
were bent on maintaining their own power at all
hazards, and at any sacrifice
of truth and justice.
They felt too,
that the stronger the hold the Saviour had on the
multitude, the more their
power was weakened.
With Christ was
supernatural power; with them power of the world. They will
wield that which they have
against Him.
‘Many
believed’ on
Christ. The
real force of truth is far greater than its apparent
force.
Many believe who will not confess the truth, for they
have not courage to face its adversaries, and to
bear the ridicule, or
contempt, or hatred, or persecution attendant on
it.
Many of the open enemies of the truth are
obliged to confess its force, either among their
trusty fellow-conspirators, or
when alone. It
is for us, then, to ply [Page
315] the
weapons of truth, whatever
be the manifest issue.
About that
we must not be too sanguine.
‘Truth is great,
and
will prevail,’ says the proverb.
That truth is great, we grant.
That it will, therefore, prevail, is not true; and does not follow.
For the world in which it has to show itself
is a world of falsehood,
presided over by the Father of Lies.
And
what men love goes farther than what men admit.
The truth concerning Jesus did not prevail in
The
truth
is upheld in a world of falsehood only by the agency
of the Spirit of
Truth. And
the Scripture predicts that
it will be accepted only by God’s elect; and that
because of the truth’s
non-reception, the Most High, in His indignation,
will send on them ‘an
energy of falsehood that they should believe
Satan’s
coming lie, and perish.’
Who
is
this that denies to God’s people the knowledge of
God, and asserts it of
Himself? The
Son of God!
When
the
question is concerning arresting our Lord, ‘the
chief
priests’ are added to ‘the
Pharisees’
as his enemies.
The reasons of this are
probably two. (1)
Instrumentally
- As guardians of the temple, a certain
police
force belonged to them.
(2.) Morally
- These leaders were among our Lord’s most bitter
foes. They
were not won by His early appeal to them
through the healing of the leper (Matt.
8). That
proof of the arrival of the Greater
Prophet than Moses had not convinced them, but set
them the rather against
Him. They
were thrown more into contact
with our Lord, as He oft taught in the
[Page 316]
33, 34. ‘Jesus
said therefore, “Yet a little time am I with you,
and I
am going to Him that sent Me.
Ye shall
seek Me, and not find: and where I am, ye cannot
come.”’
Our
Lord
was aware of this movement of His foes, and draws
thence the solemnity of
the occasion. His
time on earth was but
limited. It
was, it is generally
believed, at the next Passover that our Lord
suffered. So
that there wanted only six months to the
time of His death.
His rejection by the
earth would lead to His withdrawal thence, and to
His ascension into the heaven
and to the Father, whence He came.
It is
clear that to no earthly sender did our Lord refer
when He said – ‘I am going
to Him that sent
Jesus,
in
naming His return to
God, is not speaking of what took place at His death, but of what ensued in His
ascent to God after His resurrection.
His death was terrible.
His
resurrection was victory begun; his ascent, his
glorification proper.
As Jesus’ coming was a real mission of God
to
The prophecy of their seeking our Lord
and not finding Him refers to a day yet future. This was spoken to
35, 36. ‘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 Geiitiles?”
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?”’
They
do
not oven understand our Lord's words, and wonder
what place of refuge He
could find when rejected by them.
They,
men of earth, think only of the earth.
Ignorant of the Father on high, they
comprehend not our Lord’s allusion
to Him. Such
sayings are not to be
understood by those who deny our Lord’s
pre-existence and Deity.
‘Where I am,
ye cannot come.’
We should have expected, ‘Where
I shall be.’
But Jesus speaks of the truths which concern
Himself in His Deity, as
well as His humanity.
So to Nicodemus He
said, ‘The Son of Man who is in heaven.’
They
thought
it absurd that Jesus should go to the Gentiles. Yet His
truth has come to us, and His Spirit;
and we have received what
Their
suggestions
do not satisfy themselves.
Who was ‘He that sent
Me?’ No
Gentile, certainly!
Beware
of forcing
Scripture.
It opens easily to the true
key, and refuses all others. If
there be parts of a passage which will
not take the sense you proposed, you have not
yet found the true, or at any
rate, the full
sense.
[Page 318]
37-39. ‘In
the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus
stood and
shouted, saying, “If any thirst, let him come to
Me and drink!
He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture
said, ‘Rivers of living water shall flow out of
His belly.’ Now this said He
concerning the Spirit, which they who believed
were about to receive; for as
yet no Holy Spirit was, because Jesus was not yet
glorified.’
The
last
day of Tabernacles - the eighth, was typically the
great day. On
that day, they left their booths to go
into their houses.
So after the
millennium, the temporary glory shall be succeeded
by the entry on the new
heavens and earth; and the eternal - the great day -
begins. Then,
too, all servile
labour ends.
Work shall be done, but that of priests and
kings.
The
last
day of Tabernacles was the great day; it was the
eighth day, the day which
tells of resurrection. It was a Sabbath of rest too.
But there was no rest in
It
is
said that during the seven days of this feast, a
priest, after the
sacrifice, went to the well of Siloam, drew water
thence in a golden pitcher,
and with a joyous procession brought it to the
temple; standing on the altar, and
pouring it, mixed with wine, on the altar.
This they said, represented Moses striking
the rock; and some of the
Rabbis said, that it referred to the giving of the
gifts of the Spirit in the
days of Messiah.
Isaiah 12: 3,
was the passage whereby they sought to justify
the ceremony.
This
ceremony
was not repeated on the eighth day.
Jesus, then, fills up the gap Himself.
He was the true Shiloh sent to them by God;
and now He presents Himself
as about to be, in resurrection, the fulfiller of
that act of grace and power
which Moses had of old shown to Israel.
The
temple
had no fount of its own.
This
marked the insufficiency of the legal services.
And the introduction of the water from the
fount of Siloam [‘sent'],
showed that the defects of the old services
must be met by the Spirit of Christ the Sent One. Then would
be joy indeed!
[Page
319]
On that occasion the
multitude saw only water drawn and poured out.
It was not drank, and it was poured away. Jesus,
then, discovers the superiority of the
water of which He speaks.
Drank at
first, it quenches thirst. Then it becomes, in the
believer, an overflowing
river to bless others.
To these waters
of Siloam Isaiah refers, and says they would be
refused; and as a consequence,
the water-floods of the Great River would overflow
the land (Is. 7: 6-8).
So the true Christ of God’s grace rejected,
the false Christ, instrument
of His vengeance, will
come.
The ceremony was one of
their own devising, and Jesus
notes its emptiness.
They
refused the Lord of the
feast, Who
alone could
give the true joy, and the powers of
the
age to come (Jer.
11-13).
The
Saviour
tacitly points to the history of
Jesus, then,
tacitly affirms that
‘I will stand upon
the rock in Horeb.’
‘Jesus stood*
and shouted.’
He was the Rock of Israel - the Rock of
Moses’ song, Jehovah; and Moses
all through the song speaks of the Rock as Jehovah;
contrasting Him with the
faithless and perverse generation (Deut.
32: 14,
15, 30, 31) which lightly esteemed ‘the
Rock of
Salvation.’ The Saviour, then, takes the
place of Jehovah.
Who but He could offer to quench the thirst
of every one who came to Him?
This was
making Himself ‘the
fount of living waters.’
He, in effect, took the stand of Is.
54: 17; 55: 1-6.
For a mere man to take such a place were
the
highest presumption; and for any to accept His
words, were to put himself under
the curse of the prophet – ‘Cursed
is the man that
putteth his trust in man; and in his heart goeth
from the Lord.’
*
Ordinarily,
He sat as the Teacher.
This made the matter more conspicuous.
The
Saviour
is presenting Himself on different occasions, as the
antitype of the
various glories and boasts of
The
water
that was to come out of the smitten rock was, as
John tells us, the
Spirit. Until
the glorification of Jesus
as the bearer and putter away of sin in
resurrection, the [Holy] Spirit as
promised could not come, as John says.
Jesus then would call to Himself the few who
would accept Him.
He knew their thirst, and earth could not
quench it; as we see by the attempts of Solomon,
recorded in Ecclesiastes.
Let them come to Him and drink of His
fulness!
After
the
supply of water, and the notice of how
But
now
it is not
But there is another
picture, yea, two other pictures,
of the supply of
In
Numbers 20. there
is again another scene of
trial, because there is no water; and again the
rebellious spirit of
[Page
323]
Before
the
water comes, Moses and Aaron see the glory (Num.
20:
6); but Jesus is Himself to
be glorified. Now if
Moses was sentenced and cut off by God, because he
said – ‘Must we?’ how
much more must Jesus have been struck to
death, or kept evermore in the tomb by a God jealous
of the glory of His
Godhead, had He been a mere man, impiously taking to
Himself the attributes and
the worship of Jehovah?
Jesus
alone
had power over the spiritual and higher element of
baptism. The
Spirit came down to dwell on Himself
fully, and without cause of disquiet.
But not till Jesus had atoned, and been
exalted over all, was the Spirit
at His intercession sent down to bestow gifts on
men, and to dwell in them.
The
thirsty
are to come to Christ for a spiritual supply.
This answers to the first coming to Christ
of
the soul that has in vain attempted to find
satisfaction in the things of the
world. Poor
soul! You
have hewn yourself cisterns and they have
broken, and mocked your thirst.
Now
Christ invites you to Himself.
Drink,
and be at rest!
But
after
the first implied promise comes a second word to him
who takes his stand
with Christ as a believer. ‘Out
of His belly shall flow
rivers of living water.’
John
expounds this for us.
It was spoken of
the Holy Spirit, which was about to be ‘bestowed on
believers after the
Saviour’s resurrection and ascension.
But there are two
difficulties attendant on this
word. 1.
Where did the Scripture make
such a promise?
2.
How
is it true that there was ‘no
Holy Spirit’
then, because Jesus was not glorified.
‘Given’
is inserted by the translators.
1.
Where
the Scripture makes such a promise I cannot say, and
others seem as greatly
puzzled. Some
point to Zech. 14: 8.
But that speaks of living waters going out
from
2.
The
second difficulty is easily explained; forcible as
seems the passage when
adduced as a proof against the Divinity of the Holy
Ghost. By rendering the same Greek word ‘Spirit’
in the
first part of the verse and ‘Holy
Ghost’ in the second,
the translators have imported this difficulty into
the passage.
For by ‘the Holy
Ghost’ we mean always the third Person of
the Godhead.
But if they had rendered it ‘Spirit’ in the
second occurrence, as in the first, they needed
not to insert ‘given’
in italics in order to prevent so
grievous a misunderstanding.
John
then
is speaking of the
supernatural
gifts, which are in several places called
‘spirits.’ ‘The spirit of
prophecy.’
‘Inasmuch as ye are
desirous of spirits, seek that ye may abound (in these gifts) to the edifying of the church’
(1 Cor. 14.). ‘The spirits
of prophets are subject to prophets.’
The Holy Ghost then in person did not descend
till after Jesus’
resurrection and ascension.
The words
before us mean then – ‘No
abiding gift of the Spirit
was ever bestowed till on and after Pentecost.’ The
prophets of the Old Testament were
visited at times by the Spirit of prophecy; but it
was not a gift at their
disposal. The
Holy Ghost could not
descend to dwell in the heart as now, till Jesus had
risen and was accepted on
high. But
beside and beyond that there
was a bestowal of miraculous gift, both of deed and
of word, on those who
believed. This
was announced with the
extent to which the promise of the Spirit should
apply, at Pentecost (Acts
2: 38, 39).
They were gifts suited to the coming feast of
glory; designed first for
The
believer
possessed of the Spirit’s gifts became himself in
Christ the Rock a
stone, from the midst of which the waters flowed, as
of yore in the
desert. This
is, in an inferior sense,
true still, wherever the Holy Spirit acts vividly. The
abundant waters from within the Cliff,
should pour forth for the thirsty world.
‘There shall come
forth water out of it, that
the people may drink.’
That
promise was now to be spiritually, and in a more
blessed sense, carried out to
staunch a sorer thirst.
These
two
promises of Christ are thus to be distinguished. (1) We
come at first to drink of Christ.
The Spirit quells, by His Holy indwelling,
thirst for worldly good.
(2)
But
is
the second now
fulfilled in every believer? Most
notoriously
not! The
promise is of
spontaneous, perpetual supply of refreshment to
others, proceeding from each
believer. This
was true of the believers
of old, for all were then gifted, unless by their
own fault excluded.
Then, without study, without the Scriptures, without
education - believers, whether
slaves or freemen, young or old - spoke by
inspiration, and acted in miracle
for blessing and edification to all around.
Is it so now?
Some
may
indeed say – ‘But do not
some believers, by the
ministry of the word, refresh others; and cheer
and strengthen them, just as
cool waters supply strength and comfort in a
thirsty wilderness?’
And
I
answer, ‘Blessed be God,
yes!’
But observe: (1) The promise, here, is made universally to
believers; and
the fulfilment supposed
attaches to but few.
(2)
Moreover, this supply is not spontaneous and
perpetual.
If
any
servant of Christ has been enabled to cheer and
edify some as with cool
waters, this has taken place as the result of study,
prayer, and effort.
It has not been the sudden up-springing [Page
326] and
constant overflow of a
supernatural power, the result of faith, and in a
moment communicated.
Those who now minister the Word, are, like
the Samaritan woman with rope and
bucket, going to
the well, and with toil procuring a weekly supply.
Now, Jesus promised there, and promises
here,
something welling up without effort of its own
accord, and constantly.
No need of preparation, of books and
effort! It is quite false to pretend to any such power now.
The gifts
are
ours in title still, for we are believers in
Jesus; but where
are the gifts of the Spirit?
The ‘Brethren’
who originally laid claim to inspiration of the
Spirit when they were met in
the assembly, have now given it up.
And
it was only a delusion; grieving the Spirit while
it was maintained, as I am a
witness; having often been to their meetings, when
they were as dry, and dead,
and unedifying as well could be.
The
varied
thoughts of the people concerning Jesus, are now
given. There
were those who were expecting the
fulfilment of Dent. 18:
15, and thought they
saw in Jesus the fulfilment of the same.
‘Was He not a
prophet? Was He not one of their
brethren? Did
He not prove His mission
by signs?’
Other thought Him the
Christ. But an objection arose.
‘Was the Christ to
come out of
Strange,
is
it not? But
a true picture of
multitudes now.
How
many
take up with the first theory in religion they find,
and are stopped by
the first objection, weak as it may be.
Let us not marvel, if, in our day, opinions
about the Christ differ as
they did then!
The Son of God, as Luke’s
Gospel tells us, was set to draw out men’s thoughts,
and so discover them.
We
see
where they failed.
It is a very
common failure indeed.
(1) They
made one truth to fight against another.
Those truths really agree at bottom;
but we, looking from the top,
do not see it.
It
was
true that Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem of
Judea. The
prophets had said so.
But it was true, also, that in Zebulon and
Nepthali,
in the country of
Whether
they
distinguished between ‘the
Prophet’ of
Moses, and ‘the Christ’
of other Scriptures, we
are not told. We
know, indeed, that both
terms belong to the same person.
But
they knew not, as we see by their question to the
Baptist at the beginning of
this Gospel. But
at if so, Jesus, while
not ‘the Christ,’
might have been ‘the prophet’
foretold.
Let us not be content with the current opinions of our
day, but rest all our religious views on the
Scripture!
But
if
Jesus were born at
By
this
diversity of opinion God tied the hands of the
Saviour’s foes.
His enemies and His friends were so at
variance, that unity of action was stopped.
‘There arose a schism
in the multitude because
of Him.’ This shows us then what a ‘schism’
is. Here
was a schism in the
multitude. There
was a division of
opinions concerning Jesus, and founded thereon there
was a separation of
feelings and heart.
It is commonly
supposed, that ‘schism’
is meant ‘the setting up of
another (church or table [Page
328] of the
Lord), in consequence of displeasure wrongly
entertained against a former
communion.’ But schism begins to the Lord’s
eye long ere that overt act
takes place.
The
apostle
Paul speaks of schism ‘in the church;’ in the same
body. The
church is the body of Christ.
As in the natural body of man there is an
entire sympathy of the parts, and free motion, while
the body is in health,
each member contributing to the united action of the
whole, so ought there to
be unity of feeling, heart, judgment, and
co-operation in the body of
Christ. But
the flesh, with its evil and
selfish feelings, comes in to mar this oneness of
spirit. Diversities
of plan, of doctrine, and
consequently of harmony and love, come in, unless
kept out by the Spirit of
God, and these divide in spirit and in fooling the
members of Christ.
Then comes party, and out of party comes
the
last act of schism - the setting up of another
communion, not recognizing the
former one. Of
course, the first inquiry
must be, whether the body from which the separatists
secede was a church (or
assembly of Christ) or not.
If the Great
System which calls itself ‘the Church of England,’
be the
But
what
concerning other ecclesiastical bodies?
The Church of Rome is the mother of bodies
like the Church of England,
and is as little a church as she is.
They
are
not a church who do not assemble as [regenerate] believers.
The Wesleyans assemble - it is the boast of
their founder – ‘as those desirous to
flee from the wrath to come.’
But believers have already fled for refuge, and are met in safety beneath the blood-sprinkled
house (Heb. 6: 18).
Independents,
and
Baptists, and ‘Brethren’
assemble as
believers; and so are Churches of Christ.
Would to God that we could all meet together,
as one in Him!
But we are divided, not [Page
329] in
doctrine alone, but in
feelings also; and these divisions have
risen
so high as that separate tables proclaim the
division. Let us who believe cultivate an
un-sectarian spirit; owning all whom we can;
going as far with them as
conscience and Scripture will allow us! There may
be union of forms, with intense
opposition of feeling, and a different Gospel taught
by each party.
On the other hand, there may be
oneness of spirit and affection between those
who sit down at different tables,
and are of diverse judgments about many things. To return.
There
were
those who wished to carry out the design of their
masters. ‘Why not seize on
Jesus at once, and still all this controversy?’ But God
would not let them.
The officers themselves who had gone out to
seize our Lord were not agreed.
An awe
of God was upon their souls.
Till the
time of the Most High is come, the thing cannot be
done. Persecutors
must have leave of God, whether
they ask it, or no.
It
is
so in our day.
The Ritualists and
those of like sentiments, would gladly put down
dissent by force.
There are canons and laws of
The
servants
then of the Sanhedrim return without the intended
prisoner, to the
assembly of His foes.
These enquire in
displeasure, ‘Why have ye
not brought Him?’
They say, ‘Him.’ All knew
who was meant, without further
description. The
officers could not
reply, as ordinarily in such cases, that He had hid
Himself or fled. Yet they
brought Him not.
Why not?
Remarkable was the reply, ‘Never
spake man so as this man!’
They saw He was aware of their plots. He spake
with authority.
There was a majesty and force attending His
words [Page 330] which
they
had never encountered elsewhere.
They
had met many specimens of men. But one so unlike
others had never before
crossed their path.
This was the witness
of those disposed to be His foes.
As Jesus’ words are unlike the words of men, so to them we are to yield
all attention and an obedience beyond those of
men.
He is Lord; all others then are
servants. He
is from heaven, and His
words are devoid of all stain of earth, and of the
flesh.
But
this
reply does not stay the leaders of
This
might
have taught these learned Rabbis to pause, and
reconsider their ideas of
Christ. The
check came from God, but
they see in it man alone.
The exhibition
of evidence in favour of the accused oft goes for
nothing. It
does not turn the proud and the perverse.
They will go on.
But it does greatly increase their sin.
See
again. How
many are partially wrought
upon by the truth; whom, nevertheless, it does not
save! These
officers are staggered by the words of
this most extraordinary Man; but they are not led to
join the ranks of His
disciples. They
know enough to condemn;
but accept no more, and perish in their ignorance.
47.
‘The Pharisees answered
them, Are ye also
deceived? Has
anyone of the rulers
believed on Him? or of the Pharisees?” But this
multitude, that knoweth not the
Law, are cursed.’
Men of rabbinic learning
refused Jesus.
He was not one of them.
He paid them no court.
He
was not
educated in their
schools.
He did not proclaim them as
the only true leaders.
Their
learning and their pride blocked up
the way to Christ.
All must come to
them, their standing and views; or be disowned.
None may lawfully believe on Him, whom the
rulers own not.
They
whose
profession it is to be graduated in Divinity,
are to decide every
question. The
real students of
Scripture, born of God, and taught of the Holy
Ghost, are, to such men, ‘ignorant
[Page 331]
and impertinent upstarts.’ How
can
that be truth, which reverend doctors of theology
proclaim to be error?
The Pharisees are not awed
by God in this, but only
feel annoyance from man.
‘What
next? Here
are our servants turning
round on us. Whereto
will this grow?
' ‘Are ye also
deceived?’
‘We did count on you. We
thought
you were sensible men, beyond being led away with
the ignorant multitude on
behalf of this illiterate peasant!
You,
too, whose living depends on it!’
This was in spirit like
King Saul’s appeal to his men,
while wondering at the current in favour of David,
that poor, homeless
adventurer (1. Sam. 22:
7). Men
of the world cannot understand how all
men are not led, like themselves, by motives of the
flesh and of the world.
‘Are
ye deceived?’
Where was the deception?
What Scripture do they quote in proof He
was
not the Christ? But they will rest the thing on
presumptions. ‘Must not we be
right, we learned men?
Those who are of calm
judgments and not liable to be led away by
popular, unreasoning enthusiasm,
have decided against Him.
Is not that
enough? The
Pharisees, too - those men
of holiness! they had all stood aloof.’
Are we, then, to be decided in our views of God's
will, by the notions of the learned?
Nay, but by the Word of God!
The
great
of
‘If you wish to get on in the
world, don’t join that poor,
illiterate, ignorant set!
Attach
yourself to the party of the rulers and the
learned!’
God
designs
that His people should rest their faith, not on
the sayings of the
learned, but on His own Word. That is
divine [Page 332]
faith. ‘God has spoken: I bow to God.’ Many say,
‘There are
such differences of opinion, I do not know what to
believe!’ And if you
believed because all men were agreed, you would be
trusting then to man’s
sayings; not to God.
Beware
of
too high an opinion of yourself, or you will
despise others. Here
the
rulers give over the whole nation to a curse. Yet, if it
suited them, against a Gentile
boasting of Roman power and Grecian superiority,
they would have asserted the
supremacy of
The
rulers
could not bear Christ, for He was a rival.
The Pharisees did not want a Saviour; they
could deliver themselves.
Men of the
world of all classes refused in heart this Man who
is so unlike the rest of the
world; whose ways and sayings would so interfere
with its current; and whose
tidings about the world and its dismal end are so
shocking.
We
must
not overvalue ourselves because of knowledge.
These
great ones plumed themselves on knowledge of the
Law. But
the Law pronounced those ‘cursed’
- not who did not know the Law, but who did not keep it. Where offences take place against Law, the more the knowledge
the greater the sin.
There
were sacrifices for sins of
ignorance: none for sins of wilful disobedience.
50, 51. ‘Nicodemus
saith to them (he that came to Jesus by night
being
one of them), “Doth our Law judge any man before
it hear from him, and know
what he doeth?”’
God
left
not His Son without a witness, even in the inner
circle of His foes.
Nicodemus, though feeble of faith at first,
has now grown in courage, and is able to put in a
well-advised word.
‘Have any of the
rulers or of the Pharisees believed?’
Yes, not many; but some!
Here is
a ‘Pharisee’ and a ‘ruler’
who takes Christ’s side; and that, when it was more
unpopular than at
first. He
dares speak, even in the midst
of His foes.
[Page 333]
How
often
those who boast themselves most of anything, are
found defaulters in the
very point of their boast! They challenge to
themselves the knowledge of Moses’
Law; and now, by one of themselves, they are shown
to be breakers of the law! Did not
Moses require witnesses -
two or three - to testify to any crime; and
to hear the small as well as the great? (Deut.
1:
16, 17). But here were men condemning
Christ to death against
evidences. So
the men of Philippi
accused Paul and Silas as breakers of the laws of
But
the
Pharisees, men of proud and perverse heart, refuse
this cheek also.
They
will not turn. Their
hatred
shall be gratified.
They turn upon this
new witness against them with scorn.
52.
‘Art Thou also of
Herein
they
show their ignorance of their sacred books.
For Jonah the prophet was of Gath-hepher (2 Kings 14: 25), and
Gath-hepher was in
But
supposing
it were true that God had never, up to the last of
the sacred books,
raised up any man to be a prophet out of Galilee;
did it follow that,
therefore, He would not do it afterwards?
They
refuse
to own themselves wrong, but taunt their reprover.
They
could
not deny the truth and justice of his word.
The Law of Moses did say so.
And it convicted them. But they attack
him. ‘So you
are of the Galilean party!’
But it broke up their
meeting - and this was God’s
counsel. Their
malice should be baulked
of its prey for that time.
But this
refusal of truth hardened them to their perdition.
*
*
*
CHAPTER 8
[Page 334]
We
come
now to the narrative of the woman taken in adultery. It is
surrounded with many difficulties; not
concerning its moral value; but with regard to
external questions concerning
it.
I. DID JOHN WRITE IT?
1.
Heavy
doubts lie thereon.
It is omitted
by many of the best manuscripts.
2.
It
was apparently unknown till the fourth century.
3.
It
is not remarked upon by early commentators on John,
or by those who would
naturally have noticed it, had it been part of
Scripture.
4.
Those
early writers who do notice it, regard it as
follows:-
(1)
Jerome says
it was found in many
copies, both Greek and Latin.
(2)
Augustine
supposed it was omitted for
moral reasons, lest it should seem to allow sinning
with impunity.*
5.
The
style of the narrative is unlike John’s.
6.
Its
text is variously placed, and so differently given,
as to hint that it did
not arise from the usual source of the other parts
of the Gospel.
Some set this passage after the end of Luke 21.
In
its present place, there seems no obvious connection
with what precedes or
follows.
7.
The
early Reformers - Beza,
Calvin,
and others, rejected it.
8.
What
then are we to say?
*
Much will depend
on the weight we give to the oldest
uncial copies.
Having on examination
found much reason to distrust these; and this
narrative being found in near 300
copies of the New Testament, I accept their
testimony.
Two ideas suggest
themselves.
[Page
335]
(1)
That
it is, perhaps, an incident taken from some of the
uninspired Gospels of
which Luke speaks (1: 1,
2).
(2)
That
it was an incident which John was accustomed to
narrate in his oral teaching,
omitted indeed from the Gospel as originally penned
by him; but afterwards
inserted.
(3)
In
one respect, it certainly fits in to John’s Gospel
very well, as discovering
to us the position which our Lord took in relation
to the Law of Moses.
And so far, it is beautifully in harmony
with
John 1: 17.
That, probably, was the reason why, if not
originally inserted by the
Evangelist, it was placed here.
(4)
The
author feels assured that the incident really took
place, and was met by
our Lord in the manner narrated.
Inward
evidence shows it.
(a) Such a story was
not likely to be inserted by any later hand.
(b) The divine wisdom shown in the treating
of it proves it above the
imagination of any man.
The
Sanhedrim
had broken up, without carrying out their designs
against our
Lord. They
went to their several
houses. But
our Lord had no house at
With
the
early morning, when the temple gates were opened, He
went up and
taught. A
lesson this to those who rise
late on the Lord’s day, and so are unready for
worship when the middle of the
day is almost come; oft disturbing others by their
late entrance among the
worshippers.
The enemies present, then,
to our Lord, the case of
the woman taken in adultery.
They are
not zealous for justice in the matter.
But it seems to them an excellent occasion
for putting Jesus and His
doctrine to the proof.
And no more
crafty design was ever framed by man.
5. ‘Moses,
in the Law, commanded that such should be stoned;
but
what sayest Thou?’
They
desire,
above all things, to set Jesus and Moses at variance.
[Page 336]
The
Saviour, in His Sermon on the Mount, had
astonished His hearers by repealing several of the
principles and laws of
Moses; and that on His own authority.
Moses had permitted divorce; Jesus forbids
it, save on one
consideration.
Jesus had often broken the
Law, as they asserted, by His cures on the Sabbath. The next
chapter of our Gospel shows the
breach which ensued between the two classes of
disciples.
Here
then,
they set before the Lord a dilemma, very difficult
to decide. Moses
was teacher of justice: Jesus, of
mercy. In
a case, then, decided by Moses
to deserve death, what says this Teacher of grace?
1. Is the Law of Moses, in sentencing criminals to death, right ?
2. Is it wrong? Dost thou
forbid
the execution?
If
He
pronounced it to be wrong, they would have had
occasion to represent the
Saviour as an enemy to Moses.
If on the other hand, He
had asserted the Law to be
right, and had commanded the execution, an objection
of great weight against
His teaching would have arisen; stronger indeed,
than any they had
adduced. The
difficulty does not refer
in this case, as in the tribute money, to any
collision with Roman rule; but
discord between our Lord’s principles.
‘Thou comest to us
as one adducing the principle of mercy, as
the principle of Thy teaching; in virtue of it
setting Thyself forth as
superior to Moses, who is the teacher of strict
justice, the commander of death
to be enforced on criminals.
In
commanding the execution of Moses’ Law then, Thou
art but re-enacting the
principle of justice.
Thy teaching then
is only a subordinate reinforcing of Moses, after
all! Thou speakest of mercy,
but in practice, thou dost enforce Justice.’
If He forbad the Law’s
execution, as they probably
anticipated, they would have accused Him as hostile
to the Law.
The occasion then is most
interesting. The
Gospel of John in the passage indicated (1:
17) asserts the entry with our Lord of a
new
principle of action.
Could it be made to
stand? And
how, in the face of Moses’ Law?
[Page 337]
The
force of
this incident is nearly
lost to those who do not see the peculiarity of our
Lord’s teaching as the
Master of mercy, Who came to put in abeyance for
awhile the righteous severity
of Law.
‘Does Jesus here forbid civil
justice, and capital punishment?’
Distinguish,
friend!
To the world, No; to the church, Yes! This
is shown in the Sermon on the Mount, and in Paul to
the Romans. Jesus,
in the Sermon on the Mount, is sterner far to
offenders than is Moses to
There
is
no proof that stoning was really commanded by Moses,
as the mode of death in
such a case. Lev.
20: 10, spoke only of putting both
offenders to death.
But no notice is by our Lord taken of this
point.
Observe
the
Saviour’s conduct hereupon.
He is at
no loss. Whatever
were the occasion, He
never begged for time to consider the difficulty,
and to bring it before the
Lord, as a prophet asking counsel.
But
David, Moses, Daniel, and others, in presence of
occasions that arose, were
obliged to ask wisdom from on high.
Prudent men often ask time to consider a
question, and to obtain advice
of others. Not
so with our Lord.
Nor
is
He obliged, like Nathan the prophet in the matter of
David’s building a
house for Jehovah, to retract His first words as
unauthorised, and refused by
the Lord. Jesus
stoops and writes on the
ground. ‘As
though He heard them not,’ is added.
This pause on our Lord’s part makes the
accusers think, that now at
least they have enclosed their prey in a net.
His silence provokes their more eager
questioning. They
nod and smile to one another, ‘We
have Him now!’
What
the
Lord wrote is not said.
Various and vain
are the conjectures.
Hosea 4: 13, 14,
would have been to the point.
At
length
His answer comes, a bolt which smites down the
accusers. ‘He that is without
sin among you, let him first cast the stone at her.’ And again
stooping, He wrote anew on the
earth. Their
eye is thus turned away
from the criminal, and on themselves.
[Page 338]
God
for
Moses wrote with His finger, on tables of stone, the
Law which brings
death. Jesus,
too, can write with His
finger mysteriously, to the confusion of His foes. Probably
the Lord glanced into their
consciences, and troubled them.
It
was
natural then in the attempt to carry out this His
word, to ask the eldest
of the accusers to begin the execution.
He refuses, and withdraws.
The
next eldest is looked for, and he too declines.
After one or two have refused, the thing soon
falls to the ground.
The Saviour leaves them to themselves, and
to
their consciences, by stooping to earth, and seeming
to pay no attention to
them. He
did not irritate their pride,
by looking on their confusion and discomfiture.
At
length
all are gone, the woman alone detained trembling
before Him, and silent.
10, 11. ‘When
Jesus had lifted up Himself, and saw none but the
woman,
He said unto her, “Woman, where are those thine
accusers? Hath
none passed sentence on thee?” She said,
“None, Lord!”
But Jesus said to her,
“Neither do I pass sentence on thee.
Go,
and sin no more.”’
Here
then
is the decision given in divine wisdom and grace
both (1) negatively, and (2)
positively.
(1)
Negatively - Jesus
does not make answer upon any subordinate question, but speaks directly
to that which was of main and moral import in the
matter. He
suggests no doubt as to the fact.
He does not raise any question concerning
the
mode of death commanded in the Law.
He
does not demur on the ground that only one of the
guilty parties was present;
and that the Law required both.
He does
not throw any doubt upon the justice of God’s
command by Moses.
(2)
But
He takes up a point not heretofore noted, but which
lay at the root of the
observance of justice by those under Law.
Here,
then,
the question is not, ‘Is
the Law just?
Does the criminal before us deserve to die?’ Those
points are granted.
But a new question arises, ‘Who
is to execute the sentence of judgment?’
It
is not fit that the execution of wrath be committed
to the hands of the
unrighteous.
Moses’
command
was, that the witness of guilt should be the first
to smite (Dent. 13: 6-11).
But
this
appeal touched the conscience of the accusers; a part of man which Moses and his sacrifices
could not cleanse, as Paul tells us.
Accusing conscience withdrew them from the
field of combat with our
Lord.
There
was
One there without sin, but He would not lift the
first stone, though He
might. For
He had come in grace into a
world of sinners.
He
brings
then into view the cessation of the accusation, by
the departure of the
accusers and executioners. Then comes his decision
of the question.
‘Neither do I condemn thee;
go, and sin
no more.’
Many
mistake
the sense here, owing to the double meaning of the
word ‘condemn.’
1.
It
often expresses a private person’s disapproval, and
displeasure against a
man, or an action.
In that sense Jesus ‘did condemn’
the woman; He called her conduct ‘sin.’
2.
But
that is not the sense of this place.
‘Condemn’ here means, ‘to
pass sentence as
a judge on a criminal,’
to
command the execution of Law upon the guilty.
[Page 340]
It
was
to this that they sought to compel our Lord, and it
was this which He
declined.
Thus
then
there is no denial of the Law’s justice, or of the
sinner’s desert.
He will at length receive his due. But in
this day of grace the consequences of sin are
suspended. Law,
through the mercy of God, is not being
executed; mercy is brought in by Jesus our Lord. It is the
day of grace, when sinners may be
pardoned. Justice
will at last have its
due. But
an
arrest is laid
on the hand of the executioners of Law, till the
Righteous One enforce the
sentence, as the Judge of all.
Here
then
is no license to sin, no encouragement to the
guilty; though they may, by
their sinfulness, so interpret it to their
destruction. Had the
ancient Christians seen this sense of the word ‘condemn,’
and weighed the words which follow, they would not
have scrupled to have let
these words be read in any and every assembly.
The
difficulty
would assail them in its full force, only when
they had lost sight of the
distinction between the world and the church; and
when they thought, that such
words of our Lord forbad all action of the state in punishing crime of that kind.
Jesus addresses disciples only; He does not now interfere with the government of the world.
Lastly, observe that Jesus
does not dismiss this case
as He often did with a – ‘Go in peace,’ or
– ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee,’ or ‘Thy faith
hath saved thee,’
Mark 5: 34; Luke 7:
50; 8: 48.
That
He said on another occasion to
the woman that was a sinner, whose faith, evidenced
by her love, was manifested
to all. There,
too, He propounded the
principles on which she was forgiven (Luke
7).
But here there was no faith, no peace,
no forgiveness! She is respited from death by
grace. A
time is given her to repent.
She
is shown
the perilous edge of perdition on which she stands. The
goodness of God would lead her to
repentance. Whether
she ever availed
herself of the interval of grace, and was led to
Christ for pardon, we know
not. Here
was a sentence then like that
of the healed man of
This
may
well instruct the Christian, that he is not to be
a magistrate. Is
he a
sinner? Does
he desire the grace of God
to forgive him?
Then he is not to pass
sentence, and execute judgment on sinners.
Else, with a beam in his own eye, he is
aiming to put out the mote in
another’s.
When Christ judges and
sentences, it will be as the Righteous One, and the
time of repentance and
pardon will be over.
Jesus has set all
at His bar as guilty, while He Himself denies the
power of any of His foes to
prove Him a sinner.
All
judgment, as
He says, belongs
to the Son of God; and
He for the
present refuses to exercise
it. But
when He does come, and the
books are opened, and the guilt of the sinner
declared, how will the guilty
stand the sentence and the execution?
These offenders fled from the Saviour’s
presence, when conscience
accused them before the Lord of grace!
How
terrible His eyes of fire, and His
sentence of thunder, as the Eternal Judge!
But
if
God and His Christ defend us, who shall condemn?
12.
‘Again, therefore, Jesus
spake to them, saying, “I am
the Light of the World; he that followeth Me shall
not walk in the darkness,
but shall have the Light of Life.”’
The
word
– ‘Again, therefore’
- bespeaks
continuation after an interruption; and therefore
would seem to authenticate
the interruption introduced by the question
concerning the adulteress.
For without it there is no interruption. Then too
there is the allusion to the
sunrise, the darkness, and the judging on their
part, but refused on His.
We
can,
in some measure, perceive how offensive to the
learned and proud Jews were
such statements of our Lord.
They were,
in His eyes, all blind, and in the darkness; those
alone who followed Him, were in possession of light and life!
But time has proved this more fully than
was
then seen. Peace,
light, and salvation
belong to those alone who own Jesus as Lord.
[Page 342]
The
audacious
self-assertions of mere men soon discover their
folly. The
providence of God, and the course of
events, prove them to be un-possessed of those
resources in themselves, which
our Lord showed; even when enemies, the most
malignant, had done their worst.
Tested
by
Gamaliel’s principle, the testimony of our Lord
concerning Himself has been
proved true. This
doctrine has not come
to nought, but has extended, and is extending itself
with blessing wherever it
comes. It
is then of God (Acts 5:
38, 39).
Let
us
look at these words of verse
12 - (1)
Negatively; and (2) Positively.
(1) John
is here refuting the vain and deadly deceits of ‘the
Men of Intelligence.’
They
divided, where God united.
They asserted
that Jesus was not the Christ.
Jesus was
the mere Man: the Christ, a heavenly disembodied
being; the enemy of the God of
the Jews, and of the Creator.
Here,
then, it is shown by the Lord’s own words, that this
is false. He
here asserts the oneness of Himself.
The speaker was Jesus; and Jesus was the Light
of the world. On
Gnostic views, Jesus must have distinguished ever
between Himself and the
Christ, whenever it was a question of super-human
power and knowledge.*
In this place, then, John by inspiration
refutes this deadly doctrine,
which takes away the whole essence of Christianity;
destroying effectually the
true way of salvation by the Saviour’s incarnation,
atonement, and
resurrection.
* On
their views, it might have been said, ‘Again,
therefore, “the
Christ”
spake, and said, “I am the
Light of the world.”’ But it is here said
of Jesus. Also ‘the blood of
Christ’ is spoken of, where they could only
confess ‘the blood of Jesus’
(1 Cor. 10: 16; Acts 20:
28).
John,
then,
is carrying out to the proof the statements of his
preface. He
had been proving in the previous chapters,
that Jesus is the Word of God.
He now adduces evidence given by our Lord,
that He is Light and Life: as
declared in 1: 4, 5. The
theorists whom John was confuting,
distributed among a number of gods and demi-gods
glories which really belong to
the One Christ; and which He here vindicates to
Himself.
[Page 343]
Jesus
says, ‘I am the Light.’
(2).
Positively:
‘I am the Light of the world.’ If we
admit the authenticity of the previous
section, Jesus is silently comparing Himself with
the sun then rising.
Our
Lord’s
foes had provoked a comparison between Himself and
Moses.
He
had
exalted Himself above Moses as the true Rock; the Giver of the water of life to every comer.
Here He takes a similar strain.
The Saviour continually refers to the Old
Testament.
Now,
under
Moses, God went before
But
to
the Egyptians, the darkness of the night was
increased by the presence of
the cloud: and in that darkness they stumbled; while
it was to them the prelude
to their destruction - the darkness of
death.
But
the
light then was only ‘the light of
How has the meaning of this word
expanded since that day!
The world in
its best estate is darkness.
And the
darkness is [Page 343] twofold or threefold. There
is
darkness (1) on the reason; (2) on the affections;
(3) and on the conscience of
men. Vainly
had the philosophers of
The
Jewish
doctors in refusing Christ, have ever since only
groped in darkness; and
themselves are ignorant of their own prophets, and
of the design of the Old
Testament Scriptures.
The Gentile
philosophers who refused to follow Christ, were in
darkness, alike of the
understanding and of the heart.
The
Creator, the Author of the light of nature, is the
Light also of the spiritual
world. He,
then, who would know the true
path and walk in it, must follow Christ.
Light is not in a man’s own self.
He must obtain it from without.
And light is centered in Christ alone.
But light to the fallen must take two
especial forms. There must be (1) knowledge for the
understanding, of what God is,
and of what pleases Him.
There must be
(2) also a walking according to that knowledge of
God, and of ourselves.
He who will follow the teaching of Jesus
then, will have true views of God.
But
he will also walk practically after the Saviour’s
words. So
only will he follow the light.
For there were those of John’s day, against
whom his Gospel and Epistles are directed, who
imagined that doctrine might
quite properly be severed from practice; and that
provided God was known in the
intellect, it mattered not what life was led.
If now, we admit the preceding paragraph to
be genuine, the Saviour is
glancing at the sin of the adulteress, as a portion
of the darkness - the
practical darkness which He came to dispel.
[Page 345]
The two qualities
of
darkness - the doctrinal, and the practical, - ever
go together; so John
says. It
is impossible to dwell in
intellectual and spiritual light, while a man is
doing the deeds of Satan (1
John 1: 6. 7).
But
the
light is also ‘the light of
life.’ Darkness
and
death go well together.
The dead are
shut out from the light.
Light belongs
to the living.
Jesus, then, is the Giver
of life
spiritual;
which is enjoyed
at once. He
is the giver also of eternal
life, or endless bliss.
Christ is Light - Christ
is Life.
He communicates to the man who
believes
in Him, both Light and Life.
The
true
light in the reason, the heart, and the conscience,
is a moving onward to
salvation, or eternal life. The Saviour then must be
followed in His doctrines
and His precepts, by those who wish to have present
light, and eternal life.
13.
‘The Pharisees therefore
said unto Him, “Thou bearest
record of Thyself; Thy record is not true.”’
The
Pharisees
hereupon object against our Lord a previous saying
of His (ver. 31),
which, as they thought, drew on Him
self-condemnation.
Our Lord was matched
against no sluggish, incompetent foes.
Their natural acuteness was prompted by their
enmity. Each
apparent opening for objection was
seized. Had
they not, then, now caught
Him off His guard, and proved Him not worthy to be
trusted, on His own
principles?
14.
‘Jesus answered and said
unto them, “Even although I
bear witness to Myself, My witness is true,
because I know whence I came, and
whither I am going; but ye know not whence I come,
or whither I go.”’
The
Saviour’s
general principle, which they quote against Him, was
true universally
of fallen men.
The ignorance of
understanding, and the evil bias of the heart,
combine to make them un-trusty
witnesses in the things of God, and in their
estimate of themselves.
But
Jesus
was not the mere man, or the fallen man.
His testimony was the witness of One perfect
in knowledge, and perfect
in holiness. Man
may be both deceived
and deceive. For
he is only flesh born
of the flesh, possessed of its little horizon, and
its feeble powers.
We can fix the day, before which he existed
[Page
346]
not. Nor
can he by any natural powers, tell us,
whither he is going, both when this life shall close
on him, and what lies on
its farther side.
The
answer,
then, to this objection of the Pharisees, turns on
the Godhead of Jesus.
He knew whence He had come.
He was the Son of God, existing from all
eternity in the Father’s bosom, ere He came forth to
enter the world as the Son
of Mary. Here
John is confirming by our
Lord’s words, his opening statements (1:
1-3).
He who dwelt eternally in the light of God,
possessor of the divine attributes, could but say
the truth.
Jesus
knew
also whither He was going.
Through
death and resurrection He was about to return to Him
from whom He came
forth. His
witness then on these matters
was fully to be depended on.
His
enemies
were a contrast to this.
They
knew not His Divine Nature and previous existence,
nor His speedy ascent to the
glory of the Father, to resume His form of Deity,
for awhile abandoned.
Hence, they misjudged our Lord, and
supposed
His testimony to be the fruit of vanity and pride. Had they
beheld the Godhead of Christ, they
must have owned themselves mistaken.
It
could
not be that the Son of God could be mistaken in His
testimony, or mislead
others. The
nature of God precludes both
forms of error.
He came forth possessed
of the perfect knowledge and holiness of the
Godhead. He was going back to
dwell in that holiness evermore.
Now God
the Holy cannot accept the unholy or untrue. Jesus’
Godhead then on both
accounts shut out the suspicion of deceit.
He
is
a sure guide who sees the whole track to be pursued
from beginning to
end. This
Jesus did, as possessor of His
own consciousness, and intimate knowledge of the
Father’s counsels.
Their
objection
therefore was founded on ignorance; the Saviour’s
testimony on
knowledge and truth.
Christ is light;
and light carries with it its own evidence.
If the sun is shining I need nobody to
witness to me, ‘This is
light!’
‘But if so, why did
not the Jews at once
receive Christ as Light?’
Why do
not [Page 347] men now at
once receive Him?
Because it needs a
sound eye to see light.
And men are
fallen beings; and, as our Lord says, prefer the
darkness to the light, because
their deeds are evil, and their heart is enmity
against God, and against His
Son.
Jesus,
as
the Son coming from God, and returning to Him, is
alone competent to tell us
of God, His nature and purposes.
15-18. ‘Ye
judge according to the flesh.
I judge none.
And if I judge My judgment is true, because
I am not alone, but (there
are) I and the Father, who
sent Me. Now
even in your law it is written, “That the
testimony of two men is true;” I am one that bears
witness concerning Myself,
and the Father who sent Me is bearing witness of
Me.”’
Even
on
the low ground of ‘their
Law,’
Jesus was no offender, but was offering evidence
which ought to satisfy them.
For He
could adduce in His favour evidence of more value
than that of two men.
‘Ye judge according to the flesh.’
‘The flesh is a description
of your entire nature. (1) You
have only its rush light rays of fleshly reason,
which are not to be trusted in
these profound subjects.
(2) But beside
that, you are fallen beings.
Your self-love and pride give you false
ideas
of yourselves, and mislead your testimony about yourselves and others. You
are
full of hatred, too, against God, by virtue of
your unbelief and evil
works. Your motives for judging
are evil.’
He
who
knew perfectly was not then judging.
They who were ignorant and deceived were
judging.
Jesus’
judgment
was of vast moment, for He saw and spake as the
Father did. The
Jews’ judgment, as resting on mere
appearances, and those as seen from earth, was of
small value. So
Paul (1 Cor.
4: 1).
‘How can a mere man, and a
fallen man be the Light of the
World?’
Very true.
He then who is veritably the Standard of
Truth, and the Enlightener of nations, is neither a
mere man, nor a fallen one.
How surely would God, who is jealous of His own
glory, have abased the pride of
a fallen man who dared to say, ‘I am the Light of
the World!’ Greatly
observable is it, too, that Jesus’
highest followers never spake of themselves in this
[Page 348]
strain. Peter,
Paul,
John, even after their inspiration, and power to
work miracles, never
arrogate to themselves such a place; but are shocked
when others would give it
to them, and passionately and utterly refuse it.
Jesus
then
will leave no third position possible.
Either He is very God of very God, possessed
of all the powers of the
Most High, and worthy of our worship, as our Lord,
and our God; or He is an
impious man, and a blasphemer.
The
Unitarian theory of His being merely a good man,
cannot be made to square with
the Scripture testimony about Him.
This
the Jews perceived; and refusing His witness,
attempt again and again to stone
Him as a blasphemer.
Our
Lord,
then, virtually claims to be possessed of another
nature beside and
beyond the flesh.
This is the basis of
His proof. The
Lord is here entrapped by
one of His own sayings, if He be but a mere man, though He were an un-fallen one.
But the Scriptures testify to His two
natures, making the very distinction which He does
here, between His flesh and
His Spirit. On
this rests His appeal (Matt.
22: 41-45).
Romans 1: 3,
again shows the twofold
nature of Christ:- ‘Of the
seed of David, as He was a
man; but as to His Spirit, the Son of God.’* So also Romans
9: 5.
*
In
Rom. 1: 4, I read
- [See
the Greek word…]
- as one word.
Then it will
signify ‘Who was defined to
be the Son of God, by the
power (according to the Spirit of holiness) of the
select
resurrection.’
Again, in a like passage, ‘That
the Christ should suffer, and that He first of the
select resurrection,
is about to proclaim
light to the people (of
(3)
They
had only earth as their sphere of knowledge. To
Christ all
creation was known, for it was made by Him.
(4)
Their
standard also was
only the flesh.
They decided according
to what pleased man, and fallen man. Jesus founded
His views on God’s standard,
and according to His mind by the Spirit.
(5)
This
word refers primarily to themselves as the persons
uttering judgment.
But it has an outlook also to the Saviour
as
the person judged by them.
They rejected
our Lord and His [Page 349] witnessing, because they weighed Him
after the flesh.
They treated Him according to His apparent
place among the sons of men.
‘Who was this
peasant of
‘I am judging none.’
This
would
fit in remarkably well with the preceding story of
the adulteress,
dismissed without sentence.
There is
guilt; but not its sentence, as beforetime by Moses. Jesus, as
the Light, convicts of sin.
But His mission then was one of mercy. He came to
save the sinner, to bring the
light of life, not the darkness of condemnation and death.
He
is coming [back here]
again to execute judgment, as the
Governor and Judge
of all.
He
now
proceeds to show that His decisions were not as they
thought, single and
unsupported. He
here, in opposition to
the blindness of His foes’ objection, lets us into
the knowledge of the essence
of the Godhead, on which turns this present
dispensation, and our
salvation. To
every word of the Son, the
Father gave His
attestation. Now
these were not two different aspects of
the same One Person.
They
are
two persons. And
if two men’s testimony may be, and is to be credited, how much more the witness
of Two
Divine
Persons?
God then,
while in one view He is one
Being, is yet in another, and an equally certain
view, Two Persons, yea,
Three! The
Gospel, as distinct from the
Law, turns on this different revelation of God.
While men were to save themselves by their
own obedience, this discovery
was withheld. But
when all are hold to
be under sin, and incapable of saving themselves,
yet capable of being redeemed
only by the obedience and sufferings of a Divine
Saviour, then this further
discovery of the nature of God was called for.
The Holy Spirit is not spoken of in this
place.
The
Law
accredited as certain the agreeing witness of two (Deut.
17: 2-7; 19: 15).
And this
principle is owned under [Page 350] the Gospel likewise. So
difficult is it for error long to wear the aspect of
truth. With false
witnesses, the more they are examined apart, the
more do their contrarieties
come out. This
appeared remarkably at
our Lord’s trial.
Many false witnesses
arose; but their stories were inconsistent, and one
destroyed the other.
But with truth, additions confirm it. Thus,
then, our four accounts of Jesus and
His Gospel ought to be entirely satisfactory.
The
Father
is One Person, Sender of the Son, who is another
Person. As
a father is distinct from his son, so is
the Heavenly Father distinct from His Divine Son. As the
sender is distinct, and another person
from him whom he sends, so is the Son not the same
person as the Father.
Hence Swedenborg is obliged to deny Jesus’
being sent by the Father, and he makes the body
which the Lord Jesus took to be
the Son! For
he refuses to own any but
One Person professedly resting on those texts which
declare the Oneness of
essence enjoyed by the Three Persons of the blessed
Trinity; but rejecting
those which tell us that in the Oneness of the
Godhead there are Three
Persons. This
distinction of the Father
and the Son is eternal (Rev.
21: 22; 22: 1).
So in the condemnation of the unbeliever,
the
Son and the [Holy] Spirit
appear as witnesses against him (Heb.
10: 29).
This,
then,
is a very clear passage, destructive of
Swedenborgianism, and of all
other errors which deny the Trinity.
God
is not
One
to the exclusion of plurality
in Himself.
In the Oneness of the
Godhead, there exist Three Persons - Father, Son,
and Spirit.
‘In your Law.’ Jesus
distinguished between Himself and them,
both in regard to the Law, and to the Father.
He never says of Himself – ‘our
Law,’
as Nicodemus and the men of Law do.
Nor
does He say ‘our
Father!’ The Law of Moses is not the law of
the Christian.
John had learned to bid adieu to it.
He testifies in his preface to the newness
of
the principle of grace, which has come into so large
play with the advent of
the Son (John 1: 14-17). The Law
and the house of
If
the
testimony of two men is to be received, much more
the witness of God the
Father and God the Son!
The Father ever
was, and is bearing witness to the Son as
the Son. That
testimony He gave at the Saviour’s baptism; repeated
it again at the
Transfiguration; and again when the Saviour appealed
to Him as the Father (12:
28). He
reiterated
His attestation at the resurrection; and after that,
by elevating
Him to His right hand, and sending down the Spirit
of miracle and inspiration
at His intercession, He expressed His satisfaction
in the Son’s work
accomplished. Now
the Saviour had taken
the standing and the worship due to God alone; and
had inserted His own name in
the new name of God, on which our dispensation turns
(Matt.
28: 19).
Let
us
look at some similar cases by way of comparison and
contrast with this!
God has ever been showing His displeasure
when any mere man exalts himself above his true
place.
1. How He abased Adam and Eve, when they proudly wished to become as
gods! Then
they are sentenced as
creatures of the dust, to return to dust again,
their emptiness and sin
exposed.
2. See Moses sent by the Most High.
But the Lord does not own him as a son.
Though he accredits him with miracle, He is
angry at his disobedience,
and nearly cuts off his life.
He
maintains his cause before
3. To David God bore witness, not as a son, co-equal with Himself, but as
a servant (Ps.
89: 20). He
was the ‘Man after His
own heart,’ 1
Sam. 13: 14.
But when he offended, God corrected him;
bearing witness against him, as (1) in the [Page 352]
matter with Uriah; (2) in his numbering the people;
(3) in the bearing the ark upon a cart, and upon
other occasions.
Now
Jesus,
in this assumption of divine power, of miracle, and
in the assertion of
Godhead, went far beyond Moses.
He did
miracles in His own name. ‘Young
man, I
say
unto thee,
Arise.’ ‘Maid,
arise!’ Epphatha, ‘Be opened!’ Not
– ‘In the name of the God of
1. When Herod even allowed the praise and name of the Godhead to be given
to himself by others, though a king, he was cut off;
and God’s displeasure was
shown in the humiliating mode of his death.
2. In
3. In modern times Captain Cook,
who sailed round the world, took the glory of God to
himself when the natives
of one of the islands were content to render it. After
that, as it was justly observed,
nothing went well; he seemed given up to folly, and
was murdered by those who
had before adored him as God!
To
Jesus
as the Eternal Son, God ever gave but one unchanging
witness.
19.
‘They said therefore to Him,
“Where is Thy Father?”
Jesus answered, “Ye neither know Me nor My Father;
if ye had known Me, ye would
have known My Father also.”’
They
evade
this appeal with a sneer – ‘You
are always
talking about your Father.
Where is
He? Let
us see Him!’
The Father of Jesus was, as they professed,
the God of Israel, their own
God. But
they refused the witness of the Old
Testament to the coming of One greater than the
greatest of the sons of
men. They
proved their ignorance of God
by rejecting the Person and the testimony of the
Son. He
who sees not God in Christ
the Son, does not recognise the Deity of the
Father, when it is presented to
him.
This scornful enquiry
about the Father proclaimed their ignorance of God
as He was then revealing
Himself.
While
then
this Scripture teaches the moral and spiritual
oneness of the Father with
the Son, it teaches too the abiding difference of
Persons in the Trinity.
The Son so fully in spirit and power
resembles the Father, that both must be accepted, or
refused together.
He that hates the Son who has manifested
Himself, hates also the Father who dwells in
inaccessible light, hitherto
unseen by man.
The
Saviour,
just before His death, proclaims Himself the Son of
God, in a sense
which was blasphemy, if uttered concerning any mere
man. This
appears from the history of His
condemnation before the Sanhedrim (Matt.
26: 63-68).
He declares this while put on His oath. Was it
true?
The acting of God towards Him proved His word
to be true.
He would not allow the
corruption of the tomb to touch
Jesus. He
was then no impious person;
but ‘the Holy One of God,’
of whom David by the
Spirit spoke. He was declared to
be the Son of God by His resurrection [out] from among the
dead. The
controversy was put on this issue. Jesus
professes Himself to be the Son of
God. If
He be, He will rebuild the [page
354]
temple of His body in three
days. They
took Him at His word.
They destroyed the temple of His body. At the
appointed time He raised it.
They saw that there was great danger of the
overthrow of their denial, if but the shadow of
resurrection wrought by man
should attach to the servant of God whom they
condemned. The
fraudful pretence at resurrection they
closed by their precautions around His tomb.
When then Jesus actually rose, it was the
finger of God the Father,
authenticating Jesus’ assertions, and condemning
them as enemies of His Divine
Son! It
is on this that the difference
of the Gospel from the Law rests.
He who
refuses this has to rest his soul’s salvation, not
on the obedience and
atonement of the Son of God, but on his own deeds
and deservings.
Therefore if God be just, and Law condemns,
he is lost beyond hope!
The
next
verse remarks on the place in which Jesus spake
these words.
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.’
1.
Here is our
Lord’s humility.
Though the Only-begotten Son, yet
appearing as a Jew, He keeps in the outer court of
the temple, though it was,
indeed, His Father’s house.
He confines
Himself to the courts, which were open to the sons
of Abraham after the
flesh. He
does not enter the court even
of the priests.
For as regards the
flesh, He had no place there - being of the tribe of
2. Here, too, is the Saviour's lony‑s~,tfi'eriiig.
He bears with patience these contradictions of
Sinners against Himself,
without striking theni down, and without interceding
against them, as did Moses
and Efijall ; without even threatening them.
3. Herein is the Lord Jesus a specimen of courage. Though
conscious
of His danger, and of the power of His foes, He [Page
355]
ventures into their great
fortress -
4. Yet in spite of all this boldness of word and deed, He was not seized
by
men who were desirous, as it seemed, only to know
His whereabouts to arrest
Him. The
reason also of this unexpected
result is given.
It was not allowed by
God, on Whose counsel all depends.
He
was to die - to be seized by the same men and slain. But until
the allowed time, it could not come
to pass.
This
was
the last occasion of the Saviour’s public teaching,
as given in John.
It probably occurred at the Feast of
Tabernacles. They
would die in their
sins. The
Christian in Christ dies to
his sins, and is buried in baptism, to rise to a new
position beyond them.
21, 22. ‘Therefore
Jesus said again to them – “I am going away, and
ye
shall seek Me, and shall die in your sin; where I
am going, ye cannot
come.” The
Jews said, therefore – “Will
He kill Himself, that He saith - Where I am going,
ye cannot come?”’
Jesus
warns
them, that the time of mercy to their nation and
themselves personally,
was during His presence on earth.
He was
about to withdraw; partly as the result of the
Father’s counsels and His own;
partly as the result of their refusal of Him.
Their opportunity of being saved then was
fast closing, and they would
one day seek salvation when it was too late.
There is no opening to find the Saviour after
death. ‘Seek the Lord while He
may be found; call upon Him while He is
near,’ Is.
55: 6.
This then gives Jesus again the place of
Jehovah. Is
reader trifling with Christ’s call?
‘Any day will do.’ then he is
near to perish.
The day is hastening, when God will be afar,
and salvation impossible!
‘Ye shall die in
your sin.’
Not [Page 356]
‘sins.’
The
unbeliever’s
attitude is always sin.
It is
not that the un-renewed man sometimes
goes good, sometimes evil.
He
always
is, and always does evil, and only evil. This is his constant
standing before God.
His heart towards
God is enmity, and unbelief always; and that is
constant sin (
During
life,
there is the opportunity to escape from this place
of sin and of
danger. To
this escape, to this
salvation through Himself, Jesus was then calling
them. But
they were making light of it, and
hardening themselves against the Deliverer and His
salvation. This
opportunity the Saviour here supposes
would cease at death.
After that comes
the eternal separation of the saved and lost.
There is no renewal after death among the
dead. The
awfulness and reality of the threatened
lot of God’s foes is seen then, realised too vividly
in wrath begun.
But there is no deliverance: no escaping by
their own prayers, or those of others.
Christ
was
going away to heaven.
They would, at
death, go among the lost to Hades.
And after the final judgment (Rev.
20: 15) they would be cast into the lake of
fire and brimstone.
Here lies the
eternal gulf between the two.
Thenceforward, there is no restoration: no
struggling out of the place
of damnation to the city of the saved: no dwelling
with the Saviour when once
adjudged to the doom of the lost.
A
great gulf will eternally sever the inhabitants of heaven and of hell [i.e., the
‘lake of fire’]
(Rev. 21: 8; 22: 15).
22.
‘Then said the Jews, “Will
He kill Himself? because He
saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come.”’
The
Saviour’s
enemies sneer at this terrible threat.
‘What does He mean? Will He
commit suicide?
Then, indeed, we shall be eternally
separate. But,
then, He will go
among the lost; and we shall be
quite content so to be separate from Him.’
For they imagined themselves
to be righteous by Law, and that they would
depart at death to Abraham’s bosom.
[Page 357]
Like most
sinners, when reproved, they turn
not their eyes on themselves, but seek to find some
inconsistency in their
Reprover.
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.”’
Our
Lord
will remove from them this pretence; but His words
become ever more stern
and terrible, as their unbelief more and more shows
itself. ‘You cannot come
where I am going; because we both return whence we
came. I came down out of heaven, and am going back thither again to My
Father. You came forth out of the
earth, and are returning body and soul to the
earth.’
‘Ye are out of this world; I am
not out of this world.’
Here is a passage referring to the
Saviour’s origin, the same
in sense with John 18:
37.
Here is supposed our Lord’s pre-existence. He is no
mere man. His
origin is to be sought, not on earth; but
in heaven.
24.
‘I said therefore unto you,
that ye shall die in your
sins: for if ye believe not that I am, ye shall
die in your sins.’
The
present
verse takes up (in that small seeming change from ‘sin’ to ‘sins,’)
the
altered aspect of salvation, as it regards the
forgiveness of certain acts
of sin,
through faith in
Christ. Sins unforgiven bring perdition.
The only way to pardon was, not by obedience
to Moses, but by faith in
Christ the Son of God.
The forgiveness
of sins brings in justification.
The change from the entire attitude
of sin to
holiness, is the work of the [Holy] Spirit by
faith in Christ; and is [progressive] sanctification.
‘If ye believe not that I am.’* I suppose
that our Lord, by these words,
takes to Himself the name and attributes of Godhead. He
requires the acceptance of the
doctrine. To
refuse this is to perish.
* There
is no ‘he,’ which our
translators unnecessarily supply.
To
see
the matter in its fullest and clearest light, we
must revert to Moses’
commission in the desert.
Moses beholds
God. But
he knows not by what name he is
to present Him to
‘I am.’
It is
God’s especial title (Dent.
32: 39-41; Ps. 102:
25-27; Isa. 41: 4 - 43: 10).
Jesus, then, presents Himself as the Divine
Deliverer. To
refuse in unbelief, God as He reveals
Himself, is to perish; especially when it is mercy which is refused, and when justice has already condemned.
The refusal of Christ the Saviour, through
Whom alone forgiveness can come, is hopeless
despair. If
This
is
still the great question between God and many who
call themselves
Christians. ‘Is
Jesus God, the
Son of God?’
‘They can’t accept
it. It
is too astounding: too incredible!’
The reason of the ‘cannot,’
is
a spiritual one.
They do not believe
in the awful and infinite justice of God, as
demanding perfection of His
subjects, and the utter iniquity of man in heart and
life. The
incurable depth of the disease, and the
Godhead of the Physician go together.
And as they deny the intensity [Page 359]
and incurableness
of man’s disorder, and his inability to deliver
himself from the grasp of a
broken Law, they refuse the tidings that none but
God can heal and
deliver. Anyone
could carry the tidings
of God’s mercy; but who could obey and atone?
To
refuse
and speak against Moses - the faithful servant - was
to Miriam sudden
leprosy; and to Aaron, the priest, rebuke.
To Dathan it was the being swallowed up by
the earth, a going alive down
into the pit of woe. To Korah it was to be laid low
by fire from the
tabernacle. If
God thus avenged the
offences against Moses and Aaron, the servants, what shall be His wrath against the refusers of His Son? (Heb.
10: 18-21).
25.
‘They said therefore to Him,
“Who art Thou?”
Jesus said to them, “I am in the
beginning,
that which also I am discoursing of to you.”’
The
Saviour’s
reply on a mysterious subject is mysterious.
It is designedly mysterious.
These were not candid enquirers.
The One born of the Spirit uses mysterious
words. It
is difficult, then, to decide
what is the proper translation of our Lord’s words. The
English version of this passage is not
good. Probably
it should be – ‘I am in the
beginning, that which I am also discoursing to
you.’
John seems to be, by these
words, sustaining and proving what he said of the
Word made flesh being God,
and with God from the beginning.
‘I am’ is to be supplied. And in
John, specially in relation to our
Lord, it refers to the beginning of creation. Satan
was (5: 44) after
the beginning.
Jesus was in it, and as the Creator (1:
3).
Others
may
speak the Word of God in time and in measure; but
Christ both is,
and speaks the Word of God.
He
was so from the beginning (Compare Is.
52: 6).
He reveals God as the Word, and also in His
essence.
These
words
are a subdued statement of His Godhead.
He who is God, must also be the beginning of
all, as Creator.
Thus John, in his Gospel, and in the first
epistle, introduces Christ as He who was eternally
with the Father, and at
length manifested to us.
1 John 2: 13,
14, present to us Jesus as [Page
360] ‘from
the beginning.’ ‘I
am,’ and ‘He who
was at the beginning,’ were the subjects of
our
Lord’s discourse. He
was Himself the ‘I am,’
in the beginning with God, and the cause of the
existence of all things from the first.
It
was
foretold in their Scriptures, that the mighty God
would at length appear,
and that they would not recognize Him when He came,
though His words and His
deeds of power and grace proved it (Is.
6., 8., 9:
5; Mic. 5: 1-3; Mal. 3: 1).
The
Godhead of Christ the Son of God: this is the
stumbling-block still to
many! But
to fall over this stone is to
perish!
26.
‘I have many things to say,
and to judge concerning
you; but He that sent Me is true; and I speak to
the world those things which I
have heard of Him.’
‘You are bent on judging Me.
I have much that I could say in the way of
convicting you of your sinfulness.’
Till the hearer is convicted of sin, he does not
understand the greatness and
glory of the Redeemer.
When the soul is
really oppressed with the sense of sin, and the
terrors of God in coming to
judge it, then it feels somewhat of the need of a
Saviour greater than itself,
or than any son of man.
Jesus could have
refuted their cavils at length; but His eye is fixed
on accomplishing the
errand on which the Father, who is the Lord of
truth, has sent him.
Thus the Saviour passes by that line of
argument,
to utter to the world instead, the truth committed
to Him by the Father.
And this He would declare, not to
In
their
cavils, then, and resistance to His teaching, they
were fighting not
against Himself alone, but against the God of their
fathers. For
Jesus spoke at the dictation of the God
of truth.
In
thus
testifying about Himself He was only carrying out
the Father's mind, who
directed Him thus to discourse. It was only the Son
who could thus manifest
God. This was God's counsel, that He should be
known, and known by the acts and
words of the Son.
[Page
361]
27.
‘They understood not, that H
e was speaking to them of
the Father.’
They
did
not, however, in spite of all our Lord’s words,
perceive whom he meant by
His Sender. So
great was their
blindness, as Isaiah foretold.
The
testimony about the Father and the Son fell on
unbelieving ears.
How
dark
are the minds of unbelievers in general in the
things of God!
What multitudes hear frequently, and never
comprehend! Their
souls are running upon
other things. They
are enveloped in
Satan’s veil, drawn over their eyes, lest the light
of the Son of God should
shine into them.
28.
‘Therefore said Jesus –
“When ye have exalted the Son
of Man, then shall ye perceive that I AM, and that
from Myself I am doing
nothing, but as the Father taught Me, thus I speak.”’
Jesus,
as
the born of the Spirit, speaks mysteriously.
He is speaking too to enemies, who would
gladly have seized on His words
to accuse Him.
Hence His words are more
obscure than those addressed to disciples willing to
accept His doctrine.
No doubt it seemed to them very strange and
foolish, to speak of His enemies as exalting Him. But our
Lord had in His eye, I think, Isaiah
52: 13, where, in the translation of the
Septuagint, the very word here employed occurs.
They
would
lift Him up. How,
they did not
discern; but the Saviour knew. He
had
before bid them ‘Destroy the Temple, and
He would rebuild it.’
That they did not comprehend, yet they did
it. Here
He speaks of their exalting
Him. That
they did in crucifying Him.
Thus they proved, that ‘He
Is.’*
*
He had also
spoken of His lifting up as the serpent on
the pole, to be the life of those who are under
death through the power of
Satan.
They
accused
Him of blasphemy in asserting Himself to be the Son
of God. On
that ground they accused Him before Pilate
also. Here,
then, the question was tried
by fact. If
the Saviour were an impious
man, who vainly pretended to the Godhead, His
pretensions would be ruined by
His death; God would keep under the bars of death so
great an offender.
But
He rose again!
He rose before corruption could take
effect. In
resurrection then our Lord is
glorified. It
is proved that He is the ‘I AM.’
[Page 362]
Jesus
was
proved to be the Son of God by His resurrection (
In
the
lifting up of the Son of Man there is, doubtless, a
reference to the scene
in the wilderness, to which our Lord had turned our
attention. Jesus
was to be lifted on the tree under the
curse, that many might look to Him, and live.
Our Lord raised Himself from the dead.
Out
of
that which
Though
Jesus
was possessed of the nature and power belonging to
the Godhead, yet He
did not employ it independently; He did not even
speak, save as the Father
directed Him. Herein
is the wonder, and
the contrast to sinful man; our first parents though
very inferior creatures to
angels, yet sought to use their powers independently
of God.
This
recognition
of Jesus’ claims would take two forms, according as
we refer them
(1) to the lost, or (2) to the saved of
1. The lost had presented to them evidences that Jesus was no mere man in
the signs at His death, convincing even the Roman
Centurion that He was the Son
of God; and making the multitude that came to that
sight to return beating
their breasts.
The signs attendant on
our Lord’s resurrection too, as testified by the
Roman guard, could but carry
conviction to many of His foes, though they set up a
false story to do away
with the truth.
2. The resurrection of Christ, His ascension, and the testimony of the
Holy Ghost, were to multitudes satisfactory proofs
that the Son of Man, the heir to the promises of the kingdom [Page 363] (Ps. 8.; Dan. 7.), was also Son of God.
And they that accepted these proofs were
saved.
‘Ye shall know that I am.’ This may
remind us of the like Old Testament
expression – ‘Ye shall know that I am the Lord.’
This
would take two different aspects, according as
Jehovah was against them, or on their
side. Sometimes it set forth the recognition of
Jehovah’s Almighty goodness
employed in their deliverance.
Thus the
Egyptians in pursuit of
29.
‘And He that sent Me is with
Me, He hath not left Me,
because I do always the things which please Him.’
This
is
given by John, not only as truth, but as the
refutation of an error
specially abroad in his day, and in his
neighbourhood.
Some of the speculatists, who disliked the
Gospel of God, yet could not deny altogether the
facts, imagined and asserted,
that Jesus’ life exhibited two opposite features. His
time of inactivity, in which He showed
Himself not superior to the men around Him; and His
time of Divine illumination
and Almighty power, which was due to the descent on
Him of a Divine
person. John,
therefore, is careful to
show us that Jesus Christ is one Person all through;
that He sometimes calls Himself
‘the Son of Man,’
sometimes asserts Himself to
be ‘the Son of God.’
This
verse
is remarkable, as furnishing such a total overthrow
of Swedenborg.
According to Swedenborg there is only one
Person in the Godhead; the body which the Father
took of Mary was ‘the Son.’ But
in that body was concentrated all evil, all
lust,
pride, avarice, and hatred.
Against this combination of sin the Father
was set to struggle.
So that on Swedenborg’s false doctrine, the
Son
was wholly evil,
and the Father
was evermore to resist and strive against it, at
length putting [Page
384] it
off altogether!
Can anything be more contrary to the doctrine
of the Holy Spirit? ‘I
do always the things which please Him!’
‘When ye have lifted up the Son
of Man, ye shall know that I am.’
Here are both propositions knit together. The
Gnostics must have said – ‘When ye have
lifted up the Son of Man,
ye shall
perceive that the Christ, His Patron and Defender,
hath left Him.’
That
was
more falsehood.
The Father never
left Him, save in that memorable hour on the cross,
and under the curse.
‘I do always those things that
please Him.’
In the Saviour there was the perfect
intelligence of the Father’s will, a perfect
sympathy therewith, and a perfect
obedience to it.
Now
this
could not be said of any mere fallen man.
It was not true of the greatest and best of
God’s servants.
Moses
did
not always discern what God would have him do; as at
the
We
are
told of Hezekiah that God was in general well
pleased with him, but once He
left him to show him the evil that was in his heart
(2
Chron. 32: 31).
If
Jesus
then were the mere man, these words of His were a
proud and empty boast,
a reason why God should give Him up into the hands
of death. Thus
the Lord dealt of old with the
disobedient. He
gave
This
perfect
obedience of our Lord, and perfect conformity to the
Father’s will,
arose out of oneness of nature with His Father.
[Page 386]
This
was
the source of the constant difference, the
never-failing superiority of the
Redeemer of men over all others.
All
mere men, all fallen men have discovered under the
pressure of circumstances,
their fallen nature. Jesus was the exception.
Why? Angels
have fallen through
disobedience. All
created natures certainly
fall when left to themselves.
But here
is one who always pleased the Father.
This
is
written to instruct us concerning the true motive
and guide of life.
Man’s constant tendency is to make himself
independent of God, and to use all he has to please,
and to glorify
himself. But
the true principle and
compass of life is to seek to please God.
This goes beyond an obedience to the exterior
of God’s commands. ‘What
will please God?’ is the loftiest of
principles
(1 Thess. 2: 4; 4: 1.).
It
is
true of us as of our Lord, that God does not leave
those whom He has
called. Men
may leave us, and that in
consequence of our saying and doing the very things
which please God.
For
He
hath said, ‘I will never
leave thee nor forsake thee’
(Heb. 13: 5). ‘All
forsook me; but
the Lord stood by me, and strengthened me.’ ‘Persecuted,
but not
forsaken.’
30.
‘As He said these things,
many believed on Him.’
Some,
yea
many, accepted these words, who had stood out
against other sayings.
They saw in them the truth which commended
itself to their understanding and heart.
While
their
countrymen hardened themselves in unbelief, when one
objection was
overthrown starting another these accepted Jesus’
testimony, and were saved
thereby.
This,
then,
is the aspect manward.
If we look
at their faith from the side of God, then it was the
result of the Spirit’s sovereign
agency, opening their hearts.
How much
the teachers of truth need the Spirit of light to
instruct them what truths to
present, and how.
It was but a slender
commencement of faith.
But the least
particle of gold is gold.
The least
faith is salvation.
[Page
366]
31.
‘Therefore said Jesus to the
Jews who believed on Him –
“If ye abide in MY word, ye are truly My
disciples, and ye shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free.”’
Jesus
perceived
the change in their spirit from unbelief to faith. He knew
what was in man without the need of
any one’s informing Him.
He addresses
therefore these in grace.
The ‘ye’ is
emphatic, and distinguishes them from the
multitude of unbelievers.
He would
confirm their faith, and lead them on; for much yet
had to be done, ere these
men of Law could be sons of God by grace.
The graft of grace in the heart is at first
but the bud. There
is much of the old stock to cut away,
much yet lacking.
This is overlooked by
many evangelists. The leading a soul to Christ is a
great thing but it is not
everything. At
faith the man is indeed
completely justified, or accepted before God; but
there is as yet only the
day-break of sanctification; of the inward renewing
of the Spirit.
Faith is like the lodgement of a king’s
assaulting troops within a rebel fortress.
But strong are the forces that resist.
It
is
with the Christian as with Moses on the top of the
Mount. It
was by degrees that the brightness of his
face grew.
Faith
is
the great era in a man’s life.
‘What think you of
God? and of His Son?’ is the great
question. But
they were Jews still.
They did not see that to become truly
Christ’s they must give up Moses and Law.
Jesus then gives them the seeds of truth,
which would, if accepted,
finally lead them to the new position and heritage
which belongs to the man of
faith - the true son of Abraham.
They
were
still to remain in Christ’s word.
Many were the adverse influences which would
seek to detach them.
But they were to continue in it as their
element.
‘Continue in My word.’
The comparison seems to be to a tree which
causes its roots to strike
deep, and to abide in the rich soil, so bearing
fruit. They
were in the Saviour’s word.
Let them keep there, not refusing any of
the
truth!
Truth
for
man’s understanding, and freedom for his action -
where shall we
find them save in Christ?
There must first be [Page
367]
deliverance from error, and from
slavery to Satan; then freedom towards God, which
Law cannot give.
Freedom to the worldly is hiding from God,
and throwing off His commands to follow the will of
the flesh.
Truth
to
those under Law is only condemnation.
He
had
much yet to teach them.
They were to
hold what they had, and to advance.
It
was Christ’s
word they were to abide in, not that of
Moses. It
was a new element.
It was not a restoration of Moses, reformed
and stripped of the Pharisaic traditions.
They were, consequently, to become Jesus’
disciples; not rectified
disciples of Moses.
They were to abide
in His doctrine, and to be exhorted thereto.
It is not – ‘Grace
undertakes that you shall
abide. Therefore
there is no need to
exhort you.’
There is
responsibility in man, yea, in saints; as well as
grace in God; there is our
part, as well as His.
There is
exhortation to continue in Christ’s word.
Note its difficulty.
In this evil
world many are the forces in play against it.
What with human traditions and philosophies,
what with Satan’s
temptations, and the tendencies to evil arising out
of a fallen nature, serious
are the obstacles, and strong the need of
watchfulness and prayer.
The smiles and the threats of the world
prevail to hinder most.
So Paul and
Barnabas exhort ‘the
disciples to continue in the grace
of God’ (Acts
13: 43).
Jesus’ ‘word’
is partly doctrinal, partly practical; or the
precept as to present active
conduct arising out of these great truths.
It is also partly prophetic.
All
these parts of Christ’s word are together to be
received, together constitute
the truth, and together effect the freedom which God
designs for the believer.
‘My disciples indeed.’
Jesus
knows
the distinction between the nominal disciple who
does not accept fully
and obey His word, and the true-hearted one who
does.
‘Ye shall know the truth.’
The
Saviour came to unfold a new doctrine,
different from that of Moses, and far in advance of
it. Jesus
came to supersede Moses the man of Law,
Himself introducing (as John says, 17)
grace
and truth into the place of Law, [Page 368] Moses had the form of truth and its shadows; but Christ came to bring
its reality.
‘And the truth shall make you
free.’
The men of Law occupy necessarily the
standing of the slave.
Even if they had
not fallen they must be in perpetual peril of
transgression, of the curse, and
of death. They
are evermore walking by
the side and at the edge of a precipice, to fall
down which is
destruction. They
cannot walk in
freedom; nor in freedom draw near to God.
They must fix their eyes on themselves and
their deservings; for it is by
them they stand.
But
our
Lord came to bring a new doctrine, and a new power -
that of the
Spirit. He
came to bring out His people
from under Law broken, into the freedom of grace. The men of
Law, the more enlightened they are
to see its claims, the more troubled they are as
they look at their own
shortcomings, and their opposition in thought, word,
and deed. The
evil nature, the more it is brought into
contact with the Law of God, the more it wrestles
against it. Jesus
came to deliver from this spirit of
fear and condemnation, from this slavery of sin and
death.
Not every one of those led
to Christ for eternal life
abides in Christ’s word.
Some are led
away to -
1. Tradition. They
add to Christ’s word the doctrines
and commands of the Fathers.
The words
of the elders, as the Saviour warns us, lead away
from the word of God (Mark
7.).
Hence the Scripture elevates its voice
against these rocks which lie in
the way of the youthful believer.
He who
will not continue in Christ’s and His apostles’
word, but will add thereto the
doctrines and practices of the elders, will end his
days in
2.
Some
turn aside from the Saviour’s word to the prevailing
philosophy. They
rest on human reasoning rather than on the
intuitions of the Son of God.
After
faith
there will be either a going forward or backward,
according to the diet,
the spiritual diet of man; that which occupies his
soul and heart.
He whose soul is taken up with the cares of
business, and a family, with the science, and the
art, and the politics of
time, while the life given him in Christ will not [Page 369]
wholly leave him, will yet find himself in an
increasingly sickly and unfruitful condition.
He who lives on bran and bone-dust cannot be
so strong and healthy as he
who lives on pure flour.
Christ
is
always to be the teacher of disciples.
You will never get beyond Him.
There is none that can say He fully knows all
of Christ, which God calls
him to know. It
is well to have learned
the alphabet. But
he who thinks that
consequently he knows all that can be known, is
greatly mistaken.
And even when great advances have been made
in knowledge, there is much needed in the way of
reducing that knowledge to
practice. For
man is a being of action
as well as of thought.
Now to know is
present with many who are yet needing the power of
Christ to accomplish that
which they see.
Christ is our pattern of
life as well as our instructor in truth.
How
great
the relief which is felt by the soul which sees that
its standing before
God and acceptance does not depend on its own
imperfect work, and incomplete
sanctification; but that God welcomes it to Himself,
on the ground of the
perfect work of Another, who ever abides in
God’s presence to sustain us.
Slavery,
as
all confess, is an evil.
33.
‘They answered Him, “We are
Abraham’s seed, and never
were enslaved to any; how sayest thou (then) “Ye
shall be made free.”’
The
freedom
of God’s children is freedom from the domination of
any hostile power.
[Page 370]
It
is
the freedom (1) of the understanding from destructive religious error (2) of the conscience,
from a sense of condemnation and wrath
and of (3) the heart, from the love
of evil.
The
design
of our Lord, the task set Him by the Father, was, to
deliver the enslaved
of Law, and sin, and death, into the freedom of
sonship, of life and
righteousness.
This
came
out more and more clearly, as the teaching of our
Lord grew more and more
distinct. The
two parties drew off in
opposite directions: Moses’ disciples asserting
their own goodness and
righteousness, and more and more setting themselves
in array against One who
would lead them to see their own sinfulness and
condemnation, and His own
Divine Superiority both to Moses and to themselves. In the
history of the adulteress we see this
opposition. ‘Moses
commanded
stoning in this case; but what sayest Thou?’
Still
more fully in the next chapter, where the miraculous
enlightening of the born
blind is in question.
When the testimony
of the newly seeing one is given on Jesus’ behalf,
he is cast out.
‘Thou art
His
disciple; but we are
Moses’
disciples.’ Thus
Moses is made Jesus’ antagonist.
But
they were themselves condemned by Moses, in whom was
their trust. For
he called them to listen to a prophet
like Himself. He
was to be obeyed
therefore, even though He repealed Moses’ Laws.
The
idea
that they lacked freedom, and that it was to be
bestowed as a boon by the
rejected Jesus, was doubly distasteful to them.
They did not need freedom.
It was
theirs already.
This
setting
aside of Moses was a truth which grated sorely on
the Jew’s mind, and
to this day he will not accept it.
Moses’ commands are to the Israelite
something which never can be
superseded; nor can an equal or a greater than the
ancient Lawgiver arise.
Hence they deny the Godhead of Christ with
asperity and contempt; even as their fathers did. Once admit
that Jesus is Moses’ Creator -
that Moses is the servant only, and Christ the Son -
and Moses is pushed into
the background.
Attempt to set Moses and
Christ on a level, and you must deny His Godhead. So is it
seen in the Koran.
[Page
371]
Here
occurs a
difficulty not easily
settled, and on which commentators go off into
opposite directions.
We are told that many believed on Christ,
and
that He sought to strengthen them.
Yet
they answer Him bitterly: and He accuses them of
seeking to slay Him.
Nay, He declares them to be the children of
the devil. How
are we to understand
this? (1) Some say, that a different party from the
first steps in to reply to
Jesus, and that to them the words apply. (2) Others
assume, that faith is not
eternal, and the perseverance of the saints is no
element of Scripture.
The latter is certainly to be refused. The
former, though not without its difficulties,
is the only solution I can propose.
That
But
how
could they say, that they were never slaves to any? This was
outrageously untrue.
In the covenant of faith which God made
with
Abraham respecting his seed (Gen.
15.), the
Most High foretold a slavery of four hundred years. They were
enslaved, not in
They
speak
hastily, untruly, inconsistently; for their
strongest desire for Messiah
was, and is, that He might free them from the Roman
yoke. And
had our Lord but proposed that, to be
effected by force of arms, willingly would they have
enrolled themselves as
volunteers.
Jesus
in
reply, shows them that (1) they are not free; (2)
nor Abraham’s sons.
34.
‘Jesus answered them,
“Verily, verily, I say unto you,
that every one that doeth sin, is the slave of sin.”’
The
Saviour
takes them away from the ground of political
slavery, to that of
spiritual. If
they had been spiritually
free, their political slavery would have signified
little. They
would, indeed, have soon by God’s mercy
have obtained their political deliverance.
But Jesus takes them to the great spiritual
truth - that they were
sinners; men of a fallen nature set under Law, and [Page 372]
earning only
its
condemnation and death.
They were
unconverted men, in the blindness of their pride and
unbelief sinning on.
They were unable to get out from the
slavery
of their lusts, doing what was forbidden, and yet
continuing to do so against
the rebukes of conscience, and the fear of worse to
come. They
were ever toiling to win righteousness
for themselves, and ever unable to earn anything
from their taskmaster, but the
curse.
35.
‘Now the slave abideth not
in the house for ever; the
Son abideth for ever.
If, therefore, the
Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed.’
Jesus
was
wooing these sons of the Law to the true sonship of
God. And
they, proud of their own goodness,
refuse. They
were slaves - set to earn,
by their good works, salvation.
And that
way to life is closed.
It is heartless,
hopeless toil.
Whoever, as Paul says, is
‘under the Law’ is
the slave of sin (1 Cor.
15: 56; Gal. 2.). He is unable to get free
from sin and its curse.
He is an
unwilling prisoner; and without hope and strength
none can overcome Jesus is
the only Deliverer from Law, into freedom of service
toward God. ‘Sin shall not have
dominion over you; for ye are not under Law,
but under grace.’
In
our
Lord’s words, we have a reference to Abraham’s
history (Gen. 21.).
Abraham. had two sons - the one by the
slave-mother; the other by the
free-woman. Ishmael
was the child of the
flesh, and he was firstborn, and dwelt awhile in
Abraham’s house.
But in time the true son and heir was
born. Christ
was that Son, and He was
weaned from the Law.
But
Ishmael
was displeased at the rising of this new son, and
resented it by
mockery. For
that offence Sarah called
on Abraham to cast him out of the house; and while
Abraham deeply felt it, God
ratified it. Thus,
then, Jesus, the true
Son of Abraham, and Heir of all, had appeared.
And now these Jews showed themselves the
mocking sons of the
slave-mother. This
was the proof then,
of their being speedily ejected from Abraham’s, and
from God’s house.
Thus it came to pass.
The Law was never intended to abide.
It never could rear for God any but
slaves. Our
Lord then is speaking to
this effect – ‘I admit that
you are in the house of
God; but as servants (slaves) only, not as sons [Page
373]
even as was Moses
your Master. And
you are servants of
sin, and such
God will not always
tolerate in His house.’
Before
it
was said, ‘The truth shall make
you free.’ Now it is, ‘The
Son
shall make you free.’
The truth is the instrument of spiritual
freedom, and the truth is embodied in Christ, and
rests on His authority.
Truth which sets free is found in Jesus
alone.
He
is speaking of a household where there is only one
son, the heir of all; and he
as the owner of all may give slaves their freedom,
nay, even adopt them as sons. He
was
the Sinless One.
He was no slave by
nature or default.
‘Free indeed;’ in opposition to mere
political freedom, vainly boasted of.
The true freedom is that of which Paul writes
of: ‘For the
Law of
the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
made me free from the Law of
sin and death,’ Rom.
8: 2.
Jesus
was
anointed with the Spirit to proclaim liberty to the
captives, and the instrument and key of their freedom is God’s truth, not of the Law,
but of the Gospel (1
Peter 1: 22-25).
The
Church
of believers is now ‘the
House of God.’
He bought out from under the Law the slaves
of Law, ‘that they might
receive the adoption of sons,’ Gal. 4: 5.
Law
was
never meant to give the heritage of God, or to
occupy the house of
God. Law
and its sons can never earn or
keep the house or the heritage.
Law has
for the sinner only the scourge the sword, and the
writ of ejectment.
And those under Law have no righteousness,
and cannot win anything as their wages, but death.
The
servants
of Law are found to be servants of sin, and as they
refuse to be made
free, and persecute the Son of Sons they must needs
be cast out of God’s
house. ‘No
slave can make another slave free.
But I
am “the Son;” not simply “a son,”
but possessed of all
power, and Lord of the inheritance of all things. If,
then, I give you freedom, none can
contravene it; you shall abide in the mansions of
God as sons for ever.’
Speedily
thereafter
God manifestly disinherited Ishmael, or the men of
Law. He
owned them no longer as His, He drove them
out of the temple, and the city, and even from the
land. [Page
374] Paul gives us
this at a more advanced stage in his argument in Galatians 4.
There
He rebukes in undisguised astonishment the men of faith,
the children of promise, the accepted in the Son
of God, for turning back to
Law in any point. They, sons of the free woman, did
they wish to become the slave-sons
of Hagar, the bondmaid?
They, men of promise, born to God by
His
Spirit, and sealed by His seal of miracle and
inspiration,
did they wish to go back to the flesh
and its powers? Were
they desirous of taking their stand in the dry
land and burning of Sinai,
beneath the mountain of thunder, of fire, and of
terror? It was
true they were persecuted by the Ishmaels of the
day, and by turning back to
Law, they might escape their wrath.
But
by so doing, they would be adjudged to be
Ishmaels themselves, and fall under
the Lord’s sentence of ejectment, losing the
heavenly heritage,*
which by faith was theirs.
[* That
is, a ‘heavenly heritage,’
immediately
after
the
time of the ‘first
resurrection’
in ‘the kingdom of the
heavens’ during the
Messianic era.
Matt.
5: 20; Rev. 20: 5.]
Observe,
then,
the blindness of the men of Law.
The Son had appeared, the Son, not of Abraham
alone, but of God,
wielding powers unknown to Isaac.
He
came to bring freedom for those who
were slaves. (1)
He came to deliver from
slavery to the Law, with its established constant
circle of sin and death (
He
came
also to deliver the body from
the slavery of corruption. Law
could not do that.
Law kept its sons
shut up in custody.
Christ has redeemed
the bodies of some from the tomb, and will redeem
His people’s bodies soon (Rom.
8: 21).
For
this
Son of Abraham is also ‘the
Son’ - the
Eternal Life who was with the Father, and has come
down to deliver us.
And those who accept the Son become in Him
‘sons of God.’
[Page
375] He
brings them out from the place, and rod, and lessons of slavery.
He gives them eternal life, and the
heavenly
heritage. Soon
He will present them, not
alone to Abraham, but to God their Father, and bring
them into the eternal
mansions of God’s House. Those whom He pronounces
free will be free indeed, not
liable to fall again, like the men of Law, into
poverty, and so to be sold anew
into slavery. No
more slavery of death,
corruption, or sin!
37. ‘I
know that ye are the seed of Abraham, but ye seek
to kill
Me, because My word takes not in you.’
They
had
in a sense accepted Christ’s word, but now they set
themselves against it,
and it does not penetrate further.
In
one
sense, then, He admitted that they were Abraham’s
seed. But
Abraham has three seeds.
And they were the inferior seed of
Abraham’s
flesh alone, and were destined to the slavery of the
Law which was the covenant
of bondage. To
it they tied themselves,
refusing the freedom which the Great Heir was
offering them.
None but ‘the Son’
in this highest, fullest sense can free men.
None but He can lawfully free from Law, as
having paid down the price of
redemption. None
but He can put forth
the power of redemption, which demands the might of
a God who raises the
dead. Jesus
had exhibited that power,
but still they clasp their fetters; and resent His
interference who would knock
them off.
Their
deeds
too, in respect of the true Son, confirmed the
matter. They
not only mocked, but they sought to slay
the true Isaac.
They refused Christ’s
word, they hated Himself.
And very
mysterious it is to see that where
God’s truth is refused,
hatred springs up, and the spirit and acts of
murder come in. See it
in Saul. See it in Saul’s
fellow-countrymen when the persecutor has become
the apostle (Acts 9:
20-23).
What
a solemn thing then it is to
refuse any part of the truth of God!
It is the spirit of Satan, the spirit of
falsehood; and falsehood and
murder walk hand in hand.
Does the word of God make
progress in you,
reader? Does
it ‘take’ you? Are you
taken ‘with’ it? Or
are the world’s [Page 376] pleasures, strifes, glories, filling your heart, so that there is no
room
for God’s truth, as there was no room for Christ in
38, ‘I
speak what I have seen with My Father, and ye
therefore do
what ye have heard from your father.’
This
refers
to Jesus’ pre-existence as the Son of God, and His
perfect cognizance of
all that the Father is, and of His designs.
First
a
word as to the reading of this verse.
It is a very profound and mysterious one, and
therefore the wonder is
less, if we find variations in the Greek of it.
Some say, that the copyists and readers
sought by conjecture to amend
it, and scatter its mystery.
And no
doubt the words ‘my’
and ‘your’ appended
to the two ‘Fathers’
do alleviate the difficulty; and suggest the true
interpretation, which comes
out afterwards.
Jesus had come down from
the Father on high, and was testifying of His
purposes of grace.
It was the Father in heaven who in and
through the coming of the Son was seeking a better
people, and heavenly sons.
Of this goodness Jesus was the witness both
by word and deed.
But
there
was another father, and to him these unbelievers
belonged. Their
father they had not seen, as Jesus had
seen His. But
they had listened to his
whispers of evil, and of enmity, and were acting out
his hatred to the Seed of
the Woman, the Son of God.
Jesus
explains
their resistance to His word, by their being derived
from a father
different from His.
The spirit and
actions of a man display who is the father of any.
39. ‘They
answered and said to Him, “Our father is Abraham.”
Jesus
saith to them, “If ye were children of Abraham, ye
would do the deeds of
Abraham. But
now ye seek to kill Me, a
man who has spoken to you the truth, which I heard
from God; this did not
Abraham. Ye
are doing the works of your
father.”’
They
distinguish
between the Father of Jesus and their own father. Whoever
His Father might be, their father was
Abraham.
[Page 377]
The
children of
each father take
naturally after him, as well as
are
externally like to him.
Our different
characters then bespeak different fathers.
Jesus
distinguishes
also. They
were the seed of
Abraham
according to the flesh.
But children of
Abraham, as partaking of their
father’s higher nature, they were not. The same distinction
is
made by Paul (
God
was
pleased in Abraham’s life to give evidence of the
point in hand, and to
this the Saviour falls back as sufficient proof. Abraham,
as we read in Genesis
18. was tested by the visit of the
Lord. Three
came in the guise of men,
and are addressed by him as ‘Lord.’ He
receives them with joy and reverence, and
feasts them, and waits on them, as their servant. He
believes their word of promise regarding the
son beyond nature, and rebukes the unbelief of
Sarah. He
accepts the tidings that an heir is to
arise who will set aside Ishmael, much as he loves
him. But
these men of Law were not men of faiths
and would keep the place and spirit of Ishmael -
wherefore they were unlike
their father, and God would deal with them as He
spake concerning that son of
the bond-woman.
In
that
same interview the Lord declared what would become
of
Thus God had left this
chapter of Abraham’s life on
record to show how different Abraham’s seed were to
their father. The
[Page 378] Son came to dwell in human
flesh among the sons of
(1)
To
kill a man made in the image of God was evil.
(2) To kill one who had brought them the
truth, as if He were an enemy, was worse still.
(3) To kill a messenger of God sent on
purpose with the truth, was worst
of all.
Abraham
was
tested also by Melchizedec, ‘made
like unto the Son
of God’ - without father, without beginning
of days, or end of
life. How
did he behave towards this
priest-king? Most
reverently! He
owned him a superior, received his
blessing, and paid him tithes of all.
Jesus
then
is a ‘man.’ He asserts it. He was not
only in appearance so, but in
reality.
Thus
they
showed who spiritually was their father.
They were lying in their words, murderous in
their deeds. Thus
self-judged, they were no children of Abraham.
Sons
of
God are not now born of the flesh, but of faith in
Christ. Jesus
speaks as one of another world, come
down to earth.
He
bore
testifies to His previous existence.
‘I came out from God.’
This may
refer to His being the Son of God -
very God of very God; or it may refer to His
descending out of heaven.
This latter I think the meaning.
‘I am arrived.’ This notes
His appearing on earth, His
consequent previous existence, and also His consent
to the Father’s will in the
matter.
41, 42. ‘They
said unto Him, “We were not born from fornication. We have
one Father, God.”
Jesus said to them, “If God were your
Father
ye would have loved Me.
For I came out
from God, and have arrived (here). For neither
came I of My own accord, but He
sent Me.”’
They seem to think, that to
be born legitimately of
the line of Abraham after the flesh, was quite
enough to prove them sons of
God. But
if our Lord denied them to be
sons of Abraham in the [Page 379] higher sense, assuredly He
must deny them to be sons of God.
He
applies then the same test.
Had they the
feelings, did they do the works of God?
The question is a spiritual one.
The Law rests on the flesh; the Gospel sets
it aside for the
spirit. Now
the question is, not a white
skin, or a black one; but faith or unbelief
over-rules and over-rides all.
It is not ‘A
Christian if born of Christian parents,’
but, ‘a
Christian if a man of faith.’
None is a Christian, if not a man of faith.
Our Lord’s test is very
searching and spiritual.
You say ‘You are
Sons of God.
If you are of His family
you must love the Son, in whom God is ever well
pleased. I
am that Son.
But instead of loving, you hate Me, and
seek
to slay. God
sent Me in love to
you. In
love to you I came, leaving for
your sakes the heaven and its glory.
I
came not on a transient visit, as the angels to
Abraham. But
here I am found.’
Jesus is the true Joseph, sent of His
Father,
but hated by His brethren, who cannot even speak
peaceably to Him.
‘I came out from God’ may
refer to Jesus’ filiation
from eternity.
Many suppose and teach,
that God is really the Father of all men by virtue
of His having created
them. But
this shows the contrary.
It is not true even of God’s chosen people
43.
‘Why do ye not recognize My
speech? It
is because ye cannot hear My word.
Ye are of your father the devil, and the
lusts of your father ye choose to do.’
Jesus
spoke
in a heavenly dialect, unintelligible to the men of
the world. It
is so still. Moreover,
the Saviour’s meaning in [Page
380] His
profound words was
displeasing to them.
They would not
listen to it.
The
way
in which children take after their parents,
specially in their failings, is
wonderful; this comes to its height in the spiritual
fatherhoods of God, and of
Satan.
‘Ye cannot hear.’
Another example of the moral ‘cannot,’
which,
so far from releasing any from responsibility,
proves their extreme
condemnation. How
bad must the man be
who says ‘I cannot help committing murder!’
Jesus
now
openly tells them who is this spiritual father. It is
Satan.
Here
is a clear
proof that the devil is a
person. This
doctrine is much disliked, especially by
philosophic divines.
But if Scripture
can be trusted, there is such a person.
In the Old Testament He is spoken of as
tempting Job, and tempting David
to number the people.
In the New
Testament we find him tempting Jesus in the
wilderness, carrying Him to
[* Acts
5: 32. cf.
1 Sam. 20: 30, 31]
We
see
here the true attitude of the Jews spiritually.
They
would
not own either of the two great poles on which all
the discourse of the
Saviour turned - viz., ‘SIN
and GRACE.’
They refused both.
They denied (1) their sinfulness, and (2)
the
need of being dealt with as guilty sinners, on the
ground of more favour, as
debtors unable to pay.
He
who
refuses to own the existence of the Evil Spirit that
works in the sinners
of mankind, cannot hold with consistent clearness the
personality of the Holy Spirit, who works obedience
in the [lives
of the]
renewed.
Many opinions are regarded as ‘honest
convictions,’ which are only the result of the proud and evil heart, taught of Satan,
and refusing [much
of]
the truth of God’s testimony.
Those
[unregenerate]
who
resist the Son of God now because of Satan’s
promptings, will dwell with him at last in his place of condemnation, in the fire
prepared for him and his angels.
They
choose
to do the lusts of Satan.
Here
is the sinner’s freedom of will and choice, for
which He is justly condemned at
last.
But
many
are offended at the doctrine of the sinner’s freedom
of choice, and make
it a ground of reproach -
‘freewillers!’
What
then
is the sense of freedom?
It is that
the person is not under pressure of any force from
without. But
it is quite compatible with the existence
and power of the strongest forces within the man. Cain was
free and
responsible, though he was urged by the strongest
feelings of hatred to slay
his brother.
‘He was a murderer from the
beginning, and abode (stands)
not in the truth,
because truth is not in him.’
This
refers
doubtless to Satan’s leading man to rebel against
God, knowing, as he
did, that this would bring in death on mankind.
And this he purposely did in order to vex
God, and to ruin man.
We may gather, I believe, that pride and
envy
of man, whom God designed to elevate above angels,
was the cause of Satan’s
temptation of our parents in the Garden (1
Tim. 3:
6).
‘He abode not.’
Satan has no stability, but is ever restless. Falsehood
is unstable. Truth
does not change, but is the stability
of the world.
‘The beginning.’
It has the same sense here as in the opening
of the Gospel (1: 1).
Satan and Christ are morally opposite.
Jesus ever abode in the Father, and in the
truth. Grace
and truth came by Him.
His
scheme
of wickedness Satan urged on by lying.
‘Ye shall not surely
die.’
Thus the Saviour’s words are fully made
out. [Page 382]
These things took place ‘from
the
beginning.’
That points at
the Garden of Eden, as the scene of both his lie and
his murder.
Also
both
these lusts appear in Satan’s first-born among men. Cain first
slays his brother through hatred
to his goodness, and then defends himself by lying
to God. ‘Where is Abel thy
brother?’
‘I know not: am I
my brother’s keeper?’
This
Cain,
too, was a type of
‘He stands not in the truth;’ Then Satan
was created of God.
He was not an independent Being, evil
originally, existing from all eternity beside God,
as some of the errorists of
John’s day believed.
He was created by
God upright, and set in the truth. But
he
continued not in it.
He chose evil,
he brought in death, and that by falsehood.
Hence he sins evermore; there is no pause, no
cessation in his sin.
Falsehood is his element.
The truth condemns him.
Therefore he hates truth, and resists it. Hence John
says, ‘The
devil sinneth.’
Falsehood
as
an element dwells within him.
Therefore it comes out in his words and acts. And this
falsehood comes forth most strongly
in relation to Jesus as the Son of God, who has
conquered him once by His
obedience and death, and is one day to conquer him
by power. Hence
the cry of his demons!
‘And, behold, they
cried out, saying, “What have we to do with thee,
Jesus, thou Son of God? art
Thou come hither to torment us before the time?”’
(Matt. 8: 29).
Satan is not a child of lies, misled by
others; but the wilful
propagator of them.
44.
‘When he speaks lies he
speaks out of what belongs to
him, for he is a liar, and the father of him
(the liar).’
He can only speak lies. For the
truth is his enemy, and he only uses
truth so far as it can minister to the lie.
As truth is God’s domain, so falsehood is
Satan’s. Out
of his heart proceeds falsehood, and by
it he deceives the nations.
He
is
the father of the liar, or (as our translation gives
it) of the lie. Thus he
was specially the father of Gain the liar.
‘Out of the abundance
of the heart the mouth
speaks’ (Matt.
12: 34).
[Page
383]
45.
‘But because I speak the
truth, ye believe me not.’
Had
Jesus
taught errors suited to their state they would
gladly have received
Him. But
truth could only bear witness
against their then condition, and refusal of Christ;
wherefore as they would
not submit to the truth, truth could only be against
them, and bear witness
against them. (1)
Jesus is the witness
to the truth, in opposition to Satan, the Prince of
lies. (2)
He is the Sinless One, in opposition to
their attempts to slay Him. (3) He had come from
heaven, and from God, in
opposition to their being from beneath and going
thither.
46.
‘Which of you convinceth Me
of sin? And
if I say the truth, why do ye not believe
Me?’
The
Saviour
here challenges His foes to prove against Him one
sin! Herein
He takes ground suited to His claims
as the Son of God from all eternity with the Father,
and possessed of His
Godhead. But
herein He differs from all
the holiest men who preceded Him.
All
others,
as Job, are obliged at last to confess sin.
Moses records the sins of Abraham and of
himself. The
sins of David and others
are stated in God’s book; and a general testimony is
issued against all the
sons of men, showing us that all are sinners in
Adam, and possessed of an evil
nature, whose motions even when they do not come
into visible and external
shape, are evil.
It
is
then only because Jesus was yet more than a man, and
of un-fallen nature,
that He could utter such a challenge.
Had He been of the number of the fallen, He
must have learned that ‘the
thoughts of His heart were only evil continually.’ How
contrary is this challenge of our Lord
concerning His sinlessness, to Swedenborg’s
assertion that ‘the Son was full of
all manner of evil,
against
which the Father had to struggle, till He was wholly
put off! He
says, indeed, that evil which does not come
visibly or audibly out into word or deed is not sin. But
Scripture says the reverse.
‘The thought of
foolishness is sin.’
Even a
covetous thought is sin forbidden by the tenth
command, and is enough to break
the whole Law, and draw down its curse.
[Page 384]
But
if
Jesus were without sin, then He spake only the
truth. And
His words were to be accepted, backed as
they were by deeds of wonder.
He
could
not have thrown down such a challenge concerning His
sinlessness to His foes
if he had not been sure He was sinless, and was
entirely without offence
within. If
He were a mere fallen man, He
was denying the witness of God concerning the
sinfulness of every one of Adam’s
race.
47.
‘He that is from God heareth
God’s words; ye therefore
hear them not because ye are not from God.’
Jesus
when
reviled, reviles not again, but commits Himself to
Him that judges
righteously, as He does here. ‘There
is One that seeks
My glory, and will judge.’
48-50. ‘The
Jews answered and said unto Him, “Say we not well
that
Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a demon?” Jesus
answered, “I have not a demon,
but honour My Father, and ye are dishonouring Me! Now I am
not seeking My own glory; there is
one who is seeking it, and judging.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, If any keep
My word, he shall not survey
Death for ever.”
By
‘the Jews’ here are
meant the men of Moses who
refused our Lord altogether; as distinguished from
the disciples previously
named. They
now no longer keep any
terms; but in the bitterness of their spirit fall to
reviling Him. Twice
they had pronounced our Lord inspired
by a demon, and co-operating with Beelzebub. Though
warned of this as being the
unpardonable sin, they continue it still.
In
the
Saviour’s reply we see how far we may go in
controversy. He
denies the untruth; He shows them the real
state of the case between Him and them.
They refused as a blasphemer Him whom the
Father sent into the world to
save it. Jesus
was true to His
mission. As
they dishonoured the Son,
they dishonoured also the Father who had sent Him.
Our
Lord
had taken away from them the glory of being the true
children of God.
Then He must be a Samaritan, one of the
rival
nation! He
had called them ‘sons of the
Devil.’
They then pronounce Him inspired of an evil
spirit! ‘Say we not well?’
denotes that this was not the first
occasion
of their so [Page 385] saying. They hold fast
then to
their previous word, ‘He
hath Beelzebub, and by the
prince of demons He casteth out demons.’
Let us seek the glory of God by
obedience,*
and commit our cause to the God who judges
righteously. Though
all the world be against us, the truth will at
length appear, to our joy.
[*
That
is, the ‘glory’ which
Satan – as the god of this age – offered to
our Lord at His first advent which He refused. It is that
same ‘glory,’
which will ‘cover the earth
as the waters cover the sea’
immediately after His second
advent: and it is this same ‘glory’
which Satan has always been busying himself in blinding
the minds of
unbelieving Christians!
2 Cor. 4: 4.
cf.
Matt. 25: 31; Luke 4: 6;
9: 26; Hab. 2:14; Heb. 2:
10; 1 Pet. 1: 7.]
‘There is One who is seeking and
judging.’ Here is a
reference to that word in Deuteronomy that whoever
would not listen to the words
of the prophet whom God would send in place of
Moses, God would require it of
him, and cut him off from the
congregation of
How
the
Father would glorify the Son, they would one day,
to their amazement and
dismay, find out.
‘The Father who had sent Him.’
Does
not
this verse prove clearly the existence of two
persons: the one, the Sender;
the other, the Sent?
This is said
against those who would make of Father, Son, and
Spirit, only one Person under
three names.
Claims
of
Godhead coming from a man would prove the seeking of
his own glory.
But they were put forth by Jesus, not in His
own interest, as coveting glory from man; but as
seeking the glory of His
Father.
There
was
one - the Father Himself, who was seeking at all
events to have His Son
glorified. It
is with this aim that all
things were made.
Jesus is the Creator, Preserver, Heir of all things.
Thus the Jews and God were opposed entirely
in plans and in spirit.
And the Most
High would one day regard them as His enemies, to be
destroyed. He
would avenge these bitter revilings as the
highest treason.
Christ
shall
be glorified whoever may resist.
Woe to
the foes at last who are put beneath His
footstool!
But
He
desires not their destruction; He would, if He
might, still win them.
‘He shall not behold death for
ever.’
This is the true rendering.
[Page 386] And I understand
it to be affirmed by our Lord, that Abraham would
not for ever be called to
gaze on ‘Death’ - as the place. While
Abraham
himself is in
The
keeping
of Christ’s word means the believing its doctrinal
truth, and obeying
the commands of Christ.
52, 53. ‘The
Jews said to Him, “Now we know that Thou hast a
demon. Abraham
died and the prophets,
and Thou sayest, ‘If a man keep My word he shall
not taste death for
ever.’ Art
Thou greater than our Father
Abraham, and he died? and the prophets died.
Whom makest Thou Thyself?”’
The
Jews
take our Lord’s words to signify that the observers
of His doctrine should
never
die. And
now, they think, He has run against a
manifest absurdity.
Whatever might be their
doubts about some of His mysterious speeches, they
can doubt now no
longer. Here
is untruth, which could
only proceed from one taught by a demon.
He had claimed Abraham, as on His side.
And did not Abraham die?
Yet He
had said that the observer of His words should not
die. And
the prophets too!
They had died. Had they not kept His
word? Did
Jesus mean to ascribe to
Himself and His word a greater power of life than
belonged to Abraham and the
prophets? Yes!
For He is life itself!
Did
He
mean to exalt Himself above Abraham and the
prophets? They
had died; had been obliged to submit to
death. Was
He not Himself to die?
Whom would He make Himself out to be? Thus the
question still turns on who this
Jesus is? Thus
was it with the Samaritan
woman. ‘Art Thou
greater than our father Jacob?’
But she was willing to listen.
These would not.
John Baptist had
attested, that this Comer from heaven was above all;
that the Father had given
all things into
[Page 387]
His hand; and
that
the question of life or death eternal turns on our
reception or refusal of the
Son of God. So
then we would press this
on all: ‘Is Jesus Christ
the Son of the Father?’
They pretend to find in
Christ an ambitious and vain
man, seeking His own glory. Instead whereof He put
off His glory, and
emptied Himself, content to appear as the servant
only, the greatest example of
humility, and therefore exalted by God.
54,55. ‘Jesus
answered, “If I am glorifying Myself, My glory is
naught. It
is My Father who is
glorifying Me, of whom ye say that He is our God. And ye
know Him not, but I know Him.
And if I should say I know Him not I
should
be like yourselves, a liar.
But I know
Him, and keep His word.”’
To
their
minds this was all vain glory, a seeking to exalt
Himself above His
due. ‘He
indeed equal
to Moses!
Far from it!
Moses’ equal was never to
be among the sons of men!’
But
this was a mistake.
The Saviour was not
seeking their praise.
He was seeking the
Father’s. He
knew that the statement of
His just claims would but provoke their fierce
displeasure. But
as the Father had sent Him to declare to
men salvation through the Son owing to the Father’s
mercy, He was carrying out
the Father’s purposes, even unto death.
The
miracles
which He wrought were given by the Father to glorify
Christ. They
might with impunity resist His
testimony, if He were merely a vain man seeking to
exalt Himself above, His
fellows. But
if God were glorifying Jesus
as His Son, high above all, how solemn a thing it
was that they were fighting
against God, and must suffer disastrous and eternal
defeat
It was the Father who had put on Jesus
the honour of being the
Seed and Heir of
Abraham to whom the promises were made, yea, the
Priest-King, Melchizedek, by
whose agency and power the hopes of Abraham are to
be fulfilled [literally] in millennial
days.
Should
He,
to please them, disown His high relationship to the
Father! He
would, in so doing, be disobeying the
Father who commissioned Him to reveal Himself thus.
Vainly does any one call
Jehovah ‘his God’ if
He know Him not.
Nor is God to be known, save in Christ
Jesus,
and God’s words through Him.
[Page 388]
Was
Jehovah
their God? How
then were they so
industrious in depressing Him whom their God loved
to honour above all that had
preceded? They
knew not God, for they
hated Christ, His express image.
Jesus
then
claims that Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament,
was His Father.
‘The men of
enlightenment’ of yore distinguished, as we
have observed, between the
Creator and the God of the Jews on the one hand, and
the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ on the other.
Here Jesus
owns the God of
Yet
they
did not know Jehovah, they had not accepted the main
lessons taught by
Moses and the prophets, and the view they gave
concerning the justice of God,
and the Son of Man, even Him who was to bring in
righteousness and life, as the
basis of all Israel’s hopes.
56-59. ‘“Abraham
your father rejoiced that he should see My day:
and
he saw it, and was glad.”
Therefore said
the Jews unto Him, “Thou art not yet fifty years
old, and hast Thou seen
Abraham?” Jesus
said unto them, “Verily,
verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was born, I
am.” They
took up therefore stones to cast at Him:
but Jesus hid Himself, and went out from the
temple.’
In
the
words which follow, our Lord proceeds to assert His
[Page
389]
essential superiority above
Abraham, greatly as He knew that it
would exasperate them.
The
Saviour
now asserts His place of superiority to Abraham. (1) First
with regard to Abraham’s death.
Abraham did see death in his dying, but he should
not for ever. The
promises of God to Abraham
suppose his resurrection before the earth is
destroyed. Then
restored
to his body, his soul will no longer be
left in Hades,
but will possess the land of promise.
The
greatness
of Jesus’ superiority, then, was seen in this, that
Abraham looked to
Christ as the Great Redeemer and fulfiller of all
the hopes to Abraham;
the Jehovah, indeed, who by His power would
bring in the resurrection [out] of the dead.
Abraham
knew that
he was to die, and be buried, and that hundreds of
years
should pass ere his hopes were fulfilled.
But he
trusted in One whose power
would bring in resurrection.
But God
promised Him an
Individual Heir to whom all the promises were
made, and Christ was that heir
(Gen. 15: 4-15).
‘My day.’ The
coming
day is characterized by its belonging to Christ. It is
the day of the Lord, in which all the
promises are included. Some
endeavour to make the words, ‘He
saw and rejoiced’ refer to some discovery
of Christ
made to Abraham after death, and at the time of His
(Christ’s) appearing on
earth. But
the words will not bear any
such thought. They
would then have been,
‘He saw and rejoices,’
or
‘He sees and rejoices.” As
they
stand the words intimate that both the sight and the
joy were past, because
both refer to the time of Abraham’s life in the
flesh.
The
Jews
understand the death of Abraham as being a clear
refutation of Jesus’
assertion, that the observers of His word should not
see death. To
my eye Jesus affirms only, that Abraham
should not be held for ever under its bonds.
Hence it runs just parallel with ‘The
gates
of
Hades
shall not prevail
against My church.’
Abraham at the Saviour’s first coming
did not cease to contemplate death, whether by that
we understand generally
that (1) seated among the dead he beholds the souls of men continually
[Page 390]
entering into
the place of the dead; or
whether (2) taking Death as the place of the wicked
dead, we mean that he will
one day in resurrection be moved away from beholding
the place of the wicked
dead, for he
will then walk before the
Lord in the land of the living.
It
respects the time, then, when at Jesus’ return,
death shall be swallowed up in
victory, and the cry of the ransomed shall be, ‘0 Death,
where is thy sting?
0 Hades,
where is thy victory?’
Abraham
is still dead, and that day
of Christ is only to be seen in the
resurrection [out] from the dead. Till
then,
God is not showing Himself to he the God of
Abraham.
Abraham
rejoiced
that he should see ‘My day.’ Then Jesus
was a greater than Abraham.
Abraham was waiting for the time when his
Seed
should put forth His power against His foes, and on
behalf of Abraham himself
and of his two seeds after the flesh and the spirit. ‘My
day,’
signifies chiefly ‘My
day of glory, and
of the millennial Kingdom.’
This is seen in the Saviour’s words (Luke
17.).
‘When is the
Then
they
would be in danger of being misled by false Christs
pointed out on
earth. But
all such pretences would be
tested by this – ‘Jesus when He came would fill the sky in an instant with glory, and would
need no one to point Him out!’
Then would be days of unbelief, and of
destruction of the wicked, the few righteous suddenly caught away, like Enoch,
to the ark above, and so kept
out of the flood of wrath below.
So in the earthly escape out of
The
promises
then to Abraham assure to him a place in that day
of the millennial
kingdom of heaven. He is then
to
arise, and enjoy the
We
may
say that Abraham saw Christ, both (1) in the
promises of the coming
millennial day, and (2) also in the typical events
which befel our Lord during
His life. These are written
for us children of Abraham, that we also may
behold the coming day of the Son
of Man, and may have our part in it (Gen. 18).
Jesus’
second
coming is ‘the day.’ For He is the light of the world.
Now it is night.
His coming, too,
will put an end to the world’s winter.
The
Redeemer
takes, then, the place of the Seed of
Abraham,
such as He exhibited Himself to Moses
at the bush when He began the deliverance of
He
takes
also the place of the God of
Abraham
to whom the promises were made,
excluding the sons of Abraham’s flesh for their
unbelief. ‘The sons of the
kingdom shall be cast out into the darkness in
that day’ (Matt.
8: 12).
Abraham,
in
some of the scenes of his life which are written for
us, saw, by the
teaching of God, types of that coming kingdom of
glory.
1. He beheld then in the type of Isaac raised (in a figure) from the
dead, that the promises were to come to him through
his Individual Heir after
His being slain, and raised.
It was over
the risen Isaac that the Angel-Jehovah uttered His
oath never to be
recalled. When those
promises (Gen. 22.)
are fulfilled, Messiah’s
day of glory will have come.
[Page 392]
2. So in the battle and slaughter of the kings, the meeting with
Melchizedec - the priest-king, and the blessing he
received at His hands,
Abraham beheld the day of Christ.
These
scenes
are written for us, as the sons of Abraham, the man
of faith, that we
also may behold that coming day, may
seek it, win it, and rejoice.
Here, then, our Lord owns the
millennial hopes of the Jews, as set forth in the
Law and the Prophets. This
appeals against the Gnosticism of the
day of John, and of our own.
But
the
Jews do not rise to the greatness of the Saviour’s
meaning in these
words. They see not that
here He gives Himself out as the object of
Abraham’s hope, who would by
Almighty power in resurrection fulfil the
promises to Abraham.
They
understand
Him only to say – ‘That He
had had the
honour of seeing Abraham’: an honour which
they would greatly have
coveted, and boasted of, as a thing of the flesh. They burst
out then in indignation and
astonishment at His rash and false boast of having seen the patriarch!
‘Why, the
patriarch
lived nearly two thousand years ago! and you are
not fifty yet!
The thing is absurd, and impossible!’
The
Saviour
then will rectify their mistake by a further claim,
which supposes
Godhead.
In
these
words Jesus indicates His superiority of essence
above the very father of
the faithful! Abraham
‘was born.’
He
began to be. Jesus
had no beginning of
existence. ‘I AM!’
58. ‘Before
Abraham was born, I
AM.’
With
solemn
emphasis He assures them that while Abraham began to
be, he Himself was
always existing. Though as a man He was not fifty
years old, as the Son of God
He was from all eternity.
Thus the
Apostle John by our Lord’s own words is establishing
the positions with which
his Gospel set out, that Jesus is God, from eternity
with God.
The
Saviour,
therefore, here affirms His two natures, and asserts
His independent
and eternal existence; by consequence, therefore,
His Godhead. And
the Jews understand it so.
[Page 393]
‘Whom makest Thou Thyself?’ “The
“I AM”
that spake to Moses, the
Jehovah that appeared to Abraham.’
But
how
then do Unitarians and others explain away these
words? They
say, Jesus only meant, that He existed as
Messiah in God’s counsels before Abraham ‘was
born.’
But so did Adam, so did those Jews, His
enemies. Besides, it is not ‘was,’
as that idea
supposes; but ‘I am.’ And had
the Jews so understood it, they would
not have attempted to deal with the Lord as a
blasphemer. ‘0 Jews, you cannot
understand how I should have seen Abraham.
But, I tell you, I existed in God’s
counsels long before Abraham was
born!’
What was that to the
purpose? The
other is full to the point.
The
Son
exists from eternity.
But they give
Him not worship, they would have stoned Him.
But His time was not come.
He
smites them not, however, but only hides, and
withdraws. Behold
herein another forth-putting of power.
So
shall
He one day take His people away from their
persecutors, and hide them
with Himself in His pavilion of peace.
Reader,
which
will you do? Worship
Christ as the
Son of God? or stone Him as a blasphemer?
There is no third moral position allowable!
Let
us
seek to have part now in Abraham’s joy, in the
believing apprehension of
Christ’s coming day and kingdom! To
enter into the joy of our Lord as
His good and approved servants will
be joy indeed!
The
Jews
understand not the speech of the Son of God.
Will they understand His works, the works
of
God? No: they close their eyes, lest they should be
converted, and be healed.
To
Moses
Jehovah gave three miracles as signs of His mission. So John
cites three especial acts of Christ
as His credentials to His people.
(1)
The impotent healed.
‘The lame walk.’
(2) The blind from birth made to see.
(3) The dead raised.
Lazarus is brought
out of the tomb.
Each sign increases in
might, and out of this one Jesus preaches the
Gospel. But
*
*
*
CHAPTER 9
THE MAN
BORN BLIND
[Page 394]
1-3. ‘And
going away from thence He saw a man blind from his
birth. And
His disciples asked Him,
saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his
parents, that he should be born
blind?” Jesus
answered. “Neither
did this man sin, nor his parents, but
(he was born blind)
in order that the works of
God might be manifested in Him.”’
We lose often somewhat of force and
meaning by the sharp division of chapters, and by
our reading but one at a
time. Thus
we often miss
the connection with what precedes.
How wonderful
that Jesus was so calm, as at once after the attempt
to stone Him, to speak,
and to act in the healing of this man!
It was doubtless near the temple that the
blind man sat or stood, as we
find in the lame man’s case (Acts
3.).
Blindness
is
very common in Eastern lands, and especially in
Neither
We
are
apt to interpret as chastisement from God the trials
that befall our
brethren. We
are apt to overlook any
such meaning in what befalls ourselves.
But
this
shows, that what we call ‘accidental’
has
its meaning in the plan of God.
Why this man
rather than that is [Page
395]
blind, or breaks his
arm, we cannot tell.
But God knows why.
The
results
of sin are sickness, suffering, and death, in
various forms.
The disciples wished to know whether special
sin
was the cause of the blindness; sin of the parents,
or of the man.
This
seems
to prove that the doctrine of a previous existence
was one which obtained
among the Jews.
Some have held that the
trials, and even the stations of each at birth,
befall men in consequence of
the offences of a former life.
Some
believed, that there was at death the change of a
soul from the old body into a
new one. This
seems to be supposed by Herod,
when he imagined that Jesus was John the Baptist
whom he had slain.
Our
Lord
denies that the affliction was the consequence of
special sin on the part
of the man or his parents.
It
is
true that sickness is the direct consequence of
certain sins. Thus
leprosy was inflicted on Miriam, on King
Ahaz, and Gehazi, as the result of special sin.
Jesus implied the same in regard of the
impotent man, whom He healed at
When
we
see the lame and the blind, let us give thanks to
God who has given us feet
and eyes!
In
this
instance we see from our Lord’s words another source
of the trials of
life. They
are designed to glorify
God. This
is indeed the master-key that
opens everything, and which embraces also the cases
of sickness, suffering, and
death, sent in punishment of sin.
All
things
are designed by God for His own
glory. Everyone
is
a vessel either of wrath, or of glory.
This is the main reason of creation.
God is a sovereign.
Earth is His
estate, and it is governed for His glory primarily.
The creature man is not His
[Page 396] first end in
what He does. It
is by supposing the
contrary that many fall into insuperable spiritual
difficulties.
‘Neither did this man sin nor his
parents.’
I wonder that this text has never been
quoted
in proof, that there are some men who never sinned! Of course, these words must be taken in connexion with the question
to which they are the answer; and then our Lord
meant only, ‘That neither
sin on the part of the man or of his parents
was the direct cause of the blindness from birth.’
What
was
the reason then of this calamity?
‘That the works of
God might be manifested in Him.’
Thus
Lazarus
died to glorify the Son of God.
Thus Jesus, speaking of Peter’s decease,
foretold by what death he
should glorify God (John
21.).
‘The works of God’ were to
be evidenced in Him.
None but one possessed of Almighty power
could bestow sight in such a case.
‘The works of God’ are
works of supernatural energy,
proper to God alone.
And Jesus was to
exhibit them; in proof, that is, of His Godhead. For that
is the force of the Saviour’s words.
That was the great truth, in opposition
whereto the unbelieving Jews had just taken up
stones to destroy our Lord.
The
Most
High would have us glorify Himself, actively, and
passively. (1)
Actively, as seeking His honour, not our
own. ‘Whether ye
eat or drink, do all to the glory of God.’ He smites
also what takes away from His glory.
So we see that Herod was cut off, because
he
gave not God the glory.
(2) Passively, where we
cannot act, but are called to
endure what befalls us as from God.
‘For none of us
liveth to himself, and none dieth to himself.’
4. ‘I
must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it
is
day. The
night is coming in which none
can work. While I am in the world I am the Light
of the world.’
The
Son
was sent to work the works of God, as sent and
deputed by the Father.
Thus Jesus ever keeps before His own eye
and
ours His willing subordination.
He was
the angel of [Page 397] the Lord, as being sent; no longer now of the angelic nature, but a
man. And
to Him as man, a certain time
of life was allotted, in which to accomplish the
Father’s will.
While He died not, as we do, because of our
sin; for in Him was no sin; yet He was to give up
life. And
His ‘day’
therefore, like ours, was to have an end.
He had just received a sharp testimony of the
nearness of the close, in
the Jews’ attempt at stoning Him.
His work
of service to the Father in displaying His acts of
power and grace was nearly
at an end. To
us also this principle
applies. Brief is our time (Eccls. 9:
10).
Let us use it for Christ our Lord!
Let
us
not misuse it as if given for ourselves alone. It is not
to be idled away.
We
shall give account, and the
unprofitable
servant receives chastisement at last, and not
commendation or
reward.
This life is the time in
which to put forth our best efforts.
For
our station
in eternity depends upon our
conduct now.
What place we shall
fill in God’s great palace as a vessel of gold, or
of silver, of honour, or of
dishonour, turns upon our way and work now (2 Tim.
2).
Most are misusing their time.
Very many of God’s people are
misemploying it.
Let it not be so with us!
Death
cuts
short, not existence altogether,
but a peculiar form of life.
Activity
ceases. It
is described as a ‘sleep.’ The man is ‘unclothed.’
He will rise again clothed; but then
will be
a new sphere of activity.
Our
Lord
here takes the place of the sun.
What the sun is to the natural world, He is
to the spiritual.
But He was going to leave it, and darkness
would fall on
Thus,
John
is again confirming the great principles he has
alleged concerning our
Lord in his preface.
[Page 398]
Jesus
was
Jehovah the Healer, according to the promise (Exodus
15.).
John had testified of Him, that
He was ‘the light of men’
(1: 4), Whose
light, however, was not accepted,
either by
Then
came
the work which proved these words to be no idle
boast.
6. ‘When
He had so said, He spit on the ground, and made
clay of
the spittle, and anointed with the clay the eyes
of the blind man, and said
unto him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.”
He went away therefore, and washed himself,
and came seeing.’
This
was
a ‘work of God.’ It
had reference to previous works of God.
In the beginning Jehovah had said, when all
around was darkness, ‘Let
light be!’ and light was.
He had also made orbs of light to diffuse
light on earth, and to distinguish day from night. Jesus then
was the greater light, the ruler
of day, about to set; and to leave the church, as
the lesser light to rule the
night of His absence.
For the church as
kindled by Christ is the other ‘light
of the world.’
Jesus’
making
the clay had a purposed contrariety to the Sabbath
of Moses. It
was to their eyes ‘brick-making,’ a servile work, forbidden on the Sabbath day.
But was the opening of the eyes of one born
blind, a servile work?
No! It
was
the work of the great Creator, ‘Jehovah
the Healer’
who made the seeing or the blind.
They
refuse our Lord’s words of claim, they refuse the
works of mastery whereby He
sustains His pretensions.
They set Moses
against Christ; and so remain under blindness, and
the curse. While
they refuse the waters of
[Page 399]
Jesus
has
just before declared Himself the Sent One (8:
16-18,
26-29; and especially 9:
4).
But
though
natural light was shining, to this blind man it was
as yet in vain.
Jesus would therefore bestow light on
him. He
does it in a very peculiar way,
designed, as I suppose, to recall another work of
God at the beginning.
For we read, ‘And
the
Lord God moulded man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became
a living soul,’ Gen.
2: 7. [Heb.].
In
this
case there is life, but not light.
The latter blessing the Most High would
communicate. He
could have done so without the clay, or
the water of Siloam.
But it is God’s
manner to work according to a former pattern. Thus
in things temporal we
recognize the artist.
We say of a piece
of music, ‘That must be
Handel’s, it is so exactly his
style.’ ‘That
picture must be Rembrandt’s; look
at the colouring, and the disposition of the light
and shade!’
In the formation of Adam, life was to be
bestowed; and the Lord breathed into his nostrils,
and he became a living soul.
In this
case light is to be given: the
eyes are touched with the clay and spittle.
Neither alone would have satisfied our Lord’s
mind. We
should have thought the clay more likely
to take away sight from the seeing, than to impart
it to the blind.
But thus the serpent of brass was appointed
to procure life to those stung by the serpents.
Thus Elijah’s cruse of salt cast into the
fountain of
This
obedient
one goes to God’s Sent One in order to find healing,
and gets it. Let
us not stumble at the strangeness and
meanness of the means used, if the end be blessing. Clay might
be a strange eye-salve, but in
God’s hands it wrought sight!
[Page 400]
But
now
let us regard the typical meaning of this sign. By the man
blind from his birth is meant
The
Lord
came to give sight to the blind as foretold, to
prove Himself thus the
Lord. ‘The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind; the
Lord raiseth
them that are bowed down; the Lord loveth the
righteous.’ Ps.
146: 8.
He came ‘To open the
blind eyes, to bring out
the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit
in darkness out of the prison
house.’ Is.
47: 7.
But His coming in this humble station, and in
the likeness of sinful flesh, was a stumbling-block
to
Thus
was
fulfilled the word of Isaiah
6.
An
awful
page of their history has in consequence yet to be
unfolded, as testified
in a following chapter of Isaiah.
This
chapter of our Gospel shows how they refused ‘the
waters of
This
scene
then may remind us of 2
Cor. 3.
These readers of Moses had a veil on their
hearts while they read him, and only when they
should turn to the Lord the
Spirit, would the veil be taken off, and they behold
in Jesus, not the impious
one to be stoned, but the Son of God to be adored. By the
clay on the eyes - a hindrance to the
sight - may be figured the ordinances of Moses,
which they refused to put away
at the word of Jesus, the true Sent One.
To them nature’s blindness was increased by
their fierce retention of
Moses in the presence of the foretold Son of God. His waters
flow softly, not like the
trumpet-words from the mount of thunder and storm. But they
refused them.
The
Sabbath
of Moses is the hindrance here to their seeing the
true Sent One.
They would keep the clay, and they become
doubly blind, and the Saviour pronounces them so. In the
presence of the Light of the World,
they remain dark.
We
have
now the trial to which the miracle was subjected. Those who
live near him, and those who recognized
him as a regular beggar because of his blindness,
were surprised at the
change. They
remember him as the man
that used to sit, probably every day at the same
spot, and beg.
But the change which his sight has produced
in his face is so great that some are in doubt.
‘It must be somebody
who was like him; how can
it be the same man?
Why the beggar was
born blind!’
Yes; but now no one
like that beggar sits where he used to do.
Ask him.
He said, ‘I am the
man.’
‘How then were thine
eyes opened?’
The Most High would not allow this
wonderful
work [Page 402] to pass
unnoticed. (1)
It was a testimony to the
Son of God, by whom and for whom all things were
made. (2)
It was also to furnish a test of the
state of
11. ‘He
answered and said, “A man that is called Jesus
made clay,
and anointed mine eyes, and said to me, “Go to the
pool of Siloam, and
wash.” I
went then and washed, and I
received sight.’
The
man
in his reply takes up the main features of the case,
those which were
essential to
‘A man named Jesus made clay,
and anointed my eyes,
and said to me, “Go to the pool of
Siloam and wash thyself.”
He attended to
these commands, and as the result, obtained his
sight.’
They
enquire
about the manner in which the miracle was wrought. They pass
by the fact of it, which was the main point.
If Jesus had really wrought the miracle, it
showed such Divine power and
authority that it must over-rule objection as to the
manner. Is
it the power of God?
How then do you call God in question?
‘The man is not from God,’
say you. But
what says the miracle?
Is not this power from Him who gave the
Sabbath and now withdraws it?
There was
a Sabbath-breaker once who gathered sticks, and his
case was referred to
Johovah. The
man was seized and
stoned. No
power of miracle on his part
delivered him from
They
say
unto him, “Where is He?”
He saith, “I know not.”
The
discussion
of the question must now come before other eyes. The
Pharisees were to give judgment in the
case. The
seeing beggar is to give
evidence before the learned and strict religionists
of his day. For
this matter again stirs the controversy
between Jesus and the Jews about the Sabbath.
The [Page
403] Sabbath then is a Jewish thing,
and any
infringement of it the men of Law regard as an
offence against Moses.
And Jesus had
purposely so wrought the miracle, as again to bring
up the question of His
breaking the Sabbath.
He had made
clay
on that day.
Now was not that a servile work?
If he might do so, might not the
brick-maker
make his bricks on that day?
He anointed
the man’s eyes with the clay.
Here is
another work. May
not the chemist mix
his ointments and spread his plasters?
He bids him go to Siloam and wash himself. All this
on the Sabbath!
Now this was not necessary to the miracle.
A
word, or a touch of the eyes with the Saviour’s
fingers would have been
enough. But
He
does it
purposely thus to prove to
On
the
former occasion, when Jesus healed the impotent man
at
Jesus,
now
directly Himself acts in breach of the Sabbath. He does
not command the blind man to make the
clay and spread it on his eyes; He does so Himself. Yet out of
this very unlawful act (in Moses’
view) springs the miracle which staggers them.
He must lead them out from Moses and his
commanded sabbath-rest, into a rest
given of God;
and this is the
way in which He would guide them.
Is not
the Lord pointing at Isaiah
28: 9-12, ‘Whom
shall He teach knowledge? and whom shall He make
to
understand doctrine? them that are [Page 404] weaned
from the milk, and drawn from the
breasts. For
precept must be upon
precept, precept upon precept line upon line, line
upon line; here a little,
and there a little: For with stammering lips and
another tongue will He speak
to this people.
To whom He said, “This
is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to
rest; and this is the
refreshing: yet they would not hear.”’
Things
have
advanced. Jesus
has in the temple,
before His foes, claimed to be God; escaping from
their wrath by putting forth
His divine
power to conceal Himself.
As soon as He is out of their hands and
sight, He does this new work of God to establish His
claims. This
is no ‘servile
work,’ if it be regarded as the act of
God. But
if He be but a mere man and Israelite,
it was the broach of Moses’ Law.
The
Pharisees,
then, the servants of Law, justifying themselves,
and therefore
opposed to Christ, interrogate this healed one, and
again bring out the
Law-forbidden work.
On
this
second occasion, the healed man is more brief, and
does not name the making
clay, but anointing his eyes therewith.
Still it was ruled as unlawful by the later
Jews for a man even to
anoint his own eyes with his saliva.
Then
came
forth their judgment against Him – ‘This
man is not from
God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath.’
But
lo!
here is an astonishing miracle, never before
wrought, before their
eyes. What
say they to that?
Would
Jehovah give authority to an offender - who never
came from Him, while He
impiously professed He did, and asserted His
possession of the same nature - to
do such wonders?
Would He allow the
water of Siloam, the same water which had been so
lately brought into His house
as the joy of the feast, to be employed against Him?
This
stopped
them. Jesus
wielded at His will
the power of God.
Did He not also act
according to the mind of God?
Allow Him
to be a ‘prophet’
only. Still
they held that a Prophet could command
anything but idolatry.
Hence
men’s
minds, as is usual in balancing of evidence, take
different sides.
There was ‘a schism,’
a
division of feeling and [Page 405] spirit about the matter. (1)
Some
held the Sabbath-law to be
first and supreme, and they refused the evidence of
the miracle. (2)
Some, on the other hand, held fast by the
Miracle, and felt
unable to condemn the worker
as a Sabbath-breaker, guilty
of an offence against God which
God, by Moses, adjudged to be worthy of death.
Is Jesus sent of God?
‘Look at His
breach of Moses’ Law!’ said some. ‘Look
at His works of wonder, greater than those of
Moses!’
said others.
We
can
see how both sides of the sign which Jesus had
wrought, load us in the true
way. This miracle was a sign. It was a
sign, calling Moses in question, and
showing the divine power of the foretold Prophet
who was to supersede Moses and
his old rest, bringing in to
all who
would obey Him the eyesight of the
soul, and [a sabbath-*]rest in Another’s
work.
[*
See Heb.
4: 14-11.]
17. ‘They
say therefore, to the blind man again, “What
sayest thou
concerning Him, because He opened thine eyes?”
But he said, “He is a Prophet.”’
They
are
unwilling to let the affair rest thus undecided -
themselves being divided
into two parties.
They would know, then,
what ideas the man entertained concerning Jesus His
benefactor. This
was a matter on which he might have
refused to answer.
They were to be
judges of the facts: not of his thoughts.
If he answered, that he believed Jesus to be
the Messiah, they would
have put him out of the synagogue.
The
man replies, that he considers this miracle a proof
that Jesus is a
Prophet. And
that, they could not deny, was most reasonable.
If all the people held John to be a
Prophet,
though he did no miracle, how much more must the
Saviour be so regarded by His
enemies even, for He did many miracles.
This reply then but strengthens the cause
against them. ‘Jesus, then, is a
man sent from God, and this miracle (or sign) is
the proof of it.’
Then
they
assail the reality of the miracle;
for that was the great obstacle against the firmness of their
conclusion. They
will know whether the
man was really blind and born blind; for on this last feature rested the stress of the
wonder. They
cite before them therefore
(they form evidently a court of justice) the [Page 406]
parents of the healed blind.
The two or three witnesses in this case
then
give agreeing testimony – ‘This
is our son, and he was
born blind.’
They
doubt
the reality of the miracle only because it bears
against their
views. Had
any one of their own sect
wrought such a wonder, they would have deemed it
blindness and hardness of
heart to question such a miracle! Justice judges of
persons by their
works. Prejudice
refuses works because
of the person.
Jesus
must
be ‘the Stone rejected by
the builders,’
and here they are really seated in judgment on Him.
‘How then does he now see?’
On this point the parents
decline giving evidence.
They were
neither eye nor ear-witnesses to the matter.
Their son, then, should in this act and speak
for himself. He
was come to an age to be responsible for
his actions.
John
then
interposes a remark as to the origin of this reply
of his parents.
They were afraid to give testimony on this
matter. For
the Jews had determined to
reject, as no longer a disciple of Moses, those who
confessed Jesus to be the
Messiah. They
wished, therefore, to lay
on the shoulders of their son the responsibility. They knew,
but declined to give evidence; to
save themselves from the loss of their character as
disciples of Law.
How
like
is the spirit of the blind man’s parents to
multitudes in our day!
They have not enough confidence in the
truth
to meet the trials into which confession of the
truth would lead. Parents,
if
you wish your children to be decided for God, be
yourselves also decided!
The
decision,
then, of the Jews in regard of the case pending is
very significant
spiritually. Every
society rests on some
principles that are essential to it.
Within certain limits differences of views,
feelings, and actions may be
borne with by members of the society.
There are other views and acts which are, or are esteemed to be, so
opposed to the society, that persons in that
sort guilty are no longer to be
tolerated; but are put out of the association,
as no longer worthy to be of it.
[Page 407] In the Jews’
eyes,
then, the confession of Jesus to be the Messiah was
enough to subject a Jew to
be no longer owned a Jew, or a worshipper with them
in the synagogue.
Admit Jesus to be the Christ, and they must
own the lawfulness of His setting aside the
Sabbath-rest of the Law.
For Moses himself charged his disciples,
whenever the prophet like himself should come, that
they were fully to obey
Him. Nay,
God Himself would be
displeased with any one who stood out in
disobedience.
This
incident,
then, was of God.
It was the
way in which He was preparing freedom for believers
in Christ from the Law of
Moses. We
see the ripened fruit of this
to us, in Paul’s words (Col.
2: 16), ‘Let no man
therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in
respect of a feast, or of the new moon, or of the
Sabbath days.’
Christ is our Teacher: Jesus is the Son
of God, and He has set us free from Moses.
24. ‘They
called therefore the second time the man who had
been
blind, and say to Him, “Give God the glory; we
know that this man is a sinner.”
He therefore answered – “Whether He be a
sinner, I know not; one thing I know, that whereas
I was blind, now I see.”’
They
are
displeased even at the man’s reasonable assertion,
that Jesus was a
prophet, and wish him to retract his belief and his
confession to that effect!
Their
words
are like Joshua’s to Achan (Josh.
7: 19),
bidding him tell the truth, and to confess, after
God had discovered his sin.
But as regards their meaning, they wish him to unsay what he has said in Jesus’ favour. They
desire
to set a gulf between Jesus and God.
Jesus asserts the most entire sympathy and
unity of nature between
Himself and God His Father.
And this and
other works of power seem to attest the truth of His
words. How, then, can they
prove the sinfulness of Jesus, beside the working of
miracles so splendid?
They call in Moses to their aid.
But Moses confesses he is to be in force
only
for a time; then he is to give way to a Greater than
himself. This
conclusion they refuse; and thus, with a
vain pretence of being Moses’ friends, they are
doubly condemned by him.
[Page 408]
‘God cannot lend His aid to a
Sabbath breaker; therefore the
miracle attributed to Jesus is not real.’ The proof
of the reality of the miracle,
therefore, overturns their charge of Jesus’
rejection by God as a wilful
sinner. The
blind man regards the
miracle as due to the Saviour’s having asked the
power from God to do the great
work. The result, then, was the proof of His
prevalence with God and of His
favour with Him.
Could the Pharisees do
such a work?
He
must
say, if he would please them, that he had indeed
received his cure from
Jesus, but that now he must withdraw all glory from
Him as the agent of his
cure, and give it to God alone, because the healing
had been effected in so
irregular and unlawful a mode.
The
healed man must take their word for it, that his
Healer is a sinner, and never
commissioned by Jehovah.
They were able,
on principles which he in his ignorance must not
question, to affirm this, and
to demand the withdrawal of his opinion in Jesus’
favour.
Herein
the
Pharisees were going beyond lawful judicial limits. They were
not empowered to examine the man’s
belief about Jesus, and they must remove the
evidence to His being a prophet
before they could justly require him to assert Jesus
to be a sinner.
The man’s common sense perceived this.
He sees in effect, This is not the question
before us. What
are your views or mine
about Jesus, are things foreign to the matter in
hand. You call me to testify
about facts to which I am privy.
Let us keep to them! I simply
then reassert my former
witness! This
stopped them. It
was a word in season.
They
will
return then to the facts
of the case, specially to the
point so obnoxious to them, the healing on the
Sabbath, and the healing by
making clay, and then requiring the washing it off
again in a sacred pool.
How
sad
the blindness of those who defend Moses against
Christ, and prefer the Law
which condemns them, to the Son of God who gives
sight and salvation!
Concerning
our
spiritual condition we ought to be like the blind
man, clear and firm. ‘One
thing I know.’ I have much to [Page 409] learn yet. But here I feel
certain! I
am sure I see what the men of
the world do not.
26. ‘They
said therefore to him, “What did He to thee? How
opened
He thine eyes?”’
What
an
exemplification of those words of John, ‘The
light
shineth in the darkness, and the darkness
comprehendeth it not.’
The
man
has become impatient at being called so often over
the same ground.
He has nothing to add to or to detract from
his former testimony; why then will they go over it
again? He
can but assert anew the points which so
vexed them - the breach of the Sabbath; and yet the
miraculous recovery of
sight occurring in the very way of Jesus’ command in
contravention of Moses’
Sabbath-Law! They
have then the problem
before them. They
cannot deny, either
the miracle on the one hand, or the breach of Moses’
Sabbath on the other. They
turn from side to side, but find no outlet.
They will not admit the true meaning of the
sign, its testimony to the
dignity of the doer, and His superiority to Moses;
and yet the reality of the
sign is there; a huge stone which blocks up their way of escape. – ‘This Jesus is a sinner
worthy of death!’
The
fight
centres around the Sabbath.
Jesus
had broken it.
Whoever would defend
Jesus in so doing was His disciple, and an enemy of
Moses. Let
the man then take the side of the
Sabbath, and confess that while Jesus had great
power, yet He was a sinner in
so working the miracle.
But if so, how
did God allow the work?
This
chapter
lays the first stone of the Christian Church in its
separation from
Moses. John,
in the wisdom of God, gives
us the gradual drawing off of
We
may
see the increasing bitterness of our Lord’s foes. It is not,
‘Let
those who please believe in this Jesus as the
Christ. We
for our parts know better!’
But it is, ‘He is
so
hostile to Moses and to us, that we will neither
suffer Him, nor any of His
party to belong to Moses and us!’
They
set
up the old work of God under
Moses
as their shelter against the new work under Christ. Thus it is
now with those who plead for
infant-baptism of both sexes, because there was
under Moses infant-circumcision
of one sex.
27-29. ‘He
answered them, “I told you already, and ye would
not
hear. Why
do ye wish to hear it
again? Do
you also wish to be His
disciples?” They
railed at Him therefore,
and said, “Thou art His disciple, but we are
Moses’ disciples.
We know that God spake to Moses: as for
this
fellow we know not whence He is!”’
The language of the healed
man arising out of his
vexation, arouses their vexation against him.
His daring, indeed, to suggest ‘that
they
wished to become disciples of Jesus!’
No! No!
Never would they give up their
attachment to Moses!
They were satisfied
of Moses’ mission by the signs given.
God’s Speaking to Moses was to be the
critical sign of Moses’ mission (Ex.
19: 9).
That sign availed then to establish
And now they have come
round to an opposite statement
about the Saviour.
Before they refused
Him, because ‘they [Page 411]
knew whence He
was’ (7:
27). Now
they refuse Him, because
‘they do not know
whence He is.’
So much has the heart ordinarily to do with our conclusion!
And unbelievers will at last be condemned
out
of their own mouths, and by their own principles. Evidence
which, in common affairs of this life,
they esteem ample and satisfactory, when adduced on
the side of God and Christ,
suddenly becomes obscure and worthless!
Moses
was
designed to convict all his disciples of sin, and of
their inability to
deliver themselves from death and the curse.
He was to pave the way for one who should
open the prison-door to these
slaves of guilt.
But now Moses’
disciples will abide under the curse, and refuse the
Lord their
Righteousness!
There ought to be no
halting now between the two.
None is to
be partly Moses’ disciple, partly Christ’s.
This
unlearned
man confounds the learned, because, as has been well
said – ‘Truth fights in
Him, and His opposers fight against the
truth.’
That is dark to them
which is clear to the blind man.
The
heart is at fault. How is it they both know, and do not know? ‘We
know he is a sinner; we do not know whence He is?’
This refers to His
prophetic office. Was He sent by
God or no ?
30-33.
‘The man answered and said
unto them, “Why, herein is a
wonderful thing that ye know not whence He is, yet
He opened mine eyes.
We know that God heareth not sinners; but
if
any be a worshipper of God, and do His will, him
He heareth. Never
was it heard of that any opened the
eyes of one born blind.
If He were not
from God He could not do anything!”’
How was it, that they, the
learned leaders of
‘He is a sinner,’ you say. How is it
then He works such wonders?
It is by power given of God.
These accredit Him to
34. ‘They
answered and said to Him, “Thou wast altogether
born in
sins, and dost Thou teach us?”
And they
cast him out.’
The
appeal
is too strong.
They
cannot meet it.
So they fall to personalities, as is usual in
such cases. From
the proofs of Jesus’
mission furnished by this sign they turn to revile
the healed one.
Thus they prove the weakness of their
argument. They
reproach him with the
infirmity of his birth, as proving him (if Christ
were not) to be peculiarly a
sinner, and therefore unfit to teach them, the
righteous.
Here
then
they unwittingly allow that the miracle is proved to
their satisfaction;
for they throw discredit on this argument of the
defendant, because he was born
blind!
The
blind
man’s declaration that God listens not to sinners,
rests on such a case
as King Saul’s, whom the Lord would not answer in
his distress; and on texts
such as Ps. 66: 18;
Prov. 15: 29; Is. 1: 15.
Miracles are regarded as answers to prayer,
as indeed they often were.
Such were
Elijah’s prayer concerning the restoration to life
of the Sareptan’s son:
Elisha’s concerning the vision of angels to his
servant. But
our Lord’s were effected by His word
alone.
The
great
are slow to be taught but by the learned, and their
equals. But
a right spirit will receive truth
wherever it finds it.
Eli is content to
learn from Samuel, the boy.
They
put
him, then, out of the synagogue.
The
men of Christ must be refused by the men of Moses. The Seed
of the Serpent, and of the Woman,
must draw off one from the other.
So the
apostles at
[Page 413]
How
little
are the anathemas of the enemies of Christ to be
feared! In
condemning Him they really passed sentence
against themselves!
And they throw the
rejected one into the arms of Christ.
They shut themselves off from Christ, and are
given up to Satan.
The
blind
man is prepared to listen to the words of Christ as
inspired of God,
seeing he had received the work of God in himself. The
enemies of Christ, who refuse His words,
will not be persuaded even by His works.
35-37. ‘Jesus
heard that they had cast him out, and found him,
and
said unto him, “Dost Thou
believe on the Son of God?” He
answered and said, “And who is He, Lord, that I
should believe on Him?”
Jesus said unto him, “Thou hast both seen
Him, and it is He who is talking with thee.”
But he said, “I believe, Lord;” and he
worshipped Him.’
The
stone
rejected by the builders is the one taken by Christ
to be the first one
of His new building, in contradistinction to that of
Moses. Refused
by man, he is taken up by the Son of
God. Jesus
purposely seeks him, and
would lead him to make the true Christian
confession.
He
had
owned the Saviour to be a prophet, and a man sent
from God. But
so would Nicodemus have said, and many
others. So
far would Mahometans at the
present day confess respecting Jesus.
But that is not Christianity.
The
Saviour then would lead him on to rest his soul on
one greater than Moses, as
God is greater than man.
‘Dost thou believe
on the Son of God?’
‘Your nation
refused Me as a blasphemer because I so affirm of
Myself. But
what say you?
You have owned the truth about Me to a
certain point, and have received excommunication
in consequence; are you
prepared to go the full length to which I wish to
conduct you?’
This title then, ‘Son
of
God,’ goes far
beyond ‘Messiah’ or ‘Christ.’
The leaders of
[Page
414]
The
work
of God is Jesus’ testimony to His foes, but His word will lead on the well-disposed to own Him as Son of God.
The
blind
man was not at first aware of Jesus’ pretensions. But as
soon as He knows that He claims to be
‘the Son of God,’ he gives Him religious
worship. His
works of supernatural power are to him the proof
that Jesus is more than man or
angel. The
Saviour affirms to the man
that He is the Son of God, and accepts the
religious
worship
which is rendered to Him, founded on that title.
In
the
first Gospel the battle turns on the same point. In Matthew 16.
Jesus draws out from His twelve witnesses the
unbelief of
In
one
respect John’s example goes beyond the earlier one
of Matthew. Peter
gives the title ‘Son of God,’
but does not see clearly that it imports
Godhead. He
does not worship,
though he says, ‘Son of the
Living God.’ Nay, he
even rebukes One whose un-measurable superiority to
himself he has just owned
in his former words.
This
worship
of the healed man is designed to be our example. Christ the
Son of God is the object of
worship by God’s command, and according to His will. Jesus, far
from rebuking him, accepts the
worship. He
had been accused just before
of taking to Himself the attributes of the Godhead,
and been in danger of
stoning. But
no sooner has He left the
unbelievers than He works ‘a
work of God,’ and
presses the receiver of that work of healing to own
Him as God’s Son, in such a
sense as to carry divine worship!
How
can Unitarians stand in the great day before
evidence so clear and strong as
this? There
is no reasonable [Page
415]
medium between - accounting
Christ a blasphemer, or worshipping Him as Son of
God! If
Jesus be Son of God they who cleave to
Moses against Him, must
needs be wrong.
Hence the Deity of Jesus
is the turning point between the Law and the Gospel. The stumbling-stone of the one party is the foundation
stone of the other party.
Thus
our
Lord fulfilled Is. 28:
9-13.
Only those, weaned from Moses and his rites
are
ready to hear the new knowledge.
Only
they who behold in Jesus the Son of God working on
the Sabbath, perceive the
true rest and refreshment which He is come to bring. But
39, 40. ‘Jesus
said, “For judgment I am come into this world, in
order
that the not seeing may see, and the seeing become
blind.” Some
of the Pharisees that were with Him
heard these words, and said unto Him, “Are we also
blind?” Jesus
said unto them, “If ye were blind, ye
would not have had sin; but now ye say, ‘We see,’
therefore your sin remaineth.”’
Our
Lord
in this little occurrence beholds in type great
things. It
was an example of the effects, the designed effects
of His coming into the
world. Not
all would accept Him as the
Saviour. Some
of His own people, the
great majority, would refuse Him, and perish in
their sins, in a vain belief of
their righteousness.
So great is Christ,
so especially sent of God, that He is either
salvation or damnation to all who
hear of Him. He
brings the light of
salvation to those who are led to Him as sinners. They
behold in Him the Saviour, and are
redeemed. Thus
it was, naturally
speaking, with this blind man.
Thus it
was also with him spiritually.
He was
the seeing one who accepted Christ.
His
rejectors were made blind.
These
words
are of infinite moment to us.
They
are our Lord’s comment on the history; He sums it up
in a brief and telling sentence.
But for this, opponents might have said
that
the blind man misunderstood our Lord, and never
designed to give Him religious
worship as being the Son of God.
But
Jesus
interprets for us the scene.
The
blind man in rendering worship to Jesus was not an
ignorant or impious [Page
416]
person, giving religious honour,
to a mere man.
But he was one
enlightened by the Spirit of God to render the
worship due to God the Son;
worship due to Moses’ Successor and
Does
Jesus
rebuke the worshipper, as Peter and Paul and
Barnabas did? Does
He tell him, that He was Himself a man only, and
not God? Nay,
the very reverse.
The blind man is a type of the redeemed. By nature
we are blind, but in accepting
Christ’s words we are made to see.
In
rendering worship, he is a pattern to us, teaching
us to adore the Son of God,
who loads out from Moses that can never justify, to
Himself who does.
The
refusal
of Christ has an awful effect on the Pharisees. They clung
to the Law, which Jesus came to do
away with. Hence
Moses doubly accused
them (1) as disobedient to his commands; and (2) unbelievers in his prophecy of a successor, Who even if
He should do away his rites, was nevertheless to be
obeyed in all He said.
‘The seeing were made blind.’ This is
the same truth that is presented in
another form in those words, ‘The
Stone that is
rejected by the builders, is made the
Head of the corner.’
They were ‘the
proud and scornful men who ruled the people at
Some
Pharisees
were present when Jesus spoke these words, and
perceived that He
spoke of them.
This they would elicit
from His own lips.
‘Were they the
spiritually blind to whom He referred?’ The
Saviour admits that they were. He
presses home upon their conscience their
spiritual attitude in rejecting Him of whom Moses
and the prophets spoke, and
the consequences of that sin.
If
they
had had the fault simply of ignorance, because of
want of evidence, the
great guilt He was now pressing on them would [Page 417]
not have lain upon them.
Had they confessed sin and ignorance, they
might have been led to light.
But when,
instead, they cast out the seeing disciple as blind,
and accuse the Master as a
blasphemer, avowing themselves disciples of the Law
which proved them guilty,
they took the place of judges, and must abide the
consequences of their choice,
and of the effects of their example on the mass of
It
is
bad to sin against Law: the curse against such will
be righteously
executed. But
he is worse still, and
were blind, who refuses offered mercy, and the
blotting out of sin.
He who despised Moses was to die without
mercy, under two or three witnesses.
But
what shall become of the refuser of the Son of
God? and of the blood of
atonement?
*
*
*
CHAPTER 10
[Page 418]
1. ‘Verily,
verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not
through
the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some
other way, he is a thief and
a robber.’
The
first
part of this chapter is very difficult.
But the sense suffers much in consequence of
its connection with what
precedes being broken.
It is connected
by the closest ties with chapters
8. and 9.,
and can only be rightly understood in union
with them. It
is a part of the Saviour’s
words to the Pharisees (ver.
40). In
their presence, then, the blind man had
fallen down and worshipped Christ as the Son of God. Jesus had
proclaimed this to be the result of
true spiritual sight.
Whence it followed
that the Pharisees, and those who followed them in
refusing the Son of God as a
blasphemer, were spiritually blind.
Yet,
moreover, inasmuch as they would not own their
blindness, but persecuted Him
and His disciples; and since they professed to be
men possessed of full
intelligence, great was their sin and condemnation
in refusing the evidence
given of God.
He
now
proceeds to instruct them concerning the
significance of the case of the
blind man. The
Saviour beheld in His own
rejection, and that of His disciple by the Jewish
leaders, the beginning of a
new thing - the
The
Lord
Jesus begins His speech with His solemn “Verily,
verily.”
Who now is the enterer
by means of the door?
What is the
door? It
seems to me there are two
answers, according
[Page
419] as
we apply the words:
generally, or to the Lord Jesus specially.
The
non-enterers
by the door into the sheepfold were the Scribes and
Pharisees, the
professed shepherds of
2, 3. ‘But
He that entereth in through the door is the
Shepherd of
the sheep. To
Him the porter openeth, and
the sheep hear His voice, and He calleth His own
sheep by name, and leadeth
them out.’
In
this
parable are references to the prophets who described
Jehovah and Messiah
as a Shepherd (Ps. 23.;
Is. 40. Specially Zech.
11.).
The
fold
is an enclosure surrounded by a wall, but open at
top, with only one
door. Into
it the sheep are led at
night. There
is a porter who watches
there all night.
The shepherds come in
the morn. These
false shepherds were the
thieves of that clay
When
the
Shepherd comes, the sheep that belong to Him know
His voice, and follow Him
out (Gal. 3: 22-25).
He has not to act, only
to speak. The
expression, ‘His own,’
is taken up by John from his Lord’s words,
and appears in his preface (1:
11).
The
worst
thieves and robbers are those who lead away from God
and Christ toward
destruction. Jesus,
on the contrary, was
the true Shepherd of Israel, the Sent of God.
It makes a great difference whether we enter on God’s
service of the ministry in God’s way, or whether
we force one for ourselves to
secure our own ends. This is true now, and to
be
observed by [Page
420] all who would enter the Christian ministry.
The
wrong way supposes wrong aims, not owned by God.
Jesus is the true Shepherd,
as fulfilling the
Scriptures concerning the Shepherd.
Who
is the Porter of the parable?
There are
different opinions.
To me it seems that
primarily (in point of time) it is John Baptist;
though in a fuller sense it
refers to the Holy Spirit, that came on our Lord in
His plenitude.
John Baptist was sent on purpose to exhibit
the Lord Jesus to the attention and acceptance of
Moreover, among the sheep
there were some especially
attached to the Great Shepherd.
‘His
own
sheep.’
These were the apostles and others in close and
continual attendance on
Him. Of
His calling them by name we have
instances in John 1.
Thus,
Jesus named Simon ‘Cephas’;
and of Nathaniel He
said, ‘Behold an Israelite,
indeed.’
The Sons of Zebedee he named ‘Boanerges,’
and He called Zacchaeus by name down from
the tree.
‘He
leadeth them out.’
He led many from their usual avocations;
and
was now leading them out of the fold of Moses and
the world, into God’s
assembly.
4.
‘When He putteth forth His
own sheep He goeth before
them, and the sheep follow Him, because they know
His voice.’
A strong word is used for ‘leading
out,’ indicating the energy required to
bring them out of the old
enclosure, and to cause [Page 421] the sheep to commit themselves to the new Shepherd.
It is the morning season.
As they move on other voices call them, but
they will not listen. When Jesus left
In
He
was
the first to leave the temple, and was first
rejected by the Pharisees,
even so far that they sought to slay Him; as the
previous chapters have borne
witness. He
took leave of the temple (Matt.
23.) before the disciples did.
The sheep followed Him.
They came out from Judaism and its
traditions, partially then, more fully after the
Saviour’s ascent.
‘Because they know His voice.’ First, a
word on the natural view of the
relation between the shepherd and sheep.
A traveller in the East said to a shepherd, who told him that the sheep knew him by his voice
- that it was a mistake, they knew him by his dress. ‘Well,’ said
the shepherd, ‘Try it!
You put on my dress, and I will put on
yours, and see if they will
follow you.’ He did so; but they would not
follow. He
called, but they knew the difference of
voice. Then,
when the shepherd called,
in spite of the difference of dress, they obeyed. For the
matter really turned on the
voice. As
Dr. Thompson
says, ‘The shepherd calls
sharply from time to time, to remind them of his
presence. They
know his voice and follow on; but if a
stranger call, they stop short, lift up their
heads in alarm, and if it is
repeated they turn and flee, because they know not
the voice of a stranger.
This is not the “fanciful
costume of a parable,”
it is simple fact.
I have made the experiment repeatedly.’
‘Land and Book,’ p. 202. Those led
by the Holy Spirit know the voice
of the Son of God.
The Spirit opens
their heart to accept the grace of the Gospel.
[Page 422]
5. ‘But
a stranger will they not follow, but will flee
from him,
because they know not the voice of strangers.’
This
was
exemplified in the case of the blind man.
The Pharisees were the strangers, who would
have led away the poor man
from Christ his Shepherd.
‘Give God the
praise; we know that this man is a sinner.’
But
he would not listen to them, or cease to acknowledge
his Benefactor.
And when Jesus presented Himself as the true
Shepherd, he owned Him at once.
There are many false shepherds now, against whom the sheep of Christ
need to be warned.
Many wear the professional
dress of the shepherd, but whose voice is that
of the stranger. Their Gospel is
not that of Christ; but another Gospel, which is
no good news.
Such are the Ritualists who preach the
‘Gospel according to
the sacraments.’
Now,
how
ought the sheep of Christ to behave in such a case? Here is a
clergyman, duly ordained, but an unconverted man,
preaching philosophy instead
of Christ. What
is to be done? Many say-
‘Stand by your parish
church. Stay
and pray for the blind man, that he may
have sight given him.’
Is
that
Christ’s word?
Nay, the very
reverse! If
you are Christ’s sheep, for
your own sake, and for others’ sake, leave! ‘Flee
from him.’ You
know that his voice is the stranger’s voice.
Then follow Christ, and flee from him! By your
attendance on his –[the
unregenerate man’s]-
ministry,
you teach, by [unspoken]
example, which is more powerful than word,
that he is a true shepherd. Thus
the blind
lead the blind, till often
both fall
into the pit.
6. ‘This
proverb Jesus spake to them, but they understood not what it was which He spake to them.’
The
Pharisees
might have perceived generally that it referred to
them, but the
sense of it and its connection with the previous
history they perceived
not. This
was a judgment on their
blindness.
Jesus
shows
the true and blest way in which His new flock would
be gathered and led,
in opposition to the unscriptural and arbitrary ways
of the Pharisees.
Now He shows the blessedness of the true
flock derived from Himself, in opposition to the
evils [Page
423]
which menace and destroy the
flock of the false shepherds.
It is a
new view of the subject.
It alludes to
the course of the day in relation to the shepherd
and the flock.
It is now Jesus the door
which remains open to allow the sheep
either to enter or to go forth.
Jesus
will take care that they find pasture.
‘The door of the
sheep’ is that whereby they go in and
come out.
First
Jesus
compared Himself with the Pharisees as a Shepherd,
now as a door.
THE DOOR
7, 8. ‘Therefore
Jesus said again, “Verily, verily, I say unto you,
that I am the door of the sheep.
All, as
many as came before Me, are thieves and robbers,
but the sheep did not listen
to them.”’
The
Saviour
takes a new view of the figure.
In
the first part, He is the Shepherd,
evidenced to be such against His enemies, the
Pharisees, by His entering at the
door, and by the power given to Him over God’s
elect, so mightily superior to
theirs. Now
He is the door toward God, both for
shepherds and sheep.
Verse 8 is one of the most
difficult of the New Testament.
I
am far from sure that I see its meaning.
Let me give a sketch of others’ ideas
thereon. (1)
First, then, many important manuscripts omit the words
‘before
me’ to which the difficulty attaches. This
looks very like a shirking of
the difficulty, especially because the verse was
misused by the
Manicheans. (2)
If we retain the words,
there are several senses which may belong to the
word ‘before.’
It may be taken as an adverb of time, the
sense which arises naturally and
at first. ‘All
who came before I appeared are robbers.’
There one encounters the difficulty of
reconciling the statement with
fact. Had
God no true shepherd ere
Christ came? Was not David one? Were
not
God’s prophets shepherds? (3). ‘Before’
may mean
‘in my place; instead of me.’
Then the
statement is perfectly true.
All who
should have come, setting themselves in the place of
Christ, were thieves and
robbers. The
difficulty here again is
how to reconcile the sentiment with facts.
No false Christs [Page 424] arose, so far as we are aware, till after our Lord’s advent. Some
then,
would say – ‘This is
Prophetic.’
It is true that the past tense is used by
our
Lord; but that is not a sufficient hindrance to our
regarding the words as
relating to the future, for very many of the
prophecies yet to be fulfilled are
stated as in the past.
Take Is. 10:
28-31, ‘He is come
to Aiath, he is passed to Migron; at Michmash he
hath laid up his carriages: They
are gone over the passage: they have taken up
their lodging at Geba; Ramah is
afraid; Gibeah of Saul is fled.
Lift up
thy voice, 0 daughter of Gallim: cause it to be
heard unto Laish, 0 poor
Anathoth. Aadmenah
is removed; the
inhabitants of Gebim gather themselves to flee.’ (4).
Others take the word as relating to
place. ‘All who
came into the fold before arriving at the door’ were thieves and robbers.
Then it will run parallel with the first
verse. These
Pharisees, regardless of Christ,
entered not the fold through ‘Him,’
but climbed
over the wall of God’s raising - the Scripture.
They would not enter in ‘through
Christ.’
They would not own Him as the door. Perhaps
this is the best sense that can be given.
Thus Christ is the test of the shepherds, as
well as the Saviour of the
sheep. To know Him is the
only way into the fold, and the only
true way to lead and feed the
sheep. All who refuse
Christ as the way of salvation are false leaders. Here we
are changing the tense from past to
present.
‘But the sheep did not hear them.’ How
important to take heed how we hear, and
what we accept.
Is it Christ’s
truth? Is
is the truth concerning
Christ? Is
it fundamentally
erroneous? Does
it teach another way of [obtaining
eternal] salvation? Then the
sheep of Christ should not listen
thereto. ‘Cease,
my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to
err from the words of knowledge’
(Prov. 19: 27). How many
from hearing the falsehoods of the
Pharisee, and the unbelief of the Sadducee
constantly repeated, at length have
adopted them! Tried by this test, how few are the
sheep of Christ in national
churches, or how greatly are they offending against
this word!
[Page 425]
9. ‘I
am the door; through Me if any man enter in he
shall be
saved, and shall enter in and go out, and shall
find pasture.’
This
seems
to be spoken of, and to, the sheep.
Jesus is the door to the fold of Christ - the
fold of His saved
ones. They
only are His true sheep who
go to God through Christ as the way, and enter the
Church because accepting
Christ as the Son of God.
Thus
in
Matt. 16., as
soon as our Lord has drawn
out the unbelief of
‘He shall be saved.’
Enter through faith in Christ as the Son of
God into the Church, and you
shall be saved. See
‘And
shall go in and
go out and find pasture.’
I
am
inclined to understand this of the Saviour’s being
the key alike to the Old
Testament and the New, so that His sheep may find
edification in both the one
and the other.
The Old Testament
presents Christ in shadows and types; the New in
direct statements.
But both Testaments alike treat of Him, and
are given of God to sustain the spiritual life of
the sheep.
10. ‘The
thief cometh not, except to steal, and kill, and
destroy. I
came, that they might have
life, and have it abundantly’ (or ‘might
have something
more.’)
The
Saviour
has still in His eye the blind man, his disciple,
rejected by the
Pharisees. For
He gives us the type of
many cases; and it is one of the perfections of our
Lord as an instructor, that
He discerns in a slender instance the great
principles which will afterwards
manifest themselves in world-wide results.
The
thief
steals, the Shepherd gives; the thief comes to take
away life, the
Shepherd to give it.
This Shepherd was
spoken of in the Old Testament as the ‘Shepherd
of Israel’
(Ps. 23.) who shall one day
assemble Israel, and make them one nation in
their land, raising up David to be
their king, after which no trouble shall befall
them (Jer.
31., Ezek. 34.). This Shepherd is to be
the ‘Lord God, the Holy
One [Page 426]
of
The
Pharisees
looked on
‘I am come that they might have
life.’
This
exhibits
to us the design or motive of the Saviour’s coming. He came,
not only to give us an example, but
to bring salvation.
Here we have repeated
from a new point of view the statement of chapter
3:
14, 15.
The serpent-bitten of [redeemed]
But
what
is the meaning of the words which follow? – ‘And
have
something further still.’
Most
take
it as signifying that they should have life in abundance. But it
may be
translated that they not only should have ‘life,’
but something additional to it.
Either way taken, I think it refers to the millennial glory as a something beyond bare salvation.
Jesus bestows as a gift eternal life.
But He
has in view also for His
disciples their enjoying with Him His reward. It was
this object with which (as Paul says)
the Saviour arrested him, and he
would
not, for
any suffering, fail of so
great a joy (Phil. 3.).
This, if I
mistake not, [Page 427] is one of those little incidental touches, whereby John conserves for
us truths which are more detailed and developed in
the other Gospels.
For John seldom touches on the coming
Kingdom, which is the staple of the other Gospels.
11. ‘I
am the Good Shepherd: the Good Shepherd layeth
down His
soul* on behalf of
His sheep.’
The
human
shepherd may hazard life in the defence of his
flock, but he has not the
intention of giving up his life for them.
Jesus Himself is the Man who was God’s
fellow, against whom the sword
was to awake. David,
as the shepherd,
fought against wolf and bear; but he slew them, not
they him!
Jesus
substitutionary
surrender of His life in place of that of His
disciples is
especially exhibited in this Gospel, when the band
came to take Him, and on
hearing their intent to seize on Himself, He
required them, as the one condition, to let
the disciples go.
And He showed He had power to enforce that
exchange, in spite of the military power of the
multitude ranged against Him.
Here,
in
wondrous contrast to the Pharisees, who sought only
their own profit at the expense
of God’s flock, the Saviour discovers His own
goodness in sacrificing Himself
for the good and salvation of the sheep. Goodness
here means, as it generally
does in Scripture, grace, bounty, kindness,
generosity. By
how much is a man better than a sheep!
So the Saviour’s value as the Son of God is
vastly greater than that of all His flock, and of
all worlds. Yet
He was willing to surrender His soul unto death for the sake, and in the stead of His
flock. Here
is an example of what many
cannot find in Scripture - ‘Substitution’
- as
God’s plan of salvation. Jesus came to give His soul*
as a ransom for theirs.
Of
how
deep importance is this death of Christ in its
results for the sheep, is
intimated, by its being five times over noticed in
this brief discourse.
In
how
startling a way is the greatness of the ransom-price
discovered to us in Acts
20: 28, ‘Take heed
therefore unto your [Page 428] selves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost
hath made you overseers, to feed the
Observe,
the Greek
word here is quite a different
one from that translated ‘life’
in ver. 10.
There it means ‘life
and its lifetime.’
Here it means one of the portions of which the man consists.
He is made up of ‘spirit,
soul,
body.’
It is an abiding part of
man’s being. When life ceases, the soul
leaves the body, only to go
to another place.
It does not cease to
exist. At the resurrection the soul is restored to the body.
This difference of sense, which our
translators have completely ignored, renders it
almost impossible for the
English reader to decide several Scripture questions
aright. The
English reader looks on ‘life’
as one thing; the Greeks had three different
words to express it.
One signifies ‘life’
as opposed to death ([See Greek word ...])
one means a life time; as ‘He
wrote the life of
[* That
is, when the animating ‘spirit’
returns to God, the ‘soul’
at this time also
leaves the ‘body’
and descends into the
underworld of ‘Hades’.]
It
should always have been translated ‘soul.’ Very
peculiar are the Scripture phrases,
specially those of the Old Testament, concerning the
soul. Enemies
are said to ‘seek
a man’s soul,’ when they desire to put him
to death. A man is said to
put his soul in his hand, when he ‘imperils
his life.’
But
Jesus does not here speak of putting His soul into
peril (1 Sam. 19: 5;
28: 21).
He was aware, that His taking so firm a
stand
against the Pharisees, the men of Law, would be His
death. He
knew it, and yet would go forward with the
sacrifice. It
was written of Him, that
He should ‘pour
out His soul
unto death’ (Is. 53.). Thus would
the sheep escape.
Now this expression – ‘pour out His
soul,’ refers to His shedding His blood
unto death on the cross.
For the blood is the visible soul of men and
beasts; on whose outpouring, death follows; and the
inner soul, which resides
in the blood, then makes its exit from the body (Lev.
17: 11-14).
[Page 429]
Jesus,
then,
here speaks of the voluntary
shedding of His blood
by a violent death, as our substitute, in
obedience to the claims of the Law. The priest
was directed in some of the
sacrifices to pour out all the blood at the foot of
the altar. Our
Lord, as both the Priest and the
Sacrifice, laid down His blood and soul as our
ransom - the price of our
redemption; without which we could not escape Law’s
arrest, and the curse
eternal. This great truth is clearly stated in such
passages as 1 Peter 1:
18, 19, ‘Forasmuch
as ye know that ye were not redeemed with
corruptible things, as silver and
gold, from your vain conversation received by
tradition from your fathers; but
with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb
without blemish and without
spot.’
Blood is there declared to
be the redemption-price.
It is again set
forth in the same light in Hebrews
9: 12,
where Jesus is exhibited as at once answering to the
High Priest on the day of
atonement, entering into the Presence of God; and to
the sacrifices with whose
blood He entered.
That bespoke atonement
made for
12. ‘But
the hireling, who is not the shepherd, whose own
the
sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth
the sheep, and fleeth; and
the wolf seizeth them, and scattereth the sheep. Now the
hireling flees, because he is a
hireling, and cares not for the sheep.’
This
seems
to regard the flock in the evening, exposed to the
ravages of wild
beasts. They
are going homeward to the
sheepfold, when they are thus set upon.
He who tends the flock, not out of love, but
as a matter of livelihood,
in such a conjuncture will not put life in peril. It demands
love of the sheep for [Page
430] themselves to enable any to surrender his own interests for the sake
of others.
What is intended by the wolf?
It has a wide-spread signification.
Scripture applies it to evil and malicious men in general, as Matt.
10:
16 – ‘I send you
forth as sheep among
wolves.’
It applies especially to the false prophets and
false teachers of the last days (Matt.
7). It
indicates, also, the false teachers of
Apostles’ days of whom Paul spake, by
way
of warning
to the elders of
Who answers to the hireling, that leaves the sheep to the mercy of the
wolf, providing
first for his own
safety, and leaving the sheep in the wolf’s hand?
We
have
it in principle in the case before us.
The trial of the blind man involves his
parents also in the judicial
trial brought on by his being healed through our
Lord. They
saw, that the Pharisees were bent on
doing mischief to our Lord and His disciples.
They saw, too, that unless they morally
severed themselves from their
son in the matter, they would be subjected to the
same losses and troubles with
him. They, therefore,
refuse to touch the question where it would
involve them in trouble,
and bid the Pharisees to
interrogate their son alone.
They
would not take on themselves the
responsibility and the danger.
This is
expressly said to be their motive. Hence they
would not even stand by their own
son, and share his peril.
They took the
hireling’s part, and not that of the parent. The
Saviour’s conduct, then, shines the more
brightly in contrast.
But we must not restrict it to this
case, though it gives us a specimen of the Saviour’s
words. It
is a lesson to the pastors of Christ’s flock to seek to feed the flock, not because of
its affecting their own livelihood, but through
love to those who are so
valuable to Christ.
The Saviour’s
example is to be to us a [Page
431] pattern. We, too, are to
lay down
our souls in our brethren’s stead.
So
John says (1 John 3: 16)
– ‘Hereby perceive we the
love, because He laid down His life
for us: and
we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.’
The hireling considers the sheep as his
only as far
as they are useful to him.
The good shepherd, on the contrary, devotes
himself to his sheep, as
far as he can
be useful to them.
14.
‘I am the Good
Shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known by My
sheep, even as the Father
knoweth Me, and I know the Father: and I lay down
My soul in the sheeps’ stead.’
“I know My sheep, as the
Father knoweth Me, and I know the
Father.” What
supernatural knowledge and memory is
here claimed? (1)
As it regards the numbers of the
Saviour’s sheep, in untold millions,
in various lands, in different ages of the world. (2) As it
respects their characters. Not
merely does this Shepherd know the names of His
millions of sheep, but their
circumstances and characters also.
What
shepherd but the Son of God could do so?
The
benefits
and glories of this link between Christ and His
elect here come more
and more fully into view, with the wondrous
superiority of this Shepherd and flock,
above any that are to be found on earth.
The
shepherd
of earth may know by face and character each one of
his sheep, and
each of the sheep may recognise the shepherd as
their feeder, and perceive his
voice, and answer to its name when singly called. But as this Good Shepherd gave His soul to ransom theirs, so does He know His
sheep with a knowledge infinitely superior to any
shepherd of earth, He knows
them as perfectly as the Father knows Him, and as He
knows the Father.
But the sheep of Christ know Him too. They are
nought without Him.
As the sheep is silly, and unable to care
for
and defend itself, so are Christ’s ransomed ones in
the presence of Satan and
evil men. They
are led then unto the
Saviour as ‘their wisdom,
their righteousness, their
sanctification, and their redemption.’
Their knowledge of Him is
intimate and personal.
The marvellous
depths of this saying [Page 432] are touched on again in our Lord’s last prayer to the Father (17:
20-22).
The
goodness
of the Shepherd and His work are perceived by the
sheep. He
loves the sheep, and they Him. And this
mutual knowledge is after the model of the mutual
and perfect knowledge in the
Divine Nature which subsists between the Fattier and
the Son (17: 21).
This is the primary source of the second and
inferior relation.
How vastly higher than any between Messiah
and
The
laying
down of the soul for the sheep is the proof of this
goodness. In
chapter 3.
Jesus is said to die for the world: here, for the
Church, the flock of
God. Both
are true. There
are two parts then in the scheme of
God. One
to try men, and to prove their
deep enmity against Himself: the
other to accomplish His
purpose of giving to His Son special companions
in the glory;
which shall satisfy His soul,
and be to the praise of God’s grace.
Herein
lies
Jesus’ superiority of worthiness above the angelic
elders, ‘For Thou wert
slain, and redeemedst by Thy blood,’ Rev.
5: 9.
So
imperfect
is the shepherd’s ordinary knowledge of His own
sheep, that he is
obliged to mark them with red or blue in order to
distinguish them.
But Christ perfectly knows His sheep. And in
earlier days the seal of the Spirit in
gift was set on them, as the mark on the sheep of
Christ.
The
communion
between Jesus and His flock is like, in spirit, in
eternity, and
love, to that between the Father and the Son!
What wonders are here!
The Lord
enable us to realise this in our own experience !
The Father knew the Son, and
owned Him in His form of a servant, yea, even when
He lay under the rod of His
affliction. So does our Father, in heaven, recognise
us in all our low
condition, our weakness, and sinfulness.
This
passage,
then, should correct the error of those who think
that for a believer
to doubt his acceptance with Christ is the best
proof of his being a son! Let
us look rather at God’s love and Christ’s
worthiness,
and all will be well.
[Page 433]
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 flock, one Shepherd.’
Very
remarkable
is it that our Lord, who would not Himself pass the
limits of
This
refers
to the Gentile believers who should follow in the
track of this blind
man, leaving their previous darkness and mistakes,
to follow Christ.
Jesus,
then,
foresaw the wide extension of His Church beyond
Jesus
had
sheep in the Jewish fold, but He had others beyond
it. They
were scattered. The two portions were
divided by the Law’s middle wall of partition. But
that, with all other
obstacles, would be removed out of the way.
Jesus would send His apostles to effect His
purposes, and the issue
would be ‘One flock under
One Shepherd’ - the
distinctions of the flesh, which the Law and
circumcision maintained, being
buried in Christ. The distinctions of Jew and
Gentile were to be swallowed up:
Christ assembling in Himself into blessed oneness
what the Law and the flesh
divided. This
is taken up by Paul (Ephes.
2).
These are God’s elect.
They alone
are finally saved; while multitudes listen to the
Gospel, they alone accept
Christ of whom it speaks.
This
view
of the Gentiles to be brought in to the
They
were
scattered: the Lord would unite in Himself, the One
True Shepherd, His
whole flock. They
would assemble to the
Lord at the sound of His voice.
This
includes the appeals by His Apostles.
‘He that heareth
you heareth Me.’
[Page 434]
The
unity
of the saved of the Church turns on its being knit
to the One Head, and
gathered by the One Spirit. The one flock belongs
to, hears and knows the One
Shepherd. All
others are but under-shepherds; the
flock belongs not to them.
Those
who
gather not with Christ, scatter.
Thus
many have attempted by
force and Law to carry out the mission of the
Gospel. This
was the wolf’s and the thief’s
part. Fire
and sword will not gather the
sheep of Christ.
The
attempt to make one fold out of wolves and sheep
will end in ruin.
The
one
flock (not ‘one fold’
- a mistranslation)
and one Shepherd are seen at last gathered on high,
a ‘multitude
whom none can number.’
It is
gathered only on high, and there the Lamb is the Shepherd also.
‘I must bring.’
The one point settled in our Lord’s mind is
the not fulfilling His own
will, but the Father’s. Here Almighty will is
sustained by Almighty wisdom and
power. No
creature shall prevail against
Him.
It
was
the Saviour’s sacrificial death, which, bringing the
Law of Moses to an
end, throw down the partition-wall between Jew and
Gentile. The
flesh and the Law raised up barriers which
could only be eluded by taking the flock to
resurrection-ground and the
heavenly country.
‘They shall hear My
voice.’
This is echoed by Paul to the Jews, Acts 28: 28, ‘Be
it known
therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is
sent unto the Gentiles, and
that they will hear it.’
17. ‘Therefore
doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My soul
that I may take it again.
None taketh it
from Me, but I lay it down of Myself.
I
have the right to lay it down; I have the right to
take it again.
This command I received from My Father.’
Jesus’
death
bespoke marvellous self-devotion.
But did it not also manifest unworthy
weakness, that the wild beast
should rove too strong for the Shepherd?
Hence, then, he gives a view of His
superiority at last in the conflict.
The
Father’s
love for the Person of the Son was from all eternity
(3: 35; 15: 9; 17: 23-26),
founded on the eternal
relationship between them, and the perfect
resemblance of [Page
435]
character. But
now in the Saviour’s work is a new
beauty, which attracts the Father’s love.
The Son consents to forego his original glory
- to be humbled even unto
death for the unworthy - to redeem them from death
and wrath. This
sublime benevolence of self-devotion
draws forth the Father’s love.
His
persistence in the undertaking, in spite of the
discouragements and hindrances
interposed by the wickedness, and insults, and
injuries of those He came to
deliver, were wonderful.
Her
Majesty
loves her son, the Prince of Wales.
Yet he might draw forth in her an especial
flow of affection, if he
risked his life on some dangerous coast in a stormy
night, to bring off from a
wreck some poor, half-dead sailors.
Many
seem
quite insensible to the great difference between the
Old and New
Testaments, and quote by preference the Old
Testament promises, as if they
marked our portion as Christians.
But
for any Old Testament promises, there are others far
superior in the New
Testament. Take
then the 23rd
Psalm – ‘The
nightingale of the Psalms’ - as one
beautifully expresses it.
Here you have, indeed, Jehovah as the
Shepherd; but here are earthly bounties and
deliverances during the days of
life, and a happy issue out of it, even to the place
of the dead. But
what is this compared with the
Shepherd-Son of God giving His soul unto death for
His sheep? His
gift of eternal life, and the assurance
that no hostile power shall pluck them out of the
Shepherd’s hand?
What is the oil anointing the head to the
Spirit and His heavenly unction?
What
the overflowing cup and the bountiful table, to the
bread of God come down to
feed God’s elect; not
Death
is
humiliation; the due of a fallen race ‘the
wages of
sin.’
It is in the coming forth
out of death that the victory consists; as for
Christ, so for us.
Nor would it be any gladness to the Father
for ever to part with the Son, and to have Him
cooped up as a [Page
436]
debtor in prison, and afar from
Him. The
joy of the victory is in the
reunion of the Shepherd and the flock.
The time of Israel’s joy was not when they
were walking by night through
the waters;
but in the assembling on the
other side, after passing through that strange road,
their foes having
disappeared under the
tides of
death. Jesus
has but to desire again to
come forth from His dread abode under death, and
anew He comes.
He
will leave death no trophy;
no trace of his brief conquest.
Body
and soul are brought forth anew to a
life not to be touched by death.
How gracious the Father,
that He would surrender His
Son. How
gracious the Son, willing to
stoop so low, and to suffer so deeply!
But
how awful the wrath on those who refuse
thus to escape the doom of sin!
Jesus laid down His soul to
take it again:
with the view of so doing.
It was part of the counsel between the
Father
and the Son. It would not be accordant with the Father’s love and
justice, that
such generous self-devotion should go unnoticed and
unrewarded. Holiness
may be
tried by prevailing wickedness; and this may be long
allowed in patience to the
offenders, and in discipline to the suffering
believer. But
it would be a disgrace to
any kingdom, and much more to God’s, were
wickedness always to be allowed to triumph.
It could not be that the Son should be
evermore depressed and
persecuted.
The
Son’s soul
given up awhile for sin, was to be
restored out of death.
Here Mr.
Darby is in error.
He speaks of Jesus giving up
His first ‘life, to which sin attached,’
and taking up in
resurrection another life perfectly free from it. But this
statement arises from being guided
by the English word, not the Greek.
The
Saviour
really speaks of laying down His soul as
the ransom, but taking it
again. The
soul was a part of Jesus’
self; the
chief part.
It could not be held permanently by
death. Death
would have swallowed up any
man or angel; its gates would
have
proved too strong for his return to life.
But the
Prince of Life, our
Samson, by God’s own counsel carried away the
gates, and came forth from the
prison. The Father could consent to [Page 437]
no such
permanent detention of any part of Christ.
Nor could any created power hold the
Creator in chains for ever.
Had not our Lord come forth out of death’s prison, there had been no deliverance of
those for whom He died.
A man falls
overboard in a dark night.
A generous sailor
springs into the waters after him.
But
if he does not make his appearance again on the deck
of the vessel it is justly
concluded that both are lost.
Herein
behold
supernatural and divine confidence.
To men in general, death is the end of all. The
sinner
has no power over his soul to detain his soul in
the body; much less
when it has gone forth, and the body has fallen
into corruption, can he
reinstate it.
But our Lord here
declares His confident assurance, that He
should
return again to life to dwell in the body which
had been awhile seized
by death.
Those
who
malign that great work of God - the atonement - love
to speak of it as if
it represented God as tyrannous and unjust.
‘God - you make out
- is so severe, that He is
determined one shall die; and so unjust, that He
cares not whether the innocent
or the guilty suffer!
What would you
think of the father who could give up his son to
death?’
Here
we
observe, that no injustice is done to any man. If there
be hard measure, it is to God.
The Father and the Son are both consenting
parties, the Father to give up the Son, the Son to
suffer death. This
delivering over of One to justice, is
with a view to save those who could not otherwise be
justly dlivered from the
dues of their sins.
And the steadiness
of government and its laws must be kept up, if God’s
world is not to be left a
wreck to Satan, and evil men, and fallen angels. Nay, more
- millions to all eternity will
bless God for that which draws forth the slanders of
guilty rebels.
By
this
exhibition of truth before His death, the Saviour
could comfort His
disciples, when soon after they should see Him
seized and slain.
It was no overmastering force that caught
Him
at unawares: it was the determinate foreknowledge
and counsel of the Father and
Himself. Jesus,
as being [Page
438]
untouched of sin, could not be
touched by death, save by His own will.
18. ‘None
taketh it away from Me, but I lay it down of
Myself. I
have the right to lay it down,
and the right to take it again.
This
command I received from My Father.’
This
states
the voluntariness of the Saviour’s surrender of His
life. Infidels
who deny the Godhead of Jesus,
assume that His death was unexpected and
involuntary. ‘He set Himself
against the rulers of His country, and, as was
natural, they conspired against Him and put Him to death.’
Thus
Robertson,
of
But
this
overlooks both principle and facts.
(1) It overlooks the world’s government by
God.
The Most High loves righteousness, and is
on
the side of the obedient.
He set up
What
was
wanting here to God?
The will? or
the power? Could
not He who opened the
[Page 439]
2. But let
us look at the Saviour’s death
from the side of His own person.
There,
at each step (1) His foresight of
the coming crisis (2)
and His power to deliver Himself, if He would, appear.
(1)
An
ordinary man, possessed of a common amount of
intelligence, call descry
danger to life in the distance, and keep out of its
way. The
captain, warned by his glass of the
coming hurricane, puts into the port of shelter.
(2)
Observe
likewise the Saviour’s power in this direction. His foes
had no power over Him, save by His
permission. The
men of
Here
then
is perfect voluntariness.
Here are
supernatural knowledge and Almighty power.
Either alone would have sufficed.
Both together, made it impossible for the
craftiest and strongest foes to
wrest life from Him.
At the last moment,
instead of fleeing, He goes forth, formally to put
Himself into the hands of
His enemies; stipulating, that if they seized Him
they must let go His
disciples.
The
Most
High, in our Lord’s history, has thus carefully
manifested the
voluntariness of Jesus’ self-surrender. It was
necessary to the reality of His
sacrifice for sin.
It was one of the
great defects of the sacrifices of bullocks and
sheep, that they were unaware of
the intention of those who seized them to take away
their life. They had no
purpose to surrender themselves, and to be made
bearers of sin’s penalty.
As, then, the Son’s [Page
440]
self-surrender was our
atonement, and as it took place according to His
will and the Father’s, the
freedom and voluntary design of our Lord’s sacrifice
are guarded and proved
with care. So
long as God is Jesus’
Father and Almighty, so long He could and ought to
preserve Christ.
In the Father’s prompt reply to His Son’s
call in the midst of the guilty city (John
12: 28),
we see that our Lord had but to say – ‘Father,
I
repent; save Me!’ and His life would have
been preserved, and His foes
disappointed.
‘I have the right to lay it down.’
This was true of our
Lord alone. His
right and power of
self-disposal are not shared in by any creature. We
continually forget this, and think and act
as if we have but to please ourselves. But
creatures, by virtue of their being
made and sustained, belong to their Creator and
Preserver. They
are not their own.
They may be independent of their
fellow-creatures: but all they have belongs to, and
is claimed by God.
But Jesus could say that His soul was His
own; He was free to continue it in life, or to
surrender it as He would.
He had, then, the right and power to lay it
down; and did so.
He had the right and
power also after laying down His soul as a ransom,
to re-knit it to His
body.
The same soul that was
laid down, was rescued from the hand of death.
The
Annihilationists
are getting into error here.
Death (to them) is the utter blotting out
of the soul.
In resurrection there is a new creation. Then Jesus
was not the same person after
death that He was before it!
So
every error leads on to further
untruths. And
every error
stands convicted by the Word of God.
Thus the errorist is led to oppose the
truth
of God’s Word; that is, God Himself.
Here
the
Saviour again asserts the power of the Godhead. Who of the
sons of men can come to life again
at will? ‘Who
can deliver his soul from the hand of Hades?’
Ps. 89: 48.
But
the
Saviour’s voluntary self-surrender was also the
Father’s will and command.
The perfection of voluntariness and of obedience
meet in the act.
Could Abraham have bound and slain Isaac,
save by his voluntary yielding?
To many
the Saviour’s rule of life is almost inconceivable. ‘What!
is not
happiness the doing your own pleasure?’ No! it is glad obedience [Page 441] to the will of God.
Ask those who have chased after happiness
in
the way of doing their own will, careless of the
will of God! Are
they happy? No:
some of the most miserable beings on
earth.
Some
find
a difficulty in the Saviour’s being said to raise
Himself, while other
passages state His resurrection to have been by
power derived from the
Father. But
both are true.
The forces exerted by the Father and the Son
were co-operative.
Jesus calls Himself ‘Resurrection’
and ascribes to Himself the awakening of
the dead.
To
the
Father, the Son in His perfection, refers all
things. Jehovah
is the God as well as the Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus, as the
subject, looks to the Great Governor for orders. And His
laying down of His soul and
resumption of it were part of one plan; whence it is
called – ‘this commandment.’
His death without His risen life were but
half the work of salvation.
Some
persons
are so one-sided, that they cannot accept any truths
in which seemingly
opposed ideas are found. It appears to them absurd
that the Father should both
leave His Son under His wrath as the substitute of
sinners, and yet love Him
for His grace in bearing that wrath.
But
the two things are perfectly possible.
Jesus was officially under wrath, personally beloved.
19-21. ‘Again,
therefore, a division arose among the Jews because
of
these words.
Now many of them said – “He
hath a demon, and is mad; why do ye listen to
Him?” Others
said – “These are not the words of a
man possessed by a demon.
Can a demon
open the eyes of the blind?”’
As
a
few drops of acid thrown into a vessel of water, in
which some chemical
ingredients are suspended, separates the drugs into
their respective elements,
so is it with the truth.
The
[Page 442]
The
truth
is an element of division between the accepters of
it, and
the refusers of it.
The Law gathered the men of the flesh; but
the spiritual truth of Christ severed those who
wished to be saved by their own
merits, from those who felt condemned, and needed a
Saviour. Such
were ready for Moses’ Successor and
But
the
matter was not so easily disposed of.
There was, doubtless, much that, taken alone,
seemed to them extravagant
pretension on our Lord’s part.
Still
there was too much method and steady coherence of
part with part to be called
the words of One out of His mind, or of One
possessed of an evil spirit.
The works came in aid of the Lord’s words. What were
they to say to His miracles?
If Jesus were in His works a mere man, they
might be free to pronounce His words to be
blasphemous pretension merely.
But what when lofty words are sustained by
acts of miracle - of miracle never known before -
and done as by One who felt
fully possessed of the power to do as He pleased? This
opening the eyes of one born blind -
could a demon or a madman do that?
This, then, is just
characteristic of hasty party-theories, that while
they urge one side, and are
proud of the evidence that seems in their favour,
they omit to notice the other
side.
The
same
difficulty which stood before the unbelievers of our
Lord’s day fronts
them still, and is still unsolved.
How
do
thorough-paced and scientific infidels of the day
deal with the Lord Jesus
Christ? How
do they solve the union of
His words
and His works?
1.
They
begin by throwing overboard His WORKS. ‘As
for [Page
443] miracle,
it is an impossibility.
And no honest
man could pretend
to do wonders.’
2.
What
of His words? ‘Well, in general, the morality
is very beautiful.
Jesus is a Great
Master of truth, and the most successful teacher
of conduct. For
1800 years - and His power is very great
still - He has swayed untold millions to listen
and obey. He
is one of the best of men.’
3.
But
what say you to His divine pretensions?
His professing to die, in order to redeem
lost sons of men?
‘Ah, that must have been an
element added by His biographers
long after His death, designing to glorify their
Teacher.’
Not
so. The
accounts were written by the men
who were at His side.
You cannot sever
between the Saviour’s words and His works,
and say, ‘I accept the one
as good: I refuse the other as falsehood
and pretence.’
The whole public
life of our Lord is one of miracle.
His
teaching was based on His miracles.
It
was His miracles that roused tens of thousands to
come and hear. And then they
heard Him proclaim, that He was more than any son of
man; that all previous
messengers were but slaves; Himself was the Son,
to whom all things belonged
(Matt. 13: 27, 28; 21:
33-36).
Thus His works and His words are welded together. You
must
accept both, or neither! If He were
indeed what He claimed to be,
wonders were the best of proofs.
These
wonders were the chief cause that led to His death. And a
wonderful death was succeeded by a wonderful
resurrection, and as wonderful an ascent.
But
why
did so great and so miraculously gifted a man die? Why did
not God deliver Him from the cross?
Why did not He
deliver Himself from
it?
There
is
only one explanation which meets the difficulties of
the question all round,
and it is the conclusion of the disciple – ‘Lord,
I
believe; and he worshipped Him.’ This, at
once, opens to us a scene of wonders - and of wonders worthy of God!
Man
is
a lost being, under sentence, and surrounded by
enemies with whom He has
neither the power nor the heart to cope.
None but One, who was man, and yet God, could
set free [Page
444] the
captive from the wiles of
Satan, and the just condemnation of God.
When
the
defenders of Christ silenced His accusers by the
enquiry – ‘Can a demon open
the eyes of the blind?’ They should
have gone a step farther.
They would
have done so had they known well, and believed their
ancient Scriptures.
For to whom does the Psalmist by
anticipation
ascribe this work?
Look
at Psalm
146. There the writer, dissuading us from
trusting man the creature, bids us look to the God of Jacob
as the Helper, the Creator, the
Preserver of truth.
‘He
giveth food to the hungry.’ And did
not the Saviour twice feed the
multitudes, twice bring fish to His Apostles?
His loosing the prisoners was partly
accomplished at His
resurrection.
The great act of it has yet to be.
Then comes verse
8: ‘The
Lord
(Jehovah) openeth
the eyes of the blind.’
Here,
then, Scripture, the Scripture given to
To this great act of
healing the blind, Jesus appealed
in His message to John (Matt.
11: 5; 12: 22; 15: 30).
The healing of these took place in the
temple
itself, by Jesus’ word of power.
Thus He
proved Himself Jehovah.
22, 23. ‘Now the Dedication was taking place at
It is not said that Jesus
went up to
There may be some reference
to the dedications under
Moses and Solomon; but they were not celebrated at
the same season.
It was
‘winter.’ Hard
and cold. It
was so, morally, too.
Now is the world’s winter.
But summer is coming.
In like style John says ‘It
was night’ (13.).
[Page 445]
The
mention
of ‘Solomon’s porch’
is remarkable.
No words are useless in Scripture.
Was it really a part of the temple which
had
been spared by the Babylonians, and remained till
our Lord’s day; being merely
repaired by Herod?
Or was it something
wholly of Herod’s erection, but called by the name
of the great king of
Great
was
the glory of the original dedication under Solomon. The
elders, the priests, the king, were of
one mind. The
beauteous house was
finished according to the mind of Jehovah. The glory
of the Lord filled
it. The
King was God’s ‘Beloved One.’
But it was a conditional glory.
And after Solomon’s fall, the glory waned;
through sin, at last, all was
broken up. Then
came the restoration,
made with difficulty under Ezra. Darker times still
set in; and then came the
temple’s profanation by Antiochus, and its
restoration by Judas Maccabaeus.
But
lo! Greater
things than man expected are
come (Is. 64: 4)! The Lord
of the temple walks in it - it was
His Father’s house: and He does miracles of mercy
there! But
[Page
446]
The remembrance of the
warlike deeds of the Maccabees
might stir up the Jews at that time, more
particularly to see if they could not
awaken our Lord to arise against the Roman
oppressor.
The
movement
of this section is due to the division of feeling
among the Saviour’s
hearers. The
difference between sheep
and wolves comes out more and more distinctly.
24. ‘The
Jews therefore surrounded Him, and said to Him –
“How
long dost Thou keep our soul in suspense? If Thou
be the Christ, tell us
plainly.”’
There
was
bitterness on the part of many, and something of
threat. ‘He shall be
compelled to speak out His sentiments plainly, and
to say either “Yes,” or
“No.”’ They
surround Him, then,
with impatience. ‘Why do
you keep raising expectations
in us and in others, without fulfilling them?
Are you Messiah or are You not?’
But the real question was - Would they accept
God’s Son? Man
is impatient of suspense.
It is often more difficult to be kept
waiting,
than to know the worst.
And so, at the
first glance, it seems as though this were a
reasonable question.
But as our Lord says – ‘Judge
not according to the appearance, but judge
righteous
judgment.’
Were their minds
honest who asked?
Would it have settled the matter to their
souls had Jesus replied – ‘Yes!’ Certainly
not! As the Saviour points
out,
they resisted and refused evidence already given,
much stronger, to settle
those who should doubt, viz., the works of miracle,
which bespoke Him no mere
pretender. They
had already agreed to
put out from their number any who should confess
Jesus to be Messiah. They had
made up their minds, then, that He could not be
Messiah. To
what purpose, then, would our Lord have
answered them directly – ‘I
am!’
They
speak
as if their unbelief was due, not to their own
fault, but to want of
clearness and openness on Christ’s part.
But God will one day show where the fault
lies. It
is not in the indistinctness of the
writing on the tables, but the indistinctness of the
eye that looks at them.
The
great
question to all is - What think ye of Christ?
What is He to you?
What does He think of you? To the
heart of [Page 447]
unbelief there is not sufficient evidence.
But do not men act on evidence wonderfully
less than this? Are they not compelled by God to do so? And
do
they not find it reasonable to do so?
Jesus
had
virtually told them He was Messiah, a greater Person
than they were
expecting. They
did not believe for His
words. Why
then repeat them?
What were words in the presence of such works
as His? What
would they have thought of their
fathers, if after Moses’ three signs in the name of
Jehovah they had refused to
admit him as the sent Deliverer out of
‘These
works which I do.’ They wore
frequent; still going on; they had
never ceased. Jesus
took the subordinate
place. He
came, as doing not His own
will, but His Father’s.
26, 27. ‘But ye believe not, because ye are not of My
sheep, as I said unto you.
My sheep hear
My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.’
Where had Jesus so said? He had
implied it in verses
3 and 4
of this chapter; where He had
told them, that they were of their father the devil.
The Saviour describes the
blessings which are attendant on faith in Him, or on
being His sheep.
[Page 448]
Jesus
is
the testing point.
All turns on how
we regard Him, and whether we belong to Him or no;
whether His power is engaged
on our behalf or no.
It is no longer, ‘Do
you observe Moses?’
But, ‘Do you
belong
to Christ?’
Faith in Him
saves! Unbelief
in Him destroys.
‘My sheep.’
Jesus describes Himself as the Great Owner of
men. They
belong to Him as a flock to a
proprietor. How
could this be true of
any mere man?
Isaiah
had
described our Lord as Jehovah the Shepherd, in near
proximity to the passage
(Is. 40: 3) in
which the Spirit refers to
His call by John the Baptist.
Part is
fulfilled, part not. The ‘comfort’
of
The
Saviour
now traces their acceptance or refusal of Him, to
God’s choice or
refusal of them.
He said this, doubtless, to take down
their
high thoughts of themselves.
They
imagined, that the controversy between Him and them
was to be decided by
their
judgment of the question.
The
Saviour, who in this Gospel is presented to us
throughout as Son of God, denies
this. The
matter turned on far higher
grounds. There
is One higher than man,
whose will is supreme.
Their refusal of
the Son was their own condemnation.
It
was the proof that God had refused them.
Those who were given by the Father to the Son
were His sheep, and would
listen and follow Him.
As they would not
listen and obey, they were
not Christ’s sheep; and such must perish.
They were not God’s elect, and were acting in
the pride and ignorance of
the flesh.
‘But if they
were not
elect, how could they be expected to listen?’
Because
our
duty does not depend on God’s election.
Man’s duty depends on his being a creature of
God, bound to obey His
commands, and to be dealt with in justice
accordingly. Whether
election be true or not, God is the
Governor,
who will be obeyed
or punish. Her
Majesty has favours to
bestow; but [Page 449] the duty of her subjects does not depend on their receiving such
favours.
Some
Christians
will listen in this matter only to one side of the
question. With
some, all is God’s choice; with some, all is man’s
choice. But
we must accept both sides. The matter may
be
regarded from the side of God; or from the side of
man. If
from the side of God, then His choice
rules all. But
what His choice is, is
unseen and unknown.
There is then the
aspect of the case manward.
Here come in
God’s calls to men as Ruler.
If any turn
to God, it is the result of God’s predestinating
grace. If
any turn away and perish, it is the result
of his own wicked choice.
Such an one
will be condemned, because of his evil choice, and
his life of unbelief against
evidence. Such
an one deserves to be
condemned, and he will be
justly. The
saved are saved (1) Godward, because
the Most High chose them to
eternal life; (2)
manward, because they choose Christ.
The two sides are in perfect accord, and
are
both to be retained.
28. ‘And
I give them eternal life, and they shall not
perish for
ever, and none shall wrest thorn out of My hand.’
Do
you
wish eternal life?
It is to be had
for the asking.
It is given away.
Tell Jesus, the Great Giver, that you need
it
and beg Him
to bestow it, and it is
yours!
Would
they
not come to Him?
See what a vast
gift He has to bestow!
But they cannot
have it, unless they credit His power to give it
them. Only
One equal with the Father, can grant so
great a boon. But
if they will still in
enmity resist Him, and seek to injure the sheep, let
them learn their inability
against so great an Owner. If they were not His
sheep, but wolves, they must
perish.
There
are
three characteristics of the Saviour’s sheep, and
three powers of His.
(1) They hear My voice.
I
give eternal life.
(2) I
know them, and they Me.
I
suffer them not to perish. (3)
They follow Me.
None shall wrest them
out of My hand.
Jesus
takes
higher ground far than that of Messiah, the King and
Prophet of
‘I give them eternal life!’ How absurd
for any mere man to say so!
But how joyful to hear the Son of God so
say! This
is more than any angel that
never disobeyed, can claim.
Here is
grace beyond our desert.
How simple this
Gospel is! He
who is Resurrection, and
has life in Himself, gives eternal life. Is
there an
one seeking eternal life?
Here, it is
within your grasp, poor sinner!
Christ gives
to the unworthy, more than
the worthiest of men or angels can claim!
The
eyes
of
A
dread threat lies couched behind the simple words: ‘Those
that
believe
not
shall perish eternally!’
Our
assurance
of the certainty of eternal life rests on the
Almightiness of our
God. God
desires His elect to rejoice in
the assurance of His gift to the unworthy.
We want a guarantee against ourselves,
and the power of our
foes; - the Saviour here gives
it.
Are
there
not hinderers and obstacles in the way of Christ’s
sheep attaining the
eternal life of His promise?
Yes; but
their power is measured, and is provided against, so
that this blest result
shall not be overthrown.
There
are
two forces which might prevent the fulfilment of
this glorious promise: (1)
Disease
from within; (2)
force from
[Page
451] without. The words
of
our Lord meet both these sources of doubt and
dismay.
‘They shall not perish for ever.’ This does
not promise that they shall not
die; but only that they shall not perish eternally
with the wicked.
We say of men, ‘Thirty
thousand
perished of cholera;’
or,
‘The Andromeda foundered at
sea, and every soul on
board perished.’
That refers to the loss of present
mortal
life. But
Jesus here tells us, that
God’s electing love, and our Lord’s overruling
power, guarantees that no one of
His believing ones shall lose eternal life.
He may stray, and fall into sin, and be excluded from
reward, but ‘the gift
of God is eternal life,’ and of that none
of God’s elect shall come
short.
The
‘hand’ here
denotes ownership.
The power of an owner
is put forth to defend his property.
Hence the might of Christ against all who
would seek to rob Him of His
property, is here implied.
Thus,
the
sheep’s weakness, and their foes’ might, are both
before our Lord’s
eye. On
this is founded that grand
passage of Paul, where he challenges all things,
both in heaven and earth, to
sever God’s elect from Christ’s love to them (Rom.
8).
But
Satan
can exert mighty power; and strong are the forces of
ungodly men bent on
keeping God’s chosen from salvation.
What of them?
Here is our
guarantee: ‘None shall pluck
them (by force) out
of My hand.’
This would be a vain and wicked word on the
part of any creature. None
but He
who sees all, and is Almighty, could properly utter
such a boast. But
Christ can and does.
The Son of God
has the power
of
God!
They imagined, that
the blind man, excommunicated by them, must perish. Jesus
assures them, that He had eternal life
by virtue of gift from Himself, and that all the
power of enemies prove
fruitless against Him.
The Saviour’s
words are an echo of Dent.
32: 39, where God
speaks of His Almighty power for good.
Also in Isaiah
43: 13, Jesus, as
Hengstenberg says, ‘assumes
to Himself the possession
of the power which belongs to Jehovah.’
This were blasphemy in any Creature.
[Page 452]
29, 30. ‘My
Father who gave them Me is greater than all, and
none can
pluck them out of the hand of My Father.
I and the Father are One.’
Jesus
first
declares the Almightiness of His power to give
eternal life, and to
protect His beloved ones from all power of enemies. But now He
discovers to us the Almighty power
of another, engaged likewise on their behalf: ‘You may
despise Me and My
power of protection; but beside
Mine, there is also the Father’s power.’
The
Father
who gave the sheep is one Person, the Receiver is
another. The
Father gave to the Son.
The Son bestows eternal life, and guards
the
sheep of the eternal fold.
Created might
is unable to rend away any from God’s hand.
It is a question of might against might.
Satan can prevail against them - can he against their
Defenders? David’s
sheep were fortunate in having so
stout a defender, who would adventure life against
the lion and the bear, and
was skilful and strong enough to prevail against
them, and to preserve the
sheep. But
what was His might compared
with that of our Pastor?
The
power
then that keeps us unto salvation is not human power
or will, but Divine.
‘I and the Father are One.’ Very important words!
What
is
the unity here spoken of?
1.
Those who refuse the Deity of Christ, say that our
Lord only meant, that ‘He
and the Father were of one mind and purpose
about saving the sheep.’
And that is true, no doubt.
But if Jesus be no more than a man, His
will
is no guarantee of the salvation of the elect.
Men are often strong in their purpose, and
yet defeated. There are many
beings stronger than the strongest of men.
And unity of will with God says nothing about
the strength engaged.
Now the question here is of strength.
Jesus
sets forth, to the confusion of His foes and their
counsels, and to the comfort
of His sheep, the might of two Persons engaged in
their behalf. He
declares that His own arm, alone, suffices
for their security.
But there is
Another, whose arm was confessed to be Almighty,
even by the Jews His
foes. That
Almighty arm of the Father’s,
then, was a second, which [Page 453] added an overwhelming security.
With that on their side, they must triumph
over all enemies.
Now Almightiness of power springs only from Almightiness of nature. Jesus
alleges
that His power is the same as the Father’s. That was
an assertion of
Godhead. ‘Mine
is no created might; it is one with that of God My
Father!’
The Jews so understood it.
2.
But there is another perversion of the text by Sabellius and by Swedenborg,
who, in concert refuse the Trinity of Persons in the
Godhead, while allowing
Jesus Christ to be God.
They, then,
explain this passage to mean – ‘I
and the Father are One
Person.’ (1)
This is
refuted by the whole Gospel, and by the context of
this very passage.
(2) The plural - ‘We are
One’ -
shows that two Persons are supposed.
(3) The neuter gender of ‘One’
in verse 30,
proves that the point asserted by our Lord is unity
of nature; which
is found, alike, in Father, Son, and
Spirit. That
‘We are’
is the defence of the Trinity against Unitarians. That ‘One’ (‘nature,’
understood,) is our defence
against the Arians;
who would
degrade the nature of the Son of God to one inferior
to the Father’s.
31. ‘The
Jews, therefore, took up stones to stone Him.’
They
understood
our Lord on this occasion to assert His Godhead; His
equality of
nature with His Father; while yet He admitted, yea,
and taught, His
subordination to the Father.
So the
Prince of Wales is, by birth, equally of the Royal
Family with Her Majesty;
while yet he is inferior to her who is the Sovereign
of Great Britain.
The
Jews
were about to put Him to the death commanded by
Moses to be inflicted on
blasphemers (Lev. 24: 10).
Our
Lord,
then, for our instruction, drew out of their own
lips the reason why they
proposed so to execute Him.
32, 33. ‘Jesus answered them, “Many good works I have
showed you from My Father; for which of these
works do ye stone Me?”
The Jews answered Him – “For a good work
we
stone Thee not, but for blasphemy; and because
Thou, being a man, makest
Thyself God.”’
The
expression
in verse 32 is
very
singular. ‘Many
good works I showed you out of the Father.’
Not only the Father’s [Page
454] counsel was there in what
Jesus did, but His co-operation also. Between
fathers and sons on earth there may
be discord and enmity, and thwarting of each others
plans and purposes.
But in the Trinity of the Godhead there is
such oneness, that each co-operates in the work of
the other.
‘Many good works.’ John does not detail
them. Only
three or four are cited in
his Gospel. But
he is one of four
witnesses. They
hated Him without a
cause. They
rewarded Him - as it was
written - evil for good.
Here is a
reference to Psalm 78:
11, 12. God
showed Himself Jehovah by His deeds of power to the
fathers of
We
must
not
wonder
if the truth is
maligned, when Jesus Himself was treated as a
blasphemer!
Jesus
was
in their eyes a blasphemer, deserving death.
But there are two kinds of blasphemy. This
incident discovers of
which of the two kinds of blasphemy
they supposed our Lord to be guilty:-
1.
There is a blasphemy which defames God, and imputes
evil to Him; hating and
cursing Him. That
is the blasphemy of enmity.
2. There is also the blasphemy of pride;
when man, the sinner, dares
to take to himself the titles and worship due to God
alone.
Their
words,
then, not only accused Jesus of blasphemy, but
define the kind of
blasphemy. His
was, they thought, the blasphemy of a
mere man, and of a sinful man, asserting His
equality
with God. And,
we see, the words do import to us of
this day the same meaning which they bore to the
mind of the Jews.
The
Saviour’s
assertion of Godhead puts His case out of the power
of an opponent to
say – ‘Jesus was a good
man, but a mere man.’ Nay!
If He were a mere man, He was not a good man,
but a blasphemer, who asserted
Himself to be God; possessed of all His attributes,
and receiving the religious
worship due to God alone.
To a reasoning
mind there are but these [Page 455] alternatives - (1) To worship Jesus as
‘Son of God.’ (2)
To
refuse Him as guilty of blasphemy.
The
Jews,
we see, do not doubt His manhood. Yet some, in all
ages,
have stumbled here.
But this man,
insanely, in pride and Self-exaltation - as they
suppose - makes Himself God.
The real state of the case was the
converse. Being God, He had humbled Himself
to become man
(Phil. 2).
Against this truth the Jews arm themselves;
and are on fire - as they
think - for the glory of God.
But in the
coming day, when One shall arise, who, being a mere
man, asserts Himself to be
the Only True God, sent by none, but superior to
every god, and every object of
adoration, the Jews and the world will render ready
and hearty worship.
What is the reason that the reality was
refused with loathing, while the counterfeit will be
received with joy?
The perverseness of the human heart of
enmity
against the true God!
34-36. ‘Jesus
answered them, “Is it not written in your law? ‘I
said,
ye are Gods.’
If he called them Gods to
whom the Word of God came (and the Scripture
cannot be broken), say ye of Him whom
the Father sanctified and sent into the world,
‘Thou blasphemest,’ because I
said, “I am the Son of God.”’
‘You assume that a man cannot be
called God without
blasphemy. It
is an error.
God calls some of those to whom He sent His
commands, and who became men – ‘Gods’”
(Psalm 82.).
See
how
solemnly here, and in other places, the Son of God
deals with the Word of
God! How
He trusts and uses its every
word! How
unlike in this, as in other things,
is He to the sons of men; aye, even to good men.
They add to, explain away,
pervert the Words of God.
But that is a
punishable offence.
To do away with
God’s Word, is like breaking His commandments.
Here
are
beings called ‘gods,’
by God Himself.
They wrongfully became men; and yet, though
they are to be judged as men, they cease not to be
called ‘Gods.’
The
Psalmist refers, I believe, to the angels who fell
in Noah’s day through love
to women, (Gen. 6.).
[Page 456]
‘The congregation of God’
- in the opening of the 82nd
Psalm - alludes to what we see in Job
1: 6-8.
The angels, or sons of God, assemble before
Jehovah. Jesus
is superior to these titled Gods in (1)
the dignity of His Person - in (2) the elevation of
His personal character above
them - and in (3) the Father’s designation of Him,
before He became a man, to
the work He was then fulfilling.
‘If the higher name be given to
the inferior person without
blasphemy, how is it blasphemy for the superior
person to take the humbler name?’
These
titled
‘gods’ stole the manhood against
God’s designation.
‘I have taken it
in entire submission to My Father’s
appointment.’
Jesus,
observe,
does not deny that He was God, the Son of God. He
justifies Himself in asserting Deity.
Remarkable
is
the Saviour’s defence.
It is, in
substance, this.
Scripture gives, and
God in Scripture, to certain parties a higher title
than Jesus took to Himself.
They could not say, that God blasphemed, in
giving to the persons addressed the title of ‘Gods.’
Nor could they properly draw themselves out
of the difficulty by saying, ‘It
was a slip of the pen
on Asaph’s part’; and ‘they
did not choose to
be bound by a single word in an isolated passage.’ Against
this evasion our Lord protests by the
words, ‘The Scripture cannot
be broken.’
That is, no part of Scripture is to be
explained away.
There is no error in
it. It
is the Word of God.
He is responsible for it all.
And your so setting aside Scripture is ‘breaking it.’
I am arguing (that is), with those who allow
the inspiration of the Word
written; and that no jot or tittle can be pushed
aside as incapable of being
made the resting place of our souls; and the edges
of whose blade can be in no
wise turned off by any device of men.
Behind
it,
too, there is the further thought –‘The
parties
named ‘gods,’ by
God, are far inferior to Myself.
If,
then, they might call themselves ‘Gods,’ how much more may I, without
blasphemy, call Myself Son
of God’?
[Page 457]
Here
a
number of questions arise.
Notice,
first, that our Lord says, ‘In
your Law’; not ‘in our.’
He speaks as if above it. ‘In
your Law.’ The whole of the Old
Testament is called in several places by this name. The
present quotation is taken from Psalm
82. Now
who
were the parties addressed?
Shall we
scan the Psalm?
1.
Many
take this Psalm to apply to the Judges of
2.
For
myself, I doubt not that it
refers
to the angels who fell
in Noah’s day.
Thus read, there arises
an argument of great force and beauty.
Angels are sometimes called ‘Gods’;
sometimes
‘the sons of God’ -
as they are in the
Psalm before us.
To these God
assigned a rulership, and bade them in it act justly
toward the sons of
men. Concerning
the rule of angels over
the world, Daniel is witness.
But these angels disobeyed.
‘They left their
government (marg.), and
their habitation the
heaven,’ as Jude tells us (ver.
6); and
that in connection with the days of Noah. (2
Pet. 2.).
As the consequence of their so doing the
earth was filled with violence (Gen. 6: 11, 12).
Thus the complaint of the Psalm is
historically borne out.
Now
this
view brings out the Saviour’s words into full force
and beauty. He
compares Himself with them, and shows His
vast superiority in His obedience to the Father, and
His holiness of nature.
The
comparison
is very close. These angels became men,
because they thought men’s life
on earth was preferable to their own in heaven? They left their
charge and government,
and
were responsible for the confusion which thence
ensued, even if they did not
themselves act unjustly.
They, then,
whom God called ‘Gods,’
and ‘sons of God,’
became unholy, and fell under God’s just
[Page 458]
sentence. As
they would become men, and take them wives
of the daughters of men, they should die as men
also.
Here is the full force given to the
passage. They were
not sent into the
world by the Father in all
holiness, as was the Son of God.
They
followed their own perverse choice, and also fell
under God’s displeasure; and
are now shut up in cells of darkness in Tartarus,
awaiting the day of judgment
appointed for men.
This doom befel them
at death. *
*
Those who would
see the subject further treated, are
referred to the author’s tract – ‘The
Spirits in
Prison.’
If
then
God could call these ‘angel-Gods’
unholy,
though they were originally holy, and disobediently
became men, how far
superior and more worthy of the title was Jesus; who
was really the Word of
God, whom the Father called God, and His
Only-begotten Son, in whom He was ever
‘well pleased.’
They were called ‘Gods’
to whom the
spoken Word of God came, who were disobedient to the
Father’s will, and being gods in title,
made themselves men –
unholily. Then
how could the Jews call
Jesus, the true Son of God, whom the Father set
apart to be incarnate, and sent
into the world to be a man, a blasphemer, in His
calling Himself, not ‘God,’
but the ‘Son of God’? ‘The
Word of God came’
not to the
Son, but He was from eternity
the Word of God, the treasurer of the Father’s
counsels, the perfect in Divine
Holiness. Could
the Father’s sanctified
Son sin? and be guilty of the outrageous crime of
blasphemy?
God
called
‘Gods,’ those to whom
the Word of God
came. How
much more might He call
Himself ‘the Son of God,’
who was eternally the
Word, possessed of essential Godhead?
he
Jews, then, were the blasphemers in blaspheming
Christ the Word of God.
To
these
angelic deserters of their post, these unholy ones,
the title ‘Gods,’
might be more justly denied, than to Jesus
Himself the Perfect in Holiness, the obedient to the
Father in His incarnation
and death.
And with what great significance in this view does the last verse of the
Psalm come in?
‘Arise, 0 God, judge
the earth ;for [Page 459]
Thou shalt inherit all
nations.’
These
angel-rulers set aside, who
shall rule all nations?
The Son, there before them! To whom is the
[millennial]
kingdom promised?
To the Obedient One, Who shall ask, and the
nations shall be
given Him as His inheritance, (Psalm
2.).
‘Thou hast loved
righteousness and hated iniquity.
Therefore, 0 God, thy God hath
anointed thee with the oil of
gladness above Thy fellows.’ Here is a man; for He
is ranged among men ‘His
follows.’
Here is God, so addressed by
God, and to
Him the sceptre of
righteousness is to be entrusted (Heb.
1: 8, 9).
Jesus, then, did - not, like those offenders - being God make Himself man
- but was made man by
the Father’s will; and to Him it was no
robbery to be equal with God.
Jesus
existed,
and was set apart, before He was made man.
Observe - it is not said, ‘God
sanctified and
sent,’
but ‘the Father.’ Not
‘the
Universal Father,’ but ‘Christ’s
Father.’
The
gist
of this controversy between our Lord and the Jews
may be thus stated: ‘Never,’
said the Jews in effect, ‘can
a man be called God without blasphemy.’ Our Lord’s
reply is, ‘Your own Scriptures call certain parties - and those not guiltless – “Gods.” You
cannot accuse your Scriptures of
blasphemy. You
are wrong therefore.’
These
persons
whom God addresses in the Psalm, Jesus does not, in
His wisdom, more
distinctly define; as then arguments about who these
parties were, would have,
in all probability, come in; and the Saviour wished
His defence to steer clear
of any just exception.
His citation
would be still more accurately to the point, if the
persons indicated by the
Saviour, while in their original condition called ‘gods,’
yet became
men,
as He Himself had
done. They
became incarnate so against
God’s will,
as to draw down
on themselves the sentence of death.
Then the comparison with our Lord becomes
more close and complete.
The
inferior
persons were called “Gods”
by Jehovah:
I, who am superior to them in dignity and holiness, have not
taken to Myself the loftier title. If it be no blasphemy
in
them so to call themselves, much less is it in Me to
call Myself “Son of God.”
Thus the Saviour hints,
that it was part of God’s
intention, that [Page 460] one day the Godhead and manhood should be united in His own
Person. Up
to this point it might seem
to some as if our Lord disavowed His strict Godhead. But the
words which follow remove any such
impression. His
previous words went to
show that the name of God might attach to some
beings who were men [angels].
He now adds - that this was true of
Himself!
We
have
next the Saviour’s own interpretation of – ‘I
and
the Father are one.’
What does it
mean? He
tells us, ‘I said,
I AM THE SON OF GOD.’ That is
the natural deduction from the words
– ‘I
and the
Father
are one.’ It is not,
‘There is
but one Person, and I that One Person, am the
Father.’
That is Swedenborg’s perverse version of
it;
and it is here refuted.
The Speaker was the
Son sent from heaven, by His Father in
heaven. The
Oneness is not a Oneness of Person, any
more than ‘the Gods,’
of whom the Psalm speaks,
are one Person with God.
But it is the oneness
of nature, as the son is of the same nature with his
father!
37, 38. ‘If
I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not. But if I
do, even if ye believe not Me,
believe the works; that ye may know and believe
that the Father is in Me, and I
in the Father.’
‘Deeds,’ we say, ‘speak
louder
than words.’
So says our
Lord. ‘I refer
you to the language of My deeds of miracle; miracles of grace.’
The force of this is seen by comparing our
Lord’s works of power with those of Moses.
Moses wrought wonders before
He
is
brought often into circumstances in which the
necessary wisdom and power to
meet the occasion, fail him.
It is the
glory of God, that such occasions never occur with
the Most High.
It was thus with our Lord.
He has never to retract anything; never to
acknowledge error or sin.
Jesus, then,
asserted that there was a style about the mode of
doing His works of power,
which showed them done by the direct knowledge and
might of God. Yet
were they so done, as that the Saviour
owned His place of obedience to His Father.
Moreover, most of the works of Moses were
suited to Jehovah the God of justice; they were
strokes of power on
offenders. But
the mighty works of the
Saviour were deeds of grace, suited to the new name
of Father,
Son,
and [Holy]
Spirit,
witnessed to by our Lord.
Jesus
would
prove His doctrine by His works: works of holiness;
works of power.
On these He was willing that the case should
be decided. If
Moses were thus proved to
be the sent of God, to their nation’s satisfaction
in all ages since, how could
they refuse the same mode of proof now?
Was
it
not something unheard of, and full of goodness,
that, when assailed by
reproaches, scorn, and violence, He neither
threatened, nor avenged Himself in
return, though possessed of the amplest means of
doing so? Moses, unjustly
accused, is avenged by God, even on his sister and
brother. And,
when tried by the unjust accusation and
insolence of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, no sooner
does he appeal to God against
the [Page 462] offenders,
than nature’s course is broken to avenge him.
Jesus, far more deeply wronged, asks no
vengeance, but endures.
Here is the Son, like His Father,
who ‘maketh
His sun to shine on the evil and the good, and
sendeth rain on the just and the
unjust.’
Jesus
does,
indeed, take a position loftily above Moses.
He claims a place with God altogether
peculiar. He
says not, ‘God
is in Me, and
I am in God.’
Those
words might be said of believers now.
But it is, ‘I am in the Father,
and the Father
is in Me!’
That was true of Himself alone.
He alone knew the Father; and as truly as
the
Father knew Him.
39, 40. ‘They
sought again therefore to seize Him, but He
escaped out
of their hand, and went away again beyond
Here
behold
another miraculous peculiarity of His case.
He withdraws without smiting His enemies,
who
were intent on arresting Him.
This could
not be accomplished without some miraculous power
exerted. If
it were ‘accident,’
as some would have it, that on one occasion
befriended Him, how was it that the
result was the same whenever He would?
Just regard the matter from the light of the
Old Testament.
We learn from that season of inferior light,
that with God there is no ‘accident’
at
all. That
escape or seizure depends on
God’s delivering a man out of an enemy’s hands, or
His giving him up to his
foes. David
was oft in peril.
How was it that he escaped?
‘The Lord delivered
him not into the hand of Saul,’ though he
sought him day by day, and
though David seemed almost shut up beyond escape. On the
contrary, offenders were not
preserved, but given up into the hand of their
enemies, as the result of the
Lord’s good pleasure.
Now if our Lord
were, as the Jews affirmed, an enemy of God, and a
blasphemer, how was it that
the Most High did not give Him up into the hand of
those who sought to execute
the penalty of Moses’ Law against Him?
Say, that He was possessed - as the Jews do
say - of magical power.
Is not God superior to the force of magic? Would He
not appear to enforce the Law which
He had given by Moses His servant?
Or
why did He not Himself smite with woe or death
Jesus, if [Page
463] He
were the usurper of
Godhead? For
less offences God had
smitten men to death.
The spies that
bore false witness were cut off.
Gehazi
is, for his deceit, stricken with leprosy.
The intruding king finds, in the temple, the
leprous spot rise in his
forehead; though he made not himself the Son of God.
Nebuchadnezzar, though a
Gentile, is for his pride - a far less pride than
that of which the Jews accuse
our Lord- stricken with madness, and driven from
among men. Herod,
for refusing the title of God given
him by others, is at once smitten with death, and
eaten with worms.
How
was
it that Paul was in general so easily taken; or
escaped only by steps that
might be adopted by another man?
As soon
as they shout against him as the defiler of the
temple, he is seized, but for
the Romans’ quick descent, would have been killed. Peter is
taken, without effort, by Herod; and
James also.
Where
was
the power of Jehovah, God of Israel, if Jesus were
thus asserting
pretensions of blasphemy, and yet He was not cut off
in displeasure, suddenly
and visibly? Why
was He not treated as
Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans -
the same night convicted of sin and slain?
But Jesus, after these loud claims, still
works His works of power.
Why did not the Father hinder, if He were
not
His Son? The
next chapter gives us the
greatest work of wonder achieved by Him expressly in
His character of Son of
God. But,
moreover, His own resurrection
came in proof that His claims were real, and that He
had made no pretensions of
wicked and insane pride.
He is put to
death as a blasphemer by the leaders of
The
Saviour
withdraws from
‘John did no miracle.’ That was a part of the
wisdom of God, in reference to our Lord’s
forerunner. The
effect produced by him on the minds of the
majority of
41, 42. ‘And
many resorted unto Him, and said, “John did no
miracle:
but all things that John spake of this man were
true.” And
many believed on Him there.’
The
Saviour’s
movement of retirement was attended with success. He
obtained both quiet from foes, and the
addition of disciples.
Here is a piece
of wisdom needed oft by God’s people, and by
ministers. In
it ofttimes mistakes are made.
‘How do I know how
long I am to stay here, according to God’s will? When am
I to move? If
to move, whither am I to go?’ We
find even inspired men at times at a loss
here: twice in a short [Page 465] time, inspired apostles thought to go on the Master’s errands one the
direction, and were forbidden (Acts
16: 6, 7).
This
Bethabara
was a green spot for our Lord amidst the wilderness;
a brief respite
before the final assault. Thus God often deals with
His people. It
is not always a time of storm.
The next chapter, however,
tells us that the time was
brief, and shows us how our Lord was led back again
close to
VOLUME 2 [Pages 1 - 457]
CHAPTER 11
[Page 1]
1, 2. ‘Now
a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of
We
are
now introduced to a family of whom the other Gospels
have had to speak.
It
would
seem that Lazarus and his sisters were born in
Galilee, but had a house
in
Now
we
are come to a question which has often been raised,
and on which many are
divided. Is
the Mary here spoken of -
the sister of Lazarus - the notorious sinner of Luke
7., and the Mary Magdalene of the Gospels?
whom nevertheless the Lord
forgave, and declared that he preferred to Simon the
Pharisee? Then ‘Simon the
Pharisee’ would be also ‘Simon
the leper.’
If
it
be so, then Martha was the husband of Simon the
leper, and Lazarus was
sojourning at the house.
Then there were
two anointings.
One, early in our Lord’s
ministry, after His freeing Mary from evil spirits,
and her conversion from her
evil way, and the final one at
[Page 2]
This
would
account for the conspicuous place which Mary
Magdalene takes at the
cross, burial, and resurrection of our Lord.
Firmly were her affections knit to Him who
had converted her, and raised
her brother from the dead.
‘Simon, the leper,’
as being also ‘Simon, the
Pharisee,’ was prepared to condemn our Lord
in allowing the near approach of his sister-in-law. This would
account also for such a woman
entering the house of Simon, and also for Simon’s
inviting our Lord to dinner -
it being for his wife’s sake.
It
accounts too, for Mary’s having in the house, and
having kept the precious spikenard, with which she; on the latter occasion,
anointed our Lord.
The
question
is rendered difficult to most minds, by the
preoccupation of their feelings.
They
do not like to
think that Mary, of
I
am slow to believe that John can refer in this
second verse to any but the
account in Luke.
The points he names are
so peculiar. It
is true that in the next
Chapter after the resurrection of Lazarus, John
narrates a feast given at Simon’s
house in honour of the Saviour, at which Mary
anointed the feet of Jesus.
But the reference would naturally be to
something past, not to something yet to be.
Why
is
the resurrection of Lazarus omitted by the three
first Evangelists?
To
the
semi-infidels who comment on Scripture it is a proof
of its
non-reality. How,
if true, could so
marvellous a work be omitted, and one so close to
We
may,
indeed, suggest sufficient reasons why the three
earlier Evangelists did
not narrate this resurrection. Most probably Lazarus
was still alive when the
earlier Gospels were written, and the story of his
raising might attract
towards him murderous attempts like that before the
Saviour’s death.
But when he was gone, as was most likely
the
case when John wrote, the difficulty was removed. Like this
is the incident affecting
Peter. The
former Evangelists noticed,
that one of the disciples struck off the ear of an
individual of the company
that arrested Jesus.
But they do not say
who
it was. John
does. Peter had passed
away,
therefore all danger to him was over.
And
lastly,
we may add, that this crowning work was left to John
to give, because
it accorded with the main design of his Gospel to
glorify ‘the Son of God.’
Lazarus
is
a person unspoken of before in the Gospels;
therefore when now he is named,
he is introduced through two of his relatives who
had been before mentioned
there.
This notice of Mary (verse
2) is designed to connect John’s with that
of Luke, as a person
previously named in the Gospels.
And so
she was often, if ‘Mary, the
sister of Lazarus,’
is the same as ‘Mary
Magdalene’ (or Mary of
Magdala). This
I am inclined to
believe. Great
was her love, as having
had much forgiven; and the Saviour’s kindness to her
in raising her brother
from the tomb drew her out prominently in the last
scenes of our Lord’s life on
earth. She
was at the cross with the
Saviour’s mother and her sister (John
19: 25).
When our Lord was entombed, she sat over against the
sepulchre, with the other [Page
4] Mary
(Matt.
27: 61).
She was one of the first
women to start on the first morning of the week very
early to see the
sepulchre, and was the first to bring word to Peter
and John concerning rolling
away of the stone.
When these two
apostles left the sepulchre, she stayed there; and
was the first to behold the
risen Saviour, and to bear His message to the
apostles. Her name is placed
even before the name of our Lord’s
mother several times. Matt. 27: 56,
‘Mary, the mother of James
and Joses’ - is our
Lord’s mother, Matt.
13: 55, 56.
See also Matt.
27: 61; 28: 1; Mark 15: 40-47; 16: 1-9.
3, 4. ‘The
sisters then sent to Him saying, “Lord, behold, he
whom
Thou lovest is sick.”
But Jesus, when He
heard it, said, “This sickness is not for death,
but with a view to the glory
of God, that the Son of God might be glorified
thereby.”’
The sisters were
like-minded women of faith, having
their eye on divine aid in their trouble.
This is a lesson to us to bear to Christ our
various trials and joys for
His sympathy and help.
Their message was
delicate and beautiful.
What they desire
is implied, not expressed.
They make the
Saviour’s love
to their
brother the link, rather than his love to Christ. This may
be to us a consolation when
disciples of Christ are ill.
The love of
Christ is still with those who are under sickness,
whether they recover or fall
asleep. They,
doubtless, did not like to
urge our Lord’s visit to them, sensible of the
danger of life He would incur by
so doing. They
leave it to Him therefore
to decide what to do, though their words on meeting
Him show that they very
naturally had expected that our Lord would instantly
heal, either by a word at
a distance, or by a personal visit.
Our
Lord’s
reply seems to have been made in the hearing of the
messenger, that the
sickness, as he would understand it, would not be
fatal. Now
as Lazarus died on the very day of their
sending, and was buried at once, this must have been
a trial of their
faith. ‘This
sickness is not for (or ‘unto’)
death.’
How was
that? Lazarus was dead!
Had Jesus been
deceived? Or
did the messenger mistake
His words? How
are we to take them?
[Page 5]
We
should
observe that, in the Greek, two different
prepositions are used where
our Lord defines the intent of this visitation.
He sees its meaning from the first, and
distinguishes the main and spiritual
intent from that which was first in time, but
subordinate. Fatal
sicknesses, now, are sent with a view to death.
The stricken one is to go into death, and to
abide in the state of the
dead. It
was not to be so here.
Death was indeed necessary to God’s design
in
it; but only as a temporary means to the spiritual
and abiding end in view,
which was the glory of God in the special glory of
Christ as Son
of God.
May
we
also learn, that sickness of loved ones, and even
their death is for the
glory of God! And
if they be Christ’s,
they, too, will glorify Him by their resurrection at
His call.
Jesus
was
not glorified by Lazarus being left in the hands of
death. But
this entailed the rescue of him, in order
to Christ’s glory.
What a confidence our
Lord showed in His power, that He was willing to
give Death three days to
entrench himself, ere He attacked him!
How He thus proved that He was no blasphemer,
against whom God was
irritated! Jesus
knows both the origin
and end of the matter better than the sisters.
His words on this occasion may remind us of
those concerning Jairus’
daughter, ‘The maiden is not dead, but sleepeth;’
and
the Saviour on that occasion also, was the awakener.
This incident is typical throughout:
designed to assure us of the
[out]
resurrection
of the Saviour’s friends. Their resurrection is to be for the glorifying of
Christ. The
Saviour has now ‘tarried’
well High ‘two days’
- of
a thousand years each - where He is: but we trust in His speedy return to awake the slumberers.
The
Saviour’s
word was carried by the messenger to the sisters, as
is implied by our Lord’s
words – ‘Said I not to thee, that if thou
wouldest believe, thou should see the glory
of God?’
6. ‘Now
Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When,
therefore, He heard that He was sick,
then, indeed, He abode in the place where He was
two days.’
The sisters’ message was
true. Jesus
did
love him, and yet allowed him to die.
For his death brought far more glory to [Page 6]
Christ than his firmest health would, or than his
healing from sickness would.
God’s
actings are oft beyond our fathoming.
His ways towards those whom He loves, are not
those which human love
would take. Human
love would have
prevented the assault of disease; or would have
prevented its deadly result, by
at once advancing to the object beloved.
So that the next verse sounds strangely to
our ears.
‘When He heard, therefore, that he was sick, He abode two days where He was.
This tarrying must have seemed strange to
the
sisters. Its
wisdom and goodness do not
approve themselves to us, save when we see before us
the whole matter, with its
final issue.
If
Christ tarry, be patient! It
may be
that He
delays a present blessing, to
bestow a larger future one.
Jesus’
tarrying
was to give death its full swing: to allow it to
seize on its prey in
the most complete and powerful manner.
He would overcome the conqueror, after giving
him his best battle-field.
The lamb shall be slain - borne away to the
lion’s den - its bones broken and its flesh partly
eaten, before the shepherd
attacks the wild beast, conquers it in its lair, and
bears away the prey!
There are three records of
Jesus’ raising the dead:-
1.
The
first is that of Jairus’ daughter.
She has just breathed her last in her
chamber. He
takes her by the hand, and She arises.
2.
In
the widow’s son of Nain, the funeral procession is
on its way to the
tomb. Jesus
arrests it, and gives back
the rescued son alive into the arms and home of his
mother.
3.
But
can He deliver one who is already in the tomb? One on
whom the process of corruption is
begun? For
this was the point which was
most needed, in order to our full faith.
The
resurrection
of the just must take
place in general over those who have long been
consigned to the tomb - of
whom scarce a bone or a heap of dust
remains.
This,
then,
is the third and strongest instance which is given
as a resting-place to
our faith. And
the greater the
difficulty, [Page 7] the greater the glory of victory.
The two first instances were like the calling
back of a tenant again
into the house which he had just left.
But where corruption has begun, the problem
is far more difficult. Then
it is as if the house had been abandoned a long
while, till the roof had fallen
in, the windows were broken, the ravens had entered
and built their nests
there. Till the ruined
house is repaired, the tenant cannot dwell in it. But the
Almighty power of our Lord, in this
case, in a moment restored
the ruined
abode of the soul.
He who has put
away sin,
is superior
to the might of death and
corruption.
The
first task was more difficult, and cost Him more
than the second.
7, 8. ‘Then
after this saith He to the disciples, “Let us go
into
The
time
for action is come, and Jesus no longer tarries. He would
make His disciples in part partakers
of His counsels.
He would go into
9, 10. ‘Jesus
answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any
walk in the day, he stumbleth not
because he seeth the light of this world.
But if any walk in the night, he stumbleth
because the light is not in him.”’
The
bearing
on our Lord’s reply seems to be this – ‘You
sons
of men move among uncertainties; for you have not,
as I have, the light of
God indwelling.
But I know whence I
came, and whither I go, and the whole course of
what shall befall Me.
I do the Father’s will, and walk in His
light. My
foes cannot seize Me till My
day’s work is done.
I have the light in
Me, and walk by it at every step.’
The Son's superiority to us is thus clearly
stated.
The
Father
hath determined to each His day, and has given him
His work to effect in
those twelve hours. Happy he who fills them up as
God would have him, so that
at last he can say, [Page 8] ‘I have finished the work thou gavest me to do’;
and
so that Christ shall say, ‘Well
done!’
Were we to prolong our lives by failure in
duty, such an added hour would be one in the night,
in which we should be sure
to stumble.
Our
light
by which we labour comes to us from without; we do
not carry a sun within
us. Hence
the way of man is not in
himself, but in God.
This speech of our
Lord probably was uttered early in the morning of
the day on which He would
travel to
11-15. ‘These
things said He, and after that He saith unto them,
“Lazarus, our friend, has fallen asleep; but I am
going to awake him.”
They said therefore, “Lord, if he have
fallen
asleep he will recover.”
But Jesus had
spoken concerning his death.
But they
thought that He was speaking of the repose of
sleep. Then
saith Jesus unto them plainly, “Lazarus
is dead. And
I am glad for your sakes (I
mean, in order that ye may believe) that I was not
there: but let us go unto
him!”’
Our Lord’s intent in His
return to
‘Lazarus is dead, and I am glad.’ This needed
explanation. The
gladness did not relate
to Lazarus or the sisters, but to the disciples’
faith, which, as was then
seen, needed increase.
To those who love Jesus,
and whom Jesus loves, death
is a sleep from which He
is coming to wake them.
He hints now the reason of His delay. Had He
been on the spot His compassion [Page
9] in
conjunction with the
expectation of the sisters, would have led Him to
deliver him from death; or,
at any rate, very shortly after it, and the full
power of the Lord would not
have been beheld.
This delay, then, was
designed to increase the disciples’ faith.
That it
effected in that day, and
ever since, even unto our own times.
It
was the crowning miracle of power, on
which our faith in a returning Saviour, and the
reunion of His sleeping and
living saints is to rest.
While
then the anguish of the sisters was
sore, and their perplexity great during those
days of the Lord’s tarrying, yet
even they must have confessed that the issue to
them, and their follow
disciples, was worth the tarrying.
It was another instance of that word – ‘What I
do, thou knowest not now, but thou
shalt
know hereafter.’
There is
much which awaits the light of God’s great day of
resurrection, much that is
now dark, that will be satisfactorily cleared up
then. We
have need of patience therefore till the light
of resurrection is shed upon our
difficulties, and, the kingdom with its glory
explains to us what has perplexed
us here.
‘Let us go unto him.’ Death is not the end
of a
man’s existence, but only of his life-career on
earth.
‘Let us go unto him.’
Scripture and our Lord use the common phrases
of men respecting
death. The
man who is deceased is divided
into two parts.
One part is visible, and
within the reach of the survivors.
One
is invisible, and beyond us.
But
our Lord calls their going
to the grave of Lazarus, where
his dead
body alone lay,
a going to him.
Herein
He stands
opposed to those who teach,
that the spirit-state on which a man enters at
death, in his final
state.
Such doctrine is against
the Scripture.
Every example which
Scripture gives of resurrection is the bringing
together of the two parts of
man - the visible and the invisible - once more. The body is
a permanent part of the man.
Our
rescue
is not complete, till Almighty power shall
exempt from death the bodies
of believers, by reuniting to them their souls. It is a
work to be effected by the Son of God
at a day appointed, but to us unknown.
The
body is not to consume un-regarded,
never more to be used.
This
is the Spiritist and [Page 10] Swedenborgian idea; and it is an unbelief
condemned by Scripture. Jesus
took again His body from the sepulchre
where it was laid.
He gave
back again the body to the soul in
the case of Jairus’ daughter, the young
man of Nain, and Lazarus.
It is
expressly so stated of that company which were the
first finally to leave the
tomb after the Saviour’s resurrection, ‘And
the graves
were opened; and many bodies of
the saints which slept arose,’ Matt.
27:
52. The
exit of the soul
from the disorganised body is no effect of
the Gospel. It
was the result of the
first Adam’s sin.
It has been going on
over untold millions of the lost, and of the saved. None, even
of unbelievers, doubt the
phenomena of death.
But faith expects
the results of the righteousness of the Second Adam,
and His victory over
death. At a signal given by the Father, a signal for which Christ is looking,
He shall undo the effects of sin and death.
Sin brought in the tomb, and its slavery of
corruption. The
righteousness of the Second Adam shall introduce
the deliverance of the saints
into resurrection, and its body of glory and power.
Burial is but the sowing of the seed.
We wait its outcome from the earth in a body of glory and power (1 Cor. 15.).
16. ‘Thomas,
therefore, who is called “The Twin,” said to his
fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die
with Him.”
This
is
spoken to the credit of the apostle.
When the rest of the twelve were slow to
venture into the place of
peril, this apostle was the first to encourage his
fellows to follow Christ,
even into the peril of death.
Herein he
was greater than Peter; for he went, as he said. If Caesar,
in his Commentaries, thought it
right to signalise the intrepid standard-bearer who
led the halting warriors of
Rome to attack the warlike Britons, drawn up on
their shores in battle-array,
God has thought it right to immortalise the name of
this soldier of the
cross. Still,
like almost all the good
words and deeds of fallen men, there is a mixture of
dross with the gold.
Here, with faith and devotion to the person
of Christ, there was joined want of intelligence, [Page 11]
and shall we not say also, some unbelief?*
For Jesus had by His previous words (ver. 9, 10) assured
them, that He went with the
full vision of all that was before Him, and not as
men who in the dark stumble
at obstacles unforeseen.
Scripture,
unlike the books of men, gives us at once the bright
and the dark side of
disciples. In
chapter
14: 5, we see the same apostle doubting the
Saviour’s words, and in 20:
2, we have his doubts regarding the reality
of
the Saviour’s [out]
resurrection.
*Thomas does not see the
wisdom of the decision, but
love leads him to follow it.
It
is
good to go with Christ even into trial, and unto
death. For
He will support His people under all the
trials into which faith leads them.
And to
give up life for His
sake is to find it again in the blest day of
the first resurrection.
Dying with Jesus is a different thing
from dying with Adam.
17, 18. ‘Jesus,
therefore, when He came, found that He had been
already four days in the tomb.
Now
The
rest
of the apostles followed the exhortation and good
example of Thomas.
Of what importance are our words and our
deeds, Christians, to our fellow believers!
Let us take heed that they are on the track,
and on the principles of, Christ.
They
cross the
[Page 12]
This
resurrection
of Lazarus was of the more importance, because of
its nearness to
This
event
then created the greatest attention both of friend
and of foe, because so
many would hear of it, and see it, and that at one
of the sacred assemblies of
their nation. The
miracle was not done
in
Jesus’ entry into the city on the ass
was the call to
19.
‘Now many of the Jews had
come to Martha and Mary, that
they might comfort them concerning their brother.’
These
words
are given to instruct us how, without any understood
notice on Christ’s
part of His intention to raise Lazarus, many Jews
were present at the great
act. According
to the usual course of
things in the case of a death in the family, the
friends were accustomed to
assemble at the house of mourning.
God
does not need the eyes of a multitude of men to stir
Him to put forth His
miracles. The
Saviour was tempted to
this at His trial by Satan in the desert.
Would He use His power of miracle theatrically?
amidst admiring
thousands, seeking their applause?
He
would not. His
aim was to glorify His
Father, and seek His praise alone.
The
intelligence
of the death of Lazarus reaches his friends in the
usual way; and
according to their custom, the friends of the family
visit the mourners,
anticipating nothing uncommon.
It was so
close to
20.
‘Martha, therefore, when she
heard that Jesus is
coming, met Him, but Mary was sitting in the house.’
Most
would
have expected that Mary would have been the one
first to hear, and first
to meet our Lord.
But it was not
so. To
Martha, probably, as being the
mistress of the house, the tidings of Jesus’
approach were carried.
He did not go to the house.
Some of these visitors were His determined
foes, as appears from their acting as messengers to
the Pharisees.
They were unchanged, in spite of this work of
God wrought before their eyes.
Miracle
was the means of turning some to faith.
But not all.
The native enmity of
the soul against God and His Christ was too strong
to be overpowered, even by
the spectacle of the Saviour’s lordship over death
and corruption.
Mary
went
out to meet our Lord.
They met face
to face, and Mary turned back with our Lord.
This throws light on 1
Thess. 4: 17.
‘To meet the Lord in the air.’ Those who
arise from the earth meeting the
descending Saviour, and turn back with Him towards
the earth after having met
Him. So
was it with Paul when the saints
of
21-23. ‘Therefore
said Martha to Jesus, “Lord, if Thou hadst been
here my brother had not died.
But even
now I know that whatsoever Thou shalt ask of God,
God will give it Thee.”
Jesus saith unto her, “Thy brother shall
rise
again.”’
Probably
Martha
had been secretly told of Jesus’ arrival.
The company was un-sympathizing with Jesus.
How
oft
we look back with lingering ‘if!’
How
oft
the heart longs for that which it dare not frame
into express words!
[Page 14]
We
see
here the amount of faith professed by this friend of
Christ. His
power, she was persuaded, extended over
all forms of disease.
And she with her
sister had hoped that the Lord would have stepped in
to cure disease, and
prevent death.
Had He been on the spot,
He would have done so, and the family would have
been spared this deep
sorrow. But
the church in general would
have lost this great light, which Lazarus’
resurrection has cast on the power
of the Son of God.
The Lord Jesus was by
this
affliction
glorifying beyond all others the family
of
Martha
had
great faith. While
the belief of
most fainted, when death had come in to carry off
his prey - as where messengers
came to Jairus – ‘Thy
daughter is dead, why troublest
thou the Teacher any further?’
she
believed that even the bands of death could be
loosed, in answer to His
special prayer.
‘Even now.’ Though life
is
gone, and death, and corruption are slavery too
strong for mortals to undo, He
could receive the resurrection of Lazarus, as the
result of special
communication of energy from God for this end.
Had
not
Elijah, by prayer, raised the son of the Sareptan? Had not
Elisha also lifted out of death the
son of the Shunammite?
Nay, had not
Jesus on two previous occasions at least, raised the
dead? Why,
then, should He not do the same for His
personal friend?
The
Saviour
promises that Lazarus shall be raised.
But He does not say (1)
when.
He does not say, (2) that He will effect the deliverance.
He does not say, (3) that He would pray, and
get the response from God
which she desired.
The Lord’s frequent
teaching concerning His Father, had not impressed on
her and others that new
name of God. She
had not seen
in Christ that peculiar Sonship, which is the foundation of the new name of Father.
She
speaks,
then, only coldly and distantly, ‘God
will give.’
She thinks, that Jesus is putting her off
with only the feeble comfort which men, because of
their weakness in the
presence of [Page 15] death can give; that a
day is coming when the
shackles of this last of foes shall be rent off. Doubtless,
this was in substance the comfort
which her friends had been administering to her
and her sister.
It is the only one we can give.
Death is too strong for us.
We cannot wrest away his captives: we
ourselves are ready to be enslaved by him.
We can only point onward to the might of
Another, who, in
some distant day, shall redeem from
the power of the grave.
24. ‘Martha
saith to Him, “I know that he shall arise in the
resurrection in the last day.”’
She
dares
not - it were too good news to be true - take the
word as expressing the present raising
of her brother.
Yes! From the
dim light of the Law and the
Prophets, the majority of
25, 26. ‘Jesus
said to her, “I am Resurrection and Life.
He that believeth in Me, even if he die,
shall live; and every one that is alive and
believes in Me, shall not die for
ever. Believest
thou this?”’
The
means
whereby the blest results of resurrection shall
follow, is faith in the
Son.
How like is Martha to multitudes of
believers, who turn aside from application to themselves,
and screw down to the lowest point the
[conditional] promises and hopes of the Gospel!
’Tis true; but not
now!’ ’Tis
true; but not
for me!’
‘In the midst of life we are in
death,’ say nature and
Law. ‘In the
midst of death we are in life,’ says Faith under the Gospel.
In
this
Gospel we see men’s ideas of the glory of the Son of
God to be quite poor,
and below the reality.
Jesus has
perpetually [Page 16] to raise the ideas of His person and work.
Even His people’s highest thoughts are far
too low. The
Saviour would teach Martha,
and us through Martha, that He was more than the
prophets; possessed of a
higher standing far than the two who alone had
raised the dead.
‘You think,
Martha,
that I may, on application at the court of heaven,
receive the especial power
to rescue My friend from the grave?
But
that is far below the truth.
Do you see
concentrated in Me all the Godhead?
Is
it true, think you, that all the power
by which resurrection in the Great
Day is to be effected, dwells in Me?
Do you
believe that I am the
Creator and Preserver of men: One in whom Life
dwells; who of His own nature is
Life eternal and self-existent?’
It
is
as if our Lord had said, ‘You
believe in
resurrection as a thing promised by
God; you believe in it as a something future. Do you believe, that
I am
really the Person who is to effect it and that the power to effect it
is really Mine, and always was?’
This
history
was designed to produce a continuous effect on the
Church. It
was to be a consolation to all those who
bury their loved ones, who are also beloved by
Christ. Christ
will come to raise the beloved
saints [out
from the dead]!
We
have here a passage which connects itself with
Paul’s words about resurrection
(1 Thess. 4.);
and with John’s, in Revelation
20: 4-6. But if so,
literal resurrection
is
foretold in both passages.
Thus
the
apostle is proving, by our Lord’s own words, the
propositions concerning
His Godhead and Almighty power, with which the
Gospel opens (1: 1-4).
The Saviour is obliged to bear witness to
Himself as the Only-begotten
Son of the Father, eternally possessed of the power
to bestow and restore
life. Thus
He sets Himself far above
Moses, or even Elijah and Elisha.
Their
raising the dead was an exceptional thing; a special
grant of power over death,
made in answer to a particular and pressing call. He possessed this power natively; and had no need to make application
for it, as for something which dwelt outside Him.
[Page 17]
There
were
two resurrections at
Promises
of
resurrection are found in the Old Testament prophets
(Is. 25: 8; 26: 19; Dan.
12: 2; Hos. 13.).
‘I will keep disease away
from the obedient’ -
is
the promise of the Law. ‘I
will redeem
This
word
of our Lord’s is the centre of the story; the great
lesson intended to be
taught. It is that in the
person of Jesus lies all our hope of the
kingdom, and [the
out] resurrection
to come. This is
but a specimen of what, one day, will
be effected for multitudes unnumbered.
Other servants of God turn away our eyes from
them. ‘Why look ye so
earnestly on us, as though we, by our own power or holiness, had made this man to walk?’ Jesus
turns our eyes alway to
Himself. He
who in mortal flesh could effect this
resurrection at a word, will recall His slumberers,
and gather to Him His
wakeful ones.
The
words
which follow, seem to me to refer to the two
different positions which
the Saviour’s people will occupy in
the
day of His coming in His kingdom.
Some will be asleep in the tomb.
They had believed in Jesus, and had died; but
the Saviour, as
Resurrection, would awake them to life eternal.
Would
any
believer be found alive at His coming? He ‘shall
not
die for ever.’
For
Christ shall change this mortal body, ready to be attacked and
overwhelmed by death, so that it shall never
undergo death.
‘This corruptible (the
dead saints), shall put
on incorruption; and this mortal
(the living), shall
put on immortality.’ Then shall death be
swallowed up in victory.
For the bodies of believers, whether dead
or
alive, are unfit even for the millennial
As the words, ‘though
he
die,’ mean literal
death,
to be followed by literal life; so ‘he
that liveth’ refers
to literal life, [Page
18] and
to a
victory over literal death. Each is to be
obtained at
the last day, of which our Lord previously had
spoken.
Life
as
now possessed by the believer is not truly ‘life,’
but
only its shadow.
[Eternal] Life has to
be communicated directly from the Son of God to our
bodies at the Lord’s
advent. Our
souls by faith are already
alive. ‘Thou
Martha,
though alive, art as unfit physically for the
Kingdom of the last day as thy
buried brother.’ The
previous words of Martha, ‘at
the last
day,’
colour the sentiment of our Lord.
The
last day will find believers in two
divisions: some alive, some dead and buried. But the
Saviour’s power and activity will
reach them both.
‘I will
raise him up at the last day.’
‘The resurrection in
the
last day’ had been one of Jesus’ own
teachings. In
it the resurrection of both the saved and
the lost, though at
different times, is
comprehended (John
5: 28; 6: 39, 45, 54; 12: 48).
As
then there
are to be some who
rise a thousand years before the lost
(and John is also the witness
to that), the last
day must be one of long
duration.
[* Note.
Since there will be those, at
this time (‘the
last day’), whose names
will be ‘found written in
the book of life’ (Rev.
20: 15, R.V.), we can comprehend the importance of our Lord’s teaching in Luke
20: 35 and of the Apostle Paul’s in Phil. 3: 11: both
of which refer to a select
resurrection of reward.]
The
Saviour’s
words then take up the two classes, of (1) the
sleepers in Christ,
and (2) the wakeful ones.
The dead in
Christ shall in that day arise.
The living
members of Christ shall in that day be transformed,
never more to die.
‘I am Resurrection and Life.’ How, then,
should death be able to hold Him
who is ‘the Prince of Life?’ He was
slain because of sins not His own; but
He has risen by virtue of righteousness, and of
Life, which are His own.
‘Dost thou believe this?’ Here
is
the point to which the faith of each believer should
reach. Anything
short of this is deficient
faith. Jesus
has risen. Thus
has He proved Himself the
Son of God, having in Himself life and
incorruption, as the basis whereon the
future kingdom shall be set.
Our
Lord,
then, is again, and in another form, asserting His
Godhead. ‘God will give thee
resurrection-power, in this instance,’ says
Martha. ‘I need not the gift,’
is the virtual
reply. ‘The
power is already mine, and ever was.’
‘Then, Lord, Thou art God!’ ‘I have not to ask of God, but
thou hast only to ask [Page
19]
of
27. ‘She
saith to Him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that Thou art
the
Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the
world.”
Our
Lord’s
meaning here is not fully comprehended.
It is a sort of implicit faith. ‘I
know that
what you say must be true, but I do not feel it.’ So many
answer now.
Confessions
differing
in form may agree in substance.
Jesus’
words
were an assertion of Godhead.
A
less distinct statement than this drew worship from the blind beggar. But
Martha
does not see it, and does not worship.
As a Jewess she was slow to do so.
The same feeling breaks out in the last seen
in Matthew
28. ‘But
some doubted’ when worship was given by
others.
If
Jesus
be the Son of God as well as ‘Son of Man,’ all
victory is ours.
But salvation is nowhere to be found, if
the
Deity of our Lord be taken away.
‘Thou art the Christ.’ The Anointed of God,
and
‘The Son of God.’ This title is
something
beyond the other.
The Jews were
expecting one to fulfil the first word.
But that Messiah should be, in an
incommunicable sense, ‘the
Son of God’ they credited not; and put our
Lord to
death for asserting it.
‘The comer into the world.’ This is designed, I
think, to
explain and confirm John’s statement of principle in
his opening verses (1: 9),
which should be rendered, ‘The
true light which lighteth every man, was to come into the world.’
It
had been so predicted, and
28-30.
‘And having said this, she
went off and called her
sister secretly, saying, “The Teacher has come,
and is calling for thee.”
She, when she heard it, riseth quickly
and
cometh to Him.
Now, Jesus had not come
into the village, but was in the spot where Martha
met Him.’
The
title
by which Martha speaks of Jesus to her sister shows
[Page
20] she
had not comprehended the
greatness of our Lord’s claims.
She
would not else have called Him simply, ‘The
Teacher.’
This
was a title which every Jewish unbeliever gave, and
would give to Him.
It involved only the fact that He taught:
whether truly or falsely, the title itself asserts
not.
Did
Jesus
call for Mary?
Different opinions
will be entertained on this.
We know
only that it is not expressly named by our Lord.
Why
did
she call Mary ‘secretly’?
She
felt,
I suppose, that the main body of those who came to
comfort them had no
spiritual sympathy with Christ, and hence she would
not ask them to come.
This accounts, too, for Jesus’ not entering
the village, and not going to the house.
He would not create a stir.
He
would not, when just girding Himself for this great
achievement, distract
Himself with the freezing company of unbelievers, or
with the conflict of
controversy.
He
would
not enter the village, but His servants meet Him in
the spot to which He
had come, and then together they move onwards to the
grave. See,
herein, a token of the Saviour’s future
Advent. He
descends from heaven into
air; the risen ascend from earth into air; He brings
them to earth after their assembling to
Him.
The
31st verse of
this chapter is given to
discover to us how it came to pass, that some of the
Saviour’s enemies were
present on this marvellous occasion.
It
was not due to invitation, or to notice given to
them. They were not called to
be present by Christ, or by the sisters.
But their inference regarding Mary’s intent,
and their presence in the
house as comforters, leads them to the grave at the
same moment with Christ,
and His disciples.
Far
from
there being any design of display, Mary’s intent and
Martha’s was to avoid
notice. But
God
can use the
mistakes of His enemies, as well as the
intelligence of His friends, for His
own glory.
Israelites
thought
that Mary, the disciple,
could only betake herself to the sepulchre.
Nay, but she goes to the Lord of the tomb!
[Page 21]
Mary
quits
the vain comfort of the mortal sons of men to find
it in the Son of God.
How
striking
is the advance of God’s plans if we compare this
scene with the remarkable
one of the ‘Lord’s burial of Moses.’ Law
could only bring death.
‘The letter killeth.’
‘But the Spirit
giveth life.’
The Holy Ghost, the Spirit of life, had now
come, and was abiding on the Son of God.
In that day of old, Satan resisted Moses’
burial. Then, the sons of Satan were present at this life-giving scene, and
turn it to the death of the Lord of life!
32-35. ‘Mary,
then, when she came where Jesus was, and saw Him,
fell
down at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if Thou
hadst been here, my brother had
not died.” Jesus,
then, when He saw her
weeping, and the Jews that came with her weeping,
was indignant in spirit, and
roused Himself and said, “Where have ye laid him?”
They say unto Him, “Lord,
Come, and see.”
Jesus wept.’
The
feeling
of Mary is like her sister’s.
She uses the same natural words.
She, too, would have preferred that this
sickness should never have run
on to death. But
to her the Lord Jesus
makes no verbal reply.
Perhaps, He saw
in her spirit, and in her attitude of reverence,
that the truth to which her
sister had not attained, was received by her.
Our translators have misrendered the
uncommon word used concerning our Lord’s feelings in
ver.
33. It
should be, not ‘He groaned in spirit,’ but ‘He was indignant
in spirit.’
The
reference
here is so distinct to the history of the first King
of Israel, that
a few remarks on it will contribute to edification.
Jesus
is
the true King of Israel, and so answers, in a
measure, to Saul; while Samuel
answers to John the Baptist.
John was to
make Christ known to
Saul
the
king, is the test of the men of
Saul
was
forbearing, and wisely held his peace at this
rejection by his people.
Jesus is still more patient in the presence
of His plotting and malignant foes.
Soon
Saul’s
opportunity of showing Himself to be God’s deliverer
arrives. It
comes in the distress of
This
answers
to the mark on the forehead, which Antichrist, the
blaspheming king,
will compel, to the provocation of God.
Our dispensation of mercy is the time of
respite.
In
Saul’s
day the people, at this news, weep through sympathy
with the anticipated
suffering and insult offered to their brethren.
Saul, in his lowliness, was still the
herdsman; and coming out of the
field, enquires, what is the reason of the weeping? They tell
him. The
sense of compassion towards his own
people, and indignation against Ammon, visit him
strongly (1 Sam. 11: 6).
‘The Spirit of God
came upon Saul when he heard
those tidings, and his anger was kindled greatly.’
Thus
our
Lord, sorrowful at the sorrow of His friends and
people, weeps with them;
but rouses Himself to indignation against Satan
- that old Serpent and his might of death! Saul wins the battle against
Nahash, by the aid of the army of Israelites.
Jesus singly girds Himself against this
foe, and overcomes.
[Page 23]
Jesus’
victory,
then, over the tomb, bespeaks Him the true King of
Israel. He was so
owned before by those whose hearts God had touched;
as, for instance,
Nathaniel; (1: 49),
and Jesus approves his
confession, and expands it.
Our Lord is
addressed as King after this miracle, and in
consequence of it, by His
disciples: though with but little intelligence, as
they confess (12: 13-15).
His foes, nl the other hand, ridicule
His kingly pretensions: specially in the hour of His
weakness before and on the
cross (19: 3, 14, 15, 19).
After
Saul’s
complete victory over Nahash, the tide of feeling
turns strongly in his
favour, and many wish him to put to death those who
refused him. But
in our Lord’s day,
Saul
would
not slay His despisers then.
Nor
is Jesus doing so now.
But He will by
and bye, when the malignity of His enemies is come
to its height (Luke 19.).
For they will then be visibly worthy of
death. They
will have gone over, and by a literal
mark, to the party of the Old Serpent; and be cut
off as incurably evil.
After
Saul’s
victory came the renewal of the kingdom before the
Lord, amid the joy of
How
(some
way say) should there be two such opposite feelings
as anger and
tears? Because
two opposite parties are
in question - friends and foes; Satan and death. Men are,
as usual, one-sided in their comments
on this sign given by our Lord!
[Page 24]
The
sorrow
of the sisters and their friends awakes His tears
but it awakes also His
anger - against Satan, the liar and murderer,
through whom came this war.
If men saw a family whose father had been
murdered,
while they mourned with them, they would feel
indignant against the murderer;
and seek to deliver him over to justice. Well might
Jesus be also indignant,
personally! How
wicked of
‘But (say sceptics) why, if
Jesus was about to raise Lazarus, should He weep,
when the cause of sorrow was
so soon about to be removed?’
We are not able to see all
the reasons of any procedure
of our God; but we can see enough to silence
objection, if not to satisfy our
soul. Jesus
was a man, and He showed
then His sympathies as a man.
He has
taught us by His apostle to ‘Rejoice
with them that
rejoice, and weep with them that weep.’ Here He gives us the
perfect pattern of sympathy.
Though
about to remove the cause of grief, He could not but
feel for the past
suffering of the sister and their friends.
And it is the character of
our Master’s wisdom in the
small things to view the larger; to dive deep into
the reason of things, and
from His large view there He speaks and acts.
It is His to see the oak in the acorn.
Suppose, then, that at His
outlook from this one window of death, He casts His
glance over the vast field
of misery which Satan and sin had introduced, and
would still produce, and you
have an ample reason for any manifestation of sorrow
exhibited by our Lord.
He
enquires
next - Where
the
corpse had been laid? But He does so
in words which imply, that man
is to be an embodied being for ever.
He does not say - as
those might
who hold the spirit-state to be the final one
- Where
is the husk of the man?
He does not teach, that the body is a
part of man finally to be laid aside; and that each
at death enters on his
eternal portion.
This history gives the
clearest contradiction to any such idea.
‘Thy brother shall rise
again.’
‘Where have ye laid him?’ What had
they laid down of their
brother? His
body!
The man has been laid
down
in the tomb, because
His soul has departed.
The man is to be raised
up, because his soul has
returned: re-called by Almighty power to his body.
Resurrection
is
not death; much less is it burial - the conducting
of the spoils of death to
their dark den, far from the living.
Resurrection is death’s undoing.
It
sometimes took place after
burial, and was as visible in its result as death;
restoring the one removed as
unclean, to the place and companionship of the
living.
What then was to rise?
His body! His soul [spirit]*
they had not laid down.
The
restoration of that was to re-animate the body,
and to restore to them their
brother, the embodied person they had known. Anyone
holding Spiritist views, must have
conducted himself differently both in word and deed
throughout this whole
scene.
[*
NOTE. The author
has failed here to distinguish
between the ‘soul’
and the animating ‘spirit’
which leaves the body and returns to God at
the time of death.
The ‘soul’
is the person: ‘Because
thou wilt not leave my soul
in Hades:” Acts
2: 27, Psa. 16: 10,
R.V.); “He [David] forseeing
this
spake of the resurrection of
Christ, that neither was he
left in Hades nor did his flesh
[body] see corruption. This
Jesus did God
raise up:” (verse
31, 32).
See also Luke
8:
55; Jas. 2: 26a.]
On those principles, Lazarus had arisen when he died!
To re-call
him
to his body would be to him a disservice; for he
had, at death, entered on
happiness and his eternal portion, which was not to
be interfered with.
And as for the surviving family, the Israel
of that day, and the Church of all times after it,
the Saviour was just
misleading them into the belief that the body, in
spite of its corruption, is
again to be restored, in order to be our final house
of abode. A
Spiritist, then, would have comforted the
sisters by assuring them - that
death was no enemy brought in by
sin, but man’s best friend, and part
of God’s counsel from the first; that to die was not
to sleep, but to awake; that man was designed to be a naked spirit; and that all the body’s use was only as the scaffolding to the
mansion: a something to be taken down and thrown
aside as useless, as soon as
the house was completed.
But why did Jesus ask ‘Where
Lazarus was laid?’ if He knew already?
And I ask in return, What would the infidel
have said, if Jesus had at
once led the way to the tomb?
Would he
not have inferred, therefore, that this scene was
merely a collusion; and that
Jesus was merely playing a part?
Jesus
was a man, and acted in all as became a man. ‘Come and
see!’ [Page 26] what death bath done to thy friend!
The aspect of death brought a shudder to the
Lord of Life.
Had
God
no meaning in His call to Adam – ‘Adam,
where art
thou?’ or in His questions to Cain, ‘What hast
thou done?’ and ‘Where
is Abel thy brother?’
Jesus’
tears
sanctify ours over departed friends.
Had there been no tears, would not the
infidel have declared, either
that Jesus was no true and perfect man, or else that
it was a proof of
collusion?
They
lead
the way then to the field of death’s victory,
trodden first by weak men,
confessing their weakness; now trodden by the David,
who was to lay low, by His
word of power, this champion.
The Spirit
of God then gives us the comment of the bystanders
on the Saviour’s tears.
36, 37. ‘Therefore
said the Jews, “Behold, how He loved him!”
But some of them said, “Could not this
man
who opened the eyes of the blind man, cause that
even this man should not die?”’
It
was
true that Jesus loved Lazarus, and these tears were
a proof of it.
Blessed be God, that the Saviour can and does
look on believers as His friends, and that death
does not sever them from
Himself! ‘Precious
in the sight of the Lord is the death of His
saints.’
‘We have not an
High
Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of
our infirmities, but was in
all points tempted as we are, without sin.’ But Jesus
did not merely love him in the
past, as though he were then a being past away, but
He was about to prove His
love, not alone by the tears of weakness, but by the
word of power.
Some
of
the Jews wonder - why He did not prevent this
calamity by power, rather than
weep over it when wrought?
What was
there in this case that should take it out of His
range of succour, Who opened
the eyes of the born blind?
Thus
both
parties are destitute of any expectation of the
resurrection of
Lazarus. They consider the
case, now that death and corruption had come in,
as so utterly beyond the
Saviour’s power, that they do not even
conjecture that He means to [Page 27] encounter this Goliath in the day of his might,
to bind the strong man, and despoil his den of
this his last trophy.
38, 39. ‘Jesus,
therefore, again feeling indignation in Himself,
cometh to the tomb.
Now it was a cave,
and a stone was laid upon it.
Jesus saith,
“Take ye away the stone.”
Martha, the
sister of the dead man, saith unto Him, “Lord,
already he stinketh, for it is
the fourth day.”’
This
second
feeling of agitation arose in the Lord Jesus,
apparently at the unbelief
of the bystanders.
That principle it was
by which sin entered and death.
Here was
the perverse unbelieving generation in league with
Satan.
This
anger
at foes Jesus will hereafter feel in the day of
wrath, but then He will destroy them
(Is. 59: 16, 17).
Jesus, we suppose, was
indignant at the unbelief then.
But,
hereafter there will be judgment upon it for ever. ‘Behold,
ye despisers, and wonder, and perish!’
A
second time our Lord stirs Himself to encounter this
last and strongest foe of
man. The
mode of disposing of the body of
Lazarus was in several respects like - in several
unlike - that of our
Lord’s. Jesus’
body was laid in a
chamber hewn out of the rock, with ledges around it
for the convenient
preparation of the corpse for interment.
This was in a cave, apparently a natural one. The entry
to our Lord’s tomb was closed by a
circular stone, like a millstone, rolling
in a groove expressly cut to
receive it. Here
it was a flat
stone, laid directly over the opening and probably
square, rather than round.
Jesus
bids
them remove the stone.
Why was
this? Could
not the power that raised
the dead raise the stone? Not a doubt of it!
But there is one reason quite sufficient to
meet this and other like
cases, viz.: That God
is pleased to employ man
even in His miraculous and Almighty works, as
far as it is possible.
This is His grace, and let us be
thankful for
it!
So Jesus bid the servants
fill the waterpots with water, before He wrought the
transformation of water
into wine. So
He bade the twelve to
arrange the five thousand into companies of fifty,
and to carry the bread and
fish, while to Himself pertained the work impossible
to them. So,
while the angel takes off Peter’s chains,
[Page 28] he bids him put
on his sandals, gird himself, and walk out of the
prison. So
when the Lord would help the thirsting
hosts to water, He commanded that they should fill
the valley with
ditches. So
in the salvation of men,
ministers are to give the call to the dead in sins
to arise, while the power
that makes the elect live to God, comes only from
Himself.
Besides,
had
the Saviour removed the stone by miracle, would not
the infidel have said
that it was effected by Lazarus himself, from
within; and was a proof of
collusion and fraud?
This also gives
occasion to Martha to manifest her unbelief.
She does not discern the meaning of such
removal of the stone.
Did the Saviour wish to look once more on
the
face of death?
But was He not aware how
sore and noisome the change that corruption had made
upon her brother?
Was not this but to degrade His friend,
thus
to expose his unsightly remains?
The
glory
of God shall bring in the kingdom in
resurrection. The Lord
in His brightness shall
return to earth, and the earth be
full of His glory.
Here,
then, is the specimen given to
‘Stinketh.’
Sense is the great antagonist to faith.
‘The laws of nature’
are the God of
many. So
Martha here turns from Him who
was Life itself to the signs of death, as if they
must be too strong for Him.
Observe,
how
just those points of the case are noticed, which
will throw light upon the
glory of Christ!
Jesus was not to see
corruption, as being the Holy One of God.
He, therefore, rises [out] from the dead when a
part of the three days (as we
should reckon), had yet to run on.
But
Lazarus, as the sinner, rises on the fourth day,
after death had claimed the
right to enslave his prey with the bondage of
corruption. Thus,
it is shown, that the awful
demolition of the body, which begins so soon
after death, is not beyond the
Saviour’s power to restore, and that it is His
intention so to do. ‘This
corruptible [the
decomposed body] must
be clothed with [Page 29] incorruption,’
as the
preparation for the entry of
the blessed dead on the [millennial]*
[* Luke
20: 35; Rev. 3: 21; 20: 4-6.]
Thus,
too,
we see the meaning of that other scene which also
John was commissioned to
depict - yet to occur in Jerusalem, on a future day
- when the two
martyr-prophets, after three days and a half lying
unburied in the street, are
suddenly to awake to life, at the entry of the
Spirit of life from God, in the
presence and sight of their enemies.
Only then evil will have reached a height, a
breadth, and fierceness,
which it had not attained in the Saviour’s day.
This word, ‘the
glory of God,’ may remind us of Romans
6: 4,
‘Christ was raised up from among the
dead by the glory of the Father.’
The
day
is coming ‘when the glory of
the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh
shall see it together,’ Is.
40: 5.
Martha’s
words
are uttered as by ‘the
sister’ of the deceased,
rather than by her as a ‘disciple of Christ,’ who is
Life! Jesus,
therefore, recalls her thoughts from
the objects of sense to His Word. Martha’s eye was then
like
Peter’s, turned on the clouds and waves, not on the
Lord. The
word of God at the beginning
brought death and corruption, and it holds fast. How
surely then shall the same word recall
God’s saved ones from death.
The
world
asks for sight as the way to faith.
Christ
asks for faith as the
way to see. The
Personal Word of God recalls us to
His spoken or written word, which we are so apt to
forget.
40, 41. ‘Jesus
saith unto her, “Said I not unto thee, that if
thou
wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of
God?” They
took away, therefore, the stone where
the dead man was lying.’
The
objections
of men, yea of believers also, against the counsels
and commands of
God, are vain and foolish; whatever be the
appearance of wisdom they may
have! Man
judges from his low point of
view: God, from His All-seeing one.
And
not unfrequently the Scripture shows us the folly of
the objections and
difficulties. But
if not seen now, it
will be by and by.
The wisdom of God
shall approve itself at the last, in spite of the
sharp sayings of unbelievers;
and in spite of the misgivings of [Page 30] His saints. ‘That
Thou mightest be justified in Thy sayings and
overcome
when Thou art judged.’
Martha’s
objection
was founded, not on the expectation of her brother’s
resurrection,
but upon a mistake of the Saviour’s intent in giving
the commands; as though He
looked on the matter without a sense of even the
ordinary propriety of the sons
of men in regard of the dead.
How often
do the people of God hinder the work of God!
The
Lord
Jesus, then, gently rebukes this rebuke of Martha,
as proceeding from unbelief.
She
had mistaken His motive; she had not listened, as
she should, to the
intimations before given her, of His intent to raise
her brother. These
were conveyed -
1.
In
the reply to her messenger that the sickness was not
designed to end in death,
but in
the
glory of God
to be
manifested by the Son of God.
The Son of
God came not to glorify Himself by doing what the
sons of Adam could do, but by
overthrowing foes invincible by the sinful sons of
men.
2.
In
reply to her suggestion, that even at that late hour
God would listen to a
prayer from the mouth of His Anointed One, Jesus had
informed her that her
brother should be raised.
And He had
further taught her, that the power of resurrection
dwelt in Himself at all
times as the Son of God; and that He purposed to
manifest this power.
He had appealed to her whether she
possessed
this faith. And
she had expressed her
assent. He
was taking this step, then,
with a view to that victorious result.
Hence
we
see that the resurrection [out] of the dead, and
especially that of the sons of
God, will
redound to
the glory of the Most High!
Satan has seemed, in death, to triumph over
God’s plans, and to have thwarted the purposes of
the Father’s grace towards
His loved ones.
In His saints’ death,
Jehovah shows not Himself to be the God of His
people. In
resurrection, then, He shall discover the
difference between His friends and His foes. He shall at length loose the prisoners out of their prison house, both
body and soul.
The trophies of death
shall be wrested from him.
Satan’s
wiles, which brought in death, shall be overturned
in resurrection.
But faith alone shall see the glory of God
[Page
31]
herein: shall see the power of
the God that raises the dead with joy.
The same principle we behold enforced in the
history of the resurrection
of Jairus’ daughter.
The unbelievers,
both outside the house and within it, are prevented
from beholding the power of
Christ put forth in raising the dead.
The
partial
unbelief of believers (how common an occurrence!) is
exhibited
here. But
the spectators at length.
obey; and Martha no longer opposes.
41, 42.
‘But Jesus lifted up
His eyes above and said, “Father, I give Thee
thanks, that Thou hast heard
(heardest) Me. Now I
knew that Thou always listenest to Me,
but because of the multitude that is standing
around I spoke, that they may
believe that THOU
hast sent Me.”’
This
notice
of Jesus’ petition to the Father, before the raising
of the dead, might have
been omitted; and was omitted in previous instances
of resurrection in the
former gospels.
There was no testimony
to this effect in the raising of Jairus’ daughter,
where the crowd was kept
out; or in the resurrection of the young man of
Nain, where the multitude was
present. But
the gospel of John is
especially designed to show to us Jesus as the Son
of the Father, subordinate
in all to His will.
Hence its propriety
here.
Our
Lord
had asserted His perpetual possession of the power
of life, in a sense
belonging only to God.
But there was a
danger, lest His ways and words should seem to be
the actings and sayings of an
Independent
Deity,
who had entered the
world on purpose to free the human race from the
ignorance and tyranny of an
inferior God. This
was, in fact, one of
the early deceits of Satan - prompting men of
un-humbled heart to say that
Jesus and His Father were hostile to the God of
Moses and the prophets; and
that He came to deliver men from the ignorance and
tyranny of the Creator.
Hence,
John
several times in this Gospel gives evidence how
Jesus by word
and work owns the Creator, and speaks
of the God of Israel, the God of the temple and its
sacrifices, as His Father.
‘Father,’
says Jesus.
Then Jesus Christ was
not the Father Swedenborg asserts), but the Son.
[Page 32]
He
is
certain of the steps He is taking.
It
is no doubtful attempt to despoil the grave, which,
like Elisha’s staff in
Gehazi’s hands, may prove powerless in the presence
of death.
He had asked the Father’s counsel about this
step, and knew it to be to His glory.
There was the most perfect union between the
Father and Himself in all
things. And
but for ‘the multitude’
which surrounded Him, He would not have
made this public appeal.
In making it
then He disclaims Martha’s idea.
He
was not asking power to overcome
death in this special case.
That
He had.
But He wished to prove the spiritual union
and communion which existed between Himself and the
Father.
The
case
presented was not an exceptional one with Jesus, as
regards His
Father. It
was the miracle of crisis to
Is
Jesus
in amity and close connection with Jehovah, the God
of Israel? If
He answer to this appeal, the case is
proved Abraham’s promises stand to be accomplished,
in resurrection and lo,
here is Resurrection itself!
‘Let the dead bury their own dead.’ But Life
shall awake the bodies
and souls
of the dead.
‘The multitude stood around.’ Then
many
must have been gathered; though without any direct
notice from Christ or
His apostles. ‘Christ
is come, and
is going to Lazarus’ tomb!’
must have been the report.
That is
enough to collect the villagers.
They
knew of His former acts of miracle; they were
interested, too, in Him as one in
peril of life.
The
Son
seeks ever the glory of the Father.
The Father in His working seeks ever the
glory of the Son.
Our Lord’s position was a very peculiar
one. He
was by nature the Son of God -
the Creator - possessing all power. This form of God
He had [Page
33] put
off, when He became man.
The Father wrought all His works in Him. Yet, lest
it should be thought that He
possessed no more power than holy men who seek
theirs by prayer, He testifies
to Himself as ‘Resurrection
and Life.’
He would call forth Lazarus directly; not ‘In the name of the Father,’
but ‘Come forth!’
Herein He stands in contrast with His
apostles, who put away from
themselves any such assumption of power (Acts
3:
12, 13, 16; 4: 5-10; 9: 34).
Peter does indeed say ‘Tabitha,
arise.’ But it is after the
kneeling down of prayer. Peter and
the
apostles lead men away from themselves, and from the
thought, that they were
anything more than men in general.
Paul
and Barnabas at Lystra take the same line with
previous apostles.
Jesus, on the contrary, witnesses to
Himself,
and seeks to lead others, to the highest thoughts of
Him. ‘I am Resurrection
and Life; believest thou this?’
Jesus
prays,
for the multitude’s sake, that they might attain the
great end of His
miracles - the believing in His mission; in the
eternal unity of the Sender and
the Sent One. Would
God own before men,
in this great crisis, His Son as the Undoer of
Death? Death
is the result of sin.
Here is One who is to take away sin, and so
to manifest His power over death.
Here
is a fact presented, a primary fulfilment of the
Lord’s previous prophecy, that
He would raise the dead in general (John
5: 25).
By
His
prayer, therefore, and the miracle, Jesus shows His
equality of nature with
the Father; and yet His subordinate position, as
being a matter of agreement
and choice. He
does not come as One
determined to do His own will, and able to effect
it. But
His object is to manifest, that in the
Godhead there are the Father - Supreme, the Son -
subordinate: Sender and Sent;
yet both possessed of one nature and power.
‘That they may believe that Thou
hast sent me.’
Thus Moses was accredited to
43.
‘And having said these
things, with a great voice He
shouted, “Lazarns (come) hither,
(come) forth!”
Thus
is
fulfilled the word -
‘Our friend Lazarus
sleepeth, but I go to awake him out of sleep.’
Here,
then, is the voice of the Awakener; and the
slumberer answers thereto.
Blessed
are the dead who fall
asleep in the Lord, to awake at His resurrection
of glory!
To Jairus’ daughter, Jesus says – ‘Damsel,
arise!’
To
the young man of Nain – ‘Young
man, I say unto thee, Arise!’ But
here,
it is – ‘Come forth!’ The
two
former had not entered the house of the dead;
but Lazarus had.
If we may discriminate still farther, the
word ‘Lazarus,’ is
designed to call him out of his sleep; the second, ‘hither,’
to direct
his soul to his body; the
third, ‘forth,’ to bring both body and soul out of the tomb, or place of
the dead.
The
dead
is addressed as if he could hear.
Was not that strange?
He is
addressed, as if death had not destroyed him, but
only sent him to sleep.
Yes! This is a great truth.
Death does not ‘destroy,’
in
the sense of the Annihilationists.
And Jesus, as God, calleth the things that be
not, as though they
were. This, too, is our warrant in calling on the
spiritually dead to listen to the
saying voice of the Son of God.
Jesus
shall speak, and the dead shall hear the voice of
the Son of God.
Though
they
have passed beyond the sound of our voice, they
are within reach of His
(John 5: 25, 28). Hence,
the spiritual and the natural works
are by our Lord both classed together.
We
preachers
call to the dead in sins to arise; and powerless as
our call in
itself is, the Son and the [Holy] Spirit of God [may]
speak through us, and God’s chosen ones awake to
spiritual life.
Ministers of the Gospel, too, take
their stand by the grave, just when the body is
committed to it and before the
stone is [Page 35]
laid thereon, not
to despoil the grave, not to bid the body
come forth, but to express a hope of His coming
who as the Righteousness of God
shall bring life in the place of death, and compel
the tomb to give back the
justified.
Jesus
‘shouted.’
It
was not His custom.
Meekness was His characteristic.
He should not lift up His voice in the
streets (Matt. 12: 18-21). This loud
voice was significant.
It was ‘the voice
of
Almighty God, when He speaketh,’ Ez.
10: 5.
It was a witness of the coming day,* when the Saviour
shall arouse [some
of]
His dead saints ‘with a shout’ (1 Thess.
4.).
[* NOTE. The
‘Day’ here is that
spoken by the Apostles Peter and
John as one of ‘a thousand
years.’ (2 Pet.
3: 8; Rev. 20: 4, 5).
It is dangerous to read into 1
Thess. 4: 16, something which is not there! It does
not say, ‘ALL the
dead in Christ shall rise first,’ as is
usually assumed to be the
case! The
word ‘all’
it not included!
If it were, it would
nullify the teachings of our Lord and His Apostles:
Luke
20: 35; 14: 14; Phil. 3: 11; Heb. 11: 35; Acts 2:
34, etc.]
‘Lazarus, come
forth!’
Hence we see that in
Christ’s estimation, the body is
part of the man. It
has, indeed, in the case of the dead, been committed
to the tomb, but it
is not destined to remain there for ever. It is to
come forth to the place and world of the living; it is to come out of the den and grasp of Death.
Hence, the
Saviour
leads the way to the tomb; and out of the tomb
calls the two parts of
Lazarus - his body and soul.
How
strange, in the light of these facts of
resurrection, that any should be found to deny the
resurrection of the flesh!
But
human perversity will hold its own errors, despite
the witness of God.
44.
‘And he that was dead came
forth, hands and feet bound
with the dead clothes, and his face was bound
about by a napkin.
Jesus saith unto them, “Loose him, and
let
him go.”’
Something
miraculous,
distinct from the man’s raising to life, seems to be
noticed
here. For
how, if swathed from shoulder
to heel could one move hand or foot?
In
order that he might recover the use of his moving
powers, the swathes must be
removed.
The
answer
to our Lord’s call in the man’s awaking comes at
once! This
is the proof of power. The cause
is closely knit to
its effect.
‘Let there
be light! And
light was!’
Our words will produce no such effect. But the
Word of God carries with it the power
to effect all He designs.
‘The hour is coming
in which all that are in the graves shall
hear His voice, and shall come
forth.’*
[* Rev.
20:
13.]
[Page 36]
‘His face bound about by a napkin.’ He could
not see, any more than he could
move. His
eyes were covered up by the
cloth about his head.
This, too, must be
removed. So
was the Saviour enveloped
when dead. But
His resurrection in two
great respects was unlike this.
(1) No
man stood over His grave, and called Him forth. That
would have been to set a
son of man for the moment above the Son of God! Therefore,
the
Father raised
Him. (2)
Jesus needed no hand of man to roll away
the stone, or to unwrap the clothes of the dead. It was not
possible that He should be held by
the strong barriers of death, much less by the human
wrappings of the dead. His
was the first real resurrection, the coming forth of
the immortal body not
subject to the impediments which fasten down our
bodies of flesh and blood.
The
effects
of astonishment on the family and the spectators,
are not depicted for
us. Here
one who sought to make an
interesting picture would have enlarged.
Scripture is silent.
‘What did the dead man see,
hear, and feel, in the other
world? How
did he feel in dying?
How, in rising again?’
These are questions full of interest to us
all. They
would (be assured!) be asked
of him by all, or most of those who heard his tale,
and came to see this
traveller from beyond the unseen world.
Scripture is silent!
It is unlike
the books of men.
It enlarges where we
are not so much interested.
It is silent
where we would enquire with zeal.
What
is the great principle that governs its disclosures
and its silences?
The glory of God! We are told at the
commencement of this most weighty history, that it
was designed to glorify the
Son of God. Whatever, therefore, can enlarge our
views on this point is given.
Other things are dismissed untold!
No
doubt
a feeling of awe chilled the blood of the
spectators, as the rustle of
the rising man was heard, and still more as the
living man stood before them,
clad still in the garments of the dead.
Astonishment paralysed them.
Here,
however,
there is not that element of terror which we find at
the resurrection
of the two prophets slain in Revelation
11. [Page
37] There men slay the prophets, and rejoice at their death, maltreating
the bodies. After
the three-and-a-half days
of exposure, they arise (without any call given),
and stand upon their
feet. Great
fear falls on those who see
them. No
wonder! They
find that they and the God of
Resurrection are at war, and He has prevailed
contrary to their belief, and
their hopes. What
then will be the issue
to them? Then
comes the earthquake of
wrath. But
here it is the time of mercy;
and the True and Faithful Witness has yet to be put
to death. The
napkin over the eyes, as well as the
swathes round the hands and legs prevented Lazarus
from going. The
restraints which they had laid around the
dead, their own hands are to remove.
What
said
Mary and Martha to Lazarus? and what said Lazarus to
them? We
are not told!
Jesus
alone
remains un-amazed, and knows what should be done in
this unique
case. His
word breaks the spell.
He has done what they cannot, and effected
that wherein they must be wholly passive.
But now, again, they may help.
They laid the stone to the tomb’s mouth.
They shall take it off.
They wound and bound the dead man in the
trappings of death.
They shall take them off.
Lazarus was to return to his home again.
He was not to be exhibited as a show; habited
as he appeared at the
moment death was shaken off.
And they
are to help in this his returning freedom.
Thus, Christian reader, it is our duty, and
our joy to lead onwards to
the
What
was
the effect of this wonder?
Did all
His enemies bow down to Him? – ‘Verily
Thou art the
Son of God! Hitherto
we thought Thee a
deceiver. Now Thy credentials are
plain enough!
“This, this
is the finger of God!” Not in vain hast Thou
witnessed
to the majesty of Thy person!
We allow
it! We adore!
Certainly this is the Son
of God!’
No! This great
work was to some the savour of
life! - into life; to others, of death unto death! ‘If
they hear not Moses
and the prophets, neither will they be
persuaded, even though [Page 38] one rose from the dead.’
Thou
hast said the truth,
Abraham! Here
it is exhibited in
fact. Some
did believe.
Many of the witnesses of the miracle were
convinced. What
greater work than this
should Messiah work when He came?
They
had looked for the Great Captain to destroy His
living foes; to set up the
glory of
Some,
untouched
by this wonder, went away with hostile intent to
acquaint the
Saviour’s foes with this new stroke of His unearthly
war. ‘With the heart, man
believeth unto righteousness; and
with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation.’ But these
evil hearts trusted their own
righteousness, and refused the Saviour’s.
So their mouth did not confess the Lord unto
salvation but became
accomplices with His foes to their own perdition
While,
then,
some think that they are not so well situated for
salvation as the men of
our Lord’s day, they are mistaken.
They
have in their homes the Word of God; the chief means
of leading to faith and
its salvation. They are dealt with more gently than
the men of that time.
That was a day of the persecution unto
death
of them that believed.
If, therefore,
they will not listen now, they would not then.
The evil heart of deceitful sin misleads
them.
47, 48. ‘The
chief priests and Pharisees, therefore, collected
a
council, and said, “What are we doing? for this
Man doeth many signs.
If we let Him alone thus, all will
believe on
Him; and the Romans will come and take away both
our place and the nation.”’
Vainly
are
signs presented to the enemies of Christ.
If not all believe who see the sign, much less all who hear of
it do not! [Page
39] Yet they do not doubt it!
Neither their informants nor themselves doubt
the reality of the
miracle. But instead of seeing in it the hand of God; instead of
hearing in it the voice of God calling them to
repent and believe; instead
of beholding this sign of Messiah’s
kingdom and glory, they see only the earth and
the interests of the present
life. God is left out: His promises have no place in their hearts.
They
do not mean to turn!
They see in Jesus only a rival: One whose
success is their loss.
In place, then,
of bowing to Him as the Chief of the prophets of
God; instead of confessing
their sinful unbelief in so long resisting His
claims, they chide themselves
for their want of prudence, courage, and capacity
for business in thus leaving
Him alive! Thus they turn the counsel of God against
themselves. Refute
His pretensions, they cannot.
But slay Him, they may!
They are enemies to His success.
That any believed on Him, was a leaving of
their party - the party of unbelief.
It
was not to be borne.
God they see not;
what He will do they regard not.
But
what will the Romans do?
They conjure up fears which are unfounded. Why should
the Romans destroy their temple
and nation, if all trusted this Raiser of the dead? Here is
One who can prove victorious over all
His foes, raising the ruined temple in three days. But
unbelief is blind.
The Son of God is to them only ‘this
They
leave
out of sight what will God do, if His Messenger, so
wonderfully
accredited to them, is slain by wicked hands, Jesus,
by the parable of the
Wicked Husbandmen, brings home this to their hearts;
as also by the Marriage
Garment. That
which they feared, came
upon them as the wages of their sin.
The
Romans did come, destroyed their goodly ‘place,’
and
swept away the nation from their land.
The Most High brings the fears of the wicked
upon them. And,
then, those only who believed in Jesus,
escaped the sword or yoke of
Theirs
is
the wisdom which comes from beneath, ‘earthly,
sensual,
devilish’; ‘deceiving,
and being
deceived’; full of murder; and its vain
hopes scattered by the
over-ruling God whom it sees not, nor wishes to see.
God
brought
their fears upon them; and chose their delusions. They who
would not have the true Messiah,
were led away after every impostor who, without any
evidence, chose to call
himself the Christ.
The
Romans
came, and took away their goodly temple - the
delight of their hearts -
and scattered their nation away from their land.
As
regards
their fear of the Romans, Jesus rebukes it; and
makes them condemn
themselves by His parables of the Wicked Husbandmen
and the Wedding
Garment. By
bringing God into the
question, He proves that their murderous plans, in
place of delivering them, would
justly draw down on their own heads the destruction
they feared. And
so it came to pass!
Herein see the mischief of being guided by
human expediency in divine things.
It
prophesies, falsely, present results; and would
persuade men, on the strength of
its pictures of the future, to do now what is evil.
49-52. ‘But
one of them named Caiaphas, being the High Priest
that
year, said unto them, “Ye know nothing at all, nor
conclude, that it is
expedient for us, that one man should die instead
of the people, that the whole nation perish not.”
Now this he said, not from
Himself, but being the High Priest of
that year he prophesied, that Jesus was about to
die instead of the nation, and
not instead of the nation alone, but that He
should gather together in one the
children of God that were scattered abroad.’
We
are
admitted to the Jews’ counsels in their assembly;
and see how rude and
proud was the President that ruled over them.
[Page 41] Their
spirit
is evil and malicious; and love would not dwell with
them.
‘Ye know nothing at all!’ The chief
villain pushes rudely aside all
inferior ones.
Others might be willing
to cloak their wicked schemes under fair words.
He openly blurts out the design that lurks in
the minds of many, but had
not dared come out of their lips.
And it
was true that they knew not God or the way of peace
(Psalm
82: 5).
The High Priest
prophetically set aside these ‘scornful
men who ruled
the people at
Caiaphas
urges
them to put Jesus to death as a matter of
expediency, a piece of good
policy that must over-ride all questions about its
righteousness.
It was fitted, he thought, to continue the
Jewish nation in its temporal blessings, and
therefore Jesus was without
scruple to be sacrificed.
‘None but fools
would waste another thought on the matter.’ This is a
principle continually acted upon in
the world. But
it is a short-sighted and
unbelieving policy, which leaves out of account God
as the Righteous Ruler of
the nations. Such
evil men consider what
will probably be the immediate benefit of an action,
and regard not that which
with God is the chief question, and should be so
with them – ‘Is it righteous?’ On that
the High Priest would spend no more
words. ‘Either
Christ must die, or the nation!
Then why
hesitate an instant?’
‘Jesus was to die in the
stead of the nation.’ That
is
the force of the preposition in this case.
He must die, that His nation might be saved. This
remarkable speech had a far deeper
meaning than Caiaphas saw.
It was not
like most words of the ungodly, the forth-bursting
alone of their evil
passions. The
Jewish temple-system was
to be set aside by the Gospel; but at its close it
gives token of its having
been set up by God.
Though the head of
the sacrificers was a wicked man, yet, like Balaam,
in this he spoke God’s
mind. As
rejected Saul receives notice
that his kingdom is rent from him to be given to
another, so Caiaphas utters
words indicative of the great High Priest, and [Page 42]
the efficacy of that Sacrifice, which was to put
aside from its standing the priesthood and
sacrifices of Moses.
Both
Caiaphas
and Pilate condemned Jesus, but each on different
and appropriate
grounds: Pilate concerning the kingdom, Caiaphas
because of His priesthood and
sacrifice.
The
great
question really between God and them - ‘Whether
Jesus
was not proved to be commissioned from heaven by
these signs, and whether
they were not sinning in not owning Him,’ -
comes not into view.
Nothing should convince them of that. That
others believe on Him is an offence in
their eyes for which He is to be put to death.
This showed their sense of the strength of
the evidences which attended
our Lord. If
things took their natural
course, ‘all would believe.’ But if all
believed, even the Romans, would
they seek to destroy Jesus and His nation?
Caiaphas,
as
the High Priest, was bound to offer yearly the
sacrifice of expiation for
They
thought
and reasoned as if no God of justice ruled.
Yet Jesus, in His parable of the Wedding
Supper, makes them condemn themselves as the Wicked
Husbandmen for slaying the
Heir of the Lord of the vineyard, and in consequence
drawing down on their
heads the vengeance of the Master.
From
this
we derive two views of the deliverance effected by
our Lord’s sacrificial
death.
1.
It was designed to save
2.
But (blessed be God!) that is not the only, or the
highest, reason of the
Saviour’s death.
It was intended of God
also to gather together into one body the children
of God, which before that
day were scattered abroad. Before our Lord appeared
there were many servants of
God both in
53. ‘From
that day, therefore, they took counsel together to
slay
Him.’
This
speech
decided the whole of them.
None
objected, that it was not lawful to slay the
innocent or righteous; and that
God, the Righteous Judge, avenges the death of His
prophets in such a way as to
make it utterly inexpedient and destructive to put
them to death.
None pointed to the case of Naboth, or to
Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada (2
Chron. 24.).
Thus corrupt was the people both in high
quarters and in low.
They find
themselves of one mind, and now openly confer and
encourage one another in
their guilt.
[Page 44]
54-57. ‘Jesus,
therefore, was no more openly walking among the
Jews:
but went away from thence to the country near the
desert, to a city called
Ephraim, and there He stayed with His disciples. Now the
feast of the Jews was near.
And many went up to
The
raising
of Lazarus was Jesus’ showing Himself openly.
He appeared at the door of the capital, on
the very ground occupied by His foes.
It
was designed to act on them, and on the nation.
It was what they called it, ‘a
sign.’
Had their hearts been right, they would have
said, ‘Here is a greater
than Moses - Moses slew by
miracle, but never called out from death.
That was something beyond his vocation and
power. Here
is a greater than Elijah, or
Elisha. He
has power over, not death
alone, but corruption.
Must not this
then be the Messiah of Israel’s hope?
We
are looking for the resurrection of the righteous
dead, of the long buried and
corrupted patriarchs.
Here is one who
gives us the very sign which was lacking.
He gives it in the face of the daughter of
Jesus
withdraws
the light. It
exasperates the
birds of night.
They will not become
children of light - they hate it, and seek to slay
the Light-bearer.
He cannot die save at the Passover, as the
antitypic Lamb.
He goes away, therefore,
from the neighbourhood of His foes to Ephraim.
It is supposed to be a city, twenty miles
N.E, of
The
devout
Jews, desirous of celebrating the Passover rightly,
and afraid of being
defiled, with the desire to cleanse themselves, stay
at
The
Lord
Jesus, then, was the centre of the thoughts and
conversations of most at
His
enemies,
aware that He has left the neighbourhood of
*
*
*
CHAPTER 12
[Page
46]
THE
ANOINTING IN
1-3.
‘Jesus, therefore, six days
before
the Passover, came to
The resurrection of Lazarus draws
out the love of Mary, and her anointing of Jesus;
the displeasure of Judas, and
his offer to the Jews of betrayal; the hatred of the
Sanhedrim, who seek to
slay both Jesus and His rescued one; and the grand
festive entry into
Jesus’
time
of leaving His retreat had arrived; for the
Passover, at which Himself,
the True Passover-Lamb, was to be offered up, was
come. He,
therefore, (as we learn from the other
Gospels), made a circuit through Galilee, crossed
the
John,
taught
of the Spirit, gives us details, where the other
Gospels give
generalities; gives us the name of the woman who
anointed Christ, and of the disciple
whose cold heart and evil [Page 47] tongue misrepresented her. It
was
no wonder that He who could sell Christ for thirty
pieces of silver, should
be indignant at His being so valued as to have three
hundred denarii spent upon
Him, at a single entertainment.
The
world can understand getting and keeping, but to give away, with
no hopes but God’s promises in a day to come,
seems to them folly and
waste. Christians!
learn this folly, and
make yourselves a treasure in the heavens that
faileth not!
Jesus
came
to
The
return
of Jesus to
Here,
then,
at the gate of the daughter of
But this little feast at
‘Martha was serving.’
God had given her the tact, and the will to
undertake, and to carry
through this service. It was not the highest, but it
is owned by God.
It is not His counsel to give the same
gifts
and inclinations for service to all alike.
‘But Lazarus was one
of those seated at table
with Him.’
This was the crown of
the feast: of far more value than Cleopatra and her
pearl.
Here
was
a picture, and a pledge of the great feast described
by the prophet (Is, 35:
6), when ‘death
shall (for saints) be
swallowed up in victory.’
It was on the spot foretold, close to
Lazarus
is
completely restored to health, and sits beside his
Restorer. May
it be ours to sit down with
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their Master in the
It
is
not said, ‘Jesus was one of
the guests beside
Lazarus.’
The
Saviour spoke of the day when men shall come
from north and south, from east and west, and sit
down ‘in the
Should
not
we have desired to have been present at the supper
at
But
there
is a third party who has a large place in the scene. Mary, the
sister of Lazarus, would show her
love to the Saviour by her festal gift.
She had a perfume that was especially suited
to the banquet, and would
do honour to the Patron of the feast.
With it she anoints the feet of Jesus in her
humility, and wipes them
with her hair.
Was this the same
anointing as the scene recorded, Luke
7.? Was
Mary the person who anointed?
Here we come on points long discussed, and
through which I see but little that is certain.
But a word or two may not be amiss.
[Page 50] The scene
in Luke 7.
differs in time and in place,
from the one mentioned here.
Yet it may
be, I think it was, the same Mary, Mary
of
Magdala, who anointed the Lord on both occasions,
and wiped His feet with
her hair. In
the first instance, she had
to learn her sins forgiven from the lips of the
Saviour; in the second, she
would have to rejoice in His power to raise the
dead, and that she herself was
admitted to the feast.
‘But the house was filled
with the odour of the ointment.’
So
strong was it!
It was at this that the prophetic spirit in
Solomon glanced, Cant.
1: 12, ‘I the
preacher was king over
4-6. ‘Therefore
saith Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples, who
was
about to betray Him, “Why was not this ointment
sold for three hundred denarii,
and given to the poor?”
Now this he
said, not because he cared for the poor, but
because he was a thief and held
the bag, and carried what was put therein.’
When
first
we are misunderstood, and misrepresented by our
brethren, it seems most
cruel; we have not expected any such thing.
From the world we anticipated it; but to find coolness
where we expected approval of what we meant
well, astonishes and grieves us
sorely. Be
ready, Christian, for
this! It
is part of our trial to find
believers much less wise, good, and zealous,
than they should be prone to
stumble, and to misunderstand one another.
Look up He who is to decide finally knows
all hearts, and will right
what is wrong.
What
is
spent on Christ is not wasted.
Who so
great as the King of Kings?
Who so
deserving of our love as the Redeemer of the Cross? ‘Thou
shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart.’
[Page 51]
Here
is
part of the twenty-third
Psalm
fulfilled in the Saviour.
Here is a
table prepared for Him in the presence of His
enemies, and His head is anointed
with oil.
Judas,
‘the man of Carioth,’
‘the
hireling,’ cares not for the glory of
Christ; but loves money, a root of
all evil. He was a disciple, one of the intimate
twelve; yet his heart was untouched
and unchanged, by all he had heard and seen.
He loved money more than he loved Christ. Like
Gehazi, he cannot understand how so good
an occasion of getting much money should be suffered
to pass by. He
was about to betray our Lord for the price
of a slave, yet he speaks fair.
His cold
soul is not touched with the love of Christ, or with
the love that Mary showed
towards our Lord.
He, therefore, drops
his word of blame upon the enthusiast that could so
squander her property.
Might not a much better use have been made
of
it? There
were poor houses within a
stone’s throw where hearts would be made glad by but
one of the three hundred
denarii for which this spikenard might have been
sold. The
pretext was plausible.
It struck others of the disciples, as wise
and good; and threw them out of harmony with this
odour of the feast, and this
act of one of the chief guests.
How much
is in the power of the tongue!
How foul
a spirit the mask of fair words may cover!
How easily are disciples led away by false
views! How
oft have brethren since that day been
censured, where they ought to have been praised. It is,
indeed, a truth, that oftentimes money
might be, yea, ought to be, better spent.
When much is laid out in personal adornment,
we may say – ‘Why this waste?’*
When buildings meant for worship are
decorated with gold, gems,
paintings, coloured glass, and so on, and are
falsely called, ‘God’s
House,’ we may well testify – ‘This
money were better spent on the poor.’
*The probable value of the
perfume in our day would be
some twenty-five or thirty pounds.
Judas
has
an ‘eye to business.’ He knows
the value of the perfume, as if he
had been a trader in that line.
But he knows not the value of Christ, or of his own soul,
or he would not have [Page 52]
sold both for
thirty pieces of silver.
Reader, all the
devil's bargains will take you in!
Our
Lord,
in His day of humiliation, was content to subsist on
the voluntary
offerings of those whom He benefited by His
teachings and His cures (Luke
8: 3). We
never read anything of His income, or of
His difficulties in the way of supplies.
But
the
heart of Judas answered not to his words.
The Lord does not unmask the hypocrite and
traitor. He
was a Balaam over again, that gave good
words, but was ready to curse.
The
Saviour,
therefore, gently removes the traitor’s pretence. Others
were involved.
It might have been borne with, had it been
spoken in a sincere zeal for the Poor; but this the
speaker had not.
Let us beware, lest we be led away with the
pleas
of the covetous!
How oft we are
mistaken, in judging of the meaning and the
character of others!
We are not to judge the heart of any of our brethren.
That belongs to another Judge, and another
day (1
Cor. 4.).
The
worldly
assign to every action its worst motive; and such
judgment is called ‘knowledge
of the world.’ And it is true, that much of
what passes in the world for gold, is but pinchbeck. But the
renewed in God’s sight are, or ought
to be, honest before God and
men.
Judas
professed
to seek the good of others, but secretly was aiming
at his own
ungodly gain. He
was covetous, and was
placed in a situation wherein his covetousness had a
power to move itself and
grow. ‘Get
money honestly if you CAN,
but at any rate get money.’
This is, says Scripture, ‘idolatry.’ Gold
is the god of the man whose principle this is.
The case of Judas is written for our
instruction, He was about to betray
our Lord, and for the paltry sum of a tenth of that
which Mary had bestowed at
once on Christ.
To him Mary’s gift was ‘waste.’ ‘Money
stored in the chest is the chief thing.
It is something to be kept, to be sought,
to
be gazed at with delight, to be hoarded as our
hope.’
‘The covetous whom
God abhorreth.’ Beware
of covetousness the continual grasping
after more, the [Page 53] selfish clutching of that
we have. ‘Whoso
hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have
need, and shutteth up his
bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the
love of God in him?’
‘Let us not love in
word, but in deed and in truth.’
Did
Judas,
then, sell and give to the poor?
No. But
out of that which was
entrusted to him he stole for himself.
‘But if Judas was a thief, why
entrust him with the bag?
Might not another of the disciples have
carried it?’ But Jesus had a voice and a
veto on all that went on before
His eyes among His disciples.
Was He
bound, then, to keep all occasions of temptation out
of Judas’ way?
No.
God has a sovereign right to put His
creatures to trial in any way He
wills. Therefore,
we are taught to pray,
‘Lead us not into temptation.’
God
is
pleased often to discover by the circumstances
around us what men are.
Does He not place designedly men in
circumstances where their peculiar good or evil
shall shine out?
David, sent for a day to the army, fights
Goliath; his soul is indignant at the giant’s
affront to Jehovah.
Eliab and his brothers in the army had let
the occasion slip for forty days.
The
evil seed was in Judas’ heart.
The bag
in his keeping did not produce the
mischief; it only showed it. He
could not have been placed in a better
school to be taught the evil of covetousness, and to
receive those warnings
against his conduct, which yet he broke through.
As
God’s
rending away of the cloak takes place here in regard
of Judas, so will it
be in that great day, not of professions, but of
realities. Let
us be real!
Let us be upright!
Above all, let us not judge unfairly! How much
an evil heart has often to do with
the charges laid at the door of many of God’s
children! They
are wholly false often; sometimes truth
and falsehood are so artfully blended, so wrought
into one another, that it is
long before the falsehood is apparent; perhaps never
to be disentangled, till
the knotted skein is touched by tile finger of the
Righteous Judge.
[Page
54]
7, 8. ‘Jesus
said, therefore, “Let her alone; unto the day of
My
interment she hath kept this.
For ye
have the poor always with you; but Me ye have not
always.”’
She
had
kept this ointment for the occasion.
Perhaps the thought of disposing of it and
giving away the proceeds had
crossed her mind.
But this appeared to
her a nobler way, and the Saviour approves it.
He was High Priest, and she anointed Him. He was
about to enter
No
doubt,
the loving heart of Mary felt keenly the displeasure
and sharp judgment
of the guests, specially of the disciples.
It is hard to be censured by the world
unjustly, and still more by the
disciples of Christ.
On her part this
sacrifice sprang from love.
She designed
it to glorify the Saviour, the Benefactor of her
family. If
great was the cost of the perfume, greater
and more glorious still were those acts of her
Master, which sprang from
love. It
is by the amount of love
possessed that Jesus measures His disciples.
He comes to the help of His troubled one.
If
others misunderstand, and blame where they should
approve, He at least will
defend. She
is silent. If
Christ do not defend us, vain is the
praise of others.
But if He praise, the
blame even of the Church is a very small thing.
Act, then, reader, in His sight and
for His approval, and
the mistakes of our brethren about us will one day
be scattered.
He shall give praise and reward,
Who
is inaccessible to jealousy and injustice: the
Righteous Judge, Who will
render to each according to his works.
9-11. ‘A
great multitude, therefore, of the Jews* knew that He was there; and
they came, not for Jesus’ sake
only, but in order that they might see Lazarus
also, whom He had raised from
among the dead.
But the chief priests
took counsel that they might slay Lazarus also,
because many, through him,
withdrew, and believed on Jesus.’
*By ‘the
Jews’ seem to
be meant the men of the old covenant - the men who
followed the Pharisees
against Jesus.
Beside this little feast in
But
on
the Saviour’s enemies this sign and this curiosity
of the people told the
other way. They
hate Jesus, and now they
hate with like hatred, and seek to involve in a
common death, Jesus and His raised
friend. As the Head and
members together are hated by the foes of
Christ, so they shall be blessed
together in the day of His glory. The trouble
comes first, but the kingdom shall make amends for
all. If we
are with Christ in His rejection, with Him
likewise shall we be in His reigning.
Jesus and His saints are one; as they are
one
in the world’s hatred, so shall they be one at
last in the Father’s glory.
‘If with Him we suffer, with
Him shall we reign.’
But
what
wickedness of the
Jews was this!
One ill design leads on to another.
It is necessary to back up the first by a
second – ‘What! slay this
Worker of wonders, and leave
alive this monument of His power?
All
the people will cry, “Shame upon us” for putting
Him to death!
So we must cut off both root and branch.’
They
are
fighting against evidence greater than Moses gave of
his commission.
But they will not yield, though they fight
against God. This
is still the case.
Pride
keeps multitudes on their
way of unbelief.
The Pharisees would not
in their pride allow a rival.
They hated Him - the manifestly accredited of
God, because to own Him
would have broken their worldly schemes, their
wicked standing, and party.
At
first
they proposed that one should die instead of the
people; but now ‘necessity’
- the tyrant’s plea - requires that [Page
56] two should.
The Sadducees were, doubtless, exasperated
that resurrection, which they denied as a thing
impossible, should make its
living appeal in contradiction to them in the person
of Lazarus. Miracles
arouse, but of themselves they do
not convert.
These
sacrificers
of the lambs of men refuse the Lamb of God.
These men of the shadow hate the substance.
This
Lazarus
made men leave the Pharisees’ party.
Those who had any love for the truth
withdrew. They
durst not continue their opposition to
One so manifestly sent of God.
This,
then, was not to be endured by Jesus’ foes.
They
will
destroy Jesus and Lazarus, though it be in effect
destroying
themselves. So
deep is the desperate
wickedness of men!
These chief priests
who have the most light and privilege of any in the
world act in the fiercest
opposition and hatred to the right.
12-16. ‘The
next day a great multitude that had come to the
feast,
hearing that “Jesus is coming to Jerusalem,” took
the leaves of the palm-trees,
and went out to meet Him, and shouted, “Hosanna,
blessed be He that cometh in
the name of the Lord, the King of Israel.”
But, Jesus after finding a young ass, sat
on it; as it is written, “Fear
not, daughter of
It
would
seem almost by this procession of many from
Two
or
three of God’s threads are twined together in this
scene; and we shall miss
much of the instruction and edification to be
derived therefrom, if we persist,
as most do, in looking on it from one point of view
alone.
1.
Jesus
was entering
[Page 57]
2.
But
it was
the Passover and He was
entering
Jesus
found
a young ass. It
is a concise
statement of the previous account.
‘Go into the
village over against you, and straightway ye
shall find an ass tied.’ ‘They
went and found
as Jesus had said.’
‘When thou hast
opened his mouth, thou shalt find a
piece of money.’
On
the
ass, in front of our Lord as He rode, was the sign
of the cross
in black.
3.
But
there is joy also in the throng. There is a dash of the joy of the Feast of Tabernacles in it.
They carry leaves of the palm.
Now that belonged, not to the Passover,
but
to the last and more joyful feast; when the crops
of the year were gathered in,
and when the pressure of labour was over (Lev.
26.).
Hence, ‘there is
the
shout of a king among them.’
There is joy over one raised from among the
dead - blest token of the day when the dead of
The
Most
High had wisely arranged the feasts, so as to allow
the coming together of
the nation in His service. Jesus had let it be known
that He would visit
They
took
the leaves (‘fronds,’
as botanists call
them), of the palms that lined the way (there are
none in
Why
was
his pen led to specify these?
For
two reasons specially.
First, as seeing in this procession the anticipation of the Feast of
Tabernacles, and the type of the Kingdom. He
believed too, no doubt, what Zechariah
says of the kingdom; when all nations shall come
up to Jerusalem to worship the
Lord of Hosts, and to keep the
Feast of
Tabernacles (Zech.
14.).
Accordingly, there is a notice
immediately
following of some Gentiles who wished to see this Jesus.
Here was another bud of the coming day
of glory.
But
there
was a further reason which John did not then know,
if he wrote his Gospel
(as I suppose with most) before his Apocalypse.
Only twice in the New Testament are these
leaves of the palm noticed;
and John is the author who gives the two notices.
Where
then
is the other notice?
In Rev. 7:
9-17, which is the completion of this
scene of earth in the heavenly places above.
To John, when a second time inspired, was
shown the innumerable company
in heaven gathered out of all the Gentiles who enter
into the temple in heaven,
in white robes, with palms in their hands.
This is the joyous outcome at last of the
Saviour’s going up to be
slain. For
the white robes are the
result of the washing of their robes in His blood. They have
thus arrived at the Holiest of
heaven, the very throne of God. The Father is there,
and there is the Lamb
slain and risen.
The multitude below
shouted, ‘Hosanna!’ –
‘Save now!’ The
multitude above raised from the
dead (no longer an individual, Lazarus alone),
shout, ‘Salvation
is come!’
and ascribe
it to God and the Lamb.
The angels
rejoice with them.
The elders of heaven,
the chief priests of the Holiest above, are not
jealous of the Lamb’s triumph;
but one describes to John the meaning of this vast
assembly, and the privileges
accruing to these new priests of the temple on high. This is
the fulfilment of the Passover in the
‘They went out to meet Him.’ In
Scripture the meeting with a friend has
two parts: the going out to meet one coming to the
point whence they have
started, and then turning back with him in the
direction he is going. Thus, the
brethren of
They shouted, ‘Hosanna! Blessed
the Comer in the name of the Lord,
the king of Israel.’ This
had a reference, all un-thought of
by them, to the 118th
Psalm.
That Psalm describes a day to come; but there
were tokens then of God’s full and entire fulfilment
of it by and bye.
Let us cast an eye over the passage,
beginning at ver. 22. Jesus then
was God’s stone.
He was to receive at that season His chief
rejection; and He appeals to His enemies, that they
were thus fulfilling what
was written of Him.
The
Saviour’s
rejection, then, by these rulers, was the
necessary previous step to God’s
exaltation of Him in the coming day. He
will do it, and wondrous are the steps,
and astonishing the effects.
24.
The
result will be a new day of a thousand years,
the day of rest and glory, after
the six days of labour, and vanity, and
reproach. It will be the day of joy,
after the many of sorrow which preceded it.
25,
26. Then
come the words [Page
60]
which spontaneously spring to the
disciples’ lips.
In ver 27.
there is a hint of the Great Sacrifice,
who was Jehovah, and yet bound as a lamb to the
cross.
Our
Lord
was called by them ‘the
King of
He
came
in fulfilment of the prophet’ words - ‘Fear
not,
daughter of
Amidst
this
scene of joy, there was no intelligence of God’s
mind in it, even amidst
the disciples.
They saw not that they
were fulfilling the prophets.
Jesus saw
it; they did not.
He sent for the
ass and colt, on purpose to accomplish
prophecy. [Page 61]
They did not recognise the matter, till the Holy
Ghost rent away the veil.
How blind we
are without Him!
The
hand
of God was in it, and His counsel came to the light
in the absence of that
of man.
Jesus’
death,
resurrection, and ascent to heaven, with the
illumination which the Holy
Ghost threw upon the matter, did not lead them to
see, as so many of our
brethren would have them believe, that they had been
vainly led by their carnal
expectations of a Jewish Messiah, in so doing.
They were not taught by the Holy Ghost that
17,18. ‘The
multitude, therefore, that was with Him when He
called
Lazarus out of the tomb, and raised him from the
dead, was bearing
witness. For
this cause also the
multitude met Him, because they had heard that He
had done this sign.’
In
regard
of ver. 17,
there is a difference of
reading - a difference in the Greek of but a single
letter, but one which
occasions a considerable variation in the sense. Our
translation gives it (…) ‘when
He called
Lazarus.’
The other reading makes it, ‘The
multitude that was
with Him was bearing witness that He called Lazarus out of the tomb’ (…). The first is, I
believe, the genuine reading, sustained by the best
external and internal
evidence.
That
supposes,
therefore, that there were two crowds - (1) one
starting from
[Page 62]
That
which
has produced the second reading is probably the
difficulty that was found
in supposing that any ‘multitude’
was present when Jesus wrought the sign.
For how should the matter be known?
How should a crowd have collected when Jesus
suddenly appeared on the
spot, and the affair was probably over in less than
an hour? But
this overlooks the testimony of the
Evangelist given by two words in the Saviour’s
prayer; a testimony which is
lost to us by the inadequate translation – ‘Because
of the
people
that stand by I said
it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me.’ It should
be – ‘Because
of the
multitude
that stand by’
(11: 42).
We must gather then (1) that the Saviour on
His way to
Here
we
have the points attested briefly.
They heard Jesus call to
the tenant of the tomb.
They saw the immediate effect.
‘Come forth’
was the shout!
‘He
did
come out’ - was the result.
Any one may call to the dead.
But
they will not listen, save to the Voice of Power.
What
was
it that Jesus called?
‘The shell of His
friend, laid aside, never more to be used?’ So say
those who deny resurrection.
‘The body is only
the old scaffold-poles taken [Page 63] down, to rot when the house is built.’
No!
Jesus called Lazarus out of
the tomb. The
man
was there, as far
as his body was concerned.
And that body is an eternal part of the man. To
the corpse in the tomb the soul of Lazarus
returned, and the whole man, body
and soul reunited, came forth.
This
is the specimen of a resurrection.
It
gives us an example of what the resurrection of
the saints is to be.
Resurrection, then, is not the soul’s
extrication of itself from the body at death.
It
is a something yet to be
effected at a future day by Jesus’ almighty
power.
The
multitude
that came out of
‘They heard He had done this sign.’
So it should be rendered.
Great as was its value then, as an attestation to the Lord Jesus, its chief
significance is its pointing onward.
And
it
is full of blessing for us too; for one kingdom is
to embrace
To
Moses
God gave signs, as the credentials of his mission (Ex. 4.)
They also had respect to the future day. The
two first respect the
future time of wickedness, which God will at length
by His Almighty power turn
to the day of holiness.
(1) The rod
become a serpent tells of the period, when the
rulers of earth shall be
whole-hearted agents of the False Christ, carrying
out the designs of Satan (Rev.
12. & 13.).
The
serpent caught by the tail and become a rod again,
tells of the day when the
False Prophet that speaks lies (‘He
is the tail,’
Is. 9: 14, 15),
and the False Christ shall
be seized by the True Christ, and cast into the lake
of fire. Then
the rule of earth shall be in the hands
of Christ and His chosen, and be such as God
designed it to be.
(2) The same is true of Moses’ second
sign. The
hand touching the heart and become
leprous, intimates the outbreak in act of the
wickedness of man’s heart, during
the day of wrath and tribulation.
The
restored hand tells of the renewed heart and the
excellent works of the
generation whom the Lord shall call.
(3)
The water turned to blood and not restored - tells
of that final rebellion of
Satan and man, which closes the history of this
earth (Rev.
20: 7-10).
The old covenant and
the old earth are bound up together, even as the new
covenant and the new
eternal earth are.
19. ‘The
Pharisees therefore said among themselves, “See ye
how ye
prevail nothing? Behold
the world is
gone after Him.”’
Who
were
these that looked on with bitter hearts and
murmuring speeches against
this rejoicing throng?
It was indeed an
occasion of joy, the most fitting that had been
found in till our Lord’s
history. And
so the Saviour accounted
it. ‘If these
should hold their peace, the stones will presently
cry out.’
This
verse
shows the feeling of Jesus’ foes in relation to this
triumph.
But
there
were those whose black and cloudy brows showed how
little they sympathised
with this blessing. Who were they?
[Page
65] ‘The
Pharisees.’
The men of Moses, who
on the strength of the old Law refused the Son of
God. The
self-justifiers, who, while they
professed to believe Moses and the prophets, had not
learned their first lesson
- that by Law is the discovery of sin - and that the
Most High had promised a
better righteousness than man can offer, in, and
from himself. They
were not going to fall in with
‘this popular excitement.’ They would
not own this hated rival, whatever
the evidences on His behalf.
But even
they are dejected, at this swelling joy of Jesus’
friends, and at their
numbers. So
all their plans against Him
seemed to have come to nought!
How vast
the multitude of His supporters!
What
was their party
beside these?
Their
words
discover their plans.
Their aims
were to retain power on their side, and through
their own influence to guide
These
leaders
of an evil cause are fighting against God.
Their sympathies show them, even when they
cannot act. Their
words are like those
of Caiaphas, prophetic; only the time for the
fulfilment of them in their sense
was not yet come.
But Jesus seems to
take up, and to unfold their words in the next
scene. The
world shall, indeed, be His,
but it must be purged of Satan its ruler, and of
those who serve him.
The
Pharisees
are only despairing for a moment; they have not laid
aside their
rage. They
see, as they think, their
party ruined. They
judged after the
sight of their eyes.
Jesus did not, nor
after the hearing of His ears; as Isaiah had
foretold (Is.
11.).
In His highest estimation He
foretold His humiliation;
but out of His humiliation He foretold His
triumph
to come. Man
was to have his way, and his day, and
to show his powerlessness for good, his activity and
intensity of evil, before
God quells evil, and brings out blessing from His
own resources.
The
great
effects of the resurrection of Lazarus which should
have made them bow to
Christ as ‘Resurrection and
Life,’ only [Page
66]
confirm them in seeking His
death. The Master of Resurrection shall at length rule the world.
Dying men have much power of rule now.
But
what shall He have, who can
dismiss at a word His foes to death, and recall
His friends from the tomb?
Here,
then,
our hopes centre.
‘Know ye not
that the saints shall judge (rule)
the world?’ ‘Shall judge.’
It
is self-exaltation out of due time for
them to reign, while Christ does not.
But
if
the resurrection near Jerusalem created such a
sensation, such an enthusiasm
on behalf of our Lord in the day, when a glimpse of
His glory was shown, what shall be the stir, what the joy of heaven and earth in the day of
Christ’s power, when the risen shall be a
multitude whom none can number? Even foes
could then say, ‘We prevail
nought, the world is at His feet!’
It will, indeed, be true then!
The whole world shall at length own its
Master, His foes’ plans shall be wrecked, and their
persons destroyed.
But
how
little can we trust present appearances!
Who would not have been thought insane, who
had declared that in four
days the tide would have turned, and the multitudes
that then shouted ‘Hosanna,’
would be yelling, ‘Crucify!’
What then, in the
deceitfulness of present
circumstances, may we trust?
The word
of God,
the word of prophecy!
Jesus
is
not thrown off His guard by this sudden burst of
sunshine. His
eye is on
Let
us
not be deceived, Christians, by the present lull of
the world’s hatred
against the truth.
Let
us not be led
into false anticipations of the universal
reception of the Gospel by the world. The
agencies of evangelization are indeed
increased, and here and there the Lord is giving
success to His preached word.
[Page 67]
But the Scripture must be
fulfilled. ‘Many are
called.’ That
is what is taking place now.
‘But
few are chosen.’ That
is true also. And it is true also that the last days, because of abounding sin, will
be times of peculiar peril; not of peculiar grace. It is
certain, too, that in the latter times men will refuse sound doctrine, and the truth of
God, preferring fables.
It is true,
too, for prophecy declares it, that the
great
rejection of the faith of Jesus by the nations, is
near. Be
not deceived by the south wind blowing
softly, as though men’s hopes were going to be
fulfilled. Euroclydon,
and the wreck of the vessel are
at hand!
Reader,
whatever
appearances contradictory of prophecy are before
you, hold fast
millennial hope! The
Church is near its latter end: it is
cracking and falling to pieces.
The
dreams of God’s people about the world’s
conversion will not stand.
20-23. ‘Now
there were certain Greeks among those who came up
that
they might worship at the feast.
These,
therefore, came to Philip, who was of Bethsaida of
Galilee, and asked him,
saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus!” Philip cometh
and telleth Andrew.
Andrew and Philip come, and tell Jesus. But,
Jesus answered them, “The hour is come
that the Son of Man should be glorified!”’
John,
unlike
the other Gospels, begins his with the Jews’ unbelief stated,
and started from. But
he adds, that God’s elect of every clime on
receiving Jesus became sons of God
(John 1: 12). There were
here and there some Gentiles who
saw the evils of idolatry, and were led to Judaism. These were
the first persons to be led on to
Christ. They
were Berean-like, and
candid. They
confessed the reality and
force of the evidences concerning the Saviour.
This we see in the history of Peter’s
ministry, and still more in that
of Paul’s. These
were the first-fruits
of the great movement that was to make the Gospel
pass on from the Jews to the
Gentiles. It was a characteristic of our Lord to
discern in the little seed the
future plant. Accordingly,
the Saviour
discourses on this little beginning, pointing out
the great principles that lay
at its root.
Solomon
in
his dedication-prayer expected the rise of these
Gentiles who should come
and pray in that house. ‘Moreover
[Page
68] concerning
a stranger, that is not of Thy people Israel, but
cometh out of a far country
for Thy name’s sake,’ 1
Kings 8: 41.
These
wish
to speak with Christ.
So with us
continually. ‘I wish to see
Mr. Roberts’ -
means I wish to speak with him. The
modestly desire an introduction; but,
like the Roman Centurion do not feel themselves
worthy.
It
is
the glorification of the ‘Son
of Man’ that is
here spoken of; and that is not the forth-putting of
power, as when the
resurrection of Lazarus was declared to be to the
glory of the Son of God;
but it is the surrender of all that man accounts
dear, to death.
The
devout
Gentiles kept the Jewish feasts; and the Lord, Who
had not then wholly
deserted
They
ask
an introduction through one of His disciples.
They fix on Philip, of
Jesus
did
not show Himself at once to the Gentile seekers it
was not the time.
Gentiles came from the East at Jesus’ birth.
Now,
some come from the West at the time of Jesus’ death.
The
Son
of God is not cast down by the plottings against His
life. He
discerns His glorification even in this
His humbling.
He
beholds
the glorification of the Son of Man, in that to Him
the Gentiles will
be drawn (Is. 49: 6). But Jesus
cannot, as the living Jew observant
of the Law, be glorified in
The
Son
of Man is to be
glorified. He
was humbled at first below
the angels, that He might suffer death.
But it is God’s purpose to exalt the Son of
Man above all beings.
His humbling is the way to His
exaltation. As
the last Adam He must
die, to put away the sin of the first Adam.
It was a necessary step, according to the
Father’s counsels, that Jesus’
death should precede His glorification.
For while He lived He was the righteous Jew
under Law, standing off from
the Gentiles; sent to the house of Israel,
forbidding His apostles to go into
any Samaritan or Gentile city, and refusing to grant
help to the Canaanite,
save as the dog in respect of Israel.
24. ‘Verily
I say unto you, except the grain of wheat fall
into
the ground and die, it abideth alone.’
He
compares
Himself, then, to the grain of wheat which must die
before it appears
in a new form, and associates others with itself. As the Son
of God risen [out] from the dead
and ascended to heaven, He can knit to Himself in
closest contact both Jew and
Gentile, who are made of one spirit with Him.
Thus His atonement and His righteousness may
be ours. The
grain in the granary is possessed of life,
but single and limited.
If it is to
expand, it must die and take a new form.
He must, then, die and be buried; like the
grain of wheat, which is to
.spring out of earth in a new shape, having many new
grains united with
it. Thus
He would discover to His
persecutors, if they had had eyes to see it, the
falsehood of their hopes.
They grieved over Jesus’ success while
living, and thought to cut off all by putting Him to
death. ‘Let us kill
Him, and there will be an end of the matter!’ They did
so; but it was only to find that the
disciples then multiplied by thousands, and filled [Page 70]
Baptism
is
an image of that death and resurrection; a proof
that the disciple in
obedience to Jesus chooses fellowship with Him in
death and resurrection. Any
believer may refuse this rite, as
arousing the scorn of the world.
But
the refusal will bring sorrow in the
day to come.
Jesus
might
have spared His own soul, but in so doing He could
not have saved
us. He
might have been a greater than
Solomon, but then there had been no deliverance for
the world.
‘Verily, verily.’ This is said (1) in
opposition
to the semblance of worldly success then granted,
and to the disciples’ expectation
of the [millennial] kingdom
as then at hand.
(2) In opposition, too,
to the style of the law, which
regarded life and its adornments in this world as
the reward of God to the
obedient Jew; and which authorised the defence of it
by law and war, even to
taking away the life of any who assailed it.
(3) It was in opposition, too, to the style
of the Greeks,
who considered the enjoyment of this
life as the chief good.
Christ brings to
light that which is really life, in another age and
another world. Three
promises
are here attached to this self-surrender, which
so few disciples are
willing to manifest.
It arises out
of their little faith in the day to come.
Jesus’ surrender of His soul was by way of
atonement. In
that
we have no equality with Him.
Without His sacrificial death there were no life
for us. But
in the way of self-denying surrender of
it, at the
call of God, we may be
like Him. Thus we shall share his glory.
The results of the disciple’s
self-surrender flow forth to himself
personally. Those
of our Lord are for
all the saved.
Can
we preserve life only through disobedience to
God in Christ?
Then it is to be given up!
And this will at last be seen to be
truest
wisdom, as the other will be shown to be folly. You must
choose between the honour of God and
that of man.
You cannot have both.
25. ‘He
that loveth his soul shall lose it, and he that
hateth his
soul in this world shall guard it unto eternal
life.* If any one
serve Me, let him follow Me: and where I am,
there shall also my servant be: if any serve Me,
him will my Father honour.’
*
We see the glory
of not loving the soul unto death, in
Rev. 12: 11.
That
which
is true of the Head holds good of the members
likewise. Thus
the Saviour would teach the disciple to
make the same estimate of the world and of life in
it, which He had made
Himself. Our
translators, having
deserted the Scripture accounts of man’s composition
(‘psychology,’ as it is
called), make the true rendering here to jar upon
the ear. ‘To
love our soul’ and ‘to love our present
life’
are to us thoughts
widely different. But this results from our
regarding man as made up of but two
parts, ‘body and soul.’ Scripture
distinguishes between ‘soul’
and ‘spirit;’
making ‘soul’ to be
the principle of life and
its feelings as possessed by man in common with
other animals, and ‘spirit’ to
be the higher and religious component of man.
Jesus, then, here teaches us to be willing,
like Himself, to give up the
soul to death.
Nature considers the
preservation of life (the soul), in the present
time, as the chief object of
man. It
knows no future existence; it
fears death as the end of all.
Hence, it
will labour to preserve life, even to the taking
away the lives of those who
are its foes. God
allowed that under
Moses; whose rewards belonged to this present scene,
and whose threats referred
specially to cutting off from this life.
We
naturally
guard with great zeal the present life, but we
cannot defend it from
death. But,
when
surrendered
to death for Christ’s sake, it shall be restored
to us in the millennial glory.
The
lover
of his soul in this life will not let it go, even at
Christ’s call.
For him there shall be no recalling of it in
that day of glory.
Rev. 20: 4-6
expounds this for us.
This is one [Page 72]
of our Lord’s frequent, sayings - that what
is won now in the flesh
will then be lost: but what is now lost for Him
shall then be restored.
Such
as
the seed is, such will be the crop.
The seed of nature will offer no crop in the
resurrection-day.
Faith must steer by a star invisible to the
eye of sense.
If
any,
then, so love life in this present scene, as to refuse to
part with it at Christ’s call, he will lose part
in the first resurrection, or
the millennial glory. He who surrenders it as a
something to be sacrificed for Christ, will find
it again in [the
first] resurrection. The
expression ‘hating’ is one of our Lord’s
strong words. It is not that the soul is evil in
itself, a something to be put
off altogether; as sin will be, in order that we
may be happy in ourselves, and
fit to dwell in the presence of God.
The
saying is limited.
It is a hating of the
soul ‘in this world;’ in this period,
and during its arrangements.
The other
Gospels use the word ‘age’
instead of ‘world.’ Jesus
was about to be martyred - to give up His soul to
death. But He
would find it again in [a ‘better’
(Heb. 11: 35)]
resurrection.
Christ’s
followers who stiffer with Him shall reign with
Him. But
John scarcely ever mentions the
millennium. He
regards it as the
beginning of eternal life.
To surrender
for Christ is to receive the lost thing again in
glory eternal.
These
words
must have sounded strangely in the ears of these
Gentiles. They had come
at a strange time, just when He who was apparently
upon the eve of triumphing
over His foes was to be laid low in death.
But if the Spirit of God enlightened them,
they would see afterwards,
that Jesus anticipated His death; and foretold it,
not as the destruction of
His work, but as the beginning of its wider spread;
a spread which should
encircle even the Gentiles, as it did through Paul. If they
received these words they would prove
an antidote to the offence of the cross, and to the
philosophy of the Gentiles.
The
disciple
then is to serve Christ; and service to Him will
involve suffering,
and oven martyrdom.
But it will be the
following of Jesus into the glory to come.
He will take care [Page
73] that those who have so followed
Him shall enter into His millennial joy and glory. Death,
which sunders friend from friend in
this present world, will effect no severance
between Christ and His servants in
the day to come.
For the sowers and
reapers then shall rejoice together.
Moreover, honour from the Father will be
given to those who serve the
Son. The Son shall receive the
supreme honour, as He is justly worthy of it.
But each who serves the Son in following out
the Father’s great
counsels, shall in his measure receive glory; not
from man, but from God.
The desire for glory is a natural one. It is not
eradicated by Christ, as something
evil in itself.
It is wrong only in its
misdirection; as seeking glory now, and from men. Seek glory from God,
and
you cannot have too much, or desire it too much (5:
41-44).
27. ‘Now
is my soul*
troubled. And
what shall I say? Father, save Me out of
this hour? But
for this cause came I to
this hour. Father,
glorify Thy name!’
*
The soul - as
the seat of the affections of man.
Jesus
in
trouble lays the matter before His heavenly Father
in prayer. What
a lesson to us!
He seeks only to know and do His Father’s
will. What
a mercy that the glory of God
and our salvation are bound together! Before each of
His petitions goes the
word ‘Father.’
How it shows the ruling feeling of His heart! The dread
to Himself is over-ruled by the
love to His Father’s will and name.
Jesus glorifies the Father by obedience unto
death. For
this the Father glorifies Him: glorifies
Him now,
as Priest:
in the coming day, as King.
Jesus’
death
differs from all others in that it was a sacrifice
for sin, an endurance
of the punishment due to our sins (Is.
53). He
was made sin, that we might be made righteousness. To Him, then, death
assumed a form unknown to us, for whom its sting is
drawn. If
it was so terrible to the Son of God, Who
was guilty of no sin, and was to endure it but a
brief time, what will it be to
the sinner? and for eternity?
The
expiatory
character of our Lord’s death alone explains His
terrors. He
had called the disciple to surrender even
life, assured
of the great reward
attendant thereon.
Yet the sense of
His own death makes Him a moment recoil.
He endured the wrath of God in death, that
for us its sting might be
drawn, and we might be delivered from bondage
thereto. The
sting of death, which is sin, is for us
removed. Jesus,
the Righteous, died the
death of the sinner, that we might die the death of
the righteous.
How great our obligation to Him!
Death is now to the believer a sleep, from
which Christ will wake him.
The
course
of Jesus’ thought is now before us.
Before the Gentiles came to be received by
Him He must die. As a Jew
alive, He must stand aloof from Gentiles.
The Law severed between them.
It
is only in resurrection that Jesus can unite Himself
with Gentiles.
Now death is at the door.
But that troubles His soul.
Jesus has, as a man, a human soul.
And that shrinks from death.
It is a penalty - the wages of sin.
Before sin entered there was no death; let
geologists in their guesses to the contrary, deny it
if they will! Jesus
was to suffer death as the curse of
Law. In
His case death meant the turning
away from Himself in wrath of the face of the Father
whom He loved.
It was to be the hour of Satan, and the power
of darkness. This
was what made death so
terrible to the Saviour.
It was not the
pains of crucifixion, great as they were.
They drew not out His complaint: but the
Father's desertion of Him, as one
under the curse. This
was its deadly bitterness.
‘The sting of
death is sin.’
And Jesus was ‘made sin’
for us,
or in our stead.
This made His whole soul to shrink. On Him
was
laid sin, and He became sin, who knew no sin; who
hated it for its evil, and
who feared it, as separation from His Father.
The
Saviour
endured death, clad in terrors far greater than had
over assailed the
soul of man before; terrors which arrived at their
height in the Garden.
John does not, in the wisdom of the Spirit
of
God, present to us that scene.
But He
here points to the feelings which gave rise to that
scene.
Why
is
Should
the
Lord Jesus then forego the work He had begun, in
order to escape that path
of anguish? He
could, if He would.
He was under no necessity of dying by
virtue
of His birth, as if He were a sinner, under the doom
of Adam’s race.
He was not bound to it by reason of
powerlessness to escape it.
Even in the
Garden, twelve legions of angels, had He asked for
them, would have scattered
His foes, or destroyed them.
He could
have conveyed Himself away as He had done before. He had
earned eternal life at the hand of
Law; eternal life on its own terms of obedience. He knows
His freedom; His perfect
voluntariness of suffering, and He would have us
know it to. It
is here that infidels, specially late
ones, have sought to defame the Saviour, as if
necessity were laid on Him, and
He saw it, and made a virtue of necessity.
Such are obliged to trample on Scripture
testimony.
Here
we
see what led Him onward. He had come according to
the Father’s counsels, and
with His own consent, to redeem the lost.
Now that could be only through death.
That He had in view from the commencement of
His course. ‘For
this cause
He
is
all along in close contact and sympathy with His
God. To
Him He says still, ‘Father.’
It
was not, as Gnostic speculators suggested in their
view of Gethsemane and the
Cross – ‘that the [Page 76]
Christ,’
(a supernatural being), who had provoked this combat
with Satan and the Jews,
had taken His flight in cowardice and treachery, and
had left the mere man to
bear the sad consequences of the war.
Our
Lord
prays then. And
that prayer
discloses His final decision. ‘Father,
glorify Thy
name.’ This
was the principle which led Him to
become man. This
had been His guide
through life. He
sought glory, not from
man, but from the Father.
And still He
clings to the same principle, though it involves
death and the curse. ‘Even
so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.’ ‘Do
with Me as Thou
wilt, so it be to Thy glory.’
Jesus
is
not, as some errorists assert, the Father.
He is the Son, who seeks the glory of
another, and that other is His
Father. As
man, He prays to Him.
He takes the lowly place which becomes
Him. The
Father is His God, as well as
His Father. Jesus
is the only ‘Son of Man,’
whose guiding principle all through life
was love to God with all the heart.
Jesus
is
the perfect man, and of man He says – ‘The
spirit
truly is willing, but the flesh is weak.’
28. ‘There
came, therefore, a voice out of the heaven
(saying) “I
have both glorified it, and I will again glorify
it.”’
So
perfectly
is the Father in sympathy with His Son, that at once
He answers: answers
not by act, but in words. It is not so with us.
No voice from the sky comes to answer our
appeal to a Father in
heaven. We
come to God, and we obtain
replies through Christ.
We are not
worthy to come directly to God as Jesus did.
We are sinners; in Him was, and is, no sin. We obtain
answers from our Father on high,
but not directly.
They are answers in
the way of light on Scripture, on His words already
written: or by His
providence; and often after long years of waiting. Sin has
shut out that direct and immediate
response, which Jesus here obtains.
God
answered
His Son’s petition by the day of Gospel grace which
His death
opened. Till
then the full mercy of the
Father could not be known.
How surely
the prayer and the reply [Page
77] were
linked together as cause and
effect, John testifies by the word ‘therefore.’ The
voice came at once as the real answer
of God to Jesus’ prayer.
The
Father,
therefore, saw only what was acceptable in His
petition. Jesus,
standing at the point where the road
forks, a moment pauses.
The fear of
death would have led one way; obedience to His
Father led Him actually in the
other.
This
response
was not needed by the Saviour, as He goes on to say. But it was
designed to authenticate and
accredit to all
It
was
on this supposed superiority of Moses above Christ
that the cavillers
against our Lord had rested.
They were
disciples of Moses; for his claims to obedience were well attested by God’s speaking in reply
to Moses (9: 29). Jesus then
calls out the same attestation to
Himself in public, and so sweeps away their evasion. The Father
had, indeed, twice before by
audible voice owned Jesus as His Son.
But those attestations were, as far as we
know, in private.
This was given in public, and at a time
when
the enemies of our Lord were emboldened to attempt
to put Him to death.
So then they were without excuse.
God’s
words
of reply are full, though brief.
(1)
He
had already glorified His name of ‘Father.’ Jesus had
walked in the light and the
testimony of it alway. He had honoured the name of
the Father by His words and
ways as the Son.
He had declared the
perfect likeness which exists between Himself and
the Father. His
wonders of grace displayed the character
of that goodness, to which He bore witness.
The Father was glorified in the Son’s life. (2)
But
He would again glorify it.
The death of the
Saviour would introduce a new
era of the display of the name of the Father.
God would be [Page 78] glorified as the Father of the Lord Jesus by raising from the dead,
and exalting to His right hand Him whom man and
The
Father
is glorified now by this dispensation of the Church,
which is gathering
to God sons, companions of His Son.
And the age that follows will glorify the Father by ‘the
manifestation of the sons of God.’
29. ‘The
multitude therefore that was standing and
listening said that
it thundered; others said, “An angel hath spoken
to Him.”’
What
effect,
then, had this public attestation to Jesus’ mission
and person? Was
it told to the rulers, like His raising
of Lazarus? Did
they pause and repent?
By no means.
It wrought no visible result either on friend or foe. Great
as
we might justly have supposed would be the effect of
such an evidence, none
that we know of resulted.
The
main
body of the multitude that was standing to listen to
Jesus did not
perceive any audible words.
This might
be due to two causes - one physical, one moral.
The voice was as ‘the
voice of Almighty God when
He speaketh,’ Ez.
10: 5.
(1) Now there are ears so constituted as to
be unable to hear distinctly very deep sounds. That
is the physical cause.
So when Christ spoke to Saul the
persecutor,
his companions did not catch the words, but heard
only the inarticulate
sounds. (2)
But perhaps, too, it
requires some moral requisite to enable persons to
understand the voice of God.
At
all
events, to the majority, only the deep bass sound
was heard, which to them,
as coming out of the sky, was thunder.
To them, therefore, the great significance
and weight of the evidence
was lost.
‘Others said - ‘An angel spoke to
Him.”’
Jesus
has
to apply the word to them.
Even the
best of the multitude regarded the voice only as a
word spoken to [Page
79] Him.
They needed it to overcome unbelief, and to strengthen faith.
These
heard,
indeed, the words; but missed their chief import. The great
point of significance was that
Jesus called upon God as His Father, in Whose name He came, and to Whom through all His course he bore
testimony, and that He who answered from the heaven
was the Person so appealed
to – ‘the Father.’ No angel
of God durst so have replied.
It would have been high treason against the
Majesty both of the Father and the Son.
Nor would Jesus have owned any angel as His Father. Nor
would
any voice of such have deceived Him, as if it were
the Father’s voice.
30. ‘Jesus
answered and said – “Not for My sake came this
voice,
but for your sakes.
Now is the judgment
of this world; now the Prince of this world shall
be cast out.
And I, if I am lifted up out of the earth,
will draw all unto Me.”
Now this He
said, hinting by what death He was about to die.’
We
have,
then, here what is better than even to have heard
the spoken words of God
- the Saviour’s interpretation of it.
First, we have the design on God’s part, with
which it was given.
It was not that the Saviour needed thus to
be
taught the intentions of the Father.
It
was not that thus He felt encouraged to bear the
cross, from which otherwise He
would have turned back.
It
was
‘for their sakes.’ It had
been given as a further evidence of
our Lord’s pretensions that God was His own Father;
and that He was from above,
and before all, in a way that no man or angel could
be.
God’s
judgment
on the world and Satan has its root in the murder of
Christ the Son of
God. That
was the greatest sin the world
has seen.
The
judgment
of the world and its Prince will be to the glory of
God. His
justice will be glorified in the
perdition of the ungodly, as well as in the
salvation of believers.
He is not merely and entirely ‘Love.’ He means
to show His wrath, and to make His power known, on
the vessels of wrath fitted
to destruction.
If death and woe fall on
the Righteous One, [Page 80] when He stands as the Sinner’s Substitute, how much more shall it
descend on the wilful sinner for his own
transgressions, specially after his
refusing the grace of God in Christ?
Jesus’
eye
here, methinks, is turned on the prophecy of the
Garden. The
hour of bruising the heel of the Son of
Man had come. Thereon
shall certainly
follow the bruising of the Serpent’s head, and of
the Seed of the Serpent.
It
laid
low the supposed superiority of Moses above Himself. Moses knew
not God as ‘Father.’ Nor
would God have answered him with a voice, had he so
appealed. The
Most High was known to Moses as the
leader of
Jesus
quietly
assumes, that it was an audible voice uttering
words. The
second party, who called it speech, were
right. It
was no mere peal of thunder
that happened then to roll.
He
expounds
the meaning of the words.
They
would affect both the world and its ruler.
‘Now is the judgment of the
world.’ The
‘now’ may be (1) an argumentative
particle; (2) or a particle of time. (1) ‘In
consequence of these words, the world
will be judged.’
As God means to
glorify His name, aye, His very name of Father, in
which many trust as a word
of salvation for all men, He will judge and condemn the world.
(2) ‘Now’
may refer to time; for the world’s unbelief would
then and thus rise to its
height, in the rejection and slaying of the Son of
God. While
God is wonderfully patient, He cannot
finally pass by the murder of His beloved Son.
Jesus does not suppose it.
The
world
stood condemned, even in the day when Jesus spoke to
Nicodemus, as not
believing in the name of the Son of God.
John the Baptist, too, added His testimony of
the wrath of God about to
fall on the unbeliever. But now the world’s is not a
[Page
81]
tacit refusal, but a girding
itself to destroy Jesus.
Here
The
Jews
themselves gave witness, that it ought to be
avenged. Jesus
sanctioned their sentence in the
parable of the Wicked Husbandmen (Matt.
21: 37).
The Beloved Son is sent after the previous
insults and injuries inflicted on the servants. Would they
reverence Him?
Nay,
they
cast Him out, and slew.
What then
would the Lord of the Vineyard do?
He
would miserably destroy those wicked husbandmen. So in the
parable of the Wedding
Garment. The
King, indignant at the
murder of his servants, sends his armies to avenge (Matt.
22.).
The
world,
both Jewish and Gentile, stood condemned; as guilty
of unbelief, because
they refused the Son.
The Son was the
last test of an evil world, to see whether it would
obey God’s Beloved One.
Having rejected Him, there is no hope of
its amendment.
Its trial is past.
It is incorrigible.
God has tested it without Law, under Law,
and
at length by grace; by works of mercy, and by the
word of truth.
It will not hear.
It has shut itself up in enmity and
unbelief. The
great Judge will judge it, and condemn;
and the heaviest woe will fall on it because of its
rejection of the Son.
‘They have both seen and
hated both Me and My Father.’
Vain
then are all attempts to improve the world! They are set
on
foot only by persons who do not see, or will not
believe that the heart of
nature is enmity against God; and that the Great
Ruler of all, who has declared
that He will judge the world, can only, when He
judges, condemn it.
But the next words attest
the depth and extent of the
world’s wickedness.
There is an evil
spirit who first led men astray.
He is
God’s great antagonist; he sways the world which he
has usurped. But
it is for God’s final glory that this
Usurper of the Almighty’s place and throne should be
put down, and cast out of
the world which he deceives.
[Page
82]
31-33.
‘Now the prince of this
world shall be cast out.
And I, if I be lifted up out of the
earth,
will draw all to Myself.
Now this He
said, hinting by what death He was about to die.’
The
world
as related to the Gospel, and to the Church, is that
portion of mankind
that is under the sound of the good news, and does
not accept it (John 1: 5).
It is the darkness that closes around the
light of God. It
refuses mercy; and hence its due and its award, is justice. It
is made up of ‘the children
of disobedience.’
It is wrought on by Satan, the spirit of
falsehood. It
refuses the Holy Spirit of
truth. Its
putting Jesus to death
stamped it as incurable; as being of the same mind
of impenitence.
After slaying Him, it slew His people.
It slays them still when it can, and will
do
so again more fiercely than before.
It
is made up of ‘the seed of
the Serpent.’
Its
ruler
is the Serpent, the devil.
He and
his estate, the world, are morally of one mind;
specially concerning God and
His Christ. He
and they are in spirit at
enmity with God.
The devil is the prince
or ruler of the world. The Scriptures written by
John bring out with especial
prominence the devil’s existence, and his power. John, in
the Revelation, speaks of the throne
of Satan as being on earth even during the time of
the Church (Rev. 2: 13);
and much more, visibly, and in power
after the Church is removed.
He came to
the front as soon as our Lord’s ministry began.
Beaten there, he stood powerless before
Christ until his ‘hour,’
and the
power of darkness!
Then he raised up
against Christ the world in all its forms; entering
into Judas, to make him
betray our Lord.
It is becoming
fashionable now to deny or throw doubts on the
existence of the devil.
Who do so? The lovers of the world!
They do not like the thought that what they
seek and love dwells in such evil company.
The
murder
of the Son of God is Satan’s highest sin.
God must avenge it, if He be just.
Present grace does not shut out future
justice. Genesis
9. is the witness of the coming day of
vengeance for bloodshed.
Judgment is already given; mercy bids a
long
day intervene between the sentence and the
execution. If
the Righteous
One may be smitten under
the [Page 83] government of
God, how much more surely and eternally will the Evil One! But
Satan will not be cast out by the Church.
It is enough for her weakness, if she, clad
in God’s armour, and
sustained by His Spirit, keeps her ground against
him. This
is taught clearly in Ephesians
6., and in the Saviour’s epistles to His
seven churches.
John, our apostle, is
the witness in his Gospel, of Satan’s work against
Christ: in his Apocalypse,
of the justice of God at length sorely and finally
punishing him.
Jesus,
then,
here affirms the judgment of Satan, as the
consequence of ‘that hour;’
as the consequence of His own surrender of
life to death; and the Father’s assurance that He
will glorify Himself as the
Father, and Jesus as His Son.
It is not
to God’s glory that Satan, that great foe of God’s
and man’s, should be for
ever at liberty, planning and acting out his
wickedness, and possessed of so
great power over a world he has led into rebellion
against God. God
is, indeed, glorified by the mercy He
shows in Christ Jesus.
And it is during
this day of mercy, that he is left at liberty.
But God shall manifest in the ‘day
of vengeance’
close at hand, the glory of His justice. Then Satan shall be
cast
out. He
shall be cast out, as his recompense
for the part he took in assailing unto death the
Head, and His members; who are
united together in the Lord’s previous words (23-26).
‘Now shall the prince of this
world be cast out.’ Many
take the word ‘now’
as signifying that at that
moment Satan was ejected.
But no!
His most powerful actings against our Lord
took place then.
He is not yet cast out
of heaven, but accuses us there (Rev.
12: 10).
He is a roaring lion, going about in
freedom
to destroy. He
is exercising his wiles,
and waging his warfare against saints on earth.
We are to resist him, standing in the armour
of God. It
is then clear, that he is not cast out
yet. The
Saviour notices in these words,
then, only the moral certainty of Satan’s judgment
and ejection. He
will be judged, and condemned, though no
opening for escape from the consequences of his
wickedness has ever been set
before him. For men are now beginning to speak as if God were
not just,
[Page 84]
except He
showed merey; which is a
contradiction on the face of it.
As
the result of Satan’s judgment, he will be cast
out. Out
of what?
Out of the world which he rules.
The steps of it are shown us in
Revelation. In
heaven he accuses God’s
people now, day and night (Rev.
12.).
At length the time for the rapture of
God’s watchful ones is come, and they mount to
heaven.* Satan
seeks to hinder by force, and then
angelic force defends them, and assails him.
He loses the battle, and is cast down to
earth three and a half years
before Jesus descends.
Then he stirs the
armies of earth to fight against our Lord on earth. Satan
loses this battle too, and is cast into
ill bottomless pit for a thousand years.
Then the nations, whom now he deceives at his
pleasure, pass out from
his hand into the hands of Christ and His chosen
servants (Rev. 20.)
Loosed a little while, after the thousand
years he leads to battle
against the Holy Land and the
[* NOTE.
Contrary to the opinion held by many
Christians, this is a pre-tribulation
rapture before the Great Tribulation commences.
It is for those only who make supplication that they
may ‘prevail to escape
all the things that shall come
to pass’ (Luke
21: 36,
R.V.) Not
every Christian will
qualify! Some
‘escape’
while others ‘that are left’
(1 Thess. 4: 17,
R.V.) must endure unto the end.]
‘I, if I be lifted up out of
the earth, will draw all to Me.’
This
lifting
up of Jesus, considered as His death, was due in
great measure to
Satan. We
shall see the force of the
Scripture, if we turn to two passages of the Old
Testament - Gen. 3: 14,
15, and Ps.
22: 20-31.
The enmity between the
Christ and Satan, and their respective seeds, is set
forth in
But
Satan’s
accomplishment of the crucifixion in his hour of
power, would next and
of certainty draw on the bruising of his own head. Here,
then, is the other side of God’s glory
of justice; in exalting His Son, and depressing and
smiting Satan, the foe of
the Father and the Son.
Jesus then takes
in both sides of the judgment. His exalting on high
out of earth was the hour
of death. It
brought on Him the curse of
the Law, which fastened on any one who hung upon a
tree. But
while it had its side of depression and
woo, it had also its side of glory and of
exaltation. Thus
our Lord anticipated from it His
victory.
Jesus’
death
exercises an attractive force.
We
see something like this in 2
Sam. 2: 23.
Asahel’s dead body caused the soldiers to
stand still around the corpse.
See also chapter
22: 11-14.
But this is a moral and spiritual drawing by
the Father and the Spirit (Cant.
1: 4).
The
original
is ‘lifted up out of
earth.’
The cross lifted Him up on, or over, the
earth. But
the ascension lifted Him out
of
earth into heaven, and
thither He now attracts the souls of those who
believe in Him.
‘Out of earth’
testifies
to His leaving earth, and so the people understood
it. His
removal would seemingly be to the
advantage of Satan.
Would not thus be
taken out of the way the greatest Hinderer to
Satan’s success? But
that is more than balanced
during the day of mercy by the Holy Spirit’s
descent to counterwork him as the
Spirit of truth.
And
in the coming day, the justice of God
shall make this act of
his wickedness the heaviest overthrow of him
and his power.
[Page 86]
When
justice
arises to render to each his work, then shall
Jesus’ death be the
ground of His exaltation, as the Worthy One, to
the supreme post of authority. It is so
shown in the Old Testament, where
His death is foretold (Is.
53: 12).
It
is
discovered still move plainly in Rev.
5.,
where Jesus is glorified, as supremely worthy
through His suffering death.
To Jesus it will be given to wrest the
nations out of the Usurper’s hands, and to gather
them to Himself (Gen. 49:
10). The
Usurper once put down, the True
Prince reigns.
Psalm 22.
gives another
view of this lifting up of the Saviour out of earth,
and of His consequent
exaltation. We see the death He was to die depicted
in the words -
‘They pierced My
hands and My feet.’ Here
is another aspect of the death by
Crucifixion. And
the Saviour, after the
hour of woe delineated in the first part of the
Psalm, ends with giving thanks for the whole world turned to Him, and the
kingdom become His (22: 27, 28).
To
this
kind of death, as a ‘lifting
up,’ the
Saviour had before alluded twice.
To
Nicodemus he had foretold it, as the antitype of the
brazen serpent lifted up
amidst the serpent-bitten and dying, to give life. He had
again spoken of it in chap.
8: 28, while testifying that He was the
Light, although refused by the men of the world to
their own destruction.
This
double
sense of ‘lifting up,’
as signifying both
(1)
death
and (2) exaltation,
is found in the history of Joseph.
Gen. 40: 13,
‘Within three
days shall Pharaoh lift up thine head, and restore thee to thy place.’ To
the chief baker He says – ‘Within
three days shall
Pharaoh lift up thine head from off
thee, and
shall hang
thee on a tree’ (19).
And
then again, in the accomplishment of the prediction,
we read Pharaoh ‘lifted
up the head of
the
chief butler and of the chief baker among his
servants.’
Jesus, then, was lifted up (1) under the
curse, because of our sins; (2) He is now lifted up
to heaven, and hereafter He
is to receive openly the just retribution of glory.
The Saviour notices the
results of His glorification
in His paying -
[Page
87]
‘I
will draw all men unto
(2)
But
this is only a partial fulfilment, and looks only to
the present spiritual
exaltation of Christ in the minds of those who
accept Him. It
makes ‘all’
to signify ‘some of classes
hitherto diverse and
divided from one another.’
Indeed, in John’s Gospel and Epistles the
election of the saved, and
their fewness as compared with the world, come
broadly out.
(3)
But
another day is coming,
in which
these words are to have their
largest fulfilment; when to the moral power
of the cross shall
be added the royal power of the
throne of the Christ, the Son of
Perhaps we may and should take this
drawing as affecting that day in two directions. Jesus
shall attract all, both foes and friends;
the one to fight against Him, and the
other to obey.
We thus give a sense
parallel with Judges 4:
6, 7.
Barak was to draw to Mount Tabor 10,000 of his brethren, who would fight with and
prevail over Jabin and his men.
Concerning these last says God – ‘I
will draw
unto
thee
to the river
Kishon, Sisera, the Captain of Jabin’s army, with
his chariots, and his
multitude, and I will deliver him unto thine hand.’ Then came
the decisive battle, which threw
the rule of
34. ‘The
multitude answered Him, “WE have heard out of the Law that the Christ abideth for ever: and
how
then sayest THOU
that the Son of Man
must be lifted up?
Who is this Son of
Man?”’
To
the
close the men around are disposed to cavil and
object, wherever any word of
the Saviour’s seems to them contrary to their
previous views.
Now they see, that one professing to be
Messiah speaks of His removal from the earth, and
that by death.
But how could one removed out of the earth be
Messiah? Was
not Messiah to rule on
earth,
and to reign for
ever; as promised to Solomon?
How, then, could Jesus take away the
inconsistency?
Must He not do so, before they could own His
pretensions?
Now
it
is true, that Messiah
is both to have His life removed from earth, and (Is.
53: 8) also to abide for ever. These
opposing
features belong to two different portions of
time. There
was then no real opposition or impossibility in
the thing.
Scripture testifies both of Messiah
suffering
and dying, and of Messiah living and reigning
for ever.
Alas, for those who are slow to ‘believe
all
that
the prophets
have spoken’!
But, then, God ‘catches
the wise in their own craftiness.’
The Scripture [Page 89]
is so composed
as to be a
snare to the proud wise men
of this world; while it leads to
[a future] salvation,
clear of all the snares of Satan, the meek
who are willing to accept all
the testimony of God.
In
proof
of their assertions, the Jews could point to such
passages as Ps. 89:
24-29; 1 Chron. 17: 12.
Most
of
the testimony of our Gospel was quite contrary to
the expectations of
Their opposition of sentiment to Christ
then makes its appearance in the question before us. ‘You
speak of
yourself as Messiah, to be removed out of the
earth by suffering and
dying. Daniel
speaks, and so do the
Psalms, of a Son of Man ever reigning
(Dan. 7: 14).
How, then, can
your words agree with this?
Is the Son
of Man of whom you speak a different “Son of Man”
from Daniel’s?’
The
source
of their repeated stumbling was their want of faith
in Christ as
Light. It is true still
of unbelievers of our day.
Was,
then,
this Son of Man of whom Jesus spoke so oft, a
different person from the
Christ of whom the prophets testified?
Were
there two persons where they were expecting but one? This seems
the force of the words, as also
probably of the message of John the Baptist to our
Lord (Matt. 11.).
It appears to prove, too, that the title ‘Son of
Man’ was not one usual among the Jews; and
that they did not regard it
as equivalent to Messiah.
35, 36. ‘Jesus,
therefore, said to them – “Yet a little while is
the
light with (among) you; walk while ye have the
light, lest darkness come upon
you; and he that walketh in the darkness knoweth
not whither he goeth. While ye
have the light, believe in the Light, that ye may
become Sons of Light.”
These things spake Jesus, and departed,
and
was hid from them.’
Our Lord gives them no
direct reply, and therefore it
is not said, ‘He answered;’
but ‘He said unto them.’
The time past [Page 90] might suffice to bring forward difficulties and cavils, but judgment
was now at hand.
It was no time to
discuss, but either to accept Himself, or to perish. The
patience of God would not tarry their longer
questioning and fencing.
The sun was
setting. They
would be benighted on the
dark mountains among precipices and pit-falls,
unless they at once believed.
‘My Spirit shall
not always strive with man.’
This is a solemn principle, to which the
sinner [and saint] who
is provoking God by his delay and
cavils, ought at once to take heed.
Our
Lord,
here again, bears witness to His being ‘the
Light.’
Thus John proves the principle stated in
his
preface. ‘In
Him was Life, was the Light of Men.’ He
who called light out of darkness at
the first, and who gave, and who gives to men
whatever of light moral or
spiritual they have, was there.
Now to
be light is to be
more than to be man.
It were a vain boast for any mortal who by
slow degrees attains to knowledge and wisdom, and
that mixed with more or less
of error, to call himself light! Jesus in
comparing Himself, then, with the
greatest of those born of women, calls Himself ‘Light;’
while He names John only ‘the
burning and shining lamp.’
While
our
Lord was among the Jews with His heart of grace, His
words of wisdom, and
His deeds of power, that was the time for them to
accept the testimony.
If they refused that time of witness, and
of
mercy, night, long and dark,
was about to settle upon them.
Satan is
darkness, and is the leader of the world’s darkness. If they
would not accept the Son of God,
their unbelief would throw them into the arms of
Satan. And
ever since that day,
The
refusers
of the truth shall be the willing prey of lies. Faith
unites us with the Son of God; as
unbelief shuts up the [Page 91] heart against Him, and throws the soul off from Him.
What
we believe moulds our
characters.
He who credits the Prince of
Darkness will become more and more like the
master he trusts, and the lies
which that master teaches. They, on the other hand,
who
trust in Jesus, as God’s own Light, become like
Him.
Not
only
they should not walk in darkness, and have the light
of life, but they
should themselves be transformed from being darkness
to be sons of light. ‘Believe
in the Light, that ye may become sons of Light.’ They were
the sons of darkness, children
of their father the devil.
But the gulf
that cannot be passed had not been finally reached. They might
yet be changed.
Though then sons of darkness, they might
become children of Light.
‘God is Light’ - is John’s
testimony in his epistle ‘and
in Him is no darkness at all.’
Jesus, then, in calling Himself ‘Light,’
really called Himself ‘God.’ And to God as the
light there is no approach for dark sinners, save
through the Son.
Nor
can we know God, or have
fellowship with the Light, but by obedience
to Jesus as the Light.
Lastly, the sons of darkness will have
their
portion with the Prince of Darkness in ‘the
blackness
of darkness for ever.’
Jesus
said
no more by way of explanation.
He
left their cavil unanswered.
When the train
is just ready to start, it will not do to stand
questioning about the weather
and politics. ‘Come,
are you going to get in or not?’
Then the guard blows his whistle, and the
tardy
- [i.e.,
the
slow, late and sluggish]
- are left behind!
Jesus,
thenceforward,
made no further direct appeal to save them as He had
done
before. They had slighted
His grace, and argued away the [future] day of salvation.* Thenceforward
it was hidden from
their eyes.
[* That is, ‘the
salvation of souls’ (1
Pet. 1: 9, 13,
14, R.V.) cf.
Heb. 9: 28; 10: 39.]
37, 38. ‘But
though
He had done so many signs before them, they
believed not on Him, in
order that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be
fulfilled, - which said –
“Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom
hath the arm of the Lord been
revealed?”’
The Saviour was not caught
at unawares by their
unbelief, as if it were a power which overthrew His
calculations. It
was predicted, and He knew it.
Out of their blindness, Christ has [Page 92] arisen as a light to the Gentiles.
Faith can grow where unbelief falls and
wounds itself.
‘Jesus hid Himself.’
Thus He took the place of Jehovah in Deut.
32:
20, ‘And He said, “I
will hide My face from
them. I
will see what their end shall
be: for they are a very froward generation,
children in whom is no faith.”’
The conduct of the Jews then, was what the
Psalmist described as the conduct of their fathers,
when Jehovah delivered them
out of
‘So many signs!’
Yet John records only seven: four in Galilee,
and three in
John,
now,
in the few next verses, throws a glance over the
Saviour’s ministry, and
sums it up. He
here notes, how it came
to pass, that
The
cause
of such rejection might have been presented to us,
from a view of the
prejudices of the Jewish nation, and the Saviour’s
disappointment of their
prejudices. He
was not what they hoped
for and desired.
He was, what they
hated. The
evidence of this is given in
the arguments held in chapters
5. - 12.
But the apostle, inspired by the Spirit,
chose rather to show us the result as it appears
from the side of God.
Seen in this direction, it was an
indication
of God’s foreknowledge, and of the power which He
exercises over all events. He
had directed Isaiah to foretell that the people of
The
first
is derived from the opening words of Isaiah
53., that chapter which so strikingly
foretells a suffering Messiah, and
a sacrifice for sin cut off in apparent weakness;
though one day to be clothed
in power and majesty.
The prophet, in
the first words, anticipates that this notice of
God’s counsels would prove
utterly distasteful to a fleshly and earthly people,
- who were always looking
for exhibitions of power; and who sought their
portion in the good things of
earth and time.
The first question of
the prophet, then, shows that he anticipated, what
in its due time came to
pass: that the testimony to a Messiah slain in
weakness would be so rejected by
the people of
His
second
question corroborates His first, but gives a new
aspect of the
matter. Jesus
is ‘the Wisdom of God, and
the Power of God.’
He is here called ‘the
Arm
of the Lord.’
For in the arm
lies the strong man’s force. And Jesus is ‘the
arm of
Jehovah.’
He is possessed of
Almighty power, and He testified His possession of
it, both by word and by deed.
The strongest proof has been last given. He has the
keys of Death!
Yet how few, even of His disciples, beheld
Him in this character!
Martha sees in
Him only the prophet, to whose prayer Jehovah might,
for a moment, give the
reply she desired.
But as Paul says, the
enlightened of God behold in Jesus crucified through
weakness, the Wisdom of
God, and the Power of God.
The unbelief of
[* Gal.
5: 13-21; Eph. 5: 5-7; 1 Cor. 6: 9. cf. Col.
3: 23, 24; 2
Thess. 1: 4-7; Jas. 1: 12; 2 Pet. 1:10, 11.]
Two
acts
of choice are before us: (1) man’s, (2) God’s. Both are
real. But
God’s precedes, and He foretells the
choice of
The
preaching
of Christ has two savours: the savour of life to
God’s elect; of
death, to the men of nature.
Not
that
God poured sinful thoughts and inclinations into
their minds, when they
were willing to obey; not that He stamped out the
good desires within their
souls. It
was not that
39, 40. ‘Therefore
they could not believe, because that Isaiah said
again, “He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened
their hearts, lest they should
see with their eyes, and understand with their
hearts, and repent,*
and I should heal them.”’
*
Not ‘Be
converted.’
It is the active voice.
Christ and John the Baptist called them to
repentance. The
‘be converted,’ comes
from the Vulgate, not from the Greek.
God
having
once pronounced the word, it must necessarily be
fulfilled. The
issue of the presentation of the
evidences of Messiah to them, was only unbelief. It was
certain it would be so.
[Page95]
‘But was not
When
it
is said that
But
whence
is this second passage taken?
And
how does it bear upon the subject before us?
41. ‘These
things said Isaiah when He saw His glory and spoke
of
Him.’
(1)
This
passage is one of the most frequently quoted in the
New Testament.
And no wonder!
For it formed the sufficient justification
of
the heralds of the cross, when Israel falsely
boasted themselves, despite their
unbelief, to be the people of God; and would
dissuade the Gentiles from
listening, because they ought to know
better about Messiah, than these unlearned upstarts
who called themselves ‘apostles.’
(2)
The
sixth of Isaiah foretells the blindness of
But
who
is this Jehovah of Hosts, beheld in glory in His
temple?
‘Jesus Christ.’ ‘These
things said
Isaiah, when he saw His glory, and spake
of Him.’ Jehovah
the Father, has never been seen by
man. But
this Jehovah was beheld by the
prophet.
Thus,
then,
the quotation is most appropriate.
He who was presented to the eyes and ears of
‘How long is this blindness of
42, 43. ‘Nevertheless
many even of the rulers 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 glory of men
rather than the glory of God.’
* This
scene of Isaiah 6.
enables us to understand what Paul means
by ‘the form of God’
(Phil.
2.).
The
real
results of the Saviour’s ministry were greater than
appeared. The
miracles, the teaching, and the life of
Christ carried such evidence, as to convince many,
specially of the upper
classes. But
it was a weak faith, that
could not bear any burthen for Christ’s sake.
It stood in awe of Christ’s strong foes, and
would not confess Him as
their Saviour and Lord.
Power was in the
hands of Jesus’ enemies, and the being
put out of the synagogue
for the truth’s sake, with the ruin of their
character and prospects in the
world, was too great a sacrifice to be made.
Thus
it
is now. Many, both of ministers
and
people, would leave the Church of England if it
could be done without noise,
and without loss of worldly goods, and reputation. There
are
believers, sensible that some things in the
Establishment are [Page 97] quite unchristian. But
become
‘Dissenters’ - sacrifice
present
things for a [millennial] day to come - they dare
not!
Choose
you
must still, believer, between Christ and the
Pharisees; between the
religion accepted by the world, and that of God;
between membership with the
synagogue, and communion with the rejected Son of
God. Happy they, who, at
whatever cost, leave the world’s religious systems
to obey Christ!
Those
who would follow Christ
must, as He says, hate their life in this world.
Who
were
the Saviour’s chief foes?
The
Pharisees! They
who sought to justify
themselves, and refused the righteousness of Christ! They
sought to maintain their own perfection,
and submitted not to God’s righteousness provided
for them.
Many
judge
such cases severely.
They say of
the parties named in ver.
42, ‘They could
have had no true faith.’ Yes, they had! It was faith
strong enough to save.
But it was a
faith, which as not having works, and
not confessing Christ in His
rejection, will not be rewarded in the
day to come.
Some of weak faith did at length come forth
and own Jesus.
Thus, Nicodemus, and
Joseph of Arimathaea, showed themselves at our
Lord’s death.
But in both cases the faith
was genuine, even if it
had not publicly appeared.
Many
seeds sprout beneath the
ground, which through the coldness of the wintry
wind are checked from
appearing above the soil.
They
are the stony-ground hearers, who come
short of the prize attached to owning a rejected
Christ.
The love of glory is natural to us, and the
same disposition fears disapproval and rebuke.
The feeling is not in itself evil.
It
is wrong only as it seeks
wrong glory, or in a wrong way.
The
seeking of glory from evil men, and in this evil
age, is bad.
It keeps from good, it leads to evil. It seeks
the approval of men by conduct which
God disapproves of.
The
true glory is that which the Father shall give
in the coming day.
He shall bestow the supreme height of
glory
on His Son; and then on
those who
have served, and suffered with, and confessed
His Son.
Seek,
then,
men of faith, the glory which God shall [Page 98] bestow when Christ shall appear. None can
seek too fervently, or too
steadily. This
is real glory.
It
shall abide when the glory of this world is
forgotten, or turned to shame.
THE EPILOGUE
44, 45. ‘But,
Jesus shouted and said, “He that believeth on Me
believeth
not on Me, but on Him that sent Me. And He that
seeth Me seeth that sent Me.”’
These
words
seem to be the doctrinal summing up of the great
question pending between
Jesus and the unbelieving Jews. Lest we should think
that the previous words taken
from discharged
In
what
light are we to regard verses
44-50?
It had been said just above (verse
36) that Jesus hid Himself. Sorrowfully, He
gave up further testimony.
Did He after that shout
forth
this further witness?
Opinions are
divided.
I
agree with those who think that the verses before us
are a general summary of
the question raised between Him and the Jews.
John testifies that this refusal of
The
Lord’s
thoughts are not ours.
He has
made the unbelief of Israel to draw out of His bosom
a secret long hid there -
the raising up a spiritual body to Christ taken out
of Jew and Gentile, yet
neither Jew nor Gentile; who shall be one with the
Redeemer in the glory to
come.
Jesus,
in
His single-hearted following of the Father’s
counsels, and seeking the glory
which comes from God, is the exact [Page 99] opposite of these worldly wise men.
Herein is He the pattern for us.
How great the glory of God, which Christ has
already received!
How
great the glory of the
Kingdom which awaits Him!
‘A sad thing
(these Pharisees thought) to lose fellowship with
the men of our nation!’
And shall it not be worse, to
lose fellowship and glory with Christ?
The
great
question from chapter 5.
to the close
of this respects the Person of Christ - His
testimony to the Father as His
Sender, and to Himself as the Sent One, equal to the
Father: by Whom alone
redemption can be had.
The
unbelieving
Jews took up the position of Unitarians.
They set up the old testimony against the
new. Their
fathers served many gods
against God’s call to worship Himself alone.
Now that God, in infinite grace, was showing
Himself as the Father and
the Son, they refused the new revelation.
They would sever between Jesus, and their
God. They
would have said – ‘We hold
to the God of our fathers; we confess the God of
Moses, and of Law.
We refuse Your
blasphemy, and Your exalting of Yourself to an
equality with God. While,
however, we reject You, we hold fast to Jehovah. We
wonder God does not cut You off in Your
sin!’
The testimony of Jesus then
is directly counter to
this. It
is - ‘Law
is making way for grace.
I am sent, commissioned
by the Father, to save you who are condemned by
Moses, and unable to save
yourselves. I
am so entirely like the
Father, so perfectly of His essence, so
spiritually like to Him, that if you
reject Me, you reject Jehovah; you push away from
you the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob.
You reject Me, because
you know neither yourselves nor God.
You
are dark, because you refuse Me who am Light.’
Verse 44, then, unites
what
This
is
not generally the case.
The
messengers whom Joram sent to meet Jehu might have
been good Jews, unlike their
idolatrous master.
But in our Lord’s
case the Sender and the Sent were of one nature and
spirit.
46.
‘I am come as light into the
world, that every one that
believeth on Me should not abide in the darkness.’
Here
Here,
again,
John is proving the statement of his Preface by the
words of our
Lord. Thus
he testifies of Himself as
possessed of a higher standing than John.
John was ‘the Lamp’;
Jesus ‘the Light’ of
heaven.
Jesus was ‘the Light.’ John was
only a witness to the Light, to lead
men to trust Him.
The
world
is darkness. Christ
is the light
of faith. All
outside Christ is
darkness, and the darkness accepts not the Light. The light
of the Knowledge of God is to be
seen only in Jesus Christ.
How absurd to
suppose this could be true of a mere man!
47.
‘And if any hear My words,
and believe not, I judge him
not, for I came into the world not to judge the
world, but to save the world.’
Man
is
the culprit, and God is the lawgiver, who must one
day bring before Him the
trespassers, and judge them.
It will be
seen to be an awful thing to have sinned against
Law; but to have slighted and
put aside the grace of God in Christ will
be
the heaviest doom
of all.
[Page 101]
Jesus
is
the turning point for good or evil to all who hear
of God. Faith
or unbelief is the question now, as in
the Garden of Eden.
Can you trust God?
Not to accept God’s witness about Himself
is
unbelief, making God a liar.
The
testimony is offered as the way of salvation to Jew
and Gentile. But
its refusal is perdition in the day to
come.
48, ‘He
that despiseth Me, and receiveth not My words,
hath one
that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken,
that shall judge him in the last
day.’
The
dreadful
consequences of unbelief do not discover themselves
now, because it is
in the day of mystery, and of mercy.
Unbelief may boast against the truth, and
clothe itself with present
worldly benefits.
But judgment is
coming, and the sentence against those who make God
a liar, and prefer their
darkness to His Light will be uttered.
Then the difference between unbelief and
faith will be dismally and
eternally apparent.
The Saviour’s
enemies seemed to have won the victory.
But their acts were only fuel for the
judgment.
The
words
which they had contradicted and ridiculed would be
the very words which
would rise up in the judgment to condemn them.
Such as the greatness of the person is, such
is the importance of his
words. The
words of a fool partake of
his character.
The words of a wise man
are wise. The
words of men, indeed, are
soon forgotten, like himself.
But the
words of God are like Himself.
They
partake of His nature.
They are like His
acts and works, wonderful and abiding.
They are the words of the Judge; and however
man, the prisoner, may
despise them now, they will be His sentence in the
last day; that day which
ends mercy, and brings out into conspicuous contrast
the place of God’s friends
and that of His foes.
49, 50. ‘For
I have not spoken from Myself, but the Father that
sent
Me Himself gave Me command what I should say, and
what I shall speak.
And I know that His command is eternal
life. What,
therefore, I speak, as the Father spoke
it to Me, so speak I it.’
The
word
‘of’ in old English
takes senses which are
not now in use.
Jesus was continually
speaking ‘of’ Himself
in our [Page
102]
modern sense. He
bore witness to Himself, and about
Himself. It
was part of the Father’s
counsel that He should.
But He did not
speak ‘from’ Himself:
in the sense that His
words and testimony owed not their origin to His own
plans and thoughts.
He
was
the Father’s Sent One, and His words were given by
the Father. They
not only had the Father’s full approval,
but they were put into Christ’s mouth by Him.
Before He left the Father’s throne, He was in
full possession of the
Father’s mind: and knew perfectly both the works to
be done, and the words to
be said.
This
was
partially true of Moses, God meets Him, and
instructs Him what to do, and
what to say. But
Moses shows the
deficiencies both of knowledge and of trust which
belong to man.
These deficiencies were not found in
Christ. He
was so thoroughly possessed
of the Father’s counsels, He so purely spoke them,
without any foreign matter,
that the Father’s authority was stamped on all He
said or did. Now,
at the close of His ministry, He had
nothing to add, nothing to retract.
Moses may be smitten, because he added to
God’s words somewhat of his
own - contrary to God’s mind and instructions.
Even Nathan, the prophet may have to withdraw
what he said, as springing
from his own thoughts; and David’s desires may be
refused by the Most High, as
unsuited to His feelings and character. But between
the Son and the Father the
most perfect understanding reigns.
What
the Son says He speaks with the Father’s full
approval; and so entirely
according to the Father’s mind, that those who have
heard Christ’s words will
be judged by them.
We
see
something of this truth presented in the other
Gospels, in the testimony –
‘This is My Beloved Son; hear Him.’
But
if
so, then any insult to the Son
is an insult to the Father also; to
be avenged in the day when justice
shall mete out to each according to his works.
How solemn then is the despising of the
Saviour, the putting away of His
words! ‘If ye
believe not that I am, ye shall
die in your sins.’ Jesus
thus
testifies that if any perish, the fault is not His. He must
either be received unto salvation, or
rejected unto damnation.
The Saviour
seems [Page 103] to have
had in His eye (Deut.
18: 18, 19) ‘I will
raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren,
like unto thee, and will put My words in His
month; and He shall speak unto
them all that I shall command Him.
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.’ God’s
words were put into His mouth, and
whoever would not hearken to God’s words by Him
spoken should be cut off from
his people. To
the believer even, it
will be found to bear sad fruits to have despised
any word of Christ.
What
will those think, and feel,
and find at the last day, who have put aside
Christ’s command to confess Him?
who have thrust away the Saviour’s order to be
baptized, as His first mode of
confessing Him?
50. ‘And
I know that His commandment is everlasting life.’
To
receive
Christ’s person and testimony is to obtain eternal
life. God
commands this reception: 1
John 3: 22, 23, ‘What
shall
we do that ye might work the works of God?
This is the work of God, that ye believe
on Him whom He hath sent.’ ‘Hear Him.’
And to hear Christ is to have eternal life.
Jesus,
then,
closes the controversy with these solemn words. The Jews’
unbelief was against evidence; now
at length it is against warning the most impressive. Life or
death to those that now hear, turn on
their reception or refusal of Jesus as Life.
The
close
of Jesus’ career before
After
this
summing up of the great controversy between the Son
of God and Israel, the
scene closes there for awhile, and the next five
chapters show us Jesus in
contact with His saved ones.
*
*
*
CHAPTER 13
[Page 104]
THE
WASHING OF THE
DISCIPLES’ FEET
1. ‘Now
before the feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing
that His
hour come that He should depart out of this world
to the Father, having loved
His own that were in the world, He loved them unto
the end.’
A considerable difficulty
meets us here, on which much
learning and discussion have been expended.
On what day did Jesus observe the Last Supper
? Do
not the three first Gospels on this point
differ from the fourth?
If Jesus kept
the true day of the Passover, the day observed by
the Jews generally could not
have been the true one.
So great
importance is attached by some to this point, as to
lead them to assert that
there is an error, either on John’s part, or on that
of the three first
Gospels. This
cannot be granted: for it
is contrary to the Spirit of Truth’s inspiration of
the Scripture.
Hengstenberg’s
theory on this point seems the best - that owing to
the lapse of time and other circumstances, there
were diversities in the
reckoning of the days of the month, and that there
were two parties in the Jewish
nation thereon.
That Jesus with a part
of the Jews celebrated the Passover with His
disciples on the true legal day;
and that the rest of the nation celebrated it on the
next day, on which the
Saviour was put to death.
Both the
Synoptic Gospels and John then are right.
Jesus celebrated the Passover on the
Thursday, and was put to death on
the Friday. Thus
the Jews did not
celebrate the legal Passover, when our Lord was
crucified. By
Jesus’ death it was done away.
[Page
105]
John
does
not mention either the Saviour’s observance of the
Passover, or His
institution of the Lord’s Supper which followed it. Both these
points had been sufficiently
touched on by the three previous writers; and his
line of things in presenting
the Son of God come from the Father, and going back
to Him, did not lead in the
same direction.
The
counsels
of God had fixed a day for both
2, 3. ‘And
while supper was taking place, the devil having
already
put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s
son, to betray Him, Jesus
knowing that the Father had given all things unto
His hands, and that He came
out from God, and was going to God.’ -
This
love
and humility of Christ are intensified by the part
Satan had in the
matter. Jesus
would not be deterred by
the Arch-fiend’s presence in the person of Judas,
from exhibiting this act of
grace and love.
Grace and truth are
here! Jesus,
the Chief of all the
worlds, now makes Himself the servant of all.
In
this
scene of mystery and mercy, where God works, Satan
works too. But
the Saviour rises higher than all
considerations which might have hindered Him.
The world outside rocks with a tempest of
unbelief and hatred.
But there are those within the upper room
chosen out of the world, ‘His
own,’ whom He
loves. How
great the contrast between
what the Father’s love puts into the heart of
Christ, and what Satan puts into
the heart of Judas!
As love of the
Father and of His own brought Him
[Page
106] into the world, so at His
going out of it He would testify that that love has
not abated.
The
most
solemn and the smallest assemblies of Christ’s
people are not left unsoiled
by the work of Satan, and the presence traitors.
How necessary
is the coining day of judgment to sever the hateful
sons of the Wicked One from
the love and the of the saved!
The
sense
of the glory to which Jesus was going, and of
trouble and darkness in
which He left His own, drew out His tenderness to
the full, which displayed
itself in word and deed.
The
difference
between the three first Gospels and this is nowhere
greater than in
the chapters on which we now enter.
The
Synoptics have shown the sufferings of the Saviour
in Garden and on the Cross,
arising out of the pressure of the load of sin upon
Him.
That
revelation
was good, and necessary in its place. But unfriendly
and unbelieving
hearts had misused it. They endeavoured to account
for the Saviour’s agony by
the evil theory we have oft had occasion to name - a
theory asserting that
Jesus Christ was not one person, but two.
‘That Jesus was the
mere man, son of Joseph and
Mary, who said or did nothing remarkable, till a
heavenly and angelic being – “the
Christ” came upon
Him at
His baptism.
Then began His words and of
wisdom and power, which stirred up so great a
storm against Him.
That seeing this at hand “the
Christ” flew away,
a left
Jesus in His weakness to bear the issue.
That this was the cause of the Redeemer’s
complaint on the cross, “My
God, God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”’
That was Satan’s
misinterpretation, which does away with the whole of
the Gospel. It
might, indeed, be refuted even from the
three first Gospels.
But the Spirit of
God in His wisdom and grace further guarded the
precious deposit of the truth
by John’s Gospel.
That shows us the Son
of God going through His sufferings, with full
knowledge of what was to come
upon Him, and with undiminished power.
The discourse with the disciples [Page 107]
also sets forth the coming of the Holy Ghost as the
result of the Saviour’s death.
The
Saviour
gave then at the close of His life the most striking
proof of His
humility, and of His love.
The washing
of feet which the Evangelist is about to relate,
arose from no forgetfulness of
His high station.
He was well aware of
all before He entered upon it at His ascension.
He had been bearing witness of His descent
from heaven; and as the
unbelief of His foes grew more pronounced, He more
distinctly foretold His
departure; not merely as a man would do it, as his death; but
as His return to Him who had sent him.
He
puts
it startlingly to the multitudes, after they
stumbled at His saying about
eating His flesh and drinking His blood - ‘Doth
this
stumble you?
What if ye see the
Son of Man ascend up where He Was before?’ (6:
62; 7: 33).
And in the next
chapter – ‘Yet a little
while I am with you, and then
go My way to Him that sent Me.’ The Father
had from all eternity made Him
Heir of all things, and He had now thus far
completed all to His satisfaction;
so that the scenes before Him were His departure out
of the world of Satan’s
bond-slaves, and His returning to His Father’s
bosom. His
love, then, was an abiding love - not
like ours, shifting and varying in amount and in
objects. Well
is it for us that it is so.
Had the love of Christ depended on our
obedience and love to Him, we were lost.
The
Redeemer
was aware of His former eternal dwelling with His
Father, which He left
to abide on earth; and He knew that by His
resurrection and ascension He should
return to the glory above.
4, 5. ‘He
riseth from supper, and layeth aside His garments,
and
taking a towel, girded Himself.
Then He
poureth water into the basin, and began to wash
the disciples, feet, and to
wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.’
The
steps
of this humiliation are given in detail, so worthy
of notice were
they. He
takes the lowest place when
found among the sons of men.
Thus the Father
was pleased to exalt Him [Page 108] as in all things having the pre-eminence. Thus He showed us that humility is the way to glory from God. The
proud
who stand
upon the dignity of
their station, or birth, or abilities may
find
honour from man.
But humility
is the Christian’s glory, and it
is precious in God’s sight.
‘He resisteth
the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.’
This
washing
of feet was common in the East, where shoes and
stockings were not
used, but only sandals of leather or wood tied on
the naked feet, and laid
aside on entering the house.
It was a
relief to guests to have their feet cooled and
cleansed by washing.
But to wash the feet was the lowest of
offices,
ordinarily performed only by slaves.
Here the Lord of all stoops to fulfil it,
that He may teach His
disciples that no self-exaltation but self-abasement
is our glory, and our
resemblance to our Lord.
6-10. ‘He
cometh therefore to Simon Peter.
He saith to Him, “Lord, dost They, wash
my
feet?” Jesus
answered and paid to him,
“What I am doing, thou knowest not now, but thou
shalt know after these
things.” Peter saith to Him, “Thou shalt never
wash my feet.”
Jesus saith to him, “Except I wash thee,
thou
hast no part with Me.”
Simon Peter saith
to Him, “Lord, not my feet only, but my hands and
ray head.” Jesus
saith to him, “He that is bathed hath
not need except to wash his feet, but is
altogether pure, and ye are clean, but
not all.”
Jesus,
it
would seem, did not begin with Peter.
Some one or more had silently submitted.
This astonishing act draws out the quick and
fervent Peter – ‘What! was
Jesus Messiah - the Sent of God - the King of
Kings? And was He going thus to humble Himself
below Peter? More fitting far
that Peter should wash His.’
He
therefore puts it to Christ whether such conduct
were not unworthy of Him?
Jesus gave him to understand that there was
a
meaning belonging to the act which he did not then
perceive, but which the Holy
Ghost would one day discover to him.
It
would have destroyed this spiritual signification,
if Peter had washed Christ’s feet.
The Saviour was now intimating that His
salvation extends, not only to
the first forgiveness of sins, when the trespasses
of the believer’s past life
are at once blotted out; but that He would take away
[Page
109] the
remnants of sin which abide
in the believer after his first renewal, the results
of indwelling sin.
Was
it
not great humility on Peter’s part that he refused
this honour? Beneath
that appearance there were
presumption, disobedience, and self-will.
When the will of God is clearly shown, obey. Some put
aside baptism indefinitely on
Peter’s ground: ‘I should
like to know more about it,
before I obey.’ ‘Obey
first, and know after’
- is the Lord’s word here.
God hides
some things from us, and so tries us.
It
is not necessary that a child should know fully the
reasons of a father’s
command.
John
Baptist
judged himself not worthy to untie the sandal-thong
of Jesus. But
the Saviour does not esteem Himself too
high to wash the feet of disciples.
And at this juncture they were striving which of them should be the
greatest. The
Redeemer shows them, that
the lowliest now will be exalted the highest in
the day to come.
Peter
is
not satisfied.
He will not wait.
He must have some more satisfactory reason
than an appeal to his ignorance then, and to his
future knowledge.
Till that is granted, Jesus, while He might
wash the feet of the others, should never wash his. The
Saviour condescends then to give him a
strong reason.
Did he wish to
have part with Christ in His glory?
Then he must be cleansed in this season of
sojourn on earth.
He was a sinner, and only as cleansed from
sin could he have part in the heritage of Messiah. Nor can
any effect this necessary cleansing,
save the Son of God.
Observe, Jesus does
not now say, ‘If I wash not
thy feet, thou hast no part with
‘0, if that be your meaning, why
wash not my feet alone, but
my whole body!
For, Master, Thou hast
well seen that I desire at any rate to have part
with Thee. And
do I not need cleansing all over?’
Jesus then has to defend
the wisdom of this partial
washing against Peter’s rebound to the other
extreme. The
Lord’s [Page 110]
reply is very memorable, not only for its simplicity
of wisdom in itself, but as showing how futile in
themselves are the objections
even of believers, against
the proceedings of the Most High.
We
speak and think with very little perception of God’s
reasons. It
is wisdom to be silent, when we have come
to ways of God which we cannot fathom.
There is much in Jehovah’s dealings which we
do not comprehend.
We have only twilight now.
We must wait for the daylight of noon
before
we can read clearly this small print.
And such patience and humility is part of our
schooling. Proud
nature judges God at a glance, and oft
blasphemes, because it does not understand.
But God will one day be justified in His
sayings, and overcome when He
is judged. It
is for us to wait.
We have the assurance that all is working
together for our good, and with that we do well to
be content.
The
authorised
translation of this passage hinders the perception
of the beauty of
our Lord’s reply.
The
translators
have rendered two different Greek words by the
same English word. And
it
is on the difference of sense between those two
expressions that the force of
our Lord’s answer turns.
‘He that is bathed needs
not save to wash his
feet, but is clean altogether.’
Here
a spiritual lesson is made to spring to view out of
a custom common to
man. The
bather goes into the river, and
plunges himself entirely beneath it.
His
whole body is cleansed in the clear flood.
But he must come up out of the water and
resume his clothes.
And as he moves out of the water along the
soil, his naked feet pick up the dirt on which he
treads. He is clean all over
with this exception.
He has therefore to
wash his feet, and is then wholly clean.
There
are two
washings.
Without the first,
there will be no eternal
bliss; without the second, no millennial
glory (Matt.
18: 1-4).
It
is
Jesus who washes the feet.
It is not
one special class of Christians of priestly
character, which alone is
authorised to do it.
He it is who thus
manifests the glory of the Only-begotten of the
Father, full of grace and
truth. He
takes here, in despite [Page
111] of
His humiliation, the place of
Jehovah. He
acts and speaks as the
Pardoner of Sin.
Now that is, as the
Pharisees saw, the place of God.
That is
where David, the sinner-saint, puts God. ‘Wash me
thoroughly from
mine iniquity, and cleanse me
from my sin.’
‘Purge me with
hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow’ (Ps.
51.).
The name of Jesus signifies
a Saviour of His people from their sins.
How needful was it that very night, that the Lord should
wash Peter; else he had been cast off with
Judas,
for denying Him with oaths and curses!
There
is
also a New Testament reference to this cleansing. Paul
reminds the Christians of Corinth of
their original standing given them by grace.
‘Such [of the
evil classes he has named] were
some of you, but ye were
washed
[a stronger word than that which is
here used], but ye were
sanctified, but ye were
justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus and by
the Spirit of our God’ (1
Cor. 6: 11).
He is there warning against sins which would exclude from
the millennial kingdom of glory. That from
which
the refuser would be excluded was hinted by the
circumstances.
It
was
the Passover supper - token of the greater
sitting down with Christ in the kingdom
of God.
Thus
also
this passage is knitted on to our Lord’s words to
Nicodemus concerning the
birth out of water, as necessary to His future
kingdom of glory. This
cleansing
was for the Lord’s Supper.
And the blessing to come is communion with
our Lord and His favoured
ones in the kingdom of glory. The Lord’s Supper now
is a token of the same, and
looks on
to that day when the rite is
to cease, because Christ is returned.
How
oft
do disciples here follow Peter, in saying with bold
and evil words, of some
doctrine of Scripture -
‘That were
unworthy of God!’ ‘His
thoughts
are not as our thoughts.’
How
deeply
does sin penetrate!
How many the
points at which even the Wise and Omnipotent God is
obliged to meet sin in
order to put it away from those who will be saved. How fast
is sin infecting entirely and
eternally, those who refuse this cleansing!
[Page 112]
The
Saviour’s
lesson then is, that His disciples had experienced
the bathing or
main washing; and that that was not to be repeated. The cleansing of hands and head was
already effected.
This refers, then, to
baptism, or the believer’s immersion, which His
disciples had already received,
probably at the hands of John.
Peter, then, was in effect asking the
repetition of baptism.
Now immersion is
not to be repeated.
‘There is one baptism.’ And its significance is joyful.
Believers have and retain our God’s great
forgiveness of all the sins of our life. Our
immersion is God’s witness to us
of this. His
gifts and calling are not
repented of by Him.
But sins arise in
the believer during his course of life after that
great acceptance.
This
act, then, of the Saviour is designed to evidence
to us that His
salvation is complete; and that His grace was
fully aware of these
after-offences (of infirmity mainly); and that His love and power have made provision in His scheme to meet them,
and to keep us accepted in the presence of God.
This
one
sufficient immersion, never to be repeated, stands
in beautiful contrast to
the many and oft-repeated immersions of the Law. Every time
any one touched a dead body, or an
unclean creature, he had need to immerse himself. This was
of the very character of Law, that
it made nothing perfect.
It could not
perfectly cleanse from sin, and so neither did its
ceremonies give the figure
of it.
(1)
This
scone then is directed against the ideas of the Perfectionists,
who suppose and teach that the
well-instructed Christian never sins. But has he not evil
thoughts which dart into his mind?
Do
not evil feelings oft rise under trial?
‘Yes.’ But
such seem to think, that if
evil feelings are kept down from any outward
manifestation, they are not
evil. That is not the Scripture view. ‘Out of the heart spring evil
thoughts’,
says Jesus; ‘and
they defile
the man’ (Matt.
15: 19).
And
our
Lord bids us to examine ourselves before we come
to the table of the
Lord. ‘If we say
we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the
truth is not in us.’
The
best
saint in crossing with naked feet this world of
sin needs the washing of
feet to remove the soil, which, in spite of all
care, will cling to us.
(2)
This
is also a gracious word of consolation against
At
this
point they say – ‘There are
only two points of
entire cleansing – baptism (meaning the, sprinkling of unbelieving infants)
and the day of judgment.’
Jesus,
on
the other hand, here shows that there is to the
believer, forgiveness of
sins after baptism.
There is a washing
of feet by Himself of those really baptised (or
immersed) as men of faith.
Though apostles and Peter had sinned, and
Peter
had been rebuked as ‘Satan’
after baptism, yet
there was a further cleansing of post-baptismal
sins, so that Jesus could say
of those at the Last Supper, ‘Ye
are clean wholly.’ Here
are, not the priest and confession
set us right, but
the Son of God,
taking away our
sins confessed to God
(1 John 1.).
A
believer’s justification before God, is not removed
by the after sins of his
life. But
there is need of forgiveness
of daily infirmities.
And Christ knows
this, and has provided for it.
10, 11. ‘Ye
are clean; but not all. For He knew His betrayer,
therefore, said He, “Ye are not all clean.”’
Jesus comforted the souls
of the disciples in general,
by the [Page 114]
assurance that they were cleansed before Him and
God. But
there was one exception of which He was
aware, and, by consequence He made the exception
expressly. ‘He needed not that
any should testify concerning man, for He knew
what was in man.’
Many
seem
to have stumbled at the Saviour’s choice of Judas
among the twelve.
Could it be that one aware of what he would
do, could, select him?
To meet this
difficulty, the earlier Gospels give us one or two
notices of the betrayer’s
proceedings, and of Jesus’ acquaintance with them;
while His disciples in
general were not at all suspicious of him.
But John enters into the matter more fully
than the others.
(1) He gives us the Saviour’s hint
concerning
Judas when so many fell away (6:
64). Jesus
enquired of the twelve, Whether they
were ready to leave?
Peter replied in
the negative. But
the Saviour told them
there was among them a devil.
At this
point we may remark, how dispassionate and calm are
the Gospels, and the New
Testament generally, in describing acts of
wickedness; especially those
directed against the object of religious faith and
love. We
never read, ‘Then
went that cursed betrayer to the chief Priests
(may God’s curse rest on them!)’
(2) We have next the outbreak of Judas’s
covetousness, in his displeasure at
Mary’s anointing of the Lord.
This drew
down on him the Saviour’s rebuke, and that rebuke
seems to have stirred the
devil in him, to go to the council of the enemies of
Christ, and to offer to
betray Him. John
gives us also Judas’s
leading the band of armed men into the Garden, and
the traitor’s falling to the
earth with the rest of the band of foes.
Now Judas’s
sin was
participated in by those who employed him.
He was their paid agent; therefore the sin
of the betraying attaches
itself to the nation, and its rulers. The Holy
Ghost so charges it by the mouth
of Stephen. ‘Of
whom ye have now been the
betrayers and murderers.’ The same sin
may be, and is committed now.
The Scripture describes the men of the last days as ‘traitors.’
We
have
next the Saviour’s explanation of the act He had
performed. He
took His place again at the table, and now
[Page 115] addresses them
as ‘the Teacher.’ He would
see if they understood the intent of
the action. Without
this many pass
through services full of instruction, and yet reap
no intelligence, and derive
little profit.
Our Lord had hinted at an
interpretation of this act to be given, and now He
gives it.
He
holds
still, though sensible of the scenes of death before
Him, the place He
ever did. His
titles as given by
disciples were ‘The
Teacher, and the Lord.’ They
did not overrate Him in giving those words of
honour. He
is ‘the Teacher’:
supreme above all others.
‘MY SON - HEAR HIM.’ ‘Out
of His fulness’
all other religious teachers draw.
Jesus
holds
two relations to the twelve.
‘The Teacher,’
as they are disciples: ‘The
Lord,’ as they are servants. The title, ‘The Lord’ belongs in
spiritual matters to God alone.
‘The Lord.’
This
a title in its fulness in Scripture given only to
God. The
answering title to ‘Lord’
is ‘slave.’ Jesus
took in this very matter the place of God, as the
pardoner of sin.
Jesus, then, is Lord of us, as well as of
all
things. The
meaning of this title is
generally missed by us.
It intends that
Christ has rights of obedience over His followers. He claims
their submission to His
orders. ‘Why
call ye Me Lord, Lord, and do not the
things which I say?’
Many after their conversion seem to think,
that then they are free to apply themselves to any
line of life they may
please. ‘Now, I
will devote myself to trade, or to science, or
politics, or literature.’
But you are not your own, to dispose of yourself at
your pleasure.
You belong to a Master, Who has bought you by
His blood. You
must ask Him, ‘What wilt Thou
have me to do?’
Or else, while you may please yourself in your disposal of your
abilities, your money, and your time, you
may
find at the day of judgment that you have no
reward; for you have pleased
yourself, not Christ.
You
have squandered away what He gave you,
and cannot appear among the good and faithful
servants who have looked forward
to His approval. Christ will call you, my
reader, to account as your Lord; what
answer will you give Him?
[Page 116]
While,
then,
other teachers and lords may take titles which are
merely obsolete, or
not justified by any real foundation in fact - as
the sovereigns of England
called themselves at one time Kings of France,
although only one fortress was
possessed by them or ‘Defender
of the Faith,’
although some kings were unbelievers, some ignorant
of the faith, some
persecuting it to death; yet to Christ the titles
given were justly due.
‘Ye say well, for
so
I am.’
Observe,
too,
that in this wonderful act of humiliation He still
holds a place
apart. ‘Ye are
to wash one another’s feet’ Not
-
‘We.’
He
does not bid Peter or John to wash His feet. That
would have been an admission
that there was sin in Himself, which needed removal,
as truly as in His
disciples. But
as He challenges foes – ‘Which
of you convinceth Me of sin?’ so now He
takes
the same attitude among friends – ‘In
Him was no sin.’
14.
‘If, then, I wash your feet,
I the Lord and the
Teacher, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.’
Jesus
did
this with the fullest knowledge, as John said, of
His inherent
greatness. The
greatness of the Person,
and the greatness of His authority should prevail to
load disciples to
obey. The
Saviour had not by His
self-humiliation put off His dignity or authority. But He
would have His disciples not to stand
upon their dignity as men of the world do, but to
humble themselves.
The world thinks it below the dignity of a
duchess or of a queen to go into a poor cottage, and
to wait upon the
inmates. But
here is One who is chief of
teachers, and Lord of all, who can stoop to the
lowest offices for the good of
His people. And He
teaches us, that the way to true glory in the
coming kingdom, is to humble
ourselves.
‘He that humbleth himself
shall be exalted.
He that exalteth
himself (now) shall be abased (then).’ ‘He that is
least of you all, the same
shall be great.’
The
way to glory in the day to come, is the opposite
to the world’s way.
It
is
not, as some interpret this act and teaching of our
Lord, that an un-fallen
brother is to wash the feet of the fallen one. [Page
117] Jesus
washed the feet of all the
twelve. And
in His application He says,
‘Wash one another’s. You
are all on a level.
I have washed your feet.
I alone take away sin.
I give you this rite in testimony of your
all
needing forgiveness after baptism.’
Vain
is
all attempt to supersede the force of this command
to wash one another’s
feet, by saying, ‘It was an
Eastern custom.’ So
may the Lord’s Supper and Baptism be put aside.
‘It is customary to
bathe in Eastern countries;
and to eat suppers!’
Yes, and it
is customary to do both in Western countries too. Nor does
it turn on the difference of
countries where the feet are clothed, as in
15.
‘For I have given you an
example, that as I have done
to you, ye also should do.’
These
words
may be taken like the former, more or less strictly. If taken
generally, the Saviour here teaches that
there is no loss of true dignity, but a gain of it,
and a resemblance to our
Lord, in humble service to the saints.
How
clearly
our Lord foresaw the perils which would arise to His
Church from the
self-elevation of His church officers!
But
it
may be said – ‘If your
argument about the
difference between “bathing” and “washing of feet”
be good for anything, you
must take a further step.
The bathing,
you say, refers to baptism, and is an immersion of
the whole body in literal
water. It
is an emblematic act, you say,
commanded by God, which gives to the believer the
comfortable assurance in his
case that his sins are forgiven; even as any
defilement that could attach to
the person is washed away by a bath.
How, then, can you explain away the washing
of feet? Must
there not be a washing of them in
literal water, in token of a secondary forgiveness
of sins? Did
not Christ literally so act there?
Did He not design to perpetuate the
doctrine
of the special forgiveness of believers after
baptism, as well as the general
forgiveness of the believer at baptism?
And does He not here command disciples [Page
118]
to observe the rite
which tells of this second and continued forgiveness?’ I think the argument
impregnable. The
great resistance it encounters is clue to
the heart’s unwillingness thus to stoop.
This
is
the Quaker’s stronghold against baptism.
‘Thou thinkest that
Christians ought to be
immersed in literal water, dost thou not?’ ‘Yes,
the Saviour
commanded it.’
‘We think it a
figurative thing, designed to speak of the
baptism of the Spirit.
What dost thou
think, then, of the Saviour’s command to wash one
another’s feet?’ ‘We
take that spiritually, as designed to teach us a
lesson
of humility.’ ‘Well,
then, friend, we are more
consistent than thou, for we take both figuratively. When
thou shalt keep the washing of feet in
literal water, thou mayest with some prospect of
success urge us to be plunged
wholly in literal water.
Till then, farewell!’
This
rite
is not an enigma whose meaning is to be found out,
and then all is
over. After the meaning, is known, the binding force becomes
the greater.
But all confess how great
the difference between knowing and doing.
Nevertheless, knowing is to lead on to doing.
We are not left to our own powers of
performance.
Not
the hearers and admirers of Christ’s words shall
enter His Kingdom, but the
doers (Matt.
7: 21).
Humility
is
at once one of the most difficult graces, and also
most characteristic of
Christianity.
16.
‘Verily, verily, I say unto
you, no slave is greater
than his Lord, nor is an apostle greater than his
Sender.’
If
I
- so much greater than any of you, so that I am your
Lord, and you are My
purchased servants, have done this; then no plea of
your greatness and dignity will
avail to bar this command of Mine.
Christian greatness is opposite to worldly
greatness. The
Spirit of Christ is opposed to the spirit
of the world. The
men of the earth are
getting more and more proud, and jealous of their
dignity. Let
Christians grow more and more humble in
service to their brethren, and to the Lord! ‘The Sender’
here is one Person; the sent another.
So
is it true of the Father and the Son.
[Page 119]
17. ‘If
ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.’
Knowledge
is
good, but in the religion of Christ it is far from
being everything.
Religion is a practical matter, and the
Saviour teaches, in order to draw out obedience. Jesus,
then, in these words is enforcing the
literalness of the act He has performed.
There
was
one there who was not happy, and who would not do
the work of love; but was
meditating the means of his work of hatred.
The
obedient
are the blest now, and will be blest hereafter
at the time of
recompense. And the
reason
of the sadness, the wavering, the doubting of many
believers is, that
they are disobedient.
‘Happy if ye do
them; unhappy then, if ye do them not.’
18.
‘I am not speaking of you
all, I know whom I have
chosen; but (it is) that the Scripture might be
fulfilled – “He that eateth the
loaf with Me lifteth up against Me the heel.”’
One style of teaching
befits true disciples; another
those unconverted ones who are self-deceivers, and
have no part or lot in the
matter. Hence,
the Saviour in His wisdom
once and again turns round, to let the traitor know
He was speaking of him as
the known exception.
Jesus
had
chosen them all to be Apostles.
The
Father had chosen all but one to be saved.
And he, by his falling away will prove, as
John found it afterwards,
that ‘he was not of us.’ It was the
Lord’s choice of Judas that
permitted him to eat the bread of Christ.
But he was like an ungrateful and savage
mule, that after having been
fed, turns round, and with its hoof smites its
feeder. In
Judas’s case we see that no moral means,
though the most excellent, avail to change the
heart; Judas grows worse by the
company of Christ.
He turns his great
opportunities against his Teacher; the servant
rising up against the Master to
destroy Him.
These
words
give us a new and solemn reason for the choice of
the traitor. It
was so written in the Scriptures of
prophecy. It
became the Lord Jesus to
drink of each cup of mortal trial; [Page 120] and the presence of traitors in the circle of our friends is one of
earth’s bitter potions.
David had to
feel it keenly.
His son seeks his
father’s crown and life: his trusted counsellor
turns and helps his parricidal
son. That
then which the king endured,
was to be felt also by Messiah his Lord.
‘It was written,’
and the Scripture must
be fulfilled, to its last jot and tittle.
Accordingly the word is spoken while they are
at table. The
passage is taken from Psalm
41.
The
first
verse showers blessings on him that considers the
poor. Now
Judas, in pleading the cause of the poor
in the feast of the anointing at Bethany, might seem
to have won the blessing
here named; but, as John says, it was a word of
hypocrisy: ‘The words of his
mouth were smoother than butter, but war was
in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet
were they drawn swords,’
Ps. 55: 21.
Jesus Himself was the carer for the poor. Psalm
41. then goes on to describe the plots of
enemies against him, still
more fully met in the caase of our Lord (ver.
5). How
true was verse
6 of Judas, ‘And if
he come to see me, he
speaketh vanity: his heart gathereth iniquity to
itself; when he goeth abroad
he telleth it.’
The conspiracy of
the chief priests is intimated in ver.
7. ‘A word (or
thing) of Belial cleaveth
fast unto him’ (yea,
our sins). ‘And
now that he lieth, he shall rise up no more.’ So thought
the Scribes and Pharisees when
Jesus was slain, and borne to the tomb.
But Messiah’s prayer (verse
10)
prevailed, ‘Be merciful unto
19.
‘Henceforward, I tell you
before it comes to pass, that
ye may believe (when it shall have come to pass)
that I AM!’
The
Lord
arrogates to Himself the knowledge of the future, as
in such passages as Isaiah
43: 11-13.
While, then, the treason of the disciple
unnoticed might have shaken
faith, this prediction of it was to be a support to
it.
Great
is
the Sender of the apostles – ‘I
am.’ Great,
therefore, their glory.
Jesus had said before, ‘The
servant is not greater than his Lord.’ Now to
encourage them He says, ‘He
is as great as his lord,’ when sent
as you are. They were to be
bearers of the Holy Spirit to others.
There
was
great danger, lest, with the sudden reverse so near
at hand, the apostles
should give up hope and faith in Christ.
We are taught, therefore, in the clearest
way, that the Saviour was not,
in the treachery of the disciple, taken at unawares. The
defection of Judas was sudden, and
unsuspected by the disciples.
This is
strongly brought out by contrast here.
The Spirit of God, then, would have us behold
in this certain
foreknowledge, the Saviour’s power of the Godhead. It is God
alone who knows the heart, and
searches the reins of the children of men.
They were to learn then by this among other
like examples, that Jesus is
God.
The
putting
in ‘He’ after ‘I
am’ gives no light; rather it confuses what
is clear. In
previous examples of the same significant
phrase the Saviour’s deity is asserted (8:
24-28,
and above all ver. 58). Thus in
these simple words our Lord leads us
back to the interview between Himself and Moses at
the Bush; when Moses, having
enquired the name of the God he was to announce to
Israel, has the name ‘I am’
given to him.
How vast a stride between the glory and power
shown then, and the
Saviour’s coming as man in weakness to bear our
sins! It was great to
tabernacle in the bush, to deliver
As,
great
is the dignity of the true apostle faithful to
Christ: so awful is the
fall of him who leaves Christ for Satan.
Great was the glory before them; let them not
stumble, though Judas did.
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.’
The connection of this with
what goes before is not
clear. But
perhaps it springs out of the
scene in Exodus just named:
This,
then,
exhibits
But
in
regard to the future, Jesus so puts His name on the
other apostles, as that the
reception of them would be the reception of Himself;
and the reception of the
Son would be the reception of the Father.
Though Christ is no longer on earth, we can
tell by our conduct towards
His servants and ministers, how we should have felt
and acted towards the Lord
Jesus when on earth.
Here again, is a
new refutation of the Gnostic deceit.
Jesus is on the eve of betrayal.
But the Christ has not left Him.
He still speaks of Himself as the sent of the
Father. His
apostles would be of the same mind as
Himself.
21.
‘As Jesus said these things
He was troubled in His
Spirit, and bore witness* and said, “Verily,
verily, I say unto you, that one
of you shall betray Me.”’
*
The ‘bearing
witness’
is opposed to mere guess work.
It is not
for us to say – ‘We could
never be guilty of such an
offence;’ but, ‘Lord,
keep me
from it!’
That
was
a sore thought of trouble, as it concerned Himself,
that one of His
intimate friends should give Him over to His foes. But it was
full of woe to Judas, to Satan, and
to the world. Judas
had been sent by
Christ, on the mission to the [Page 123] cities of
God’s
design
is to display to us the awful wickedness of man. We are
slow to believe it.
Multitudes are imagining the great things
that are to be done in setting the world right, by
knowledge imparted.
They will not believe the incurable nature
of
the sin that dwells in man; a disease that laughs at
all human remedies, and is
cured only by the Spirit of God’s renewal of the
soul. They
will not look at man as He is displayed
in the Scriptures; and as tested by the presence of
the Son of God.
They have vainly flattered themselves, that instruction
and
example
would set right the
fallen. Here
is an awful proof to the
contrary. Here
is one brought up an
Israelite, brought into contact with the Son of God,
put under the close
instruction and example of a perfection without
flaw; yet for thirty pieces of
silver he betrays Him to His foes!
Shall
we
say that Judas is alone in his transgression?
That such a sin can never occur again? The
Saviour has just been teaching us the
contrary. His
disciples would be left on
earth in His place, and conduct towards them would
be [Page
124]
accounted as done to
Himself. The same
offence in principle then is found still upon
earth. Whenever, by a believer or
professor, intelligence
and help is given to the
enemies of a servant or minister of Christ, the
deed of Judas is done over
again; and it will be accounted so in the
coming day.
The
latter
times (it was foretold) would be times of
peculiar perils, because the
men and women of it will be ‘traitors.’ It is true
that the betrayal is not unto
death now. But
probably Judas did not
think that his betrayal of Christ was to death, and
that the Lord would deliver
Himself by His power.
Since
that
sad scene in the upper room, there is no assembly
into which the spy and
the traitor cannot creep. Hence the need of the
strong hand of justice, in a
day to come, to rectofy what is wrong, and beyond
man’s power to set right.
The
sad
announcement fell with astonishment on the
disciples. Their
perfect ignorance stands contrasted
with the Saviour’s perfect knowledge.
We
are next led to see how the individual was pointed
out.
23-27. ‘Now
there was reclining one of the disciples in the
bosom of
Jesus, whom He loved.
To him Simon Peter
beckons, that he should enquire of whom He spake. Jesus,
therefore, answereth, “It is he to
whom I shall give a sop after having dipped it.” Having,
therefore, dipped the sop, He giveth
it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.
And after the sop, then Satan entered into
him.’
We
may
be reminded here of the feast which Abraham made for
his angel-guests: and
the word of the Lord -
‘Can I keep back
from my friend what I intend to do?’
John, then, here takes the place of
Abraham;
and Peter is obliged to call in Jolin, as superior
to himself in favour with
Christ.
The
Eastern
mode of reclining on sofas at meals caused the one
who was lying below
another to be ‘in his bosom.’* John, the
beloved of the Saviour, occupied,
then, that place.
He never calls himself
by his own name, even when he has occasion to speak
of himself. It
seems to be due to his Christian
modesty. But
he is pleased to describe
himself as specially the object of [Page 125] the love of Christ. While
Jesus loves all His saved ones, He loves
some of them more than others.
This,
then, is also permitted to us.
Some are
more lovely in their character, and more suited to
us.
*
This throws
light on the expression respecting the
Son. ‘The Only begotten Son
who is in the
bosom of the Father.’
Jesus
does
not openly name to John the guilty party, but points
him out by a
sign. It
is customary, in those
countries, for friends to choose out an especial
morsel, and to hand it to a
friend, as a token of fellowship. Jesus does so, by
all act which points to the
fulfilment of the Psalm He had cited.
Judas’ acceptance of that morsel of the
Lord’s bread, vividly fulfilled
the prophet’s word.
That act sealed his
wickedness. The
Tempter had then full
license to enter into him, and of that he availed
himself, to push the traitor
on to his final act of treachery, and to his doom. The sop
was given to ‘Judas.’
This
is the Greek form of ‘
27-30. ‘Jesus
saith therefore to him, “What thou art doing, do
quickly.” Now
none of those at the table
knew with respect to what He said thus to him.
For some were supposing that, since Judas
bore the bag, Jesus was saying
to him – “Bring those things of which we have need
at the feast,” or that he
should give something to the poor.
He
therefore having received the sop, went out
immediately.
And it was night.’
The betrayer was a weight
on the Saviour’s soul. And
his [Page 126] presence
hindered the Saviour’s outpouring of heart to His
disciples. He
would therefore urge him to leave.
We
learn
from Satan’s entry into Judas that he is a person:
as truly as the Holy
Spirit. The
devil would now send him
forth on a new and awful mission.
But he
is to learn that Jesus is Master still. ‘Do
quickly.’
This served also as a warrant for his immediate
departure, without occasioning
suspicion to the disciples.
Did
Jesus,
by so saying, approve of what Judas was doing? By no
means.
But while the traitor was determined to
betray, he was probably not
satisfied as to the time of committing
the crime. This
word then decided the
matter. Our
Lord was now come to His
hour; and herein He felt as man, that the sooner the
period of His woe began,
the sooner it would end.
The Scripture
must be fulfilled; the will of the Father be done;
and the salvation of the
lost accomplished in His death.
‘I have a baptism
to be baptised with, and how am I
straitened till it be accomplished!’
It
way
be regarded also as a word to Satan with whom Judas
was now identified.
None
but
the traitor knew what was intended.
But he found that he was discovered by his
Master. That
would load him to complete his
arrangements with speed, that all might be over,
before the other apostles were
aware of his plan.
Had they known, they
would have been taking stops to defeat the treason,
perhaps by detaining the
traitor.
They
had
their own ideas concerning the meaning of our Lord’s
words. And
the interpretation they put on them shows
us what was the Saviour’s usual course of action.
The
eleven
knew that Jesus observed the feasts, as usual among
the Jews. And
even if that day was the day of the
Passover, and all had been procured that was
necessary for that day, there were
yet six days to be provided for.
They
understood, then, that the Lord’s word had relation
to Judas as the bearer of
the common purse; that he was to purchase before the
shops should be shut on
the Jewish sabbath.
Or that it respected
[Page 127] his giving out
of the common fund something to the poor.
This, then, was a common thing with Jesus;
though He had thirteen mouths
to feed, and was poor Himself, He was in the habit
of giving to the poor.
This is clear.
For they had heard like orders often given
before
by Christ. But
now a darker night was
upon them than they had ever known before.
Judas
was
not to be turned from his evil course by any
warning. And
now Satan was riding his back, and
hurling him to his especial wickedness.
The love of money is a root of all evil.
He
obeyed;
but sinfully. The
Saviour’s call
for despatch must be answered.
The
betrayer leaves the light, where the Redeemer and
his disciples were, for the
darkness. This
was his condemnation,
that he loved darkness rather than light; and it was
now Satan’s hour and the
power of darkness.
There
was,
doubtless, also a reference to the Passover in
The
world
stops short at the humiliation of the cross.
The Son of God beholds therein glory - the
glory of serving the Father through difficulties
insuperable by any other.
The Son of Man exalts God more than Adam
and his
sons dishonoured Him.
Here, too, is love
- the love of the Father and the Son, the death of
Jesus for enemies.
The
Son
of Man is the Son of God in human form.
He has displayed to God and man the perfect
Man, and to man the
perfections of the Godhead.
Here
was
a new style of glory - that of humility and
obedience. The
world has heard enough of the glory of
intellect, of warfare, and of kingly splendour.
Here is the highest glory, won to God by the
lowliest of lives. Moral
glory outshines to [Page 128] God’s eye all other. In
Jesus, Conqueror of Satan by
the sword of Scripture, God sees more glory than
in David’s Victory over
Goliath, or Sampson’s slaughter of a thousand men
by a single arm.
Christian, in your lowly place, you can
glorify
God more than Solomon on his throne.
Deep as has been Christ’s abasement, so lofty
shall be the glory of the
Ascended One. The
Supper is a new rite,
bespeaking a new table and another fellowship better
than that originated by
Moses.
A
Son of Man has glorified God more on this little
earth than all the angels of
the heaven. Their chiefs confess at once their
inferiority when Jesus appears (Rev.
5).
And God means to requite with glory together with His Son
those who resemble Christ in lowliness and
obedience.
The
Most
High has made glory spring out of the sin of the
first Adam. The
lustre of the Second Adam’s resurrection
has overborne the black disobedience of the first. His
justice is honoured.
His love and wisdom are shown as never
before.
On
the
Mount, Jesus speaks of His Passion in the midst of
His glory. Here,
on the verge of the Passion, He tells
of His glorification.
Jesus
would
not speak before Judas of the glories to spring out
of his treason, lest
he should bolster himself up in his iniquity because
of the good thence derived
by God.
31.
‘When therefore he had gone
out, Jesus saith, “Now is
the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in
Him.”’
The
tone
of this and of the Saviour’s discourse on the
occasion, is as contrary to
the Gnostic doctrine as could be.
It is
not the man Jesus complaining of the treachery of
Christ in leaving Him to bear
the woes of the combat which another had provoked;
or a lamentation over His
own inability to suffer.
On
the
contrary, there is a tone of calm triumph and of
victory attained.
The Son of God, His work done, is going
back
to the Father to report that His will has been done
on earth.
In
one
view, and that most open to human eyes, the cross
was the most severe
humiliation - a something so infamous that [Page 129]
none would endure it who could possibly escape
it. But
as the Saviour’s life and death
were the fulfilling of the will of God, as it was
taking God’s part against
disobedient man, it was glorifying both to the Giver
and the receiver.
Jesus,
as
the Seed of the Woman, had proved Himself the
Perfect Man in his life-work.
As
Adam had sinned, Jesus had in all things manifested
full submission and
obedience to God.
He alone could say,
that He had fulfilled perfectly the work given Him
to do.
Butt
now
the sorest and most difficult test was, to be
exacted of Him. Could He
obey, when obedience drew with it rejection,
torment, death under the
curse? He
could. He
had instituted a memorial for His
followers of the death He would suffer in their
stead.
This,
the
last scene of His self-surrender, was now begun. The
betrayer would quickly fulfil the seizure
which would end in His death.
Herein is
seen the wondrous love of the Saviour.
And
that love in full perfection was found ill this
substitution of Himself - ‘the
Just One in place of unjust ones.’
He who beholds not this glory of the Son of God is
blind, and will one day have to dwell in the
darkness he has preferred. Jesus is
without
sin. He
resists it in love to the
Father; and though He bore our sins, He put them
away. Here
is the true mercy-seat, whereon God is
delighted to dwell - the law’s tables are within,
and the sprinkled blood
without. It
is only here that God finds
His just claims met, and only here that He can meet
us. With
regard to ourselves, too, as Stier
says, ‘Here
is God before us, God with
us, God for
us, and God in us.’
Here the image of God in man is wonderfully
restored. Adam
lost the image given to him.
Here is an Image of God loftier far.
‘And
God is glorified
in Him.’ The
Most High had been dishonoured by the
disobedience of Adam.
He had been
affronted by the slight put upon His authority; and
from that moment enmity
toward God and unrighteousness toward man had
characterised the fallen
race. But
here at length had appeared [Page
130] One
who took God’s will as His
guide, loving the Father, obeying and
submitting in fill perfection:
trusting Him up to death, and commending His soul to
Him in departing.
He has shown that it is good to obey God at
whatever present cost; and now in the death-scenes
about to begin, this triumph
of trust in God shone out as never before.
God was glorified in His justice.
The Saviour will render to it in full all its
demands. He
will take the Great Ruler’s part against
His rebellious subjects.
Observe,
this
is ever the chief thing – ‘the
glory of God.’
This must be first consulted. His dignity
requires it. It is just it should be so.
God is of more value than all His creatures. His will
is supreme. Blessed
be God that His glory
can be knit to our salvation!
But God’s glory, and not our salvation,
stands first in God’s mind, and
in the mind of Christ.
This is usually
forgotten now.
The Gospel is looked at
solely as a remedy provided for the lost.
It is that. But unless
God
had found a way to glorify Himself in it, it would
not have been done.
God was then glorified as He had never been
before. It was glorious to the Most High that, against the
suggestions of Satan, Job bore so patiently the
sore losses inflicted on
him. But
there was dross in that gold,
and the furnace brought it to the surface.
But Jesus is tried beyond
Job, and yet only love and
obedience appear.
He could commit
Himself to His Heavenly Father’s keeping in full
confidence. The
Father was glorified in His justice, but
also and equally in His love to the fallen.
Christ was, according to the Father’s
counsels, on the eve of making
Himself a curse for us.
This was
glorifying to the God of Love, justice and mercy are
at peace. The
claims of Law have been fully
answered. Obedience
has been rendered to
its righteous demands.
And now the
penalty and the curse of Law are to be borne.
The character of God as the God of Law has
been honoured before His
rebellious subjects. The Law is righteous, just, and
good. The
Son of God was content to stoop from the
glory of the Godhead to become a Man, that [Page 131]
He might obey it.
This is to God’s glory, and it is wrought in
the very nature whence
dishonour to Him and His commands had flowed, in the
view of other worlds.
‘Them that honour Me, I will
honour.’
Here is the word to be manifested in its
fulness. How
gracious of our God, that
all this work is for us: to be imputed as our doing! The Being who is the most glorified in all the universe is one of our
race - a Man - set loftily above angels,
principalities, and powers, both
of this age and of the coming one.
32.
‘If God be glorified in Him,
God will also glorify Him in
Himself, and will at once glorify Him.’
The proof of this assertion
would soon be
displayed. It
was true as the Saviour
spoke it; but the attestation of the Supreme Ruler
would manifestly be
given. A
distinction, deep and broad,
must sever this life of the Son of God from all
other lives. The
work of Christ had laid God’s government
under obligation to the Saviour.
He had
done it effectual and eternal service.
He had vindicated the character of God before
angels and men.
That was not true of any other being.
The highest of angels in obeying God is
only
doing his duty; to fall in it would be to subject
himself to wrath.
He
cannot go beyond
his duty, so as to make God
and His government debtors.
But Christ
did. He
was free. He
had no need to become a servant to obey
and suffer death.
Of
this so wondrous grace, then, it was fitting,
nay necessary, that
especial notice should be taken.
The
Lord Jesus was fully assured of
it. He
knew the heart of His Father, and
was perfectly sensible of the glory God would award
Him in view of the
stability and glory accruing to Him out of the work
of His Son.
God would assign Him glory such as has
not been bestowed on any other being.
He
has set Him above every being in heaven and earth. To Him, as
their Master, shall all angels
render worship and obedience.
He would
glorify Him ‘in Himself.’ Jesus had stooped to
become
the servant. God
would restore Him to
the Supreme Glory of the throne in heaven.
Jesus, who left the form of God, has now
resumed the place of [Page 132]
Son, dwelling
in, and possessed of the full splendours of Deity. ‘The
Lamb is in the midst of the throne.’
The
glory of
the Godhead out of which Jesus came forth will be
now His. He
has won His place by merit.
The Son’s glorification of the Father shall
be followed by the Father’s glorification of the
Son. That
has taken place in part but
there is yet a future day of manifested
glory to come.
‘And
presently will
He glorify Him.’ With
human governments thanks and rewards
come but slowly, and with
measure to great
benefactors. Not
so with the government of God.
The
Father
would not be long in recompensing the merits of His
Son. Even
around His death miracles were
grouped. Even
pagan eyes could discern,
that this was not the exit from life of a common
man, much less of a
malefactor. ‘Certainly
this was the Son of God.’
He, the Holy One of God, should be
distinguished from the guilty, even
in the tomb. He
should not see
corruption. God’s
glory, as the raiser
of the dead, should
first take effect on
Christ; all other resurrections previously
being only temporary, and
shadows of this great and real deliverance out of
death.
Speedily
thereafter came His ascent to heaven, before the
eyes of the twelve. There, as
we learn, He is seated at the right hand of God, ‘angels,
principalities, and powers being made subject to
Him.’
Thus our Lord seems to be referring back to
the words uttered by the Most High in the previous
chapter, after He had
appealed to Him as His Father.
33.
‘Little children, yet a
little while am I with
you. Ye
shall seek Me: and as I said
unto the Jews, “Whither I am going ye cannot
come,” so to you I say it now.’
‘Unto the Jews.’ How
remarkable an expression in this
connection! Jesus’ friends are now a body
quite apart from the old people of God. They are foes through
unbelief, who will die in their sins.
This upper room was the cradle of the new
body, which has become the
‘Little Children.’ This is the only occasion of Christ’s using the term.
It is a term of endearment, but also of
pity
for the [Page 133] poverty
both of knowledge and of force, in which the Saviour
was leaving His
disciples. How
John treasured this word,
and echoed it in his epistles!
For he
who lay in His bosom drank into his spirit.
And, says ecclesiastical history, when the
apostle was too weak to enter
into the assemblies of the Christians at
This
speedy
recompense of the Saviour’s work would entail a
quick and long severance
from His own who were on earth.
Earth
had rejected the Obedient, One, and men were about
to prefer a murderer to the
Prince of Life.
It was in heaven that
the requital of the Father should first be given. The
disciples then must be left on
earth. The
Jews could never enter the
heaven of heavens whither Christ is gone; for they
were impenitent, and would
die in their sins.
To heaven, as the
enemies of the Saviour, they could not mount; they
might never enter.
But the same was at that moment true also
of
the disciples.
Atonement must be made, before, the saved could
enter in
resurrection on the
heavenly places.
Our souls, indeed, are
now redeemed, but
not yet our bodies.
Moreover, in the counsels of the Father’s
grace, the apostles had work to do for the Father
and the Son in bearing
testimony to the great salvation.
In the
fruit’s of such witnessing, the Saviour would begin
to enjoy some of the
recompense proposed to His Divine self-denial and
love. And
personally they had much to learn, and
much to acquire in the way of action and suffering. Till their
education is complete, the sons of
God are training at a distance from the Father’s
home. The
Saviour’s so early exaltation was due to
His peculiar merits. But they could inherit only
through the Lord’s work for
them. Of
course this is true of Jesus’
disciples to this day.
‘But Lord (says nature),
if
Thou so much lovest us, take us with Thee: the
power is Thine.’
They
who are stumbled at the
cross [sufferings]
of Christ, are not fit to partake His [millennial] glory.
The
Supper
is a token of the interval at present set between
Christ and us.
It is the memorial of an Absent One.
[Page
134]
34.
‘A new commandment give I to
you, that ye love one
another as I have loved you, in order that ye also
should love one another.’
To the Old Covenant of
Sinai belonged the Ten
Commandments. They
were imperfect, but
they were suited to God’s dealings then.
After then came the shedding and sprinkling
of the blood of that
covenant on the assembled congregation.
Now the blood of the new
covenant was ready to be shed.
And the
Supper, which brings it back to our memory, had been
instituted. Answerably
then the one new command precedes
it.
‘But how’ (say the
stumblers at so many of God’s
words) was the command new?
Had not Jehovah demanded the love of God,
and
of our neighbour, ages before by Moses?’
Yes,
friend! But
is love to a ‘neighbour’
the same thing as love to a ‘brother?’
But
now
a new body was arising, ‘sons
of God,’
‘members of Christ,’ redeemed out of spiritual
slavery into heavenly blessings
in the Son of God.
Elect of God out of
all nations, they were made partakers of the Divine
nature; members of the
heavenly family of God, they were towards each other
‘brethren.’
Objects
of love to the Father and the Son, they are to be so
to each other.
And
the
standard of this new love was new.
It was to love these God’s chosen, as Christ
Himself had loved them.
Now Jesus
had
loved them not only as Himself, but more than Himself. Moses did
not call
on each Israelite to lay down his life to benefit
his countrymen.
Even if he were strong-bodied, and able to go
to war, he might plead exemptions specified in the
Law. If
his courage failed, he might depart.
But here, Jesus, having, [Page
135]
laid down His life for His
favoured ones,
calls
on them to
do the like towards their brethren.
35.
‘Hereby shall all perceive
that ye are truly disciples,
if ye have love one to another.’
What
was
the distinguishing mark that was to separate this
new assembly from
previous ones?
Moses
required
of his host circumcision, the mark in the flesh
which testified to
their being born of Abraham’s race.
Moreover, their dress was to bear witness of
what religion they
were. A
fringe and ribbon of blue were
to distinguish them as the servants of Jehovah from
the idolaters around.
Some of the Southsea Islanders distinguish
themselves by their tattooing.
The
worshippers of Vishnoo, Brama, and Siva, are known
by marks printed on the
forehead. The
Brahmin is to be known by
his poita, or blue thread.
But
Jesus
gives to His disciples a spiritual mark, whereby
they are to be
distinguished from the world.
The sons
of fallen Adam are selfish and unjust.
It would be, then, the glorious difference of
Christ’s disciples to be
lovely, and loving.
With the new birth
and entrance into the new family was to come the new
love. And
the world outside was to notice this
strange peculiarity, this likeness to God and His
Son. Would
God we could say – ‘Behold,
we have it!’
Jesus
would
thus present a doctrine for our faith,
and give us a sentiment and a
sphere for our love.
Hatred is easily
taught. But
the love of one another in
the truth is something belonging only to the energy
of the Son and the Spirit.
How
great
must be the sin of those who create strife,
division, and hatred in God’s
family! Let us seek to keep up
the
distinction, grand and eternal, which Christ makes
between the sons of God, and
the family of the devil.
36-38. ‘Simon
Peter saith to Him, “Lord, whither goest Thou?” Jesus
answered, “Whether I am going thou
canst not follow Me now, but thou shalt follow Me
later.” Peter
saith unto Him, “Lord, why cannot I
follow Thee now?
I will lay down my soul
in Thy stead.”
Jesus answereth, “Wilt
thou lay down thy soul in My stead?
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, the cock
shall not crow before thou
hast utterly denied Me thrice!”’
Peter’s
heart
is sorrowful at the news of the Saviour’s leaving [Page
136]
them. But
where can Christ be going, that Peter’s
feet shall not follow? The Saviour does not explain
Himself fully.
But He repeats the former sentiment of the
inability of the disciple to follow Him then.
To this He subjoins a promise especially
directed to Peter, that he
should follow Him at a later season. This,
no doubt, refers to Peter’s
martyrdom on the cross, the prediction of which
comes out more fully in the
last chapter this Gospel, and to which Peter alludes
in his last Epistle.
But
the
same spirit that arose in Peter at the washing of
feet, makes its
appearance anew.
Peter, strong in
feeling, does not know his weakness.
He
thinks that his Lord sadly underrates his zeal and
fidelity. He
wants some fresh reason from his Master
that shall commend itself to his understanding,
establishing his inability to
follow. Did
his Lord think that he had
not courage to face death in His
service? Was
that the bar?
The
Lord
Jesus is going to glory: He has said so.
Why cannot he follow?
He has
followed the Saviour’s steps on the waters, and up
the Mount of Glory.
Why cannot he follow now?
‘Now,’
says
the heart! ‘By-and-bye,’ saith God! ‘Ye have need of patience.’
How
could
Jesus, if a mere man, pass undaunted through the
hour of the flesh’s
weakness, and Satan’s power, when Peter, His
strongest disciple, falls?
How is it that Peter is so ignorant of what
Jesus knows? Satan
laughs at Peter’s
self-confidence.
He is sure now of his
victory. Peter did not feel
that he needed the intercession of Jesus, or
that else his end would have been
that of Judas.
Is
there
not somewhat in us akin to this sentiment of Peter,
when we think what
great things we would do for God in circumstances in
which He has not
placed us, while we overlook, neglect, or refuse
what He actually sets before
us to do?
The words of Peter were strangely at
variance with what was in a few hours to come to
pass. The
Saviour, knowing this result, returns
upon him his words.
‘Thou lay down thy
soul to save Mine!
Before the cock crow thou shalt deny that
thou hast any knowledge of Me!’
No! Jesus
must first lay down [Page 137]
His soul as a
ransom for many, before
any of His can [by
His grace and strength]
obtain courage to lay down theirs for Him (Matt.
20: 28).
This Jesus had
foretold. The
good Shepherd giveth His
own soul instead of theirs (John
10: 11).
There is need to mention this point the more
distinctly, because some say (not
noticing the ambiguity of the English word ‘life,’)
‘that Jesus laid down the life to which sin attached, to take another
beyond it.’
But the ‘life’
here is ‘the soul,’
the third, and abiding
portion of the manhood which Jesus could not leave
behind without ceasing to be
a man. Accordingly,
He says, that He
laid down His soul to take it again (John 10: 17).
His soul at
death went to Hades, but
was not left there (Acts
2.). When the soul
was reunited to His body,
Jesus rose.
Peter
had
touched the point at issue, in speaking of death as
the then barrier to his
following Jesus.
But he spoke in the
confidence of the flesh.
Here was shown
the spirit of the Old Covenant.
This was
the very style of
We see, then, how needful it is for God to step in, and make to us His promises; for
those of the flesh fail utterly.
And
this is the blessed difference between the old
covenant and the new.
‘I will put My laws
in their hearts, and on their minds will I write
them.’
‘I will make an
everlasting covenant with them that I will not
turn away from them, to do them
good, but I will put My
fear in their hearts, that
they
shall not depart from Me,’ Jer. 32: 40.
Had the fear of the Lord reigned in Peter’s
heart, he would not have feared man, or so sadly
fallen.
*
*
*
CHAPTER 14
[Page
139]
THE SAVIOUR’S FAREWELL
DISCOURSE.
1.
‘Let not your heart be
troubled. Ye
believe in God, believe also in Me.’
Their
hearts
were weighed down with these sad news: Jesus was
leaving them, one of
the disciples was about to betray, one to deny all
knowledge of the
Master! Must
then all fall into
ruin? Were
their hopes raised so high
only to disappoint?
No! The
separation was but for a time, and was in
the interests of the disciples themselves.
Jesus was going before, to get ready their
heritage for them.
What
is
to keep our souls stable amidst the troubles of
life? Faith
in God!
But there is no true faith in God, which is
not reposed in the Son of
God. God
is now revealed in Christ.
The God they were to trust was the Father
of
Christ.
Thus
our
Lord fulfils the prophet’s intimation concerning
Him, that He should
strengthen the weak hands, and confirm the feeble
knees.
‘While I say, You cannot follow
Me now, be not dismayed.
One day there will be room, and mansions
for
you above.’
Christ has taken
possession of heaven in our name.
What
honour! that Christ will divide with us His home and
heritage!
The
disciples
trusted in God, though He was invisible.
They must trust, too, in Christ the Son,
when
He should be invisible likewise.
His
words are to be accepted as the truth.
His Person is to be rested in, though unseen. This is a
word to us, as well as to
them. It
came to its height, after our
Lord’s ascent on high.
[Page 140]
Dark
as
was that hour, the cause was God’s, and He would
bring light out of it.
It was the Lord’s counsel from the first,
that the Serpent should avail to bruise the heel of
mam’s Great Deliverer; who
should finally have His turn of victory, and should
bruise eternally the
Serpent’s head.
So
with
ourselves, believers!
Whatever the trials
of the way the end shall be glorious.
We
have on board an anchor capable of steadying our
vessel in every storm.
‘All is working
together for good to them that love God, and are
called according to His
purpose!’
The Lord shall conquer
all His foes; many and strong though they be, and
though against ourselves
their might may be menacing, and near at hand.
The
disciples
already believed in God.
He
would fulfil His promises, as made to Abraham, to
Moses, and the Prophets.
The disciples looked onward to the coming
kingdom, for God had promised it.
They
were, then, to trust also in Christ.
The
glory and power of the Father and the Son are so
closely intertwined, that both
alike are to be regarded with faith and trust.
In these words then Jesus virtually asserts
His nature to be that of
God. Are we to trust an arm of flesh equally with
that of God? If
Jesus were man alone, how was He more to
be trusted than Peter?
Did not the
prophet curse in the name of the Lord, the man that
made flesh his arm, and in
heart therefore departed from the Lord? (Is.
2: 22).
Those
who
will try to believe in God, refusing the revelation
of Him as given in
Christ, must perish.
God can only be
known thus. Christ
and the Father are
one; the knowledge of the one is the knowledge of
the other. The refusal of the
Son is ignorance of the Father; and such must ever
be, lying for ever under the
wrath of God.
All
attempts
at discovering God from His works are vain.
They cannot teach us what He is
toward
us as sinners.
None can come to
God but through His Son.
The pride that
refuses the Saviour is that against which God draws
Himself up in array.
How
wonderful
the Saviour’s confidence, that now while He is going
down into the
valley of the shadow of death, He can call [Page 141]
upon disciples to trust in Him?
Others when passing into death need some
one
to aid them.
But
this
is another of the constant assertions of the same
principle, which meet us
in this Gospel, and are embodied in the epistles of
John. ‘Our fellowship is
with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ,’
1 John 1: 7. ‘He
is the Antichrist, that
denieth, the Father and the Son,’
1
John 2:
22. ‘He
that denieth the Son, hath not the Father;
he that confesseth the Son, hath the Father also;’ also ‘Ye shall continue in
the Son and in the Father,’
ver. 24.
Jesus’
words
then are to be trusted as those of God; and His
power to save as being
that of God.
2.
‘In My Father’s house are
many mansions, if it were not
so I would have told you; I am going to prepare a
place for you.’
The
Saviour’s
leaving would not be for ever.
He was going to the house of His Father, and
there they should have an
abode with Him.
The new covenant has ‘a
better country, that is a heavenly one.’ It has
also a better city than any into which
Joshua led them, or than the
The
Saviour
had no house of His own in the city of
‘If our separation now had been
final if I were going alone to
My Father’s, and you would never see Me more, I
would have let you know.
But
you are to follow Me by and
by, not at death, but in resurrection.
I
am
going, then, to get ready your mansions for you.’ Without
Jesus’
death, resurrection, and ascent, there were no
entry for us to dwell
with God.
The
House
of the Father is in heaven.
Of our
abode the earthly
‘Here we have no continuing city,
but we are seeking the one
to come.’
What we desire is
something certain and abiding.
Jesus will give an eternal dwelling-place to an immortal tenant. ‘Be
not then
troubled at our present separation.
It
is only for a time, and with a view to an eternal
dwelling together.
If you cannot at the moment follow Me, it
is
not because you shall not be with Me one day
locally.’
Jesus
is
the Only-begotten Son of the Father, the Lord of
heaven. If He make us
welcome to the Father’s house, and take possession
in our name, we shall be
free indeed! Jesus
is leaving desolate
the Father’s house on earth (Matt. 23: 38). But
now He opens better things in heaven.
The heavenly house of the Son shall abide for
ever.
3.
‘And if I go and prepare you
a place, I am coining
again, and will receive you to Myself, in order
that where I am, there ye also
may be.’
The Saviour’s departure, and the
severance between Him [Page 143] and His disciples was not to be for ever. It was in our interests as
well as in His own, that He was to be absent for
awhile.
See
here
how different the aspect of truth presented in John
is from that in the
other Gospels.
In the three former Gospels the Saviour’s
departure and return are viewed in relation
principally to His [Millennial] Kingdom
and glory.
Hence,
we have exhibited to us the state of
But John takes another path, which
scarcely ever touches upon the kingdom.
He views salvation as it comes from God, and
is His gift of eternal life to His elect.
He, therefore, is occupied mainly with
faith
and eternal life, His
indefectible gifts.
Jesus, then, is now making known to sons of
the Father, the eternal abodes provided for those
who are sons in the Son of
God. We
are to dwell with Christ the Son
in the mansions prepared for us, as sons in
the
Father’s house.
Hence,
while we have here Jesus’ return, and our eternal
dwelling with Him, it
is very different from the view given in
1 Thess. 4.;
although there also the
Saviour’s return, and the Christian’s abiding ever
with Him are given.
But here we are taught especially that we
and
the Saviour are to dwell in the same ‘place.’
Man
had
no right of entrance to the Father’s house above,
even while
un-fallen. ‘The earth hath He
given to the sons of men.’
But the Father’s house above is opened to
us
by the Son and heir of all.
We enter as redeemed, through the Father’s grace, and the Son’s work. He
introduces us there as Joseph brought in
his brethren to the
‘To Myself.’
For the Redeemer shall joy over His
redeemed ones.
But if heaven be the
place of abode, Christ is going thither, and the way
for them is that which
leads from earth to heaven.
In the house
of God our Father above there is rest; as here in
this vale of sin there are
tears and changes, death, and unrest in all its
forms. Heaven would lose its
chief glory, if the Son were not there for us.
[Page 144]
Peter
was
troubled at the thought of the separation. and
wished to follow at
once. But
he saw not that the place of
union was with Christ on high, and eternal.
Did not Moses and the Prophets speak of
earth? But
God’s thoughts are higher than ours.
The
earth and the heaven
both belong to Jesus, and
both shall be united
in His kingdom.
But for us the better portion is opened:
‘the last is first.’
To most Christians heaven is a
dreamy state of eternal bliss.
But of its place they have no idea.
They accept, as foundation of their thoughts,
only the views given us
concerning the Great Multitude and the
When
all
is ready, Jesus, Who in person, and visibly ascended, will in person
and visibly descend. He will
first
be seen by His saints only, in the cloudy pavilion
of His presence: afterwards
by all men (1 Thess. 4.,
5.; 2 Thess. 1., 2.; Matt.
24: 36-42; 25: 30).
‘I will receive you to Myself.’ This is
spoken of living saints on
earth. Christ
is coming back to living
believers, and afterward He will assemble both the
living and dead of His
people in the city which God has built for them. Our hope, then, is not our going
away one by one at death to Christ in heaven, as
naked spirits at once enjoying
the glories of God’s throne.
That
is wholly unscriptural.
It is Jesus at the appointed time coming
Himself down out of heaven for the sons of God.
The
differences introduced into
this question by the states of life and death [Page 145] by watchfulness of spirit or slumber,
found among [regenerate]
believers, are not touched on here.
At length the Saviour and His saved
ones shall be together.
After His
special temporary glory as ‘the
Christ,’ ‘the Son
of Man,’ and ‘Son
of
David,’ His eternal glories as
Son of God shall appear; and all
those
written in the Lamb’s Book of Life shall [after
the time of their resurrection*]
be joyful
citizens of the heavenly city.
[* Keep in mind the fact that
there is more than one
general resurrection of the dead; and only those “accounted worthy”
to attain the “First
Resurrection” will rule
with Christ during the Millennium. Rev.
20: 4-6.
cf.
Luke 20: 35; Phil. 3:
11; Luke 14: 14; Heb. 11: 35b.]
John,
in
the Apocalypse, is the witness of both these views. As for a
time the Father’s wise counsels
severed the Redeemer from His redeemed ones, so
after those temporary designs
are accomplished, the eternal glories of grace, destined
for all the men of faith, shall appear.
4. ‘And
whither I am going ye know, and the way ye know.’
To
this
verse belongs another and more difficult reading of
the Greek manuscripts.
It is - ‘And whither I am
going, ye know the way.’
This is very likely right.
The Saviour’s words in this interview with
His disciples are oft mysterious.
The
words are simple, but their meaning is very deep. It is like
looking through a clear sea ‘a
thousand fathoms down.’
Can you see the bottom?
No!
’Tis too deep!
The
Scripture
taught, that Messiah was to leave the world by
death. And
whither was He to go at death?
He had told them and the Jews, that He was
returning to the Father who sent Him (John
7: 33;
13: 1-3; 8: 21, 22).
5.
‘Thomas saith to Him, “Lord,
we know not whither Thou
goest, and how can we know the way?”’
Much
of
the chapters now before us, together with the
objections of the disciples,
arise out of the Saviour’s breaking through their
Jewish expectations.
A new scene was opening to them, for which
they were unprepared.
If Jesus was the
Messiah, the hope of
*
Luke
9: 31 (Greek).
The
answer
of Thomas, then, was very natural.
They were unprepared for His death and
resurrection; and as they knew
not of His going to the Father, they knew not the
way.
Tell
us
that you are going to
6.
‘Jesus saith unto Him, “I am
the Way, and Truth, and
Life: none come unto the Father except through Me.”’
The
Saviour
intimates that He is going to the Father.
But His mysterious and sublime words touch
rather on our way to the Father.
This is
the more important point to us.
‘Jesus is going to the Father. How do we know the way
to Him?’
‘I
am the Way.’ This
is all important to us. God can only now in this
dispensation be known as
Father, Son, and Spirit.
Jesus came so
to manifest God. The Son came to make known the
Father.
This
is
that new name of God which Jesus especially taught,
and upon which He founded
His new system of morals.
Of this name
He speaks in the crucifixion Psalm
22: 22, ‘I will
declare Thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise
Thee.’
But
Jesus
does not only as a teacher reveal the Father.
He not only points out the way, as another
teacher might; but He is Himself ‘the
Way.’
Only through Himself and His work and works
can God be known as the Father.
Those
who call God a ‘Father’
because He has created
and maintains their natural life by His bounties, do
not know God as ‘Father.’ He is
not their
Father.
Satan is (John 8:
44). Sin
has broken down the [Page
147]
knowledge of God derived from
creation. None
but Christ Jesus by His words, and still
more by His cross, can make known to sinners how the
Just God can be a Father
to any. Nor
can there be any approach to
Him, and to His favour, save through Christ the Son.
Only
through
Jesus’ life and death is that regeneration to be
had, without which God
must consign sinners to the lake of fire, instead of
to the mansions of bliss.
The
opening
of heaven to Christ’s ransomed ones is something new
to Jews. Moses
and the prophets look on earth as the
place of God’s beloved.
Now a new goal
is set before us, and a new way thereto.
Joshua’s sword can open a way to the cities
of earth, to the good land
of milk and honey.
But only the Son of
God can open to children of earth made of clay, and
sons of death, the
dwellings of life and of heaven.
‘I am the Way.’
Many are the ways which men have devised to
know God: but they are all
tracks of error and death.
None but
those who accept Jesus as the Son can know the
Father, whom He alone knows and
reveals.
The
way
to the Father is also through the ‘Truth.’ Error
turns the back on God, sets up an idol
of its own fancy, and worships that; error is of
many shapes; the truth
one. The
foundation-truths concerning
God and ourselves rest upon the doctrine concerning
the Father and the
Son. But
Jesus is not only a teacher of
truth, the fullest and most complete of all; but He
is the Truth. All
that saves is bound up in Him.
God refuses to be addressed by sinners,
save
through His Son.
He can be known as
righteous and gracious to sinners, only through
Christ, His cross,
resurrection, and ascension.
‘And I am Life.’ The ‘way’ to God is
closely conjoined with the ‘truth’
about God. And
none can know God, but those possessed of
spiritual ‘life.’ Now men are
spiritually
dead by nature.
No wonder, then, that
the Living God is not really known by the dead in
sins. And
spiritual life belongs only to those who
are in Christ, who is Life.
Thus John is
proving by our Lord’s own words, the principles with
which He starts in [Page
148] the
opening of His Gospel: ‘In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and
the Word was God.’
‘In Him was life;
and Life was the light of men.’
‘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.’
‘For the Law was
given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ,’ John
1: 1, 4, 14, 17.
Jesus
not
only opens the way, speaks the truth, and gives both life spiritual, and bliss eternal; but He is all three!
Christ
is
the way to the Father and His eternal abodes.
Beside the one way of God, there are many
ways of error, and therefore Jesus is distinguished
as the truth. As
the way
to the Father is through His
Son, who is Truth, so the truth
accepted becomes to us life. Until
Christ came and entered with His blood
into the Holiest above, a veil concealed God: there
was no access to the Most
High God; even for priests.
But, now the
true Sacrifice and Priest are come, and the way is
open.
Away
from
Christ are bye-ways, errors, and
death! Salvation
as the end comes only through
Christ as the means.
Other
ways
are dead ways; though
even of the paths of earth we say, ‘This
road goes
- this way leads to
Jesus
is
‘the Truth,’ who
manifested God, not merely
by His doctrine, but in His life; specially,
however, in His death and
resurrection. There
the God of grace and
of righteousness shines out in full glory.
Instead
of
the Father’s house, Jesus next speaks of the Father.
To go to
His abode and dwell with Him, we must
first be accepted and educated.
God
being the end in view, and God as ‘Father,’ the Son
is the only way. The Father is
‘Truth’ and ‘Life,’
and
as Jesus also is both, and is the point of contact
between [Page
149] God
and the sinner, He is both
Truth and Life in Himself by nature as Son of God;
He is Truth and Life also,
for us who believe.
Moreover, eternal ‘life’ as enjoyed in the
Father’s house [only] in risen [immortal
and resurrected]
bodies; and
eternal mansions, can be
attained [obtained]
only in Christ.
This is God’s
gift through His Son. Moses
cannot
bestow either spiritual life to the spiritually dead, or eternal life and
bliss in resurrection to those under the
sentence of death,
as sinners under Law.
Jesus, then, is ‘Life,’
as
the Creator; He is also Light and Truth, as the
Priest; and He is the
sacrifice through whom alone there is
approach to the true God.
Now
how
could any mere man, save as insane, utter such
words? Here
the essential Deity of Christ, as
possessed of God’s essential attributes of creation,
and preservation, and
centre of all knowledge, and of all power, is
asserted. A
sceptic may deny that Jesus ever said such words;
but how, if any admit that He did say them, and
support them by adequate deeds,
can any still refuse to own His Godhead, and
co-equality with the Father?
So to act is only to be accounted for by a
perverse heart, that through hatred of God, refuses
His words. Imagine
a dying man, not greater than Moses,
to assert that he is the only way to
God! Are
not all Christian teachers, as
teachers, ways to God as truly as Christ?
Jesus says not – ‘I
first open the way to God
by My doctrines.’
But, ‘I am, and
continue to be, the Way, Truth, and Life, by My work, and My person.’
Imagine Moses to say, ‘I am
truth!
None can come to Jehovah save through
myself!’
His folly would have been conspicuous in so
saying. And
God in His displeasure had
justly cut him off.
Moses knew better.
He knew that he possessed but a very little
of the knowledge of God.
He dealt mainly
with shadows. He
confesses there was
truth not made known to him.
Much less
did truth depend on him for its existence.
Imagine Moses to say, ‘I am life!’
‘Why,
how did you begin to be?
Were all things created by you?
Nadab and Abihu are stricken dead by fire
-
your brother Aaron’s sons.
Raise them
from the dead!’
No! Moses
is a minister of death and [Page
150]
condemnation. He
was under, sentence of death himself, and under death he abides still.
But Christ is Life and gives it.
7.
‘If ye had known Me, ye
would have known My Father
also; and henceforth ye know Him, and have seen
Him.’
‘From
henceforth.’ (1) As
the result, in part, of this
teaching of Mine, which will open your eyes to the
purposes of God.
(2)
But
still more from the great event now in progress. For ‘actions speak
louder than words.’
After the ‘lifting
up’ they should know that Jesus was I am (Rom. 1: 1).
Differently
does
Jesus speak to the perverse Jews. ‘Ye
neither know Me
nor My Father.’ But
they who know the Son know the
Father also.
Here is the Son’s equality with God
testified
to friends, as before Jesus testified it to foes.
We
see
how greatly our religion turns on the name and
character of God.
To His enemies Jesus testified of the
Father
and the Son, and received in return only unbelief
and hatred. Now
to friends He presents further sides of
this great truth.
So John’s epistles
take up this as the basis of our faith; and exhibit
Satan’s denials of it, and
imitations of it, that we may be warned.
Refusers of the Father and the Son are
Antichrists; and the Great False
Christ to come will be loud in his denial of this
the foundation of the faith (1
John 2).
Such as is our view of God, such is our
religion. God
is the centre, religion the
circumference.
The
Father
and the Son are of the same essence or nature and
are morally so alike,
that the knowledge of the One is the knowledge of
the other.
Moreover,
there
was then a great crisis in the manifestation of God. The Most
High was but imperfectly known, and
revealed under the Law.
His infinite and
terrible justice, and His infinite love could not be
expressed by the things of
the earth, by the priesthood of Aaron, and the
sacrifices of animals.
They gave hints of the coming glory, and
how
God would be found to forgive, yet not acquit the
guilty. But
now the Son, at once the True Priest, and
the Perfect Sacrifice, was on His way to be offered,
and the glories of God
would shine forth.
[Page 151]
This
is
hinted to us by the circumstances of this last
discourse and by the word – ‘from
henceforth,’ of this verse.
Here was One who would bear sin, and suffer
its punishment, while Himself sinless, in order that
all God’s goodness might
flow forth to the lost.
The cross -
whereat man, and especially the Jew, both of old and
now, stumbles - is the
central manifestation and glorification of God in
all His perfections.
Opposite, and seemingly irreconcilable
attributes
here appear side by side, in harmony and brightness.
Man’s way of salvation
would be a scheme in which neither justice nor mercy
would be glorified.
‘Justice
must give up
some of its strictness at the calls of mercy;
and mercy must
give up some of its glory in
consideration of some worthiness in man.
The worst of men must be damned.
But the better class of men must be saved. They
must bring some good works to God; and
in virtue of them their evil works must be
overlooked.’
Thus you would have a compromise which
ruins
both justice and mercy.
Would this be
consistent with the infinite perfections of God? By no
means!
His character would be degraded: one part of
it fighting against the
other. But
in the cross of the Son of
God is infinite justice; that would not give way to the cries and
sufferings even of the Son, when He took the place
of the sinner under the
curse. Yet
here is infinite mercy;
providing the answer to the perfect
demands of the Law.
Justice is
satisfied, and mercy is free to save the worst of
men that accept the
atonement. Without
this sacrifice the
best will encounter the wrath of God, and perish.
Hence,
in
token of the meeting and accord of the New Covenant
and the Law, the veil of
the temple was rent at the death of Christ.
God, concealed before as the God of Law, not
to be approached, or truly
known by sinners, is now seen.
The death
of Christ affects His earthly dwelling-place under
Law. The
old temple has lost its standing, its
veil is torn. God
is now known by those
who accept the Son of God as their sacrifice, and
their Priest. For
close upon the death of Christ came His
raising by the Father.
He who had
entered death’s prison as the bearer of sin, comes
forth because the
ransom-price has been [Page 152] paid, and accepted. The
Surety
is free! Not
only so. He
sent for on high, and mounts up to the
heaven of heavens proof of the
Father’s perfect appreciation of His work (Ps.
14.).
Speedily thereafter, too, came down the Holy Spirit, as the consequence
of the Son’s promised petition to dwell on earth,
to fit the ransomed for the
salvation procured.
In the life
then Jesus Christ we behold both the Father and the
Son.
8-10. ‘Philip,
saith to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it
sufficeth us.”
Jesus saith to him, “So
long a time have I been with you, and hast thou
not known Me He that hath seen
Me hath seen the Father, and how then sayest thou,
‘Show us the Father’?
Believest thou not that I am in the
Father,
and the Father in Me? the words which I speak unto
you I speak not from Myself,
but the Father that dwelleth in Me, Himself doeth
the works.”’
Philip
desired
a visible manifestation of the Father in His
brightness; such a sight as
Moses had at the bush, or the seventy on Mount
Sinai; or the glory, such as
Moses desired to see it, but beheld not (Is.
40: 5).
Philip wished to see the material
brightness
of the Father, distinct from the glory of the Son. But God
had been showing him the moral glory
of the Father and of the Son in union, and he had
not perceived it.
We are not to know the Father out of
Christ,
but in Him. But
that cannot be now.
‘He dwelleth in
light
unapproachable, whom none hath seen, or can see.’ And the
vision of glory, had it been
possible, had taught very little as to the character of God. But the Son
is the
point of meeting between God and the creature;
between the visible and the
invisible. And
He manifests to us the
Father by His words and His works as a man, in a way
we can comprehend.
How
could
Jesus have taught that the knowledge of God is to be
sought only
in
Himself,
except He were
God the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in Him?
Else the Father’s glory had been compromised,
and believers led astray.
God will not give His glory to another; and
the soul of man can find its satisfaction in God
alone.
The
knowledge
of God now is in spirit and truth.
We know Him as He is, holiness and love, far
better than we could by [Page
153]
sight. Hence Jesus says, not,
‘Has seen God,’ but ‘has seen the Father.’ It
is God as He is revealed in grace to His elect.
Jesus is one with the Father in will,
knowledge, and power; and in these
ways He displayed Himself.
The Saviour’s
words are to be
believed; for they are words
of the Father.
‘If
your faith is too weak for that, believe the works which the Father gives Me to do.’
‘Believest thou not?’
This is the critical question.
Man by unbelief is far from God.
He can know Him only by being unlike fallen
Adam his parent, in
crediting (not, as he did, incarnate
Satan, but) the incarnate Son.
This
demand
of Philip was natural enough; but though founded in
ignorance, it brings
out the wisdom of God in reply.
Jesus is
the manifestation of the Father in all His
attributes. Each
day taught, or might have taught, the
Apostles some new lesson concerning the God with
whom we have to do; but they
had not learned it. Philip had looked on the Father
as in heaven, and had
esteemed Him entirely different from the man, who
ate and drank, spoke and
travelled with them.
Jesus, therefore,
assures him, that what he heard and saw was the
manifestation of God.
The Father was seen in the Son’s movements;
heard in the Son’s words.
The Son was
seen tabernacling, not now in a house of boards and
curtains, but in flesh;
full of grace and truth, as the Only-begotten of the
Father.
He who makes this appeal is
Philip. He
was not one of the three - Peter, James,
and John - who, on the Mount of Transfiguration, saw
the excellent glory of the
Father, and heard His voice to their terror.
But to Philip, as to the
other Apostles, the moral
glory of the Son was day by day exhibited.
Yet, though he had eyes lie saw not; though
he had ears, lie heard not.
Philip had said to
Nathanael, that he had found Jesus
the Son
of
Joseph.
He had not seen
yet Jesus as the Son of God.
‘You
ask, Philip, for
sight. But
God is best known by faith,
as I have shown Him to you by word and work. As a
man is [Page
154]
better known by his words
and his works, than by a mere view of his person, so
with God. Many beheld
Jesus with the eye, whose spirit was closed through
unbelief. Christians
are to know God through the words
and works of the Son.
“Show us the Father,” say you? I have
shown Him
in word and works.
’Tis God speaking,
God acting in grace.’
What
do
we think then of the Saviour’s character?
How do we look at His words and works?
Do we accept all this as the fit teaching to
our hearts, concerning the
God we are to worship?
Do we behold and
love? Do
we read and learn?
Does the light therefrom stream into our
hearts? Do
we rejoice to see the
Saviour-God?
Of
the
mystery of the essence of the Godhead we can know
only what we are
taught. The
Father and the Son are two;
distinct in their Persons, but perfectly alike in
their natural and spiritual
perfections; their beings so intertwined, their
sympathies, their aims so
perfect, that the one abides in the other; of this
we can know only as much as
we are told, and therein we must move gently with
reverent spirits.
‘Take thy shoes
from
off thy feet’ sinful man!
‘The place where
thou standest is holy ground!
Be not like the men of Bethshemesh,
peeping
into the ark; lest like them thou be stricken!’
One
thing
we may notice here.
The God of the
Unitarian may be a being of perfect majesty and
grandeur. But
He dwells alone in cold
solitariness. How
He should be love; and
if He do, how that love should find its fitting
outflow ages before creation,
he cannot tell.
The creatures, even now,
cannot fill Him with perfect fellowship.
But in the intercourse of the Father, the
Son, and the Spirit - three
Persons, in the unity of the Godhead - we can
perceive how the perfection of
happiness may abide with Him, in the infinite
communion of love.
Before ever creatures were formed, in the
ages of past eternity, God was happy in the perfect
sympathies and society of
the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
As
the
result of this union, the Father spoke in Christ,
and the proof of His so
speaking was the works He wrought.
[Page 155]
‘The Father that dwelleth in
In
each
word spoken by the Son, together with each act done
by Him on earth, the
Father conspired.
This is a matter of
Christ’s testimony to be accepted by us.
We are called on rather to adore, than to
analyse. That
more than One Person is spoken of is
proved by the free and constant use of the pronouns,
‘I’
and ‘He,’ the Sender
and the Sent; the coming
forth from the Father, and the going back to Him.
This
testimony
comes from within the Godhead.
It is the testimony of the Truth.
Such as are our views of the Son, such our
views of the Father.
Those who own not God manifested as the
Father only in the redemption which is displayed in
the Son, know not God.
The ideas of God as Father of all men by
virtue of creation, are false
and destructive.
Moses
gives
to us one view of God. Jehovah’s words conveyed to
us through His
servant, discover to us His strictness and His works
of power put forth to
destroy foes, and to cut off the offending of His
own people, deepen the
impression. The
spirit of the works is
in accordance with that of the words.
The tone of the covenant of old, and of the
God of Moses sounds out in
full distinctness at Sinai, in the day of the
meeting of God and
But
Jesus
can say, that the Father is so in Him, and He so in
the Father, that both
words and works alike are dictated and wrought by
the Father. And
He claims to be heard in virtue of [Page
156] the
works of wonder which He
gives in attestation.
They not destroying
works, as of old, cutting off sinners.
They are acts of goodness: healing the sick,
undoing the work of death,
and speaking of the forgiveness of sins.
12. ‘Verily,
verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on Me,
the works
that I do shall He do also, and greater than these
shall He do; because I am
going to the Father.’
The
Son
came to raise up sons to the Father.
And He would have them distinguished from the
sons of Satan by a
different spirit, love instead of hatred; and by
works of power beyond that of nature.
Verses 12-14 take up
Philip’s words ‘And it sufficeth us.’ Jesus
would
satisfy them as believers, much more than they
expected. As
believers in the Father and the Son, they
should partake of His power.
For He was
going on high, and throngh His Spirit He would speak
and work in and through
them, as the Father did through Him.
The
Christ dwells in the heart by faith; and words of
inspiration and works of
power should be the proof of the indwelling God. This is
the satisfying vision of God - the
knowledge of the Father in the Son, and the full joy
thence resulting (1 John
1.).
Though
the
Saviour was leaving, He would not suffer His work to
cease. The
Spirit of the Son should be on sons of
God, an should do in them the works of Christ over
again. They were to ask, for the power
was not theirs; but Christ would bestow
the power.
But their asking was to be specially
prayer
in the name of Jesus. They
would come before God invested with the merits of
Jesus. This
leads us to Pentecost, when the Spirit
came down to lead disciples to testify for the
Saviour.
The
Son
of God did works of power and grace suited to the
Son. And
disciples who received Him were to
manifest the reality of the doctrine, long after the
Saviour had disappeared
from earth, by exercise of the same power of
miracle. That
is, this
dispensation was designed to be one of
miracle! Some
are for getting
rid of the obnoxious testimony at the close of Mark,
as if not genuine.
But here is a word going beyond that of
the [Page 157]
Evangelist. The
disciple
as abiding in the Son was to do the works of the
Son!
For He was about to leave the earth.
He would appoint therefore these as His
living witnesses, that men might believe.
How could any rightly doubt the wonders
wrought by the Head, when each
of His members still sojourning on earth did the
same works and greater?
These,
you observe, are not promised to apostles,
but to believers; not to
believers of the first century, but to
believers generally.
How, indeed, could the thing be
arranged
by centuries, when Jesus Himself knew not the time
of His return; and would
have the disciple to be looking out for His advent
day by day? Moreover,
Jesus in going to the Father would plead
for the Spirit to be sent down on those whom He
left; both as a witness of the
acceptance of His work, and to console those left
behind. The
Spirit come down in life, truth, and
energy, and doing great works below, should be the
proof of the Son’s ascent
and session on high (Acts
2.).
How
should
the disciples do ‘greater
works’ than
Christ Himself?
It is not easy to
say. They
wrought miracles as truly as
Christ - miracles of grace such as His were.
There was even now and then the raising of
the dead. But so great a work
as that of recalling Lazarus to life after three
days’ burial is not named as
wrought by an apostle.
In one respect
the disciples’ works were greater.
They
turned more to God by one discourse than the Saviour
had in three years.
Perhaps
there
is a reference to the shadow of Peter healing the
sick, the speaking with
tongues, the striking dead of Ananias and Sapphira. And
certainly the results against Judaism and
heathenism were far greater than in our Lord’s day. Also, John
in his first epistle may allude to
it, as the anointing possessed by believers
generally in that day, whereby they
knew all things.
The
believer
should do Christ’s works, for He would hear their
prayer, and perform
the petitions they asked. The glory of this would
redound to the Father.
For it is He who should send the Son.
[Page 158]
14.
‘If ye ask anything in My
name, I will do it.’
‘I will do.’
How
could any but God know and do all that
His disciples should ask?
‘While you are
asking below, I on high will answer by
performing what you ask.’
Reader,
do you pray? Do
you see that prayer is
only promised to be heard when offered through
Christ? You
are welcome to God if you come through
Christ. We who believe stand before God in the
person, and clad in the merits,
of His Son.
15. ‘If
ye love Me keep My
commandments.’
All
disciples
must confess that love to Jesus is their duty. They are
bound to Him by all ties of
gratitude. He
is the Sacrifice, through
whose blood we have forgiveness.
He is the
Priest, through whom we draw nigh to God.
He is the Deliverer, for whose advent we
look, as the time of our full
redemption.
So
clear
is this that the Holy Spirit has laid a curse on
whosoever does not love
Him, and points onward to His second coming, as the
hour of its execution (1
Cor. 16: 22)
We
who
believe, are, then, to display our love to Christ, not by mourning over His absence, but by obedience
to Him as present.
‘Keep
My commandments.’ For
Jesus is not merely Saviour and Benefactor, but He
is LORD also. He has the
right
to command. God
has given Him all
authority in heaven and earth.
He is
coming to see if His commands have been obeyed by
His servants. This
lordship of Christ is the first
principle of the Christian faith (
[Page 159]
‘My commandments.’ They
are not those of Moses, cleared from
the traditions of the Rabbis, and set on their old
footing. They
are new commandments; suited not to the
flesh, but to the regenerate sons of God.
The bottles [wine-skins] and the wine are both
new.
‘My commandments.’ Here Jesus takes a
stand
high above Moses.
It is the glory of
Moses that he says continually, ‘Thus
did Moses: as the
Lord commanded him, so
did he.’
For one occasion of disobedience he was
excluded the land.
When the second
covenant is making with him as the Mediator, God
says, ‘Observe thou that which I
command
thee this day,’
Ex. 34: 10.
And when he comes down from the mount,
commissioned anew with the two
tables of the covenant in his hand, he says, ‘These
are the words which the
Lord hath commanded,
that ye
should do them’ (Ex. 34:
32; 35: 1).
He durst not have called them ‘his
commandments.’ God calls
the words of the Law ‘My
commandments.’
So also in Exodus
20: 6, and Deuteronomy
7: 9, where the obedience required is
to the Lord, and is connected, as here, with love to
the Lord.
Here, Jesus, in a double
way takes the place of God (1) as making Himself
the
centre of the love of disciples; and (2) as
calling them to obey
what He says as ‘His
commands,’
while He condemns our obeying the
commandments of men.
And
the Father countersigns this claim, and gives to it
all His authority.
‘This is My Beloved
Son, HEAR Him.’ So Jesus
in the Sermon on the Mount speaks of
His commands as both the will of the Father, and His
own sayings (Matt. 7:
21-24).
Here, then, we find the
Gospel-substitute for the Ten
Commands of Moses.
‘We are not under
Law.’ ‘But
if not under Law, people - aye disciples - will
rush into all wickedness!
What is there on your scheme to restrain
them?’
Not merely the new nature, but also the
commands of Christ. There
is nothing morally evil forbid by
Moses, which is not more strongly forbidden by our
Lord. There
are also many things morally good
beyond those commanded by Moses, which Jesus
bids disciples to do.
[Page 160]
Set wholly free from Moses, and from
what is called, but authority, ‘the
Moral Law’
- meaning thereby ‘the
words of the old covenant, the
Ten Commandments’ - we
are wholly
under Christ’s
commands.
‘But where is the difference
between “Law” and commands?’
Law is addressed to subjects and slaves,
and
is to be without pity, to the destruction of the
offender against Law (Heb.
10: 28).
Even
in
regard of the great duty of love, see what a change
has come over the
matter! Now
the love of Christ, the Son
of the Father, takes the place of the love of
Jehovah, the God of Israel; and
the redemption from sin has supplanted the rescue
out of the slavery of
There
is
no true obedience without love.
The
service of the hand without that of the heart is not
acceptable with God.
But this is the love, not of an equal, but
of
a superior, the Lord of all.
Hence it is
to be seen in humble subjection.
Commands
to a son are
superintended by mercy.
They are designed for his good; and if he
breaks them, he receives chastisement, which shall
ultimately restore him;
while the breaker of the Law is made an example of
wrath. Law
cares not for the welfare of the
offender. He
is to be made a sacrifice
to the displeasure of the Governor, to deter others
from a like path.
‘If thy brother,
the
son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or
the wife of thy bosom, or
thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice
thee secretly, saying: “Let us
go and serve other gods, which thou hast not
known, thou, nor thy fathers;
namely, of the gods of the people which are round
about you, nigh unto thee,
from the one end of the earth even unto the other
end of the earth,” Thou shall
not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him;
neither shall thine eye pity him,
neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou
conceal him; but thou shalt surely
kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to
put him to death, and
afterwards the hand of all the people.
[Page
161]
And thou shalt
stone him with stones, that he die,
because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the
Lord thy God, which brought
thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of
bondage. And
all
This
great
principle should be clearly seen, and strongly held. This John
enforces in his Epistles.
It is evident that there were those in
John’s
day who denied that Jesus, as Lord, had left behind
Him commandments which He
requires disciples to keep.
They declared
that obedience to commands was quite a new doctrine;
and that John was a ‘legal
preacher,’ and added these out of his own
fancy. That
he might well call one of
these a ‘new commandment,’
seeing
it was never heard of till John announced it in his
Gospel and
discourses. The
Apostle saw the need of
enforcing it therefore (1
John 2: 34).
God
is only known in keeping the
commands of Christ. Thus alone we dwell in God,
and He in us. Thus
we
obtain answers to our prayers (3:
22-24).
The chief command of Christ is love to our
brother. Our
love to God is shown by
keeping His commandments (ver.
2, 3).
Though we are sons, we are under age; and
therefore under control and commandment, till the
time appointed by the Father.
Obey
then
Christ’s commands! - all!
Is there a reader who has not observed
Christ’s first command after faith?
Is there [Page 164] any reader who has never, though believing in Christ’s
death, burial, and resurrection, been
buried
with Him into death in the immersion Christ
commanded? How
will such a one face Christ as His Lord,
when He is seated on the judgment seat?
How will he prove love to Christ, if he has
not observed His
commands? Rewards are for obedient children.
If, to escape trouble, you refuse the
commands of Christ, you escape also the comfort of
the Holy Ghost now, and the
praise and reward of Christ hereafter.
16, 17. ‘And
I will ask the Father, and He will send you
another
Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever,
the Spirit of truth whom the
world cannot receive, because it beholdeth Him
not, nor recogniseth Him; but ye
recognise Him, because He abideth with you, and
shall be in you.’
The
Saviour
knows His interest with the Father.
The Father can withhold nothing from Him. They are
of one wind. He
states, therefore, the assured result of
His petition. The
Holy Ghost would be sent
to take the place of the Son.
This is
the foundation of our dispensation.
‘I will ask the Father.’
Can
anyone not blinded by error
deny that there are two persons
here? And
that a third is spoken of
as sent?
There
is
a considerable difference of opinion concerning the
true sense of the word
which we render ‘Comforter.’
(1) Some say, that
its true sense is the one it bears in general Greek,
and that it supposes a
court of justice, and means one called to the side
of the prisoner to defend
him; so that it would signify ‘Advocate.’ (2) Others
contend that it means ‘Comforter.’ It
is a blessed thing, that in both senses the Holy
Spirit is ours.
He is actually with the [obedient] Lord’s people
when cited before worldly tribunals, and in peril of
death. But
He is with them also in the daily
occurrences of life, where there is no judicial
persecution. And
these cases are as fifty to one of the
other. I
agree, then, to the authorised
rendering; not solely on the ground alleged, but
also because it seems to suit
the context of the New Testament passages best.
In keeping the Saviour’s commands trouble comes oft. We need,
then, one to strengthen and console
us. And
it is in this connection it is
found here.
[Page 163]
An
‘Advocate’ maintains
our cause in relation to
those outside.
A ‘Comforter’
executes his work within.
The Holy Ghost actually sustains both
offices: in both ways we need Him.
‘Another Comforter.’ The Saviour says and
does
all with reference to the Father, Whom He owns as
His superior. Though
Christ be God, He is not
independent. Jesus
had been the
Comforter first appearing (Is.
40: 3-5).
Christ had often so appeared on their
behalf. He
had never appeared judicially
to defend His disciples. As Jesus was a person, so
is the Holy Spirit, who was
to take His place as a Comforter (not as a comfort),
a Person likewise.
This [Holy] Spirit is God’s gift
to His Church, in its
character as His rejected Witness.
The
disciples are ever at war with Satan, the world, and
flesh. They
need comfort, and God, fully aware
thereof, provides a Comforter.
Does He
take away one?
It is expedient!
But He provides another!
‘That He may abide with you
for ever.’ Most
Christians seem to think that the Holy Ghost, as not
now working miracles and
speaking by prophets, has gone back to heaven again. Hence, we
may often hear prayers that God
would pour out of His Spirit from on high.
But that is a mistake.
The
descent of the Holy Ghost began the Church
dispensation. The
return of the Spirit on high would end
the Church. The
design of God in grace was that the
Holy Spirit of truth should abide with His people,
so long as they need a
comforter. And
do we not need Him
now? While,
then, one great department
of His actings is in abeyance now (for we have
neither miracle nor
inspiration), the Holy Spirit is still on earth as
the Comforter, and as the
Spirit of truth; giving life and sanctification, and
carrying on the moulding
of the mystic body for Christ the Risen Head.
Observe,
it
is not said – ‘His presence shall
be with you for ever.’
‘Presence’ is
a
word often used of Christ, never concerning the
Holy Ghost.
And we must keep to Scripture terms,
and
not thrust out those given by God, to introduce
those set up by men.
The introduction of the expression – ‘the Presence of the Holy Ghost’
- has wrought much
mischief. The
Scripture term is – ‘the abiding
of the Holy Spirit.’
[Page
164]
Our
Lord
when saying, ‘That He may
abide with you for ever,’
had a reference, doubtless, to His own departure. He
was a Comforter that had abode with the
Apostles but three years-and-a-half.
But
to the Spirit’s abiding with them there was no
limit. ‘For ever!’
Christ
is
truth.
The
Spirit is ‘the Spirit of Christ,’
and; ‘the
Spirit of Jesus.’
The Spirit proceeds from the Father
and
the Son. What a blessing, that the Spirit of truth is the Comforter of
those who believe!
What multitudes are
comforting themselves with lies! sparks of their
own kindling, to lie down in
sorrow for ever!
How
many
are seeking comfort in what cannot give it!
In vanities of the world, in the bottle, in
pleasure. They
will not seek it at the
hands of Him whose comfort is true and eternal.
The world seeks other comfort; regarding the
work of the Spirit as
productive of melancholy, and the offspring of
delusion. Great and true is His comfort, if
we
are isolated and sufferers for Christ’s sake
(Luke
6: 22, 23).
‘The Spirit of truth.’ This is a world of sin
presided over by the Devil, the father of lies, and
the teacher of error.
The
heart of man by nature
prefers religious error to religious truth. He loves
the darkness rather than the light,
because his deeds are evil.
How, then,
in a world of false doctrine, loving error, is truth
to be upheld? Only
by the abiding of ‘the
Spirit of truth.’
He gave the truth, and He maintains it,
against the various devices of
Satan to bring in falsehood.
For he
knows that conduct follows upon, and is the
consequence of principle.
With false doctrine comes evil practice. Only out
of truth can holiness spring, Hence
it is said, ‘the holiness of truth,’
Eph. 4: 24
[Greek]
The truth of God had long ago been overpowered, and
His book destroyed, had not
the Holy Spirit watched over it.
Through
Him came truth again to light, when the Scripture
unfolded to Luther, for
himself and others, salvation by the work of Christ,
and not by the works of
men. The
Holy Spirit is also at work in
the extension of truth. How much
has God the Spirit brought to light
out of the Word of God [Page 165] since Luther’s day! And in
our
own time, truths are now seen and taught, which our
fathers knew not.
Let
us ask God by His Spirit to show us His truth as
we read His Word! We
need to see its foundations and to hold it
fast against the shifting opinions of our day.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. The Lord give us to
have
truth in our understanding and heart, that we may
have holiness of life!
The Evil Spirit works in ‘the
sons
of disobedience.’ He sows
false
doctrine and wicked sentiments, and the crop is
evil deeds.
How dense will be the darkness, how awful
the
wickedness, when the Spirit of holiness and truth
returns on high!
‘Whom the world cannot
receive.’
Where
the
Spirit dwells is the Church; the sphere outside is
the world. There is a
strong moral barrier against it. The world loves erroneous doctrine and sinful practice. It cannot
bear the testimony of the Holy
Ghost to its wickedness in refusing Christ, nor will it accept
the doctrine of resurrection in Him alone,
and judgment eternal
ready to fall on transgressors at His advent.
Hence the Gospel will never convert the
world. As
long as the world refuses the Spirit of
life, truth, and holiness, it must abide in its
death, error, and sin.
But its hatred to that Spirit abides
ever. And
only the election out of the
world accepts the Spirit’s testimony to the truth,
and is saved.
‘Because
it seeth Him
not.’ The
world loves only the thing seen.
Though they are only temporary, and the
things unseen are eternal, it esteems the things
visible as the only real.
Things material are more and more
understood
and studied in our day, and the benefits derivable
from the things seen are
more and more valued. But the Holy Spirit is not
seen; is no object of our
sight. He
once was heard; He spake by
inspired men, and miracles of power were wrought. But that
inspired speech and those acts of
power we have not now.
The
world
then does not know, or recognise the Holy Spirit. It
confesses the agency of unseen powers,
such as magnetism and electricity, for they can in
various ways be presented to
the senses, if not directly, yet by their effects. But
although the [Page 166]
birth and spread
of
Christianity was clue to the Holy Ghost, though it
changes the face of
nations, yet the world looks at the visible
instruments, and overlooks the
unseen Spirit of God.
‘But ye recognise Him.’
The acceptance of the doctrine concerning the
Spirit, and the Spirit’s actual
indwelling, make the difference between the Church
and the world.
The Lord gives believers to recognise more
and more the Holy Spirit as the great worker for
Christ, and to look to Him as
our source of comfort.
The
Holy
Ghost was with
18.
‘I will not leave you
orphans, I am coming to you.’
Christ’s
teachings
and claims had stirred up fierce hatred against
Himself, and now was
He about to leave alone those who had left all to
follow Him? What
should they do against the learning, the
power, the enmity of those who hated their Master? If He were
withdrawn from the field would not
the foes attack them? and where was their strength
to resist? Here,
then, this promise comes in.
They should not be as orphans that had lost
their parents, ignorant what to do, and destitute of
friends and helpers.
Jesus had taken towards them the place of
Father. ‘My
little children.’
Greater was His
love to them than a father’s.
And now
were they to lose Him, just when their sense of need
was the greatest?
‘I am coming to you.’
Thus the Greek should be rendered.
How are we to understand these words?
There are two views.
[Page 167]
1. It refers
to the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. In
favour of this view, it may be observed (1) that
there is no ‘I’
distinctly expressed in the original, as it is
where Jesus in person is named.
It is
noticeable, too, that the pronoun occurs twice as
often in John as in the other
three Gospels.
Fifteen times it is found
in this chapter alone.
(2) That it is
immediately connected with the promise of the
Comforter, and may be taken as a
sequel to the two former verses.
(3) It
would be in harmony with the Saviour’s purpose of
consolation. ‘This Spirit is so “My Spirit,”
that His coming
is virtually My coming.
His aims, His
feelings, are just mine.
He is My other
self.’
The Holy Spirit is once
called ‘the Spirit of Jesus,’
Acts 16: 7
(true reading).
(4) It would fall in
with the previous words of our Lord, when gently
rebuking Philip’s wish to see
the Father (ver. 9). Jesus
taught the entire and perfect
resemblance between Himself and the Father.
The seeing of the Son is the seeing of the
Father. The
reception of the Spirit, then, is
virtually the reception of the Son.
The
Holy
Spirit is ‘another Comforter,’
for
He is a Person.
And yet He is so
perfectly morally the same as Christ, that His
coming may be regarded as
Christ’s He
takes up the work just where
our Lord left it.
(5)
The
coming here spoken of must, it would seem, be the
coming of the Spirit in
grace, for Christ’s future coming will be a
manifestation to all the
world. But
it is also true, that
Christ’s personal appearance after the resurrection,
was necessary to the
Spirit’s descent.
2. Or does it refer to Christ’s own future coming in ‘that day’?
Christ is really coming in person in
the
day of His Father’s appointing.
If it
refer to that, it falls in
better with verse 20,
for the seeing of
Jesus is there referred to a future time.
The chief objection against that view would
be, that it provides not a
personal Comforter during the long season of the
Saviour’s absence.
Perhaps, then, both senses may be in view
of
our Lord: the nearer, or the Spirit’s coming,
standing foremost; the Saviour’s
own coming falling in to the background.
[Page 168]
Let
us
compare these words of the Saviour’s with Moses’ and
his mission. Could
Moses at his departing from
No! The Lord
had spoken his sentence, as a sinner
under Law. Moses
must die. But
his heart is towards his beloved people,
the people of the Lord.
He entreats,
therefore, that a substitute and leader may be given
to the flock (Num. 27:
15-23).
Accordingly
he
is directed to take Joshua, and he should guide the
flock when Moses must
leave it. Observe
the vastly different
tone. It
is not ‘I will not leave you orphans.’
But, ‘Lord, do not
Thou leave Thy
flock without a Shepherd!’
Moses is not the father of
The
children
of
19.
‘Yet a little while, and the
world beholdeth Me no
more; but ye behold Me; because I live, ye also
shall live.’
The
Saviour
in His character of the teacher, had left
‘But ye behold
‘Because I live, ye shall
live also.’ There
is
probably here a reference to Hosea 6: 2, ‘After
two days will He revive us; in the third day He
will
raise us up, and we shall live in His sight.’ The
third day was that of our Lord’s
resurrection, and His resurrection was that of His
people. ‘And we
shall live
in His sight,’
say they, as the result.
But how
great the advance since the prophet’s day!
The revived live not only before the Lord, but in Him!
‘I live.’
The
possession of life in Himself is the glory of the
true God above idols.
Jesus, then, here takes the position of ‘the Living God.’ He is
proved to be the Son of God by His
victory over death (
Wonderful
words! were
they not, from one within a
few hours of death, and aware of it?
Men
in general, yea, the good and holy men of
Behold,
then,
in the Saviour’s words faith, and power vastly
beyond Moses! And
Moses is the greatest of men. Jesus can
say, ‘I live.’ Death, then, shall
not
swallow Him up.
He can say, ‘I
am,’ and ‘I live.’
The
world may slay ‘the Prince
of Life;’ but it
shall only result in their finding that He cannot be
holden by death.
And the Risen and Ascended Saviour can say
to
the disciple that wrote these words, ‘Fear
not. I
am the First and the Last: I am He
that liveth,
and was dead,
and behold, I am alive for evermore, and have the
keys of Hades and of Death’
(Rev. 1: 17, 18).
But
a
consequence of the utmost moment flows to us here
from; and it is so stated
by our Lord. ‘Because I
live, ye also shall live.’
Jesus is Life - Life itself.
He is the Creator of all, [Page
171] the
Sustainer of
all existence, of all life. But His
disciples are so knit to Him - the Son of God, and
Son of Man in resurrection -
that eternal life is theirs in Him.
The
Spirit has made them sons of God in the Son of God. Out of His
fulness they receive, and grace
for every grace of His.
As life eternal
dwells in the Head, it dwells in the members too. Our
existence, then, and bliss (for ‘life’
includes far more than mere existence in
Scripture), are bound up in the eternal blessedness
of our Lord and Head.
We are the members.
And until life ceases to be in Christ, it
cannot cease in us.
This,
then, involves the
resurrection. ‘Ye shall live.’ Life is
already begun in our souls, but our body is dead
because of sin.
Until
Christ
then shall change our body we are divided; life
and death meet in us.
In Christ is life only.
His body partakes of immortal life. And such
a life of body and soul as He possesses belongs to us also who believe, through His grace.
Could
Moses
have said so? He
could say as he
went up to the top of Nebo, ‘Behold,
I die, and ye
shall see me no more.’
For the
Lord buried him, and no man ever saw him die.
The place of his sepulchre is unknown to this
day. But
he could not distinguish and say, ‘Ye,
men of
39. ‘In
that day, ye shall recognise that I am in My
Father, and
ye in Me, and I in you.’
What
day
is spoken of here?
The day of the
Saviour’s resurrection, or that of the Spirit’s
descent? Are
these words realised by all believers now?
I think not.
‘The Son is in the
Father; and believers are in
the Son, and He is in us.’
But
how do we know it?
On Scripture
testimony. It
is something we do not
comprehend. It
is too high for us.
But in [Page 172]
these words a day is promised in which evidence new
and satisfactory shall be granted.
That
which we believe now on the testimony of One who
knows, shall then be perceived
by ourselves, as the consequence of our enlarged
powers in resurrection.
The
expression ‘that day’
too, generally,
if not universally, points to the millennial, or
resurrection-day.
Jesus is here speaking, not to apostles,
and
testifying of the supernatural gifts that should
attend them, but to disciples
generally; bestowing comfort which should affect
believers though un-possessed
of gifts.
‘Ye in
Jesus
still
takes a place distinct from and above us.
He says, not, ‘Ye
shall know that we are in
the Father.’
We are in the Son, ‘preserved in Christ Jesus, and called.’
Christ’s
stooping
to us is our lifting up.
Through our sin and death Christ has passed,
overcoming them for us. We
have risen into His place of sonship and life.
He has paid our debts and given us His
riches. Christian
immersion is the picture of this:
burial to the old; life to the new.
It
is a passing through death, by a door never to be
opened again, into a life
that ends not.
Death for me, as a
believer, is ended; that which in the unbeliever we
call ‘death’ is to the
believer ‘sleep
in Christ,’ wherefrom he will awake us.
Christ
now
moves in us. ‘I in you,’ Gal. 2: 20.
Our good works now are Christ’s works.
Flesh may taint them, [Page 173] but Christ is there, in His Spirit and power.
Abiding in Him, His power and grace exhibit
themselves in us.
‘I in you.’ As
Christ is in the Father, and none can pluck Him
thence; so we are in Christ,
and none can pluck us from the Son, unless he can
overturn the throne of God in
the heavens.
‘And I in you.’ The Saviour in us, and
we
in Him! How
wonderful the salvation into
which we are introduced by faith!
We are
raised from the dead, and already seated in Christ,
in heavenly places.
And He is in us on earth, dwelling in our
hearts by faith.
It is this union which
gives us our standing before God; so that we have
not, in coming to God, to
consider ‘our own
unworthiness,’ but His worthiness,
with Whom we are one.
Could
Moses
have uttered such words?
Nay! He knew
not that name of God on which we
rest. He
had never heard of ‘the
Father, the Son, and the Spirit.’
He was only aware that there were secrets
of
God concealed from him.
He knew God as
Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts, the Great God and
Terrible of Justice, who dwelt
apart from sinners in the cloud and fire.
He could not say of himself that he was in Jehovah, the God of Israel.
Nor that he was himself in every Israelite,
and every Israelite in
him. Of
such a union lie could not have
dreamed.
The
Law
which he ministered to
[Page
174]
21.
‘He that hath My
commandments, and keepeth them, he it
is that loveth Me; and he that loveth Me, shall be
loved by My Father, and I
will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.’
It
is
not yet true that all the world possesses Christ’s
commands. It
is a great mercy to have the Gospel in our
hands, and to know Christ’s thoughts.
The twelve had our Lord’s commands given by
word of mouth.
We have the same in better form still as
God’s written word; to which we may recur, without
being dependent on our
treacherous memories.
But many have the
New Testament, and keep not the Saviour’s commands. Jesus desires obedience. He
is
Lord, and has given orders; and He means to
enquire at last whether His
servants have obeyed His orders.
Many
are apt to forget this.
Some
willingly
leave it out.
Listen to
some teachers, and you would suppose that our rule
of life is merely the acting
out of the new nature against its hindrances; and
the example of Christ’s
perfection. But no! There are commands,
not now for us those of Moses, but those
of
Christ.
And love to Him is to be proved by obedience.
While Moses’ yoke is off our neck, we are
to
take Christ’s yoke on us, and ‘His
commandments are not
grievous.’
‘He that loveth Me shall be
loved by My Father.’
God
desires
the love of His creatures.
It is
the great demand of the Law.
But it was
met by the enmity of man’s fallen nature.
But now God appeals to us to love Him; not so
much from the view of our
temporal blessings in creation, but for the work of
His Son in redeeming
us. And
can we think of the great
blessings in which we stand, the bright hopes and
heritage set before us, and
the great price at which they were bought, and not
love Him?
This
promised
spiritual manifestation of Christ is peculiar to the
present time of
trial during our Lord’s absence.
It is
not enjoyed by all believers.
The
benefit enjoyed by all believers is only, ‘Ye
behold
But
does
not God the Father love us already?
Did He not choose us who believed to eternal
life? Does
He not love us as [Page
175] He
loves Christ? Yes! But there are special, spiritual blessings specially given to obedient
ones. Here is one.
The obedient
lover of Christ shall be loved by the Father.
He so loves His Son, that to find any loving
His Son, and proving it by
His obedience, gives Him a special love towards that
one beyond the love He
feels for His saved ones in general.
Father!
if you have several
children who are disobedient, and one, on the
contrary, who proves love to you
by a joyful obedience, do you not love that one
beyond the rest?
Ought you not so to do?
‘And I will love him, and
will manifest Myself to him.’
‘I will love.’ Here is something future and conditional.
We reckon up God’s unconditional promises,
but let us remember also the conditional! Here is
special love of Christ towards
obedient
disciples.
There is special ‘manifestation,’
too.
The obedient shall be better acquainted with
Christ than the disobedient
disciple. Is there not here in this promise, reader,
something to which we have
not attained? and which it were both our duty to
seek, and our endless joy to
obtain? It
is a present
benefit. One
day believers shall know as they are
known. But
now to know the Father and
Son so that our joy may be full, is something
greatly to be sought.
Could Moses, the greatest of
men, have so spoken?
No! Moses,
as we said, durst not call the
commandments of Jehovah ‘his’
commands. Nor
would he have asked obedience to the Law
as the proof of love to himself. Much less would love to Moses carry also Jehovah’s love.
Nor could Moses promise to love such, and
manifest himself to them in return.
Moses had died, and the dead know not any
more what takes place on
earth.
22.
‘Saith to him Judas - not
Iscariot – “Lord, and how
comes it that Thou art about to manifest Thyself
to us, and not to the world?”’
Observe
John’s
and the Holy Spirit’s care in distinguishing the
true disciple from the
traitor. Two
among the twelve were of
the same name, but of different natures; distinguish
then! Here,
too, is a caution, lest any should
assert that there is a contradiction; because Judas
had already gone out, and
does not return till he meets them in the Garden. ‘
In
these
words spoke out the feeling of one taught under the
Law and the
prophets. Was not Jesus Messiah? And was not He to show His glory openly in
the sight of the nations and of
How,
then,
was it that Jesus spoke of showing Himself only in
the limited sphere of
His disciples?
Here
begins
a new dispensation.
It is no
longer that
23.
‘Jesus answered and said to
him, “If any loveth Me, he
will keep My word, and My Father
will love him, and We will come unto him, and make
Our abode with him.”
Thus
the
questions of ignorance draw out true knowledge from
the wise.
The
Saviour
does not explain; He re-affirms.
He is not more explicit in Acts
1: 6, 7.
There He says, that it was not for them to
know times or seasons; but that the work to which
God called them then was to
bear witness to the Christ.
How
could Jesus reign as Messiah
over
[Page 177]
Jesus
leaves out
instruction concerning
the millennial day to teach them the peculiarities
of the present
dispensation. Now
is the time of the
inward revelation to seine in mercy.
By-and-bye it will be the outward
manifestation to foes in
judgment. It
is now the calling out of
disciples from the world of unbelief and hatred,
that they may love God, and
God may dwell with
them. A great advance
on God’s promises of Law!
‘And let them make Me a
sanctuary; that I may dwell
among them,’ Ex. 25: 8 (39: 45; Lev. 28: 12). Then, it
was ‘I,’
now, it is ‘We,’ the
Father and the Son.
Then, it was God’s visible dwelling
without;
now His invisible abode within.
The
world now is not beyond mercy.
When God
reveals Himself in Old Testament style, and
according to its prophets, justice
and destruction are come.
‘If any.’
The numbers are few.
God dwells
not now in houses made by hands, but in the soul of
the believer. Hence the
Saviour continues in the same strain.
There was much they could not then bear. They
were not ready for the
truth that a new dispensation, kept a secret with
God from before the creation,
was about to come to light.
They needed
much instruction ere they could accept it.
Observe
how
love and obedience are knit together.
The
more the love,
the greater the obedience; and with every act of
obedience love increases, and
the increase of love produces increase of
obedience. So,
on the contrary, every act of
disobedience diminishes love, and diminished love
leads on to new acts of
disobedience.
‘My Father will love Him.’ With Christ the love
of His
Father in heaven was supreme.
It was the
joy of His heart.
All He did sprang from
it. He
here, then, presents it to us as
the greatest of joys and privileges.
Let
us seek to please the Father, and desire His love! Jesus
abode in His Father’s love by abiding
in His commandments (John
15: 9-11).
‘We will come unto Him, and
take up our abode with him.’
Here
is
something beyond the ordinary course of things with
believers. It is not
said – ‘Father, Son, and Spirit will come [Page 178] and abide.’
For the Spirit is indwelling already, and
no
one is truly a member of Christ, or a living
disciple, except the Spirit be
dwelling within him.
It
is
not said, ‘We do come,’
as if it took place
virtually and insensibly, as the opening of a
shutter removes the obstruction
to light, which thereupon streams in.
But
it is something which is to come by God’s special
choice, at a set moment, and
as a matter of reward.
This, then, it
seems, cannot take place of course, and insensibly. It must be
attended with a sense of God’s
presence, and with a joy which will make itself
known to the receiver beyond
all mistake.
God’s
love
of compassion goes forth to the evil world, and He
calls it to faith and
salvation. There
is a love of approval
towards the sons of God, in so
far as they answer to God’s call, and are like their
Father. But
here
is a love of reward toward special examples of obedient sons of God.
It
is
now the kingdom in mystery; the kingdom within; but by and bye it will be acts of power, the manifestation of God
against sinners outwardly.
Now, God dwells
invisibly with the believer.
By-and-bye
the believer shall visibly and eternally dwell with
God.
Here
two
Persons are spoken of.
The Father is
one Person; the Son is another.
Here is
something which is to be the present reward of
obedience on the part of the
disciple. ‘We
will come - if.’ It is a
future coming, conditional on the disciples’
keeping, in the spirit of love,
the Saviour’s commands.
Have we
this? Is
this ever subject
of preaching? Or
have you, reader, ever heard testimony to
the effect – ‘This has been
fulfilled in me.’ I
have not. Can
it be that the witnesses
of ‘the higher life’
have got hold of the
reality here spoken of only under another name?
I am slow to think so.
For many
of them are not obedient.
They
do not keep the Saviour’s
commands; not even the first one, of baptism.
Nor do they call on others to obey.
Nor
do they speak of the blessing
as conditional on obedience.
[Page 179]
You will not suppose, reader, that this
is spoken to unbelievers as the way to obtain life
eternal. It is
addressed to those already possessed of life
eternal, as the way to further
present attainment, and to advance in joy and the
divine life.
Here
then
is something to be sought by us.
The Lord give us to seek to find it!
We often confess, we are not arrived at the
height of our
privileges. Behold
a definite example of
the truth of it.
How
high
is this above any word of Moses!
Love of Moses was never insisted on to
24.
‘He that loveth Me not,
keepeth not My words; and the
word which ye hear is not Mine, but that of the
Father who sent Me.’
Verse 23 is the Saviour’s
answer to Judas’ inquiry about manifestation ‘to us.’
Verse 24
takes
up Judas’ word – ‘and not to
the world.’
Love of God in Christ and obedience are the
present conditions of the grant of the knowledge and
manifestation of God to
us. But
the world hates and disobeys.
Therefore it is shut out from this
knowledge
and abode of God.
Love to Christ the Son
of God has taken the place of love to Jehovah the
God of Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob. This
is the source of true
religion. True
obedience can only spring
from a right state of the heart.
Moses
insisted far less on this.
For his
scheme was chiefly one of details, as suited to the
degree of knowledge and
development in that day.
Where
there
is not love to Christ, there is no Christianity. There is
no safety. There
is the curse. The
curse of Law was laid on disobedience.
Now it lies on the not loving the Son of
God. It
is not now, ‘Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth.’
It is, ‘Love thy Redeemer,
who hath bought thee by His blood.’
[Page 180]
Not
to
love is to hate.
In this clear
revelation of God in Christ, when once it is pressed
upon the conscience,
neutrality is impossible.
The
world
will not accept God’s love of compassion.
How then can it have His love of approval, or
reward? It
will not accept the revelation of Christ
as the Saviour.
It can only know Him as
Judge and Avenger.
It will not accept
Christ’s word to its salvation.
It can
only then be sentenced for refusing it.
It is condemned already.
Again
the
Saviour brings to notice, that His word was not that
of a mere man; but that
its refusal was the refusal of the Father, Who
stands engaged to uphold every
word of His Son.
The
Saviour
in His humility takes the subordinate place.
He came as the Father’s servant, not to do
His own will, but Another’s.
He would
prove to us that happiness lies not in self-will, as
all are by nature prone to
believe. Unbelievers
live on according
to this falsity, though their own experience and the
experience of multitudes
unnumbered proves it untrue.
This
is
the Christian position of peace and love and joy -
to do, not our own will,
and not to find our own pleasure, but to seek to
please God.
25, 26. ‘These
things I have spoken to you while remaining with
you. But
the Comforter, the Holy Ghost,
whom the Father will send in My name, He shall
teach you all things, and bring
to your remembrance all that I said unto you.’
Much
had
Jesus spoken to prepare them for His departure,
which they understood
not. It
was His wisdom and grace to say
it. For
it was as seed cast into the
ground, seemingly lost and buried.
But
the shower of the Spirit at Pentecost caused it to
spring up into leaf and
fruit.
The
Spirit
is a Person; as is shown by His offices for us, as
Comforter, Teacher,
and Remembrancer.
The Saviour does not
leave it doubtful who this Comer is, of Whom He
speaks; lest error should enter
at the door. Mahomet, in spite of this, ventured to
assert his being the Person
named. Koran,
chap. 61, ‘When Jesus the
Son of Mary [neither Jesus nor His apostles [Page
181]
over so call Him]
said, “0 children of
In
this
verse are three Persons.
The Father sends the
Holy Spirit in the Son’s
name. He
comes as the result of the
Saviour’s completed work of resurrection and
atonement, and in answer to the
Son’s prayer. It is Christ’s gift to the body - His
members.
The
Holy
Ghost is now presented by our Lord in a new aspect,
as aiding them to
understand the Person and work and words of Christ,
that they might be fitted
to the post assigned them.
While the
force of these words applies primarily to apostles,
who heard them from the
lips of our Lord, yet in a measure they belong to
us; specially in cases where
a passage of Scripture formerly quite dark to us
breaks out into light.
It is owing to the fulfilment of this
promise
that we can entirely trust, not only the story of
Christ’s life, but the words
He uttered, as given by the four evangelists.
The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of the Father
and the Son, and therefore
exalts Christ and enforces His words.
Any spirit which does not do so is not of
God. And
an evil spirit shall at length rule in
the world; the spirit of Satan, who shall deny both
the Father and the Son (1
John 2.).
Also it is Christ’s words and commands that
the Spirit of God enforces,
and not the traditions of men.
Beware of
every spirit which refuses the Scriptures of God.
There
was
much which the disciples understood not.
Words not understood are soon forgot.
Much work, then, of the Holy Spirit was
required: to prepare their minds
for the very different dispensation which lay before
them they must themselves
understand in order to teach others the Holy Ghost
was to remind them of the
Saviour’s words bearing on the case in hand.
[Page 182]
It
was
not so at Moses’ taking leave of
The
Holy
Spirit was to bring to the apostles’ remembrance all
that Christ
said. Many
now dig a gulf between
Christ’s teaching and that of the Spirit; as though
we were under the Spirit’s
instruction,
and not under Christ’s
commands. But
this is not according to
Scripture. The
Spirit was to occupy a
subordinate post, throwing back the disciples upon
the Saviour’s instructions
and commands, giving them to see in Jesus’ words the
truths for which at that
time they were not prepared (Matt.
28: 19).
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.’
It
was
customary in ordinary salutation in the East to say,
‘Peace be unto you.’
The Saviour now takes up that saying, which
in the world’s month is an
empty wish, to fill it full of the gold of truth and
power. The
world gives fair promises, poor performances.
Judas found that to his cost. How
different
the elders’ reception of him when he was needful to
their plans, and the cold
contempt with which he was treated, when trouble had
overtaken him and they
needed him no longer.
Unlike
the
world, Jesus, in departing, does not take away peace
from the disciples,
but by His will and testament leaves it as His
legacy. They
might have war with the world; but peace
within they would enjoy, because it was peace with
God. Better
that far than peace with the world, and war with God. ‘My
peace I give
unto you.’
Thus Jesus, risen from the dead, salutes
disciples with a new ‘Peace
be unto you.’
There was in that day the full depth of
peace
won by His resurrection.
It was [Page
183] Christ’s peace; not only
that which dwelt in Himself, but that which He had
won by His victory over
Satan (John 20: 19). The world
has not peace to give.
Christ has it, and bestows it.
We may have peace within, but we cannot impart it to others.
One
day the peace within us
shall be mirrored by the blest peace in the
world outside us.
Then Satan, his sons, and his agents are
cast
into the pit. The
Law of England speaks
of ‘the peace of our
Sovereign Lady the Queen;’
and much more shall it be true of the peace of the
King of kings, that it shall
be abiding and eternal.
In the world as
ruled by Satan, trouble flows forth now for the sons
of God. But when the Son of God shall
take the kingdom – ‘In
His days
shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace
so
long as the moon endureth.’
Disciples
would
find hostility in the world, but through faith in
the Saviour they were
at peace with God, and Jesus takes leave of them in
that condition.
He had brought them forgiveness of sins.
The
words
which follow, ‘My peace I
give unto you,’
seem to refer to a peace yet expanded and deepened,
to be brought by the Spirit
the Comforter.
‘My
peace’ may mean either (1) the peace which
I enjoy; or (2) the peace
resting on my work which I shall send to you.
It was, indeed, a wonderful peace which Jesus
enjoyed in view of the
terrors before Him.
And this kind of
peace would be needed by the disciples, in
consideration of the enemies and
perils which, for Christ’s name’s sake, they would
be called to encounter.
It was a peace arising from a knowledge of
the Father, and from full sympathy with Him; a
knowledge sustained amidst all
trials by the Holy Spirit.
To this the
sixteenth Psalm, quoted by Peter at Pentecost,
alludes. ‘I saw the Lord
always before my face; because He is at my right
hand, therefore I shall not be
moved. Therefore
did my heart rejoice,
and my tongue was glad.’
Jesus
saw beyond the storm the cloudless heaven of His
Father’s acceptance and
love. For
this peace we may pray,
assured of obtaining it.
This is God’s
specific against anxiety.
It is set
forth by Paul in Philippians
4: 6, 7, ‘Be
careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer
[Page
184]
and supplication with
thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto
God. And
the peace of God, which passeth all
understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds
through Christ Jesus.’
How
great
here the advance upon Moses and Law!
Under the Law, ‘Peace’
was an outward
affair, the cessation of war with neighbouring
nations. It
was to be the result of their
obedience. Lev.
27: 6, ‘Ye shall
dwell in your land safely.
And I will give peace in the land,
and none shall make you afraid, and I
will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither
shall the sword go through the
land.’
Prayer also was offered,
that there might be peace on Israel,
through the High Priest and the sacrifices, in that
remarkable passage where
Israel, at the threefold invocation of the name of
Jehovah, obtains a glimpse
of that name of the Godhead which is the basis of
our hope (Num. 6: 22-27).
‘The Lord lift up His
countenance upon thee, and
give thee peace.’ This
word
‘peace,’ as attached
to the last mention of the
name of Jehovah, in the passage just adduced, would
seem to indicate the Spirit
of God, and to confirm what had been said about the
peace here spoken of being
the work of the Holy Spirit.
‘My peace I give unto you.’ How different the view
we
have here of the Saviour’s attitude and feelings, in
prospect of His
sufferings, from that given by the three first
Gospels! There
is, indeed, nothing on both sides but
the perfect truth.
But the view of the
Saviour’s sufferings as our substitute while under
sin had so been abused, as
to lead unfriendly minds to say that ‘Jesus
in
Moses in departing could
not speak thus.
He died as one who had offended against God,
and could not win the hope of the good land which he
had proclaimed to others (Deut.
3: 23-28).
[Page 185]
‘Not as the world giveth,
give I unto you.’ Jesus
sets
the world on one side, as all of one quality;
Himself on the other, as the
Only-begotten Son, full of grace and truth.
The world can give by way of payment. It has, too, some
notions
of returning a kindness that has gone before.
But to give to enemies who have done you mischief, it cannot find in its heart.
It does not even approve it when done by
others. Its
notion is – ‘Evil for evil
is the manly part.’
The world, too, oft pays its obligations in
the false coin of words.
He who should
expect to find in
Jesus,
then,
gives in far different spirit and measure.
He gives right royally, and eternity alone
will disclose the depth and reality of His gifts. He gives
without prepayment; and to enemies
He grants good in return for evil, and gives up life
for rebels.
‘Let not your heart be
troubled.’
The Saviour’s departure was in
accordance
with the Father’s scheme of mercy, and the Son’s
working out of it.
Jesus was to enter the Valley of the Shadow
of Death only to tunnel a way through its dark
barrier into eternal life.
The work is done!
Let us rejoice!
See
the
moral glory of the Saviour!
Men,
even the best, in presence of an overwhelming
trouble are generally so
swallowed up in the sense of their own sufferings,
that they have no words or
thoughts to spare for others. The eye of the fiery
serpent in front of them
which they must encounter, so fascinates them, that
they cannot look to right
or left.
But
here
is the Great Sufferer so full of peace, that He is
able to turn and
console the sheep of His flock.
They do
not seek to aid Him, though He has told them
somewhat of the horror of great
darkness into which, for their
sakes, He is about to enter.
[Page
186]
28.
‘Ye heard that I said unto
you, “I am going away, and
am coming unto you.
If ye loved Me, ye
would rejoice, because I said I am going to the
Father; for the Father is
greater than I”’
The
disciples
looked on Jesus’ departure with dismay; for their
hopes regarded Him
only as the Redeemer of Israel from the Gentiles. They saw
not His work and sufferings as Son
of God. He
would show them that there
was glory to arise to Himself out of going home to His Father, as well as benefit to them.
But if Jesus be equal to the Father, how
could He say – ‘My Father is
greater than I?’
Because Jesus had humbled Himself in
becoming
the Son of Man, and by His suffering unto death. Moreover,
though possessed of the same
Godhead as the Father’s, yet as ‘God
the Son’ He
takes a subordinate place to ‘God
the Father.’
The Queen is royal, but a Queen is
subordinate to the King.
How
foolish
in the mouth of a mere man would be the saying, ‘God is
greater than I am!’
Jesus,
by
His incarnation, was made lower than the angels, to
suffer death. But
by His ascent He has had a name given
above everyone, both in this age, and in that to
come. ‘Let all the angels
of God worship Him!’ The going of Jesus the
Son of Man, then, to the
heaven, the abode of God, to abide with Him, was a
great promotion: even as it
would be to a private person to be invited to dwell
with Her Majesty in her
palace. The
word ‘greater’ does
not then refer to the nature (or
essence) of the Son, as compared with that of the
Father; but rather to the
exaltation, which awaited Christ at His return from
His work accomplished.
Had
Jesus’
going
away was unlike that of Moses, for Moses was not to
return to
But
Jesus’
departure was foreknown by Him, and looked forward
to with joy, as a
going to God His Father. Does it [Page 187] denote any difference of nature between the Father and the Son, so that the Son is possessed of an
inferior Godhead to the Father?
No! Greatness
is not spoken of nature, but of station. The
Prince of Wales is of the same nature as the Queen
his mother. But
she is greater
than he is, inasmuch as she is seated
on the throne, but he is only a prince as yet.
Our Lord, then, owns His Father as greater
than Himself. The
Father never humbled Himself to partake
of the manhood, much less did He stoop to suffer and
die. Jesus,
therefore, after His Father’s
commission was fulfilled, was to be exalted by His
ascent to the Supreme
Throne. He
was the nobleman going to a
far country to receive a kingdom, and to return as
King. Here
was something connected with Jesus’
departure and return at which His disciples and
friends might rejoice.
His returning from His Great Father is in
the
character of King of kings, and, Lord of lords.
And
Christ’s
promotion will be also the exalting of His faithful
servants.
29-31. ‘And
now I have told you before it come to pass, that
when it
shall come to pass ye may believe.
I no
longer will I speak much with you; for the Prince
of the world is coming, and
hath nothing in Me.
But that the world
may know that I love the Father, and as the Father
commanded Me, so I do.
Arise, let us go hence.’
Jesus
notes
that time was passing, and He must compress what He
had to say.
The
world
was about to marshal itself in all its threatening
power against the Son
of God. But the Lord Jesus’ eye is on the great
general of the hostile
forces. He
beholds in Judas and the
chief priests, in Pilate and Herod, and the soldiers
and populace, the evil
chief who mustered his troops for the battle, and
hurled them at Himself.
Would
the
world attract us, if thus we looked at it as led on
by Satan, the slayer of
Christ, the refuser of the Holy Ghost, the hater of
Christians? No;
it is only when we look on the world, as
if un-fallen and owned by God; and when we disregard
its deep enmity of heart
against the Father and the Son, that we can be drawn
to it.
[Page 188]
The
Saviour’s
words, duly pondered by the disciples, would have
prevented the overwhelming
effect of His betrayal, condemnation, and death. They came
with stunning power upon the
disciples, as if all their hopes were overturned. But this
was designed to show them that all
that befel our Lord was foreknown to Him.
They were to perceive from His perfect
knowledge that He was the Son of
God. In
part they believed, but their
views about Him required to be raised.
Thus the Saviour would comfort us too.
That which is unknown by us is known and
provided for by Him.
The word of God is in order to faith. By
accepting the Word of God true faith
begins; and by the continued reception of truth
after truth, faith grows.
In ch. 13: 19,
there is a fuller statement.
The
perception of the fulfilment of our Lord’s words He
gives as a proof of His Godhead.
And Isaiah challenges the gods of the
heathen
to predict the future, that their deity might be
proved (Is. 41: 21-24).
The
closing
conflict was just at hand.
Satan, who had been foiled in the desert, was
again about to assail Him.
Then he had come as the fowler, with his lines and
nets to tempt the
Saviour. Now
he was coming in power, and
with the terrors of death; to seek to drive Him from
the path of
obedience. He
was coming in his
character of ‘the Prince of
the World.’
In this character he deceives the nations,
and rules them.
Jew and Gentile,
civilised and savage, bow beneath his wiles.
Accordingly, in ‘their
hour and the power of
darkness,’ all kinds and classes of men are
seen drawn up against our
Lord, and show their hatred in various ways.
Satan,
the
evil spirit, lord of evil angels, is as truly a
person as the Spirit of
God, and as are the good angels. What is said of him and of his empire over the world should
lead disciples to stand aloof from
it and its toys. We
are not to seek
power and glory and wealth in this world; for it
is now under Satan’s
rule. We
shall reign if, like Christ, we
refuse to take power and glory from the world
and Satan now.
The
day
is coming, when those who have been with Christ
humbled and [Page
189] patient, shall with Him reign.
‘He that humbleth
himself shall be exalted.’
Satan
‘is coming.’
He departed for a season, after his defeat in
the desert. But
he appears to have asked and obtained permission
of God to try the Saviour with fear, as he had been
unsuccessful in tempting
Him by the bribes which ordinarily prevail with men. He asked
and prevailed to try the disciples,
and they fell.
But though there was one
hour in which the especial power of darkness was put
forth against our Lord,
the Wicked One was still overcome (Luke
22: 53).
Why
could
he not prevail against the Son of Man?
Because Satan had nothing in Christ.
On all other men the tempter has a hold; for
he is the Prince of Evil;
and evil, in various ways, has a place in them.
They
have
inclinations to evil, and on these he works.
He knows men’s characters, and what are the
baits most suited to catch his fish.
They have already sinned, and so are more
easily won over.
And on these foundations of evil is reared
his power of death.
But
in
our Lord’s nature there was no evil; nothing to rest
a lever upon in order
to overthrow Him.
There was no tinder in
Him to catch fire through Satan’s injected matches. Christ was
like a room plated with steel.
Throw your lighted match where you will, it will not
burn. But
men in general are rooms full of paper
and straw: like tinder to the spark.
Jesus, then, must have been of an un-fallen
nature. Else
these words would not have been true.
Now,
as
our Lord had no moral evil within, that is a false,
pernicious, and
blasphemous doctrine, which teaches that Christ had
evil propensities within,
though they were never allowed to break into act. Some
distinguish, as if the rising of evil thoughts
in our souls is not evil, when resisted.
But the thought of evil is evil, no less than
the words of it, and the
deeds of it. In
this doctrine Irvingites,
and Swedenborgians, and Christadelphians
offend.
As
Satan
could find no evil in Christ, therefore he had no
power over Christ’s
life to take it away.
‘The wages of sin [Page 190]
is death.’ Now, as
Satan is the executioner, he has
power of death over men as sinners.
But
where there was no sin, he had no power.
Jesus, as obedient to the Law in full
perfection, had won its blessing,
eternal life. He
here testifies, that He
was not subject to death, because He had become a
man; as some have
taught. He
was not so born of Adam’s
race as other men.
He was not conceived
in sin and shaped in iniquity. ‘That
Holy
Thing
which shall be born of
thee shall be called the Son of God,’ said
the angel to Mary.
He was ‘holy,
harmless, and separate from sinners.’
Else Satan had something in Him, and some
power over Him.
But He freely gave up His life to the Law’s
call for penalty on behalf of others; as also He
gives to others the eternal
life which He has won by His obedience.
31.
‘But that the world may know
that I love the Father,
and as, the Father commanded Me, so I do.
Arise, let us go hence.’
These
words
mark one of the Saviour’s reasons for giving up His
life. It
was not that He was seized unexpectedly,
and lost the power of self-rescue, which formerly He
possessed. It
was through no superior power of Satan,
and it was no result of a just claim put forth
against Him by the Prince of the
World; as One on Whom he had the right to inflict
death. It
was in obedience to the Father’s will and
commands, that He put Himself thus into the hands of
the enemy. It
was the last and most striking proof of
love to the Father, and of willingness to carry out
His mind, whatever it might
cost to Himself.
It was a proof, too, to
the world how much He loved it.
As the
Only-begotten Son, he would thus testify His
Father’s compassion and His own
for the lost.
This
was
the last demand that could be made, and to it He
hearkens. This
was the last price to be paid, and the
tower He was building would be complete.
The
Father
and the Son are of one mind about the redemption of
men. Some
represent the way of salvation, as if
the Father were all justice, and the Son all mercy;
and as if the Son were [Page
191]
obliged to offer His sufferings,
because without them the Father would not be
appeased. But
the Scripture, aware of all the false
representations that the enemy would make, has
enabled us to repel this
falsehood; by showing that our redemption sprang
from the Father’s counsels, no
less than from the Son’s work.
Jesus,
then, instead of fleeing, as He might have done, to
escape His foes, would
leave the upper room, and march to the very spot
whither His enemies would be
led, in order to arrest Him.
He would
not wait to be seized where He was.
He
would go to the Garden.
He calls on His
disciples to go with Him to the conflict.
Satan is our Foe, as well as His.
So He leaves the holy city, the place of the
temple, and its feasts, to
take up His station outside the city, as if unclean. Those
that march with Jesus, and
with Him suffer from the world and its Prince,
will reign with Him.
*
*
*
JOHN CHAPTER 15
[Page 192]
1, 2. ‘I
am the true vine, and My Father is the Husbandman. Every
branch in Me that beareth not fruit, He
taketh it away, and every one that beareth fruit
He cleanseth, that it may bear
more fruit.’
This
chapter
and the two following seem to have been spoken after
Christ and His
disciples had risen up, but had not left the
chamber.
Jesus
now
gives us the relation in which believers would stand
to Himself; that of
union. It
is nearer than that of Shepherd
and sheep: it is illustrated by that of the head and
members. How
absurd for any mere man so to describe
himself!
How
do
any of Adam’s race become ‘in
Christ?’ By
baptism? Nay! That comes
after faith (Acts 2.).
It can only be by the Holy Spirit’s
operation. All
baptism before faith is sinful.
It does not give life.
‘But are
there any who are alive in Christ, yet bear no
fruit?’
Are
there
(I ask in return) any fruit-trees, whose every
branch bears fruit?
Did you, my reader, ever see one that did? The
fruitless branches are not dead.
Are
all believers working for Christ?
Are
there no backsliders from Him?
None who
have sunk to the level of the world?
Believers alone are spoken of.
Judas had gone out. Only believers were
present when our Lord spoke.
God
has
two people.
There
is
no being in Christ ‘outwardly’
(as some speak), yet not really and inwardly.
To be ‘in Christ’
belongs to [regenerate]
believers alone.
The Law deals with each
singly, according to his deserts.
The
Gospel grafts ten thousands into Christ, to be
justified, sanctified, saved in
Him!
God
watches
with interest over this His tree.
His is the care that tends: to Him the fruits
belong. The
Viue-dresser is also proprietor of the
vine, and He aims at fruit.
How
does
He take away the fruitless branches?
The present tense notes that it is what is
taking place in this
dispensation, and what is habitual with God.
He takes away life in this world.
Of this, as applying to offenders of the
Church, we have an example in 1
Corinthians 11: 30.
So also in Ananias and Sapphira; though in
these cases it was rather evil fruit than the
absence of good fruit.
What
is
the fruit supposed?
It is the
exercise of right, affections - that which is good
to the eye of God, whether
seen by man or no.
Prayer and praise,
and the fruits of the Spirit generally, as well as
the works which are called
good.
The
cluster
of buds which will one day become the bunch of
grapes, appears very
early in the vine; as soon as the shoot has put out
its fourth or fifth
leaf. Then
the gardener breaks off the
young stem a little beyond the cluster, that the
vine may not put forth its
strength in leaves and shoots, but that the sap may
be thrown into the
bunch. But
even when the first shoot is
‘stopped,’ care is
needed still. For
out of each of the eyes of the young
stem, grow secondary branches called ‘laterals’;
which
need to be broken off, or much of the sap is decoyed
away into them.
So God oft ‘stops’
His people; He does not allow all their plans to
succeed. He
does not ordinarily give them worldly
prosperity. They
would not then be
fruitful. Their
energies would be spent,
their hearts would go after the things of the world. Are you
wondering, Christian, why crosses and
trials assail you? It is the Fatherly Husbandman
pruning you. He
sees your [Page 194]
danger of becoming worldly.
He seeks to make you produce fruit.
You are not called to put out ‘laterals.’ In
that way are most Christians turned aside, as Jesus
says (Matt. 13: 22).
Jesus is the true
Vine. God
had chosen another vine, and
brought it out of
‘My Father is the Husbandman.’
The
vine
requires more pruning and attention than any other
hardy fruit tree.
It throws out more of wood than is good, if
you, as the owner, wish to obtain the greatest
amount of fruit.
The Father in heaven, then, takes the
oversight of this new and true vine - Jesus and His
people. This
is not the vine of earth, as
But
the
vine is a tree which strikes deep its roots, and widely throws out its
branches. It
may tarry on earth in its
place for many years.
The ripeness of its fruit is
its fulness of juices derived from
the earth. Thus,
the followers of the false Christ
will be dark and overflowing with the principles of
fallen nature, and with the
love of the world.
Then the Lord comes
upon them in wrath.
And as the product
of the wheat is borne away from the field, so the
grapes are trodden down in
the vineyard where they grow.
While
the
true branches in Christ bow to the heavenly Pruner,
and gain spiritual
blessing out of His severest measures, the wild vine
of earth, dealt with in
justice, because of its full-grown sins, instead of
being led to repentance,
accuses the Husbandman, and blasphemes under His rod
(Rev.
16.).
3.
‘Already
ye are
clean, because of the word which I spake to you.’
Here
the
connection with the former verse is far closer than
appears in our
version. ‘He cleanseth
it that
it may bear more fruit.
Already ye are clean.’
This was a comfort to them.
There is no exception now, for Judas has
gone
away. They
were alive in Christ, and
justified.
There
are
two senses which may be given to the phrase – ‘the
word which I spoke.’ (1) A larger; and (2)
a stricter. (1)
In the larger sense, it would apply to
Christ’s doctrine generally.
And the
acceptance or rejection of this is the turning point
from death to life (5:
24).
Also the continuance in it gives [Page 196]
knowledge and freedom to the disciple (8:
31, 32).
We are not to judge the Word of God, as many
in their pride are
doing. But
it will judge the refuser in
the last day (12: 48). Christ’s
words - not the Holy Spirit’s
teaching, as distinct from Christ’s are to be our
guide. And
Christ’s words are to be found almost
solely in the Gospels.
Christ’s
word
must be received in faith.
As by
the word’s reception at the first we are justified,
so by continuing and
advancing in it, we are sanctified.
By
faith in Christ our hearts are to be purified, and
our ways.
How
shall
we understand ‘because of
the word’? (2)
In the stricter sense, it refers back to the washing
of their feet in the
thirteenth chapter.
Jesus assured them
that one who had been bathed was clean, all but his
feet. He
needed only the washing of the feet to be
entirely clean.
That He gave them, and now He gives them the comfort.
He had then pronounced them clean (13:
10) with exception.
Judas being away, the exception is now
removed; showing that there was but one traitor, and
that the Lord Jesus was
aware that there was but one, and that He knew who
the one was.
4.
‘Abide in Me, and I will
abide in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit from
itself,
except it abide in the vine, so neither (can)
ye, except ye abide in Me.’
There
is
a twofold abiding, or interpenetration.
Christ is on high, and we in one view are
seated there on high, in and
with Him. But
we are on earth, and
Christ dwells with us down below (Eph.
2: 6; 3: 17).
Wonderful words, to be spoken by One on His
way to a cruel death!
He must have
beheld with clear eye of perfect faith the results
of His death, resurrection,
and ascent, in producing the mystic body – ‘the
Church.’
He is at one with the Father and His
counsels
all through, even though He was going to the cross
and the curse.
He can trust the Father.
So let us, whatever the difficulties of our
course! How
unlike the doctrine of the Christ’s having
left the Man Jesus to die, after
having beguiled Him into His position of peril!
[Page 197]
Here is the secret of a Christian
life. It
is not effort
to be good.
It is not the earnest attempt to scourge the
flesh into goodness.
It is the abiding in
Christ. It is (1) negatively, the seeing
that in us, as children of Adam,
dwells no good thing.
And no amount of
restraint or pressure, no abundant task-work, can
produce in it what is
good. ‘The old
man’ is wholly evil.
It is not
renewed by grace, but put off.
We are by
the Holy Spirit’s energy grafted into Christ, as the
branch is in the
vine. We
retain that place by faith [and
obedience] (Eph.
3: 17; [Acts 5: 32]). It is – ‘You are in
Christ, and in Him is treasured for you whatever
you lack.’
He of God is ‘made
unto us wisdom and righteousness, sanctification
and redemption.’
We need only to ask of Him strength and wisdom, to meet every duty.
We have no independent power.
We are not encouraged to strive to attain
it. ‘The branch
cannot bear fruit from itself.’
It does not produce the life or the sap which
it needs, in order to
fruit. Severed
from the tree, it
dies. Thus,
then, from Christ, the life
and sap which dwell in Him are to flow into us.
The finger can only grow and move by the
blood sent into it from the
head and heart.
‘The branch cannot
bear
fruit from itself.’
That was
the question upon which God was giving evidence for
4000 years. Man
was being tested under God’s hand to see
if, as a subject under the moral government of God,
he could be made to be
obedient. Law
tested man, and found him
wanting. And
now the cross of the Son of
God has closed that question.
Man is
evil; and if left to himself, neither promise nor
threat will make him
obedient.
But
each
one who is in Christ can bear fruit.
God accepts a life of obedience to Him and
His Son, in every sphere of
society. Let no one imagine that only those employed
in preaching, or giving
tracts, or in work directly religious, are serving
God.
The
vine
can live without the branch; the branch cannot live
without the vine.
If you would bear fruit, fear to refuse any
of Christ’s words.
‘Abide in Me,’ is the one
law of life to the
branch. Obey, and you will
be fruitful!
Disobey, and be barren!
Even
when [Page 198]
renewed, we
may not trust our own feelings and strength.
Of this Peter is an eminent witness.
‘Abide
in
‘Abide.’
Great
is the danger in our day of imagining that the
subtle wit of man, so earnest
and successful in the things of time, has advanced
beyond Christ and His
Gospel. ‘Abide!’
‘Progress’
is
men’s word. ‘Abide’
is God’s. ‘He
that progresseth (true
reading) and
abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God’
(2 John 9).
This
is
not like the Law.
Such words would he
blasphemy in Moses’ mouth.
It was not by
strength derived from Moses, that each Israelite was
to serve and to please
God. Any
such saying would have exposed
Moses to stoning, as a blasphemer.
Law
deals with each as a son of Adam, bound to furnish
to God a complete obedience
of heart and hand.
It sets every one
singly before God, to stand or fall by his own
particular merits. As knowing
what was right, as bound by promises attached to
obedience, and by threats and
penalties on sin, he was to keep the path of right. But on
such grounds the fallen cannot
stand. Conscience,
while it points out
the right, is overborne by the passions which lead
it captive. It
is like Jeremiah the prophet testifying to
the remnant in the land, from God’s lips, that if
they would abide there, they
should be spared and blest.
But they
would not hear, and would go down into
How are we to abide in Christ? (1) Practically,
by obeying
Christ’s commands.
The disobedient to Christ is not abiding in
Him. (2) Theoretically, by
holding
all Christ’s doctrines.
We are to grow
also in the after-knowledge (…) of God.
And God is known only in His Son.
We are
to hold fast what we have
of the knowledge of the Son of God.
We are to go onwards in it.
‘Grow in grace, and
in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ.’ Whatever
interrupts [Page 199] communion with Christ interrupts growth and
fruit. Shake faith, and you stop growth and
obedience.
5.
‘I am the Vine, ye are the
branches. He
that abideth in Me, and I in him, beareth much
fruit; for apart from Me ye can
do nothing.’
Jesus
is
the Lord of supply, of life, and sap.
This is true of all His saved ones.
But here is an union not contemplated by the
Law of Moses - the union of
Messiah and believers.
Law had no idea
of God’s Anointed save as an individual man, like
other men. It
was part of the ‘untraceable
riches of the Christ,’ that, while Law was
in abeyance and Israel in
unbelief, there should be ‘a
new man’ gathered
out of Jew and Gentile; so knit to the Son of God,
and so enjoying life in Him,
that it should do His works and suffer His suffering
in a world of unbelief; to
shine with Him in His glory, and to abide in unity
with Him throughout
eternity. Jesus
here begins to proclaim
this truth, which is more fully detailed to us by
Paul, the commissioned
teacher of this great and central truth of
Christianity. ‘Saul, Saul, why
persecutest thou Me?’ contained the germs of that which is his chief
testimony, and appears in essence here.
Only Paul’s view was – ‘Jesus
on high, and we
in Him.’
Here it is Jesus in us,
while we are on trial here below.
The
Lord
Jesus takes the supreme place.
He
is the Head of all supply; such a place as could
belong to no mere man, and so
it is due to His Godhead.
On our side there is to be acceptance of Christ’s testimony and
obedience to His commands.
Then the fruit of the Spirit and its good
works will be found in us.
Without
Christ
we can do nought.
(1) Nothing,
even of natural action.
Even Christ’s
foes can only lift their voice or their arm, through
strength derived from
Him. (2)
Still more, nought spiritually
good can be done without Him.
‘The old man is corrupting
according to the lusts of deceit.’
Here is the New Man, the accepted before
God;
and they who are justified in Him, are by Him to be
supplied, and to bear [Page
200]
fruit to God. Law
was the trial of the old man, and it
brought forth fruit unto death.
With
the
abiding in Christ, the standing apart from Him is
contrasted. Such
defaulters are evil in will, blind in
understanding.
No work of such an one is
good before God, however much praised by men.
Such actions are only splendid sins (Matt.
7:
18).
6.
‘If any abide not in Me, he
is cast out as a branch and
is withered; and they gather them,* and cast into
the fire, and they burn’.
*
Beware of laying
any stress on ‘men,’
in ‘men gather
them.’ There is no answering word in the
Greek. I
have heard it quoted, as if
Christ’s people were not gathered by men.
Who are they gathered by?
Was not
Paul a man? and Peter?
‘Oh, but they are
gathered by Christ.’
Surely!
But Christ makes use of men.
Beside, this is speaking of the day of
judgment. The
same parties who gather, cast the
offenders into the fire.
In
ver. 2 we had the
not bearing fruit, though
the abiding in Christ was not gone.
Here
there is the not abiding in Christ with its results. As abiding
in Christ produces fruit, so the man
who does not abide, not only does not furnish fruit,
and please God, but so displeases, as to draw down punishment the most severe.
This
is
a very difficult verse, as all know. I think I have
the key to it.
But I do not think that the true
interpretation will be pleasing. I will only
endeavour, as the Lord shall aid,
to give its real sense.
If you, reader,
are displeased with the messenger, because you do
not like the message, I must
nevertheless give the message, because I have not to
please myself, but to
please the Lord by faithfulness to Him and His
truth.
(1)
How
shall we interpret the passage?
Is
this spoken of a believer? or of an unbeliever?
Difficulties
attend
both views. (1) Say it is an unbeliever.
Interpret it thus – ‘that
union with Christ can
only be eternal.
The man belongs to Christ
sacramentally. He
professes to be His; he was united to
Christ by Baptism, and the Supper.’ Is
there in a living vine any
outward union alone?
Would a dead twig
tied to a vine-stem be said to be in the vine?
Impossible!
The person here was
once ‘in’ Christ. But he did
not abide in the position given
him. He
who was in, is cast out. He once
was a green branch.
He then ‘withers,’
or
more strongly, ‘is dried up.’ There
can be no withering in a branch
already dead.
The withered
branch is one that has passed from life to death. These
words, then, cannot be spoken of any
but one who once had living union with Christ.
They must be spoken then of a [regenerate] believer.
(2)
But
so interpret it, and another difficulty confronts
you. Is
the believer, then, finally to lose spiritual
life, and to perish?
Is this not
contrary to the grace of God, which assures eternal
life to those once in
Christ? Is
not this the testimony of
many Scriptures? and of our Lord Himself in this
very Gospel? chapter
10: 28, ‘My sheep
shall not perish for ever, neither shall any pluck
them out of My hand.’
There
is
a remarkable change of tenses in this verse.
The two first verbs are in the past, the
three last in the present; and
yet the two first relate to an earlier time than the
three last. The
only way, I suppose, to understand the
matter, is to regard our Lord as viewing things from
the point of the day of
judgment. Then
the not abiding, and
being cast out, and withering, will be past; and the
three other steps will
then be taken.
It
appears,
then, that here we have depicted for us the results,
moral and
governmental, of not abiding in Christ. Not abiding
in the Vine, the man is
cast out of the Vine: as the branch broken off from
the stem.
The
issue
is ‘drying up.’ All
believers derive some grace from
Christ. That
grace is to them life and
sap. But
as soon as union is broken
between the stem and the branch, the supply of sap
is cut off. The
sap which was within begins to pass
out. The
leaf flags and withers, the
wood grows dry.
So with any who do
not abide in Christ.
The grace which was
once in them departs.
They become more
and more like the failing sons of Adam.
It may be, they become worse than they
ever were.
This deterioration takes effect
continually.
Then
comes
‘the gathering such together.’ There are
two periods in which this may take
place. (1)
Now. The
fallen Christian associates himself with
his fellows: men in spirit like himself.
Each encourages the other in unbelief, and
enmity to [Page
202] the
truth. Satan
has his synagogue, as well as Christ
His church.
(2)
But
the chief force of the words, as the next clause
seems to prove, relates
to the day of
judgment. This
runs quite parallel with
the parable of the wheat and tares.
‘Shall we go and
gather
together the tares?’ say the servants to the Master.
And the answer is – ‘No! Not
you, and not now.
In the day of judgment at My coming I
will
command my reaping angels, and they shall first
gather together the tares, then
bind them in bundles to burn them.’
‘As therefore the
darnel are gathered together,
and burnt in the fire, so shall it be in the end
of the age. The Son of Man
shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather together
out
of His kingdom all stumbling-blocks, and
those which do iniquity, and shall
cast them into the furnace of fire; there
shall
be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.’ These,
remember, were Jesus' words to His
disciples, enquiring of Him in the house the
sense of the parable.
Here
we
have, then, the consummation presented, by our
Lord’s words in John.
The agreement is perfect.
What
conclusion,
then, must we reach? (1) The man is a believer;
(2) the
offending one is to be punished;
(3) the
believer shall not perish
utterly, and for ever; for God’s promise to
that effect encircles His
elect. Then
this casting into the fire
of the dried up branch cannot be for ever.
And
we know that there is a
period of a thousand years which precedes
eternity: a thousand years during
which the righteous and the wicked shall be
recompensed in the earth; as
Scripture says (Prov. 11: 31). And
this
is confirmed by other passages, as Matt. 5: 22, 29, 30; 18:
34, 35; Luke 12: 46-48.
What,
then,
is this not abiding in Christ?
It
is twofold. (1)
Practical: backsliding,
turning to the flesh and the world.
And
to how great an extent this may be done by
believers, many know, or may easily
perceive, on looking around.
Some who
once knew Christ, are now suffering the felon’s
punishment for offences
committed against the law of the land.
Some are [Page 203] overcome in the snare of the drunkard, and, while at times struggling,
and always unhappy, yet go on riveting their chains.
(2)
But
the
worst form of it
is doctrinal departure
from Christ
and His truth.
We
do
not, in our day, understand the awful results of
entire doctrinal departure
from the true views concerning God and His Christ. Out of
that intellectual departure springs
the grossest evil in spirit and conduct.
In John’s day this was seen, and his epistles
are a warning to us how
far men may wander from fundamental truth, while yet
retaining the name of
Christ.
In
John’s
Epistles, we see that there were those who imagined
that a man might perfectly
know God, and yet walk in all the wickedness of the
world. That,
while there was light in God, there was
darkness also.
If so, it was no wonder
if there was a mixture of the two in His children. That
Christ left no commandments,
and it was only legal to observe
them. They
divided Jesus from Christ,
denying the Godhead of Jesus, who was the mere man, born as others of
Joseph and Mary.
They denied on the
other hand, the manhood of Christ. He
was never born; He was a being more
than angel, but less than God; who came on the man
Jesus at the
In
the
last words there
is a
word of warning to the true Christian to look
onward to Christ’s coming
judgment, and to seek His [Page
204] approval (3: 14).
Also to beware, lest they should be swept into the current of false doctrine, with
its issues of iniquity (17).
7.
‘If
ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you,
whatever ye wish ye
may ask, and it shall be done unto you.’
Here
is
the contrast to the case supposed in the previous
verse. This
is one of the conditions of
the fulfilment of our prayers.
(1) We are to abide in Christ: practically and doctrinally. He says
not here, as in verse 4,
‘And if I abide
in you.’
For the failure is not
on His side. The abiding of Christ’s words in us, is
now given as the other
side. For
the words of Christ proceeding
from the Son and the Father, He in whom the words of
God abide, abides in the
Son.
Often
the
prayers of Christians, by reason of their
non-obedience to this word, are
not fulfilled. Often it
would be harmful to us, if just what
we ask were given.
The Christian arrived
at this point of attainment, would not ask in the
flesh, and seek to turn God’s
mind concerning the subject of His prayer; but would
be so in harmony with Him,
as to ask just what God desires and intends, and so
would assuredly obtain it.
‘If My
words abide in you.’
Some are
teaching now, as the fruit of advanced knowledge of
dispensational truth, that
the Gospels, even that of John, are not for the
Church. Do
you, on the contrary, hold and teach, that
Christ’s words are our God-given guide.
If we would have our prayers heard, His words are not only to be
regarded,
but to dwell in us.
His commands are to
be our rule, His promises our hope.
His words and a sense of our need will stir
us up to prayer; and to our
prayer He will send answers of blessing.
Our prayers are not restricted.
They may relate to things temporal, or to
things eternal.
‘Ye shall ask what ye will.’ It is not,
‘With the
exception of a miracle.’
That is
what many would insert in our day, as if miracle
were not to be thought
of. Is
miracle any difficulty with
God? He
who gave His Son, shall He find
it too great a thing for a moment to step out of His
way to meet the needs of
His people? For
what is a miracle?
An unusual mode of action [Page
205] on
God’s part. Was
there any idea of such exception on the
part of the Apostle John?
Had not he
seen miracles by scores?
Did he not work
them often himself?
8.
‘In this is My Father
glorified, that ye bear much
fruit, and so shall ye become My disciples.’
It
is
the vine-dresser’s glory, that his vine bears an
abundant crop of grapes, to
reward
his oversight.
It is so with the Father when His vine and
its branches abound in good works.
The
eye of our Lord is not first on us, or on the world;
but on the Father.
All was made for Him and His glory.
‘You will then be
like me. I
am My Father’s disciple.’
This refers to individual advance in the
knowledge of the faith.
While some
things are common to all disciples, some things
reward their advance in the
faith and practice of the truth.
God
was
glorified at first in the works of creation.
The morning stars sang together, and all
the
sons of God shouted for joy.
Great was
the power; great the manifestation of Himself.
The
religion
of Christ is not only speculative, but practical
also. All
its discoveries of doctrine are designed
to produce visible results.
9.
‘As the Father loved Me, so
I have loved you; abide ye
in My love.’
How
easily
we read the words!
How little we
realise their vast import!
That
the
Saviour’s love towards us redeemed of this
dispensation, is in magnitude and
quality such as the Father’s eternal love
towards His eternal Son! Almighty,
ineffable
love! Great
as His work for
us, so great the love that impelled Him to do it!
The Lord give us grace to
believe this love, and to know it!
‘We
have known and believed (says John) the love which God
hath to us.’
His love to
us before any goodness in us, and in spite of the
enmity in us, is designed to
draw out our affection to Him.
[Page 206]
How
is
this love of Christ towards us to be retained? By
obedience to His words.
‘Abide in MY love.’
Before, it was ‘Abide
in
10. ‘If ye keep My commandments, ye
shall abide in My love, even as
I kept the commandments of My Father, and abide in
His love.’
The
Father
from all eternity was well pleased with His beloved
Son. But
at His becoming man, and putting Himself
in the place of the servant, a new feature began to
show itself. Jesus
was now subject to the commands of His
God and Father.
The Ruler would show how
well He knew how to obey.
He would prove
to us the true blessedness of obedience.
We are not hardly dealt by, in being set in
the place of subordination.
The
Father,
displeased and repelled by the disobedience of men
and angels, here
could rest in love.
The commands He gave
His Son were
ever observed.
No chill came over His affection, by seeing
how lightly His words were regarded.
Love
and
obedience go together; and out of disobedience
springs enmity; as we see by
Satan’s career, and the mischief of one evil act in
The
Father’s
love to the Son was one of perpetual approval,
bursting forth at some
special act of obedience, or of forbearance; as at
His baptism, and at His
taking His place as the rejected Messiah.
This love of the Father abode on the Son, not
only in spite of His
lowliness and suffering, but in consequence of it. It is part
of our calling too, to do well and
to suffer for it.
[Page 207]
Perceive, then, fellow-believers, how
well pleasing to God is obedience!
Though not under Moses’ commands, we are
under those of the Son of
God. Christ
is Lord. Show
your belief in that foundation-truth, by
your visible submission to His authority.
‘Why
should I be baptised?’
say some believers.
‘I can be saved without
it!’ So you can! But that very
plea
shows the coldness of your heart, and that the
motives here presented by the
Saviour have not entered your soul.
Is your
salvation the supreme object!
Or is not the
glory of God
greater
still? You
receive salvation, on purpose
that you may display your love, by your obedience
to the Son of God, your
Redeemer. Those
who so speak, and so
act, do not abide in Christ’s love.
And
of that He is sensible before all things.
Disobedience in something so easily
rendered, shows how little the work
of Christ, and the glory of God are regarded.
Christ is your Master; you
are His servant.
He is not only benevolent, but He is
righteous
also. In
return for so great love, He
expects obedience.
The absence of it
chills Him. ‘Because
thou art luke-warm, and neither hot nor cold, I am
about to spue thee out of my
mouth.’
On the contrary, He could
say of Himself – ‘Therefore
doth My Father love me, because I lay down My
life,
that I might take it again.
This commandment I
received of My Father.’
Would
Jesus stoop to a death He deserved not, a death so
agonizing,
shameful, and accursed, because it was the
Father’s command?
Yes! And
here is our pattern.
He faltered not at the final demand, but
rendered it; and now that Father, well-pleased, has
exalted Him above every
name.
11.
‘These things I have spoken
to you, that My joy in you
might abide, and that your joy might be complete.’
The
Saviour
states the gracious object which was in His view in
this matter. It
was not His design to impose a new
burthen, but to make known to us the secret of joy. When will
true joy be at its highest?
When our joy in Christ is like Christ’s in
the Father.
[Page 208]
We
find
oft sorrow in the world, in the church, and in
ourselves and our
circumstances.
Let is seek true and
constant joy in God, made known to us as Father and
Son. ‘Rejoice in the Lord alway;
and again I say, Rejoice!’
The
Saviour
intends to show how His love towards His disciples
may by them be
retained - by simple obedience.
There
is a love of compassion felt by
God and His Christ toward the lost
sons of men;
but there is
also a love of complacency, or of
delight, in those who are obedient
sons of God. Jesus
rejoices
more over the obedient than over the disobedient. So the
father of a family feels towards his sons,
when some thus honour their father by their
submission to his will, and some do
not.
All
desire
joy. ‘Lord,
that we may
feel,’ is the
prayer of many believers.
The way to the fulness of joy, and the constant flow of it is to obey
Christ as Master, as well as to love Him as
Deliverer.
12.
‘This is My commandment,
that ye love one another, as I
have loved you.’
In
the
legislation of Sinai, God’s rights are first set
forth; then the demands
arising from
Such
as
the love of God is towards His people, such is to be
the love of His people
toward one another.
As the love of
Christ Jesus led him to the deepest self-abasement
and surrender of life, so if
our brethren’s needs require it, we are to walk.
Christ’s
love
to us makes us
disciples. Our
love toward our brethren shows
us disciples. To
love as Christ has
loved! There
is a mountain-top towards
which we may ever be approaching but to which we all
shall never attain.
The
[Page 209]
The
Saviour’s
chief command, then, refers to love of the
disciples.
The
Israelite
was to love his follow Israelite, because God, the
God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, had loved them; as shown by their
redemption out of
For
their
God had not loved other nations as He had loved
Many
rest
on the Law’s commands of love; as if they were on
the same level as the
Gospels. Most
instructive it is to see
how different in reach, and in quality, the love
required by the Law was.
‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,’
was a word which included only
the Israelite. Law
itself distinguished between what was
conduct towards an Israelite, and conduct and
feeling towards one not so (Lev.
25: 39-46; Dent. 15: 2, 3).
To what extent did their God love the
stranger? Dent.
10: 19 - “He loveth the stranger, in giving him food and
raiment.
Love ye therefore the stranger; for ye were strangers in the
Christian love, then, it is which is here treated
of. Towards
the world it is founded on a
love of compassion, and on a redemption far greater
than that of
The
love
now required is like that of our God; (1) of
compassion towards the world;
(2) of complacency (or like-mindedness), towards our
fellow-redeemed ones;
redeemed, not by power, but by the suffering of the
Son of God!
[Page
210]
13.
‘Greater love than this hath
none, that a man lay down
his Soul for his friends.’
Jesus
must
in all things have the pre-eminence.
‘But is it not a greater thing,’
say some, ‘to lay down life
for enemies?’
Yes, but Jesus is now speaking to
friends. In
relation to them, what is
there greater than the giving up of life for them? The
Saviour’s death has two aspects: one
towards the world, one towards the saved.
The world is now removed from our Lord’s
eyes, and Jesus is speaking to
His beloved ones.
It is not properly, ‘lay
down His life.’
It is really ‘his
soul.’
The presence of the soul in the body is the cause of life.
But
while ‘life’ is a
fleeting thing, the ‘soul’
is an abiding part of the man.
It departs at death, it returns to the
body
in resurrection.
Hence it should ever be
remembered that Jesus did not lay down one life, and take a second. He laid down His
soul, and
in resurrection took again the same soul.
John 10: 17,
‘Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down my soul, that I may
take it again.’
This
laying
down of the soul was the fulfilment of the hints and
shadows of the Old
Testament sacrificial system.
The
visible soul, or the blood of the animal, was poured
out to make atonement for
the guilty soul of man.
A money-offering
was to be made, when
14.
‘Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.’
It was the greatest
commendation
of Abraham that God deigned to call him His friend. And Isaiah through
the
grace of God connects
Jesus is our Master, and
He would have us to know it.
We
are
not set free from Moses and his Law to do our own
will. The
intolerable yoke of the Law lifted off,
we are to take Christ’s ‘yoke
upon us, and to learn of
Him.’
‘For
His yoke is easy, and His burthen light,’ Matt.
11: 29, 30.
We
are in great danger of forgetting this in our day,
in the thought of
Christ’s goodness towards us; His claims upon us
in return being quietly
shelved.
Jesus’
friends
are also servants.
He has shown
His friendship by His dying in our stead.
We cannot show Him the same act of
friendship. Instead,
therefore, He calls for our
obedience.
15.
‘No longer do I call you
servants (slaves),
for the servant
(slave) knoweth
not what
his Lord doeth; but you I have called friends, for
all things whatsoever I have
heard from My Father I have made known to you.’
‘I have called you friends.’ Jesus is
the second Adam.
Of the first Adam it is said, ‘Whatsoever
Adam called every living [Page
212]
creature that was the
name thereof,’
Gen.
2: 19, 20.
Does Jesus, then, call
His disciple ‘a friend’? He is so,
in a higher sense than
Here
is
a second manifestation of His friendship.
His death as the atoning sacrifice in our
stead was necessary for our
deliverance from the grasp of justice.
But the communication of our purposes and
plans to another, is another
exhibition of friendship.
And this the
Son of God has done.
It was wonderful
that we should be delivered from the destruction
which our sins deserved, by
the death of the Son.
But it is a
further grace, that the enemy should be made a
friend; and that to us as
friends the counsels of God should be made known.
A
beautiful illustration of several points of this
passage is contained in 1
Samuel 20.
David is in sore peril from the father of
Jonathan. He
presents, therefore, the whole case before
his friend. His
friend undertakes to learn
his father’s mind concerning David, and to let him
know it. They
agree that David shall hide at a certain
spot, and hear Jonathan’s words.
Those
words would convey no meaning to the servant, while
to David they would be
significant of what was to become of him (35-42). Jonathan
to David made known the feelings of
his father, who hated David.
Jesus makes
us know the feelings of a Father who loves us.
The full revelation of the Father’s counsels
to the disciples looked
onward to the descent of the Holy Ghost.
Still the words which the Holy Spirit was to
make use of to instruct
them in the plans of God were mainly given already.
Moses
could
not so speak to
But
to
us there is an unfolding of the nature of God, and
the loftiest sonship is
granted to us in our union with the Son of God.
Moses knew not of the secret counsel of God
to leave his nation for ages
under their unbelief, while He
was
bringing in [Page 213] another body of higher standing than
“The servant knows not what his
Lord does.”
It is no duty of the master to tell him. But David
and Jonathan can unfold to one
another their hopes and fears, each in full
confidence of the love of the
other.
The
Father
loves the Son, and shows Him all that He does. The Son in
turn makes known to us the love of
God, by discovering to us His counsels.
‘I have heard from My Father; I
have made known to you.’
Here our Lord takes His place of
superiority
above all sons and servants.
Why does He
not say, ‘Whatever I have
heard from our
Father?’
Thus in a thousand ways
the Saviour lets us know His greatness, in spite of
His condescension; lest we
should forget the gulf which severs us by nature
from Him, and which grace can
never wholly fill up.
The
Saviour
was in communication constantly with His Father,
receiving direction
concerning His purposes, and instruction concerning
what He was to perform in
return day by day.
Let others seek to know the secrets of
families, or the secrets of the courts of earth, and
the counsels of the rulers
of this present evil age.
It
is given to us to learn, if we will,
from the pages of the Old Testament and the New, the wonderful counsels of our God concerning His Son, and those whom
His Son has taken into fellowship with Himself.
16,17. ‘Ye
chose not Me, but I chose you, and set you that ye should go
and bear fruit, and that
your fruit should abide; that whatsoever ye shall
ask the Father in My name, He
may give to you.
These things I command
you, that ye love one another.’
[Page 214]
The
choice
here is a choice to bear fruit, such as could only be
borne through abiding in the Vine.
‘I have set you.’
Here Jesus seems to present Himself as
planting a vineyard, and one that
should bear fruit. This was fulfilled in their
going, or travelling on their
apostolic journeys, as commanded (Matt.
28: 19).
Their fruit would be (1) the graces they
would show in their work and sufferings,
and (2) the Churches they would raise to Christ.
The church, then, that is now found all
over
the world, is the abiding result of the apostles’
labours.
If we refer it to Christians in
general, they are here looked at as workers for
Christ. And
while the sons of disobedience have no fruit - for the works of darkness
are ‘unfruitful works’
- theirs, on the
contrary, follow after them.
All
work for Christ requires prayer - and
prayer enlarges and confirms, and makes abiding
work. Prayer
and the bringing forth of fruit go
together.
Moses
could
speak of
He
who
creates a relationship may lay down the terms of it. They were
not the first to choose Christ, but
He to choose them.
There will be two
partly different views of these words, according as
we regard them as spoken to
the eleven, considered as apostles; or as simple
disciples. The
Lord Jesus in calling them had acted on
the mind of His Father.
His call led
them to leave their occupations, and to follow Him. They had
in themselves no claims upon Him for
this distinction.
He was pleased of His
bounty to select them, not only to be apostles, but
to be of His saved
ones. Here
the deeper choice embracing
their salvation comes into view, now that Judas was
no longer with them.
It is not ‘ordained
you.’
That is an
ecclesiastical word used by the Established Version,
because of King James’s
command. It
simply signifies, ‘I
appointed you.’
[Page 215]
To
what has
been observed concerning
the fruit of the twelve, we may add - Some of the
apostles wrote letters and
Gospels which have lasted 1800 years even to our
day, while many works of men,
highly thought of in their day, have been swept
away, and cannot be found.
But the principles of this passage are true
also of believers in general.
They were
chosen by the Father from all eternity.
This is the ground of our loving God, that He
first loved us.
While there is a love of God to the world, a
love of compassion, there is another and a higher
love of God, the love of
redemption, of full deliverance of His elect.
And our Father’s counsel concerning us is,
that we bear fruit, and that
our fruit abide.
The
17th verse is the
summing up of this discourse.
It is the chief command.
You
are
to love ‘one another.’ For
God has so greatly loved you, and has
set you in His Son.
Here is the inner
body, the fold of Christ’s sheep, the little company
of His friends.
He
has now to tell them respecting the great outside
body that hates God and them
- the seed of the serpent.
The more they
have of love and of the likeness to Christ, the more
would it despise and hate
them.
‘The world passes away, and its
fashion,’ and the acts
and buildings, and works of its great men; but the
doer of God’s will abides
for ever. Labour in the
flesh is oft swept away, but labour in the Lord
is not in vain; but will be
found to praise and glory at the appearing of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
In
order
to this there should be love of the brethren.
The body makes increase of itself by
love. Where
that is wanting, few, small,
short-lived are the fruits.
Again, then,
the love of those who are Christ’s ransomed ones is
pressed upon us.
18. ‘If
the world hateth you, ye know that it hated Me
before
(it hated) you.’
As
this
was a new body, peculiarly dear to God, it would in
especial manner draw
out the enmity of the world. It had flamed forth
first and fiercest against Him
who originated it.
There was in Christ no
failure in heart, or in way, or
in lip, or in [Page 216] wisdom, to account for this hatred.
He came in power, but power in grace, doing
good. But
‘man both saw
and hated both Him and His Father.’
There are two signs, then, that anyone
is a Christian (1) His love to Christ’s
people,
(2)
and the
world’s enmity against him.
It can only be avoided by becoming
like
the world. Jesus
could say to His
unbelieving brethren, ‘The
world cannot hate you.’
For
they were of it (7: 7). But He
could say of Himself, ‘It
cannot love Me.’
And
they
were about to feel the world’s enmity in a way they
had not experienced
before. Jesus,
while alive, was the
Great Rock that sheltered them.
Against
Him were aimed the blows of the adversaries. But they
were about to come into the front of
the battle, as soon as the Lord was taken away.
They were about to lose their comparative
insignificance by the descent
of the Holy Ghost upon them, and the active and
fruitful testimony which they
would utter. They
would then be like
those who sail out of a land-locked harbour into a
tempestuous sea.
Jesus, therefore, alike in grace and
wisdom,
prepares them for the trial.
These
things are closely connected.
From love
of Christ comes the love of Christians.
From the same source springs the world’s
hatred.
There
are
three great topics which the Saviour handles here. (1) Our
relation as believers to God and His
Christ. (2) Our relation to one another, as members of the new body belonging
to Christ the Head.
(3) And now thirdly,
how we stand as it regards the world.
Jesus
would
prepare disciples for the constant hatred and
persecution of those who
refuse the new revelation of God as brought by
Christ. This
was something new, something resulting
from the fresh arrangements of the dispensation
under which we find
ourselves. The
enmity between the seed
of the serpent and the seed of the woman was indeed
set from the first, and
foretold from the very Garden of Eden.
But
under
the Law it was not so fierce, not so settled and
deep. Moreover,
God under the Law put power into
the hands of His people.
Might was to be
on the side of righteousness.
[Page
217]
Appeal
might be
made to government, as
appointed by God, to redress their wrongs.
It was promised, too, that if they obeyed
fully the Lord’s will, either
their enemies should be at peace with them, or when
they took arms they should
flee from before them.
If fully
observant of Moses, the nations should hold them to
be a wise and understanding
people (Dent. 4: 6).
And
the
promises of Jehovah to obedient
But
now
that hatred had an especial sway and freedom.
The disciples had no power, but were to
bear
all with meekness.
The Lord foretells
that there would always be a body, the largest body,
which would refuse their
testimony to the truth, and hate themselves.
This is ‘the world.’ No matter,
though it call itself Christian,
it hinders the truth, because it condemns itself. It hates
the disciples and persecutes them.
19. ‘If
ye were of the world, the world would have loved
its own;
but because ye are not of the world, but I have
chosen you out of the world,
therefore the world hateth you.’
The
coming
of Christ has altered almost all things in the
spiritual world.
The choice of
Five
times
here occurs in this one verse - ‘the
world.’
We, as witnesses for Christ, are witnesses against
the world’s unbelief.
‘The world hates
you.’
Would you love it, and have it love you? ‘The
friendship of
the world is enmity with God.’
The renewed man is like one who has come from
another land, and speaks a
new tongue, and dresses in a different way.
And the natives vote the language to be ‘jabber,’
and the dress and fashion, ‘uncouth
and outlandish.’
There
are,
indeed, quarrels between worldly men about worldly
things. But
when Christ’s interests come in, they can
all join, like Herod and Pilate, against Christ. ‘These
upstarts, who
profess to be better than their neighbours, are
mere hypocrites!’
There
is,
indeed, much of blessing attendant on living in the
midst of nations called
‘Christian.’
But God asks realities now.
And
to be a Christian is to be more than born in a ‘Christian
land.’
The heart-refusers of
Christ, though called Christians, are of the world.
Thus
the
Saviour expounds, as the prophet, this new thing to
the disciples.
He shows them the deep root of this enmity
which was not a local or transient affair, but has
its roots in the nature of
God and man.
The
sons
of men are born but once, ‘flesh
of the flesh.’
The sons of God are born a second time,
through belief in the Son of God by the power of the
Holy Ghost. To
see and to accept the new tidings of God
demands a new nature.
This John states
at the opening of his Gospel (1:
12). Here,
then, the fruits of it are seen from
the side of the refusers of the truth.
This new nature takes the new-born sons of
God out from their old
spiritual level - the world and the flesh - and
gives them new hopes, new aims,
and a new source of light and strength. Then begins
the world’s enmity.
It assails with especial bitterness the
rite
which takes the new-born child of God visibly out of
his former standing.
For
God has marked the transit
from the old place of condemnation and death, by
a ceremony which carries [Page 219] on its face death to the old, and resurrection to
the new. Hence so many
difficulties to
most eyes encompass
the baptism of the
Christian.
It tells the world, ‘Here
I break with you.
I was one of you; now I have joined the
camp of Christ.’
If
then,
Christian, you find trouble from the world, wonder
not at it. It
is a proof to you that you belong to
Christ; that you have left the world, and are
beloved of God.
‘The world loves its own.’ It has a good word for those who will pursue its objects,
and speak hopefully of the great and good things
it has done and will do.
It loves not those who speak of its
deadly
enmity against God, of its vain pursuits, of its
incurable folly, and of judgment
about to sweep away all its glory.
‘I have chosen you out of the
world.’ The
‘I’ is emphatic.
Here Jesus takes the place of God.
How could any mere son of man, one of the
world only, talk of choosing
others out of the world? and specially out of a
nation already chosen of
God? This
observation carries decisive
force when we compare it with previous words of the
Most High concerning His
former people.
Israel
under
Moses’ conduct were marching to take possession of
the land of promise,
and as warriors of God they would find the
possessors of the land devoted to
death as incurably evil, and idolaters.
They were, therefore, to break down all the
sins and instruments of the
idolatry, which God hated.
‘For thou art an
holy people unto the Lord thy God, the
Lord thy God hath chosen thee
to
be a special people to Himself, above all people
that are upon the face of the
earth. The
Lord did not set His love on
you, nor choose you because ye were more in number
than any people, for ye were
the fewest of all people.
But because
the Lord loved you, and because He would keep the
oath which He had sworn unto
your fathers; hath the Lord brought you out with a
mighty hand, and redeemed
you’ (Dent. 7:
5-8; 4: 36, 87; 14: 1, 2).
Moses
never
thinks of speaking of the choice of
We
by
nature were of the world, flesh of the flesh; and
there had we continued
till our death, dead to God, alive only to the toys
of Time, had not God chosen
us, and led us out by a new nature imparted.
Now that bestowal of His was no sudden or new
thought after we began to
be. It
was His counsel from
eternity. There
is the doctrine of
election, which the world hates greatly; for it sets
all our boasted powers and
goodness aside.
And the world hates the
results, too, in robbing them of companions, who
will no longer run with them
to the same excess of riot.
20. ‘Remember
the word which I spake unto you, “No servant is
greater than his lord.”
If they
persecuted Me, they will persecute you also; if
they kept My saying, they will
keep yours also.’
‘Remember!’
Follies often lodge with us.
Wise
sayings often vanish from us.
We need a
call to remember the words of our God; when the
lighter and less valuable words
of men abide with us.
It
is due to the perfection of the disciple that the
world hate him. Else he is
not
like enough to Christ for the world to notice him. We inherit
as a legacy the world’s enmity to
Christ. But
how great is He, who from on
high regards and feels it! ‘Why
persecutest thou Me?’
This
severance
of the two parties was well known to Christ.
The hatred of disciples was but a
continuation of previous hatred against Himself. The
Saviour uttered this word more than once,
each time with a different application.
In chapter 12:
16, it was applied to
the disciple to teach
him to stoop as low as his
Master. If
the Lord of them all had
washed their feet, no plea of superior dignity on
the part of any of the
disciples would release them; for no disciple is
above his teacher.
But now our Lord turns it in its
application
to the world, to comfort the disciple under his
trial. So
we find it in Matt.
10: 24.
Then the Lord is
describing to the twelve the effects of their
mission to
Such
as
Christ found the world, such would they find it. It remains
morally and at heart the same from
age to age. To
them was given the Spirit
of Christ, and the world knows it not, refuses it,
and hates it. And
the hatred of heart breaks out into
hatred of word and of deed.
We,
as disciples of Jesus, are
commissioned to carry His word; a word of testimony to man’s sinfulness and God’s grace; a word of command to obey
the Son of God, and to leave the world and its
ways. That
word
The
Saviour
here removes a hindrance to the peace of His
disciples. For
was not God on the side of the great and
the learned? ‘Who
were they, ignorant fishermen, that they should
set their thoughts against the
judgments of far wiser men?’
They
who boasted of Jehovah as their God knew Him not,
and from their fathers’ days
were resisting His Spirit.
Men
are
judged by the Highest according to their conduct
towards the disciples of
His Son.
21.
‘But all these things will
they do to you, because of
My name, because they know not Him that sent Me.’
‘Rejection of your testimony,
persecution of your persons,
all will spring out of this source - you belong to
Me, you bear My name, you
partake My Spirit.’ Hereby the Christian
sees how true the word of God
is.
He
who
has received Christ and His truth does not need to
study books of evidence
on Christianity.
Proofs of its truth [Page
222]
spring up unasked and
unsought. Specially
to most young and
true-hearted Christians comes at first with strong
surprise the bitterness
which his new profession calls out from former
friends. Let us remember that to us it is given now to follow a
rejected
Christ. It
will not occur again any more for
ever. It
is but a brief scene.
It is a something strange.
For the mind of nature expects blessings
of
all kinds to follow on the doing of God’s will.
But to us it is given to bear Christ’s
rejected name through an
unbelieving world, which will neither accept God’s
tidings of present mercy, or
of future judgment.
‘To do well, and
suffer
for it’
is our peculiar calling; a calling
which the angels on high would delight to choose,
if it were permitted them.
For it is
treading in the steps, and
bearing the reproach of the Son of God.
And
it carries with it glory in the
day to come.
Those
who helped and fought beside David in the
day of his desertion
and flight, were the men to be promoted and
exalted when he took the
kingdom.
So
shall it be according to God’s word in the
day to come (Eph.
1: 9-12).
See, then, Christians, and follow
the
hope of your calling (5:
18).
The
sufferings
of the believer are for Christ’s name’s sake.
This name drew out the fury of the heathen
of
old. ‘Are you a Christian -
a Christ’s man?’
‘I am.' ‘Away
with him to
the lions!’
That name of
glory in heaven was warrant enough for death on
earth. But
the perception of this truth carries
great comfort.
This enabled apostles to
bear with glad heart the stripes of pain and hatred
which the great and learned
of
He
who
knows not the Son is ignorant of the Father.
None know God now who seek Him anywhere
save
in Christ. God
is still the God of
creation, and men may discover and admire His
wondrous plans and workings as
Creator. But
the most advanced along
that line of pursuit may be still of the world, at
enmity with God, a refuser
of the only Saviour.
He who accepts not
Jesus as the Son of God sent from on high by the [Page
223] Father,
and
coming again to judge, is still ‘in
the gall of
bitterness, still in the bond of iniquity.’
22.
‘If I had not come and
spoken to them, they would not have
had sin but now they have no pretext for their sin.’
Our
Lord
here takes the post of superiority above all
previous messengers of God. ‘
Unbelief
is
the crowning sin, which heads up all others in
un-forgiveness.
Faith and love go together.
Unbelief and hatred are also a pair.
The
Saviour’s
coming took away all excuse.
Man could not lay the blame upon the
ignorance or the misconduct of the
messenger, as that which stayed the force, and the
course of the message.
The
foes
of Christ pretended zeal for Moses; but it would not
avail. A
greater than Moses had arisen. Ignorance
cannot now be pleaded as before-time.
‘The times of
ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth
all
men everywhere to repent.’
Especial
grace
had been shown, and is still being shown to the
world. Christ
has come in grace down from on
high. He
left His glory, the form of
God. He
has tabernacled on earth, not in
glory, but in humiliation; that He might speak with
men face to face.
It was not so once.
God once kept His distance, only rarely
visiting one of His servants for an hour or so.
In David’s or Solomon’s day, God came not to
the Gentiles. If they would
know God they must travel to His city, though they
were situated at the ends of
the earth. He
who would worship Jehovah
must go up to
[Page 224]
How terrible the
destruction of those who push aside
the grace of the Son of God!
23.
‘He
that hateth
Me, hateth My Father also.’
Christ
is
the test of men.
To love Christ is to
know God, as now capable of being fully known.
As the magnet attracts, and is the test of
iron filings, so is Christ
the test of men.
Since Jesus had proved
Himself the Son of God, hatred of the Son proved
hatred of the Father also.
The
Jews
professed to love and worship God, and asserted that
their hatred of
Christ was founded on His blasphemously attributing
to Himself equality with
the Father. But
that was because they refused
evidence; and what they could not refute they hated. The
disease of Adam extends to all his
sons. Disobedience
to God wrought fear
and hatred. How
deep the root of
sin! And
if men refuse the remedy,
perish they must!
That the culprit
should hate the law that condemns him, and the judge
that passes sentence, is
easily understood; but that he should hate One who
brought tidings of pardon,
is not easily comprehended.
If the
self-surrender of Christ for our salvation does not
remove enmity, what can?
The
Son
is the off-shining of the Father’s glory, the
express image of His
person. He
came to discover to us and to
Christian!
hold
fast this testimony in your heart! (Rom.
8: 7).
There are many of believers even, who will not credit that the heart of
nature is at its root enmity
against God; enmity both against
His justice, and His mercy.
This is God’s testimony here and
elsewhere. Many
think, that all that is
requisite for salvation is to reason with a man, to appeal to him, to show him the consequences of his
conduct, and to call on him to repent.
Here is given us the reason why such appeals
produce so little
effect. The
heart loathes the God to whom
he is called to draw near, and obey.
‘How is it, then,
that there are so many high-minded, amiable
people in the world that seem to delight in God?’ They may
be pleased with God regarded as
Creator, and with His works; they may delight in a
God supposed to be goodness;
while man is at bottom good, and only partially
evil, but capable of recovery
by moral means used.
But against God and
His Son, as manifested in the Scriptures of the New
Testament; against the doctrines
of man’s entire depravity, and his entire ruin,
capable only of being removed
by the sovereign grace of Father, Son, and
[Holy] Spirit,
such will recoil in displeasure. They
admire the God of Nature; the God of Revelation they
hate.
24.
‘If I had not done among
them the works which no other
ever did, they had not had sin; but now they have
both seen, and hated both Me
and My Father.’
In
verse 22 Jesus
appealed to His words, as
unlike those of any other; and laying under
condemnation all who accepted Him
not on their ground.
Here He appeals to
His works as constituting another ground of
condemnation. There
was entire accordance in the testimony
of these two evidences.
This
word
‘works’ may take in
His whole life.
(1) And that had been sinless.
He challenged enemies, and His twelve
apostles, after His publicly living before them, to
convict Him of [Page
226]
sin. Here,
then, was one grand superiority to
previous messengers of God.
Of all
others whose lives are written, we can point out the
flaws. Here is not one.
(2) Moreover, chief among His works had
been
His wonders of power and grace.
They
were ‘signs’ - proofs
of His mission.
They indicated, too, the character of
Himself, and His Father.
In our day
miracles are depreciated.
But Scripture
owns their power, as testifying to the reality of
the commissioning of any by
God
This
comes
early into notice in the case of Moses.
God says to Him, ‘Go,
take my message to
Now
the
signs which Jesus wrought were more in number, and
greater in power than
those of Moses.
They were so numerous as
to affect the whole people, and to lead the more
conscientious to enquire,
whether they were not enough to prove that Jesus was
the promised Messiah (7:
31). ‘When the Christ cometh will He
do more signs than those which
this man hath done?’
The very
foes that plotted against Him were moved (11:
47). ‘What do we? For this
man doeth many signs.’ But
their
counsel thereupon was only to destroy the messenger.
The
Holy
Spirit, too, in this Gospel, at the close of our
Lord’s public ministry,
insists on
[Page 227]
Jesus
describes
those works as what never man before had done. It was so.
Such were the walking on the water, the
curing by a word at a distance,
the opening the eyes of one born blind, the raising
to life of one on whom
corruption had begun.
Accordingly, when
the dumb man spoke, after the demon who possessed
him was cast out, the people
said, ‘It was never so seen
in
Moreover,
where
even the miracles were such as had been done before,
they were done in
such a style as to a ready mind to prove the
Saviour’s superiority.
All other workers of miracles implied or
affirmed, that the power whereby they wrought was
not their own, but
God’s. Jesus,
however, in working His
signs, did them by a word, as One possessed of the
power in Himself.
Moses, for overlooking this truth of his
servant-ship
in the matter, on one occasion, is rebuked and
punished. But
the Saviour again and again works is if
by His own power.
‘Lord, if Thou
wilt, Thou canst make me clean.’
‘I
will, be thou
clean.’ And
the Most High is not jealous and
indignant at this seeming invasion of His attributes
and glory, but the miracle
takes place at once. This, then, was the sign of the
Doer being, indeed, what
He called Himself -
the Son - Who, in
whatever He said or did, pleased always the Father.
The
refusal,
then, of evidence so sufficient drew out the
sinfulness of unbelief to
a greater height than ever before known.
It was a just death if a Jew should despise
Moses, the servant of
God. How
much more to refuse and slay
the Son? Sin,
then, admits of degrees
increasing in blackness.
Each will be
judged according to the evidence of the truth
presented to him.
The issue is – ‘They
have
both seen and hated both Me and My Father.’ The Son of
God had come down in grace, with
words of goodness and deeds of mercy.
The
signs He gave attested His mission, and the new name
of God. But
they saw the Son, [Page
228] and
hated Him. They
denied His relation to the Father.
They hated Him, as unlike themselves; and
as
not bearing witness how good and excellent they
were; but exposing their
sin. He
came not as the Messiah they
looked for, the Christ of
John,
then,
is the witness that the world, whether Jewish or
Gentile, hates the new
character of God visiting lost man in grace, as
Father, Son, and Spirit.
Here is the true reason why the message of
the Gospel finds so few receivers.
Some
may attribute the small effect to the want of
learning, or of grace, or of
preaching power, in the messengers.
The
real reason at the root of all is the hatred of the
heart to God as He is
revealed. Unless
this is removed, man
must be unhappy for evermore.
He is the
guilty subject, resisting his God and Governor, and
smitten for his sins.
Let
us,
then, who have fellowship with the Lord, in His
character of Father and
Son, and who find in it our joy, give thanks to our
God (1 John 1.)
The days are more and more advancing to the
time of the Antichrist, who
will deny both the Father and the Son.
Refusers of this truth will, in consequence,
detach themselves from the
How
great
the power of our God in goodness, who changed our
heart and turned enmity
into love! Let
us seek to rescue the
victims of this enmity.
Is
there
any reader who is persecuted because he is a child
of God? Be
not cast down!
Your trouble tells of your being like Christ,
and on your way to glory.
The
nearer
man approaches to God when manifested in justice,
the greater his fear. If He be manifested
in mercy, and
pressed on his notice, the greater
his hatred.
25.
‘But (this cometh to
pass) that the word might
be fulfilled which is written in their
Law, “They hated Me withont a cause.”’
When there is a controversy
between two parties, and a
[Page 229] departure in
heart from one another, it is generally the case
that, as people say - often
without examination – ‘There
are faults on both sides.’
Could
it
be said so here?
The Jews no doubt
had a good deal to say against Christ, and specimens
of their speeches are
given. But
they really proved thereby
their own sinfulness, not that of our Lord.
He was the Father’s wisdom and grace.
He avoided what might have needlessly
irritated them.
The disciples, then, were not to give up the
controversy, as if the great and learned of
The words cited belong
chiefly to two Psalms:
the thirty-fifth
and the sixty-ninth. The thirty-fifth
is a Psalm of
David’s. In
it Christ, as the Righteous Man under the
Law, asks of Jehovah to maintain His cause against
foes. The
Gospel of John is a witness of the
fulfilment of verse 4
at Jesus’ arrest.
As the enemies of the Righteous One they
must
be smitten. Verse
7 alludes to the snares laid for Christ by
His foes. Verse 11
tells of the false witnesses at His trial.
They rendered Him evil for good (12). When He
was low and heavy, they
rejoiced. At
their feast of the Passover
they showed their hypocrisy.
They durst
not enter the hall of Pilate, lest they should be
defiled. But
they thought nothing of going with the
multitude to do evil, of seeking false witness, and
urging on the death of the
righteous (15, 16). In the
day, then, [Page 230]
when justice renders to each according to his works,
the plea of the Psalmist and of our Lord against
them according to Law, will be
executed. The
difference between the
enemies of Christ and His friends will be awfully
manifested then (26-28).
All
things
must glorify their Creator and Sustainer.
The wicked glorify God unwillingly.
Unknowingly and in enmity they fulfil His
will. They
accomplish His prophecies;
they discover the deep-rooted sin, which, as the
Lord testifies, abides in man,
and can be removed by no mere means, and no appeal. But the
Psalms, which describe men’s sin,
foretell also their punishment.
The
Psalms
of this kind received a partial and primary
fulfilment in David.
But in Christ, the fully Righteous One, the
enmity
of the wicked came to its height.
If
you,
Christian, have to encounter the hatred and
persecution of the world, and even of some of God’s people, marvel not.
It is part of your calling.
It will turn to your glory if you bear it
aright. So
Jesus foretold it should be
with all His disciples.
But the consolation of the coming kingdom shall more than make up for it (Luke 6: 20-26).
The
same
passage occurs in Ps.
69., which is so
often referred to Christ.
Jesus here, as
the Righteous One under the Law, appeals against the
trouble wherewith His
enemies trouble Him.
Ver. 3
gives His place (apparently) on the
cross. In
ver.
4 is a passage our Lord cites.
Ver. 7
is applied to our Lord by Paul in Romans
15: 3.
Ver. 8
refers to Jesus’ brethren’s - sons of Mary - refusal
of Him. Ver. 9
tells of His zeal in purging the
‘In their Law.’ Here it signifies the Old Testament, which is
pervaded by the principle of Law.
The
Jews resisted Christ in the name of Moses and his
Law. But
it only witnessed their sin and coming
woe. They
thought Moses on their side;
but he accused them to the Father.
‘In their Law.’ Why does not Christ say – ‘In
our Law’? Because He
was about to bid adieu to it in
death and resurrection.
When pushed to
execute the Law against the adulteress, He, without
refusing directly, stayed
the execution by raising a question new to the men
of the Law, but fitted to
convince them of their own need of mercy.
‘We have a Law,’
said they to Pilate, ‘and by
our Law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God’
(19: 7).
‘Their
Law.’
God’s Law no longer, since the people are
rejected who possess it.
It is now the
dispensation of the grace of God (Acts 20: 24). As the
26, 27. ‘But
when the Comforter is come, Whom I will send unto
you
from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, Who
proceedeth from the Father, He
shall bear witness of Me.
And ye too
shall bear witness, because from the beginning ye
have been with Me.’
The
‘I’ is emphatic.
Here again you have the Trinity of Persons in
the Godhead manifestly
supposed. The
Father, Son, and Spirit
bear witness alike to the truth.
The
Spirit is here supposed to proceed from the essence,
both of the Father and the
Son. The
present tense, ‘proceedeth,’
marks the eternity of the
procession. This
is the true view of the
Godhead, in opposition to the Gnostic ideas of
emanations.
Two great truths are announced
concerning the [Holy] Spirit.
(1) His coming from the Father.
(2) His
energy as the Spirit of truth. Thus alone would
these
unlearned and ignorant men be
able to
withstand the great and learned of their day. Thus
only
can the unlearned now be made wise.
How much more [Page
232] they oft understand of God and
of things divine, than those taught by man!
The Holy Spirit is God, a Person conversant
with all the secrets of Godhead; even as a man’s
spirit knows his deep
things. He
is a Person; for He is a
witness. He
is sent as a Comforter.
He goes forth as the Spirit of God.
He
is
the Spirit of knowledge, producing obedience in
the heart of God’s people;
even as Satan is the spirit of error and of
disobedience. As
the Spirit of the Son sent down from
above, He
gives life, and makes sons of
God in Christ the
Son (Phil.
1: 19).
The
Spirit’s
procession comes from both Father and Son.
The Father and the Son jointly sent Him. On this
attitude of the ever-blessed Three
our dispensation turns.
Jesus to the
Jews witnessed of the Father; the Spirit should witness of the Son.
In surveying these depths
of the Godhead let us walk
humbly and adore!
Great
as
was the coming of that Divine Person, how silent our
Lord is about the
results! He
is the Divine Spirit of
Truth! Yet,
while man says, ‘The truth
is great, and will prevail,’
God says not so; even when the Spirit of
God
takes the truth.
It was not the case,
even when apostles spoke by inspiration the words of
God, and backed them by
miracle. It
was not so, even when
Stephen by inspiration (a man of miracle, too)
argued with them out of their
own Scriptures.
The force of the word
was, indeed, intense; but their resistance was
intenser still, till they
gnashed upon him with their teeth.
‘Thou shalt not
convince me, though thou hast convinced me.’
The
dates
fixed by man are oft of small import, but the times
fixed by God are
cardinal points.
Thus is it with the
coming of the Holy Ghost.
What are the
characteristics of Christianity, as distinct from
Judaism? Judaism
was the trial of the best scion of
the old tree, to see if under God’s hand it would
bring forth fruit.
God did not dwell with any of the
patriarchs. But
as soon as He had
redeemed
In
the
former occurrences of the promise (14:
17-26)
the mission of the Comforter was principally viewed
as the work of the
Father. But
in this verse the Saviour
shows the equality He has as God with the Father and
the Spirit, and now speaks
of the coming of the Holy Ghost as the result of His
sending from
the
Father. Thus
the entire harmony of the Blessed
Three is shown us.
Before that, the
Spirit was with the Father in the heaven of heavens.
Three
times
in this discourse of our Lord He is called ‘the
Spirit
of Truth.’
That is to mark
out to us His great characteristic; as opposed to
the many spirits of falsehood
abroad in the earth, leading captive the sons of men
to false views of God and
His worship, the supporters of heathenism and of all
false religion.
These were in full activity in John’s day, so
that he and Paul were obliged to give us marks
whereby to discern the
difference between the Spirit of Christ and the
spirits of falsehood (1
John 4.)
Just
a
glimpse is given us of the inner relationships of
the Persons of the Godhead
among themselves, in those words – [Page 234] ‘who proceedeth from the Father.’
The Son proceeds from the Father.
The Holy Spirit proceeds from both the
Father
and the Son. The
Holy Ghost is called ‘the
Spirit of the Son’ in Gal.
4:
6. He
is also called ‘the Spirit of
Jesus,’
Acts 16: 7;
and ‘the Spirit of Jesus
Christ’,
Phil 1: 9.
He
is
a Person; and not merely ‘an
influence.’
But He is content to go on the missions of
the Father and the Son; even as the Son went on the
mission of the Father.
What a lesson this to the Christian,
against
the perverse pride of human nature - the refusal of
subordination; the desire
to be pre-eminent, and to do our own will!
The
Spirit
should bear witness, not to His own powers and
worthiness, but to the
Son’s. This
you will find abundantly
proved in the Acts; which is a record of the changes
for good which began with
His descent, and with His testimony to the work of
the Son. See
the discourse of Peter at Pentecost, when
all the one hundred and twenty were full of the Holy
Ghost. What
is it?
A witness to God’s accrediting of Jesus, and
of the nation’s perverse
and wicked treatment of Him.
A testimony
to the Father’s undoing in resurrection, of the
death which they had inflicted
on Jesus; with His ascent to heaven, and pouring out
of the Spirit in
power. The Spirit it is
who causes the truth to take effect against the
many hindrances it meets on
this evil earth.
Apostles
also were to bear witness, as honest and intelligent
men, of what they had seen
and heard, while dwelling with the Son of God.
They were not solely organs of the Holy
Ghost; they were witnesses
before He came down, of what Jesus said and did. There
were, therefore, two classes of
testimony; the human, and the divine.
Peter appeals to this in his word to the
rulers of his nation.
He testifies to their sin in slaying the
Lord
Jesus, and to God’s exaltation of Christ to His own
right hand.
Here
the
Holy Spirit supplements the testimony of the twelve. The Holy
Spirit witnesses of Jesus’ elevation
on high, of which the apostles as men could know
nothing by mere sense.
Peter, then, [Page 235]
adds, ‘We are witnesses of
these things, and so also is the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to
them that obey Him,’
Acts
5: 32.
Who were right? Those who
slew Jesus? or those who declared Him the Son of God
risen, and adored
Him? The
supernatural gifts bestowed
upon believers in a risen Christ were the sufficient
proofs. And
as there was no denying either side of
the assertion, and yet they would not yield to
Christ there was nothing left
but to seek to slay the witnesses.
Our
religion
is not one of mere enthusiasm founded on visions. It rests
upon facts certified by men, and
seen by unbelievers.
Those facts,
however, in their spiritual significance and meaning
and value, are expounded
for us by the Holy Ghost.
*
*
*
CHAPTER 16
[Page 236]
1-3. ‘These
things have I spoken unto you, in order that ye
may not
be stumbled.
They shall put you out of
the synagogue, yea, the hour cometh that every one
that slayeth you will think
that he is offering service to God. And these
things will they do, because they
have not recognised either the Father or Me.’
The
Saviour,
in wisdom and goodness made known the course of
constant refusal which
the disciples, specially as embodied in the church,
would have continually to
suffer. They
and we take the place of
witnesses to Christ.
We in a certain
sense take up the place of witness to the Father and
Son, which Jesus Himself
occupied while on earth.
As He was
rejected, so are the apostles and we.
We
are witnesses of a rejected Christ to a world of
evil, which refuses the Holy
Spirit and His testimony.
We are
witnesses of the Spirit of truth against Satan and
His spirits of error, which
rule the world.
Hence the world
dislikes, despises, hates, persecutes.
Every one that will walk as Christ did, and in His Spirit, will suffer
persecution.
Be
not
stumbled, then, believer!
Do not
argue, as if when you are hated the world must be
right in its hatred, and you
erroneous, or unfaithful in your testimony.
So Peter warns us (1
Peter 1: 7; 4: 12).
The
Saviour
is unfolding the outlines of the new dispensation in
which we now find
ourselves - the economy of the Holy Ghost - the time
of God’s testimony, and of
the ill-treatment of His witnesses; making manifest
the wickedness of the
world, and of its Prince.
It would be
the witness of God upheld by the Spirit of God, yet
refused and hated.
[Page 237]
The
disciples’
expectation of
Danger
of
stumbling, then, was before the disciples.
They fell in that night of the Saviour’s
betrayal. They
did not recover till after the
resurrection. There
was danger also in
the period after that, when persecution for the
truth should be upon them in
all its fierceness, and a state of things around
them unlike wholly to what
they had anticipated out of the Law and the
Prophets: Israel, their nation,
utterly and with loathing refusing Christ; the great
men and rulers scorning their
ignorance, and opposing them with force even unto
death. There
was danger lest they should say, first
in their hearts, then with their lips, ‘We
have been
deceived. The
wand of a mighty enchanter
has been upon us, and we were under a delusion,
which now is scattered.
We return back sorrowfully to our place
under
Moses again.
We thought Jesus to be the
Messiah: we think so no longer!’
A
world of falsehood, led on by Satan, hates and
persecutes God’s worshippers and
witnesses of the truth.
It was gracious,
then, of our Lord to let them know that God’s
professed people would refuse
them, and seek their death.
The
words,
‘the hour,’ tell of a
special season,
which shall yet in its fulness come.
Gentiles shall arrive at such an idea through
false teaching yet to go
forth. ‘Every
one’ shall so [Page
238]
think; not Jews alone.
It
is very remarkable that the slaying of ‘heretics’
was called at one time, ‘Auto da fe’ – ‘an act of faith!’
How
great the blindness, to
imagine God pleased by the murder of His beloved
sons!
They
were
to be prepared to be refused by their
fellow-countrymen, as no longer of
the religion of their fathers. Though circumcised,
keeping the Law, and
abhorring idols, they would yet be put outside the
synagogue-worship of Jehovah
by
Had
But
God
would show to the world what fallen man under his
best circumstances
is. And
we may be thankful for
This
enmity
would proceed even to the infliction of death. They would
fancy themselves justified in
slaying those who were, as they said, leading them
to serve another God.
Vainly did apostles testify that they
believed in, and taught the God of their fathers,
the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. They
would not believe!
The
same
thing, too, would and did occur with the Gentiles. They could
tolerate the worshippers of other
gods than their own national ones.
But
these Christians were unlike all the world, in
principles and life.
They would own no God but their own; and
pronounced all other men blind, unclean, and lost. The Romans
denounced Christians as enemies of
the gods; foes of the Caesars whom they refused to
worship, rebels against the
laws, and enemies of men.
For they
testified of a God of judgment, who had already
condemned the world, and was
about to destroy the guilty.
To those
who cling to the world, as man’s appropriate and
only lawful sphere, the views
which Christ gives of the state and destiny of the
earth, its present rule by
Satan, and its utter destruction by fire, are
hateful.
Jews
and
Gentiles would think it a service done to God to cut
off such enemies of
God and man from the earth. The light of Christ
being refused, blindness
settles on the man; blindness greater than ever
before. Thus
was it with Saul.
He, the man of Law, honest and able,
persecuted to the death these dissenters from the
nation’s faith.
He scourged them in the synagogue, he
condemned them to death.
He was
sincere. He
thought he ought to put down
by force these teachers of another God.
He believed that Moses taught him to do so. Till he
saw himself guilty, lost, unable to
stand before the condemning Law, this was his
attitude. It
was the spirit and the conduct of one who
refused the new name of God, and the testimony to
man’s lost state.
[Page 240]
3. ‘These
things will they do unto you, because they have
not
known the Father or Me.’
God
had
now fully revealed Himself in the Son.
The Son made known the Father as His Sender,
by words of grace, and by
deeds of power.
But
None
is
a Christian, but he who owns Jesus as the Son of
God. It
is only under this new discovery of the
Godhead, that grace and peace for the sinner are
found.
None
can
own Jesus truly as the Christ, who confesses Him not
as the Son; that He is
a partaker in the new name and honours of the
Godhead.
Do we suffer on behalf of Christ and
God? How consoling the thought! Glory
shall
one day spring out of this to us!
But how little do the persecuting ungodly see
the woes coming on them,
as the consequence of this wickedness!
As the world knew not the Son of God when He
came, so neither does it
know the sons of God now.
We
are persecuted, because we belong to
Christ. And
those who with Christ
suffer, with Him shall reign.
The
Saviour
does not, through all this farewell discourse,
console the apostles
with promises of the world’s conversion. It
is not – ‘You
may suffer at the first outburst of the good news,
but your successors in the
ministry shall behold the world led to Christ’s
feet. You
may suffer, but you pave the way for
their triumph.’ No! All through the
dispensation this evil heart of
unbelief is to reign.
All through Satan
is the Lord and God of the world.
It is only after resurrection, in the new day when Israel is
turned to God, and Satan is imprisoned, that the
veil shall be torn away from
the eyes of the nations, and the reproach [Page 241] of being a servant of God shall be removed
(Is.
25.).
The root
of enmity which lies deep down in the heart of
the world, fostered by the
wickedness of Satan, will prevail all through the
time of mercy.
Not
till the wicked is cut off in judgment, shall the
generation to come serve the
Lord.
Here
Jesus
sets Himself on a level with the Father.
To know Him is to own the Father.
To refuse Him is to refuse God.
Under this trial Christians were not to be
upheld by power without, as
it was under the Law. Under the Law power was lodged
on the side of truth.
Jehovah would preserve the lives of the
obedient. Whatever the force of the enemy, a greater
force would be on their
side, delivering them.
We see some
marvellous specimens of this in the deliverance of
Daniel and his friends, when
the nation was reduced to be subjects and slaves of
a Gentile power.
Patience,
[and
perseverance] because
of
inward support by the Spirit of truth, is our
position. Patience;
because thus the Christ Himself,
the Way, the Truth, and Life, lived.
And
faith; because we see the Saviour
exalted by God, and the time of His victory and
[Millennial] Kingdom coming.
4.
‘But these things have I
spoken unto you, that when the
hour shall have come, ye may remember that I told
you. But
these things I told you not from the
beginning, because I was with you.’
Our
confidence
increases in a guide who can predict to us all that
we shall see,
and all that will befall us in a country we have
never travelled.
In the days of strife and suffering which
apostles
had to endure speedily thereafter, this prophetic
word of Christ sustained
them. The Gospel shines
out in all its fulness to sufferers for Christ. He
Who
has predicted the fight on the road has,
however, promised also the victory at
the close.
But
how
could our Lord say that He had not told them of this
before? Had
He not forewarned them of
sufferings? Had
He not even spoken of
the [Holy]
Spirit’s inspiration, to be granted to those in
peril of their lives because of
the truth? (Matt. 10.). He had.
But He had never placed
5.
‘But now am I going to Him
that sent Me, and none of
you is asking Me – “Whither goest Thou?”
But because I have said these things unto
you, sorrow hath filled your
heart.’
Here
is
Jesus’ formal leave-taking.
The time
of His abiding with them in the flesh ceased that
night. Jesus,
come forth from heaven to earth as
sent by the Father, was now returning to Him.
He sets before them, therefore, as the
Prophet of the Church, the trials
and the consolations attendant on this new
arrangement of God.
But
why
were they not more eagerly pressing with enquiries
concerning Jesus’
departure, its manner, and its object?
He
was
there to instruct them, had they but pressed Him
with their intelligent
enquiries.
But
had
not Peter asked, ‘Lord,
whither goest Thou?’
(13: 36).
Yes. But
it was with so little of
intelligence, that he thought he could go with the
Saviour all through the path
He was treading.
And Thomas afterwards
could say, ‘We know not
whither Thou goest.’
They
were
thinking only of their loss, not of Christ’s glory;
of the point He was to
leave, not of that at which He was to arrive.
The Coming One is named ‘the
Comforter’
in the view of this hour of sorrow.
But
the
Saviour now steps in with His gracious
interpretation of their
silence. It
was the stunning felt by
sorrow, which shuts the heart and lips.
Jesus was their joy and defence.
‘The Bridegroom was
with them.’
But the day was come, that the Bridegroom
should be taken from them.
Now is the
time of sorrow.
7. ‘But I tell you the truth. It is good for you
that I am going away; for if I go not away the
Comforter will not come unto
you; but if I depart I will send Him unto you.’
[Page 243]
The
‘I’ is emphatic.
As they were silent in their sorrow, Jesus
would Himself, without their
asking, inform them in the matter.
He
would disclose to them the arrangements of God’s
grace, which would raise, even
out of the Saviour’s departure, a blessing to them. The loss
was great; but the supply of that
loss in the coming of the [Holy] Spirit, the Comforter,
on the foundation supplied
by the Saviour’s atonement, and its acceptance with
God, would be an advance on
any blessing enjoyed then in consequence of our
Lord’s presence with them.
By
the
Saviour’s abiding with them in the flesh, no
redemption would be
gained. He
must atone, and after atoning
go up, and send the [Holy] Spirit, as the result
of His work completed.
The curse of Law and of sin must be
removed,
and the Son of Man raised from the dead must pour
His Spirit upon His members.
While
the
disciples were but a little flock, and confined to
It
was
better, therefore, for them that the Saviour should
depart. He
could not depart without the completion of
His work of grace, in His atoning death and
resurrection. Not
till then could they draw near to God as
their Father.
It is most observable, that not till
after His resurrection does our Lord call His
disciples ‘brethren.’ But
His sacrifice over, and Himself raised, this is the
first word He puts into the
mouths of His messengers. ‘Then said Jesus unto
them, “Be
not afraid, go tell My brethren that they
go into
The
Comforter
could not descend till Jesus had gone up.
[Page 244] Why not? Because the gulf
between God and sinners was not filled up, save by
the atonement which Jesus
made at His leaving the earth.
The
demands of God’s justice and Law must first be
satisfied, ere the blessings of
grace are free to visit the guilty; and the Holy
Ghost is able to dwell with
the sons of men.
But now that God is
glorified in the work of our Lord completed, the
Holy Ghost could come to dwell
with the Lord’s people.
The
Comforter-Spirit is come.
He can and
does work everywhere, and in the days of the
Church’s youth when inspired men
(‘prophets’) were
found in every church, there
was One who could be consulted in every case of
difficulty on the spot - the
Infallible Spirit of God.
‘No holy spirit’
was given upon earth, till the
glorification of Christ as the Righteous Son of the
Father. But now that God is
glorified in man as never by any other being, the [Holy]
Spirit is able to be present and to dwell in
individuals, and in the Church as Christ’s body, as
never before.*
[* See
‘The Rights of the Holy
Spirit In The House of God’
and ‘The Personal Indwelling of
the Holy Spirit’.]
Ten
days
after the Son’s ascent, the Spirit came down, and
abides with the
8-11. ‘And
when He is come, He shall convict the world of
sin, and
of righteousness, and of judgment.
Of
sin, because they believe not on Me.
Of
righteousness, because I go to My Father, and ye
see Me no more.
Of judgment, because the Prince of this
world
is judged.’
The
effects
of the [Holy]
Spirit’s
coming in two fields of action is sketched out for
us. His
work is partly on the world;
partly on the church.
His work upon the world resembles that which our Lord wrought as the Evangelist when He
went from place to [Page 245] place, testifying of the
sins of
His object is to gather men out of the
world (or Satan’s Kingdom) into the Church (or God’s
assembly), which
is waiting for the
1. His first
great topic is ‘Sin.’ Many now
think, and are saying, that the great thing for the
preacher to insist on is
the Love of
God. ‘Let
him dwell on the greatness of the goodness shown
to men in sending Christ, the
blessedness of the Christian now, and His glory
hereafter.’
But that is not God’s wisdom.
That is not the Spirit’s
usual way.
To tell most men of God’s goodness, and of
the present blessings, and future ones of
redemption, is like telling a man who
feels in health of the benefits of a bitter
medicine. He
feels no need of it, and prefers the
sweets of the world and the flesh to all the
spiritual benefits of the Gospel.
This
witness
was to be to
The
world
thinks that unbelief is a mere trifle; perhaps some
even defend it as ‘honest
and wise.’
They will find one day that ’tis enmity
against God, and hatred of His
truth.
But
the
Spirit’s plan is to begin with witnessing to man’s sinfulness,
and acts of sin. He
testifies of God’s demands, and of man’s
disobedience, and of the consequences
of God’s broken Law.
Here is enough to
awake the sinner from his dream of happiness in
transgression.
An eternity of fire lies before him.
How will he escape it?
[Page 246]
But
the
sinfulness of men to whom the Gospel news has come,
and who have not
accepted it, is far greater than the sin of those
who have merely sinned
against the light of nature, or the demands of Law. The
condemnation of the hearers of the Gospel
who have not accepted it, is the first theme of the
Holy Spirit. He
has come as the Witness to God’s mercy in
sending the Son, by whose sacrifice of Himself in
death are put away those
trespasses of man, which else must have stood
against them to cast them into
hell.
Now
to
hear of this great salvation and to slight it, is
sin enough to condemn to
hell. For
a man to have heard but once
of Christ and pardon, and yet not to seize on it
instantly, is condemnation. It
is bad enough to transgress Law, and to stand out
against the claims of God’s
justice. But
to despise mercy so great
to one in such guilty and perilous circumstances, is
the chief
condemnation. The
refusal of Christ to
the end is a sin which will cover with heaviest
wrath. Has
not Jesus been slain for sin?
Has He not risen, because sin is put
away? Have
not proofs amply sufficient
been granted? And
if it be the truth,
why do you not believe it?
Is there any
greater offence than to treat God’s embassy of truth
and grace as a lie?
2.
But the Spirit speaks also of righteousnes, as the result of Christ’s finished work.
This topic comes in graciously between the
two others:- ‘SIN’
and ‘JUDGMENT.’ Here is
the grace of God.
The usual course of things is ‘sin’
and ‘judgment.’
Sin
once entered, there is no righteousness; it is lost. And
justice has only to step in to seize the
offender, and to sentence him; when execution at
once begins. Yon[der]
young man has embezzled money as a clerk at a
bank. His
theft is detected.
The police are sent for, and he is
imprisoned. He
comes forth before the
bar as arraigned of crime.
His counsel
will do his utmost to stave off the proofs of his
sin. But
if those be sufficient to convict, the
penalty must follow.
Here - in the
Gospel of God’s grace - righteousness steps in between sin and judgment.
It is because of this that justice and her
stops of terror are bidden to
pause awhile.
[Page 247]
Righteousness
has come
after sin. After the
transgression of
Adam, and the unnumbered offences of his sons, one
Son of Man has entered our
world who never transgressed, who always obeyed; and
up to His last hour,
though tried by fire, His course was the love of
righteousness, the hatred of
iniquity. It
is by this title, ‘THE RIGHTEOUS ONE,’ that our
Lord stands distinguished
from all other men.
So the Holy Ghost
witnesses (Acts 3: 14;
7: 52; 22: 14; 1 Pet. 3: 18;
1 John 2: 1).
‘Ye denied the Holy
One, and the Righteous.’
The
[Holy]
Spirit
would first convince the world of Christ’s own
righteousness as the Perfect
One, in opposition to the charge of sin brought
against Him in His putting to
death as an impostor.
‘Certainly this was
a Righteous Man.’
The personal righteousness of Christ is
established by His resurrection and ascent to God’s
throne. But
this personal righteousness of Christ
would not alone and in itself bring us any
salvation. God
needs a righteousness for the
unrighteous, else how can He pronounce any sinner
justified? His
wrath is revealed against all
unrighteousness.
That this life of
obedience, and its merit are transferable to us,
constitutes the Gospel.
Paul was not ashamed of the Gospel, because
in it the righteousness of God is revealed (Rom.
1:
17). How
can a sinner become
righteous before God?
How can he pass
out of the world of the unpardoned and un-renewed,
and be received as of the
This
righteousness
is (1) from
Jehovah (Is. 54: 17);
(2) In Jehovah (45: 23).
(3) Jehovah Himself (Jer.
23: 6). Law’s requirement of righteousness
from the men of
The
Old
Testament prophets were instructed to testify that
of all the sons of men
not one was righteous.
But they told
also of God’s providing a righteousness for the guilty, a righteousness which should be salvation,
a righteousness which should be in the
Lord Himself, who should be our Righteousness.
The Justice of God is the destruction of the
sinner. The
righteousness of God is the salvation of
the believer (Is. 45:
24, 25; 46: 13; 51: 5-8; 54:
17; Jer. 23: 6).
Jesus’
departure,
then, out of the tomb, and visible ascent to heaven
were the proofs
of His righteousness.
A
day is appointed for judging and sentencing all the
unrighteous. The
Gospel speaks of the world’s prince as
condemned. Then
let us not love the
world! How
blind are they who serve a
prince condemned of God to everlasting fire!
His aiders and abettors will in the coming
day partake his doom.
Peter’s sermon at Pentecost was a carrying
out of these three points.
(1) A
discovery to
The Holy Ghost, the Spirit
of truth, come down to dissipate [Page 249]
the shades, and
scatter
the errors of Judaism, is to teach, as one of three
prominent doctrines
to be enforced on the world, the existence,
wickedness, and doom of the
devil. In
our day, philosophic
Christians are pooh-poohing this truth.
From whose spirit, reader, must that teaching
come, if the teaching
about him and God’s judgment on him be from the Holy
Spirit?
Mind,
the
Gospel to the world is not – ‘You
are a very good
sort of people, and only want a little instruction
and improvement;’
but, ‘You are ever living
in sin, as a continuous
state, until you turn to Christ!’
Is it not, ‘Now go
and do your best, and if
something is wanting at the last, Christ will make
it up.’
It is, ‘Guilty
sinner, nothing will save you but a righteousness
not your own; a perfect
righteousness, which is found in Christ alone!’ It is not,
‘God is
love, and you have only to look on His love to be
drawn to it.’
It is, ‘You have to do with a God of judgment, with
One who will render to each what
he deserves, and to the devil and his servants
torment in fire, day and night
for ever and ever!’
The last subject
of the Spirit’s testimony is JUDGMENT. This must
follow, as the consequence of
impenitence, and of righteousness refused.
God
is just, and He
must one day carry out His laws, and execute their
threats against the
guilty. And
justice will take effect upon
the world, and upon him who rules it.
An
usurper has seized on God’s earth, and uses power
against Him.
He used it against Christ unrighteously to
slay the Righteous One.
This cannot be
passed over by God.
If just and true, He
must cast down the usurper from his place of power
and mischief.
Iniquity
shall
not always triumph, as the consequence of God’s
patience. The
Most High has promised that His Son shall
reign over all.
It is fitting that
He should. To
the Son of Man Scripture
has assigned empire over all.
This was
assured to Jesus as the consolation when He was on
His way to His sufferings,
as we have seen (12:
27-32).
By justice, then, put forth in power, Satan
as the Accuser shall be cast down out of heaven, and
out of the earth into the
pit (Rev. 12.). His
iniquities are known, and increasing: he
never will repent.
[Page
250] The
sentence begun in the Garden
of Eden was confirmed in the Serpent lifted up under
the curse in the
wilderness; and again confirmed by our Lord’s words,
in view of Satan’s chief
work of evil in pressing on the death of the
Saviour. The
Holy Ghost then testifies, not of the
prevailing of mercy, to convert the whole world into
the Church; but of the
final blows of justice, judging the world and its
lord. Christ
must take the nations out
of the hand of Satan. The kingdom must be His who has earned it.
Up to the close of our dispensation, not
Christ, but the devil is the Ruler of the world.
God's
testimony
is, that while grace is active now, justice
is going to take its terrible
turn. Of
this Jesus gave warning (Is.
61.).
The Sermon at Pentecost, which introduces the
Gospel, bore witness, too,
of the enemies of Christ being made His footstool.
Satan’s
incurableness
is brought out by Christ’s mission.
Satan tempted the Son of God to worship
him!
and when that availed not, he roused men, Jew and
Gentile, to persecute the
Lord Jesus unto death.
He has sinned
evidently beyond forgiveness, and it will be to
God’s glory to put him out of
the world by force.
Jesus anticipated
that, as a necessary consequence of the voice from
heaven (12: 28). While
he is abroad on the earth,
the world’s accepted usurper, Christ cannot reign. Reigning
is the putting forth of power,
rendering to each according to His deserts.
Christ is not reigning now.
His
idea of reigning is not as it is generally put, ‘ruling
in the hearts of His people,’
but putting His foes under His feet (Luke 19.).
‘My foes, slay them before Me!’
What
the
world is, is known by the character of its favourite
ruler. It
hates the light its deeds are evil.
It persecutes the sons of God.
It cannot accept the Spirit of God.
Its feelings are opposed to the
Christian’s. The
world’s time of joy was
the disciples’ time of grief.
O then,
Christian! chosen out of the world by Christ, come
out of it!
We
must
ask the Holy Spirit to convince of these things. For they
are sentiments not natural to
man. Specially
about [Page
251]
judgment at hand.
For the smooth flow of the world in England
for
so long, and the teachings of science falsely so
called, have made men believe
that God will not, or cannot, put forth judgment on
His own world.
These
topics,
then, let us seek to enforce on the world.
It is disbelieving them all, it is ignorant
of all. Let
us press them on its
attention. Those
who are God’s elect
will thus be won.
Following where the
Spirit leads, we shall best prevail.
12. ‘I
have still many things to say to you, but ye
cannot bear
them now. But
when He, the Spirit of
truth is come, He will lead you into all the
truth. For
He shall not speak
from Himself, but whatever ye shall hear, He shall speak, and He
shall relate to you the things that are coming.’
They
had
not too high thoughts of Christ; they saw but little
of the necessity and
glory of His Person, and His work, and of the
consequences it would introduce,
in setting Moses and the old dispensation utterly
aside. Jesus knew how much
the disciples could bear, and taught them as they
were able to bear it.
The carrying out of this was to be the work
of the Holy Ghost, after Jesus’ visible work on
earth was past.
On the footing of resurrection come in, and
the Holy Spirit come down, they would be made
Christians in understanding, and
in practice.
The
coming
of the Spirit is the great event to which Jesus bade
His disciples look
onward. They
were not to begin their
testimony till He who could inspire them with
perfect knowledge and accuracy,
and could carry on His invisible work with power,
should have been sent down
from on high. As
the Spirit of truth He
maintains and pushes on the truth of God, and holds
in check the spirits of
Antichrist and of error.
How
opposite
God and the world must be!
The
devil, the lord and god of this world; the Holy
Spirit leading out of it!
To seek the favour of the world is to be ‘the enemy of God.’
Unless
we see this
close union of the world and the devil, we shall
not discern the beauty and
force of God’s rite of immersion, appointed to
those who believe in Christ.
That
tells
of our leaving the world and its Prince by death
and burial, to belong [Page 252] to
Christ the
risen. Those
who would escape the woes
coming on the world must come out of the world.
Satan
is
already judged and condemned.
But he
is not yet arrested.
It is the time of
mercy, and therefore even he is at large.
But execution is about to be done on him. He shall
find the sceptre over the nations
wrested from his hand, and given to Christ. Happy days! when the world
shall serve the Lord!
Do you, reader,
belong to the world?
The Spirit would
reprove you. Not,
‘Go on;
it is all right!’ But,
‘turn or
perish!’ All
you
pursue is dross.
Leave the vessel
you are on! It
is about to sink.
Step on board the life-boat!
Parts
of
the truth had been told the disciples previously,
but the whole was now to
be made known.
They heard, but
understood not much of what our Lord said.
The full comprehension at that moment, of the
truth, had been a burthen
both to understanding and heart.
The
spirit
of the world speaks of man’s glory, the great things
of what he has
done, and will do.
They who are of the
world speak of it, and the worldly listen.
But this is a token of a false spirit.
The
13th verse is a
test of new teachers, and
new doctrine. ‘What
is their spirit?
What doctrines do they
teach? Do
they agree with Scripture?’
The Spirit is a guide - He leads and
instructs - He is a Person therefore. He leads
across a barren and dangerous
land, full of pits and robbers.
The Holy
Spirit joyfully takes a subordinate place to the
Son, as the Son also does to
the Father. Jealousy
and pride have no
place there.
‘Into all the truth.’ Not
truths
about creation; but about Christ, His person, and
work. The
Holy Ghost calls off now the members of
Christ from the study of creation
to that of redemption. As our
studies are, so will our hearts
be. If
earthly things engage us, our
hearts will become earthly.
The Holy
Spirit therefore, is come down to lift up our hearts
and studies heavenward.
But in the fulness of the words
- ‘all
the truth’
- it was
true of the apostles only:
although in the Scriptures of the Old and New
Testament we have the entire mind
of God in its great outlines.
[Page 253]
‘For He shall not speak from
Himself.’ The
Holy Spirit has no special aims of His own.
He would come to carry out the plans of the
Father and the Son.
‘Whatsoever He shall hear.’ This may remind us of
David’s life. He
rescues Keilah from the
Philistines. The
news of David’s victory
comes to Saul.
David feared the plotting
of Saul. He
enquires of the Lord, ‘Will
he come down?’
‘Will the men of
Keilah deliver me up?’
God answered, ‘He
will come down, and the men of Keilab will deliver
thee.’
Thus again David, in peril of life, having a
friend
at Saul’s court, led him to declare what transpired
in his interview with his
father, and was thus enabled to escape.
‘But whatever He shall hear,
that shall He speak.’
This
supposes
that there would be constant communications between
earth and heaven.
The Holy Spirit searches all things, yea,
the
deep things of God.
He is aware of the
counsels of the Father and the Son, and would make
them known to God’s beloved
ones on earth.
So David arranged that
tidings of the usurping son should be sent to him
out of the city of
‘He shall speak.’ The Holy Spirit does
not speak now.
We have His writings.
But He was not promised as a writing Spirit,
but as a speaking one. This
shows how we are fallen.
We are worse
off than
Beforetime,
the
Holy Ghost spoke by the mouth of His inspired ones;
and foretold the future
by prophets (Acts 11:
28; 16: 6,
7; 20: 23; 21: 4).
[Page 254]
The
Holy
Ghost should ‘relate to them the
things that are to come to pass.’
It refers to word of mouth. And the
prophets did stand up of old, and
say, ‘Thus saith the Holy Ghost.’ ‘In every
city (says Paul) the
Holy Ghost warns me of troubles and bonds.’ While,
then, some point to the Apocalypse as
the fulfilment of this word, I, while thanking the
Father for this His gift to
Christ, and through Him to us, do not find that this
writing at all absorbs
the promise of the Holy Spirit’s speaking.
Has
the
Holy Spirit heard nothing since John’s day?
Are there not ten thousand points about which
we would gladly ask of
God, and receive an inspired reply?
‘Is this brother
to enter the ministry of the word?
Ought the believers of
The
Holy
Spirit is a prophetic Spirit. Despise
not prophecy.
It is God’s lamp kindled to enable you to
move in the dark, while in default of it many fall
into Satan’s pits.
The
Spirit
is sent to warn us of the troublous times close
at hand that we may
escape them.
For God’s witnesses to
the word of prophecy will, in general, be
preserved out of the dark days to
come even
as Enoch, who foretold the
Lord’s coming in wrath, was not left
to
the times of the Flood, but caught away before
them.
14, 15. ‘He
shall glorify Me, for He shall take of Mine, and
relate it
unto you. All
that the Father hath are
Mine; therefore said I unto you, that He taketh of
what is Mine, and relateth
it to you.’
The Son and the Holy Spirit
do not seek to exalt
themselves [Page 255] or to set up an independent line of acting.
The devil, on the contrary, exalts himself;
and dared to ask of the Saviour the worship due to
God alone. The
false prophets spoke lies to glorify
themselves, and to please the people, out of their
own heart; and not what they
had heard from God (Jer.
23: 6; Is. 21: 10).
The
Spirit
is a person. He
hears, He leads,
He teaches. He
knows all, and so is
omniscient.
‘Take of mine.’
Little
did the Jews understand how the coming of the Son of
God had made void the
whole scheme of Moses to them who believe!
It needed the Spirit of God to tell us what
the Law meant by its feasts,
fasts, sacrifices, priests, and so on.
‘The body
(or substance) is
Christ.’
Jesus
came
not to glorify Himself, but the Father.
The Spirit came to glorify the Father and the
Son. The
fund whereon the Holy Spirit would draw,
is the glory of Christ.
So apostles
preached Christ.
This is the test of
true ministry.
Does it exalt
Christ? That
which does so exalt Him, is
of the Holy Ghost.
That is not of the
Spirit that overlooks Christ.
This is
the Spirit’s wide field – Jesus’ Person and Work. He
presents to the believer what Christ is in
Himself, and to us.
Twice is the
Spirit’s speaking mentioned; thrice His relating or
reporting things: what
Christ has done, what He is doing, what He is about
to do. Nay,
the Father and the Son are so closely
allied, the Father has so made His Son heir of all,
that the Holy Ghost in
taking up the glory of the Son, testifies, too, of
the glory of the
Father. Thus
we have brought before our
notice the entire unity there is of affection,
counsel, and possession in the
Father, Son, and Spirit.
How impious
were these sayings, if spoken by any, save one
possessed of Godhead!
We
are
admitted, then, in the prophetic word to the
counsels of God.
It is a great thing with the world to know
the plans of a court.
How great an
honour would it be counted, were we to be admitted
to the Cabinet-council of
Her Majesty Queen Victoria!
But we know,
or may know, by the words of God’s prophecies, of
events coming to pass so
vast, so enduring, and so [Page 256] telling upon us and our interests, that the secrets of the British
Government are as nothing in the balance.
And
the
more we know of the Father and the Son by the
Spirit, the more shall we be
led to sever ourselves from the world; for prophecy
teaches both the present
wickedness, and the future awful doom that is coming
on the world.
It
seems
that this 16th verse
should be looked
at in view of the previous promise of the Spirit’s
descent. By
virtue of that, after Jesus’ ascent, the disciples beheld Christ by faith as on
high. And
so do we now. Of
this mysterious and deep saying, there are
several applications.
Jesus is now the
ascended High Priest, gone into the Holiest with His
own blood, as the result
of His death. The
joy is not complete
until He comes out again; although faith beholds Him
accepted on High, as the
consequence of His resurrection.
This,
as Jesus said, was to be one point of the Spirit’s
testification.
The
omission
of the last clause of this verse by some of the
manuscripts seems to
be due to its difficulty.
‘How could the
departure of Christ to be with the Father be
the cause of their seeing Him?’ But, rightly regarded, the meaning
is good. ‘My
going away to the Father, is, as I have told you,
the reason of the Spirit’s
being sent. And
the coming of the Spirit
will be to you the enlightening of faith’s eye,
concerning the place and cause
of My absence.’
During
Jesus’
death, burial, and descent into Hades, faith and
hope were gone, and the
flesh saw not the Saviour.
But with the
resurrection, and the descent of the Spirit, faith,
hope, and love revived; and
these graces created by the Holy Ghost, mount up to
the Presence of Christ on
high.
Here
again,
the doctrine of the Trinity is manifestly supposed. The Father glorifies
the Son. He
has made Him heir of all.
The Son came at the Father’s desire to
unfold
the Father’s mind, and to execute His plan,
revealing the Father as He alone
can do. The
Son of God is now speaking
before Pentecost, and He tells us, that the Spirit
should descend to testify to His church
respecting Himself.
Accordingly it was
so, and is so. The [Page 257] testimony of the world is to the goodness and greatness of fallen man,
and the great things he is going to do.
The
Holy Ghost, on the other
hand, mars
by the prophetic word, the
glory of all man’s present and future doings;
and establishes the Lordship and
coming glory of the Kingdom of the Son. Here are three
Persons with their movements on behalf of God, and His redeemed of
mankind.
16. ‘A
little while, and ye behold Me not, and again a
little while
and ye shall see Me, because I am going to the
Father.’
These
words
the disciples found to be difficult; and in spite of
all the light thrown
on them by the Saviour’s and the Spirit’s words and
works since, they are
difficult still.
They seem to have two
especial fulfilments.
1. To the apostles in that day.
Jesus was to be put to death unseen by most
of them; He was to be buried
unseen by them all.
But on the third day
He rises, and presents Himself to them.
The second ‘little
while’ would then be
the ten days intervening between Jesus’ ascent and
the Holy Spirit’s descent,
which was in one view of it (so close is the
connection, so entire the
resemblance of perfections between the Son and the
Spirit), the return of
Christ. This
would be the spiritual
beholding of Christ by His elect; not by the world. Hence we
must not confound it with the
Saviour’s return to take His people to Himself; and
much less, with His coming
visibly in person in the clouds to take the kingdom
over heaven and earth.
Jesus’
ascent
to the Father while yet the disciples see Him, is a
proof of this.
The view that apostles and we have of Christ
while in heaven with the Father, can only be a
spiritual sight produced by the
Holy Spirit. And
this work of the Holy
Ghost is the result of Christ’s ascent to the
Father. For
had He not ascended, the Spirit had not
descended. But
His descent is the result
of the Saviour’s ascent, and thus the Holy Ghost
becomes the Witness of the
Saviour’s glory above; and moves upon our spirits to
give us faith’s view of
His Presence and Intercession there on our behalf.
[Page 257]
2. We may regard these words as applying to the Church. Jesus
is
away; and, reckoned by God’s timepiece, His absence
has been less than two
days. For
with Him a thousand years are but as
one day. Soon
we shall see our Lord in
person, and, risen ourselves, behold the Risen One,
our Head.
In
verses 17 and 18
we have a statement of the apostles’ perplexity
arising out of these mysterious
words. For,
as the Saviour said at the
first to Nicodemus, the words of one born of the
Spirit are mysterious, as the
sounds and movements of the wind.
Better
to confess our ignorance than to pretend to
knowledge. ‘For God resisteth
the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.’
19, 20. ‘Jesus
knew that they were wishing to ask Him, and He
said to
them – “Are ye enquiring among yourselves because
I said, ‘A little while and
ye behold Me not, and again a little, and ye shall
see Me?’ Verily,Verily, I
say unto you that ye shall weep and lament, but
the world shall rejoice; ye
shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be
turned into joy.”’
Jesus’
omniscience
is discovered here.
He was
aware of their ignorance of His meaning, and of
their desire to ask, kept back
by their fears.
He at once, then,
answers thereto, and they perceive that He was aware
of their desire; and they
express their assurance (v.
30) that Jesus
know all, and needed not to be directly appealed to,
as men in general do.
This attributes to Him one of the
perfections
of God.
He
gives,
then, somewhat of an explanation of the difficulty.
1. This refers primarily to the twelve, and to the time of sorrow
introduced by the Saviour’s death and burial.
It is literally testified (Luke
23: 27)
that apostles did weep.
The world
rejoiced also.
The foes of Christ
exulted in His death.
All but the
disciples were glad. This shows the different, yea,
opposite hearts of the
world and the church.
Our joys and our
griefs show what we are.
The world,
then, is the foe of Christ, as truly as is the
devil. His
joy and theirs are the same.
They rejoice over every trouble and defeat,
real or imagined, of the
But a change would soon
come. The
third day the disciples
[Page 259]
beheld the Saviour delivered from the tomb. They
rejoiced therefore.
This is testified by
the same Evangelist (Luke
24: 41, 52; John 20: 20).
Their grief would turn to joy.
Great as was the grief of death, great was
the joy of the victory over it.
The
words,
then, take a wider sweep, as applying to the church
at large. The
time of the Saviour’s absence is the time
of the world’s joy, of the Church’s sorrow.
But those who sorrow for Christ’s absence, during which
time the world rejoices that it is left alone to
follow its own ways, will find
that, in the coming day, joy shall take the
place of grief. It is,
however, more definite still.
It is not merely that in the church that
awaits Christ joy shall thrust out grief; but it
is also true that the
very subject of grief becomes at length
the subject of joy.
Death,
specially as smiting Christ, had in
it something lamentable and terrible.
While death rules over the sons of men,
what room can there be for true
joy? But
how far better for us that Christ
should die, and
by resurrection turn
the disciples’ grief to gladness!
How far more glorious to Christ Himself
His
coping with death!
Out of His
humiliation there has sprung His victory for us.
21, 22. ‘The woman when she is bringing forth hath
grief,
because her hour is come; but when she hath borne
the child she remembereth no
more the trouble, because of the joy that a man is
born into the world.
And ye, therefore, now, indeed, have
grief;
but I will see you again, and your heart shall
rejoice, and your joy none
taketh from you.’
Christ’s
death
under Law and its curse, as the result of Adam’s and
[Page 260]
In
the
figure before us - (1) the disciples are the mother,
(2) Jesus is the
child; then, the
source of sorrow; presently after,
the source of eternal joy.
The
pregnancy of the woman
answers to the hopes of the kingdom of God,
conceived by the disciples out of
the promises of the Most High given in Moses and
the Prophets.
But, because of sin’s going before, those
glories must be preceded by the atonement of Christ
through death; or, in the
words of the Garden, the bruising of the heel of the
Woman’s seed must go
before the bruising of the Serpent’s head.
These hopes grew stronger and fuller as the
hour of their fulfilling
approached. But
the hour of trouble was
then come, and it would still increase in sorrow up
to the resurrection.
Jesus’
death and burial was to
them the loss of the hopes of the kingdom, as
well as the loss of His person (Luke
24.)
While
the
day of Jesus’ resurrection was in some sense the
fulfilment of the Saviour’s
words concerning the joy to come, it was not the
completion of them, for which
we have yet to look.
This is proved by
three considerations - (1) The child was snatched away from the mother’s eyes.
There was the Saviour’s going to the
Father. (2)
The joy of the apostles was
not full; the time of it not come.
’Twas
to be the time of witness to Christ, and of conflict
and trouble for Him.
(3) In that day no questions
are to be asked.
But the apostles on meeting Christ after
resurrection did ask (Acts
1.)
That
day
was the hour of the grief of Jesus, and of their
grief. There
was sorrow; but it was the grief over
birth, not over death.
Jesus’ death,
followed so closely by resurrection, was rather a
birth - a birth out of the
tomb. This
time of trouble was
necessary. Without
it the joy could not
come. Until
Christ by resurrection had
put away sin and death, the joy of reconciliation
with God, and eternal life
could not come.
Our joy is heavenly,
over sin put away, and the sting of death drawn.
But
the
grief was only an ‘hour’
- the time of sorrow was
brief, the joy unending. The
world’s joy is brief, its end is sorrow and death. The brief
sorrow of birth draws after it the
abiding joy over the new and abiding acquisition. In this
view, Jesus risen is [Page
261] the
‘man
born into the world.’
On His
resurrection all joy
to His people
turns. Great
was the joy of the
disciples at beholding Jesus restored to them out of
the tomb, no more to enter
it. But
their joy was in some sort of
brief duration, because of the Saviour’s departure
again from them. That was
not the birth ‘into the
habitable earth the second
time,’ of which Paul in Hebrews
1: 6
speaks. The basis of that is
laid. But until the
kingdom is come, the Father has not a second
time introduced the Son
(See marg.) For
then the time of mercy to the world
is over, and judgment takes its terrible course over
the lost. Jesus
is to be shown to the
world, as its Heir and Head.
The brief scenes of the forty days of
resurrection were not our Lord’s
manifestation.
It was as if the babe had
been only shown a moment to the mother, and then
borne away!
Jesus
was
not presented to ‘the world.’ Then the
sorrow of those who have grieved
over Christ’s absence, will become joy.
That of course, supposes, that they have not taken part with the world, or partaken of its joys.
Else they are regarded as of the world, and so
awaiting the judgments
threatened thereto.
The
Saviour
and the disciples answer to the travailing woman. It was
then the Saviour’s ‘hour’
of trial, anticipated from the first, and
gradually drawing nearer, till at length it was
clear that His death at the
hands of foes drew on.
This was sorrow
to both the Saviour and the disciples.
Yet that death was necessary, else there
would be no victory over our
chief foe. Christ’s
death was to be
followed by His resurrection, which was His second
birth. To
this Psalm 2.
alludes, ‘Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee.’
To
this second
birth
out of death and the tomb,
John 3: 5
alludes, as to a birth which may take
place at any time in a man’s life, and after a
mother’s death, however tall and
old a man may be.
To this also the
Saviour’s word concerning John Baptist refers.
‘Among the born of
women there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist; but the
least in the kingdom of the heavens is greater
than he’ (Matt.
11: 11).
John’s
ordinary
birth introduced him to the
*
Or, its
equivalent, the change of the
living believer from mortality to immortality.
Of
this
birth out of the tomb like our Lord’s, the immersion
commanded to the
believer is the visible emblem (
The
crisis
of death ended, the Saviour’s resurrection come,
great was the joy of
the disciples.
The death, then, was
really the occasion of the joy.
Without
the death there would be no salvation, no rising
into the life of eternity.
The new birth of the believer now in
baptism admits him in spirit into a new world.
But there must be a new birth of the
body as
well as of the spirit [soul], to introduce
him fully into the [millennial
and] eternal world
of glory, and of joy.
Jesus’
new
birth out of the tomb introduced Him into a new
world. But
He was not shown to that world.
He was beheld, and only for awhile briefly,
and at intervals by the disciples.
His manifestation,
as the result of that birth, to the world, has yet
to come. The
angels, at His first entry into the world,
or ‘habitable earth,’
sang praises. But
when He is the second time brought in by
the Father, all the angels shall worship Him (Heb.
1: 6). Also - and
that
in connection with the kingdom - Jesus is to be
anointed with the oil of joy beyond
His companions.
The
kingdom,
then, is the time of this manifestation, wherein
the sorrows of this
little while will be swallowed up in the
exceeding joy of the victory over
death.
‘When
the mortal is swallowed up of immortality, and
the corruptible by incorruption,
then is
brought to pass the saying, ‘Death
is swallowed up in victory.’
Then comes
the chorus of triumph – ‘O death, where is thy
sting ? 0 Hades, where is thy victory?’
The passage in Hebrews just noticed
puts together in one place Jesus and His beloved
ones as partaking of the joy
of the kingdom, [Page
263] while the pre-eminent place is given
to
Him.
In John’s other writing - the Apocalypse - we
see the connection with
the previous passages, and with
[Page 264]
22, 24. ‘And
ye now, therefore, have sorrow; but I will see you
again,
and your heart shall rejoice, and
your
joy none taketh from you.’
This
is
the application of the figure.
It has
two aspects. (1)
It may be said to refer
to the sorrow then of Jesus’
disciples at His apprehended death.
That was to be removed by His manifesting
Himself to His apostles after
His resurrection.
The sorrow was
necessary, a part of God’s counsel and prediction. Before the
bruising of the serpent’s head
must come the bruising of the heel of the Woman’s
Seed.
(2)
But
Jesus would manifest Himself to them.
That would be their time of joy.
‘Your heart shall
rejoice.’
A manifest reference is here to Isaiah
66: 5, 6, 14.
They
would
then be in circumstances so far superior, as not to
need to ask the
Saviour questions.
This refers back to
the acknowledged ignorance of the disciples, in
relation to the question which
they wished to ask our Lord.
But
the
sorrow in its fulness applies now.
’Tis
the time of sorrow.
Great are our hopes, and strong the
assurance
of the kingdom and glory to come!
But
the birth of the Great Ruler of the nations has
not yet taken place.
It is to be in resurrection.
And it is to be the joint manifestation
of
Jesus and His companions to the world.
Then the sorrows of the way thither will be
forgotten - swallowed up in
victory!
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. Up
till now ye have asked nothing in My name;
ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be
fulfilled.’
What
is
‘that day?’ (1) Not
the forty days of the
Saviour’s resurrection and appearance among them. For in
that day they did ask (Acts
1: 6) and receive no direct reply to their
difficulty. (2)
Not the time of the
Spirit’s Pentecostal descent, the continuance of
which makes the present
dispensation of grace.
For in this day
(and even in apostolic times) questions arose,
difficult to be solved even by
apostles. Remark
the great question
discussed in Acts 15. (3) ‘That
day’ refers to the future period, so
well [Page 265] known to the prophets of the Old Testament - the
millennial day - the day of reward, of the
Saviour’s advent, of resurrection,
and glory - the Old Testament prophets giving its
aspect towards Israel; the
New Testament, its application to us.
Our
understanding
of prophetic Scripture turns much on our perception
of the two
great days -(1) ‘This day’
of grace and mercy,
but of trial and suffering; because evil is abroad,
and in power. (2) ‘That
day,’
the
coming one of justice and reward; to be
introduced by the Lord Jesus at His
coming; for
blessing to His obedient
ones; for destruction to Satan and His
agents.
Thus it falls in naturally with the
preceding
context.
Christ
is
the Son of Jerusalem, born into the world anew in
resurrection, through His
suffering unto death.
But His
manifestation as the Risen One has been put off,
because that would at once cut
short mercy to the world, and end the gathering of
the Church. We wait, therefore, patiently in
this day of work and trouble, looking for ‘that day,’
a new one,
of rest.*
*
Take some passages illustrative of this.
(1) In the Old Testament, Is.
2: 11, 17; 24:
21; 25., 26: 1; Zech. 14.
(2)
In
the New Testament, Matt.
7: 21, 22; 26: 29; Luke
21: 34; 2 Tim. 1: 12, 18; 4: 8.
There
will
be no need then to ask ought. (1) For the
difficulties of understanding God’s
counsels, and doctrines, and
providences, will then be cleared up.
(2)
And
the difficulties of the way,
the perils, conflicts,
discouragements, which require us to ask counsel and
aid, will be over then.
The
Saviour
solemnly inaugurates by His own authority the new
manner and access to God
by prayer. (1)
The address is to be made
God, as the Father.
This could not be, while men were
under
Law. And
they were under Law, till the
Son came. Those
under Law have God as Master, and they
are slaves; toiling to
deliver themselves from their just deserts.
The two forms of worship under Moses were -
(1) At the presentation of
first-fruits, which supposed Jehovah, the God of
Sinai, to be addressed, and
His people to be settled in their earthly heritage;
while the Lord [Page
266] was
stationed on the earth, and
in the tabernacle (Dent.
26: 1-10).
(2) The second (found in the same chapter)
was a prayer to be uttered before the Lord at the
third year’s tithing.
It rested upon the assumption and the
assertion of the entire and perfect obedience of the offerer. It was a prayer for a
blessing on
(1)
But
with our Lord’s teaching as the Son, comes the new
name of God as ‘Father’
– ‘Father in heaven;’
and the Saviour in His early ministry taught His
disciples to address God as
their Father, even as He Himself did. (2) But now is
added the asking God on
the merits, and as in the person
of,
the
Son. ‘In My name.’
This
is the great advance!
We
ourselves
and our merits are out of sight. Here is the blessed
contrast between the Law and the Gospel, as shown in
the worship of Deuteronomy
26.
Here (3) the sphere of prayer is enlarged. It
includes all we need.
‘In everything by
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.’ (4) There
is also the assurance of the answer
of blessing. The
24th verse
notices that this was a novelty.
It did not come to light till the death and
resurrection of Christ; His merits being the ground
of the new approach to
God. Here
is the warranty for applying
the word.
God
designs
that His people should rejoice, and that their joy
should be
complete. Their
peace is complete, for
it is in Christ.
So should their joy be.
25.
‘These things have I spoken
unto you in proverbs; but
the hour cometh when I shall no longer speak to
you in proverbs, but shall
openly relate to you concerning the Father.’
The
expression
‘these things’
probably refers to the
Saviour’s last discourse.
And this was
made up of figures and dark sayings, as the washing
of feet, the parable of the
vine, and of the child’s birth.
The
descent
of the Holy Spirit introduced a day of new
intelligence for the
disciples. And
then the mystery of the
Trinity was clearly unfolded to the disciples, even
as the Lord Jesus Himself
discovered it to them on the eve of His departure on
high [Page
267] (Matt.
28: 19).
Hence the period is called, ‘the
hour.’
It
is but a brief one. The discovery of the Father was
not made till after the
sacrifice of the Son, as the Father’s gift; and till
His resurrection; wherein
He was declared the Son of God with power.
Out of this resurrection, and ascent of the
Son, the Holy Ghost came
down, and He is to believers the witness of the
Father and the Son.
The chief subject of the Son’s revelation
is
the Father. This
is the root of all the
peculiarities of our dispensation.
The
Saviour
was aware how imperfectly the disciples understood
His words. They
were too deep to be understood, till the
Spirit should have communicated the necessary light. But
another day was coming, in which these
measured and guarded utterances would be removed. All,
indeed, which has been granted hitherto
to either apostle or disciple has not perfectly
fulfilled this word.
The Father will fully be known only in the
Father’s home with Christ in glory.
But
there was a great discovery of the Father and the
Son at the Spirit’s descent,
as John’s Epistle shows.
26.
‘In that day ye shall ask in
My name, and I say not
unto you that I will ask the Father on your
behalf; for the Father Himself
loveth you, because ye have loved Me, and believed
that I came out from God.’
This
day
here spoken of must be found now, for it is the hour
of trial, and of
prayer in the Saviour’s name, while He is away.
The ‘day’ of
trial of verse 26
takes up and expounds the ‘hour’
of verse 25.
It
introduces
a new view. The
Saviour’s
intercession was good.
But towards those
who believe in and love the Son, the Father feels a
father’s affection.
We have need to keep close to Scripture
here. In
our day there is a strong and
increasing current setting in, which teaches that
God is the Father of all men, and that
Christ has by His Incarnation united Himself
with all men.
There is (1) a studious keeping in the
background of the Justice of God as the
Judge of all; and of the impossibility of any coming
to God with acceptance,
save through the atoning blood of Christ.
There (2) is a hiding, or denial of the need
of entire change
of [Page 268] nature by
the
Holy Spirit, without which man is only under
condemnation and wrath; the
child of the Wicked One, and not of God.
There is also (3) a marked refusal of God’s
electing love, which proves
how deeply rooted is the enmity of man against God;
so profoundly ingrained,
that unless regenerated, never does man turn to God.
‘The Father Himself loveth
you, because ye have loved Me, and
believed.’ This
is spoken of as the aspect of God,
not towards all men, but towards believers.
It will be instructive to compare this with
what our Lord says about
God’s love to the world (John
3: 14-17).
Here we have the Son of Man lifted up,
because God (not it is said ‘the
Father’) so
loved the world that He gave His Son.
‘God sent not
His Son into the world to condemn it,
but to save.’
‘If God were your Father,’ said Jesus, to the unbelieving Jews, ‘Ye
would love Me’ (8:
42). But, indeed,
as the seed of the Serpent, they had both seen and
hated both Him and His
Father (15: 24, 25; 7:
7-19).
The devil, as the prince of the world, is a
being after the world’s heart.
These words, then, are true
of God’s elect, and
believing ones only.
Faith in the Son of
God, and love to Him are the grounds of this love of
the Father, produced by
Himself in the first instance, as the resulting of
His electing love.
Herein these loved ones are the contrast to
the world, which refuses to believe the Spirit, and
the testimony borne by the
Holy Ghost to the Son.
The world loves
darkness, and prefers it to the light of the Son of
God, whom it hates.
Here is the secret of the refusal of the
Gospel by so many.
To very many
Christians it seems as if the world’s refusal of
Christ were accidental;
due to this or that mistake on the world’s part, and
capable of being removed,
by the removal of this or that defect found in the
preachers of the
Gospel. Now
here this is seen to be not
so. Were
men perfect as angels to preach
the Gospel, and with renewed evidence of miracle,
the world would but take up
anew its attitude of fierce hatred, and would
persecute unto death.
‘The Father Himself loveth
you.’ Blessed
words! He
so loves His Son, that He
loves all who accept Him, and who credit [Page 269]
His testimony about His Son.
Nay, He has deigned to make us members of
His
Son, and loves us as He loves Christ.
His love towards the world is a love
of compassion felt in despite of its known
hatefulness and
ungodliness. But
this love of believers
is a love of delight, felt toward them, in so far as their ways and sentiments are
lovely in God’s eyes.
The heart of the
Father is toward believers in His Son.
He chose them before the world began, while
they were yet in their sins,
and still members of Adam.
But the Son’s
atonement being now accepted, the Father’s heart of
love is open toward
them. He
and we are of one sentiment
concerning the Son.
Contrast the world’s
feeling (Luke 19: 14),
‘We will not have this man
to reign over us.’
‘The Father Himself loveth you.’ It is
all
abiding love; for we are sons in Christ the Son. And such
as are God’s constant love and
favour toward Christ, such are His love and favour
toward them. ‘But how if they sin wilfully?’ What
happens, when children of earth sin against the
parents of their flesh?
There are two effects. (1). First on the disobedient
child. While
he does not cease to be a child because
of his disobedience, yet
he loses all confidence, and communion,
in coming to his father.
He rather stays
away, for his soul is ill at ease before his
offended parent.
(2). There is an effect on the father.
He
loves his son still, but he is
displeased.
He must show
his love now in another way, by
the rod.
Jesus intercedes with God
for transgressors
(Is. 53: 12). But for
sons He intercedes as the ‘Advocate
with
the Father’
(1 John 2). God is
perfectly reconciled to them, as
believers in His Son.
The work of Christ
has brought in everlasting peace for them.
They do not now need Christ, as
We
have
next the ground of this love.
‘Because
ye have loved Me.’
The
Father
loves the Son beyond all measure.
He loves also those who love Christ His Son. The world
disbelieves and hates.
It is a relief and joy to look on those who
believe in and love His Son.
The Lord
increase our love to His Son!
‘And believed that I came out
from God.’
‘I came out from God.’
It was of Himself alone, that this was and is
true. Of
John Baptist it is said, that He was a man
sent by God; but not that he ‘came
out from God.’
John came to bear witness to Him that was
in
the beginning with God.
But Jesus bore
witness to Himself, as the Son who was from eternity
with the Father. And the
Father bore witness to Him as His Beloved Son; while
the Spirit was sent down
to bear additional testimony.
None,
then, is loved by the Father, who refuses the
witness to the Trinity of the
Godhead. He
who denies the reality and
eternity of the relation of the Father and the Son
is of the world, an
unbeliever; blinded by the spirit of the Antichrist,
which denies the Father
and the Son.
No
love
of Christ is true or accepted by the Father, which
does not rest on His
oneness of nature with the Father, and His mission
by Him.
‘I came out from God.’ Thus Jesus
testifies to His prior existence
in the Godhead.
He left His original
place of joy, glory, and power, to appear on the
earth. ‘Life was manifested,
and we saw it, and bear witness, and declare to
you the Eternal Life which was with
the father
[here His
Eternal Sonship and glory are testified], and
was manifested
unto us.’
Here we have
the Saviour's incarnation and life on earth.
28. ‘I
came out from the Father, and came unto the world;
again, I
am leaving the world, and am going to the Father.’
Jesus
traces
very briefly His history as a descent from the
Father on high to earth;
and then the return,
therefore, to [Page
271]
heaven. ‘Again.’ This marks
the contrary, or return-action to
the former one.
Jesus returns to God, as
the counterpart of His coming forth from God.
29, 30. ‘His
disciples said unto Him, “Lo, now speakest Thou
plainly
and speakest no proverb.
Now we know
that Thou knowest all things, and needest not that
any should ask Thee; herein
we believe that Thou camest out from God.”’
The
few
words of the 28th verse
threw such light
on the whole course of the Saviour, that the
disciples thought that all was now
explained. He
was the Son before He took
flesh. After
death He went back to the
Father. The
descent from the Father to
the earth was met in its due time by an ascent from
earth, which took Him back
to the Father. Thus His pre-existence, His original
place of abode, His point
of departure before His incarnation, were made
known. And
now He was about to depart from earth,
and His journey would take Him back to the place of
His original and eternal
sojourn.
Twice we have emphasis laid
on ‘now,’ and for the
third time we have ‘hereby.’ This
later discovery of the Saviour’s knowledge is a new
ground for their faith and
confession. They
see a glimpse of the
reason for the Saviour’s departure and ascent to the
Father, in the testimony
of His descent from the Father.
The
apostles
then understood hereby that Jesus was giving a reply
to the difficulty
which they had experienced in regard to His words
concerning the ‘little whiles.’
They could not understand them.
How could He be the Messiah of the prophets,
the Son of David, the Hope
of Israel, reigning over earth at Jerusalem, if He
were going away, and they
knew not whither?
Hereby
they
learned that Jesus was also ‘Son
of God,’
and that before He became ‘Son
of David.’
He
was going back to His Father
in heaven to sit with Him on His throne before
He appears on earth as the Son
of David, the Ruler of God’s earthly people
Israel.
They
saw
that Jesus read their thoughts, and knew their
desire (v. 17-19)
to ask Him, without any one of their number
[Page 272] expressing
this desire. Hence
they gather His
knowledge of all things.
He who can read
the thoughts is One who can know all things.
They see in this a power greater than man’s;
a proof of His original
abode with God, and partaking of His nature and
attributes.
31-33. ‘Jesus
answered them, “Do ye now believe?
Behold, the hour cometh, yea is now come,
that ye shall be scattered each to his own, and
shall leave Me alone; yet I am
not alone, because the Father is with Me.
These things I have spoken to you that in
Me ye might have peace.
In the world ye shall have persecution,
but
be of good courage, I have overcome the world.”’
There
is
considerable difference of opinion as to whether we
should read the
Saviour’s words in ver.
31 affirmatively or
as a question.
1.
Some
regard the words as being primarily those of joy on
our Lord’s part, that
at length they had understood, and now openly
confessed their faith in His
nature and mission, which so long and earnestly He
had been labouring to
impress on them.
‘On them He insists,’ say
these expositors, ‘with
much feeling in His prayer to His Father in the
next
chapter.’ ‘Now they
have known that all things
whatsoever Thou hast given Me are of Thee.
For I have given them the words which Thou
gavest Me, and they have received
them, and have known surely that I came out
from Thee, and have believed
that Thou didst send Me.’
2.
Or
should we read them as a question? as given by our
translators. It
would seem most likely that the words are
so to be taken.
They do not deny the
apostles’ faith; they show only the
shallowness of intelligence and power of faith,
which would require the
Spirit’s descent and abiding, as the Saviour had
declared. For
the words of the apostles read somewhat like
a denial of Jesus’ testimony about their ignorance,
and their inability to
comprehend then the depth of His
proverbs.
The
difference
introduced by the two modes of viewing the matter is
not great. The
truth lies in accepting both sides - the reality
of the apostles’ faith on the one hand; and the
apparent destruction of it, in
the severe test to be applied to it during the
devil’s hour and power of
darkness, on the other hand.
[Page 273]
The
apostles
did now believe, and openly testify their acceptance
of the essential
points so oft enforced on
A
period, a brief one, of scattering, was at hand; as
foretold by Zechariah.
‘I will smite the
Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be
scattered abroad.’
The centre to which the disciples were
accustomed to gather was to be taken away.
Hence they would be broken into parts, and
turn again to the homes of
earth to which they looked at first.
‘They would leave the Son alone.’ This is
described for us in chapter
18.
But the Father would still be with Him.
The
stress
of the storm falling on Christ, they would all leave
Him, in order to
get shelter for themselves; in spite of their faith
in His Divine nature just
testified.
It
is
part of God’s counsel, that the superiority of the
Son of God above the sons
of men should appear.
He can stand,
where they are swept away as dry leaves.
The
Saviour’s
strength came not from men, or from the firmness of
friends in His
cause; but from His Father. He would be with Him,
depart who might!
So
Paul
could say, ‘At my first
answer none stood by me,
but all forsook me.’
Let us not reckon on friends as assured helps, lest they fail us.
This
word
is said in designed contrast to the Gnostic idea -
that ‘Jesus’
was only the man born
in time; indebted for His [Page 274] knowledge and power to the Christ,’
the great Spirit that
descended on Him after baptism (the water), who
left Him before the cross; or,
as John elsewhere expresses it, ‘before “the
blood.”’ Thus the Holy Ghost gives us a
different side of the truth to
that displayed in the three first Gospels.
There we have the awful results of the sin of
the world, as affecting
Christ when made sin for the world.
Here
we have the Son of God still steadfast, in the
sublime faith which carried Him
victorious through the storm.
It is far
from ‘the man Jesus’
left by ‘the Christ.’
The Son of God understood and was in sympathy
with His Father’s will,
all through the hurricane of woe, which arose as the
consequence of sin laid on
Him.
‘But how, then, could Jesus
describe Himself as deserted? “My
God, my God, why hast Thou,
forsaken Me?”
Of
the
fulness of the explanation we shall not here below,
perhaps, be satisfied -
but a word or two may be dropped, which shall help
faith in both sides of the
truth.
Most
people
suppose that there can only be one style of feeling; and such refuse, often with scorn, the testimony
to opposite states of feeling in the same mind:
while yet occurrences often
produce them. A
companion of Prince
Henry (afterwards Henry V.) was brought up before an
English judge for some
misdemeanour, which made him liable to penalty of
the law. The
Prince was so displeased at the judge,
who determined to punish the law-breaker, that he
struck the official in open
court. The
judge ordered the Prince to
be carried away to prison; and he was imprisoned. Now what
would be the feelings of the King
his father? Partly of sorrow; partly of joy.
He would grieve at the misconduct of his son
in striking the judge; he
would be pleased in some measure, at his fondness
for his friends; he would be
pleased also, with his submission to the judge’s
decision.
So,
while
God as the Righteous Judge must officially turn away
His face from Jesus
as made sin, and enduring its penalty, He could only
personally
love His Son for the love He showed, in
enduring the woe deserved by others.
‘Peace’ belongs to the
Christian always, considered as
in Christ, and thus assured of present support and
final redemption.
‘Peace,’ as
opposed to the grief, dismay, and tumult of feeling
which awoke in the breasts of
the disciples, when they found the Saviour condemned
and slain; and when they
forgot His words concerning His going to the Father.
The
Saviour’s
last words were designed to lift the disciples above
the stormy waves
about to assail them.
As He was Son of
God, these waves would swallow up neither Him nor
them. Let
us hold fast this amidst our minor
trials! Whatever
the storm outside,
there is ever shelter in Christ.
If He
be all-knowing and possessed of all power, then, in
spite of threatening foes, we
shall prevail; for we are in Him.
There
are,
therefore, two aspects of the Christian.
(1) As in the world, and (2) as in Christ. (1) As a
sojourner in a world opposed to God
and His Christ, trouble is his lot.
The
world is the assembly of the seed of the serpent;
and the devil rules
them. Hence,
out of this abiding
opposition of nature and temper springs persecution. It is an
abiding state, lasting as long as
the disciples of the Son of God abide here below. It ceases
only when this dispensation does;
when at length the multitude, which none can number,
are assembled before the
throne, and ‘the Great
Tribulation’ belonging to
the men of faith is over.
But this
trouble is to each believer a thing outside, and in
the flesh. It
is but brief. Our
peace within need not be destroyed by the
tumult without.
Let us take
courage! The
final victory is ours.
Our Leader has conquered the world, and
overcome the desire for its prizes; overcome the
fear of its terrors.
How mighty the faith, which on its way to
the
scenes of the judgment-hall and
It
is
not promised, that a day will come, when ‘the
world’
having become swallowed up in ‘the
Church,’
there shall be no more persecution.
That time comes only with Christ’s return and the first resurrection (Is.
35). ‘The
world’ and ‘the
Church’ will ever be two, while this
dispensation
lasts.
How
much
better is it to have trouble in the world, but peace
[Page
276]
with God than peace with the
world, and war with God!
Love of the
brethren, and hatred from the world, are two
characteristics of a
Christian. None
can overcome the world
in its two great forces, but he who believes that
Jesus is the Christ.
*
*
*
CHAPTER 17
[Page 277]
If
you
ever have to do with a boastful infidel who shows
how he despises your
Christ and the Gospels, say – ‘Great
critic, you are
far superior in enlightenment and knowledge to the
Galilean and his poor
uneducated fishermen.
Please then to
throw off now a superior prayer that shall dash
into dust the prayer of Jesus
which follows!’
1, 2. “These
things spake Jesus and lifted up his eyes unto
heaven,
and said, “Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy
Son, that Thy Son also may
glorify Thee.
As Thou hast given Him
authority over all flesh, that unto all whom Thou
hast given Him, He should
give everlasting life.”’
This
prayer
carries with it its own evidence; its impossibility
of being
forged. Never
was such a prayer before
uttered, so simple, so sublime, so lofty in
composition and expression.
Even now that it has been so long known,
there is no equal thereto.
Nor could the
cleverest of men concoct such a prayer.
‘How could John give it us
exactly?’
By
the
Holy Spirit; according to Christ’s promise (14:
26).
It
is
the High Priest of heaven, who is also the Lamb of
God, consecrating
Himself; and confidently trusting His Father, on the
way to the cross. Where
the
faith of any other had been swallowed up, there
Jesus scarcely touches on
His sufferings; but looks on them as an element in
the glorification of the
Father, and the road to His own glorification.
It
consists
mainly of three divisions.
(1)
Prayer for Himself - (2) for His original Apostles -
(3) for the believers
raised up by them.
‘He
lifted
up His eyes
to heaven.’
Here
are
two Persons, clearly distinguished, for all who do
not wilfully close their
eyes. The
Son
on earth
lifts His eyes and His prayer, to a
Father in heaven.
[Page 278]
Jesus
ends
the last chapter with a note of victory.
But He utters it on His way to death.
And how is death victory?
Is it
not the sign of unrighteousness, visible defeat? Omnipotence
can alone make it victory in
resurrection. Jesus
then turns to His
Father.
Jesus
pleads
for glory. (1)
He desired glory
from the Father, whom He in His turn would glorify. (2) He
would manifest His glory, by giving to
His ransomed ones by His own power, eternal life. (3) It
would be the due recompense to the
wonderful work He has achieved for the Father.
‘Father.’ This
is the keynote of the whole prayer:
the Saviour’s confidential outpouring of soul to Him
whom He loved and served -
His God and Father.
He
says,
‘Thy Son,’ thus
bringing into view the
weightiness of His person, and what He is to the
Father.
He
desires
the Father to glorify Him that He in His turn may,
as the God-man,
glorify the Father.
‘Grant Me
resurrection, ascension, and a session at Thy
right
hand; that I may achieve Pentecost and its wonders
of grace, with the oversight
and advance of the church.’
But
the prayer does not cease there; but looks onward to
the day of power and of
resurrection.
He
says
not - ‘Our Father.’ For
throughout He takes a stand not belonging
to any creature, and far above His saved ones.
While others would have had their thoughts
engulfed in a view of
suffering at the door, He in perfect calmness trusts
His God.
The
other
evangelists had given us the trouble that agitated
the soul of the Saviour,
almost to the taking away His life; as the result of
the endurance of the wrath
on sin. This
chapter gives us the Lord
Jesus’ perception of the Father’s good pleasure in
Him, and the blessing which
he confidently anticipated as the result of His
death.
Let
us
compare this prayer of Christ with the prayer of
Moses, the man of God, and
chief of the born of women, in Psalm
90. That
celebrates God as the refuge of men, and
contrasts God’s eternity with man’s few years. Jesus
here sets His existence as
of equal duration with that of God.
He
does not ask for help; He does not confess sin.
The prayer of Moses does.
It
declares man to [Page 279] be under sin, labour, and sorrow, and consequently under the wrath of
God; which shows itself after a brief life of
seventy or eighty years, in
death; as the sentence of the Judge uttered in
‘The hour is come.’ This hour
had still been drawing nearer to
our Lord’s apprehension.
His sense of it
had burst forth into open expression, when Gentiles
had desired to behold Him.
That gave Him the intimation that He must
die. While
He lived He was the Jew,
bound to maintain the exclusive system of Judaism. But when
rejected by His own nation, and put
to death by them in unbelief, He would in
resurrection be free to be the
Saviour of Gentile and Jew alike.
He
says,
therefore, ‘The hour is come, that
the Son of Man should be glorified.’
That was a word to all, Jew and Gentile.
The Son of Man is the Second Adam, to whom all things are
(according to the eighth Psalm) to be subjected:
and this the Saviour, in His
explanation of His Father’s words (v.
28),
goes on to anticipate. But the
Seed of
the Woman must first suffer the bruising of the
heel, by His lifting on the
cross, ere He wrench the kingdom from the hands
of the Old Serpent and bruise
his head.
This our Lord first
notices in verse
31.
That
which
Christ
then
reminds the Father of His virtual promise, given in
answer to His Son’s
appeal: ‘I have glorified it,’
in the past, ‘I will
glorify it again.’
‘Glorify Thy Son.’
These words are too high for mere man.
God
glorified
His Son: in the signs which attended His death and
resurrection; in
His raising Him from the dead, which avouched Him to
be His Holy One, greater
than any son of man; and in His elevating Him by the
ascension to His own right
hand, having given Him a name and a kingdom above
any other. He
is yet to glorify Him in the
millennial kingdom.
‘That Thy Son also may
glorify Thee.’
Jesus here sets Himself by Himself.
It is
not ‘that one of Thy
sons may glorify Thee,’ but He takes as His own name, in a
peculiar application, the title of ‘Son.’ In the
sense in which He is so, none else is.
The
end
for which the Saviour asks glorification from the
Father is, that He may
expend what is given, in the glorifying of the
Father Himself.
Thus our Lord carries out the principles of
the prayer taught to the disciples, the first
petition of which is, ‘Hallowed
be Thy
name.’
Jesus’
sufferings
then unto death were a partial fulfilment of this
prayer. They
glorified the Son, who could so
patiently endure the Father’s will, and trust Him,
and love Him, in spite of
the terrors of wrath, that would have produced
despair in any mere
creature. They
glorified the love of the
Son, in that He could surrender Himself to woe so
awful, to save guilty sons of
men. They
glorified the Father also, in
that He was willing to give
His Son. The
Father can trust the Son to
employ all that is given for the Father’s glory. He
will glorify His Son, by
giving Him all power to raise and judge the sons
of men.
2.
‘As Thou hast given Him
power (authority)
over all flesh to give eternal life to what Thou
hast given
Him.’
‘As.’ ‘As
it is
fitting.’
‘Give Thy Son
glory, according to, and adequate to, the
supremacy
above all flesh that Thou hast assigned Him.’ And since
it is eternal life that is to be
bestowed, and that on multitudes lying in corruption
in the sepulchre, [Page
281]
therefore nothing short of that
power of the Godhead which raises the dead and
preserves all creatures, will
suffice. The
glory bestowed by the
Father should answer to the pre-eminent position
declared to be His Son’s.
The Prince of Wales might justly ask of his
mother dress, house, equipage, and a table suited to
his birth, and to his
destined sovereignty over
The
glory
of the Son is to be manifested in pursuance of the
Father’s intention to
make Him head of all creation, and the giver of
eternal life to His elect.
‘All flesh’ takes in more
than the sons of men.
Jesus, by taking flesh or becoming
incarnate,
is constituted the Ruler and Heir of all: not of men
alone; but as the eighth
Psalm says, of ‘all the
works of God,’ 5-8. ‘All
flesh’ comprehends creatures inferior to
men,
possessed of ‘flesh;’
or a nature subject to
disease and death.
The expression occurs
in the history of Noah’s flood, wherein all
creatures, and not merely man, were
destroyed (Gen. 6: 17,
19; 7: 15, 21; Lev. 27: 14).
Jesus is Judge of the destiny of all. But there
is, besides, the gift of eternal
life by the Son to those elected by the Father.
It is not that all will finally be saved, but
those destined to this
glory by the Father.
‘All flesh’ lies under sin
and death, and is unable to
rescue itself therefrom.
He who would raise
out of it the creatures, and the elect, unto life
eternal, must be glorified
with the full glory of God.
3.
‘Now this is eternal life,
to know Thee the only true
God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ This is
the source of that constant
designation of our Lord, which the [Holy] Spirit so oft uses
afterwards. The
Christ of Israel is also the Son of God;
though
By
‘eternal life’ is not
meant mere ‘endless
existence;’ for that will belong to the
wicked also. In Scripture it
means the right state of the soul, consequent
acceptance before God, and bliss
in Him.
This
is
already
possessed by all believers.
[Page 282]
Their
souls
are possessed of the knowledge of God, as the Father
and the Son. The
knowledge of God as the Father is
eternal life. It
is the perception (arising out of the
acceptance of God’s testimony in the Gospel), that
God is now dealing out
salvation in grace, to whosoever will ask: the
belief in Father, the Son, and
the Spirit, as the one only true God.
This,
in
opposition (1) to Israel - who refuse to own any
God, but Jehovah, the God
of Law; and whose rejection of the testimony to the
Father and the Son is drawn
out for us so fully in this Gospel.
Such
cannot have eternal life.
They despise
the witness of God, and die in unbelief.
This
in
opposition (2) also to the heathen
-
with their
many false gods and
idolatries. These
must perish, as worshipping and serving
the creature, and not the Creator; and condemned by
their own many violations
of the witness of conscience.
In
opposition
also to (3) the intellectual deists
of past and present times - who, asserting the unity of the Godhead,
refuse to acknowledge any Trinity.
Hence, Jesus adds at once the necessity for
knowing Himself as the Sent
of the Father.
God cannot now be known,
save through Christ as the Son.
Only in
Him is there atonement for sin; only through Him can
eternal life be
given. Deny
the Trinity, and you put
away atonement; and if there be no atonement for
sin, man must perish in his
sins.
He
cannot
know God, who has never heard, or never received,
God’s testimony about
Himself. The
heathen walk in darkness
through ignorance of God.
The darkness
does not accept the light.
The
scientific of our day generally accept God only in
His natural attributes, as
the Great Architect, Astronomer, Mechanic, and so
on. But of His attributes of
justice and mercy, and their reconciliation in the
work of the Son, so that men
may be at peace with Him, and love Him, they know
nought; and refuse the Saviour’s
teaching, because it abases human pride.
‘The only true God.’ Jesus hereby excludes imaginary and false gods, but not Himself,
whom the Father salutes as God; whom John in his
first Epistle calls ‘the
true God,
and
[Page 283] everlasting Life.’ He is not
speaking of the Godhead as
exclusively centred in the Father; or as opposed to
the Godhead of Himself, the
Sent One. Could
the knowledge of a
creature be necessary to everlasting life?
He had before spoken of
Himself in His relation to God
– ‘Thy Son.’
Now He utters His own name in His relation to
men - the Mediator
between God and man, sent to reconcile the parties. His name
as the man, is ‘Jesus - the
Christ.’
The
knowledge
of God is not merely intellectual, but spiritual;
the result of the
testimony of God accepted.
He who knows
God as his Father in Christ, and is able to draw
near with confidence, has
eternal life already begun in his soul.
He is waiting still for the redemption of the body, and the
4.
‘I have glorified Thee on
the earth; the work which
Thou gavest me to do, I have fulfilled.’
The
first
sentiment was – ‘Glorify
Thy Son, that I may
glorify Thee, 0 Father!’
This is
– ‘Glorify me, for I have glorified Thee.’ God is
glorified by creation; how much more
by the work of redemption, wrought at such charges
to Himself, and to His Son!
How had Jesus glorified Him? (1) By
doctrine - His declaring the new name
of the Father. (2) By acts - His life of benevolence
and humiliation, and His
miracles of mercy.
There
was
a work of obedience and death, to be done on earth
by the Mediator, as Son
of God and Son of Man; necessary to the Father’
glory in redemption, and to
man’s salvation.
That
the Saviour presents
to the Father, as now accomplished; it being
certain, at this latter stage,
that He would not draw back from the completion of
it in His sufferings unto
death. Must
not the Father, then, in
requital for obedience so glorious, exalt Him, as
never one before?
Jesus
here
says – ‘What was necessary
to be done by Me as
man on earth, and what could be done here below, I
have effected. [Page
284] Now other means and stronger, and a different
locality, are needful to Thy glory and Mine, and
to man’s redemption.
Restore to Me the glory of the Son’s
Godhead,
which, in becoming man, I put off in order to the
accomplishment of the work.’
‘The glory which I HAD
With
Thee.’ He
was in the form of God.
He was in the bosom of the Father; ‘the
only-begotten Son.’
Before creation there was nothing but
God. It
was a glory which He had beside
the Father, in His presence of glory in heaven.
This is the force of the phrase.
Here
is
Jesus’ testimony to the Father, of His entire
obedience, His entire
perfection. There
is not, as with the
saved sons of men, confession of sin, and trust in
God’s mercy alone for
salvation; in opposition to desert of woo.
Had there been but one omission, one
overstepping of the line, God had
been dishonoured by Him. Offence
in one point had been guilt in all.
Christ asks for the due reward, then, of the
perfection displayed. Who
but He could attest the full completion of the work
assigned? In
thirty-three years He accomplished what
Moses left unfulfilled in one hundred-and-twenty. Moses must
die, because he has sinned; for
one visible offence against God’s glory.
‘Because ye
sanctified Me not, in the midst of
the children of
The
Father
accepts this as the true statement of His Son’s
work, by His raising Him
from the dead, and seating Him at His own right hand
in the heavenly places.
5. ‘And now do Thou, Father, glorify Me with
Thyself with the glory which I had before the
world was made, with Thee.’
As
the
result of such glorification of the Father, He asks
for His own
glorification.
And for an especial form
of it - the restoration to Him of the divine glory
which He possessed before [Page
285] He
became man. He
here testifies His pre-existence, and His
abiding with the Father, and in His divine glory,
before creation began. Jesus,
then, is the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father.
He is not one who began to be at creation. As Paul
says, He was in ‘the form of
God,’ and stooped and emptied Himself of
glory in His becoming man.
Now the
bitterest part of that humiliation - the death on
the cross - is at the door;
but, beyond that, He anticipates so perfect a
passage across the darkness, that
the Father will be obliged to exalt Him above all
creatures as His Son.
This appears also in Hebrews
1. Jesus, by His eternal generation, was the Son;
above all angels, in a sense that
cannot justly be assigned to them.
But
Paul goes on to testify, that by His perfection of
service during His
incarnation, He has re-won the place of superiority
to angels. He
has again been saluted as ‘the
Son,’ on the Father’s raising Him from the
dead (Heb. 1: 5).
That place no angel has ever by his obedience
earned. The un-fallen
angels by their obedience just fulfil the work
demanded of them, but no
more. They
are not meritorious servants
of the Most High, who can claim a reward, and such a
reward, as their desert.
Neither
God
nor His Son began to be.
The world
did begin. There
were ages uncounted
before it was created.
On
the
other hand the Father speaking to the Son, after His
work on earth, owns
His Godhead; and assigns to Him the kingdom as the
result of His perfect love
and righteousness, and hatred of iniquity (Heb.
1:
8, 9).
There
are,
then, three aspects of the matter presented in this
verse.
(1)
Jesus,
as the Son, had glory with the Father before all
creation.
(2)
He
stripped Himself of that glory to become the
servant. He
has so lived on earth, as that the Father
has been glorified, and
He can claim glory in the
day to come, when the Most High shall assign to
each the reward of his works.
Nay, the glory is to begin at once. ‘Now.’
‘Glorify Me with
(that is, ‘beside’)
Thyself.’
Jesus’ glory is to begin at once in the presence
[Page
286] of
the Father on His ascension;
and the same divine glory which He enjoyed before
His human birth, is to be
restored to Him.
Who of mere men could
say such things with truth?
Who could
put forth such pretensions without blasphemy? and
the Father’s eternal
displeasure?
‘But may not “the
glory which
I had with Thee before the world was”
mean
only, that Christ had that glory in the counsels
of the Father, before the
Christ had any existence?’
So
speak
some, whose aim is just the opposite to that of the
Father; to diminish
as much as may be, the honour given in Scripture to
the Son. Whenever
you find this, be on your guard!
No!
First, if Jesus be a mere man, how did He
know what was the glory destined Him, before
creation existed?
Secondly, this was nothing
peculiar to Himself.
God had destined a special glory for
Abraham,
David, and others as well.
Thirdly, the
natural sense of the words imports - that Jesus not
only existed ere creation,
but dwelt in glory in the presence of the Father. Fourthly,
this is sustained by many other
passages, specially of John’s Gospel and Epistles. ‘The
Word was
God. The same was in the beginning
with God.’
His was glory
before creation; for He created all, and the cause
must be before the effect;
while the glory of the Creator must be infinitely
above that of the
creature. Again,
‘What and if ye shall not
see the Son of Man ascend
up where He was before?’
‘Before Abraham was born, I am.’
‘Who being in
the form of God, emptied Himself’ (Phil.
2.). ‘He that hath not the
Son of God, hath not life.’
‘He that
progresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of
the
Christ, hath not God’ (2
John 9).
Observe how the ‘we’
in this prayer sets Jesus on a level with the Father
(ver.
11, 21, 22).
The Object of
worship and Giver of life is the Son.
6-9. ‘I
manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gayest Me
out of
the world; Thine they were, and Thou gavest them
to Me, and they have kept Thy
word. Now
have they recognised that all
things which Thou gavest Me are from Thee.
For the words which Thou gayest Me, I gave
to them, and they received
them, and knew of a truth that I came out from
Thee, and that Thou didst send
Me. I
ask for them; I ask not for the
world, but for those whom Thou gavest Me, because
they are Thine.’
[Page 287]
In
these
verses we see the immense importance attaching to
true views about our
God, and a right faith in Him.
Such
as
our views of God are, such is our religion.
Such as our spiritual centre is, such will be
our circumference.
The
difference
between the friends and the foes of God, turns on
the acceptance or
the refusal of the testimony of God about His Son. To accept
the testimony of the Father to the
Son is life and peace.
To refuse it is
to grow hardened in unbelief.
Unbelief
wrought the sin of the Garden; and unbelief is the
settled temper of the world
in relation to God, whom it hates.
That
unbelief and that hatred show that it is of its
father, the Devil; and that
with him it will dwell for ever under the wrath of
God. For
how can God be otherwise than wroth with
those who refuse to believe His testimony, and break
His commandments?
‘Manifested.’
In
opposition to Old Testament obscurity.
The Saviour refers to the crucifixion-psalm (Ps.
22: 22). ‘I will
declare Thy name unto my
brethren.’
Jesus
now
turns to mention His desires concerning His
apostles. They
were not worthy in themselves, but they are
linked on to the glory of the Son.
They
are valued by Him (1) as the Father’s gift
(what omnipotence this supposes
over the sons of men!) and (2) as the agents
appointed to uphold and spread the
glory of the Son. They are valued by the Father as
accepters of the Son of God,
and partakers of His counsels while the world
rejects Christ and His word.
‘Thy word.’
We should have expected ‘My word;’ but
all through Jesus and His Father are seen in the
closest harmony.
How
all
eternity turns on our acceptance of the testimony of
the Son, and
acceptance of the Son to whom the testimony is
borne! See
it in the two crucified robbers!
The accepter of Christ is saved on the very
edge of death.
‘The Jews condemn the Son;
these, My apostles, approve.
They confess that My words and My works
are
not from Beelzebub as their source; but from
Christ, the Son of God.’
Hence
the
sternness with which all systems are to be treated,
[Page
288]
which explain away or deny the
doctrine of the Trinity.
Ordinary
Unitarians in their supposed intellectual
superiority, refuse to Christ the
eternal Sonship, Godhead, and worship, which Jesus
claims to Himself.
If you have to deal with such, ask them, -
‘What they think of Christ?’ They will
tell you ‘He was an excellent teacher,
and a good man.’
Ask them, then –
Whether He is a ‘good
man’ who makes Himself equal with God, and
never
refuses religious worship when offered, but
sometimes claims it?
Swedenborgians
are
another class of Antichrists, who, under pretence of
possessing profound
wisdom, deny the Father and the Son; while, in order
to set up some pretence of
acknowledging the Son, they describe the Son as a
portion of unintelligent, but
sinful matter, with which for awhile the One God
clothed Himself, only to put it
off again for ever!
This
and
other errors spring from Satan, and would be cast
away at once as contrary
to the Scripture, only that the evil heart of
unbelief is ready to accept
whatever will take off from the conscience the
pressure of Scripture truth;
which condemns and humbles man, the sinner.
No
words
of God or man can be trusted, if this chapter does
not present to us Two
Persons; one of whom is praying to the other.
How
did
Jesus ‘manifest the name’
of God to His
disciples? Partly by words; partly by deeds.
He taught disciples to address God as the
Father in heaven.
He taught them to trust Him as a Father. He taught
the principle of grace, as opposed
to the justice of the Law; and thus showed the
character of God as the God of
grace. Jesus’
miracles of mercy, and
words of tenderness, displayed the gracious tempers
of Him who made known the
Father.
But
observe,
Jesus did not declare God to be ‘the
Father
of all men,’ or of the world of unbelief.
The name of ‘Father’
was declared to disciples,
not to unbelievers.
God is not the Father of all men; as if all
were going on, after more or less of discipline now
and hereafter, to
salvation.
God
is
the Father of none who refuse His testimony to
Jesus, as His own eternal,
only-begotten Son.
[Page 289]
Here
Christ
draws the most marked line between the saved elect,
and the world.
The world is the usurped possession of the
Wicked One, and the men of the world give him their
allegiance, obedience, and
affections. The saved are those who are taken out of
the world, and given to Christ.
Here is the Father’s election, leaving the
mass of men to their unbelief and resistance of His
word and will.
‘Thine they were.’ This seems to point to
God’s election from all eternity of some of His
creatures. They
belong to Him, and He disposes of them
as seems to Him good.
They
belong
to Christ, in a sense different from the worldly. Their
final salvation is certain.
‘They have kept Thy word.’ Shall we suppose this
to
refer primarily to their obedience to the Law of
Moses; and then to their
submission to John’s doctrine and baptism; then
their leaving John, by John’s
own direction, to attach themselves to Jesus, as
John’s superior? since which
time they had obeyed the commands of Christ, which
were, in effect, the
commands of the Father.
We
may
compare the present counsel of God in regard to the
Church, with the
previous work of the Most High under Moses.
That is described as being Jehovah’s taking ‘a nation from
the midst of another nation by
temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war,
and by a mighty hand, and by
a stretched out arm,’ Deut.
4: 34.
Now God is taking, not a nation, but individuals, out from
the midst of Jew and Gentile,
not by open miracle, much less by war; but by grace,
to be to Him a people of
inheritance, far higher than
‘Now have they known.’ This seems to refer to
their late declaration of faith (16:
29, 30).
And then the stress is laid on ‘Now.’
‘The words which Thou gavest
Me, I gave to them.’
Our
Lord
seems to be pointing at Moses’ prophecy – ‘I
will
raise them up [in two senses‑(1) Jesus’
birth, and (2)
resurrection] a prophet
from among their brethren like
unto Thee, and will put My words into His mouth, and He shall speak unto them all that I
shall command Him.
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,’ Dent. 18: 18, 19.
Thus
the
prophecy and our Lord’s words lay stress on the same
thing. Jesus
spoke the words given Him.
As
referring
specially to the twelve, Christ had sent them out to
Israel with the
same message concerning the coming kingdom of glory,
which Jesus had borne, and
with the same tokens of miracle, with which He
Himself heralded the kingdom (Mark
1: 14, 15; Matt. 10: 7, 8).
But
the
essential point is, the recognition that Jesus as
the Son came forth from
the Father, and that He sent the Son.
The acceptance of the testimony of God in
Scripture to Jesus’ Godhead
and mission, as introducing us - and as alone
capable of introducing us - into
the knowledge of our God, is that on which Christ
lays stress, and on it so
should we. This
levels all theories of
men, and specially the Gnostic doctrine of more Gods
than one, and many
emanations from God (or demigods); while Jesus
Christ was not one Person, but
two.
The
acceptance
or refusal of this truth makes the gulf between the
church and the
world. Do
you believe in Jesus as the
Christ, [Page 291] the Son
of God, the Creator and Redeemer commissioned by the
Father, alone able to
save?
For
those
who believe this doctrine, Christ here prays.
The world in its unbelief stands outside
this
prayer of Christ.
As it refuses His High
Priesthood, it refuses also His prayer of
intercession, uttered as the High
Priest.
The
world
and the Church - unbelievers and believers - these
are the two bodies
which Jesus and the Spirit sever from one another,
by clear, strong, deep
lines. It
is fitting that we do so
too. While
we confess the open
invitation addressed to all to listen to the Son, as
God’s great grace to the
world, let us hold fast also the election of God out
from the world; without
which that proclamation had been in vain.
For the world hates both the Father and the
Son. And
the more serious among the world assert
and hold doctrines opposed to those testified by our
Lord.
Observe
Jesus’
constant care through all His words and deeds, to
make it apparent that
His zeal for His ransomed ones had respect to their
belonging to the Father, no
less truly than to Himself.
‘Those whom Thou
hast given Me; for they are Thine.’
10.
‘And all things that are
Mine are Thine, and Thine are
Mine, and I am glorified in them.’
Those
given
to Jesus are ‘beloved of God.’ They are
bearers of God’s glory to the
world. Though
given by the Father to
Christ, they cease not to belong to the Father; for,
as Jesus says, they have
all things in common; one their plan, their power,
grace, and truth.
These
are
words which could only rightfully be spoken by one
possessed of
Godhead. For
it is not as if our Lord
said – ‘All I have belongs
to Thee.’
That is true; but it is true of all.
The Saviour’s words are – ‘All
Thou hast belongs to
‘I am glorified in them.’ This is
the new ground alleged for the
Father’s showing them special favour.
To
whatever concerns His Son’s glory, the Father is
fully alive: almighty to
promote it. They
would certainly
therefore be blest.
The bearers of [Page
292]
Christ’s glory would be saved
and glorified.
In one view, Jesus was
already glorified in them.
They accepted
Him as the Son of God, despite His poor
surroundings; and in spite of the
hatred and unbelief of their nation.
But
the word looks on to the future, and the work is
beheld by our Lord in its
completion.
So
a
young mother on her death-bed, leaving behind her
fatherless children, under
a sense of their weakness, and the wickedness of the
world around, is filled
with care; and desirous of recommending them to some
trusty and fitting
protector. Christ
commits them, then, to
the care of the Heavenly Father; for they were the
common property of the
Father and the Son.
What can sustain
them against the world’s evil current, that runs so
strong? The Almighty Father
alone. Jesus
is now looking back on His
course well-nigh finished, and His office well
sustained. He
has not, like the pastors of earth, to
confess shortcomings and errors.
All was
well done, and He is sensible of His Father’s
approval.
His
sheep
were chosen out from the evil world, and the flesh
in them still makes
them inclined towards it.
If they turn
towards it they become like it; and the more like it
they become, the more
unfit are they for dwelling with the Holy Lord
above.
11.
‘And now I am no more in the
world, but these are in
the world, and I am coming to Thee.
Holy
Father, keep them in Thy name whom* Thou Last
given Me, that they may be one, as we are.’
*
The majority of
the uncial copies reads – ‘“which”
Thou gayest Me.’
Jesus
speaks
here in the style of God.
He
treats of the things that be not, as though they
were. Was
He not still in the world, and at the
threshold of His sore conflict, when He thus spoke? Aye, but
He is sure of His Father’s counsels,
and of His own victory.
Death is not to
Him the great object, though around it clustered all
that was terrible to nature.
His death is regarded as the source of
trial
and danger to others, rather than to Himself.
He sees it as the closing of earth and the
opening of heaven: while
concerning heaven itself He speaks only of the
Father, as the centre of it all
to Him.
[Page 293]
His
little
flock were ‘still in the
world.’
Christ looks on the world as a place of
peril; a stormy sea, amidst whose waves, shallows,
and rocks the vast majority
of men make shipwreck.
And these His
disciples, as still in the flesh, would be amidst
perpetual temptations to turn
aside from the Father and Himself.
Some are drawn away by its golden lures; some frightened by its frowns
and threats.
The flesh in the renewed is
no better than in the lost.
Hence it is
a perpetual conflict, in which we are not to
give way.
Christian, learn to look on the world, as
did your Master!
Did He view it as a pleasant garden, into
which you may safely enter and delight yourself? How can
you go into it voluntarily without damage?
without often falling?
Would you, if you
had been in
‘Holy
Father.’
Some brethren in prayer say – ‘Indulgent
Father.’ This word
seems the contrast to that.
By ‘indulgent’
we mean one who opposes not, but yields to the
humours and desires of those
under his care.
Now God is set forth to
us rather as the Father who chastises all His sons
for their profit.
‘Holy
Father.’
This is said in opposition to the unholy
world, of which Satan is the Prince.
The Father desires that we should be unlike
the world. He
is holy, and separate from evil, and desires
and commands that we should be so
too. ‘Be
ye holy, for I am.’
God is not solely, ‘Father,’
or
‘Father of all;’
but ‘Holy
Father.’
He is aiming at producing in us His own
tempers, which are the opposite to those of the
world. As
renewed, we are His children; but we are
to ‘become’
more
like Himself - Matt. 5:
18 (Greek).
The
unholy
world contaminates and spoils God’s children.
‘The whole world
lieth in wickedness - while we know that we are of
God’ (1 John 5:
19).
How can it be otherwise, when Satan is its
God? In
Jesus’ temptation by the Devil and his
lures, we behold the Saviour’s holiness, shrinking
from all that is contrary to
His Father’s mind and commands.
The Lord under Moses
testified that He was holy; but
it was [Page 294]
a different kind of holiness commanded then - that
of
the flesh. Hence
they were to eat no
meat of a creature that had died of itself, or had
been torn by dogs (Ex.
22: 31).
And the holiness of Jehovah was conjoined
with His threatening and
terribleness (Lev. 20:
6, 7) against such as
were idolaters, or using the services of evil
spirits. They
therefore were to be unlike the nations
of earth in all their ways, walking after the
ordinances of the Lord their God.
What was His character under Law was shown
impressively at Sinai.
Recur at once to that, when any
would tell you that God, out
of Christ, is only mercy.
’Tis
false; ’tis
written in lines of clearest
evidence for all time.
But
now
the Most High God is to His Christ, and to His
people in Christ a ‘Holy
Father.’ While He chastises His
people now for their sins, it is not to destroy
them; but to make them
partakers of His holiness.
The
world
is unholy because it pursues its own way regardless
of God’s will and
word. It
likes the gifts; the Giver it
hates; the will of God, the promises of God it
despises; His threatenings it
fears not. Holiness
then is unlikeness
to the world, and likeness to God.
It is
a coming out from it, first in heart, then in life.
‘Keep them.’ These
sheep
sadly need a shepherd to attend them.
Beside their pastures are the dens of the
lions, and the caves of the
bears. Here
are pits, there are deadly
herbs. ‘Keep
them!’
Preserve them from the
evil. Our
prayer then is not to be – ‘Father,
put us to the proof.’
Let loose upon us the lion and the bear,
and
see how gallantly we can stand their attack, and put
them to flight.
It is, ‘Lead us not
into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’
‘Keep in
Thy name.’
The
expression is a difficult one, but I take it to
signify, that as He called
Himself their Father, so He would watch over these
sons with a father’s love.
‘Those whom Thou hast given
‘That they may be one.’
The Father and Son are one in the divine
nature possessed in common; the
knowledge of the Father [Page 295] and the Son is wrought by the Holy Ghost, who transforms God’s
elect. This
is the means whereby they
are brought into unity with one another.
‘That they may be one, as we
are.’
Wonderful
words! Here
Jesus sets Himself beside
the Father as His equal.
Those given to
Christ as heirs of eternal life, have many
diversities by nature of station,
people, education, prejudices.
The
Devil, the world, and the flesh seek to disunite
them, and often do sever those
of Christ’s flock.
But for God’s
Almighty Spirit there had been no union at all.
And how little of unity has there been, and
is now, of oneness among
God’s chosen! How
immeasurably below the
perfect unity subsisting between the Father and the
Son! Has
the prayer of Christ, then, failed?
No!
There is at the foundation a unity of nature
among those regenerated by
the Spirit of God.
And there is time
enough in eternity to produce the oneness for which
Jesus prays, after the
disturbing forces shall have been removed.
This seems to me to show, that the saved in
Christ shall form one body
wonderfully united and co-ordinated in eternity, and
distinct from other
companies of the redeemed.
‘But how are we to be one, as the Father and the Son are one?’ I am not
sure that I see clearly the force of
these words. It
is to be observed, then,
that Jesus does not say – ‘that
they may be one
with us.’ Nor
– ‘that they
and we may be one’ - which would imply an
equality with Jesus and the
Father in nature.
But they import, I
believe, a union complete among
themselves, as a family of the redeemed.
And Almighty power shall one day execute what
is here only begun.
‘As we are.’
How
blasphemous, if Jesus be not possessor of Godhead! Did the
Most High suffer one so to address
Him - to die affirming Himself to be the Son of God
- and yet after all honour
Him in a way He never honoured any before?
O then it is clear, that the Father affirms
His pretensions!
He is ‘Light of
light; very God of very God.’
Jesus
does
not ask that He might be one with the Father.
He was so already.
He assumes that He was, by that simple but
[Page
296]
sublime expression – ‘As We
are!’
Observe again, He does not join Himself with
the elect, in this prayer,
as other servants and ministers of God do; but His ‘We’
connects Him with the Godhead.
Here,
Christians,
let us see how valuable in the sight of our Redeemer
is the union
of His people!
May we seek to promote it
in all lawful ways!
The basis of it is
love. Love
immeasurable and eternal
unites the Father and the Son.
May we be
transformed into that likeness continually!
12.
‘When I was with them in the
world, I used to keep in
Thy name those whom Thou gavest Me, and I guarded
them; and none is lost, but
the Son of Perdition, in order that the Scripture
might be fulfilled.’
Here
is
still the same majestic style of the Godhead,
speaking of things that be
not, as though they were.
Was He not
with them in the world still?
Yes! but
He beholds as accomplished what was yet at the door. The
separation was all but effected.
‘I kept them.’ The ‘I’
is emphatic, Who of men, the most faithful of
shepherds, durst say so?
‘By My divine
wisdom and power I instructed them, led them
out of error into truth; out from evil company and
communications into the
society of the holy.
And now, what I did
perfectly, do thou!’
Jesus
does
not say of Judas – ‘I lost
him. Satan
plucked him out of My hand.’
But He says – ‘None
is lost, but’ ... Judas was lost beyond
recovery. He
was ‘the Son of
Perdition.’
His loss was already
foretold in Scripture.
By the title ‘the
Son of,’ is meant that he was guilty of
sin,
worthy of hell.
This is the meaning of
the Hebrew expression, ‘son
of death’ (2
Sam 20: 31; 26: 16).
It may refer also to his coming forth out
of
the bottomless pit (Rev.
17: 8).
There are but two signalised with the
expression, ‘Son of
Perdition.’
(1) One is the False Christ; (2) the other
(Judas, as I believe) is the False Prophet.
They are both also destined to the lake of
fire.
Where
in
Scripture is Judas’s fall foretold? In Psalm
69:
25; in Psalm
109. and 41:
10, to which places Peter refers in the
Acts. ‘But if
the Scripture foretold Judas’s fall, how could he
be responsible, in doing what
the Scripture said he should?’
Observe, [Page 297] the Scripture made Judas’s
act certain.
But
it does not mean that he was compelled to do it against
his will. The necessity under which he
acted left him quite free. It
was a necessity with his will, and not against it. Had it been a
force
from without, compelling
him against
his inclination and choice, he had not
been free, or guilty.
But as all the
choice and the force were from within, he was wholly guilty.
I
gather from the Gospel of John, that the history of
Judas and the place given
him among the disciples by Jesus, was in John’s days
a great stumbling-block
and engine forcibly plied by the adversary against
the truth. ‘How could
Christ be God, if he chose and suffered to enter
his inner circle of friends and helpers, a man
like that? Could
it arise from anything but ignorance?’ Hence the
Scripture reasons for the Saviour’s
conduct toward him, and the proofs of His knowledge
of his character, are fully
drawn out in this Gospel from an early date.
So strong have been the proofs, that they
have well nigh, if not
entirely, quelled the objections against the Gospel,
liable to be urged against
it from the place assigned to Judas, and his dismal
end. Jesus
discards him as one of those whom He
had not kept. His
destruction was not
due to Jesus’s negligence.
His fall was
the heavier, and his sin the more awful, because of
the clear light that had
shone upon him from the Saviour’s life, miracles,
and instruction.
How
simply
Jesus regards God's elect as His property, given to
Him and kept by
Him! Some
may and do say in our day, ‘I
don’t believe in ‘irresistible
grace.’
All depends, after all, on a man’s
own
choice and
that choice is free; and God
saves no man against his will.’
This
is
partly true, partly false.
God does
not draw a man to salvation, while his heart refuses
and resists. But
when He wishes to save, His grace cannot
be resisted. Why? Because He
begins His work at a point above
the will. He
changes the nature, and the
will changes at once. Yonder
is
a sow in the mire.
Drive her out, and
she will come back again.
Her will is
unchanged. But
suppose, that with an
enchanter’s wand you turn her into a dove.
Now she flees the mud; she hates it.
Such power is irresistible, the will is on
the side of the power.
What
a
place Scripture held in the mind of our Lord, and in
the mind of His
apostles, as instructed by the Lord. Men can get quit of its words as by a snap of the fingers; but ’tis
not so with the Son of God.
Men regard
the words of their fellows.
How much
more should they stand by the words of God!
What
are
the lessons attaching to Judas’s fall?
His history tells us what man is.
How, set in the very best of positions for
his good and salvation, he
turned them to his sorest bane.
See,
too, how hateful in God’s eyes is treachery among
believers. Among
God’s chosen, love and unity are to
reign; for Christ gave Himself up to death to save
His own; and we in
consequence are called upon to yield life itself for
the good of our
fellow-believers.
How hateful, then, in
His sight the treachery of which Judas is the type! Of one,
who, eating the bread of His Master,
secretly engaged himself to betray Him to His
enemies!
The
preservation
of the disciples by Christ was beheld in their
deliverance from
death, and above all from sin. So Peter, sinking, is
lifted up; and the storm
that sorely threatened their vessel is quelled; so
Jesus’s intercession
prevails against Satan’s sifting.
These
words
do not suppose, that Judas was one of those given to
Christ for
salvation. For
such are secure of
eternal life. John
6: 37-39; 18: 9.
If the Son so
cared for the disciples because the Father gave
them, it was fitting that the
Father should now ‘keep,’
that is, ‘guard,’
those whom the Son was leaving.
13 ‘But
now I am coming to Thee, and these things I speak
in the
world, in order that they may have my joy
fulfilled in themselves.’
Jesus
was
about to withdraw from earth to heaven.
The Great Shepherd was near to suffer the
smiting of Jehovah, as
foretold. How,
then, should He care for
the flock? The
sheep should be
scattered; it was written so.
And what
would become of them in that dark and cloudy day? The Father
must [Page 299]
keep them, or they would be swallowed up in the whirlpool.
Jesus, therefore, commends the flock to His
Father’s care.
Christ
on
this occasion prayed in the presence of His
disciples; not desiring, like
the hypocrite, the applause of men; but as conveying
to us instructions full of
comfort and joy.
May we not justly
rejoice, that Jesus prays for us as He did for
Peter? thus our faith shall not
be put out in darkness.
‘These things I speak in the
world;’ that
is, before He had left earth for
heaven. And
He allows the disciples to
hear His prayer, that from its calm and assured
tenor they might, amidst the
tempest, be comforted.
‘That they may have my joy.’ How wonderful, that on
the
eve of that betrayal to the cross, He should speak
of His joy! And
that He was not, as other men would have
been, swallowed up in the contemplation of His own
sufferings; but able to
think of His disciples’ joy!
‘Joy in themselves.’ As not only having the
right and title to it in the coming day, but already
possessing it within.
How great His love!
Christian! Your Lord
desires to have you always
rejoicing. In
the circumstances around
you, you may be much troubled; but in the Lord and
His grace to you lies a
springing fountain.
Jesus was going away
from the world of earth to the Father’s presence of
joy. But
while yet on earth, with its legions of
evil men and spirits wheeling already around to
enclose and arrest Him, He tells
of joy to us. He
was about to speak to
the Father in another manner on high; but now, while
still in the world, He
would thus address the Father with a view to His
disciples hearing His kindly
designs for them, that they might rejoice.
The
joy
of the Son was in His Father’s fellowship.
And our joy as believers is to be in our
fellowship with the Father and
with the Son. Let
us seek it then, and
we shall not need the joys of the flesh and of the
world.
The world vainly vaunts
itself as possessed of joys,
and holds true believers to be fools, because they
will not run with them to
enjoy ‘the pleasures of sin
for a season.’
But on all their joy [Page
300] woe
is spread, and judgment is
coming to strip them of all they value.
They do not know the joys of the children of
God. They
cannot, while in the flesh.
They need to believe the testimony of God
and
His people ere they do.
Let
us,
then, seek to be joyful!
Let us ask
for joy. Ours
are its unfailing
sources. Let
us draw on them
continually!
14.
‘I gave them Thy word, and
the world hath hated them,
because they are not of the world, even as I am
not of the world.’
You
can
tell what a man is, and where he stands, by his
treatment of the Scripture.
The infidel refuses to own it as the Word
of
God at all. The
‘There is
silver in it, but you must sift it out from the
rubbish mingled therewith.’
That is, ‘You are
a
judge of it, and it is no judge of you.’ Whereas Jesus says
that ‘the word He has
spoken shall judge each in the last day.’
The careless
Christian sets aside much,
as not applying to our day; or too sublime and
ethereal for practice; or
figurative.
But
to
apostles, and, above all, to the Son of God, the
words of the Lord are pure
words; silver tried in a furnace, purified seven
times. ‘The Scripture cannot
be broken.’ You
may hang your whole weight upon its
least twig. What
was the good of being a
Jew? ‘Much every
way, chiefly because unto them were committed the
oracles
of God.’
They are God’s decisions for our guidance;
not like the oracles of old, expensive and
deceptive.
‘The world’s hatred,’
says Luther, ‘is the
court-dress of Christians.’
The Saviour makes the world’s hatred of His
people a plea for His Father’s love and care.
They were the depositors of God’s treasure,
His word; and the world
would rob them of it; not that it values the jewels,
but that it hates the
Giver and His servants.
And how great
the dangers of the world’s enmity was shown in the
case of Judas.
How, then, were the servants of Christ,
amidst so many perils, to escape shipwreck?
By the Father’s keeping.
Through
that blest [Page 301] promise – ‘God is faithful, Who will not
suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able.’
To
the
apostles, and through them to us, the new doctrines
of Christ proceeding
from the Father, had been committed.
And
this very fact produces enmity in evil hearts.
The great ones of the Jews were displeased to
find Jesus taking as His
companions and depositories of His truth -
publicans, fishermen, and the
uneducated, while passing by them.
Moreover, the substance of the word given was
hateful. Had
he flattered
Jesus
was
not of the world, in nature, in birth, in
principles, in conduct.
Neither were the disciples in their renewed
nature and new birth.
Our Lord begs,
then, that the hatred of the world may be outweighed
by the Father’s love.
Christ
describes
His work on the apostles as being His gift to them
of the word of
God. Truth,
new and of saving import,
discovering to us God, and joy, and peace in Him,
had been by Christ made
known. The
Son alone could truly
discover to us the knowledge of God.
Hence the stress on ‘I’
The
world
refuses God’s word, and is guided by the spirit and
maxims of Satan.
It knows not God, and does not desire to
know
Him. Hence
it suspects, refuses, hates
those who are guided by the word of God, and led by
the Spirit that inspired
it. Ever
since the sentence of Jehovah
in
Its
hatred
to the sinless Son of God was stronger than that [Page
302]
against any other.
But the more any resembles Jesus, the more
will he be refused by the world.
The
reason why some believers are accepted, is not
because of their graces and
resemblance to Christ and conformity to the Word of
God; but because they
are unfaithful to its principles, ignorant of
its truths, and unlike in spirit
to their Lord.
That is the principle
here supposed.
The disciple is hated by
the world, just in proportion to his resemblance
to the Son of God.
And if the trials resulting therefrom
be great at present, they
point on to
glory like Christ’s in the day to come. It is an honour to be rejected by the world for principle, and spirit,
and conduct such as were found in our Lord.
15.
‘I ask not that Thou
shouldst take them out of the
world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from the
evil.’
This
verse
and the 17th unfold two aspects of the Father’s
keeping. Jesus
desires - (1) their protection from the
evil; and (2) their being led into the truth more
and more fully.
That truth
would make them unlike the
world; and would cause the world less and less
to desire their company;
while they, on their part, would less and less covet
what is of the world.
Thus Paul says of the cross of the Christ,
that by it the world was crucified to Him, and He
unto the world.
If
the
world be so evil, and Christ love so deeply His
people, why not, at once,
remove them out of it?
He had but to ask
and have. But
the Saviour of set purpose
would not so ask - It was not the counsel of His
Father, nor His own.
While the world is evil, the disciples are
yet awhile to stay in it.
Reasons many
arise, why they should so tarry; arising from their
relations to God, the
world, and to themselves.
They
have to bear witness for
God, to show by word and deed the light amidst the
darkness. It
may be, that some of the world may listen
to their testimony, and forsake their paths of
death. But
for the presence of the sons of God,
judgment had long ere this overtaken the world.
Besides this, the
world is the
Christian’s school and training-ground.
The Saviour has much to teach him, and that
in the way of practice.
He
has
to put off [Page
303] the old man, and to put on the
new. He has to learn humility, patience, mercy, love.
And the world is the place to exercise
these
graces; to discover to the Christian how much of the
old man remains, and to
lead him to put it away.
It
is also a sphere of service, and a place
of suffering, on the way to reward.
Then
the
retiring from the world into a monastery is not
the mind of Christ. So did not
our Lord; so did not His
apostles. The Lord can keep His people from the evil of the world; and this is
what is to be desired by them, and sought.
But it supposes, too, that
they
do not voluntarily go into it.
While
we pray – ‘Lead us not into temptation;’ and
keep
ourselves off its domains, we shall be kept. But what
if we put ourselves on Satan’s
ground? We
shall stumble there
assuredly.
16.
‘They are not of the world,
even as I am not of the
world.’
Vain
is
the attempt to sanctify the world.
It
holds in all things with its fallen Prince and
Ruler, and the world continues
the perverse generation, unchanged to the close. But these
were drawn out of it, and needed
keeping, lest they anew should be swept into its
Christ’s
attitude
then toward the world is to be ours also.
He had not the spirit of the world, and
sought not its praises or its prizes.
Neither then should the Christian.
Jesus ruled not the world; nor pursued after
its wealth or
pleasures. Neither
then should the
Christian. The
regenerate of the Spirit
are born again, to the intent that they should stand
aloof from the world which
knows not God.
The sons of God are not
the seed of the serpent.
17.
‘Sanctify them by Thy truth.
Thy word is truth.’
This
brings
before us by contrast the ancient Mosaic
sanctification.
That was of the flesh, cleansing by bathing
in water, and by the water of sprinkling.
The priests were to be sanctified by blood,
and water, and oil.
These were the shadows of [Page
304] the
sanctification in spirit and
truth. As
John observes, Law came by
Moses, ‘grace and truth by
Jesus Christ.’
The worship of God, now made known by His
Gospel-name, demands the inward reality.
There must be the being begotten of God by
the Spirit, and the birth out
of the water of baptism. The new life begun must
also be fed with the truth of
God, the sincere milk of the Word.
Here is
the positive aspect of the case.
There
must be God’s preservation against danger.
This is effected instrumentally by the word
of God, as David says – ‘By
the words of Thy lips I
have kept me from the paths of the destroyer’
(Psalm
17: 4).
The life
begun needs new food.
The principles and
commands of Christ are to supersede and set aside
the old principles and way of
the flesh and the world.
We must know what God designs us to do, how to walk so as to please
Him, whither we are going, what our heritage,
what the objects we are to
pursue.
Sanctification is
separation from wickedness in heart
and life. The
men of the world flow on
in the world’s current, use its maxims, and act
after its ways.
It is a world of falsehood.
God shows us by His Scripture the truth
concerning the world; how it is a place of foes, and
of falsehood. Hence
it leads us to avoid the evil.
The world is unholy.
To be holy we must turn away from its
current. Better
objects must rule
us. Evil
seen frightens us.
God’s call has authority with us.
We see in His word, and in examples round
about us the present mischiefs of worldliness.
We behold in the Saviour’s teachings the
disastrous effects of it in the
day to come. See
the difference between
Abraham and
The more
truth we accept, the greater is our separation from
the world. Each
new portion of Christ’s truth suggests
new reasons for standing apart from the evil that is
around us. But
sanctification does not mean separation
from God’s
people,
[Page 305] the
members
of the Son of God.
Many
have come, indeed, through
the false principles taught, to value themselves
on separation from believers.
And
they have
spoken and acted, as if
believers who held any one wrong principle were
to be separated from.
Such was not Paul’s teaching, or our
Lord’s
mind. Do not accept false doctrine at their hands; but do them all the good
you can.
While partially in error,
they are really sons of God.
Love and
help them! Their
errors call for your
teaching them the truth; not for your fleeing from
them, as if they were the
seed of the serpent.
‘But how can I associate with
those who hold the non-eternity
of punishments, those who sprinkle infants, who
deny the Lord’s coming, and the
Christian’s heavenly calling?’
Does
God
call us to separate from believers -
members of Christ,
because some of their views are
erroneous? Never!
Did
Paul stand aloof from Corinthian believers,
because there were
false doctrine and evil practice?
Does he refuse to own the Galatian
Christians, because of their error on
the foundation-point of
justification? If so, we ought not
to have fellowship with ‘Brethren,’
because
they, too, in general, are wrong on justification:
denying the righteousness of
the Lord Jesus to be ours.
The
way in
which many justify themselves in it is to ask – ‘Are
we not to abstain from evil?’ God calls
you to
depart from iniquity; He does not use so indefinite a word as ‘evil.’
But
God’s
people are not evil, and to hold intercourse
with them is not to commit
iniquity.
Nor are you guilty of
their errors, if you hold
fellowship with them: else Paul was
verily guilty in his intercourse with
Intelligence
of
truth is only to be learned from Scripture.
Each new portion of truth accepted makes us
more like God, more unlike
the world. The
world feeds on the things
of [Page 306] the earth, and
present objects and hopes; it seeks them, too, by
means condemned by God.
The more men drink into its spirit and
accept
its principles, the more unfit are they to live with
God, and His Christ; the
greater enmity do they bear to those who are His
sons. Hence
John says – ‘Love
not the world, neither the things that are of the
world. If
any man love the world, the love of the Father is not
in him.’
He says not, ‘there
can
be no love of God as Creator.’ But
the
more the world is loved, and the more any draws near
to the character and
life of this world, the more opposed is he to a life
and objects of faith, and
to promises which refer to heaven.
Holiness,
then,
is produced through the Scriptures applied by the
Holy Ghost. The
pleasures and the engagements taught in
the Scriptures, will more and more make us out of
tune with the pleasures of
the world. He whose delight is in prayer and the
Word of God, will neither
delight in card-playing, or dancing, or the theatre. Seek,
then, to advance in the knowledge of
God, as taught by His word.
Read and
study the Scriptures by the Spirit of God.
And if so, you will keep away from those
books which would unfit your
mind for Scripture.
None ever, after
novel reading, sat clown to enjoy the Gospels or
Epistles. The
novel sets false views, false hopes, and
often wickedness before the mind; leads men to covet
earth, and to pursue it as
their hope. Stand
aloof, then, from the
unholy world and its books!
Cleave to
God!
Where
is
truth to be found?
Here
the
ancients wandered to and fro till reduced to despair
till Pilate could
sneeringly inquire, where much-talked of truth could
be met with.
But
God
in His Word has given to us sacred oracles which
distinctly inform us where
this jewel, more precious than rubies, can be found. (1) Jesus is
‘the
truth;’ none comes to the Father but
through Him. (2) The
Holy Spirit is
‘the Spirit of
truth’ (14: 6,
17). (3)
And now the Scripture is given us as the
depository of truth.
‘Thy word is truth.’
And truth sanctifies.
While error
makes a man careless of his words and
his ways, and [Page 307] renders him insensible of sin in its effects present and to come, the
truths of God’s book open our eyes to the evil of
much that the world calls ‘innocent.’ As
Israel was to keep aloof from the wicked, guilty
nations of Canaan, lying under
judgment, so is the Christian to keep away from the
world’s pursuits; for it,
too, is opposed to his God; and is lying under the
wrath of God, together with
its prince, although it is being respited awhile in
grace.
‘Sanctify them by Thy truth.’ As
referred to man the sinner, sanctification
is a turning him from the evil of the world, and of
his own fallen heart, to
love and obey God.
For the world is
unholy in its will, which is contrary to God’s; and
in its ways, which are the
expression of its will.
The separation
of old to Jehovah was the purification of the flesh by water, blood, oil, circumcision, and so on; in order to bring
them out from the Gentile idolatries and
abominations around.
But now it is effected in the spirit and
conscience, by the acceptance of the truth.
Now
sanctification
is spoken of as the Father’s work.
Under Moses it was spoken of as something
within their own reach.
‘Sanctify yourselves!’
The
truth is the Father’s truth.
It is that
new line of revelation which springs out of the new
name of God, and His
discovery of Himself in His Son.
Hence,
as truth is the means of sanctification, it is
called ‘the
holiness of the truth,’
Eph. 4: 24 (Greek). God first enlightens
the
understanding in the principles of His truth, and
then leads the heart to
follow them.
There
were
different degrees of unholiness and uncleanness
under Moses.
So
there
was something peculiarly unclean; an idol.
So, even in
The
new
revelation of our Lord Jesus rules that the spirit
and [Page
308]
conscience now are ‘the man.’ It begins
by setting right the soul; turning
it from enmity to love to God, and taking away the
sins of the past life by the
blood of the Great Sacrifice.
It buries in the grave of the waters
the flesh; on the cleansing of which
Moses expended his strength.
It is
corrupt and dead!
The Christian is to
account himself dead thereto.
There
is
first the acceptance of the first elements of saving
truth. Then
the soul has moved across the gulf which
severs the spiritually alive from those spiritually
dead. And
God has provided a new birth, to mark
the new life communicated by His Spirit - the invisible wind - which breathes
where it lists.
For
the
world is the kingdom of the devil, the father of
lies. He
feeds it with false imaginations of the
value and blessings of the things of time.
He rules men by the false pictures of their
lusts. He
leads them from one broken cistern to
another. The
more any accepts the truths
of God, especially as presented in the New
Testament, the more is he led away
from the devil and his deceits; the more are the men
of the world estranged
from him; the more does he find that the earth is
not his rest, and his
inheritance.
Now
this
is a gradual process, wrought by (1)
the Holy
Spirit as the Great
Agent, (2) through the Scripture as the
constantly accessible source, and (3) by means of
the teachers,
whom Christ raises up for the needs of
His Church: while (4) the truth taught by the Spirit
ranges almost wholly round
the person of Christ, who declares Himself ‘the
Truth.’
The
Church,
then, ought to be advancing in the knowledge and
love of the
truth. The
more we know of God and His
Christ, the farther ought we to be from the world
which knows not the Lord; the
more ought God’s people to be united among
themselves in judgment and practice.
How
far
is this from being the case!
In most
assemblies of believers the teachers know but
little, and the taught receive
less. Most believers content themselves on principle with the first elements
of the truth. Hence, the distinction between
them and the world in
principles, and practice is but small.
Many
are [Page 309]
drawing nearer
to it, instead of daily increasing the distance
between themselves and it.
But
in
our day the Spirit of God has caused new truth to
shine out from the pages
of Scripture: new truth as to Christ, and the
Christian’s standing, calling,
duties, privileges, and hopes.
Hence
there
is a greater distance morally between Christians who
are accepting this
truth, and those who are refusing it.
Truth sanctifies; leads out from principles
and practices, the evil of
which, but for those truths accepted, would not have
been seen, or
abandoned. Ought
the ministry of the
It
is
a solemn thing for any believer to have presented to
him, and enforced on
his notice, a truth of Christ. Here is fresh food
for the soul; here a new
point of sanctification.
If the truth of
God in Christ accepted sanctifies, the refusal of
that truth un-hallows; leads
downward to the world instead of upwards to God. The
reception or refusal of truth is the test
of each. It
tells what is in his heart.
The evidence of truth would prevail at once
in a right heart.
Light
refused
brings darkness; and we find Jesus rebuking even
apostles, just as He
is about to send them forth on His mission to the
world; because of their
unbelief, and hardness of heart in refusing the
truth of the resurrection,
offered to them by evidence so firm (Mark
16.).
Where
fresh
truth is refused by a believer, his growth is
checked. He
begins to hate the truth, and to speak
against those who hold it, and are zealous for it. Sympathies
are cut off, where all ought to be
united in love.
[Page 310]
Is there any truth now before you, my
reader, which you are refusing?
Some turn
away from the command of baptism and
the truths of which it is the centre, and the door. They will
not listen, they refuse to weigh
the evidence. Some refuse the doctrine of reward according to works, and the seeking
with zeal the prize set before us - the entry into
the millennial kingdom (Phil.
3.)
Some do not decide at all.
They
do not search the Scriptures, to see
what they say thereon.
They are
waiting. They
are expecting to be
taught, by some special revelation to themselves,
which never comes.
Enquire of them after years of tarrying
what
think they? You will find they are as undecided as
ever.
Does
not
Scripture teach the truth clearly in this case? Certainly!
It is given, that the man of God
may be perfect.
Is it not promised, that
on the single eye the Lord will send the abundance
of light? How
is it then, that they have it not?
Because
their eye is not single. Because
they
do not seek, and so do not find.
They have heard the truth much spoken
against, they have spoken against
it themselves; and so are not willing, candidly and
diligently, to weigh the
Scripture proofs thereof.
Have
Christians
now the ancient gifts of the Spirit?
Does each believer possess them at once on
believing? Can they
ordinarily be had, if there are no apostles?
If we have them, ‘the
Brethren’ and
their worship and ministry are right in the main. If we have
them not, they are wrong in those points which are the basis of their
system: on points in which they differ from other
Christians. Cannot
these questions be decided by
Scripture? Surely!
And easily.
Shall we prefer truth or error?
If
the
Spirit of God has been bringing truth to light, the
enemy, the world’s
master, has been furbishing up old errors as if they
were new truths.
What zeal has been expended in asserting
the
non-eternity of the punishment of the lost!
What earnestness in teaching Englishmen that
they are Jews!
Now the effect of these
errors is to hinder the Spirit
of [Page 311] God to lead
away from discerning the true character of God, and
from the Word of God; and
to lead the soul back to the world, its hopes, and
joys. As
truth makes holy, so error makes unholy.
The soul fed with pure truth, and accepting
each new phase of it given in the Scripture, grows
in intelligence, confidence
towards God, and heavenly-mindedness.
The soul that is refusing truth is hindered
in its course, stunted in
its growth, turned more or less towards the flesh
and the world.
But
what
if the soul be habitually fed with falsehood? What if
one turn to fiction, as one’s solace
and joy?
This
sort
of food insensibly leads to the world, fills the
imagination with worldly
hopes, and leads away from joy and delight in God
and Christ.
But
what
if the soul feeds on religions error?
It is more and more led to dislike the
Scripture, the God which the
Scripture describes, and
the hopes which it sets
before the mind.
Error makes
unholy, and opens the way to the wickedness of the
heart, in forms which vary
according to the shape of the error imbibed.
And as God’s truth leads the renewed man to
love the children of God, so
error received raises up barriers of enmity and
contempt.
But
it
may be said – ‘As the
result of all this - If
sanctification be separation from evil, are you
not thus proving the doctrine
which you deny - that the enlightened Christian is
warranted in separating from
the Christian who is in error?’
Can we decide this point by
scripture? Certainly!
The
Lord
Jesus teaches the union of all believers; enforces it, prays for it
earnestly. They
are God’s elect, given
Him by the Father, objects of His delight, prayer,
joy. We
are to ‘endeavour
to keep the unity of the spirit, in the bond of
peace’ (Eph. 4:
3).
This is to continue, ‘till
all come in the unity
of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of
God to the measure of the
nature of the fulness of the Christ’ (13).
Are
we
then to sever ourselves from the fellowship of
believers, because, together
with truths which associate them with God as sons,
and with the Son of God as
very members of His body, they hold this, that, and
the other error?
[Page 312]
And
the
answer is clear enough.
The Holy
Spirit teaches us that the most entire affection
should reign between the members
of the body of the Christ.
God’s design
is, that there should be no schism, no
severance between them; even
as in the natural body each part plays into the
other, and all conspire to one
end. Now
partial error answers to disorder of
various kinds in the members of the natural body. It is only allowable to cut off any for open moral evil,
distinctly named in 1
Cor. 5.
Neither
Jesus nor Paul ever called on any
believers to sever themselves from individual
believers, or from his
assemblies, because of error of doctrine found
in them.
There
is
one body from which all believers are called to
sever themselves, and that
is the
world.
Paul would sever
believers from men, when they begin to blaspheme the
truth; and the
18, 19. ‘As
Thou hast sent Me into the world, I have sent them
into
the world. And
for their sakes I sanctify
Myself, that they may also be sanctified in truth.’
The
Saviour
has spoken of the Apostles before, in relation to
their being left in
the world, while He is away. But He now shows
wherefore they are not to be
taken out of the world.
It is - for one great
reason - because they are to act upon the world for
its good. They
are to occupy, upon Christ’s leaving the
earth, the position of lights in the world;
instructing it by word and life
what God is, and what is the way to Him.
Jesus,
on
leaving the world, tells the Father of His doing all
in His power to further
His Father’s designs.
He gives the
disciples His own position toward the world; and
also toward the Father; which
is better far.
Disciples, then, are not only left in
the
world, but sent into it; with a
mission from Christ to
do His work, as
He did the Father’s.
And it is in
reference to this that Jesus sends them, and will require an account of them at last whether they did aught, and how they
did it. Thus
we see in Matthew’s
parables [Page 314]
of the Steward
and the Talents, that the Master receives at His
coming an account, and gives
sentence concerning them; not whether
they are converted or hypocrites, but whether as
servants they have done their
errand. May the Lord enable us to meet that account, and depart from it with
joy!
The
nineteenth
verse is one of considerable difficulty. ‘I
sanctify Myself.’
How
could Jesus, if He had no sin, sanctify Himself? This
thought of sanctification naturally
arises from our sinfulness.
To us who
are sinful, sanctification is mainly and primarily a
putting away of sin, as
the way to holiness.
The
‘I sanctify Myself.’ The
expression ‘sanctify’
refers in the Old Testament to the offering in
sacrifice. So
God bids
Now,
in
one view, Jesus could say (as in chapter
10: 36),
that the Father had already sanctified Him, and sent
Him into the world.
In that He
had perfectly fulfilled the
Father’s will.
But He is about to offer
up Himself as a sacrifice; and to this, I apprehend,
the Saviour refers.
He, in dying, designates beforehand the
intent of His death.
He consecrates His
offering, to present it to God.
Thus He
rises above the previous consecrations. Consecration
of old was something
coming from without. ‘Sanctify
unto Me
all the firstborn’ (Ex.
13:
2). ‘Sanctify yourselves, and
come with Me to the sacrifice’ (1
Sam. 16: 5).
The service of God demanded a peculiar
preparation, not required by
ordinary business.
Jesus, then, aware of
all, devotes Himself to the arduous trial by fire of
Himself as the
sacrifice. So
the Passover-lamb was
sanctified; first by its being singled out of the
herd, and then kept by itself
four days ere it was slain.
But bulls
and goats knew not of their destination.
The Saviour knows of and accepts the Father’s
purpose in His death.
‘In order that they also may
be sanctified in truth.’ The
atonement effected by this sacrificial consecration
of Himself is the
foundation of our becoming holy.
(1)
In
one view, Jesus’ perfect sanctification before the
Father is our
sanctification also.
Jesus is made of
God unto us ‘sanctification’
as well as ‘righteousness’
(1 Cor. 1:
30). ‘For
their sakes,’
who are My disciples;
not for ‘the consecration
of humanity,’
as it is sometimes put.
We can be sanctified; for Christ has atoned
for sin by His death; for indwelling sin, no less
than for visible acts of
transgression.
Sin once put away [Page
316] by
the sacrifice of Christ,
holiness can come in.
This was the
intent of Christ’s death.
By virtue
thereof His people will at last be completely
sanctified. Christ’s
work and death are the pledge to God
that sanctification shall be completed at last.
Jesus
desires
their sanctification ‘in
truth;’ that
is, in opposition to the ceremonial holiness of the
Law. Thus
John is confirming his statement in the
preface to his Gospel that, while Law with its
shadows came by Moses, grace and
truth came by
Jesus Christ. ‘Sanctified in
truth.’ Not ‘through the truth’
in this place.
‘That
they also may be sanctified’
stands in beautiful opposition to the ‘sanctify
yourselves’
of Law. That
was a righteous call and demand of God
in the days of Law.
For Law reckoned on
the flesh as bound to furnish, and promising to
furnish, all that the Lord
required. But
now came ‘grace
by Jesus Christ;’
and
so, as flesh is empty of good and full of evil, not
justification only, but
sanctification, too, is part of God’s work for the
saved in Christ.
It is a sanctification ‘in
truth,’ as opposed to the hallowing of the flesh by circumcision, by the
blood of bulls and the ashes of a heifer, which left
the real man in spirit
entirely evil before God.
Saul was
outwardly hallowed to God as king, through the
anointing oil poured by the prophet
on his head; but when tried in the inward man he
failed more and more, till the
Lord put him away altogether, and cut him off in His
displeasure.
While,
however,
in the great commencement of holiness, the believer
is passive, yet he
is actively to seek to be holy.
And life
is a training to this end; and the troubles, trials,
persecutions, temptations
of life, are God’s exercises of graces.
20.
‘But I pray not for these
alone, but for those that
shall believe on Me through their word.’
The
Saviour
now passes over from the twelve to the results of
their testimony.
He supposes (what is so true), that faith
throughout the world, and throughout the time of His
absence, would arise out
of the testimony of the twelve witnesses especially
chosen by Himself and His
Father. He
confidently looks through the
dark clouds of unbelief in
Faith
is
to be faith ‘in Himself.’
He
is the new and great object of
faith. His
death and resurrection is the
new work of God presented to the world, which is the
test that discriminates
between the evil generation and the sons of God by
faith. These
gracious words, then, of our Lord
embrace us also.
He prayed for us who
believe. Though oft and severely assailed, our faith
shall not utterly
fail. Thus,
too, the ministers of the
Gospel who have succeeded to the apostles, to bear
to other generations
apostolic testimony, are recognised.
Faith is produced, not by argument, but by testimony. ‘By their word.’ The
Lord be praised that we have their written words in
our hands still. This is
the foundation of Christian faith - the apostles’
words. By
them we believe. By the same means also,
faith is to be confirmed.
How does faith in our most holy
religion
grow? By
the Gospels and Epistles more
and more accepted, believed, studied, loved.
How is it that the faith of many is of so
frail a structure?
Because apostles’ words are so little known
and studied. Because
writings of this
world draw away the heart.
All
true
faith rests on the testimony of the apostles, whose
word Jesus thus
countersigns, as thoroughly to be accepted.
The word is His.
It is not only
their attestation to the facts of the Lord Jesus’s
life, but also the
deductions therefrom in the way of doctrine and
command. And
all we know now of apostles’ teaching or
of inspired disciples, is found written. The New Testament
alone is
the true foundation of faith.
Hence
where the Scriptures are taken away, true faith is
not found. Faith,
if true, does not rest on the word of
man, but of God. Faith in God’s word delivered by
inspired men is faith in God.
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 has sent Me.’
Profound,
indeed,
and full of grace are these simple words.
Jesus desires the unity of His
followers. A
unity wrought out of so
great diversity as that subsisting between Jew and
Gentile, [Page
318]
white and black, learned and
ignorant, rulers and servants, young and old, male
and female, is most
glorifying to God.
It is His Spirit of
oneness which overcomes the diversities of the
flesh. Under
the Law, God was dividing between Jew
and Gentile - a middle wall of partition fenced off
one from the other.
Now, God is glorified in the unity of His
people. The
flesh and Satan divide;
Christ unites.
But very wonderful is the
character of the union described as Christ’s design. Unity,
like that which subsists between the
Father and the Son!
‘That they
may
be one in us.’
How
are
we to understand that?
I am inclined
to suppose, that it speaks of the unity as that of
the great family of sons
with Christ the Son.
‘That they should
be one in us’ is not quite the same
as ‘one with us,’ though obedient believers become partakers of the divine
nature. This
is Peter’s testimony (2
Pet. 1: 4), ‘Whereby
are
given unto us exceeding great and precious
promises: that by these ye might be
partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the
corruption that is in the
world through lust.’
But here we
must move reverently; and I should be glad in this,
as in other points, to
receive more of God’s light. Who can fancy that he
has attained to full
knowledge of any part of God’s truth?
Such a one ‘knows
nothing yet as he ought to
know.’
‘One in us’
seems to show, that
Christ is speaking of the union of believers with Himself,
rather than among themselves.
‘That the world may believe
that Thou hast sent Me.’
Outward
uniformity, such as
obtained under Moses, is all
that that portion of the world which calls itself by
Christ’s name, seeks, or is
able to offer, as a substitute for unity of the
spirit.
The unity of the disciples in God, and
among
themselves, is a something desirable in itself, as
springing from love.
But the Saviour puts it as a means to a
further end, connected with their mission and
testimony. He
would make the unity of His disciples a
convincing proof to the world of His mission.
The worldly are not given to investigate
moral and spiritual questions;
they have neither ability nor will, nor care for
such trifles, or ‘fooleries,’
as they think them.
But the moral evidence is [Page
319]
mighty even with those who
gainsay or scoff at it.
Unity, then, the
unity of love among the children of God, is a new
spectacle in this world of
strife, and discord, and hatred.
‘See how these
Christians love one another,’ was an
evidence of striking force to the heathen; and by it
the Christian faith not
only gained hearing, but prevailed and spread.
On
the
contrary, nothing is more commonly alleged against
the truth by
unbelievers, as cutting short all investigation of
the truth, or releasing them
from any obligation to believe it, than strife.
‘O, they are always
quarrelling among
themselves!’
And the many
divisions into which the Christian camp is severed,
weaken greatly the moral
effect of the truth.
But infidels, in so
objecting, only lend weight to the divine foresight
of Christ, Who, long ere
the appearance of the Christian Church as His
witness to the world, laid such
stress on their unity, and its exhibition, as a
power to lead souls to Himself.
Unity
of
life and walk depends on unity of faith.
And faith rests on what God has now said
through His inspired disciples.
‘That they all may be one.’ The severance which
God
made under Moses between Jewish flesh and Gentile flesh is here cast down. Oneness
of
spirit through faith has come in instead.
’Tis sad, that men will seek to rear up new
walls of their own, where
God has thrown down His own dividing wall.
How evil are sects in God’s eyes!
How contrary to the oft-expressed
desire of
our Lord!
Does the unity here spoken
of refer to the (1) unity
of believers one with the other? or (2) to their
oneness with Christ, and with
the Father through Him?
This latter
would seem the true sense, because it is the only
one which has been
realised. The
idea of ‘the universal
brotherhood of all men’ in Christ is a
vain deceit. Unbelief
is disunion from
God.
What shall we say then? That this
prayer of Christ has failed?
The unity of the disciples among themselves
has indeed failed, and with it the testimony to
Jesus’s mission arising out of
that unity. But
the union of the true
members of Christ to their divine Head has not
failed. Therefore,
this, I think, must be the sense
here.
[Page 320]
22, 23. ‘And
I have given to them the glory which Thou gayest
Me, that
they may be one, as We are one.
I in
them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected
in one, that the world may
know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them
as Thou hast loved Me.’
‘One, as we are.’ Are we not reminded of the Lord’s words at the beginning? – ‘Let us make man in our
image, after our likeness.’
The man as first created was good, but this
new man how far better! (Eph.
4: 22-24).
This perfect unity with Christ, and with
God through Him, will be seen in part in millennial
days; and the world’s
belief will be conquered.
But it will be
by glory, not by grace. And the full consummation will not be reached till the eternal state; when
the saved who are not accounted worthy of reward
shall at length enter on eternal glory, through
the grace of God’s election.
What
is
this glory which Christ has given to disciples? A glory
already granted by the Father?
I think it refers to the lustre which
belongs
to Christ as the Only Begotten Son.
‘They shall shine
as the sun’ in the eternal glory with
Christ, even as the risen Christ shone to the eyes
of the beloved disciple in
We
are
even now in Christ on high, and Christ is in us
below now (Eph. 2.).
But this passage speaks, if I mistake not, of
a day to come, when the
oneness of the members with Christ the Head will be
made manifest. Christ shows
Himself now as the link with God.
‘I in them.’ Christ’s prayer stops
not
short of its final end
- glory. Grace is
good, but it is but the way to glory
as the end.
Our
fellowship
with the Father is through the Son.
This speaks of a time when the unity which
now is so disturbed and
broken by the various hindering influences of the
flesh, the world, and the
devil, shall have past; and the deeper unity arising
out of a renewed nature,
and oneness with God in Christ - even [Page 321]
the Sonship of God, the privilege of believers now -
shall be completed, and manifested to others, as
well as enjoyed by themselves.
‘Perfected in one.’ To this end the various gifts of Christ, as apostles, prophets,
teachers, pastors, in God’s scheme, are tending;
until at length the body of
Christ in its full stature, according to the intent
of the Most High, shall
have been reached (Eph.
4.)
The
fencing
off of some believers from other believers
accepted of God in Christ,
constitutes a sect. Demanding terms of communion
other than those of Christ’s
appointment, is sectarian. Jesus
orders
the collecting of all diamonds,
the rejection of all flints.
There
is the line of demarcation -
the enclosed within it are God’s true unity.
But many disciples like not anything so wide
as that. They
want polished
diamonds, not rough ones; they seek intelligent Christians,
not ignorant ones; sound
Christians, holding no error. Let us stand by the
counsel of God!
Then
shall
at length all failure be excluded, when God shall
take the matter wholly
into His hand.
When believers enjoy the promised glory fully, the
world shall know the reality of the Saviour’s mission; their senses
themselves will convey the satisfactory proof.
‘And that Thou hast loved
them as Thou hast loved
This
last
verse looks onward to the time of millennial
perfection; when the wicked
being all removed by judgment, the [Page 322] glory of Christ, both personal and official, shall shine forth.
For with grace is connected glory.
‘We have approach
by
faith into the grace wherein we stand, and rejoice
in the hope of the glory’
to come (Rom. 5: 2).
The Father has given to Jesus the glory of the millennial
kingdom, and to it we are called: to obtain the
glory of the Lord Jesus (1
Thess. 2: 12; 2 Thess. 2: 14; 2 Tim. 2: 10). Then the
unity of Christ’s body will be begun
to be manifested, although its completion is
deferred, till grace comes in
after ‘the day of judgment.’ After
all the ransomed of Christ’s [first-born] Church
are gathered in, the whole will be
completed in one, according to the
pattern of the human body, to which it is compared
in 1
Corinthians 12.
Then the
world will
know that the Father sent the Son; for the world
walks by sight, not by faith;
and then
will be seen the glory attached
to our present calling.
As yet the
sons of God are not manifested.
They
have great privileges and inheritances, which during
this, the time of their
education, do not appear.
In con
sequence, the world does not believe in the great
things of which they
speak. But
when men see the ransomed of
the Church shining in heavenly brightness, and
dwelling ever in the presence of
God, kings and priests before Him in the city of His
building, they will be
constrained to confess, by its visible results, the
reality of the mission of
Jesus. Just
as the nations of Canaan
were compelled to own the mission of Moses, when the
conquering arm of Joshua
laid low their walls, opened a path through their
river, and divided their
lands among the people led out of
Do
not
fall, reader, into
the usual mistake
of supposing, that all the saved belong to ‘the Church
[of the firstborn];’
and that all the saved have the same standing and
privileges.
Our God delights in variety.
[Page 323] And the training and standing of the several bodies of the saved have
been very different: as that of the Patriarchs, of
those under the Law of
Moses, and those under the Gospel.
These
diversities look onward to [millennial
and] eternal
differences among the redeemed.
This verse is in part explained, if we look
to John’s other great work - the Apocalypse.
There we see at the close two great bodies;
the dwellers in the Eternal
City of God, and ‘the nations’ who dwell outside (Rev.
21., 22.)
They
answer to the world
now. They
occupy a position far inferior
to the saved ones risen [out] from the dead, who
have their mansions in the city
of
In the earlier days of
Moses, the jealousy and pride
of the flesh prompted men of Israel to think that
they had as good a right to
be leaders and priests as Moses or Aaron; and
Jehovah was obliged to guard His
appointments with severity; cutting off in
indignation by miracle those who
refused to own the differences He had made.
But in those days, when none shall enter into the new
world but those written in the book of life, no
such jealousy shall arise; nor
shall any rebellious ones among the saved
attempt to wrest by violence for
themselves what God has put out of their reach.
24.
‘Father, I will, as it
regards what Thou gavest Me,
that where I am, they may be with Me, that they
may behold My glory, which Thou
gayest Me; for Thou lovedst Me before the
foundation of the world.’
Two different
significations may be given to the Greek
word [Page 324] which we
translate ‘will.’ Some would
render it ‘I will,’ some ‘I wish.’
‘I will’ is
much stronger.
But though both senses
resemble one another, the stronger sense seems to me
the best. For
Jesus is now, as about to die, disposing
of His effects by His last will – ‘the
New Testament’
- a better than that of Moses.
It is by
virtue of His legacy to us that we enjoy, and shall
enjoy, the salvation of
God. So
He says to apostles – ‘I
appoint unto you, as My Father hath appointed to
Me, a
kingdom.’
There the word used is that especially
suited
to a bequest by will.
As
the
testator, in making his will, trusts
that his executors will
faithfully carry out his wishes founded on his
lawful claims, so
Jesus trusts His Righteous Father to fulfil all His
wishes.
For
the
elect are God’s gift to Him; and now, when leaving
the world by death, He
intimates to His Father how He would have them
disposed of. The
elect are God’s gift to Christ.
In that view they are passive.
God wrote their names, ages ere the world
began, in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
He
has all power over the sons of men to dispose of
them at His will.
If He leaves them to themselves, they
perish. If
He has chosen them, they
shall certainly be saved; they will certainly choose
Christ. Our
passiveness in the hands of Almighty
Grace is a joyful subject of contemplation.
Jesus
would
have His elect finally set by His side.
At present in this day of grace we are
changing into the spiritual image
of Christ, though, in point of locality, we are far
from Him. But
then, in the eternal day of glory, of
which Jesus spoke in the previous verse – ‘we
shall be
ever with the Lord.’
Heaven were
devoid of its chief bliss, if the Saviour, our
Redeemer, object of our worship,
service, love, were not there.
Jesus is
now in a special place.
He is not a naked spirit, but possessed of a risen body in the heaven
of heavens. Some
people speak as if heaven were a state,
and no place.
This is a mistake, arising out of the forgetfulness or denial of our
taking up again our bodies in resurrection. Jesus will
lead to the Father the sons whom
He is educating now at a distance from Himself, in
order that they may [Page
325]
dwell with Him in His city for
ever. God
our Father has ‘predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ unto (or for)
Himself.’
Or,
as our Lord says in the prophets – ‘Behold,
I and the
children whom God hath given
With
what
intent? ‘That they
may behold My glory.’ The
worthy object of our contemplation
will be all the perfections, personal and official,
of the Son of God.
Others desire friends whom they love to
come
and see them, their house and grounds, their family,
and the beauties of their
neighbourhood.
But Jesus’ self is the
one great object.
The vision of Him will
change us into the same image, as the glory of God
on
This
word
of Christ may remind us of Moses’ desire to see the Lord’s glory, as the Mediator under the Law (Ex.
33: 18-23).
He was informed of the impossibility of
seeing the full blaze of it,
without (as a sinner meeting his deserts) being
struck by death.
But God did not give him of his eternal glory.
How vastly superior the Gospel to the Law! Here the
saved of grace are to behold - as
their portion in eternity - the glory of their
Mediator, and to partake it in
common with Him!
Only
those
given by the Father to the Son will thus be with
Him.
‘My glory.’
Jesus, as the Eternal Son of God, had ever
glory, as ‘the image of His
Father’ answering to all His
perfections, just as the impression answers to the
seal, or as the light
streaming from the sun’s body expresses what is the
nature of the sun.
This is the glory belonging to our Lord by
His essence.
But
there
is also a glory by gift from the Father.
The two natures of Christ appear in this and
several other
passages. ‘Thy
throne, O God, is for ever and ever.’
‘O God, Thy
God hath anointed Thee, with the
oil of gladness above Thy fellows’ (Heb. 1: 8, 9).
This
glory
now bestowed on Christ was the result of the
Father’s [Page
326]
love, being apparently the
result of the Son’s perfect work as the Mediator. So Jacob
gave to his son Joseph, as a proof of his love, a coat of many
colours. So
Jonathan, as a token of his
love to David, stripped himself of his garments, his
bow, and girdle.
‘For Thou lovedest Me before
the foundation of
the world.’
Those
who
would cut down the glories of Christ to the smallest
possible space, allow only
that the Father’s love of Christ was destined for
Him from all eternity, just as it might be in the case with any one of
God’s chosen, as Abraham or David.
But
here Jesus speaks of a glory which He possessed before the world’s foundation; a glory springing from the Father’s
good pleasure and delight in the Son, who was ‘in the
beginning with God.’
25. ‘O
Righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee
(but
I know Thee), and these
have known that Thou hast sent
Me.’
That
opening
phrase is full of wonderful wisdom and knowledge - ‘Righteous Father!’ It is a combination of
words supposing perfections found in union in God,
and in Him alone.
It is a combination of justice
and of love in God; a combination
never seen or stated before by man.
The
Old Testament and the mission of Moses were destined
to show God as the God of
righteousness or justice, and to impress the fear of
Him on
God
is
the Righteous Father of Christ, and the Saviour
welcomes both these
perfections; both righteousness and mercy.
The Father was ‘just’
in exacting the
debt from our Great Surety after He had taken it on
Himself. He is now ‘just’
in bestowing eternal life on [all
regenerate] believers. He is ‘just’
in shutting out the world from eternal life.
The
absence
of this knowledge of God’s double perfection caused
the Jew to stumble
at a Messiah slain.
How, if God be
righteous and Jesus were also righteous, could the
Son of Man be slain?
The Jews condemned the Son, because they
knew
not the righteousness of God as the Judge; or the
righteousness which God has
in grace provided, through Christ’s finished work,
for the sinner.
So great and severe was the judicial righteousness
of God, that He would not
spare His own Son when He [Page 327] became surety for sinners, although He spared Abraham’s son to
Abraham. So
blessed is God’s provided righteousness,
that the worst of
sinners, clad in it, is saved!
Jesus
beheld
in His Father, and adores, this combination of
perfect righteousness and
perfect love. To see this, and accept it, is to know
the Gospel, to know God,
to be saved !
The
world
knew not this.
One
may
often hear in the prayers of Christians the phrase,
‘Indulgent
Father.’ But
God never so calls Himself.
His justice
is never trodden down, or thrust aside, by His
mercy. If
God justify the sinner it must be as the
Judge, who is just even in justifying (or
pronouncing righteous) the soul that
believes in Jesus (Rom.
3.)
The
world’s
plan of salvation is neither
justice nor mercy. Man
is to present some good works to God, as the price
of his salvation.
But as he is still a sinner, justice must
be
thrust back from its full claims, in order to allow
him to be saved.
The Fatherhood of God must bid His
righteousness wink hard, and let the culprit go by!
After
‘the world hath not known Thee,’ we naturally expect –‘but
these have known Thee.’ But Jesus sublimely
puts
Himself first.
The apostles had known
the Father only as their faint knowledge was derived
from the perfect knowledge
of the Son. Before
Jesus had had laid on
Him the burthen of our sin, with what marvellous
confidence does He speak!
[Page 328]
‘The world knows Thee not.’ Jesus does not add, ‘but will one day know Thee.’ The Jew
set up his own righteousness before ‘the
Righteous Father,’ only to be rejected. He rejects
the righteousness of God, which
would bring him out from under Law; only to be
condemned as the sinner by Moses,
in whom he trusts.
What is the effect of
God’s justice when judging the world?
He
condemns it all, Jewish and Gentile; as the first
chapters of Romans tells us.
‘The righteousness
of
God’ saves the believer; for Christ is His
righteousness, and God can
pronounce righteous only those who are found in the
Great Surety.
Jesus
distinguishes
always between ‘the world’ and ‘His
own.’
He puts Himself between
the two; and thus is like the
Presence-cloud at the
Jesus
beholds
His Father’s righteousness, not only in the grace
which crowns Him
meritoriously as the result of His work, but also in
the death to which the Father
delivered Him up.
In
the
25th verse our
Lord beforehand defends
His confidence in the great things He anticipates
for Himself and His saved
ones from His Father.
The Jews condemned
Him as worthy to die a cursed death, because of
blasphemy. He
asserts Himself to be the Beloved of the
Father. Whence
arises this mighty gulf
between the two?
Jesus explains.
It was because of their ignorance of His
Father. ‘The
world hath not known Thee.’
He
trusts, then, the sentence of the Righteous Father,
as that which shall make
manifest on whose side is the truth. And that
sentence came in Jesus’
resurrection [out]
from the dead.
For He was the first so
to rise. As
the result of the conflict
between the Jews on the one hand, and Jesus and His
disciples on the other, the
Righteous God His Father would undertake His cause. Wherefore
He boldly beforehand proclaims His
trust, which is [Page 329] confirmed by the issue. Our
Lord
entrusts all His commissions, not merely to the mercy of the Father, but to His righteousness. ‘He
will
do’ all that the Son has asked Him; for He
has asked only what is
His due, and what is for the glory of the Father to
grant.
Out
of
this will spring (1) the
This
the
Saviour sublimely announces, just at that solemn
moment when the Father was
exacting of Him the payment of the debts of His
saved ones. There
is no salvation for us in any other
way; because no forgiveness could be had from
justice and Law by anything short
of the shedding of the blood of the Son.
‘The soul that sins
shall die.’ Jesus’
obedience,
then, to Law in full perfection through His whole
life, had not
sufficed. Hence, with frequency and with emphasis,
the New Testament insists on
the death
of Christ as our deliverance; and
especially on His blood
as our redemption. Without
that, God’s righteousness and truth, as the Law-Giver and Governor of
the world, had not been met - and God would not have
given salvation.
Though a Father, and willing to forgive, it
must be in full consistency with His righteousness. That
difficulty overcome, the grace of the
Fattier can flow forth freely, fully, eternally, to
all those who accept the
sacrifice of our Great High Priest, offered to God
in order to take away (or
cover) sin. The
world has not known and
will not believe this, though God and His [Page 330]
Christ testify it.
What a proof that such a scheme never sprang
from man! What
springs from man, man can
understand. It
savours of his imperfections.
But here is God in His perfection of
righteousness and of mercy; yet a perfection refused
alike by Jew and Gentile,
by rabbi and by philosopher.
In
this
phrase, then, of the Saviour – ‘Righteous
Father’
- see an antidote to the great delusion of the day;
which expresses itself in
the text – ‘God is love’ - applied, not (as John applies it) to believers, God’s elect,
who accept this God of righteousness and mercy; but
to all men: while
it leaves out and is ready to deny the
answering truth testified in that same epistle, ‘God is
righteous’
(1 John 1: 9; 2: 29). The same
truth is more signally testified in
those words, ‘Our God is a
consuming fire.’
Jesus
knows
and has known from eternity this Father in His
righteousness, and can
trust Him even now when He is going down as a
sacrifice to justice, into the
valley of death.
Christ abates none of
His confidence in the Father, even in that
distressing moment.
He who led Him down to death could not, by
virtue of His righteousness, leave Him there.
Death in seizing this ‘Jesus
the Righteous’
could not hold Him.
The Father would
prove Him the Son of God, by raising Him from the
dead. Our
Lord, through all the darkness of the
surrounding cloud, sees the hand of His Father, and
submits in full confidence
to the surrender of life.
Of this
aforetime God gave a type, in the self-surrender of
Isaac to the knife of His
Father, Abraham.
‘And these have known that
Thou sentest Me.’
The
knowledge
or the ignorance of Jesus as the Son, is the point
of severance
between the world and the church.
Observe, reader, how remarkably Christ puts
Himself between the two
parties, as that which causes the difference between
them. The
world knows not the Father, because it knows not the Son.
It knows not the ‘Righteous
Father,’
because it sees not the Son as the Sacrifice
bearing the sin of the world in order to atone, and
to introduce us to the
knowledge of the perfect Father.
God is
not known by those who know not Christ as the
Eternal Son, sent out from the
bosom of the Father in order to declare [Page 331]
Him. This
makes
the doctrine of the Trinity an essential thing in
our religion. The
doctrine of salvation through a Divine
Mediator’s atonement for sinners, is necessary to
salvation. That
was the great truth, which Jesus
testified, and against which, as this Gospel
testifies, the Jews fought, till
they slew Him Who bore witness thereto.
But the Son could trust His Father.
Against all the resistance and cavils of the
Jews, against all the jeers
of the unbelievers around the cross, even during the
total eclipse, when the
Father forsook Him; the Saviour is firm.
Men regarded Jesus’ surrender to death, and
the death by the cross, as a
proof of His being an enthusiast, or an impostor. But our
Lord here testifies that all those
views and actions sprang from ignorance of ‘the
Righteous
Father,’ Who would soon undo His bonds, and
prove that, instead of being
a blasphemer, who ought to be put to death by Law as
a malefactor, He was the
beloved Son; who knew and could trust, against all
contrary appearances, the
will of His Righteous Father.
This
difference
of belief or unbelief in the Son of God, testified
by the Most High,
produces a different spiritual state now in the
rejecters, and a different
eternal lot to the two parties.
As the
who know the Righteous Father through the sacrifice
of the Son, are to see the
glory belonging to ‘the Only
Begotten’ for ever,
so the world, as refusing that testimony, must dwell
in darkness; shut out from
God and His Son for evermore.
26. ‘And
I have made known to them Thy name, and will make
it
known, in order that the love wherewith Thou hast
loved Me may be in them, and
I in them.’
The
knowledge
of God’s name sprang out of the Saviour’s discovery
of it to His
apostles. Christ
was persuaded, to -
though now going down to dark death - that He should
yet come up again, and
tell anew and more fully the name of the Father to His disciples (Ps. 22: 23). This was
fully carried out after the descent
of the Holy Spirit as the instructor of the Church.
Such
as
our God is, such is our religion.
True
religion and right conduct can only follow from a
true view of God.
The [Page 332]
worshippers of many gods cannot know the true
God. And
from ignorance of the truth of
God, only evil can spring.
The name of God is
a condensed statement of the
character of God; just as a well-chosen title to a
book gives us a general
glance at its contents.
Jesus, then,
came to make known to us the now name of God, as
Father, Son, and Spirit.
To
the
Law of Moses belongs the name of God, as ‘Johovah’ -
‘the Eternal, the
self-subsisting One.’
To part of the patriarchal dispensation
belongs the name of ‘the God
of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob.’
Our
Lord,
then, made known to disciples the true name of God,
of which we
boast. He
testified to Himself as the Son
sent by the Father on high.
The Father
in turn testified to Jesus as His Son (1) at His
baptism, (2) on the Mount of
Transfiguration, (3) on Jesus’ appeal noticed in the
twelfth chapter of this
Gospel, and (4) by His resurrection.
This name, refused by the Jews even to their
blaspheming both the Son
and the [Holy]
Spirit, was accepted by the twelve, and is owned by
us. Without
it there is no Christian!
He who owns not the name of God peculiar to
the Christian dispensation, is no Christian.
‘That the love wherewith Thon
hast loved Me may be in them.’
This
may take three senses, according as we regard ‘the love’
spoken of to be (1) God’s love to them, as members of His Beloved, being the same as His love to His Son;
(2) or their love
to the Son, as being in
principle the same as that wherewith the Father
regards the Son; (3) their
love one towards another.
Then He prays that that may be of the same kind as that of the Father towards His Son.
Love,
not
knowledge, is the last, the decisive point.
We possess the love of the Father eternally,
only as we are in the Son,
and the Son in us.
But this love and its
resting place are not for all.
It is
not, ‘And I in all,’ but ‘And I in
them.’
Simple words!
But the meaning who can fathom?
Eternity
alone will disclose it!
*
*
*
CHAPTER 18
1-3. ‘When
Jesus had said these things, he went out with His
disciples beyond the brook Kedron, where was a
garden into which He entered,
and His disciples.
Now Judas also, who betrayed
Him, knew the spot; for Jesus often assembled
there with His disciples.
Judas, therefore, having received the
band (of soldiers) and servants from
the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither
with lanterns, and torches, and
weapons.’
We
are
now come to the awful scene of the betrayal.
Jesus leaves the evil city behind Him to
enter the Garden. But it is not the Garden of Eden now; how far from it! The
Roman
soldiers,
and the servants of the Pharisees and of the rulers
of the temple,
join to seize Jesus under
the conduct of a renegade [regenerate]
disciple.
They are furnished
with lamps (or lanterns) and torches, in case Christ
should seek to hide,
though it was now full moon; and with weapons, in case He or others with Him should make any attempt at
resistance.
4, 5. ‘Jesus,
therefore, knowing all the things that were coming
upon Him, went out and said unto thern – “Whom
seek ye?” They
answered Him, “Jesus, the
Nazarite.” Jesus
saith unto them, “I am
He.” (Now Judas also who betrayed Him, was
standing with them).
When, therefore, He said unto them, “I am
He,” they went backward, and fell to the ground.’
The scene how different
from Adam’s arraigning in the [Page
334] Garden! God called, and
His
sentence in
He
would
learn from His pursuers’ own lips who it was they
came for. ‘Jesus the Nazarite.’ (Greek). He was the
true Nazarite of whom Samson was a
type. But
they saw not in the title any
more than that Jesus was a man of
Had
any
illumined eyes been there, they might have in this
scene discerned the
accomplishment of the incident in Samson’s history
(of which we read in Judges
15.), when the Hebrew Judge was living in a
cleft of the cliff Etam, after a victory achieved by
his single self against
the Philistines.
The Philistines come
up. The
men of
At
our
Lord’s avowal that He was the object of their
search, ‘they went
backwards and fell to the ground.’ Thus they fulfilled unwittingly what was written Psalm
40.
In that Psalm Jesus prays for deliverance
from His foes.
He anticipates a new song therefrom, and the
turning of many thereby to fear God, and to trust
Him. Then follows a passage
quoted by Paul, as applying to our Lord’s sacrifice,
in its setting aside the sacrifices
of the Law. ‘Sacrifice
and offering Thou didst not desire; mine ears hast
Thou opened: burnt offering
and sin offering hast Thou not required.
Then said I, “Lo, I come: in the volume of
the book it is written of Me,
I delight to do Thy will, 0 my God: yea, Thy law
is within my heart.”’
Jesus had taught in the great congregation
of
Like
this
is the testimony of the twenty-seventh Psalm.
Jesus there boasts of God as His ‘salvation;’
‘of whom then
should He be afraid?’ ‘When
the
wicked,
even Mine enemies and My foes came
upon Me to eat up My flesh, they
stumbled and fell.’
(Verse 2.)
A host was against Him, but He fears
not. He
has since been exalted to the
refuge of the throne of God in the temple above. He calls
for deliverance; for ‘false
witnesses are risen
against Him.’ (ver.
12). Thus
this assembly were pointed out, as ‘the
wicked.’
[Page 336]
A
third passage, showing how much this scene was in
the eye of the Spirit, is
found in Isaiah 28:
9-13.
The prophet finds but few to listen. They
prefer the first principles of the Law to the deeper
truths of the Gospel.
Again and again came the Lord’s message.
He would send to
7-9. ‘Again,
therefore, he asked them, “Whom seek ye?” But they
said, “Jesus, the Nazarite!”
Jesus
answered, “I told you, that I am He; if therefore,
ye seek Me, suffer these to
go away.” In
order that the saying might
be fulfilled, which He spake, “Of those whom Thou
gayest Me, I lost not one.”’
Of
course,
this going back and falling to the ground of some
hundreds of men was a
miracle never seen before, though predicted of God
by His Spirit.
Very fitting was the occasion on which it was
put forth. But
for that, it seems probable
that the enemy would have seized on the disciples as
well as our Lord Himself. ‘But
why was this miracle recorded for us, when
John, in his
Gospel, notices so few!’ On
purpose to refute a deadly deceit of
Satan, launched against the Gospel in John’s day;
that at this time the
Heavenly Spirit – ‘the
Christ’ - had fled away
from ‘the man Jesus;’
and had left Him
defenceless and dismayed in the midst of His foes.
Here,
on
the contrary, we learn, that Jesus’ power of miracle
abode with Him; a power
that, had He pleased, could have at once have cut
off His foes. How
little even a miracle from God checks
men, when bent on the pursuit of an evil purpose, we
see here! We
do not read that one of that multitude
turned back; that one perceived the wickedness of
his course, so as to change
it. Not
one recognised the voice of the
prophet, though read in the synagogue every
Sabbath-day. Not
one said, ‘This
is sin, let me flee from it!’
We
often expect great results from solemn providences
befalling the unconverted.
How seldom do we find them?
‘Though thou
shouldst
bray (pound) a fool
in a [Page
337] mortar
with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart
from him’ (Prov.
27: 22).
But let us who believe be stayed and led to
enquire - if a decided and
unexpected check from God occurs in our course -
whether we are right?
God’s providence is not indeed to be now
our sole or chief guide; yet it is better - as Matthew Henry says – ‘Not
to force
The
multitude
when enquired of by Jesus whom they were seeking,
again replies – ‘Jesus
the Nazarite’ - as before. But now
the Lord Jesus puts in His claim, in
arrest of their seizure of His disciples together
with Himself. For
by the Law, the dam and the young, if found by an Israelite, might not
together be seized. The
right of escape belonged to the dam, or the mother. ‘If
a bird’s nest
chance to be before thee in the way in any tree,
or on the ground, whether they
be young ones, or eggs, and the dam sitting upon
the young, or upon the eggs,
thou shalt not take the dam with the young,’
Deut.
22: 6.
If they took the young,
they must not seize the mother; if they desired that
things might go well with
them, and their days be prolonged.
This
took
place, says John, in fulfilment of our Lord’s
saying, that not one of the
Father’s gifts to Him should be lost.
This in its immediate and most obvious
object, would refer to Jesus’
rescue of His disciples, out of the hands of His and
their foes.
[Page 338]
Only
Judas,
as the lost one, stands apart from His disciples,
and His saved
ones. He
is the Son of Perdition;
and
his loss is as certain as the [future
millennial]*
salvation of the others.
What makes the difference between the saved
and the lost? The
election of God!
The gift of the Father to the Son!
Else there were no certainty that we should
not, after setting out well on the road, turn back
to perdition! ‘Kept by the power of
God
through faith unto salvation.’
[* The ‘salvation’
here which Judas lost, refers to the future
‘salvation ready to be
revealed in the last time’
(1 Pet. 1: 5) –
the ‘salvation of souls,’ – (souls of the dead which must wait in the
underworld of Hades until the time of Resurrection)
- has to do with ‘sufferings’
and ‘the glories
that should follow them’ (vv.
9, 11)]
Thus,
then,
we see that the believer, through the substitution
of Christ, and God’s
power, shall certainly not be lost; but enjoy at last the glory
destined for Him.
10. ‘Simon
Peter, therefore, having a sword, drew it, and
struck
the High Priest’s slave, and cut off his right
ear. Now
the slave’s name was Malchus, Jesus, therefore,
said to Peter, “Put up thy sword into the sheath:
the cup which the Father hath
given Me, shall I not drink it?”’
The
mention
of Peter’s name at this point is remarkable for it
occurs not in this
connection in the synoptics, but only in this
Gospel, and in relation to the
proceedings in the Garden. In
general, where Peter speaks, and acts,
in the three first Gospels, his name is given.
The reason why the name of the disciple who
struck is here given,
probably was because he was dead, and so beyond any
annoyance of enemies that
might visit him as the result of this recorded
action.
That
little
word, ‘the cup,’
knits our Lord’s saying
here on to the history of the Agony in the Garden,
which is not narrated by
John. Such
un-designed support does
truth give to itself.
Peter would have struck the cup
violently out of our Lord’s hand.
It was
just in the spirit of Peter’s words in Matthew 16 – ‘That be far
from Thee, Lord.’
From this
history of our Lord under trial, Christians are
taught not to resist
persecution, by means of the sword.
They
are called to ‘the patience of the saints,’ which is
the contrast to the
resistance of the ungodly.
It
shall be rewarded at last.
Jesus
disapproves
of Peter’s act.
The sword of
the flesh suits not the disciple.
Resistance to the evil man is contrary to
the Lord’s principles, as
stated in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt.
5: 39). [Page
339] Now
He is to exemplify them for
us; for He is in all points tempted as we, without
sin. Weighty
manuscripts omit the ‘thy’
before ‘sword.’ The ‘thy’
would suggest, that a sword belonged to each
disciple, only that that was not
the time for drawing it.
Jesus here
refuses Peter’s interference by force, upon other
grounds than those of the
other evangelists.
Christ notices not
the evil men in the matter; but He regards the
highest source, in the trouble
that is befalling Him. It is
the cup which the Father
will
not remove; for our salvation and His glory
are bound up therewith.
It must be drank, and neither He nor His
disciples must resist it.
We
should herein follow our Lord, beholding
in the trials that befall us, not so much the
wickedness of the men of evil, as
the hand of our Father on high.
The
Lord give us the grace of submission to the trials
sent on us!
12-14. ‘The
band then, and the Colonel, and the servants of
the Jews,
together arrested Jesus, and bound Him, and led
Him away to Annas first, for he
was father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was the High
Priest of that year. Now Caiaphas
was he who counselled the Jews, that it is
expedient that one man should die in
the stead of the people.’
Jew
and
Gentile join to seize Christ, as the culprit of
justice. He
is bound as our substitute, that we may go
free. As
the Lamb of God He is examined
by the authorities of
Annas
and
Caiaphas acted together.
They were
closely related in the flesh, and of one mind
concerning Jesus. John’s
referring to Caiaphas’s speech uttered after the
resurrection of Lazarus, hints
at what would be the assured issue of bringing the
Saviour before such a
judge. He
considered it to be a
political necessity at that conjuncture of events,
to put Jesus to death.
Either He must die, or the nation of
Thus
the
apostle bids us remark, how the substitution of
Jesus has two sides.
Jesus devotes Himself to death as our
substitute. The
High Priest of Israel
devotes Him to death, in the stead of
15-17. ‘Now
Simon Peter and the other disciple ware following
Jesus. But
the other disciple was known
to the High Priest, and went in with Jesus into
the hall of the High
Priest. But
Peter was standing at the
door on the outside.
The other disciple
who was known to the High Priest went out
therefore, and spoke to the
porteress, and brought in Peter.
The
maid that kept the door said therefore to Peter,
“Art thou also one of the
disciples of this Man? “ He said, “I am not.”’
Each
one
of the four evangelists gives us a view of Peter’s
fall. It
contrasts forcibly with the Saviour’s
firmness to the truth.
On Him fell the
heaviest force of the tempest; yet He stands.
On Peter strikes only a feeble portion of it;
yet he falls. The
word of the Saviour must be fulfilled.
Man the fallen, at his best estate, shall
not
contribute aught towards the Great Sacrifice.
Peter was especially warned; he was
especially confident, and his fall
was pre-eminent.
It is commonly thought,
that he denied our Lord only thrice.
But, then, it is commonly thought also, that
he was but once warned;
whereas
three several
warnings are given, followed by three sets
of denials, composed of
three instances each.
Let us look at them:-
(1)
The
first warning occurs John
13: 36-38.
Peter promises to lay down his life.
(2.)
Jesus
warns Peter of Satan’s onset upon the disciples,
after permission attained;
and of his own special danger.
Peter
disbelieves (Luke 22: 31).
(3.)
(Matthew 26: 31)
‘All
would stumble, because of the prophetic word.’ ‘Though
all, yet not
I,’ saith Peter.
[Page 341]
Then
comes
the scattering.
And Peter’s
denials fellow:-
(4.)
The
porteress, as he enters (John
18: 17).
(2.)
The
maid as he sat by the fire (Matthew 26:
69 Mark
14: 66), ‘Thou also wert
with Jesus the Galilean.’
(3.)
A
maid addressing the bystanders, as he sits by the
fire (Luke 22: 56).
(4.)
He
goes into the porch (Mark
14: 68).
The maid a second time (Mark 14: 69).
(5.)
While
there, another maid says- ‘He, too,
was with Jesus the
Nazarite.’
Peter denies with oath
(Matthew 26: 71),
‘I
know not the
(6.)
The
bystanders at the fire, ‘Art thou one, too?’ (John
28: 25).
(7.)
A
man affirms it, ‘Thou art
also one of them’ (Luke
22: 58).
(8.)
Another
man, ‘He is a Galilean, and is one’
(Luke
22: 59).
(9.)
The
kinsman of Malchus, ‘Did I
not see thee?’ (John
18: 26).
(10.)
The
bystanders generally (Matthew
26: 73; Mark 14:
70).
Peter
curses
and swears.
The
cock
crows. Jesus
looks. Peter
repents.
In
the
word – ‘Let these go their way’
- an indirect lesson was given to
Peter, not to put himself into the hand of those
enemies from whom Jesus had
delivered him, by His healing and His word.
But, no doubt, Peter was displeased at
himself for fleeing, and thought
he might venture.
‘Thou canst not
follow Me now,’ was lost upon him.
He forgot Christ’s word, and was thinking
of
redeeming his own – ‘I am
ready to go with Thee into
prison and to death.’
The
providence
of God then opens the way to Peter’s entry on the
scene of
temptation, and to his foretold fall. We are shown
thus, that the flesh can no
more stand in this dispensation, than under the Law
at Sinai. Self-confidence is always near a fall. A
beacon is set up to warn all of their
peril.
Observe the
undersigned features of truth - so constantly
recurring in [Page
342]
Scripture. ‘Art (not) thou
also one of the disciples of this Man?’ The
porteress knew John to be one.
She, at
once, supposes, that as Peter is admitted at his
request, he also is one.
Peter denies, where John stands.
It is Peter alone on whom the adversaries
fix. For
the Saviour’s word must stand
good.
18-21. ‘Now
the slaves and servants were standing (around),
after
having made a fire, because it was cold, and were
warming themselves; and Peter
was with them standing and warming himself.
The High Priest therefore asked Jesus
concerning His disciples, and His
doctrine. Jesus
answered him, “I have
spoken openly to the world; I always taught in the
synagogue, and in the
temple, whither always the Jews resort, and in
secret I spoke nothing.
Why askest thou Me?
Ask those that heard, what I said unto
them. Behold,
they know
what I said.”’
It
seems
most probable that this examination before Annas was
designed to furnish
matter of accusation against our Lord.
For though they had Him now a prisoner, they
were at a loss how to
proceed. How
put to death according to
Law, one who had never transgressed it?
It is not the examination named and described
by the other Gospels.
That was before Caiaphas. This
was before Annas, the
father-in-law of Caiaphas.
And the two
were closely allied in spirit, and in family
connection. They
seem to have occupied different parts of
the same palace.
This seems the only way
in which we can understand the description of the
four Gospels. Probably one
courtyard belonged to the residences of the two. And what
greatly confirms this - a very
weighty reading in Luke
3: 2 has the
expression, ‘Under the high-priesthood
of Annas and
Caiaphas,’
as if the two made up but one.
The
Saviour
refuses generally to reply to this unjust
interrogation.
The proper course for justice to pursue would
be to lay the indictment, and then to hear
witnesses. And
Jesus was no secret conspirator.
He had always taught in public, and what
His
doctrines were could easily be learned from some of
the multitudes who heard
Him, both in the country and in
Our
Lord
answers only as to His doctrines.
On the subject of His disciples He is silent. He has
commended them to the Father, and they
shall not be brought into peril by any word of His. No more
then is said of them.
In those words, ‘In
secret spoke I nothing,’ was a tacit appeal
to two
passages of Isaiah, in which the same thing is said
of the God of
Who
was
the High Priest was often doubtful; so frequently,
and on such sordid
grounds did the Romans interfere to put down High
Priests, and to set them
up. We
are reminded of Acts
23: 1-5, where Paul, when set before the
younger Ananias, is struck by his order.
Paul’s words should be rendered, ‘I
did not know
that there is a High Priest.’
22-14. ‘Now
as He said this one of the servants that stood by
gave a
blow on the cheek of Jesus, saying, “Answerest
Thou the High Priest so?”
Jesus answered him, “If I spoke evilly,
bear
witness of the evil; but if well, why smotest thou
Me?” Annas
sent Him away bound to Caiaphas the
High Priest.’
The
Saviour
is seen in His calm collectedness in the midst of
those who sought His
life. But
the servant of the great man
who was trying Him was displeased at the implied
reproof of his master.
He expected a much more submissive
demeanour
from one accused, in peril, and so lowly, towards
the great High Priest of
Israel. But
how, if Caiaphas was the
High Priest of that year, was Annas High Priest too? Caiaphas
was the legal High Priest of that
year; but those who had been High Priests in former
years were still called
High Priest; and in this case it [Page 344] was understood, that Annas and Caiaphas were acting together.
It is probable that this preliminary
examination took place, in part to fill up the time,
till the members of the
Sanhedrim could be assembled in the hall of
Caiaphas.
Jesus
in
His reply to the High Priest’s servant, shows us
that it is not contrary to
meekness, or to the spirit of the Saviour’s commands
in the Sermon on the
Mount, to remonstrate with those who act unjustly
towards us. Blows were to be
meted out only to those who had done amiss.
Wherein, then had He offended?
He
had kept strictly to the line of lawful defence, in
exposing the unlawfulness
of the mode of trying Him.
But thus was
to be fulfilled what was written, ‘They
shall smite the
Judge
of
Israel
with a rod upon the
cheek,’ Mic 5:
1-4.
So
the
culprit at the bar was the real judge; the High
Priest will one day be
judged by Him, as guilty of injustice.
Righteousness had departed from
But
for
these offences of
24-27. ‘Now
Annas sent Him bound to Caiaphas the High Priest. But
Simon Peter was standing and warming
himself. They
said, therefore, to him
“Art not thou also one of His disciples?”
He denied, and said, “I am not.” One of the
slaves of the High Priest,
being a kinsman of him whose ear Peter cut off
said, “Did I not see thee in the
Garden with Him?” Peter, therefore, again denied,
and immediately the cock crew.’
Jesus
is
sent to Caiaphas ‘bound.’
He
was still of the same mind concerning Jesus being
put to death. The
Saviour is sent to another part of the
same palace. It
is probable that it was
while Jesus was in the yard, before going to
Caiaphas, that He cast on Peter
that look which brought the sinning disciple to
repentance.
The
denials
of Peter recorded by John are all different from
those which have gone
before. For
they all turn on the new
facts narrated by John, but omitted by the previous
three Evangelists.
They rest on three points:- (1) that John
was
known to the High Priest, and to His servants, as a
disciple of Christ; (2)
that he introduced Peter to the palace; and (3) on
John’s witness, that the
blow struck at the High Priest’s slave was aimed by
Peter. The
two first denials contain the recognition
of John’s discipleship, and the inference that
Peter, therefore, was also a
disciple. The
third charge is levelled
at Peter, as wielding the sword.
It was
this, also, that added to His fears.
John does not name, that Peter’s denials were
with oaths and curses.
28. ‘They
lead, therefore, Jesus from Caiaphas to the
Praetorium. Now
it was early morning;
and they did not go into the Praetorium, lest they
should be defiled, but that
they might eat the Passover.’
They
must
deliver Jesus over to the Romans - the Gentiles. (1) On
their side the reason was, because to
put Him to death would have drawn down on themselves
punishment. (2)
On God’s part the reason was, that Jew
and Gentile were to prove themselves both sinners,
the Jews being deepest in
transgression that Jesus’ death might avail for
both.
The
Praetorium
was originally the Palace of Herod the Great.
It had now become the residence of the
Roman
Governor, who, though living at Caesarea, ordinarily
dwelt during the feasts at
‘That they might eat the
Passover.’ Those
unclean
could not celebrate the Passover.
And as this was their chief feast, they
desired not to be shut out
therefrom. But
this brings up anew the
question - Which was the true day of the Passover? Jesus had
already celebrated the Passover on
the evening before with the twelve. How then should
there be any second eating
of it? This
is a vexed question, on
which learned men have not been able to come to any
settled conclusion.
Nor is it necessary to the faith, though it
carries with it not a few perplexities.
The most probable idea, I think, is that
there were two times of celebrating it among the Jews, arising out of two
different modes of reckoning the time of new moon:
that Jesus and His disciples
kept the Passover on one of these times, and the
other party on another day,
according to a different reckoning.
29-32. ‘Pilate
therefore went out to them, and said – “What
accusation bring ye against this Man?”
They
answered and said unto him – “If He were not a
malefactor, we would not have
delivered Him up to thee.” Pilate said therefore
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 slay any man.”
In order that the word of Jesus might be
fulfilled which He spake, signifying by what kind
of death He was about to die.’
Pilate
humours
their religiousness.
Since they
would not come in to him, he would go out to them. What was
their charge against the
prisoner? They
will not tell Him; for
they knew well enough that the charge of blasphemy
in making Himself ‘Son of
God,’ which was the ground on which they
had
condemned Jesus in their council, was no offence
against Roman law.
They wish, therefore, Pilate to pass
sentence
on Christ without further inquiry, assuming that so
venerable a body would not
be guilty of any injustice, and had decided all
according to their Law.
Hence they do not even state the ground of
their condemnation, only generally that He was a ‘malefactor,’
or ‘evil-doer,’
while they had condemned Him for evil-speaking.
Pilate
refuses
to be made a tool of theirs.
‘If you pronounce
sentence, carry it out into execution
according to your Law.’
This
draws out the confession that their sentence was of
death; so that while they
would gladly execute Jesus, the law of
Now,
this
hindrance was in accordance with God’s mind about
His Son’s death.
For had they been able to put our Lord to
death
on their accusation, and according to Mosaic Law, He
must have been stoned.
But
the Scripture and the word of Christ had decided,
that His death was to be in
another manner by nailing to the tree. Thus alone,
according to the word in
*
By stoning, too,
most of the bones would be broken,
while of the Passover lamb it was forbidden.
‘Not a bone of it
shall be broken.’
33, 34. ‘Pilate
entered in therefore again into the Praetorium,
and
called Jesus, and said unto Him – “Thou art the
King of the Jews?”
Jesus answered him – “Of thyself sayest
thou
this; or did others say it to thee about Me?”’
Pilate’s
words
should be read as an interrogation put in the form
of affirmation, as
when we say- ‘You are going
to
We
may
state it thus -
‘Dost thou put the
question of thy own proper motion?’
Then that may arise (1) from faith,
accepting the Scriptures of the Jews, as
foretelling an universal king of
David’s line; or (2) from Roman and
political unbelief through
jealousy of Jesus’ pretensions, as hostile to the
Emperor. The
Roman’s reply seems to be especially directed
primarily to negative the first of these points. And the
second part of the reply removes the
other. Thus
He leaves the Jews as the
sole authors of this accusation.
35, 36. ‘Pilate
answered – “Am I a Jew?
Thine own nation and the chief priests
have
delivered Thee up to me: what hast Thou done?”
Jesus answered – ‘My kingdom cometh not out
of this world; if it were
out of this world, then would My servants have
fought, in order that I should
not be delivered up to the Jews, but now My
kingdom is not from hence.’
The
first
part of Pilate’s reply is a proud denial of his
having any sympathy with
Jewish fables and superstitions.
He
neither knew nor cared anything about Moses and the
prophets. He
was a servant of the fourth great empire
of Daniel, and believed nought about any greater empire of God,
that should dash to earth that of
He
tells
Jesus, that the accusation was put into His mouth by
the nation and
rulers of
The
Saviour’s
reply is one which is much quoted by
anti-millenarians.
To
their eyes it demolishes all
ideas of any reign of Christ in person over
These
words
refer not only to the twelve and our Lord’s
prohibition of the sword in
the Garden to them; but also to His refusal to
attempt to set up the
How shall we take the ‘now’
in our Lord’s closing words?
1. Is it a particle of time? ‘For
the
present My
kingdom is not from
the world.’
No! For
the source of the Lord’s kingdom would always
abide the same; always would its source
be heavenly.
The Father’s will is to
bestow it on the Son, and His decree is that it
should be established, not
by the armies of men, but by the host
of angels from on high.
(2) The last
clause, ‘not from hence,’ establishes
the rendering here given;
and the sense – ‘Heaven,
not earth, is the source
of our Lord’s future
kingdom.’
For the Saviour could not deny that His kingdom was one day to rule over
the
Our
Lord does not
answer the question, ‘What
He had done?’ [Page 351] till His next reply.
What is the Saviour’s kingdom?
‘A kingdom,’
most
reply, ‘in the hearts of His people.’
Nay, the kingdom is to be seen when He is beheld coming in the clouds, with power of His angels, casting
His foes into the furnace of fire, and rewarding
His well-behaved and faithful
servants (Matt.
24. 25.)
Says Pilate, ‘Thy people, 0 king, have themselves
delivered Thee up to me, as
an offender to be slain!’
And
Jesus, while owning Himself ‘King
of the Jews,’ as
the Prophet had declared, must yet
say, that on worldly grounds His servants would have
fought against the Jews, as
against enemies.
‘All the
foundations
are out of course.’
That ‘Jesus is the
King of Israel’ had been declared at His
birth (Matt. 2: 2). He had
owned it in the mouth of Nathaniel (John
1: 49, 50).
He had presented Himself purposely as their
King, in His entry into
37. ‘Pilate
saith therefore unto Him, “Thou art a King then.” Jesus
answered, “Thou sayest that I am a
King. I
was for this purpose born, and
for this purpose came into the world, in order
that I should bear witness to
the truth. Every
one that is of the
truth heareth My voice.”’
Jesus had thrice spoken of ‘His
kingdom.’
But if so, He owned Himself to be a King.
Jesus admits it.
In what sense?
Some
pervert His words, as if the following
sentiments of our Lord were
descriptive of the nature of His kingdom. As
though He had said, ‘I am
King in a
figurative sense. I
reign spiritually in the hearts of My people.
I am King: but My realm is
that of grace and truth.’ Now
if this were the only passage, there might be some
appearance of truth in such
a view. But
when we bring
in other passages, it is apparent that this is a [costly]
mistake.
The only shelter which the sentiment can find
lies in this, that the present time is
the time of the kingdom in mystery, and the present day is that of ‘the word
of the
kingdom.’
But it must never be forgot, that both
in
the other Gospels and in this, Jesus was asked
whether He were ‘the King of
the
Jews.’
[Page
352] To that question Jesus answered in the affirmative. Therefore
it
is certain, that Jesus’ kingdom is not only or
chiefly a figurative one, but
a real and
literal one, (1) over
the nation of
The nature of the kingdom, then, is
wholly misapprehended by those who make
it something figurative and present. This is not truly the time of the Saviour’s kingdom.
We are to pray for its coming; not for its extension.
The
kingdom, generally, means the kingdom in
manifestation,
not ‘the word of the
kingdom’ only. It is to
overturn the kingdoms of the earth when
it comes; not as now, while
in mystery:
its adherents lying passive in the hands of the
kings of the earth, and
refusing to take power in, and over, the world.
Jesus
was
offered all the kingdoms of the world by Satan, and
He might have taken the
kingdom over
This
was
‘the good confession before
Pilate, which cost our
Lord His life’ (1
Tim. 6: 13).
(1)
In Daniel 7: 14-27,
‘the Son
of Man’ as ‘Ancient
of Days,’ puts down by
force
and justice the fourth
empire, and its blaspheming King; while
He
gives the kingdom which He has taken away from the
Blasphemer, to His
fellow-kings.
(2) So in the parable
of the Pounds (Luke 19.)
The nobleman is
gone to heaven to obtain His
kingdom. He,
does
not exercise it while in
heaven: it
is only
at His return, after the reception
of His kingdom, that He exercises it.
And how does He manifest it?
By
exalting His friends and faithful
servants; and by
destroying His foes.
That is, His kingdom never means an inward and
invisible kingdom in the hearts of believers.
(3)
While
Paul proclaims Jesus as being now the ‘Priest
after
the order of Melchizedec,’ he speaks also of the day when the Kingly
side of that title shall appear.
For Melchizedec was both Priest and King, of which the history of Abraham gives us a
typical glimpse.
He brings blessing to
Abraham and his sons, after their Gentile foes are
cut off (Heb. 7: 1).
(4)
His
kingdom is
to manifest itself in resurrection, at
His coming with the trumpet of heaven. It is
to be based on the principle
of righteousness;
in opposition
to that of mercy,
now in force. Christ
is to reign, not only spiritually
over friends, but specially in the putting down by
power and righteousness, all
enemies.
So
says
Paul, 1 Cor. 15:
24-28 – ‘Then cometh the end, when He shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the
Father; when He shall have put down all rule and
all authority and power.
For He must reign till He hath put all
enemies under His feet.
The last enemy that
shall be destroyed is death.
For He (God) hath put all things under
His
(Christ’s) feet.
But when He saith, all
things are put under Him, it is manifest that He is excepted, which did put all things
under Him.
And when all things shall be
subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also
Himself be subject unto Him that put
all things under Him, that God maybe all in all.’ (5) The
same thing appears in Rev.
11: 15-18, when the seventh trump sounds;
then
the kingdoms of earth become, by the putting forth
of God’s might, and the
recalling of the power lent in Noah's day to the
sons of men – ‘the
kingdoms of the Lord, and of His Christ.’ At that
time the nations are not converted
and obedient, but are angry with God, and God is
angry with them, even to the
cutting off of their armies by battle (Rev.
19:
11-21; Is. 34.).
Then appears the
other side of the matter - the kingdom comes, as the time of the reward prepared for God's saints of previous
dispensations.
(6) Accordingly, the
thing is shown in the Apocalypse in detail by
Christ coming with His armies out
of the sky; when, finding the hosts of earth
arrayed against Him under two [Page 354]
leaders of
especial wickedness, He casts the two into the lake
of fire, and slays the
rest; his title then becoming openly ‘KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF
LORDS’ (Rev.
19: 16).
(7) After
that, and the
imprisonment of Satan, the kingdom is fully
manifested.
Christ reigns, and His martyrs who suffered for, and served, Him, sit on thrones, and
reign with Christ (20:
4-6).
They then exercise justice:‑not, as
now, stiffer oppression patiently.
‘The kingdom,’
therefore
is to be
taken in its usual
and literal sense.
(1) The future
But to return to our Lord’s
words. Lest
Pilate and others should imagine that
His kingly aspect was the only one attaching to Him,
He proceeds to assert at
greater length that side of His mission, which
John’s Gospel especially unfolds
- His being a witness to the truth
of God as the Only-begotten Son.
This
feature can only belong to His kingdom during the
time of mystery.
The
receivers of the witness of Christ in this day are
[Page 355]
preparing to
be fellow-kings (not merely ‘subjects,’ as is
generally said) with Christ.
‘They
lived and reigned with the Christ,’ who
suffered
with Him in the day of mystery (2 Tim. 2: 12; Rev. 20: 4-6).
Jesus, then, sets Himself
forth in a new light, and
that in a way adapted to load to the salvation of
Pilate as the man.
Jesus
is
The Witness. So
Isaiah said He should
be (Is. 4: 4) ‘Behold,
I have given Him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people.’ This is a
passage taken from the general call
of the prophet to the sons of men, to seek in the
Son of God that satisfaction
which can be found alone in Him.
There
also is, first, a reference to the millennium in the
expression ‘the sure mercies of
David’
- that is, the restoration of His
kingdom for ever, as God promised.
Then
comes the notice of the Lord’s establishing Christ
as a witness to the nations
(Rev. 1: 5, 6).
Jesus
was
‘born’
a
king, and with an object before His own mind, as
well as before His
Father’s. He
existed before He was ‘born.’ He came
into the world, in pursuance of an object given Him
of the Father.
The then present work of
our Lord was that of the peaceful suffering witness, testifying to unpopular truth.
This testimony is
carried on still in Christ’s members; by
the Spirit given to testify to salvation now,
and to the kingdom to come.
This attitude is something quite
different
from kingly rule and power.
It is ‘the word
of the kingdom’ now; the power of it comes only when Christ returns (Matt.
13: 19).
Jesus,
then,
in v. 37 is
stating to Pilate, not the
aim of His kingdom; but of His
coming the first time in the flesh. It
will be another thing by and bye, when
He comes ‘the second time’
in His kingdom, of
which the Transfiguration was a type (Matt.
16: 13;
17: 9).
‘To bear witness to the truth.’
Many
in our days profess to be fond of the truth, and to
be seeking
it, but to be sceptical of finding
it. Jesus
came not to seek it; but,
as having full possession of
it before He was born, He came to dispense it to others by His testimony.
‘The
truth’ means that it is a great body [Page 356]
and one system; religious truth concerning God and
man. Here
was the answer to Pilate – ‘What
hast thou done?’
‘Every one that is of the
truth heareth My voice.’
Here
was
the appeal to Pilate that He might be saved.
Jesus’ witness was delivered not to
‘Every one that is of the
truth.’
This
takes
up the figure frequently found in John, of the truth
being to us as a
father. ‘Begotten
of God.’ The
men of the world are born ‘flesh
of the flesh’ in enmity against God, living
in
falsehood, and by it turned away from God and His
Son.
‘The truth’
is (1) a system of religion not to be discovered
by the reason of fallen
man; it must be brought to him from heaven as a
testimony complete.
(2) It must be sent from God through the
Son
of God, who is, as well as testifies, ‘the Truth.’
(3) For ‘the truth’
turns on the person, work, and witness of the Son. Thus John
is carrying out the proof of Jesus’
first coming as the Only-begotten Son of God, ‘full of
grace and truth;’ in opposition to Moses,
the man of shadows and of Law.
If any, then, refuse
Christ, it is because they belong
to the old error, falsity, and enmity of fallen
Adam. Hearts
of unbelief cannot know, or by
searching find out God.
The un-renewed
hate God, and the account of Him which is given by
Christ. Nature
cannot, however deeply studied, reveal
God, as it is necessary for a sinner to know Him. If any,
then, after hearing Christ and His
testimony, refuse it, it is because they are still
in darkness, and prefer it
to the light.
38. ‘Pilate
saith unto Him, “What is truth?”
And having said this, he again went out
to
the Jews, and saith to them – “I find no fault in
Him.”’
It is evident, that to
Pilate ‘truth’ was only a dream, the philosopher’s everlasting wrangle,
leading to no serious useful [Page 357] result. ‘He
was a practical man, that had to deal with life and its realities; a man of action, to
preside in power over a province of
the chief of earth’s kingdoms.
These
philosophers who pretend to truth are all at
variance one with another!
Nothing settled, nothing demonstrated!’ Now, it is
true that the evidence of
religious truth is not the same as the evidence,
that – ‘this is a house’
– and – ‘yonder
is a tree.’
Yet to those willing
to learn, the assurance is as great as the
perceptions of sense.
Truth
as
presented to us now is no dream of men, but the
revelation of God; it is
authoritative, marking out the course which is to be pursued and
that to be avoided, as we would attain to His
kingdom and glory, and avoid His
displeasure. The
acceptance
of the truth of His testimony now is the way to
His kingdom of power
hereafter.
Present and future happiness
are bound up therewith.
Now,
as
Pilate possessed power, but not principle, he went
ever dismally astray; led
only by his instincts and his apparent worldly
interests; ignorant of the God
who would call him to account.
Hence he
vacillates; staggers to and fro.
He will
not accept Christ; he will not deny Him.
Without principle firmly held, there can be
no firmness of conduct.
To
him,
therefore, Christ is a singular spectacle.
‘To be resting on a
kingdom in the clouds, and
talking about that will-o’-the-wisp, “truth,”
that no man has ever seized!
I can now understand how Thou art
rejected by
Thine own people!’
And so Pilate
despises Christ, and despises His haters also.
For him Christ is too high, and His enemies
too low. Not
all will accept a Christ offered.
To
be
a Christian, however, is to have found the truth
incarnate in Christ; to
have the Spirit of Truth as our teacher, and to read
the Word of God as our
store of truth.
‘What
is truth?’ A
good question!
But it was uttered to
Pilate’s condemnation, for he did not care to wait
for an answer; deeply,
eternally, has it affected him.
That
showed His unbelief in Jesus, and of religious truth
in general. It
was just the [Page 358]
attitude of most cultivated Roman and Grecian minds
of that day. They
saw enough to reject
the foolish and wicked fables of their own religion
of idolatry. But
in casting away these, they had nothing
better to supply in their place.
The
philosophers of
Wherever
this
is the case, the cry goes up – ‘Truth,
indeed! There is
no such thing!
What one calls truth, another says is
falsehood! Nothing
is certain, but that
no certainty is to be had!
It is all
illusion of the human mind.
There is no
stable external reality of truth.
Man is
the measure of all things.’*
*
‘0
God, if there be a God,
save my soul, if I have a soul,’ was the
final expression of doubt.
Such
persons
can have no settled principles to control or guide
them. They
drift, as did Pilate, with
circumstances.
But
what
says God? What
says this Gospel?
It
speaks
of truth as being in its essence lodged in God. It is
discovered to us here as abiding in two
Divine Persons, and testified by them.
1. The first of these is the Son, of
God, who came, bringing
from above the wondrous revelation of God and man,
Himself being the Light, who
by His life, death, resurrection, and word, makes
known to us the Father; and,
by contrast, man the fallen (John
1: 14; 14: 6).
2. The Second Person in this case
is ‘THE
SPIRIT
OF TRUTH’ (14:
17; 15: 26; 16: 13).
He searches all the truth of God, and
possesses it. He
testifies to the Son of
God, who is ‘The Truth’
embodied. He
turns men from the falsehood of the devil,
and from enmity against God, into love and light.
3.
THE SCRIPTURE
is the written truth,
put into our hands, specially the New Testament (John
1: 17, 18).
In that is [Page
359]
treasured the testimony
concerning Christ, as our only way to the truth of
God, indited by the wisdom
of the Spirit of God.
These three agree
in one. They
are the sinner’s way to the
truth (1) about himself; his utter
loss, his deep-seated evil, his blindness, his
condemnation, his constant
hatred of God, and eternal suffering of the wrath
and justice of God, as being
God’s eternal sentence against the everlasting
sinner against the Most
High! The
Scriptures are the sinner’s
way to the truth, (2) concerning God.
How alone infinite justice can be reconciled
to the unrighteous, how
pardon can be dispensed to the guilty, and benefits
heaped upon the unworthy,
through Christ.
Hereupon
Pilate
declares to the Jews, that their accusation was a
false one. He
had tested our Lord on the one point on
which alone he had a right to be jealous.
‘Was He one, who
would by His seditious
principles and practices as a man on earth give
trouble, if He had the
opportunity, to Caesar’s government?’
Hereupon he was quite satisfied, that Jesus,
if left at liberty, would
no more disturb the government of Rome over Israel
than He had already
done. He
had declared, that the source
of the kingdom He expected was not human
swords. Had
it been so, the occasion which brought Him before
Pilate would have been sure
to have manifested His intention to fight.
And as for any kingdom established by armies
from heaven, Pilate had no
fear about that! Moreover, in the Saviour’s testimony concerning truth as
the especial subject engaging His sojourn on earth,
he beheld in Jesus the
harmless dreaming enthusiast, who might safely be
left alone to tread as He
pleased the ways in
Thus
‘the Lamb of God,’
who was to bear the sin of
the world, is examined by the Gentile, as well as
the Jew; and both are
constrained to own that it has no blemish.
The ‘I’
is emphatic. It
sets His testimony in
designed contrast to theirs.
‘You accuse Him as
the guilty conspirator against Caesar.
I
find no such fault in Him.’
But
neither Pilate’s witness, nor that of Judas, checks
the men of unbelief.
[Page 360]
‘I find in Him no fault at all!’ Dismiss
the charges against Him then!
Put Him within the castle in safety from
His
foes, as did the Governor on Paul’s behalf.
But no!
The man who knows not
what truth is, has no certain footing.
He
scourges
the innocent!
39. ‘But
ye have a custom that I release one unto you at
the
Passover: will ye, therefore, that I release to
you “the King of the
Jews?” Therefore
all again shouted, saying,
“Not this man, but Barabbas!”
Now
Barabbas was a robber!’
Pilate
uses
several expedients, with the view of releasing
Jesus, and escaping the
enmity of the High Priests, on the one hand, and His
own guilt in condemning
Him, on the other.
He sends Him to
Herod, hoping that thus he might get rid of the
burthen. He
would get the Jews voluntarily to release
Him, as it was festival time.
Had not
vast multitudes arrayed themselves in His favour,
when He made His entry into
Now all this did not
avail. (1)
It was on Pilate’s part a
tampering with his own duty, the first duty of a
magistrate, to condemn the
guilty only, and to protect the innocent.
But he feared, Roman though he was, to do
that. (2)
God's mind was behind it all.
It was His pleasure, that through the
condemnation of the Righteous One, and the
liberation of the thrice guilty
robber at the Passover, He should
show to us the virtue of the true Paschal Lamb, in
setting us, the guilty, free,
by the sufferings of the Guiltless One.
[Page 361]
But
Unitarians
say, ‘Then you make God unjust; He punishes the One
not guilty.’ I
ask then, ‘Against
whom
is the injustice committed?’
1.
Not against Jesus, for He
willingly submitted to it, as the good pleasure of
His Father. And
the Law’s maxim is, ‘Volenti
non fit injuria.’ ‘No
injustice is committed, if you do only
what the party wishes you to do.’
(2) It is the Father’s voluntary withdrawal
from His just rights, that
He may bring blessing to His foes!
How
wonderful! ‘That
He might spare His enemies, He would not spare His
Son!’
And that Son consented to it!
But the Jews will not act as Pilate would
have them; and as he might naturally have expected. He had
committed two faults herein.
(1) He had treated Jesus as one guilty, who
might nevertheless be in some way
excused. (2)
He ought not to have put
such a question to their choice.
It was
for him to decide
according to law and
justice. Government
is not to be carried
on by the show of hands of a mob!
The shout of the crowd goes up, ‘Not this man, but Barabbas!’ The Beloved Son
of God is the rejected of the world; the accepted by the
world is a robber, murderer, and seditious
one,
son of his father, the
devil! The
cross of Christ makes the
world show itself.
This tells us,
Christians, what the world’s choice concerning us
would be, if we are
consistent. ‘The
servant is not above his lord, nor the disciple
above his master.’
So with Paul at
*
*
*
CHAPTER 19
[Page
362]
1-3. ‘Then,
therefore, Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him. And the
soldiers plaited a crown of thorns,
and put it on His head, and clothed Him with a
purple robe.
And they were coming to Him, and saying,
“Hail,
King of the Jews,” and they buffeted Him.’
Pilate
was
bent on saving Jesus, yet now he treats Him still
worse, as if guilty.
He seems to have thought, that the Jews’
enmity against our Lord would be turned into
compassion, if he showed how
little he thought of their accusation of Christ, as
one likely to be dangerous
to the Emperor and his government; and if he made
them see the severity of a
Roman scourging inflicted on Him.
Jesus,
then, was scourged for the first time. That was a
terrible
infliction; not like the moderate and limited
scourging allowed to the judges
of
Pilate
by
this act has taken a stop still further back in evil
and injustice.
He thought probably that by yielding partly
to [Page 363] them, they
would surrender to him the prisoner’s life.
Thus he grants part of their desires against
his duty, and that
encourages these men of enmity to demand the whole. He cannot,
since he has made their wishes his
compass, keep back their full desire.
The
torture
and humiliation inflicted on one so innocent, so
gracious, so
miserable, do not touch their hearts.
The
soldiers
ridicule, with crown and purple robe, the
pretensions of the sufferer
to be a King. This
is not the scene which
Matthew depicts, for that occurred after Pilate’s
sentence of crucifixion.
That, too, was the mockery with a scarlet robe, and
with a reed on His right
hand, when the whole regiment was gathered in the
guard-room. Jesus
wears the thorns
as one of the consequences of the fall;
a part of the curse laid by the Lord on the ground
for man’s sake (Gen. 3:
8).
In the new world which
this passion of
Christ has won for His saved ones, there shall be no
more thorns, and His
people shall reign for ever and ever (Rev.
22.)
The
remembrance
of this scene once threw a momentary ray across the
darkness of
Crusading times.
The
Jews
under Caiaphas ridicule our Lord’s pretensions to be
the Prophet; and the
men of Pilate ridicule His
claims to be King. We must learn
hence, therefore, that ridicule is no test of the
truth. That
may seem foolish to the eyes of men,
which is a part of God’s own truth.
We must hold God’s promises in prophecy to be really true, though all
seems against them. What are
all opposing powers against the
might of God, fulfilling His word in truth?
See, reader, of what importance in the eyes
of God Jesus’ Kingship
is. The
Heavenly Father had
[Page 364]
given Him the
throne of His earthly father David, by His decree
(Luke
1: 32, 33). The Son
asserts
it, when He is stripped of all human resources, and
when to own it is
death. But
the word of the Lord shall
one day prevail; and where
the Saviour
was mocked, His Supreme Majesty shall be owned by
earth and heaven (Zech.
14: 9-16).
To Him every knee shall bow, and every
tongue
confess the ‘King of kings
and Lord of lords.’ The Most
High
is wonderfully patient, but not for ever will He
allow wickedness to prevail
over innocence and holiness.
He is
patient, for He is calling to repent, and His
patience has been blessed to the
salvation of thousands untold.
But at
last the claims of justice will be heard, and the
holy exalted, while the
wicked are stripped of power misused.
‘The King of the Jews’ shall one day be the sovereign of [this] earth and heaven.
And if we would have part with Him in
that day, we must now confess Him in
His kingly character.
4, 5. ‘Pilate
therefore went out again, and saith unto them –
“Behold, I bring Him out to you, that ye may know
that I find in Him no
fault.” Jesus
therefore went forth,
bearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And he
saith to them – “Behold the Man!”’
Pilate’s
confession
of Jesus’ innocence was good so far as it went. The Lamb
of God was without spot or blemish,
enemies themselves being judges.
But how
terrible the iniquity, to treat righteousness as if
it were the worst
wickedness! If
(there was no fault in
Jesus,
how great the fault of
Pilate and of
the chief priests!
Many go so far as this - they find no
fault
with Christ.
But they do not find in Him salvation; for
they own Him not as ‘the
Way, and Truth, and Life.’
Jesus
then
appears with the ensigns of mock royalty, to let all
‘Behold the Man!’ What a contrast in
Jesus,
thus bowed down in misery and contempt, to Adam, as
he came first from the hand
of the Most High; invested with empire over the
new-formed world, clad in
beauty and might!
‘Behold
the Man’
now! He
is suffering for the sin of that [Page
365]
transgressor and his
posterity. Shame,
weakness, torment, and
mockery gird Him and clothe Him.
How
surely, then, shall torment, and reproach, and
shame, assail for ever those who
refuse to turn from sin, after the warnings of the
Lord, so many and so
solemn! Jesus’
sufferings for sinners
tell us what will righteously befall the
transgressor.
How
different
now the lot of Jesus!
Our faith beholds Him on high on the Father’s
throne; a name given Him
beyond all others.
Who is the Head over
all ranks and orders in the heavenly world? A Man, glorified, exalted
of God as worthy!
And
one day, the
Blessed and Only Potentate, His Father, will
cause all creatures to confess
this Son of Man
as the Heir
of all things, the King of
earth and heaven.
Moreover, Jesus shall exalt to a platform of power and glory far above the angels, those whom He
shall raise in resurrection
to dwell with Himself.
6, 7. ‘When,
therefore, the chief priests and the servants saw
Him,
they shouted, saying, ‘Crucify, crucify!”
Pilate saith to them – “Take ye Him, and
crucify; for I find no fault in
Him.” The
Jews answered Him – “We have a
Law, and by our Law He ought to die, because He
made Himself the Son of God.”’
How
deep
the hatred that refused to compassionate One so
misused, and tormented
against His desert!
But if His
persecutors can thus push matters against justice,
how surely will they
themselves be tormented by God according to
justice,
for this iniquity among others!
Pilate
is
vexed, and wishes to escape the responsibility they
would force upon
him. But
here again he shows his sad
injustice. He
would give up to a
robber’s death the Faultless One! if they will only
charge themselves with the
guilt of it. (v. 16). What,
then, must God think of the rulers of
earth, judged of by this fair specimen presented to
us? He
means to take away their power, and to
give it all into the hands of His Son, the
Righteous.
Pilate
and
his men having thus turned into ridicule the Jews’
accusation of Jesus as a
rival King to Caesar, they recur to the [Page 366]
ground of their condemnation of Him before
Caiaphas. He
deserves to die (by Leviticus
24: 16) because He is a blasphemer.
Here the strict sense of ‘Son
of God’
alone can stand.
There is no blasphemy in asserting one’s
self
to be a ‘son of God,’ figuratively.
Thus
Pilate
is forced to decide this case, which so perplexes
and troubles him.
The Most High intends, that each shall come
to a decision concerning Christ.
‘What
think you of Him?’ is
the question of life or death to
each. (1)
Is He a mere man? (2)
Or is He Son of God, in a sense
which belongs to none else?
Is He God,
of God? Saviour? or blasphemer?
Is He
one who atones for others’ sins? or one who deserves to die for His own? He is
either a stumbling-stone over which men fall and are
broken; or a corner-stone,
the builder on which shall not be ashamed.
We
see
in Pilate’s case, that it is only truth held
previously and previously
practised, which can stand the day of storm.
Pilate knew the right, but
his house was built on the sand alone, and hence it
could not sustain the rain,
and floods, and gusts of power that now beat against
it. It
fell, and great was the fall.
Stephen would not have stood against the
accusations and outcries of his murderers, had not
his soul been rooted by
faith and practice in the truth of God.
If
Jesus
were to die by Jewish Law, then, it must be, not by
crucifixion, but by
stoning. But
they regard not Law or
justice, who are urging all onward to His death.
8, 9. ‘When
Pilate, therefore, heard this word He was the more
afraid. And
he went into the Praetorium
again, and saith to Jesus, “Whence art Thou?”
But Jesus gave him no answer.’
‘Whence art Thou?’
This referred - not to His earthly place of
birth or life.
Pilate had dealt with Him already as a
Galilean. ‘Art
Thou of heaven or earth?’
Had
Jesus been a mere man He ought to have replied, ‘I am a
man, and nothing more!’
Pilate
was
awed by Christ.
He was unlike all
other men whom he had seen, in His powers of
miracle, in the hatred with [Page
367]
which he inspired His foes, and in His silence when He had the power to
stop the accusers’ mouths.
This
accusation
then frightens him.
There
were heathen stories of vengeance sent on those who
did injury to the gods or
their sons, while travelling in disguise.
At Iconium we find, that at once on Paul’s
miracle, they shouted – ‘The
gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.’ Might it
not be so here?
Pilate feared to encounter such unknown
perils. He
would learn, then, from the
prisoner’s lips who He was.
‘Whence art Thou?’ A good
question on Pilate’s part, going
deeper still than ‘What is truth?’ But
he wins no reply.
Why not?
Perhaps we may not know all the reasons;
but
one seems pretty clear.
It was because
of the way in which Pilate had dealt by the
Saviour’s former teachings.
He had shown himself indifferent to what
was
truth. Had
he accepted the Saviour’s
testimony to Himself as sent to proclaim truth, he
could have been led on by
the answer here.
But how can he enter the
house who falls at the
threshold?
This
question,
however, to which Pilate obtained no response, is
for us answered in
many passages - specially in the opening words of
this Gospel. The
Saviour had again and again testified to
the Jews, respecting Himself as the Sent One from
the Father. His
forerunner had borne witness to Jesus as
superior to himself, and to all others; in that,
while they were of earthly
origin, He was from above (John
3: 31).
The Saviour had testified to the Jews in the
temple, that He was about
to leave them.
They speculated in a
jesting manner respecting the locality to which He
would go; but their thoughts
do not rise above some region of earth, or the place
of the dead. Our
Lord enlightens them.
‘Ye are from beneath;
I am
from above. Ye are of this world; I am not of this world.
I said, therefore, unto you, that ye
shall
die in your sins.
For if ye believe not
that I am, ye shall die in your sins’ (John
8: 23, 24).
10.
‘Pilate saith unto Him,
“Unto me speakest Thou
not? Knowest
Thou not, that I have power
to crucify Thee, and power to release Thee?”
‘I
have power.’
Power was given to Pilate, to use only in [Page
368]
accordance with law and
justice. And
had he so used it, as it
was intended, he must have dismissed Christ in
freedom; as not innocent only,
but righteous. But, specially in those times, crying
acts of injustice were of
continual occurrence.
Pilate was ruler
at a distance from
The
‘power to crucify’
comes first. Not
of right, but of might.
And it was, indeed, the nearest.
But the Saviour beheld in His power the
Father’s
will, and to that He bowed.
If Jesus
were guilty, Pilate had no right to
release; if
guiltless, none to crucify. But
he speaks after the usual manner of men, as if the
whole matter lay simply in
his choice.
Pilate
is
displeased at this silence.
He is
astonished that one so completely in his power is
not more alive to His
perilous position, anxious to make friends with him,
and to obey him in all
things. He
might be silent to accusing
foes; but to the governor, who had his life in his
hands, silence was death.
11.
‘Jesus answered, “Thou
wouldst not have had any power
against Me, except it had been given thee from
above, therefore he that
delivered Me to thee hath the greater sin.”’
The
Saviour
teaches him a lesson of the utmost moment to all,
specially to those
possessed of power as the magistrate.
Pilate looked no higher than the earth, and
to him the one source of
authority was, the Emperor at
Our
Lord
now hints whence He came.
‘From
above.’ Thence He descended as
the
bearer of truth thence came the power of Pilate. Heaven
really rules earth; it
will visibly rule
in
the millennial days.
There can be
no true sovereignty or right rule without the
confession of One higher than
man, the Judge of rulers and of ruled alike.
Pilate had authority from God to judge, and
therefore his sin in judging
wrongly was less than his, who, having no judicial
authority, urged on the
death-cry, against Pilate’s wish.
Pilate’s part in the matter was unsought for,
and judgment was incumbent
on him as an officer of
Notice
how
our Lord in these words speaks as the Judge,
measuring the guilt of his Judge.
This delivery of Jesus,
then, into the hand of Pilate was
a [370] part of God’s
counsel. The
Saviour confesses the power
he had over Him, though he was a bad man; and though
the Emperor who appointed
him was a worse; and though He knew that Pilate’s
power would be exercised in
putting Him to death.
Our duty then to the rulers of earth is to own the source of their
power, and to obey them as God’s ministers,
set to keep the world in
some degree of control and order.
This gift of power from on high is very often
noticed in the
Apocalypse. It
comes out especially, in
the day when God in His wrath surrenders the whole
earth into the hands of
Satan’s King (Rev. 13:
5, 7, 14, 15).
Power is so given to him, that to rise up
against that power is to draw down God’s displeasure
unto death.
How
completely
the world and its power are against God, was shown
by both the Chief
Priests and Pilate sentencing the Righteous One to
death. Vain
are all attempts to set authority right,
and to keep out injustice from among rulers. While
Satan is the master,
injustice will be. And Christians who
attempt to rule the world, find that they must
do many things contrary to
Christ’s commands and principles.
Not
till He comes, whose right it is to reign, will
the governments of earth be
just, and approved by God. And Christ shall then
give power unto those that
patiently waited for God’s time, and to those
who now walk obediently in
Christ’s ways and commands (Rev.
2: 26, 27).
What
is
the meaning of – ‘He,
therefore, that
delivered Me unto thee, hath the greater sin?’
First,
it tacitly tells Pilate, that in thus managing all
unjustly, and especially in
his scourging of the innocent One and his delivery
of Him unto death, he was sinning.
Injustice
is not only a crime against men, but also a ‘sin,’
or
offence against God.
We should
supply, in thought, after ‘hath
greater sin,’
the words – ‘than thou hast.’ As from
God came the power, so from Him also
came the principles on which that power was to be
exercised. And
injustice is a sin, for which Pilate
would have to answer before God.
Pilate
was one of the rulers of earth tested by the call –
‘Kiss
the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the
way.’
How different was his treatment in scourging
and crucifying the Son!
[Page 371]
But
who was
the deliverer of Jesus to
Pilate? (1)
We naturally think of
Judas. But
Judas did not betray Jesus to
Pilate. (2)
Some think it was the nation
of
This, then, is a great and
solemn truth - the
responsibility arising out of light.
It
applies all around.
The heathen that
know not God act contrary to their conscience and
understanding, in serving
idols; and in committing offences against men.
That is sin.
It is, indeed, far
less awful than sinning against revealed light, but
it is enough to condemn
them. But
it shall be more tolerable for
them in the coming day of judgment, than
[Page 372] for those who have had the Bible in their hands,
and have been pressed to turn to the Lord and His
ways, yet refused. There
are
degrees of sin, and of punishment for it;
while the wrath for all the
lost is eternal.
This
sentiment
is also true of us - that none has any power
against us, save as it
is given of God.
The sparrow’s fall is
of God’s providence.
And God, who calls
us to the encounter, will supply the strength and
patience necessary for our
day.
12.
‘From thenceforth Pilate was
seeking to release
Him. But
the Jews shouted – “If thou let
Him go, thou art not Caesar’s friend; every one
who makes himself king, speaks
against Caesar.”’
Some
regard
the two opening Greek words of this verse as meaning
- (1) ‘As the effect of
this speech.’ Others - (2) ‘From
this as a point of time.’
But both come nearly to the same thing. The speech
was the cause from which the
effect sprung; it was also the point of time from
which Pilate’s attempt to
rescue Jesus sprang.
The
Jews
saw, that their statement of His claim to be Son of
God, had hindered
their cause. They
return, therefore, to
the appeal which was most likely to win with Pilate. They hint
about accusing him as unfavourable
to the Emperor if he only did his duty, and did not
comply with their
wishes. And
the Emperor then on the
throne was very jealous of his dignity, and would
not scruple to take away the
life of any one who should dare to put himself near
the high place of imperial
authority. His
word was law. And
human life was then very lightly
esteemed. Moreover,
Pilate had offended
in other ways, and was afraid of being accused for
past acts of injustice.
Pilate
has
no principles of truth.
Hence, he
acts according to his own views of his interests,
which shift continually.
As he fears not God whom he cannot see, he
fears man. He
must, he thinks, sacrifice
either himself or Christ.
Will he be ‘friend
of Caesar,’ or ‘friend
of
justice and of Christ?’
When
things have come to this issue, the matter is very
soon decided. ‘Let us eat and drink
for to-morrow we die,’ is a very sandy
foundation for right conduct.
[Page
373]
Is there
any one of my readers who has
hitherto preferred the world to Christ?
Let him take warning by Pilate.
Pilate
chooses
at last rather to be Caesar’s friend, by putting the
Son of God to
death, than to have Christ on his side, as an honest
judge.
13.
‘When Pilate therefore heard
that saying, he brought
Jesus forth and sat down on the judgment-seat in a
place that is called the
Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.’
This
induces
an immediate and visible change in the whole
procedure. Before
that, he had hoped to be spared the
necessity for judging at all.
He
expected to be able to manage the matter without a
direct judicial trial. Hence
these comings out and in.
But now he is
called on as the Emperor’s lieutenant to judge a
rival king. The
last arrow had smitten him between the
joints of his harness.
He takes his seat
now in his official place as judge.
The
judgment-seat
took notice of offences between the king and his
subjects. John
notices the very spot.
It was placed on a pavement - a mosaic-work
of stone - tesselated.
Has not John’s
touching upon this a tacit reference to some other
scenes? After
Jehovah has taken
When
the
Most High represents Himself as the Judge of Israel
and of the world, He is
seen by the Prophet Ezekiel as seated on a throne,
the throne resting on a
pavement, and that upborne by the four living creatures, and moved to and fro at his
pleasure (Ex. 1: 22-25).
Thus
the
thoughts of men about the ornaments of the seat of [Page
374]
justice, and the thoughts of
God, seem, in a remarkable way, to agree with each
other.
14.
‘Now it was the preparation
of the Passover, and about
the sixth hour.
And he saith to the Jews
- “Behold your King.”’
How
can
the time of the day here mentioned accord with the
notice given by one of
the evangelists, that Jesus was nailed to the cross
at ‘the third hour?’ (Mark
15: 25).
How could He be crucified at the third hour,
when He was not condemned to the
cross till the sixth?’
The answer turns on the mode of
reckoning
the hours of the day.
It
was
‘the preparation of the
Passover.’
That would seem to prove, that the Passover
was to be celebrated that day, and was not yet
slain. John
especially notes this, as perceiving the
rites of Moses summed up in this the Lamb of God,
bearer of the sin of men.
As the True Passover, He was to die at the
hour commanded in the Mosaic rite.
It
has
been suggested, that at this moment Jesus was seen
by Pilate, who was now
seated on the judgment-seat, returning from His
mission to Herod, clothed in
the royal robes in which the king had arrayed Him in
mockery; and that this
suggested to him the sarcasm – ‘Behold
your King!’ ‘You
see Herod and I
are both of one mind! We both consider it
ridiculous to speak of this religious
teacher, as likely to cause any fear to Caesar!’ But this
is their last chance of gaining
their end, and therefore they hold it fast.
They will not own Him their king.
It was the first utterance of a rebellious
speech, to be thundered out
yet more fearfully by Gentiles, in a day near at hand. ‘We will [Page
375] not
have this man to reign over us.
Let Him die
the slave’s death - He is no king of ours!’
Now
Jesus
was really their king, as Son of David, by promise,
oath, and prophecy of
God. But
four days before, he had
presented Himself to
15, 16. ‘But
they yelled, “Away, away, crucify Him!”
Pilate saith unto them, “Shall I crucify
your
king?” The
chief priests answered, “We
have no king but Caesar.”
Then,
therefore, he delivered Him to them, that He might
be crucified, and they took
Jesus, and led Him away.’
A
new word points out to us their increasing violence
of demand. The
shout has become a ‘yell,’
a ‘roar’
demanding His death.
Pilate’s last
feeble reed is then hurled at them – ‘Shall
I crucify
your King? Will
it not be a disgrace to
your nation and to yourselves?’
Then
followed
the open and un-resisted surrender of all their high
hopes attached to
the Son of David.
To obtain Jesus’ death
they sacrifice the promises of the
How
men
contradict themselves under the influence of their
passions! Their
usual boast was – ‘
‘WE
HAVE NO KING B UT CAESAR!’
Had
Jesus
shown Himself really hostile to Caesar, and willing
to do battle for this
crown of
This
speech,
then, stands as accusation against them on the page
of God. They
have never withdrawn it, [Page
376] never
denied it. Accordingly,
(2)
The
last and clearest prophecy of the New Testament
discloses to us the great
and terrible day, in which this their evil word will
be punished. As
they refused the Son of David, and Lamb of
God, God will give them a Caesar, the first-born of
Satan – ‘the Wild Beast’
of the Apocalypse.
We have his description as a blasphemer of
God, and slayer of His saints, requiring the worship
of all, and receiving it
at the hands of all but God’s elect, in Revelation
13. And
Revelation
17. tells us of the Seven Heads of the Wild
Beast. The
angel declares, that they are seven
sovereign kings, belonging to the royal city of
17,18. ‘And
He bearing His cross went out into the spot that
is
called the spot of the skull, which is called in
the Hebrew “Golgotha;” where
they crucified Him, and with Him two others, one
on the one side, and one on
the other, but Jesus in the midst.’
The cries of the multitude,
led by the chief priests,
prevailed [Page 377] against
all righteousness.
When
the day of partial recompense came, the
Romans crucified so many, that wood was wanting for
the crosses, and space to
set them up.
Jesus
bore
His cross, as it was customary.
To
this He prophetically alluded more than once.
(1) Where He was commissioning the twelve,
and giving them their charge;
He demands the first place in their souls.
He is to be obeyed and loved more than the
nearest relatives.
He Himself would tread first the same path
of
rejection and death to which He called them (Matt.
10:
37-39).
He
is not truly a
disciple who is not willing to surrender all
things, yea, life itself, for
Christ. And
this, far from being a bare
loss, shall issue in the blessed and eternal [millennial]
life of glory. (2) Again, after
Jesus
has distinguished His disciples from the people of
Israel, because of their
unbelief, and has drawn out that confession of
Himself as Son of God, having
life in Himself, on which the church was to be
founded, He foretells His own
death at the hands of the Chief Priests at
Jerusalem; and then He generalizes
the matter, and bids disciples to bear the cross
after Him (Matt. 16: 24).
He
went
out of the city, in order to be put to death as the
evil-doer.
The
Saviour,
in His parable of the Wicked Husbandman, foretold,
that they would
cast Him out of the vineyard, ere they slew Him the
Son and Heir.
He
is
stripped of His clothing.
And that
answers to the stripping off the skin of the victims
destined for
sacrifice. To
be stripped naked, in pain
and death, was a sore suffering
But
He
bore sin; and, as none but He could do, He put it away. He
took
away from Satan his power, and soon the strong man
armed shall be cast out
of the world he has deceived, and be ‘tormented
in fire
and brimstone, day and night, for ever and ever.’
Jesus has by bearing death taken
away its sting, so that now to His people to depart
is to be with Christ, which
is [Page 378] very far
better. He
went to the spot called ‘Cranium.’ It
is generally supposed that skulls and bones of the
dead were lying about the
place of execution, as being the unburied remains of
criminals. But
this is certainly a mistake.
(1) The Jews were careful to bury the
dead. The
Law commanded the criminal’s
burial on the day of his putting to death (Deut.
21:
23). (2)
Moreover, the touch
of any portion of a dead body entailed a week’s
uncleanness on him who
touched. This
was so great an
inconvenience, that it would not be lightly
incurred. Had
skulls been lying about, so great a multitude
could not have stood around the place, and read the
title, without some of them
being defiled by the dead, and that in
Passover-time!
(3) In the last place, it is not said, ‘the spot of skulls,’
which would be the natural
expression, if the usual ideas were true; but ‘the
spot of a skull.’
Tradition has
fastened on the expression, to affirm, that the
skull in question was Adam’s,
who dwelt near
The
spot
is usually supposed to be a hill; and is commonly
called, ‘the Hill of
Calvary,’ or ‘
Jesus
must
suffer outside the gate; for His blood was to be
carried into the Holiest
above, to atone for sin.
He must be cast
out of the city of God, that we may enter it and
dwell there (Heb. 13:
10-14).
Therefore
now we
bear His reproach, and men are to cast out our
names as evil, for the Son of
Man’s sake. But such present disgrace is the token of future glory.
[Page 379]
Its
name
is in the Hebrew, ‘
Jesus
is
crucified first.
He must in all
things have the pre-eminence.
Also He is
fixed in the midst, between the two robbers, as if
He were the worst.
For this must needs be fulfilled in Him, ‘He was numbered with the
transgressors.’
Our
Lord
was the sin-offering, and therefore He suffered
without the gate.
He was the sacrifice tried with fire: burned without
the camp. He
was thus lifted up like the serpent in the
wilderness, that the bitten might look and live. And
one day to Him, as the
centre of glory, all the earth will be drawn. He was
nailed to the tree, for from the tree
of knowledge of good and evil sprang the curse.
That tree was a beautiful one, with leaf,
flower, and fruit.
This a bare dead tree, bearing pain and
death
alone! Adam
and his wife were pleased
with the juicy fruit.
But he who bears
the penalty of sin has a devouring thirst, which
ends in death.
Eve stretched out her hand to take the fruit,
and her feet moved towards it.
But He
who bears the penalty has His hands and feet nailed
for death, to the tree of
the curse.
Before
He
was fastened to the cross, He bore it, that He might
fulfil the type of
Isaac, who bore the wood of the burnt offering
before he was laid upon it.
Adam
was
driven out of
If
so
great were the sufferings of the Holy One, what will
those of the
transgressor be?
If the green tree be
cast into the fire, how much more the dry?
[Page 380]
But
while
the cross and the curse are so closely allied, out
of them springs the
blessing. These
pains were in our
stead! He
hath borne them to put them
away! Blessed
be His name evermore!
19-22. ‘Moreover,
Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. Now it
was written – “Jesus the Nazarite, the
King of the Jews.”
This title,
therefore, many of the Jews read, because the spot
where Jesus was crucified
was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew,
and Greek, and Latin.
The Chief Priests of the Jews, therefore,
said unto 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.”’
John
discerns
God’s hand in this seemingly small circumstance. It was
customary to affix to the cross a
notice of the reason for which the culprit was put
to death, that all might be
satisfied of the justice of the execution. Pilate
wrote with his own hand the
title. Matthew
calls it, ‘the accusation.’
The
title,
then, was, ‘Jesus the
Nazarite, the King of the
Jews.’
Now this was no offence
worthy of death. Jesus was by birth King of the
Jews, as being of David’s line;
and it was proved by Mary’s travelling to David’s
city from
‘Jesus the Nazarite.’
In Pilate’s mind the only thought was that he
was thus distinguished
from the many other Jews who bore the name of ‘Jesus.’
This Jesus was to him the man born, or
living
at,
Moreover,
significance
is added to the title, if we look at the matter as
illustrated by
the typical histories of those Old Testament
worthies who were Nazarites.
(1) To Joseph the name is given (Gen.
49: 26), and he, before he became Viceroy
to
Pharaoh, was rejected and sold by his brethren; but
at length is [Page
381]
reconciled with them.
(2) The history of Samson is, as a later
type, still more distinct.
He was to be
a Nazarite from his birth, and also a Deliverer to
The
Saviour’s
smiting of His foes is yet to come (Rev.
19.) The bonds of death
He has burst in resurrection. As yet He is
patient. But
the deliverance of
The
title
on the cross was much read, on two accounts.
(1) The place of execution was near the
city,
so that all could saunter out, and see it.
(2) The accusation was uttered in three
languages; so that those who
knew but one of them, could understand the ground of
the Saviour’s death.
They were the three languages best known in
the world of that day.
First comes ‘the
Hebrew’ - for the crucifixion was at the
instigation of the Jews; and Pilate wished them to
be sensible of the scorn he
felt of them. Next
came ‘the Greek,’ the
language spoken by the educated, and
by multitudes of Jews, who were thence called
Hellenists. Lastly
came ‘the
Roman,’ the language of the rulers.
The sin of man is exhibited in these three
chief languages.
And God would cause the knowledge of the death and ransom of His Son to be celebrated
in these tongues.
It was a hint of the
undoing of the confusion of
[Page 382]
This
order
of the languages is not followed by Luke, who gives
the order as, ‘Greek, Latin,
Hebrew’ (Luke
23: 38).
Luke, as the Gentile
Evangelist writing in Greek to a Greek, puts that
language first, and Roman
next. The
Gospel was first proclaimed to
This
little
notice enables us to answer satisfactorily an
objection of some
force. ‘How can
we trust the Gospels as accurate, when no two of
them are with regard to the
words on the cross?’
We answer, that
there were three different inscriptions; and while
they were alike in the main,
they differed in detail.
Probably
different persons wrote the title in the different
languages.
But
the
title did not please the Jewish leaders.
And no wonder!
For it seemed as
if they had agreed to own Jesus as their King while
they had expressly
disavowed Him!
‘We
have no King but Caesar.’
How,
then, should they be pleased with the words which
implied that Jesus was really
their King? They
wish for a change, then
- a trifling change, which should make the Kingship
not a real thing, but
resting only on Jesus’ unauthorized assertion.
Were they really crucifying their Messiah,
the Son of David?
Far from it!
He was only the Pretender.
But
Pilate, though he yielded to their petitions in
other points, here is
firm. He
had written it, and it should
stand! Ah!
if he had but been as firm
before that, in dismissing Jesus from the hands of
His foes!
Now
this
firmness of Pilate’s accorded with God’s mind. On
Pilate’s part, it was probably due to his
secret displeasure at the Jews for compelling him to
condemn Jesus, whom He
know to be innocent.
He despised
This
sin
of theirs shall one day strike home to the heart
of the nation of Israel,
and they shall lament that thus they slew the Son
of David, the hope of Israel. David was
rejected by [Page 383]
the nation in
favour of Saul, though David was the accepted of
Jehovah, the Lord’s anointed;
and often was his life in peril from the servants of
Saul. David
was the rejected by
If
the
writing of Pilate is not to be altered, variable as
he was, how much less
shall what God has written, be changed!
His sentence of death and the curse cannot be
moved at last from the
lost; awful as will be their woe, deep their
anguish! ‘What I have written,
I have written,’ is their eternal sentence.
23, 24. ‘The
soldiers, therefore, when they crucified Jesus,
took the
garments and made four portions; to each soldier a
portion, and the tunic.
Now the tunic was without a seam woven
from
the top throughout.
They said therefore
among themselves – “Let us not rend it, but casts
lots for it, whose it shall
be:” in order that the Scripture should be
fulfilled – “They parted My garments
among themselves, and for My vestment they cast
lots.” These
things therefore the soldiers did.’
Around
the
cross of the Christ clusters the fulfilment of many
Scriptures. Some
of these are noticed by one of the
Gospels, some by others.
The cross is
one of the great centres of prophecy.
Here is the stripping naked of Him who was
the Righteous One.
A sense of nakedness was the first effect
of
the fall. This
consequence our parents
sought to remedy first of all; and God, after He had
proved the vanity of their
attempt, stepped in to give the true and needed
covering. But
now He has come, who is to bear the penalty of the transgression. Before,
then, that He is fixed to the tree, He is stripped
of His raiment, as though He
had been guilty.
Law exacts all from Him
who would atone for its transgression.
The sacrifice must be stripped of its skin. As
numbered among the transgressors and under
sentence of
death, the Saviour has
nought as His own; His very raiment is forfeited to
the executioners.
But [Page 384]
out of this stripping of Himself as bearing the
penalty of Law for the guilty, He provides for us
the robe of [His] righteousness,
in which we may stand before God.
Jesus,
eternally
rich, became poor, that we through His poverty might
become
rich. If
the degradation of our Lord was
fulfilled in all its minuteness, how much more shall
‘the
glories after that’ be accomplished?
‘He made Him to be sin for us who
knew no sin, that we may be
made the righteousness of God in Him.’
Under the Levitical law, as soon as sin is
transferred from the offerer
to the sacrifice, the skin is stripped off. So here
the spoils are divided
among the four executioners.
The turban,
the girdle, the outer coat, and the sandals,
probably made up the four parts of
the Saviour’s dress.
But there was yet a
fifth garment - the inner one - answering to the
shirt with us.
There was a peculiarity in the make of this,
which prevented the soldiers from dividing it into
four parts. Each
part, if torn, would have unravelled,
and become useless.
They, therefore,
dispose of it by lot.
In this matter
they were led by their own natural choice.
They knew not that they were fulfilling God’s
counsels, expressed in His
book of prophecy.
But so it was.
God
serves Himself of the
ignorance of His enemies, as well as of the
knowledge of His friends, to
glorify Himself.
(1) See,
then, the minuteness of
prophecy;
how it touches not only the things which men think
great, but on the small
things also. We
have to do with a God,
who not only made the vast
Why is that statement added?- ‘These
things therefore the [Page
385] soldiers did.’
It
is not easy to say.
Probably John (or the Holy Spirit
by him) wished us to observe, how in this chief
sin of man the soldiers
bear a conspicuous part, to deter Christians from
becoming soldiers.
The Chief Priests are the prominent ones in
the plot; the soldiers in the execution of the plan. These last
are conspicuous in the mockery,
and the guarding of the tomb; and chief agents in
raising the false report under
whose shadow of death unbelievers abide to this day. In the earliest days of Christianity, Christians would die rather than
become soldiers; for Christ’s Sermon on the Mount
forbids war to
the Christian
(Matt. 5: 38-48).
25-27. ‘Now
there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and
His mother’s
sister, Mary the wife of Cleopas, and Mary
Magdalene. Jesus,
therefore, seeing His mother, and the
disciple standing by whom He loved, saith to His
mother – “Woman, behold thy
Son.” Then
saith He to the disciple – “
Behold, thy mother.”
And from that hour
that disciple took her to his own home.’
How
many
persons are noticed here? Are there three, or four? Commentators
are not agreed.
Is ‘Mary, the wife
of Cleopas,’ the same person as ‘the
sister of
our Lord’s mother?’
It seems very
unlikely that two sisters should be called by the
same name of ‘Mary.’ She
might be Mary’s sister-in-law.
The
other
Evangelists notice the women’s standing afar off;
but here we have some
standing near the cross. This difference, probably,
turns on the difference of
the points of time described.
At first,
while the work of crucifixion was going on, they
withdrew a distance.
Towards the close these with John drew
near. Here
Mary, our Lord’s mother, stands
first. This
incident turns on her
relationship to Christ.
It is
remarkable, that it is here said of John, that Jesus loved him; while it is not said how Jesus loved His mother, or how she
loved Him.
This
was
the time of which the aged Simeon had spoken to
Mary. Jesus
was now a sign, lifted up to be spoken
against, that the thoughts of many hearts might be
revealed. This
was the time when a sword pierced
through her heart (Luke
2: 31, 35).
Why was this last word of the aged servant
of
God spoken to Mary alone? Why
[Page 386] not
to both her and Joseph?
Because Joseph would not be there.
He had probably died many Years before.
See,
then, how
the departure
from earth sometimes hides us from the piercing of
sorrows which assail
survivors. It
may help, too, to fix on
our memory that compendious word - the
corollary
of prophecy – ‘Pray
that ye may be accounted
worthy to escape the things that
are coming to pass.’
In
general,
severe pain and the approach of death swallow up all
the thoughts of
the sufferer. But
the Saviour in this His
sore agony forgets not His mother; and provides her
a home when He Himself
would no longer be on earth to watch over and
sustain her.
Though
stripped
of all, He gives her a son and a home.
How surely may widows and the destitute of
Christ’s flock look to Him to
provide! specially when the resources of nature are
broken up.
It
is
to John that our Lord’s mother is confided; not to
Peter. Had
it been to Peter, how surely would some
have discovered in that act, that Mary represents
the church, and that the
Prince of the apostles is to rule it.
It
is not to Mary’s protection that Christ commends
John, but He commends Mary to
John’s. He
heals the wound in Mary’s
heart caused by His own departure, by giving her a
son in His stead.
Her
sons
were unbelievers at that time.
Probably, therefore, they would feel the less
interest in her who
believed. John
accepts the charge, and
cares for her as a son.
It is well for Christians in view of death to regulate their earthly
affairs, and to honour their parents, if they
are still alive.
‘But
Jesus
is leaving earth for His Heavenly Father’s house. He,
therefore, addresses Mary, not as ‘Mother’
but as ‘Woman.’ The Holy
Spirit foresaw the tendency to the
worship of Mary, and interposed cheeks in Scripture
against that awful idolatry
so fearfully developed in after times, and so
flourishing in Romanism.
28-30. ‘After
this Jesus, knowing that all things were already
fulfilled, in order that the Scripture might be
fulfilled, saith, “I
thirst.” Now
a vessel of vinegar was set
there; and they having filled a sponge with
vinegar, and put it on hyssop, put
it to His mouth.
When, therefore, Jesus
had received the vinegar, He said, “It is
finished,” and He bowed His head, and
gave up His spirit.’
[Page
387]
Men may vilify and quarrel
with the Scripture, and
account it ‘a mere dead
letter.’
Not so our Lord!
As the word of His Father, it was of
deepest
moment and value to Him.
In the midst of
His dying agonies, His eye is on that.
Let us always value it, and increasingly! He was
silent about His other pains on the
cross. But
respecting His thirst He was
not to be silent.
His
thirst
was to be known, in order that the reply to His
word, on His enemies’
part, might fulfil the Scripture. As Messiah He must
accomplish this.
Thirst was one of the signs of the curse,
the
contrary to that refreshment and pleasure which the
juices of the fruit of the
tree of knowledge had supplied to Adam.
Now the natural effect of the wounds of the
Saviour, and the punishment
of the cross was to produce a fearful thirst.
That, then, was foretold, as a part of the
sufferings of our Lord * in
the crucifixion-Psalm (22:
16). The
reply made to it by the Saviour’s foes
was also predicted.
“In
My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink’ (Psalm
69:
22). Thus
Jesus fulfilled wholly
what was written by way of pointing out to us
Messiah as the sufferer.
He fulfilled, as has been observed, the
type
of Samson in His thirst.
Only, Samson’s
thirst arose out of his exertion and victory.
Jesus’ thirst came before His
victory. Let
us remember, that the
glorious part of the life of Samson has yet to
be fulfilled by the complete
deliverer of
*
Thirst is also a
part of the foretold sufferings of
the lost (Luke 16: 24).
How different the treatment
of David the King, when he
expressed his thirst, and longed for a draught of
water out of the well at the
gate of Bethlehem.
Then three mighty men
burst through the Philistine host, drew him a
draught of the water he desired,
and brought it.
But, as bought with the
peril of their lives, he would not drink it.
Life belongs to God, not to men.
But we may and should drink of the spiritual
water which Christ has
purchased for us by His death.
Moses, to
supply
In
order
that the vinegar might be presented to Christ, a
vessel of it was
standing there; - ‘by
accident,’ as far as men
were concerned, but by ordination of God.
And in order to lift the vinegar to the
Saviour’s lips, since He was
suspended above them, they needed a stick.
They used, therefore, a sponge fastened to a
stalk of hyssop. The hyssop
is the caper plant, which bears a woody stem from
two to three feet long.
Now this was also a fulfilment of
Scripture. (1)
Into the burning of the
red heifer, out of whose ashes mixed with water, the
purification of the
unclean was to be made - wood, scarlet wool, and hyssop,
were to be cast (Num.
14: 4, 6), For the work of Christ, and of
the
Spirit, purges the conscience of sinners unclean
before God, to serve Him. (2)
The blood of the Passover-lamb was to be stricken on
the door with a bunch of hyssop.
Christ,
then, is the true Passover-lamb, by Whose blood
comes deliverance from the
angel’s sword of justice.
(3) The leper
cleansed from his disease, was to be purged by the blood of the two birds, and
by
cedar-wood,
scarlet,
and hyssop
(Lev. 14: 4, 6)
dipped in the blood of the slain
bird.
(4)
Also
at the making of the old covenant, and in connexion
with the sprinkling of
the blood on the people at Sinai, Moses took the
blood of the calves and of the
goats with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying – ‘This
is the blood of the covenant which God hath
enjoined to
you’ (Heb. 9:
19). But
we boast of a Mediator better than Moses,
Who by His own blood effects what the blood of bulls and goats cannot. ‘For the Law made nothing
perfect; but there is the bringing
in of a better hope, by which we draw nigh to God.’
We
have
seen how the scarlet wool and the
wood enter into the sacrifice of our Lord; and here
we have now the
hyssop. How
naturally it takes its place
in the history! There is no effort on the part of
God to introduce it. The men
of unbelief unconsciously [Page 389] accomplish it. God values
the
smallest portion of His word.
In that He
is unlike man.
The smallest jot or
tittle shall in nowise pass away from Law or
Prophets, till all be fulfilled.
This
is
a joyful word to those who are God’s saved ones,
walking with Himself.
He will fulfil all His promises: He will
even
go beyond them.
It is a terrible word to
His foes! Let
men deny as they will, the
brimstone and the fire of the eternal lake of woe, both will be there! Let men
spiritualise the ‘fire,’
and declare it is only the remorse of
conscience; let them deny that ‘eternal’
torment
means that which ends not, yet God
-
will fulfil His word - His written
word. Fear
God, my reader!
Trust not to Satan’s whispered unbelief – ‘Ye shall not surely die.’ For
the Second Death - the lake of fire -
will be the everlasting place of those who are
overtaken in impenitence and
unbelief.
This
point
accomplished, Jesus says – ‘It
is
finished!’ I do
not think that this means, that the
Saviour’s sacrifice was complete; for without death
and the outpouring of the
blood that was not finished.
Jesus had
yet to die, and the Roman spear was needed to pierce
His side, and pour out His
blood. But
the evangelist cites the
words as the Saviour’s perception, that it was the
last of the prophecies of
His humiliation which it was incumbent on Him
actively to fulfil.
Then, His Father’s last word accomplished,
He
surrenders His spirit.
He came into the
world to fulfil all righteousness.
He
has done it. And
now death - His gracious,
voluntary death - ensues.
Each step
occurs exactly at its appropriate time, according to
the Father’s good pleasure
and prediction.
He must die.
Nothing short of that could save.
‘The soul that sins
shall die.’
And Christ is the
sinner’s substitute, the bearer of sin and its
penalty. Jesus’ life alone will
not avail. So
had the Law of Eden said:
‘In the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt die.’
‘The wages of sin is death.’
Wonderful was this
voluntary death; not enforced on
our Lord without His knowledge, or against His will. He was not
driven out of the body by the
thrust of disease, as some have [Page 389] speculated; He surrendered His soul as the priest offering the
sacrifice.
Partly, as far as
men’s choice were concerned, His death was enforced;
but partly also His death
depended on His own choice.
31-34. ‘The
Jews therefore, in order that the bodies should
not
remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that
Sabbath day was a great day),
besought Pilate that their legs might be broken,
and that they might be taken
away. The
soldiers therefore came, and
broke the legs of the first and of the other that
were crucified together with
Him. But
when they came to Jesus, and
saw that He was already dead, they brake not His
legs. But
one of the soldiers with a spear pierced
His side, and at once came forth blood and water.’
The
Jews,
though careless about the greater things, were
scrupulous about the
ceremonial of the Law, and therefore desired that
the three crucified should
die earlier than usual.
They must not be
taken away till dead. They could not bear to see
them on the cross during the
Sabbath, their day of rest.
That
Sabbath, too, was a festival Sabbath of especial
holiness or greatness - the
day of offering the first fruits.
Hence
they were more particularly anxious that this
ghastly sight should not be
exhibited in the face of
They
strain
at the gnat, and swallow the camel!
Against law and justice they slay Christ, yet
would keep the ceremonial
law, while they broke its moral part.
They observe the Sabbath, yet killed its
Lord.
Notice
her
- God hinders one part of their plan, and prospers
another. Let
us trust our God in His providence, both
for life and in death!
He knows His own
mind, and will accomplish it, not only despite His
enemies, but even by their
hands.
‘Break
the legs of the three crucified!’
Forth they go!
It seems as if
these were a new set of soldiers, detached from the
governor’s castle, armed
with hammers, to break the legs of all the three. Thus
Jesus’ word to the penitent robber was
fulfilled, ‘To-day thou shalt be with Me in
What
follows
shows us somewhat peculiar in the arrangement of the
crosses. They
came to ‘the
first.’ How
did they reckon the first?
Probably that on the left Land; which,
perhaps, was a trifle in advance of the other. His
legs they brake, and then
turned to the other, and brake his also.
These two crosses were, I judge, near
together, and facing one
another. But
thou man had decreed that
the legs of all three should be broken, God had
determined otherwise, and had
foretold that it should not be.
This
result He effected in the simplest way. It was
understood by the soldiers, that
the intent of the order was to produce death
quickly, and both they and the
governor supposed that all three would be alive. The
cross of Jesus, it
appears, was not close to the other two, but higher
up the eminence.
For it is said - ‘When
they
came
to Jesus.’
As they mounted, with their eyes fixed on
the
third cross, they saw that Jesus was dead already:
by His drooped head, and by
His stiffened limbs.
A soldier - man of battles
- knows how to discriminate between death and life. They then,
though subject to martial
discipline, and accustomed to obey to the letter,
ventured to disobey in this
case. One
pierced with a spear the
Saviour’s side.
It is not said which
side; but whichever side it was, it was a wound
capable of inflicting death,
had it not already occurred.
Thus we
see, how exactly the Saviour’s death was timed, with
a view to this
result. He
would not die, while one word
of His Father’s yet remained to be observed.
But neither would He remain in life any
moment longer than was necessary
to the fulfilment of this word of God.
But
God
would thus establish the reality of Christ’s death,
as the foundation of
our faith in the reality of Christ’s resurrection. Had Jesus
not died already, this thrust had
slain Him. This
[Page
392]
wound would prevent any return
to life; even if, as some imagine without evidence,
Jesus had only
swooned. Considerable
was the size of
the wound inflicted.
While Thomas was to
put his finger only in the
hole of the nails, he might put
his hand into the
gash made by the spear.
35. ‘And
he that saw it hath borne witness, and his witness
is
true, and he knoweth that he saith true, in order
that ye also may believe.’
The
result
of this spear-thrust was unexpected.
It would appear that its issue was
miraculous. ‘Forthwith
came out blood and water.’
The
attempts at explanation of this matter are not
satisfactory. Some
have affirmed that the affair was only
an ordinary one; that the heart’s blood had
coagulated in the body, and had
separated into its two parts - the watery part (or
serum) drawn off by itself,
and the red clot separated from it.
But
medical men (I believe) say, that the blood does not so separate while in the
body. And
that, on the piercing of a corpse,
blood does not flow out.
We
have,
then, John’s earnest commentary on the circumstance. He expects
the unbelief of many in regard to
this point, and accordingly lays peculiar stress
upon the certainty of it, as
beheld and narrated by himself, an eye-witness close
by the cross of his
Lord. If
any one may be credited, it is
an eye-witness.
John was so.
His character for truth was good.
‘His testimony is
true.’
But were not his senses
deceived? No! He was too
near for that.
He is certain of the fact.
He testifies it here, on purpose that
others
way believe what he saw.
‘That you may believe.’ For this is testified
by
the Old Testament, as well as by the eye-witness
John. It
is essential to salvation to believe in
Jesus’ death. God
has given you in the
Old Testament His prophecy; and in the New His
fulfilment - both the direct and
the mystical.
It
would
seem, then, that there was something supernatural in
the matter. Probably
it is referred to in the crucifixion-Psalm
(Ps. 22.) ‘My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst
of my bowels’
(ver. 14);
and again – ‘I am
poured out like water.’
[Page 393]
Why
is
John so earnest in insisting on this?
First, be it observed - that his solemn
attestation does not apply to
this circumstance alone, but to all the three points
(perhaps more) which he
has just recounted.
This is proved by
the citation of two passages of Scripture which were
fulfilled on the present
occasion: (1) the non-breaking of Jesus’ legs,
though orders to that effect had
been given; and (2) the piercing of His side
instead, which was not ordered
by man, but foretold by
God. Thus
is prophecy fulfilled down to
its details, as well as in its greater features. Thus is it
fulfilled by the hands of the
ignorant, and enemies.
Both
these
things were subjects of prophecy: the one a typical
prophecy, given by
Moses; the other a direct prophecy, given by
Zechariah.
1.
The
first relates to the Saviour’s legs not being
broken. ‘A bone of it shall not
be broken.’ Though
all sorts of indignities wore
experienced by the Saviour up to His death, yet as
soon as death has ensued,
there comes a turn in the tide of humiliation; and
speedily He begins to be
exalted. The
command alluded to by John
is found in Exodus 12:
4, 6, in reference to
the lamb of the Passover.
The same law
is repeated in Numbers
9: 12, where the
Passover of the second month is
commanded for those who were unable to celebrate the
Passover in the first
month, by reason of legal uncleanness.
This was designed then to point out Jesus as
the true
Passover-Lamb.
The apostle supposes it
in his Gospel, where John Baptist speaks of Jesus,
as being the Lamb of God taking
away the sins of the world.
Now that
law, as well as others, might have been broken by
The
second
passage is taken from the prophets.
Zechariah, who foretold the sale of the Good
Shepherd for thirty pieces
of silver, and the sword’s awaking against the ‘Man who
was Jehovah’s Fellow,’ foretells also the
day yet looming in the future,
when all the tribes of Israel shall mourn over their
fathers’ crucifixion of the
Son of God, and their own attitude of unbelief, and
shall be forgiven (Zech.
12: 10).
This
thrust
of the spear, then, which was the result of
*
To this I add
that the Greek word …
is generally used in the Old Testament to
signify a thrusting through unto
death
(Judges 9: 64; Num.
22: 29)
Behold
here
the Lord’s foretold preparation for, and pledge of, the better day which one day shall dawn upon
Let
us
then trust the powerful
But
John
says nothing respecting any prophecy or any
fulfilment of the third point
- the blood and
water issuing from
the wound. And
why then is he so full of
emphasis, as soon as thirst is mentioned?
1. He is so, I believe, in order to refute
some errorists of that day,
and of modern days, such as the Docetists and
Swedenborgians, who affirm that
the body of our Lord on the cross was not a real
body of flesh and blood like
ours, but only a phantom!
This
idea is refuted, then, by the fact that
the body, pierced after death, gave forth blood and
water. It
was a body of flesh, therefore; and the
Evangelist stakes His truthfulness on the assertion,
in order that we may
believe the Spirit of God who testifies it through
Him, and may give credence to the saving of the soul.
For if Jesus did not really become man, and
die in our stead, we must die in our sins, and be
lost!
2.
But
there is another reason, which appears in John’s
first Epistle.
And that Epistle, I persuade myself, was the
apostle’s comment on the Gospel which he had
written, and was designed to
remove some objections to that, and to add some
important doctrines to it.
In that Epistle, as in his Gospel, John
labours to prove that Jesus is the Christ, the Son
of God; that He is not two
persons, but one.
In his fifth chapter
of the Epistle he affirms that the faith that Jesus
is the Christ the Son of
God, is [Page 396] saving
faith. It
makes a man a child of God,
and enables him to overcome the world.
Then he adds, ‘This
is He that went
through*
water and
blood, Jesus the Christ.
He was not in the water only, but in the
water and in the blood; and the
Spirit is He who bears witness, because the Spirit
is truth. For
three are the witnesses, the Spirit, and
the water, and the blood, and these
three are in favour of the unity.
If we
receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God
is greater; for this is the
testimony of God, which He hath witnessed
concerning His Son’ (1
John 5: 6-8).
*Those who would pursue the
subject can consult
my tract, “The
Three Witnesses” and my comment on John’s first Epistle – “The
Trinity, the Atonement.”
This
passage
cannot be understood, save as the apostle’s
contradiction of false
doctrine then current.
Some errorists at
Moreover,
the
ordinances of baptism, and of the Lord’s Supper (‘water’
and ‘blood’) are then
only binding on
Christians, if it was one Divine Person who
commanded them both; while the Holy
Ghost had descended at Pentecost, and had inspired
believers as the Spirit of
Jesus Christ the Risen.
If men had asked
any of the Christian Prophets ‘Whether
Jesus was
the Christ, the Son of God?’
the inspired would with one voice of inspiration
confess that it was
so. Evil
spirits of falsehood, the
spirits of Antichrist, inspired those outside the
Church: the Holy Ghost, as
the Spirit of truth, inspired and taught the
‘The water’ and ‘the
blood’
refer us back to Old Testament rites.
(1) The old covenant was bound on
The
water
and blood were a sign.
From
Christ’s heart have flowed the two or three rites of
His appointing.
The water belongs to baptism, and the washing of feet. The
blood belongs to the Lord’s Supper.
They are God’s witnesses to the present
dispensation.
They
are
two out of the three Witnesses given of God.
They testify to His people of Christ’s
present absence, and they call on us to believe on
God’s testimony truth -
which we have not seen.
So the Saviour’s
bones not broken testify, that Jesus is the true
Paschal Lamb.
But the second passage
noted here again tells of
38, 39. ‘And
after these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a
disciple
of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews,
asked Pilate that he might take
away the body of Jesus, and Pilate permitted him. He came,
therefore, and took away the body of
Jesus. Nicodemus
also came (he that came
to Jesus by night in the first instance), and bore
a mixture of myrrh and
aloes, about a hundred pound weight.
They took, therefore, the body of Jesus,
and bound it in the rollers
with the spices as is the manner of the Jews to
bury.’
The
death
of the Saviour, one would have thought, would have
discouraged secret
disciples, and made them afraid to be known as
belonging to the Crucified.
But it drew forth into the light two of
them. The
first and most courageous was
Joseph of Arimathaea.
He was a rich man,
and was naturally slower to [Page 398] move, lest he should
endanger his property, his
reputation, and his place in the Synagogue and the
Sanhedrim. He
asks permission to remove the body
forfeited to the Law.
Pilate, as soon as
he is assured that death has taken place, gives
leave. For
now was to be fulfilled the word of the
prophet, ‘With the rich man was His tomb,’
Is. 53: 9
(Lowth). Jesus
has touched the
lowest point of His humiliation, and He begins to
ascend. The
body then is taken down from the tree of
the curse, in order to be buried.
This change marks the passage of the soul of Jesus into
In
Nicodemus
we see faith and grace increasing with the advance
of time. At
first he was afraid to peril his
reputation on the being known to be a disciple of ‘the
strange man from
He
fears
not the defilement of entering the Roman Praetorium. He fears
not to touch the dead, even one
crucified as a male-factor.
Thus God
takes the body of His Son out of the hands of the
Romans, and puts it into the
hands of friends.
This is grace to us;
for had Jesus’ body been buried with those of the
robbers, how should it have
been distinguished with certainty?
He
had
pondered, perhaps, those words which Christ spake at
His first interview, ‘He
that doeth evil hateth the light, - neither cometh
to the
light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
But he that doeth truth cometh to the
light, that his deeds may be made
manifest, that are wrought in God,’ John 3:
20, 21.
God is glorified in the
confession of the Son of God, by those who believe
in Him. The
two friends helped one another.
Thus, [Page 399]
too, God encourages the timid to come forth before
the world, by associating together in
church-fellowship the disciples of Christ.
‘Union is strength.’
He
showed
His love and zeal by the large quantity of expensive
spices prepared for
the Saviour’s burial.
It is remarkable,
that these two spices are mentioned in close
juxtaposition, in the Psalm that tells
of Jesus’ return as the King of Kings.
‘Thou lovedst
righteousness and hatedst iniquity therefore, 0
God, Thy God hath anointed Thee with the oil of
gladness above thy
fellows. All
Thy garments smell of myrrh,
aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory
palaces, whereby they have made Thee glad,’
Psalm
45: 7, 8.
The two disciples
disposed of the body honourably, as it was the
custom to do with their kings,
for instance in the case of Asa (2
Chron. 16: 14).
The
two
proved their faith in Jesus by their bearing
disgrace and expense in order
to bury the body of the Lord. But they showed also
their want of faith, in
attempting to preserve from putrefaction the body
which was so soon to be
removed from the sepulchre.
41. ‘Now
in the place where He was crucified was a garden,
and in
the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet
been laid. There,
therefore, because of the Jews’
preparation, because the tomb was near, they laid
Jesus.’
He
who
had no house of His own in life, has no tomb of His
own in death. But
what need of a tomb for Him who rises the
third day?
In
the
Garden sin began.
In the Garden
Jesus’ hour of sorrow burst upon Him, and from it He
was hurried away to
death. But
now
His dead body is restored to
the Garden, and His first appearance in
resurrection takes place there. The
tomb in the Garden shows us how
death has entered with sin, to deface and pollute
Moreover,
thus
there could be no question as to the identity of the
person buried, and
the person who rose.
It was not like the
case of the dead man, in haste let down into
Elisha’s tomb, who revived from
touching the prophet’s bones.
[Page 400]
The
burial
of Jesus was a part of God’s plan as foretold in
Scripture (Ps. 16: 9).
Thus was He to resemble the sons of men whom
He came to redeem.
Thus the gloom of the tomb is removed for
the
believer. Christ
has opened the
The
Sabbath
was so near, that they had no time to bear the body
to a distance.
They were glad to be able to dispose of it so
readily, the tomb being close at hand beside
* That
There
is
a future fulfilment of the law of the sin-offering,
and of the
burnt-offering, respectively.
The whole
bullock with which the atonement of the sin-offering
was made, was to be carried
outside the camp into a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and was to be burnt on the wood
with fire (Lev. 4: 12). A similar
command was given in the case of
the burnt-offering (Lev.
6: 11).
For Christ is both our burnt-offering, as
meeting
God’s entire claims upon us for a perfect service,
and also our atonement for
sin.
Jesus
lay
during the Sabbath in the rest of the tomb.
Law can only lead to death, and keep men
there. But
on the eighth day begins a new life,
beyond Law, in resurrection.
On the
first day of the Creation-week, light began to be. Now begins
a new [Page 401]
light out of the darkness of sin and death.
Jesus, the first of the select
resurrection, …
was, according to Moses and the prophets, to
announce light to the people of
The
morrow
after the Passover-Sabbath was to be the day of the
waving of the
wheat-sheaf of first-fruits.
And Christ
is the first-fruits of the sleepers - indicating,
that the whole harvest is to
follow.
‘They laid Jesus.’
Here Scripture and our usual phrases agree,
in opposition to Swedenborg
and his followers. Those errorists maintain, that
the body is no lasting part
of the man, that the corpse once laid in the tomb is
to be allowed to decay,
and never more to belong to the man; seeing that the
spirit-state is the
eternal state of men.
Hence, such
errorists could never call the buried corpse, ‘the man.’
But Scripture, indited by the Holy Ghost, does. ‘They laid Jesus’
in the tomb!
*
*
*
JOHN CHAPTER 20.
[Page 402]
1, 2. ‘Now
on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene is
coming
early, while it was yet dark, to the tomb, and
seeth the stone taken away out
of the tomb.
She runneth, therefore, and
cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple
whom Jesus used to love, and
saith unto them, “They have taken the Lord out of
the tomb, and we know not
where they have laid Him.”’
On
the
resurrection of our Lord - this great foundation of
the Christian faith -
infidels have a choice in their mode of attack.
(1) They may say, ‘Jesus
rose indeed, but He never died.’ Or (2) ‘Jesus died, but He never rose.’ But few unbelievers
have
chosen the first alternative.
For that
Jesus died was proved to the satisfaction of foes, and to the sorrow of friends.
The other mode has been the usual
plan of
attack. But
though often assailed, the
proof of resurrection has proved successful.
Is it not certain, that some great and
wonderful events must have
occurred in the fifty days between the Passover and
Pentecost, to change
fearful apostles into heroes? men willing to face
their foes, and to dare all
hazards in asserting their Master’s resurrection? The
conduct of enemies, and the spread of the
faith, on the very spot of the scenes which had
occurred, and in spite of the
greatest obstacles, discover to us the hand of God.
The
Lord,
then, has made this great event the test which
severs between the evil
generation, and His children (Matt.
12: 38, 39).
As the figurative death and resurrection of
Jonah was the sign to the Ninevites of his mission
by God, so the true
resurrection of Jesus is the sign to the world of
His sending; and carries with
awful solemnity home to each the threat of damnation
on impenitence, and the
promise of salvation to those who credit God herein.
[Page 403]
We
have
in this chapter a new view of the occurrences on the
first day of
resurrection; and one which is somewhat difficult,
though not impossible, to
harmonize with the accounts of the three first
Gospels. Let
us observe first, that Jesus shows Himself
first,
not
to His mother,
but to
Mary Magdalene.
How much would have been
made of it in the interests of the worship of Mary,
had it been otherwise!
We
learn
from Matthew and Mark that the three, ‘Mary
of Magdala,’
Mary the mother of Jesus, and Salome, started early
in the morning to see the
sepulchre. The
view of the heavy stone
rolled away from the sepulchre-door, and lifted out
of the groove in which it
was intended to ply, assured Mary Magdalene that
there had been some
interference with the tomb.
She runs
back, then, to the two chief disciples with this
piece of news, while the other
two women continue their journey to the tomb.
She sees nothing of the angel, or of the
guards, or probably of the stone
itself; for nothing is said of these things.
This would seem to prove a peculiarity in the
locality, and would help
its discovery; or at all events would prove a
confirmation, when the right spot
had been fixed on.
It would seem to
show, that a hollow was interposed between her and
the tomb, together with
enough of a rising ground to conceal perhaps the
stone, certainly the angel and
the guards. The
other two women do not
appear to have seen these things, till they were
close upon the tomb.
She could see that the stone was taken away
out of the tomb, by the opening of the doorway being
dark; and perhaps because
the stone was so large an object, as to be apparent
at some distance.
Her first thought, therefore, is to let the
disciples know, and those especially who were the
leaders of the apostles.
She runs, therefore, in her zeal, and
breaks
the news to Peter and to John; whose abodes seem to
have been apart, as we
gather from the disconnection – ‘She
cometh to Simon
Peter, and to the other disciple.’ She
imagines that the removal of the stone
implies the removal of the body!
Observe
that John has said nothing before this concerning ‘the
stone.’ He
supposes, that the matter will have
been made known to his readers, by the other
Gospels. [Page
404] This is one of the indications that John’s Gospel was the last of the
four; and that the Lord intended that all the four
should be in His people’s
hands - the fulness of the former ones supplying the
deficiencies of the later
one.
Jesus
is
to Mary Magdala ‘the Lord.’ She
supposes, that some persons unknown have
removed the body.
‘We know
not where they have laid Him.’ The
beautiful simplicity of this style of
address shows, as the other Gospels attest, that
Mary was not alone in her
purposed visit to the sepulchre.
When
she is really alone, she says, ‘I
know not where they
have laid Him’ (v.
13).
She
says
– ‘They have taken away the
Lord’
- for the body is called by the name of
its owner. See
her faith! Jesus is to
her ‘the Lord.’
See, too, her unbelief!
She
cannot interpret aright the empty tomb.
Living hands must have carried off the dead
body! While
enemies understand Christ beforehand,
friends comprehend not resurrection though the event
has taken place, and the
proof is before them!
If
these
so loved Christ who believed Him to be still dead,
much more should we
love Him who know Him to be risen, and interceding
for us.
She
supposes
the body of the Saviour to be like all dead bodies -
passive. It
must be
moved, it cannot move itself.
Else her faith would have gathered from the
open door of the empty cage
– ‘The bird has flown!’ But out of
disciples’ unbelief, and enemies’
partial intelligence, God gets more glory; and gives
us greater confirmation of
faith.
3-11. ‘Peter,
therefore, and the other disciple went forth, and
were
going to the tomb.
Now the two were
running together, and the other disciple ran
faster than Peter, and came first
to the tomb.
And stooping down at the
side of the door, he seeth the linen swathes
lying; but he went not in.
Simon Peter, therefore, cometh following
him,
and entereth into the tomb, and beholdeth the
linen swathes lying: and the
napkin that was upon His head, not lying with the
linen swathes, but separately
folded inwards, so as to make up one spot. Then,
therefore, entered the other
disciple that came first to the tomb, and he saw
and believed.
For as yet they knew not the Scripture,
that
he must rise again from among the dead.
The disciples, then, went away therefore
again to their own houses.’
This first intelligence
given by Mary
was fitted to rouse the [Page
405]
apostles, and prepare them for
the full truth.
‘The stone rolled away!
Who
could
have done that? And
with
what intent?’
They, however, do
not stay to speculate; but, as was best, go to see
for themselves.
They run:
for the matter deeply interests them.
They have no intelligence respecting the
guard posted by the enemy at
the tomb. But
the Lord had removed it,
before they came.
In the first arrival of
John, and the conduct of both him and Peter, we see
the difference of age and
character. John
stands without.
He could see by a glance from the outside,
whether the body was within or no.
There
were the grave-clothes lying, but no body lying in
them! Was
not that enough?
Could any more be needed to be known? Or be
learned by entering?
Observe
the
word employed by the Holy Ghost.
Had
John stood right in front of the narrow doorway, he
would have blocked out all
the light; for there was no window to the tomb.
Moreover his head would have been above the
doorway: so that he was
obliged to stoop in order to be able to look within. He stands
then at the side of the doorway, and
stoops! That
is the force of the Greek word …
Then he could look within.
They who would learn of God must stoop to
His
Word.
But
Peter
is not contented with a view from without, and he
enters. More
was to be learned within.
He now notices the difference between the
rollers
which swathed the body, and the covering which had
wrapped the head of our
Lord. The
head had required a different
covering from the rest of the body, and therefore, a
separate linen cloth had
been provided.
He found the napkin then
still retaining the appearance which had been
impressed upon it, when those who
buried our Lord folded Him in the grave-clothes. The usual
idea is, that the Saviour, who had
been wrapped up in a broad shroud or sheet, undid
the linen when He arose; and
folded up the shroud in one spot, and
the napkin in another. But John’s
account is very different.
The napkin was ‘folded
inward;’
as is the
case, when we put a handkerchief over the head, and
tie it under the chin.
It was folded ‘separately,’
and
yet so as to preserve the united appearance of the [Page
405]
grave-clothes.
That
is, the linen was found by them just as
it had been left by those, who buried the
Saviour. He had not undone the
swathes, or the napkin. He
had
slipped out from them, leaving them on
the ledge of the tomb, just in
the position in which they had first encircled His
body. The
unity of appearance which they had at
first, when they encompassed the corpse, was
there still; but the body which
gave them that unity was not there! That
is, there was something in the
matter quite uncommon and unaccountable, save on the
supposition of new powers
acquired by the risen Saviour.
This
appears from comparing the matter with the
resurrection of Lazarus, which John
had seen with his fellow-disciples so short a time
before. When
Lazarus at our Lord’s word came forth,
he ‘came forth bound hands
and feet
with the grave-clothes, and
his countenance was bound about with a napkin’
(11: 44).
It
would have required a considerable exertion of force
for Lazarus to have set
free his hands and feet, if indeed he could have
done it at all.
Jesus, therefore, says to the bystanders, ‘Loose him, and
let him go.’
But in this case of our Lord, the
grave-clothes are not said to be taken off and
folded up, but ‘lying;’
(1) One part of the vestments is separate from
the other, yet (2) both make up a whole.
The view here given accounts for both
features. Jesus
had left them.
Grave-clothes could not bind Him who had
overcome the chains of death.
And He,
the living, needed not the clothes of the dead.
John
follows
Peter – Peter’s example acts on John, as the example
of friends and of
others acts - even when we do not think of it - on
ourselves. Peter
saw the facts, but he did not draw the
right conclusion.
Here was enough to
overthrow Mary’s hasty theory, that some persons
unknown had carried off the
body. It
was no enemies
who carried off the body - for why take
the pains to strip it?
And besides, the
spices would have been scattered about.
Enemies had devised the securing of the
sepulchre, and of the body
within it; lest the empty sepulchre should conspire
to aid the expected story
of the disciples, that He was risen.
It
was to their interest that all should be found as
they had arranged it on the
night of Saturday.
Who could [Page
407]
carry off the body,
while the soldiers were there?
Who would run into punishment, by breaking
the Governor’s seal?
And while thieves
might steal away the clothes and spices, specially
when the linen was new, yet
they would not steal the body, and leave the
clothes! Disciples
knew not of the setting of the
guard, which rendered it impossible for any, whether
friend or foe, to enter
the tomb without permission.
The removal
of the body perplexed the Pharisees: the presence of
the corpse had been the
destruction of the new religion.
It
was
not friends who had
carried it away.
For there were no marks
of haste. And
had they carried away the
body, they would have carried it enveloped in its
cerecloths. We
are looking at the matter now from the
disciples’ point of view, who were ignorant of the
guard. In
short, nothing but resurrection [out] from among the
dead, and a consequent abandoning of the trappings
of the tomb, could account
for what John saw.
He believes
then! ‘Here is resurrection,
Peter!’
From
this
we may learn that in the Word of God, as in the tomb
of Christ, more and
more is to be learned by faith.
Something may be gathered from an outside
view; but more can be obtained
from an entrance in, and a closer view.
While Peter saw the very same scene as John,
he failed to penetrate its
real meaning, because of unbelief.
John
gathered it at a glance.
Thus some see
much more in Scripture than others.
And
while unbelief stumbles at the truth, faith beholds
its oneness and its deep
meaning, and rests there.
Many are
content with the first elements of faith.
That is only because they are thinking more
of things of the world than
of the things of God.
Their eye is only
on their own salvation, not on God’s glory.
‘Let me be saved;
and the rest of God’s counsel
is of little moment!’
That is not
the spirit of a true child of God, interested to
know all His father’s
mind. Let
us not be content to stand
without!
Here
is
the reason of much doubt and unbelief still.
With God’s word multiplied, men do not
understand it. Nor do most of
God’s people seek to do so.
Other books
are more [Page 408] attractive. ‘They
have read that
before.’
What is there new to be
seen in it, or learned from it?
But
again
- look at Luke 24: 12,
‘Then arose Peter, and ran
unto the sepulchre, and stooping
down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by
themselves; and he departed,
wondering in himself at that which had come to
pass.’
‘Now is there not here plain
contradiction?’ say some
stumblers. ‘(1)
Peter
is alone, and not with John.
(2) He does not
enter the tomb; while John says He did. (3) He sees only the
linen clothes, and not the napkin, which is the
characteristic point in John’s
account of Peter’s visit.’
This
objection
is just like the style of observation current among
many now. While
in the classics, or worldly men’s
writings, they make every attempt to remove
contradiction from the writer whom
they admire, it is just the reverse with the
Scripture. There
men try to produce
contradiction.
Why?
Because this same Scripture is the imperious
word of God, from
whose condemning force the guilty
sons of men seek to make their escape.
The
simple
and effectual answer to the above suggestion is -
This passage of Luke
refers to a second visit of
Peter; on returning from which He met the Lord
Himself (Luke 24: 31). He
went
alone. He
went, because of a new
announcement, that angels had been seen
in the tomb; and that they affirmed the resurrection
of our Lord (ver. 1-11).
Peter, then, arose, and visited the
sepulchre, to see if he could meet
with these angels, and hear for himself.
He, therefore, does not go in; because if
angels were inside, he could
see them from without.
They were not
visible; and content with a look, he returns,
wondering at the strange events
that had already befallen him that day.
If angels where there, why did they not show
themselves to him, as well
as to the women? a question which we cannot answer
any more than he.
There was a special word, too, to Peter
from
the angels.
John,
then,
had believed in Jesus’ resurrection, as the result
of His reasoning on
the state of the sepulchre, and the clothes.
He and the rest might have been beforehand
aware of the great [Page
409]
event, had he given credit to our
Lord’s words, and to the Scriptures.
The
sixteenth Psalm foretold the Saviour’s resurrection,
and the twenty-second
supposed it. Had
they accepted these
testimonies, they had read all simply, and at once
in the light. But
now they look on with the eyes of
unbelief - and so they stumble.
Thus it
will be again.
The Most High means to
bring His people out of their tombs, and take them
up to Christ. There
will be again empty sepulchres all over
the world. Enquiry
will arise, ‘To what is
this owing?’ And
unbelief will give its own false account
of the matter.
It will trace the
disappearing of the bodies to the craft and fraud of
Christians, designing to
delude the world.
And ignorant believers
will be at a loss; and suppose there must be the
fraud of man in it, as it was
asserted on this occasion.
Faith alone,
conversant with the Scriptures, will say, ‘This
is the
finger of God.’
Jesus
must
rise - for no word of God can fail of its
accomplishment.
He must rise, not only from death, but ‘from among
the dead.’
He went down as a
spirit* [i.e., as
disembodied soul] among
departed spirits [souls]; His body was laid as dead among
the dead in their abode, the tomb; and was clad with
their vestments.
But now His spirit [soul] had come forth
from
the place of departed spirits, and His body from the
mansions of the dead.
He left the main body of the departed where
they were, both in soul and body.
So it
will be also at the first resurrection.
[*
Only confusion
will arise in the minds of Christians, if they fail
to distinguish between the
animating ‘spirit’ -
(which is with all who are
alive, Jas. 2: 26a;
Luke 8: 55.
“If he [God]
gather to himself his spirit
and his breath; all flesh shall
perish together, and man shall turn again unto
dust, Job 34:
14, 15) - from the ‘soul’
- the person.
At the time of death, the ‘spirit’
returns to God; the ‘body’
into ‘dust’; and the
‘soul’
into ‘Hades’ - the
underworld of the dead in ‘the
heart of the earth’ (Matt.
12:
40); 1 Sam.
28: 11-19.
Only
at the time of Resurrection,
can ‘body’ and ‘soul’
be reunited. Therefore,
“flesh
and blood
cannot inherit the
‘They knew not the Scripture.’
The
writer then is a candid and truthful man, whom we
may trust. Most
writers, when they speak of themselves
and friends, tell only what makes for their
adventure. It is not so in God’s
book. There
the failings of God’s own people
are noted, as truly as what is good in them.
11-13. ‘But
Mary was standing at the tomb, weeping outside. As,
then, she was weeping, she stooped and
looked into the tomb.
And she beholdeth
two angels in white sitting, one at the head, and
one at the feet where the
body of Jesus had lain.
And they say to
her, “Woman, why weepest thou?”
She
saith to them, “Because they have taken away my
Lord, and I know not where they
have laid Him.”’
Very
remarkable
is the proof of the wisdom and foresight of the
Spirit of God, that
the first to behold Jesus risen from the [Page 410]
dead was not His mother!
One sees at once the strength with which
the
tendencies to worship Mary would have seized on such
a passage, and would have
declared that Mary was here a representative of the
Church. This
tendency is so effectually guarded
against in Scripture, that it is only those who dare
not read the New Testament
that fall into it.
It
is
a second point remarkable, that the account of the
honour given to Mary
Magdalene was written for us by John;
to whom, as a son, Mary had
been handed over by our Lord.
He was not
deficient in affection for her. But for the Church’s
sake, he, as inspired by
the Holy Spirit, testifies of the honour rendered to
Mary Magdalene by the risen
Jesus. A
new principle of honour,
greatly above that of nature, or the flesh, has come
in. This
is formally testified by Paul (2
Cor. 5: 16).
It was Mary’s supreme love to Christ which
seems to have opened to her
this honour. Affection
to Christ is the
great link: the flesh is a broken link now.
’Tis the Spirit! ‘That
no flesh should glory in
His Presence.’
The
two
disciples had gone away back – ‘No
more was to be
seen! It
was of no use to tarry!’
So with ourselves and God’s written
word! ‘All that
can be got from it is got at a glance!’ we
are apt to think: while those
who pray and ponder over it obtain great and deep
accessions of truth and
grace. Mary
lingered there in love, as
did the sisters at Lazarus’s tomb.
But
her tears were unbelief and ignorance!
Nevertheless, the Lord does not refuse the
good because of the evil.
She
looks
within. Apparently
it was for the
first time. For
she had merely guessed before,
that the open door betokened
the body carried off.
She had arrived at
the tomb later than Peter and John; out of breath,
with her previous
running. Did
they tell her that the body
was not there?
At all events, it was not
the glance of strong curiosity.
The
same
word in the Greek, that has been noticed before,
describes her look
also. There
is a difference between what
she sees, and what was seen by the previous two
disciples. [Page
411] She beholds two angels,
while they saw only the linen clothes.
How was that?
They have the power
of appearing or disappearing as they please.
Their dress was white.
This has
been often noticed.
That colour is the
favourite colour of the saved in the world to come:
not the rainbow-hues of
present life. When
the soul is perfect
within, small will be the care of the colour of the
vestments without.
They were not dressed in black, as mourners with us. For
they
knew their Lord risen, and rejoiced.
‘Two Angels!’
A
wonderful difference now appears between Christ’s
humiliation and His
commencing exaltation.
At the cross, His
executioners divided the spoil of His clothes.
And two robbers are
crucified with Him; one on the right hand, and one
on the left. Now
these two angels are like the
cherubs one at each end of the mercy-seat; looking
down on the proofs of the
great atonement completed.
‘These things the
angels desire to look into.’
Do you think, reader, that these angels
quarrelled which was to sit at the head, and which
at the feet? I
think that as blessed spirits, they would
be ready in honour to prefer one another.
Shall we not imitate these ministers of
Christ? The
little child in these things is made our
model by the Lord.
How could it be known, which was the
place of our Lord’s head, and which of His feet, if
the dead-clothes were
folded up in one heap?
This proves, that
the clothes had not been stirred. The napkin
which had covered His head lay
there still, where the head had rested.
The other end of the linen rollers showed
where the feet had lain.
And, it is evident, that the ledge where
the
body had been laid, was just fronting the door.
The
angels
speak to her. They
know her
language; though she knows not theirs.
Their question is a natural one, bespeaking
their interest in her.
Ours is a world of sorrow, though few
openly
manifest their tears; and though in most cases of
woe we are powerless to
comfort or help.
Her
reply
is still as before.
She was
seeking her Lord, for some unknown parties had borne
Him away. Here
again love and unbelief mingle.
But how strangely devoid of curiosity she
is! Was
it not strange, that at that
early hour two men should [Page 412] be in the tomb? Was it not
strange, that they should be apparelled in white,
and not in sackcloth and
ashes? Was
it not strange, that they
should be seated in the tomb,
when the body was there no longer; and they were
seemingly only guardians of
grave-clothes?
All this has no effect on
her. She
is so overmastered by the
feeling of sadness, that her soul is not free to the
play of the lighter
sentiments of our nature.
She is so
absorbed by the dead, that she cares not for the
living.
14-19. ‘And
when she had said this, she turned back, and seeth
Jesus
standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus
saith to her, “Woman, why
weepest thou?
Whom seekest thou?”
She, supposing it to be the gardener,
saith
unto Him – “Sir, if Thou have carried Him away,
tell me where thou hast laid
Him, and I will take Him away.”
Jesus
saith to her, “Mary!”
She turned, and
saith to Him, “Rabboni” (that is, “Teacher!”)
Jesus saith to her, “Touch Me not; for
I
have not yet ascended to My Father; but go
to My brethren, and say unto
them, ‘I ascend to My Father, and to your Father;
and to My God, and to your
God.’”
Not
every
one who turns back from angels, beholds the Lord
Himself! Her
tears wove a veil, which prevented her
from seeing clearly.
The enquiry the
Lord makes of Mary is still the same question of
kindly interest.
We need to learn, what of the many causes
of
tears in this vale of tears is affecting any whom we
see weeping. And
Jesus now speaks as a man.
The thought strikes her, that as this is a
garden, he is the man who has charge of it; and that
now, at length, she shall
learn who has carried off the corpse.
No suspicion of resurrection has entered her mind. Jesus
has died, like all others; His body
must then be passive, like those of all the dead.
But, indeed, great was the
real, but unexpected difference.
Adam
was the first gardener.
God planted a garden eastward in
[Page 413]
Observe
how her
intense love and grief make
her insensible to the usual style of address.
Three times - to a man whom she never saw
before, as she supposed - she
asks respecting ‘Him,’
without giving any hint
as to the person she meant.
‘If thou have borne
Him, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will bear Him hence.’ To her there is but one ‘Him,’ who fills
her soul; and she thinks that
all the world must be as full of Jesus as she is
herself. Is
not that nature?
Her love is greater than her strength. Could she
bear away the body alone? But that
troubles her not!
‘Mary!’
This
Shepherd knows His own sheep, and calls them by
their names.
Jesus’
reply
is but one word, but it recalls her to faith.
It savours slightly of reproach.
Did she not know her Saviour?
Did she not credit His words, that He would
bear Himself away from the tomb in life?
Had she not heard, ‘I
am Resurrection and Life?’
No doubt ’twas the same old tone
of
voice, with which she was familiar. Her face
was partly averted from
Him, but this word makes her start, and gaze at
the Risen One.
Her reply is but one word also!
When the heart is full of intense feeling
its
words are few, but laden with meaning.
Her former Instructor, then, from whom she
had drank in the truth of
salvation, stood before her!
The tomb
could not hold Him!
‘But go!’ She
was not now to abide in the Saviour’s
presence, and converse with Him, but to carry
good tidings to the cast down. Even so
the Christian is not always to be in
prayer and over the Scripture for himself, but to carry to others the message of life.
This is the
day
of work.
The hour of rest
is coming, when we shall be
evermore with the Lord.
Jesus’
reply
is a difficult one to interpret, and many are the
meanings
suggested. Why
was she not to touch?
Specially, why not? when very speedily thereafter
the two women, her
companions, ‘held Him by the feet and worshipped Him.’
And
that evening He calls on the eleven to handle Him,
in proof that He was no
ghost. From the word, ‘Touch
Me not,’ it seems
that on her part there was a movement forward to
embrace His [Page
414]
feet, as in the case of her
companions; which our Lord checked by these words of
His. It would seem, from what follows, as if our Lord meant, that His
intercourse with her was not to be upon the same
footing as before.
Else she would naturally have gathered,
as He
addressed her by her usual name, and she Him by
the customary title, that all
was henceforward to move on the same
level as before.
‘Behold us,
then, restored to each other, never more to be
severed!
Now shall come the kingdom and
the glory!’
Nay, there is that
which must precede. The Father calls for His
Son’s return.
Jesus
was
to ascend to His Father, as He had said.
That must first take place ere His dwelling
with us, and ours with Him.
‘For I am not yet ascended to
My Father!’
Why
should
Mary not touch Him because of this non-ascent? It would
seem to imply, that the full
intercourse between the Saviour and His saved ones should only take place after His ascent thither.
Perhaps this was Mary’s thought, that every
barrier was now past, and nought but the kingdom was
at hand! But
let us notice the point here stated.
Jesus,
up to that hour had not
ascended to His Father. This is important, as
testifying against the mistake
made by many. Many
suppose, that our Lord mounted up to His
Father as an unclothed spirit, between
the
time of His death on the cross, and His
resurrection.
The Word of God, however, is very distinct
respecting the general truth, that none
may
present themselves to God in the glory, while
unclothed of their bodies.
God
refuses
to accept the naked [soul] (Ex.
20: 26; 28: 42;
32: 25).
And this general truth
is here specially authenticated to us, by the
testimony of our Lord touching
His own case.
If He did not ascend to God till after resurrection, much less has any
of the spirits [i.e., disembodied souls] of the
departed done so.
‘David is not
ascended to the heavens.’ Not till all traces of death and the curse are
swept away, is man fit for the presence of God.
If Jesus did not mount up to God’s heaven
as soon as He died, neither do
we.
Mary is entrusted with a
commission to apostles.
They take [Page 415]
a new and closer title now.
Not ‘My apostles’
but ‘My brethren.’ Thus the Saviour
showed His
grace. Else
we might have thought – ‘He
is now so greatly exalted, He will show us the
increased
distance between us and Him.’
’Tis the first time of His employing the
title towards them.
Jesus is, as the Risen One, on a new
footing
with regard to them.
They were before ‘disciples’
or even ‘friends.’ But ‘brethren’
is a
nearer title. Jesus
gives them the name by which He can
embrace every [regenerate] believer.
While alive,
The results of Jesus’ death begin to
appear in resurrection.
Now is God the Father of those
who believe, the Father in
Christ, the Son, and the Risen Man of Righteousness. God is our
God too. He will prove
His
Godhead to us, and to Abraham, as He did to His Son;
by raising us from the
dead. For
He is not
visibly the God of Abraham, while he [i.e.,
Abraham’s body] is
in the tomb.
It is only
when Abraham shall be
risen, while
Esau and Absalom, and
the array of sinners remain in the tombs, that
Jehovah shall be seen to be
the
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Jesus’
resurrection
then, was behold by Mary.
But He moves onward in thought and word.
Resurrection is a step towards
ascension. He
was to leave the world of sin and death that had
rejected Him. ‘I ascend.’
By His own power and activity He was to
ascend. Not
as Elijah – ‘The
Lord will take your Master from
your head to-day.’
Christ’s
work
was not for Himself, but for us.
Now He, having met and paid our debts in
righteousness, God is free in
grace to give us out of all the fulness of Christ. ‘My
Father and your
Father.’ Then
love and kindness, then eternal
inheritance are ours.
‘My
God and your God.’ Then Omnipotence,
all-creative,
is engaged on our behalf.
Is God my
Father if I believe in [Page 416] Christ? Then all is mine. Not of my
desert, for I am bankrupt; but
according to His gift!
And Christ the
True Witness bears record of all my blessing!
‘I am ascending.’
This was to prepare the disciples for
His
approaching severance from them.
He was
going to His Father on high, and the way to it was
the supernatural one of
ascension. The
twelve, then, might know that was
the
way in which He was to take His leave, and thus they
were to understand
whither He was gone.
The
Saviour
has given to us who believe a standing before God
like His own. He
does not say, as would be natural, ‘I
ascend to our God and Father.’
No!
Even in this His most gracious testimony to
our nearness to Him, and His
value for us, we are yet to learn that He occupies a
nearness to God which we
have not. He
is with God from eternity:
we, only through Him, and in time.
19, 20. ‘Now
that same day at evening being the first of the
week, when
the doors were locked where the disciples were,
because of their fear of the
Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and
saith unto them, “Peace be unto
you!” And
when He had said this He
showed unto them His hands and His side.
The disciples, therefore, rejoiced, when
they saw the Lord.’
It
was
not all at once that the Saviour manifested Himself
to His assembled
disciples. It
was arranged by the Lord
in His wisdom, that the light should break in upon
them by degrees, each
discovery preparing the way for the other and fuller
ones. This
seems to be the occasion, of which we
read in Luke after the return of the two from
Emmaus. Peter
was the only one of the apostles who
had then behold Him (Luke
24: 33).
But it was the same day - the first of the
week, which we are accustomed to keep as the
memorial of the resurrection of
our Lord, the foundation of our faith.
Jesus would not allow a day to go by, before
the proof of that great
event should be submitted to the believers in
Himself. For
on this all turned.
We do not keep then the seventh day, or ‘the
Sabbath’ of the Law; nor do we rest for the
reason
assigned in the Law - because God the Creator on
that day rested from His
creation-work.
We do not rest in
fallen creation but in redemption,
or
the new creation.
We rest, [Page 417] because Christ rested; and the Father rests in
Him, as having completed atonement.
Our rest, then, is with God, on another day, and for
another
reason than that under Law.
‘The same day at evening.’ According
to the Law, that would have been
the beginning of another day.
Now a now
computation of time is come in, which we use.
Jesus,
as
we learn from the Acts, was engaged after His
resurrection in two things:
(1) in establishing the proof of His resurrection;
and (2) in instructing
them about the present and
future
*
*
*
JOHN CHAPTER 20.
[Page 402]
1, 2. ‘Now
on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene is
coming early,
while it was yet dark, to the tomb, and seeth the
stone taken away out of the
tomb. She
runneth, therefore, and cometh
to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom
Jesus used to love, and saith
unto them, “They have taken the Lord out of the
tomb, and we know not where
they have laid Him.”’
On
the
resurrection of our Lord - this great foundation of
the Christian faith -
infidels have a choice in their mode of attack.
(1) They may say, ‘Jesus
rose indeed, but He never died.’ Or (2) ‘Jesus died, but He never rose.’ But few unbelievers
have
chosen the first alternative.
For that
Jesus died was proved to the satisfaction of foes, and to the sorrow of friends.
The other mode has been the usual
plan of
attack. But
though often assailed, the
proof of resurrection has proved successful.
Is it not certain, that some great and
wonderful events must have
occurred in the fifty days between the Passover and
Pentecost, to change
fearful apostles into heroes? men willing to face
their foes, and to dare all
hazards in asserting their Master’s resurrection? The
conduct of enemies, and the spread of the
faith, on the very spot of the scenes which had
occurred, and in spite of the
greatest obstacles, discover to us the hand of God.
The
Lord,
then, has made this great event the test which
severs between the evil
generation, and His children (Matt.
12: 38, 39).
As the figurative death and resurrection of
Jonah was the sign to the Ninevites of his mission
by God, so the true
resurrection of Jesus is the sign to the world of
His sending; and carries with
awful solemnity home to each the threat of damnation
on impenitence, and the
promise of salvation to those who credit God herein.
[Page 403]
We
have
in this chapter a new view of the occurrences on the
first day of
resurrection; and one which is somewhat difficult,
though not impossible, to
harmonize with the accounts of the three first
Gospels. Let
us observe first, that Jesus shows
Himself first, not to His mother,
but to Mary Magdalene.
How much
would have been made of it in the interests of the
worship of Mary, had it been
otherwise!
We
learn
from Matthew and Mark that the three, ‘Mary
of
Magdala,’ Mary the mother of Jesus, and
Salome, started early in the
morning to see the sepulchre.
The view
of the heavy stone rolled away from the
sepulchre-door, and lifted out of the
groove in which it was intended to ply, assured Mary
Magdalene that there had
been some interference with the tomb.
She
runs back, then, to the two chief disciples with
this piece of news, while the
other two women continue their journey to the tomb. She sees
nothing of the angel, or of the
guards, or probably of the stone itself; for nothing
is said of these
things. This
would seem to prove a
peculiarity in the locality, and would help its
discovery; or at all events
would prove a confirmation, when the right spot had
been fixed on.
It would seem to show, that a hollow was
interposed
between her and the tomb, together with enough of a
rising ground to conceal
perhaps the stone, certainly the angel and the
guards. The
other two women do not appear to have
seen these things, till they were close upon the
tomb. She
could see that the stone was taken away
out of the tomb, by the opening of the doorway being
dark; and perhaps because
the stone was so large an object, as to be apparent
at some distance.
Her first thought, therefore, is to let the
disciples know, and those especially who were the
leaders of the apostles.
She runs, therefore, in her zeal, and
breaks
the news to Peter and to John; whose abodes seem to
have been apart, as we
gather from the disconnection – ‘She
cometh to Simon
Peter, and to the other disciple.’
She imagines that the removal of the stone
implies the removal of the
body! Observe
that John has said nothing
before this concerning ‘the stone.’
He supposes, that the matter will have
been made known to his readers, by the other
Gospels. [Page
404] This is one of the indications that John’s Gospel was the last of the
four; and that the Lord intended that all the four
should be in His people’s
hands - the fulness of the former ones supplying the
deficiencies of the later
one.
Jesus
is
to Mary Magdala ‘the Lord.’ She
supposes, that some persons unknown have
removed the body.
‘We know
not where they have laid Him.’ The
beautiful simplicity of this style of
address shows, as the other Gospels attest, that
Mary was not alone in her
purposed visit to the sepulchre.
When
she is really alone, she says, ‘I
know not where they
have laid Him’ (v.
13).
She
says
– ‘They have taken away the
Lord’
- for the body is called by the name of
its owner. See
her faith! Jesus is to
her ‘the Lord.’
See, too, her unbelief!
She
cannot interpret aright the empty tomb.
Living hands must have carried off the dead
body! While
enemies understand Christ beforehand,
friends comprehend not resurrection though the event
has taken place, and the
proof is before them!
If
these
so loved Christ who believed Him to be still dead,
much more should we
love Him who know Him to be risen, and interceding
for us.
She
supposes
the body of the Saviour to be like all dead bodies -
passive. It
must be
moved, it cannot move itself.
Else her faith would have gathered from the
open door of the empty cage
– ‘The bird has flown!’ But out of
disciples’ unbelief, and enemies’
partial intelligence, God gets more glory; and gives
us greater confirmation of
faith.
3-11. ‘Peter,
therefore, and the other disciple went forth, and
were
going to the tomb.
Now the two were
running together, and the other disciple ran
faster than Peter, and came first
to the tomb.
And stooping down at the
side of the door, he seeth the linen swathes
lying; but he went not in.
Simon Peter, therefore, cometh following
him,
and entereth into the tomb, and beholdeth the
linen swathes lying: and the
napkin that was upon His head, not lying with the
linen swathes, but separately
folded inwards, so as to make up one spot. Then,
therefore, entered the other
disciple that came first to the tomb, and he saw
and believed.
For as yet they knew not the Scripture,
that
he must rise again from among the dead.
The disciples, then, went away therefore
again to their own houses.’
This first intelligence
given by Mary
was fitted to rouse the [Page
405]
apostles, and prepare them for
the full truth.
‘The stone rolled away!
Who
could
have done that? And
with
what intent?’
They, however, do
not stay to speculate; but, as was best, go to see
for themselves.
They run:
for the matter deeply interests them.
They have no intelligence respecting the
guard posted by the enemy at
the tomb. But
the Lord had removed it,
before they came.
In the first arrival
of John, and the conduct of both him and Peter, we
see the difference of age
and character.
John stands without.
He could see by a glance from the outside,
whether the body was within or no.
There
were the grave-clothes lying, but no body lying in
them! Was
not that enough?
Could any more be needed to be known? Or be
learned by entering?
Observe
the
word employed by the Holy Ghost.
Had
John stood right in front of the narrow doorway, he
would have blocked out all
the light; for there was no window to the tomb.
Moreover his head would have been above the
doorway: so that he was
obliged to stoop in order to be able to look within. He stands
then at the side of the doorway, and
stoops! That
is the force of the Greek word …
Then he could look within.
They who would learn of God must stoop to
His
Word.
But
Peter
is not contented with a view from without, and he
enters. More
was to be learned within.
He now notices the difference between the
rollers which swathed the body, and the covering
which had wrapped the head of
our Lord. The
head had required a different
covering from the rest of the body, and therefore, a
separate linen cloth had
been provided.
He found the napkin then
still retaining the appearance which had been
impressed upon it, when those who
buried our Lord folded Him in the grave-clothes. The usual
idea is, that the Saviour, who had
been wrapped up in a broad shroud or sheet, undid
the linen when He arose; and
folded up the shroud in one spot, and
the napkin in another. But John’s
account is very different.
The napkin was ‘folded
inward;’
as is the
case, when we put a handkerchief over the head, and
tie it under the chin.
It was folded ‘separately,’
and
yet so as to preserve the united appearance of the [Page
405]
grave-clothes.
That
is, the linen was found by them just as
it had been left by those, who buried the
Saviour. He had not undone the
swathes, or the napkin. He
had
slipped out from them, leaving them on
the ledge of the tomb, just in
the position in which they had first encircled His
body. The
unity of appearance which they had at
first, when they encompassed the corpse, was
there still; but the body which
gave them that unity was not there! That
is, there was something in the
matter quite uncommon and unaccountable, save on the
supposition of new powers
acquired by the risen Saviour.
This
appears from comparing the matter with the
resurrection of Lazarus, which John
had seen with his fellow-disciples so short a time
before. When
Lazarus at our Lord’s word came forth,
he ‘came forth bound hands
and feet
with the grave-clothes, and
his countenance was bound about with a napkin’
(11: 44).
It
would have required a considerable exertion of force
for Lazarus to have set
free his hands and feet, if indeed he could have
done it at all.
Jesus, therefore, says to the bystanders, ‘Loose him, and
let him go.’
But in this case of our Lord, the
grave-clothes are not said to be taken off and
folded up, but ‘lying;’
(1) One part of the vestments is separate from
the other, yet (2) both make up a whole.
The view here given accounts for both
features. Jesus
had left them.
Grave-clothes could not bind Him who had
overcome the chains of death.
And He,
the living, needed not the clothes of the dead.
John
follows
Peter – Peter’s example acts on John, as the example
of friends and of
others acts - even when we do not think of it - on
ourselves. Peter
saw the facts, but he did not draw the
right conclusion.
Here was enough to
overthrow Mary’s hasty theory, that some persons
unknown had carried off the
body. It
was no enemies
who carried off the body - for why take
the pains to strip it?
And besides, the
spices would have been scattered about.
Enemies had devised the securing of the
sepulchre, and of the body
within it; lest the empty sepulchre should conspire
to aid the expected story
of the disciples, that He was risen.
It
was to their interest that all should be found as
they had arranged it on the
night of Saturday.
Who could [Page
407]
carry off the body,
while the soldiers were there?
Who would run into punishment, by breaking
the Governor’s seal?
And while thieves
might steal away the clothes and spices, specially
when the linen was new, yet
they would not steal the body, and leave the
clothes! Disciples
knew not of the setting of the
guard, which rendered it impossible for any, whether
friend or foe, to enter
the tomb without permission.
The removal
of the body perplexed the Pharisees: the presence of
the corpse had been the
destruction of the new religion.
It
was
not friends who had
carried it away.
For there were no marks
of haste. And
had they carried away the
body, they would have carried it enveloped in its
cerecloths. We
are looking at the matter now from the
disciples’ point of view, who were ignorant of the
guard. In
short, nothing but resurrection [out] from among the
dead, and a consequent abandoning of the trappings
of the tomb, could account
for what John saw.
He believes
then! ‘Here is
resurrection, Peter!’
From
this
we may learn that in the Word of God, as in the tomb
of Christ, more and
more is to be learned by faith.
Something may be gathered from an outside
view; but more can be obtained
from an entrance in, and a closer view.
While Peter saw the very same scene as John,
he failed to penetrate its
real meaning, because of unbelief.
John
gathered it at a glance.
Thus some see
much more in Scripture than others.
And
while unbelief stumbles at the truth, faith beholds
its oneness and its deep
meaning, and rests there.
Many are
content with the first elements of faith.
That is only because they are thinking more
of things of the world than
of the things of God.
Their eye is only
on their own salvation, not on God’s glory.
‘Let me be saved;
and the rest of God’s counsel
is of little moment!’
That is not
the spirit of a true child of God, interested to
know all His father’s
mind. Let
us not be content to stand
without!
Here
is
the reason of much doubt and unbelief still.
With God’s word multiplied, men do not
understand it. Nor do most of
God’s people seek to do so.
Other books
are more [Page 408] attractive. ‘They
have read that
before.’
What is there new to be
seen in it, or learned from it?
But
again
- look at Luke 24: 12,
‘Then arose Peter, and ran
unto the sepulchre, and stooping
down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by
themselves; and he departed,
wondering in himself at that which had come to
pass.’
‘Now is there not here plain
contradiction?’ say some
stumblers. ‘(1)
Peter
is alone, and not with John.
(2) He does not
enter the tomb; while John says He did. (3) He sees only the
linen clothes, and not the napkin, which is the
characteristic point in John’s
account of Peter’s visit.’
This
objection
is just like the style of observation current among
many now. While
in the classics, or worldly men’s
writings, they make every attempt to remove
contradiction from the writer whom
they admire, it is just the reverse with the
Scripture. There
men try to produce
contradiction.
Why?
Because this same Scripture is the imperious
word of God, from
whose condemning force the guilty
sons of men seek to make their escape.
The
simple
and effectual answer to the above suggestion is -
This passage of Luke
refers to a second visit of
Peter; on returning from which He met the Lord
Himself (Luke 24: 31). He
went
alone. He
went, because of a new
announcement, that angels had been seen
in the tomb; and that they affirmed the resurrection
of our Lord (ver. 1-11).
Peter, then, arose, and visited the
sepulchre, to see if he could meet
with these angels, and hear for himself.
He, therefore, does not go in; because if
angels were inside, he could
see them from without.
They were not
visible; and content with a look, he returns,
wondering at the strange events
that had already befallen him that day.
If angels where there, why did they not show
themselves to him, as well
as to the women? a question which we cannot answer
any more than he.
There was a special word, too, to Peter
from
the angels.
John,
then,
had believed in Jesus’ resurrection, as the result
of His reasoning on the
state of the sepulchre, and the clothes.
He and the rest might have been beforehand
aware of the great [Page
409]
event, had he given credit to
our Lord’s words, and to the Scriptures.
The sixteenth Psalm foretold the Saviour’s
resurrection, and the twenty-second
supposed it. Had
they accepted these
testimonies, they had read all simply, and at once
in the light. But
now they look on with the eyes of
unbelief - and so they stumble.
Thus it
will be again.
The Most High means to
bring His people out of their tombs, and take them
up to Christ. There
will be again empty sepulchres all over
the world. Enquiry
will arise, ‘To what is
this owing?’
And unbelief will give its own false
account
of the matter.
It will trace the
disappearing of the bodies to the craft and fraud of
Christians, designing to
delude the world.
And ignorant believers
will be at a loss; and suppose there must be the
fraud of man in it, as it was
asserted on this occasion.
Faith alone,
conversant with the Scriptures, will say, ‘This
is the
finger of God.’
Jesus
must
rise - for no word of God can fail of its
accomplishment.
He must rise, not only from death, but ‘from
among the dead.’
He went down as
a spirit* [i.e., as
disembodied soul] among
departed spirits [souls]; His body was laid as dead among
the dead in their abode, the tomb; and was clad with
their vestments.
But now His spirit [soul] had come forth
from
the place of departed spirits, and His body from the
mansions of the dead.
He left the main body of the departed where
they were, both in soul and body.
So it
will be also at the first resurrection.
[*
Only confusion
will arise in the minds of Christians, if they fail
to distinguish between the
animating ‘spirit’ -
(which is with all who are
alive, Jas. 2: 26a;
Luke 8: 55.
“If he [God]
gather to himself his spirit
and his breath; all flesh shall
perish together, and man shall turn again unto
dust, Job 34:
14, 15) - from the ‘soul’
- the person.
At the time of death, the ‘spirit’
returns to God; the ‘body’
into ‘dust’; and the
‘soul’
into ‘Hades’ - the
underworld of the dead in ‘the
heart of the earth’ (Matt.
12:
40); 1 Sam.
28: 11-19.
Only
at the time of Resurrection,
can ‘body’ and ‘soul’
be reunited. Therefore,
“flesh
and blood
cannot inherit the
‘They knew not the Scripture.’
The
writer then is a candid and truthful man, whom we
may trust. Most
writers, when they speak of themselves
and friends, tell only what makes for their
adventure. It is not so in God’s
book. There
the failings of God’s own
people are noted, as truly as what is good in them.
11-13. ‘But
Mary was standing at the tomb, weeping outside. As,
then, she was weeping, she stooped and
looked into the tomb.
And she beholdeth
two angels in white sitting, one at the head, and
one at the feet where the
body of Jesus had lain.
And they say to
her, “Woman, why weepest thou?”
She
saith to them, “Because they have taken away my
Lord, and I know not where they
have laid Him.”’
Very
remarkable
is the proof of the wisdom and foresight of the
Spirit of God, that
the first to behold Jesus risen from the [Page 410]
dead was not His mother!
One sees at once the strength with which
the
tendencies to worship Mary would have seized on such
a passage, and would have
declared that Mary was here a representative of the
Church. This
tendency is so effectually guarded
against in Scripture, that it is only those who dare
not read the New Testament
that fall into it.
It
is
a second point remarkable, that the account of the
honour given to Mary
Magdalene was written for us by John;
to whom, as a son, Mary had
been handed over by our Lord.
He was not
deficient in affection for her. But for the Church’s
sake, he, as inspired by
the Holy Spirit, testifies of the honour rendered to
Mary Magdalene by the
risen Jesus. A
new principle of honour,
greatly above that of nature, or the flesh, has come
in. This
is formally testified by Paul (2
Cor. 5: 16).
It was Mary’s supreme love to Christ which
seems to have opened to her
this honour. Affection
to Christ is the
great link: the flesh is a broken link now.
’Tis the Spirit! ‘That
no flesh should glory in
His Presence.’
The
two
disciples had gone away back – ‘No
more was to be
seen! It
was of no use to tarry!’
So with ourselves and God’s written
word! ‘All that
can be got from it is got at a glance!’ we
are apt to think: while those
who pray and ponder over it obtain great and deep
accessions of truth and
grace. Mary
lingered there in love, as
did the sisters at Lazarus’s tomb.
But
her tears were unbelief and ignorance!
Nevertheless, the Lord does not refuse the
good because of the evil.
She
looks
within. Apparently
it was for the
first time. For
she had merely guessed before,
that the open door betokened
the body carried off.
She had arrived at
the tomb later than Peter and John; out of breath,
with her previous
running. Did
they tell her that the body
was not there?
At all events, it was not
the glance of strong curiosity.
The
same
word in the Greek, that has been noticed before,
describes her look
also. There
is a difference between what
she sees, and what was seen by the previous two
disciples. [Page
411] She beholds two angels,
while they saw only the linen clothes.
How was that?
They have the power
of appearing or disappearing as they please.
Their dress was white.
This has
been often noticed.
That colour is the
favourite colour of the saved in the world to come:
not the rainbow-hues of
present life. When
the soul is perfect
within, small will be the care of the colour of the
vestments without.
They were not dressed in black, as mourners with us. For
they
knew their Lord risen, and rejoiced.
‘Two Angels!’
A
wonderful difference now appears between Christ’s
humiliation and His
commencing exaltation.
At the cross, His
executioners divided the spoil of His clothes.
And two robbers are
crucified
with Him; one on the right hand, and one on the
left. Now
these two angels are like the
cherubs one at each end of the mercy-seat; looking
down on the proofs of the
great atonement completed.
‘These things the
angels desire to look into.’
Do you think, reader, that these angels
quarrelled which was to sit at the head, and which
at the feet? I
think that as blessed spirits, they would
be ready in honour to prefer one another.
Shall we not imitate these ministers of
Christ? The
little child in these things is made our
model by the Lord.
How could it be known, which was the
place of our Lord’s head, and which of His feet, if
the dead-clothes were
folded up in one heap?
This proves, that
the clothes had not been stirred. The napkin
which had covered His head lay
there still, where the head had rested.
The other end of the linen rollers showed
where the feet had lain.
And, it is evident, that the ledge where
the
body had been laid, was just fronting the door.
The
angels
speak to her. They
know her
language; though she knows not theirs.
Their question is a natural one, bespeaking
their interest in her.
Ours is a world of sorrow, though few
openly
manifest their tears; and though in most cases of
woe we are powerless to
comfort or help.
Her
reply
is still as before.
She was
seeking her Lord, for some unknown parties had borne
Him away. Here
again love and unbelief mingle.
But how strangely devoid of curiosity she
is! Was
it not strange, that at that
early hour two men should [Page 412] be in the tomb? Was it not
strange, that they should be apparelled in white,
and not in sackcloth and
ashes? Was
it not strange, that they
should be seated in the tomb,
when the body was there no longer; and they were
seemingly only guardians of
grave-clothes?
All this has no effect on
her. She
is so overmastered by the
feeling of sadness, that her soul is not free to the
play of the lighter
sentiments of our nature.
She is so
absorbed by the dead, that she cares not for the
living.
14-19. ‘And
when she had said this, she turned back, and seeth
Jesus
standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus
saith to her, “Woman, why
weepest thou?
Whom seekest thou?”
She, supposing it to be the gardener,
saith
unto Him – “Sir, if Thou have carried Him away,
tell me where thou hast laid
Him, and I will take Him away.”
Jesus
saith to her, “Mary!”
She turned, and
saith to Him, “Rabboni” (that is, “Teacher!”)
Jesus saith to her, “Touch Me not; for
I
have not yet ascended to My Father; but go
to My brethren, and say unto
them, ‘I ascend to My Father, and to your Father;
and to My God, and to your
God.’”
Not
every
one who turns back from angels, beholds the Lord
Himself! Her
tears wove a veil, which prevented her
from seeing clearly.
The enquiry the
Lord makes of Mary is still the same question of
kindly interest.
We need to learn, what of the many causes
of
tears in this vale of tears is affecting any whom we
see weeping. And
Jesus now speaks as a man.
The thought strikes her, that as this is a
garden, he is the man who has charge of it; and that
now, at length, she shall
learn who has carried off the corpse.
No suspicion of resurrection has entered her mind. Jesus
has died, like all others; His body
must then be passive, like those of all the dead.
But, indeed, great was the
real, but unexpected difference.
Adam
was the first gardener.
God planted a garden eastward in
[Page 413]
Observe
how her
intense love and grief make
her insensible to the usual style of address.
Three times - to a man whom she never saw
before, as she supposed - she
asks respecting ‘Him,’
without giving any hint
as to the person she meant.
‘If thou have borne
Him, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will bear Him hence.’ To her there is but one ‘Him,’ who fills
her soul; and she thinks that
all the world must be as full of Jesus as she is
herself. Is
not that nature?
Her love is greater than her strength. Could she
bear away the body alone? But that
troubles her not!
‘Mary!’
This
Shepherd knows His own sheep, and calls them by
their names.
Jesus’
reply
is but one word, but it recalls her to faith.
It savours slightly of reproach.
Did she not know her Saviour?
Did she not credit His words, that He would
bear Himself away from the tomb in life?
Had she not heard, ‘I
am Resurrection and Life?’
No doubt ’twas the same old tone
of
voice, with which she was familiar. Her face
was partly averted from
Him, but this word makes her start, and gaze at
the Risen One.
Her reply is but one word also!
When the heart is full of intense feeling
its
words are few, but laden with meaning.
Her former Instructor, then, from whom she
had drank in the truth of
salvation, stood before her!
The tomb
could not hold Him!
‘But go!’ She
was not now to abide in the
Saviour’s presence, and converse with Him, but
to carry good tidings to the
cast down. Even so
the Christian is not always to be in
prayer and over the Scripture for himself, but to carry to others the message of life.
This is the
day
of work.
The hour of rest
is coming, when we shall be
evermore with the Lord.
Jesus’
reply
is a difficult one to interpret, and many are the
meanings
suggested. Why
was she not to touch?
Specially, why not? when very speedily thereafter
the two women, her
companions, ‘held Him by the feet and worshipped Him.’
And
that evening He calls on the eleven to handle Him,
in proof that He was no
ghost. From the word, ‘Touch
Me not,’ it seems
that on her part there was a movement forward to
embrace His [Page
414]
feet, as in the case of her
companions; which our Lord checked by these words of
His. It would seem, from what follows, as if our Lord meant, that His
intercourse with her was not to be upon the same
footing as before.
Else she would naturally have gathered,
as He
addressed her by her usual name, and she Him by
the customary title, that all
was henceforward to move on the same
level as before.
‘Behold us,
then, restored to each other, never more to be
severed!
Now shall come the kingdom and
the glory!’
Nay, there is that
which must precede. The Father calls for His
Son’s return.
Jesus
was
to ascend to His Father, as He had said.
That must first take place ere His dwelling
with us, and ours with Him.
‘For I am not yet ascended to
My Father!’
Why should Mary not touch Him because
of
this non-ascent?
It would seem to imply,
that the full intercourse between the Saviour and
His saved ones should
only take place after His ascent
thither.
Perhaps this was Mary’s
thought, that every barrier was now past, and nought
but the kingdom was at
hand! But
let us notice the point here
stated. Jesus, up to that
hour had not ascended to His Father. This is
important, as testifying against
the mistake made by many. Many suppose, that our
Lord
mounted up to His Father as an
unclothed spirit,
between the time of His death on the
cross, and His resurrection.
The Word of
God, however, is very distinct respecting the
general truth, that none
may present themselves to God in the
glory, while unclothed of their bodies.
God
refuses to accept the naked [soul] (Ex.
20: 26; 28: 42; 32: 25).
And this general truth is here specially
authenticated to us, by the testimony of our Lord
touching His own case.
If
He
did not ascend to God till after resurrection,
much less has any of the spirits
[i.e.,
disembodied souls]
of the departed done so.
‘David is not
ascended to the heavens.’ Not
till
all traces of death and the curse are swept away,
is man fit for the
presence of God.
If Jesus did not mount
up to God’s heaven as soon as He died, neither do
we.
Mary is entrusted with a
commission to apostles.
They take [Page 415]
a new and closer title now.
Not ‘My apostles’
but ‘My brethren.’ Thus the Saviour
showed His
grace. Else
we might have thought – ‘He
is now so greatly exalted, He will show us the
increased
distance between us and Him.’
’Tis the first time of His employing the
title towards them.
Jesus is, as the Risen One, on a new
footing
with regard to them.
They were before ‘disciples’
or even ‘friends.’ But ‘brethren’
is a
nearer title. Jesus
gives them the name by which He can
embrace every [regenerate] believer.
While alive,
The results of Jesus’ death begin to
appear in resurrection.
Now is God the Father of those
who believe, the Father in
Christ, the Son, and the Risen Man of Righteousness. God is our
God too. He will prove
His
Godhead to us, and to Abraham, as He did to His Son;
by raising us from the
dead. For
He is not
visibly the God of Abraham, while he [i.e.,
Abraham’s body] is
in the tomb.
It is only
when Abraham shall be
risen, while
Esau and Absalom, and
the array of sinners remain in the tombs, that
Jehovah shall be seen to be
the
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Jesus’
resurrection
then, was behold by Mary.
But He moves onward in thought and word.
Resurrection is a step towards
ascension. He
was to leave the world of sin and death that had
rejected Him. ‘I ascend.’
By His own power and activity He was to
ascend. Not
as Elijah – ‘The
Lord will take your Master from
your head to-day.’
Christ’s
work
was not for Himself, but for us.
Now He, having met and paid our debts in
righteousness, God is free in
grace to give us out of all the fulness of Christ. ‘My
Father and your
Father.’ Then
love and kindness, then eternal
inheritance are ours.
‘My
God and your God.’ Then Omnipotence,
all-creative, is engaged on our behalf.
Is God my Father if I believe in [Page 416]
Christ? Then
all
is mine. Not
of my desert, for I am
bankrupt; but according to His gift!
And
Christ the True Witness bears record of all my
blessing!
‘I am ascending.’
This was to prepare the disciples for
His
approaching severance from them.
He was
going to His Father on high, and the way to it was
the supernatural one of
ascension. The
twelve, then, might know that was
the
way in which He was to take His leave, and thus they
were to understand
whither He was gone.
The
Saviour
has given to us who believe a standing before God
like His own. He
does not say, as would be natural, ‘I
ascend to our God and Father.’
No!
Even in this His most gracious testimony to
our nearness to Him, and His
value for us, we are yet to learn that He occupies a
nearness to God which we
have not. He
is with God from eternity:
we, only through Him, and in time.
19, 20. ‘Now
that same day at evening being the first of the
week,
when the doors were locked where the disciples
were, because of their fear of
the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and
saith unto them, “Peace be
unto you!” And
when He had said this He
showed unto them His hands and His side.
The disciples, therefore, rejoiced, when
they saw the Lord.’
It
was
not all at once that the Saviour manifested Himself
to His assembled
disciples. It
was arranged by the Lord
in His wisdom, that the light should break in upon
them by degrees, each
discovery preparing the way for the other and fuller
ones. This
seems to be the occasion, of which we
read in Luke after the return of the two from
Emmaus. Peter
was the only one of the apostles who
had then behold Him (Luke
24: 33).
But it was the same day - the first of the
week, which we are accustomed to keep as the
memorial of the resurrection of
our Lord, the foundation of our faith.
Jesus would not allow a day to go by, before
the proof of that great
event should be submitted to the believers in
Himself. For
on this all turned.
We
do not keep then the seventh day,
or ‘the Sabbath’ of
the Law; nor do we rest for the reason
assigned in the Law - because God the Creator on
that day rested from His
creation-work.
We
do not rest in fallen creation but in redemption, or the new creation.
We rest, [Page
417] because Christ rested; and the
Father rests in Him, as having completed
atonement. Our rest,
then, is with God, on another day,
and for another reason than that under Law.
‘The same day at evening.’ According
to the Law, that would have been
the beginning of another day.
Now a now
computation of time is come in, which we use.
Jesus,
as
we learn from the Acts, was engaged after His
resurrection in two things:
(1) in establishing the proof of His resurrection;
and (2) in instructing them about the present and future
‘The doors were locked’ -
Not merely ‘shut.’ But though
able to keep out foes, they could not keep out the
Son of God. Observe
the difference, and contrast between
‘the disciples’ of
Christ, and ‘the Jews.’ ‘The
Jews’ were no longer God’s disciples. They
refused the Son, and they were left to
their sins, and to their natural hatred against the
sons of God, who had put
the Son of God to death.
John no longer,
though by birth a Jew, reckons Himself one of them. The disciples were still in the world; and power, both political and
natural, was with their foes.
But
the day is coming that will alter all
that; when disciples will have judgment given to
them, and reign.
‘Jesus came
and stood in the
midst.’
John goes on in giving
his proofs that Jesus Christ is, not two persons,
but one. He
comes who is Jesus ‘the Man’
risen. But He is also ‘the Lord.’
He
is the same person after resurrection that He was
before it; He carries on the
same plan, and carries out the same promises which
He had announced before His
death.
Men in general, though
friends, must knock at the
locked door, and wait for admittance at the pleasure
of those within.
But this is no longer the case with our
Lord. He
enters by a new way, because
the properties of His resurrection-body are altered. His was no
longer an animal body, but a spiritual
one. He
was not dependent upon food and
air, and the circulation of the blood.
The blood had been entirely withdrawn from
Him. We and He, at first, are composed of ‘flesh and
blood.’ But
Christ says after His resurrection,
while asserting the reality of His body, ‘A
[Page 418]
spirit hath not flesh and bones, as
ye see Me have’ (Luke
24: 36).
He could come out of the tomb before the
angel rolled away the
stone. He
can pass through walls.
He can make Himself visible or invisible,
like
the angels. All this is the property, we may suppose, of the resurrection-body; a
body whose life is no longer dependent on blood;
and whose vitality cannot,
therefore, be taken away by the shedding of blood. Thus it
tells us of privilege to be enjoyed
by ourselves also, at the rising from the dead.
We are to be ‘equal unto angels, and to be
the sons of God, because
children of the resurrection.’
He
says
‘Peace.’
(1) Though they had forsaken Him and fled, He
would bear them no
ill-will because of it: the offence should be
forgiven. (2)
He brings peace, as opposed to their
trouble and sorrow at the thought that they had for
ever lost Him in
death. He
brings peace as the result of
pardon. He
tells of peace with God,
which could console them, and take away the fear of
the Jews. Who
speaks this? ‘The Prince of Peace!’
This
peace
is founded on Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Hence He shows the signs of death together
with the proofs of life.
He eats before
them. His
body was not yet glorified, and
that was wise.
For how could they test
clearly a body that shone like the sun?
They touched the body, as Jesus bids them to
do, in Luke; and as John,
in the next paragraph, tells us that Thomas did. To this
also John in his Epistle bears
witness, that they gazed on, and felt with their
hands the Word of Life, Who
was from eternity with the Father (1
John 1.)
As,
then,
at Jesus’ death the disciples mourned, so at His
resurrection they
rejoiced. It
was the first fulfilment of
that word, ‘I will see you
again, and your heart shall
rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.’
Thus
they
are first, by evidences presented to them,
grounded in the truth of the
resurrection, who are to proclaim it to others.
‘He saith unto them,
‘Peace
unto you!’
This was, and
is, common salutation among Easterns.
It
referred to their standing among men, and in
relation to each other.
‘Is it peace, Jehu?’
is the question sent
when that captain was riding [Page 419] furiously towards the palace.
And the answer - ‘What
hast thou to do with
peace?’ refused the appeal.
It
was war; as the speeding arrow that quivered in the
King’s heart showed.
But now that which was only before a word
of
ceremony, a testimony of one man’s standing towards
another, becomes a reality.
It is peace towards
God,
brought in by the blood of the new
covenant, and by the Priest of God.
He
who bore our sins in death has brought our peace in resurrection.
We are no longer at war with God. God is at
peace with us.
This is the first fruit of faith.
‘Being justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.’
Hence,
He
points out to them the wounds whereby our peace was
made. He
is the Lamb of the Great Sacrifice - the ‘Lamb
as it had been slain.’
He
stands before them as the recovered from the death
of crucifixion,
the mark of the nails in hands and feet being
still apparent.
But He is distinguished from others who
were
crucified, by that spear-thrust in the side, which
John alone has
recorded. His body was flesh still. It
had
not been put off altogether; as
Swedenborgians vainly assert.
The body [of
‘flesh and bones’]
is an eternal
part of the [resurrected and glorified]
man. Though it corrupts and moulders away whilst it is exposed to the
penalty of death, yet as soon as the power of life
from Christ enters it, it
shall be knit again to the spirit [and
soul], no more to
be severed.
The
disciples
present - as from Luke we learn that more than the
ten apostles were there
- recognized by these marks, that it was Jesus who
was before them; and they
rejoiced. His
words were true.
The grief they had felt at His sad
departure
was gone. Man
had done his worst against
Him who is ‘Resurrection and
Life,’ and lo!
He had survived it.
This, then, presents Him as not Jesus only,
or the mere man, but as ‘the
Lord,’
possessor of all power in Himself, and
now bestowed by gift of the Father.
21-23. ‘He
said, therefore, to them again, “Peace be to you;
as My
Father sent Me, I also send you.”
And
when He said this, He breathed on them, and saith
to them, “Receive ye a holy
spirit! Whosesoever
sins ye forgive they
are forgiven to them.
Whosesoever sins
ye retain, they are retained.”’
By
the
fall, God’s image was lost.
By the
redemption in [Page 420] Christ and through the Holy Ghost, that is more than restored, and a
new dominion is here given.
It looks
onward to the great day of the kingdom to come.
Jesus
again
puts on them His ‘Peace’
- a double
portion, designed apparently to belong to disciples
as bearers to others of the
Peace of God. The
twelve, as originally
sent forth by Christ, were to offer peace to any
house they entered.
If it refused it, their peace was to return
to them (Matt. 10.)
Shoes
of
preparation of the Gospel of peace are part of our armour to enable us to fight the good fight. None can properly
go forth to fight the devil, but he who has peace
with God. None
can speak of pardon rightly to others,
but he who has first found peace himself.
The Holy Trinity are all
engaged in the great
work. The
Father sends the Son; the Son
sends the [Holy] Spirit;
the Son and the [Holy]
Spirit send and furnish the disciples for their
great embassy.
This mission of the disciples was fully
according
to the Father’s mind.
Jesus now sends these His
ministers and messengers
with the same commission as His own.
They were to bear witness to the Son of God,
taking His place of
testimony on earth, and possessed of His power.
We should naturally have limited this
position to the twelve
apostles. But
Scripture does not.
Jesus was not addressing apostles as
such. They
are called ‘disciples’
only, eleven times in this chapter, which was
originally the closing
chapter of this Gospel.
They are never
called in John’s Gospel by the official title of ‘apostles.’
Moreover, these words were spoken to those present,
while Thomas was away.
If these were words addressed to those
officially apostles, and to those only, then Thomas
had no part in them, and so
was not a commissioned apostle.
Jesus now sends the
disciples as His witnesses into
the world, even as He Himself had been sent by the
Father. They were by
the Spirit to bear witness to the Son of
God, as the Son had borne witness to the Father. He had
previously by Mary Magdalene given
them His standing before God.
God was to
[Page 421] them their God
and Father,
and they were now to
testify to the
work of Christ as
giving them this place.
And by their witness
they were to lead others, God’s elect, into the same
blessed standing.
Jesus
breathes
on the assembly.
He was the
second Adam, the risen [out] from the dead, taking
the place of the old Adam
before God. But
He was also the Son of God
- Life and Resurrection.
‘The first Adam was made a living
soul, the last Adam was made
a
life-giving spirit.’ When
the body of the first Adam had been
moulded by Jehovah out of the dust, He breathed into
His nostrils the breath of
life. But
the disciples are possessed of
a better life, for He Who inspires now bestows a
spiritual gift.
I
understand those words, ‘Receive
ye a holy spirit,’
(the article is not there) to be parallel with
the words in Luke relating to this scene.
‘Then opened He their
understandings that they
might understand the Scriptures’ (Luke
24:
45). It
was a gift of inspiration
in relation to Old Testament Scriptures and it was
by virtue of this inspired
intelligence that Peter acted in the first of Acts,
according as the Psalm
directs - that another apostle should be chosen in
the place of Judas.
It did not make needless the descent of the
Holy Ghost at Pentecost, of which our Lord in this
Gospel had abundantly
testified, as the near hope of the disciples.
There
is
first (1) the sign, and then (2) its significance.
Breath
in
the sign of life.
Here it is not
needed for Christ, but imparted to others.
As the breath comes forth from the breast, so
this spirit from Christ.
Jesus is possessed of the Spirit after, as
well as before His resurrection.
But
this
inbreathing of the Spirit was to be followed by
peculiar power and
privilege. The
words which follow are
full of difficulty.
How,
then,
are we to understand the difficult speech of our
Lord concerning the disciples’
forgiving or not forgiving sin?
There
are
two main views about them.
1.
That
they are spoken concerning bishops and
persons of authority
in the church, possessed by virtue of
their office, of this [Page 422] special power. Against
this we may set the decisive Scripture
plea that the word is addressed, not to disciples of a special and peculiar class, but to ‘disciples’
in general.
We may add, that bishops and ‘presbyters’
(commonly called ‘priests’)
are not the same as
apostles. So
that if this word belongs
to apostles alone,
then, as they have now no
successors, the privilege has ceased.
2.
But
there is another view which empties the words of
their meaning, as the
other restricts them beyond God’s sense.
According to this, the forgiving of sins is
only the testimony of the preacher,
proclaiming under the Gospel the general terms
according to which sins can be
forgiven or not. It
is the Evangelist testifying to the
world, that the sins of all who repent and accept
the Gospel are forgiven;
while ‘he that believeth not
shall be damned.’
3. That
certainly is not the sense.
There
are
two kinds of forgiveness;
or,
at any rate, two divisions of pardon differently
administered. There
is the preaching of the Gospel of God’s
grace: the testimony that whoever believes receives
the pardon of sin.
Some accept this testimony of God, and are
forgiven by Him.
Then the power here
granted begins to come into play.
The
disciples admit believers to their fellowship, as
being the communion of those
pardoned by God.
Their sins forgiven by
God are owned by disciples also to be forgiven. The
testimony of God is
confirmed by the testimony of the sons of God.
The admitted have a second reason for
believing their forgiveness by
God.
But
offences
arise among those so admitted to the Church.
Some offend against those words of the Lord
Jesus, which require a putting out of offenders from
the assembly of the
pardoned. The
disciples agree to put out
the offender, because of the offence proved.
Then that his sin is retained.
The general previous forgiveness of God is
not done away.
That rested on God’s forgiveness, and the elect one is still a son of God.
But until he is restored by the disciples,
that sin is imputed to him. He
is put
out of the church; put back into the world.
The
history
of the Acts gives us examples.
(1) Ananias
and his [Page
423]
wife offend against the
omniscience of the Spirit of God.
They
were numbered among the disciples; but this special
offence brings them under
the power and judgment of Peter, who retains the
offences; and they are cut
off.
(2)
Among
those admitted to fellowship at
(3)
Of
retaining sins we have
a third example, in Paul’s
delivering
over to Satan, Hymenaeus and Alexander, because
of their leaving the faith of
Christ, and then blaspheming it.
So,
in regard of the world’s sins, we have the smiting
of Barjesus, and the shaking
off the dust of the feet against refusers.
The ‘forgiving’
here answers to the ‘loosing’
in Matt. 16,
and 18., and
the ‘binding’
there answers to the ‘retaining’
here. In
Matthew we have two views of the same
power; in Matt. 16.
as related to Peter, and
the other apostles, virtually.
In Matt. 18.
it
is a power made over to the assembly of
believers.
While,
then,
it is not said – ‘None
are forgiven but
those whom you
forgive’ - so
on the other hand, it is not merely the general
statement of forgiveness as
applicable to certain descriptions of persons; but
it has a particular
application to particular individuals.
And
so great is the authority and the efficacy that is
made over to disciples
hereby, that it is called not ‘power
to forgive,’
but forgiveness.
Under
the Old Testament there was a year of remission of
debts. Now
its reality is come.
The
Corinthian
offender acknowledges his offence; thereupon the
apostle and the
disciples forgive his sin ‘in
the person of Christ’
(2 Cor. 1.)
The offence pardoned below is pardoned above;
and the offender is
restored to his place among the disciples.
‘But do you not open a wide
door to mischief thus?
There are assemblies of believers
where some
are put out wrongly - as suppose, for being
immersed according to Christ’s
command.
Is the one so put out guilty of
sin? and is his sin unforgiven by Christ? so
that it will stand against his
partaking of reward in the day to come?’
By no means.
Such exclusion would not be according to
the spirit
breathed into the disciples,
but according to the flesh.
Such
rejection, as being against Christ’s written words
also would tell, not against
him who was acting in obedience to Christ, but
against themselves,
who were disobeying Him.
It
would tell against their own acceptance and reward
by Christ at His
coming. This
is a point of the
utmost moment, which I would urge on all
‘Exclusives.’ Jesus
says, ‘With the
same measure you measure, it shall be measured
unto you again.’
If so, then Jesus must at last speak to
such
offenders some such word as this: ‘You unjustly shut out from
their Lord’s table those whom you
owned to be sons of God; on Me then it devolves,
to shut you out from sitting
down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the [millennial] kingdom of God.’
24, 25. ‘But
Thomas, one of the twelve, who is called Didymus*
was not with
them when Jesus came.
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 mark of the nails, and put my hand
into His side, I will not
believe.”’
*
This name seems
to be noticed, as indicating being
distracted, or of double mind.
Why
was
Thomas away? We
are not directly
told. But it seems to be hinted, that he did not well to be
away at that momentous crisis, when the tidings of
Jesus’ resurrection were
going abroad.
At all events, it
is designed as a lesson to disciples,
that they should not be absent from the assembly
of the disciples, except on
good and sufficient cause before God; else they
break a command - ‘Forsake
not the assembling of yourselves together, as
the
manner of some is.’
This
failure springs from some evil cause in
themselves, and its effect is to
increase the tendency to unbelief.
Let
the most zealous Christian wilfully
stay away from God’s people, and he will
speedily become cold.
Had
Thomas
been present, the proofs that convinced the other
disciples had sufficed
for him also. But
their testimony did
not suffice him, when he came among them.
They told [Page 425] him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’
‘Jesus’ and
‘the Lord’ are to
them the same Person.
Thomas
was
‘one of the twelve.’ And none
of them was to be lost, but ‘the
son of perdition.’
Hence, as one of the reasons of His second
manifestation, the Saviour
appears a second time to the apostles, that he may
be restored.
The
disciples
did not cast Thomas off, because of his partial
unbelief. But
they try to lead him to faith.
He was a friend and brother, although in
error here: and it is a blessed thing to be
permitted to guide an erring
brother into truth.
Thomas
doubted,
that we might not doubt.
For it
is the glory of God to bring good out of evil.
Probably he may have reasoned thus with
himself - ‘If Jesus be God,
He cannot die.
If He die, He cannot be God.
But, alas, He has died.’
He stands out against their testimony. He must
have it proved to himself, ere he
will believe. Was he right?
Far from
it! Sceptics
like himself have the
appearance of wisdom.
But it is evil
before God. Jehovah
commanded that the
testimony of two or three witnesses should be taken,
even in a case of life and
death. Here
were ten witnesses (not
reckoning the two angels and the women), honest men,
converted men, yet he will
not listen. He
had had also the witness
of our Lord Himself that He would rise again.
Yet he credits it not. Wherein was he
superior to the other apostles in
critical discrimination, that he should imagine that
there was some error in
their senses or their observation, which would
reveal itself to him if he were
permitted to test the matter?
He allowed, it would seem, that they
might have beheld the ghost of Jesus; but that His real body of flesh and bones had come forth from the tomb to life,
he could not believe.
The evidence
of sight would not suffice for him.
But
neither had it sufficed for them. Jesus
welcomed them to handle Him; they did,
and were satisfied.
He must try for himself.
He
will have the evidence both of sight and of touch. He
will
see the marks of death to be found in the nails
and the especial scar made
by the spear; which [Page
426] distinguished Jesus’ body from
those of the other crucified ones.
Shall we translate his words – ‘I
will not believe’ – or – ‘I
shall not
believe’?
The first makes his meaning more full of
unbelief than the other.
It was a matter
of wilfulness, standing out against evidence amply
sufficient. If
we take the other rendering (the
Greek does not make this distinction),
he says, that the evidence was so deficient, that it
would not prevail with
him. This
then was sin. It was
a standing out against the evidence which God
judged enough to convince even of
so miraculous an event as resurrection.
It was not, then, proof of a superior
intellect, but only of a sluggish
heart. For this Jesus upbraided the others as guilty of ‘unbelief,
and hardness of heart.’
It is a spirit like that which
prevails
in the world, and keeps them far off from God and
from peace. It
was
dictating to the Most High how much of evidence
should be given, before he
would credit His testimony.
He might
have been justly left to his unbelief.
But God was gracious, and met the failure of
His disciple with
mercy. He
has, however, to wait
a week in the chill of uncertainty, and out of sympathy with the rest
on this cardinal point.
26-29. ‘And
after eight
days, His disciples were again within, and Thomas
with them. Jesus
cometh while the doors were locked, 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 forth thy
hand, and put it into My side,
and become not faithless, but believing.”
And Thomas answered and said to Him - “My
Lord and my God!”
Jesus saith to him - “Thomas, because
thou
hast seen Me, thou hast believed: blessed are they
that have not seen, and have
believed.”’
From
the
Saviour’s appearing to the assembled disciples on
the Lord’s day or first
day of the week, we gather that believers should
still assemble on that
day. It
is not binding on us by way of
express enactment, in the style of the fourth
command given to
‘Jesus
comes.’
This is God’s testimony against the error that
[Page 427] would speak of
the risen Jesus, as having put off all the body
which He took from Mary.
As if the body in which Jesus appeared was
one which could make itself visible to faith alone,
and therefore was not
material. ‘All
that the Lord took of Mary, by degrees He put off,
till at the cross (says
Swedenborg) the last
portion of it was
dissipated. The
Lord had no material
body. It
was both cast off, and turned
into Godhead!’
Scripture
teaches
the contrary to this.
The Saviour,
after His resurrection, is described by His human
name - ‘Jesus’
still. He
was seen and handled by those
who did not credit the materiality of His body, till
they were satisfied that
the body laid in the tomb had come forth from it. Moreover,
Scripture speaks of the Saviour,
after His ascent to the Father’s right hand, as
still a man. Let me present my
reader
with three passages to this effect.
(1)
Paul, speaking of the opposite effects wrought by
the first man and by the
second, says, ‘For since by
a man came death, by a
man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, even so in the
Christ shall all be made alive’ (1
Cor. 15: 21).
‘The first Adam is
out of the earth earthy; the second man is
the Lord out of heaven’ (45-47). (2) ‘There is one God
and one Mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus’ (1 Tim. 2:
5). To
angels the earth, in its coming day of
glory, is not to be in subjection.
But
one in a certain place testified saying, ‘What
is man that
Thou art mindful of him? or the
Son of Man,
that Thou
visitest him?
Thou hast put all things
in subjection under His feet’ (Heb.
2: 5-8).
Paul then applies this passage to the Lord
Jesus; confessing that as
yet it is not entirely fulfilled in Him; but the
title to this universal power
is His.
But if so, Jesus is
both man and ‘Son of Man.’ By the
latter title He is distinguished from
the first Adam, who was no ‘son
of man,’
but created directly by God’s hand.
In
the
presence of disciples Thomas had announced His
unbelief, and now, in the
presence of disciples, He is rebuked for his
unbelief, and retracts it.
‘Become not faithless.’
This admits his previous faith.
But it warns him that the tendency of doubt
is to mar faith, as dry-rot [Page
428]
saps wood. He
who disbelieves one point is likely to go
on further, and to refuse those points which are
connected therewith.
Jesus
commands faith. We
are responsible for our belief.
Those
who will not accept God’s truth cannot have God’s peace.
See
how
impartial Scripture is!
It sets
before us the short-comings and transgressions even
of apostles. How
unlike man’s ideas!
It finds but One in Whom is no fault, but
all
perfection.
The
Lord
Jesus on this second occasion enters the room in the
same manner as
before, being not excluded by bolts or walls.
Nor does He move from the door to their
midst, but first shows Himself
there. And
His word is still the
same. ‘He came
and preached (heralded)
peace to
the far off and to the
nigh’ (Eph. 2.). He came,
not to judge and destroy His foes;
but to bring peace to believers.
All
unbelievers are at war with God, with His people,
and with themselves.
The Saviour’s first gift is peace.
Is there any reader who has not this peace
of
Jesus’ bringing? - a peace arising out of the
Saviour’s atoning and
obedience? ‘Ask,
and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find;
knock, and it shall be
opened to you.’
Christ
proceeds
at once to show, that He is aware of Thomas’s
unbelief, and of the
attitude of his mind, as demanding special evidence. He
presents to him the very kind of proof he
had challenged.
Though absent, He was
aware of all that had passed.
Here were the pierced
hands. Let
him look and touch them!
They were no illusion.
Here was the pierced side: he could both
behold and touch it.
Now if the wound in
the side had belonged to one possessed of blood, the blood in circulation would still have been pouring out of the
fissure. Here, then, was
something wholly new. The gaping death-wound is
there; yet no blood is issuing
thence.
Here was the evidence of resurrection. Life without
blood, and yet a living flesh!
To
resist
evidence thus granted at his desire, would be to ‘become
unbelieving.’ Thomas
had believed in Jesus up to His death: would he
become unbelieving now
concerning the result [Page 429] of it? Jesus commands his
faith. Unbelief
is death before God, and
uneasiness within.
Did
Thomas
try by touch the reality of the body of Christ? It is not
said. Perhaps
opposite conclusions might be drawn
on this head; according as we regard the Saviour’s
words as a permission, or a
command.
But
what
Thomas did say at length was very effective in proof
of his faith. ‘My Lord
and My God!’ Here
we have a testimony to the Saviour’s
two natures.
He is a man whom Thomas
sees; one who has been wounded to death, and has
recovered from it.
But He
is
also ‘Lord and God.’ He
stands as the Risen One, in a position
never occupied before by man.
Man
as the sinner never came forth
from death and the tomb, clad in eternal flesh. Only One
who is Righteousness and Life could
so come forth.
‘Declared
to be the
Son of God by the power of the
select resurrection [out]
of the dead’ (Rom.
1.) (Greek). And Thomas owns Him to
be ‘his Lord and his God.’
‘My Lord and my God’ are
words, whereby the Psalmist of
the Old Testament testified His faith in Jehovah. ‘Stir
up Thyself, and awake to my judgment, even unto my
cause, my God and my Lord,’
Ps. 35: 23.
‘Yea, the sparrow
hath found an house, and the
swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her
young even thine altars, 0
Lord of Hosts, my King, and my God,’ Ps. 84:
3. We
may compare Thomas’s
testimony with the shout of the convinced multitude
of
Here, now, is the faith of
God’s elect. John,
for rendering worship to an angel, is
twice rebuked.
But Jesus never refuses
religious worship rendered to Himself.
Thus the close of John’s Gospel answers to
its beginning. ‘The Word was
with God, and was God.’ ‘This
is the true God
and Everlasting Life.’ ‘God was manifest in
the flesh.’ And
here is the Son of God, not only
accepting the worship, but teaching us, that this
doctrine was henceforward to
be the true faith of the Church.
To
recognize in Christ, the Risen Victor over sin and
death, our ‘Lord and [Page
430] God,’ is true
faith. Thus,
though Thomas was the last
of the apostles to believe, he is the foremost in
giving to Jesus the name of
God. Yet
his faith still is not equal to
that of the blind beggar, who worships openly, as
soon as the Saviour calls
Himself ‘the Son of God.’
But
cannot
the force of this passage be done away?
Unitarians refuse to bow to this witness. What do
they say then?
That it was on Thomas’s part a profane
expression, the result of sudden and excessive
astonishment; just as people now
say, ‘My God!’
What
shall
we reply? (1)
That such profane
expressions seem not to have been common among the
Jews in general; who were
rather careful, even to excess, against using the
name of Jehovah.
Much less would it be in use among the
religious men who were Jesus’ disciples.
Observe also, it is not merely ‘My God,’ but
‘My Lord
and my God’ - an expression
less likely still.
(2)
Next
we observe, that it was not a pointless interjection
to some one not
visibly present, but a reply and address to the
person just before him.
‘Thomas answered
and said unto Him.’
(3)
But
the third proof is still more decisive.
How did Christ take the words?
He
could not have mistaken their meaning.
Did He regard them as a profane exclamation? Then He
must have reproved it, as a sin
forbidden by the Third Commandment of Moses.
’Twas a sin, worthy of rebuke.
Does He so regard it?
Nay, He
accepts the words as good;
as a testimony of Thomas’s
faith concerning Himself.
Up to that
time the disciple had not so owned the Lord; he had
not rendered to Christ the
homage which was His due.
Jesus
said,
‘Thomas, because thou hast
seen Me, thou
hast believed.’ That
is, our Lord regards his words as
the proof of the disciple’s acceptance of that
truth, of which evidence
sufficient had been given.
Others were
to accept the same truth on like evidence, and to
testify to this position of
Jesus Christ. It
was to be the
characteristic confession of a [regenerate] Christian.
Jesus
has
two classes in view.
(1) His Jewish
disciples and apostles, who, as men of the Law, were
convinced by the [Page
431]
evidence of sight.
(2) But others, of later date, were to
arrive
at the same faith by the testimony of others;
indeed, by the testimony of God.
This
history
is very important, in view of the teaching of
Again,
how
did Thomas, how did the other disciples know Jesus
had risen? Because
their sight, their hearing, their
touch, affirmed that it was Jesus.
On
this,
then, as a foundation the Christian faith rests. ‘The testimony of
the senses is worthy of credit.’ Then the same proof which sets up the Christian religion overthrows
transubstantiation.
Or, if the
testimony of the senses is not to be credited,
neither is the resurrection of
Jesus worthy of credit!
Thomas
and
the rest of the apostles were to have but for a few
hours the sight of
Christ risen, but their faith was to abide for ever. Our faith
rests on the testimony of those who
have beheld. They
were happy in such a
sight. But
‘Blessed’
- happy within and without, are those who believe in
the Son of God without
having seen Him (1 Pet.
1: 8).
There is a full vision of Christ yet to come,
which will be the reward of faith.
30, 31. ‘Now many other Signs also did Jesus before
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 IN HIS NAME.’
This was originally the
close of the Gospel, as the
words show. The
chapter which follows
was added afterwards by the apostle.
Thus it answers to what we find in Mark,
where also there are two
endings of the Gospel.
[Page 432]
John
reviews
the work he has finished, and adds two closing
observations of much
moment and interest.
First- ‘You are
not to suppose that this writing contains all the
instances of Jesus’ miraculous power to which the
apostles were eyewitnesses.’
Here is a contrast to what is usually found
in human biographies.
They tell all they
know, and in the order of time oft inserting much
which the reader finds of not
enough interest and worth to repay the perusal.
In this divine life of Christ, much is
omitted. It
was not necessary to tell us all.
God suggested by His Spirit
to the sacred writers as
much as would suffice for the great ends proposed. Much is
omitted, lest we might be cumbered
with too much material.
It is very observable, that
John omits those parts of the
Saviour’s work and history, in which he himself was
singled out for especial
honour. To
himself, James, and Peter
were three distinct scenes of great interest
presented. Yet,
while the other Gospel writers who were not
present
at them, describe
them,
John does not! This
clearly is not of man.
A biographer naturally dwells most on those
points of his hero’s history in which he was
admitted to his especial
intimacy. But
John tells us nothing of
the (1) Resurrection of the daughter of Jairus, or
(2) of the Transfiguration
on the Mount, or (3) of the Agony in the Garden. In all
three of these scenes he was a
favoured friend.
Why were they omitted?
Because not suited to the especial aim of
the
[Holy]
Spirit
in John’s Gospel.
Here we see that human
motives are not at work, but that the book is of
God, Whose thoughts and ways
are vastly above ours.
‘Many
other SIGNS.’
The miracles of our Lord* are by John not
so
much regarded as present works of wonder, but as
proving doctrines, and
referring to other and future circumstances, of
which they give us the type and
the pledge. Thus
the feeding of the
multitude was designed to prove our Lord to [Page 433]
be greater than Moses, the leader of Israel in the
desert; and to point on to the day when Israel will
again be in trial, will be
led into the desert, and fed there (Rev.
12.).
The opening the eyes of the man born blind
was a proof of Divine power (Ps.
146: 8; Is. 35:
3-5), but it was significant of the mighty
spiritual power of the Lord
Jesus, when He shall turn to Himself the heart of
Israel - that nation which
has been blind from its birth, in spite of God’s
works wrought before
them. As
Moses says (Deut. 29: 4)
– ‘Yet the
Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and
eyes to see, and ears to
hear, unto this day,’ Is.
43: 8.
For the Lord the Messiah shall open their
eyes (Is. 29: 18; 42:
7-18).
Again,
the resurrection of
Lazarus, after corruption set in, and close to
*
He gives
but seven.
Four in
‘Before the disciples.’ They were God’s
witnesses,
present with our Lord the whole three years and a
half of His ministry, when
every day furnished something of interest.
By the wisdom and grace of our God, we have
the story of the Saviour’s
words and deeds at first hand.
It is not
a series of traditions, delivered by word of month
from one to another across
nineteen centuries.
For how much of the
truth would in that case have remained?
But John, one of the original God-chosen eye
witnesses, has been
appointed to give us a view of the great facts which
so nearly concern God’s
glory and our salvation.
Our religion is
one of facts, and its basis is testimony.
That
not
all the memorable events of our Lord’s life were
written by John, we see,
on comparing his account with the three other
Gospels. How
absurd then and wicked the notion
asserted by some, that John’s omission to notice
points delivered by the other
Gospels is a proof that he did not believe them, and
by that omission quietly
sets them aside!
John
next
tells us the great design of his book.
It is a great advantage to know what was an
author’s chief object in
penning a book.
We can thus keep our eye
more distinctly upon the [Page 434] evidence adduced to prove his conclusion.
We shall not be drawn aside by the interest
of the details from noting the great ends they are
intended to subserve.
The book before us was written to prove -
that ‘JESUS IS THE CHRIST,
THE SON OF GOD.’
Now,
against
this fundamental truth of the Christian faith, two
sets of antagonists
arose. (1) The Jews, who denied; and (2) the
Gentiles, who distinguished.
(1)
The
Jewish denier of the Messiahship of Jesus was one,
who expected a deliverer
possessed of marks already foretold by Moses and the
prophets. He
refused Jesus Christ; because, as he
thought, those marks of Messiahship were not found
in Jesus. He
still looks for a Christ yet to come, who
shall fulfil them.
Hence
in
the Gospel of Matthew, which is
especially meant to prove to
(1) Thus Herod enquires,
Where, according to the
prophets, the Christ of Israel was to be born?
They cited to him, therefore, a passage out
of Micah, telling of the
birth of the Son of David in
(2)
But
John’s Gospel is directed against another class of
unbelievers. They
were men of speculation, who credited
not the Old Testament; but imagined that they could
by reasoning attain to the
knowledge of God, and of His methods of procedure. The great
things, asserted by many witnesses,
that had been wrought by Jesus, aroused their minds,
and they accepted [Page
435] as
much of them as would square with their philosophic views; but refused the
rest. Now
one of their fundamental
principles was, that all the evil visible in the
world was the result of
matter. The
soul of man was in itself
pure, but it fell into various evils, moral and
physical, because of its
immersion in matter.
They held also, as
the necessary inference, that the Creator Who had
made man, and so thrust his
soul into the defilement of the body, was a Being
either wilfully, or
unconsciously ignorant and wanting in benevolence. Their
religion then was an attempt to deliver
the human soul from the tyranny of matter, and this
rescue they sought in
various ways; looking on death as the man’s final
deliverance from the evil of
the flesh.
But
how
then could these doctrines stand in face of the
incarnation, and the
resurrection, of Jesus Christ? and the assurance
that the Saviour came as the
Messenger and Agent of the Creator? while, still
further, He was to effect the
reuniting of all men to their bodies, and had
Himself given signs thereof by
the raising of several to life?
They saved then their false
doctrines by distinguishing (1) There were two Gods:
the Creator; a
comparatively ignorant and unhappy Being, the God of
the Jews, just and
terrible; and (2)
the Good God, the perfect Father of the Christ.
Jesus Christ they in like manner
distinguished into two persons: (1) Jesus was the
mere man, born in the usual
way; but (2) The Christ was a supernatural heavenly Being, who came on the
man Jesus after His baptism, and left Him before the
cross.
Now
this
scheme of Satan, while it could admit that most of
the miracles of the
Gospels were true, yet annulled the whole of its
saving power. It
put upon the facts of the Gospel a new and
false interpretation, subversive of the great
doctrines of the Most High.
In our Gospels, God is the perfect One,
and man the sinner;
and sin is a thing, not of matter,
but of the heart. Angels
themselves have fallen.
Moreover, sin can only be taken away by one
taking our flesh, and dying as our substitute.
The
Gospel
of John then is God’s great weapon against this [Page
436]
destructive, subtle scheme of
the Wicked One; and this antagonism is conveyed in
the proposition, that ‘Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God’
- that
is, that Jesus Christ is one person, who is both ‘Son
of Man,’ and ‘Son of God.’
One,
all through His history; both before His baptism,
and up to the cross.
Let us then take a general
view of the proofs
furnished by our Gospel in support of this
master-truth.
1. John in his preface
asserts the oneness of the
Person of the Saviour (1:
14-18). ‘The
Word became flesh.’ Appearing to John and his fellow-disciples as Jesus the man, they
yet owned Him as ‘the Only-begotten from the Father.’
He
was ‘Jesus CHRIST,’
but
one person; even as Moses the Lawgiver was but one.
2. John Baptist testifies
of Jesus, that while He was
born after him, he yet existed before him (1:
26,
27).
3. Andrew confesses the man
before Him as the Messiah
(1: 42).
4. Nathaniel declares his
belief, that Jesus
is ‘Son of
God,’ and ‘King
of Israel.’ And
the Saviour owns this confession as true faith (1:
50, 51); while He
glances
onward to the millennial age as the
day
of resurrection-glory; and owns
the
prophets of the Old Testament as the word of God.
5. The woman of
6. When our Lord tested the
faith of the multitudes
who wished at once to make Him King, by declaring
solemnly, that Messiah could
only save the lost by first dying for sin, and by
their crediting that great
truth - the majority withdrew; and it would seem as
if the confidence of
apostles themselves was somewhat shaken.
Peter replies to our Lord’s challenge,
whether they, too, would [Page
437]
depart with the rest - ‘Lord,
to whom should we go? Thou hast the words of
eternal life.
And we believe and are sure that ‘Thou art
the
Christ,
the Son of God’ (6:
69). Christ
Jesus accepts this as true faith,
while He distinguishes the unbelief of Judas.
7.
Amidst
the frivolous doubts of the multitudes, there were
some who owned Jesus
as the Christ, while His foes were plotting against
Him (7: 41).
8.
When
Lazarus had been interred, and Jesus was come, and
Martha had asserted her
confidence, that even then, if Christ would but ask,
God would grant even her
brother’s resurrection, the Saviour would enlarge
her views of His greatness,
and tell her that he was Himself Resurrection and
Life. Martha
says, ‘Yea,
Lord, I believe, that Thou art
the Christ, the Son of God,
Who was to come into the world’
(11: 27).
9.
The
Saviour’s own testimony in prayer to His Father is
that to know Himself,
Jesus Christ, and the Father as the One God, is
eternal life (17: 3).
‘Jesus
is (also) the Son
of GOD.’
This
is
another designed counter-assertion against Satan’s
deceit. ‘Jesus’ is the
human name of Him who was from eternity the ‘Son
of God’
or ‘the Word.’
To prove this is the great design of the
Gospel; as the Holy Spirit here
informs us. It
cannot, then, but be
edifying to see, how the Holy Spirit makes the
history prove this. Let us take
some of the striking points.
1.
The
baptism of our Lord by John was one of the turning
points in His
history. It
was His visible anointing
with the Spirit, the commencement of His great
life-work. Now
it was at this point that Satan’s
corruption of the truth by Gnostic error came in. Certain it
is that Jesus, who up to that time
had appeared to be the son of Joseph and Mary only,
who had wrought no public
work, or miracle - from that day and forward began
His ministry of wisdom and
power. The
corrupters of the truth gave
then their false explanation of the scene at the
baptism. According
to them, up to baptism Jesus was
only the man; and the dove which descended on Him
was a heavenly [Page
438]
Being, inferior indeed to the
Supreme God, but sent by Him; and that Being was
named ‘the
Christ.’ By Him
the works of the Christ were wrought.
See,
then,
how John rectifies this error.
The
apostle does not narrate over again the immersion of
our Lord by John, but He gives
the Baptist’s testimony concerning this event (1:
29-34).
John Baptist testifies,
that Jesus
was a man; Who, though born
after him, was yet in existence before him. And
his mission of immersion to
2.
Nathaniel,
struck with astonishment at Jesus’ knowledge of him
before seeing
him, confesses ‘Jesus’ to be ‘the Son of God, and King of
(3)
Nicodemus
owned our Lord Jesus Christ to be a teacher sent
from God. The
Saviour describes Himself as One who had
come down from heaven, and yet ‘the
Son of Man’
(3:
13).
He described Himself as ‘the Son
of God’
sent by the
Father to save (5: 16). He was ‘the Son
of God’ in a sense not attributable to any
other.
Hence He calls Himself ‘the
ONLY-BEGOTTEN Son
of God.’ And
He declares that salvation turns on this acceptance
of Him (18).
4.
John
Baptist again re-affirms so essential a testimony. When his
disciples were jealous of the
increasing greatness of [Page 439] Jesus, and John Baptist’s diminution of glory, the Baptist rightly
took the inferior place; asserting that he had
confessed himself not to be the
Christ, and much less the Son of God; but only His
forerunner. He,
to whom he had at His baptism borne
witness, had come from heaven; and therefore was
superior to himself.
He was the Son, into whose hand the Father
had given all things.
To believe on Him
was eternal life.
To refuse Him is to
lie under the wrath of God for ever (3:
36).
5.
This
same truth comes out fully in the history of the
cure at
6. The Saviour feeds the
five thousand, and multitudes
follow Him. But
He testifies, that He
had better food to give them, even [Page 440] that which endureth to eternal life (John
6: 26, 27).
‘Jesus
said unto them,
“I am the bread of life”’ (35). Faith
in Him as the Son of God gives eternal life, and a
resurrection at the last day
(40, 47).
The eating of Him by faith was eternal life (47-51).
7.
Jesus
heals the man born blind.
He
confesses the Saviour a prophet, and is ejected from
the synagogue.
Our Lord, then, calls him to own Him as ‘the Son of God.’
He
does, and worships.
Christ, then, owns
him as the seeing man, while His refusers were blind
(9:
37). Jesus
next describes Himself
as the Son of the Father, who had power over His own
life to give it up, and to
resume it at His will.
‘I
and the Father are one’ (10: 30). The Jews for this
would stone Him as a blasphemer.
Jesus
admits that He called Himself, ‘the
Son of God’
(36).
That is, He asserted His possession of God’s
own nature, in declaring
Himself to be one with the Father.
8.
At
the raising of Lazarus, Martha expresses her faith,
that Jesus, if He would
but ask God, would obtain power for the occasion to
raise her brother.
Our Lord is not content with so low a view
of
His person and power, but declares Himself to be
God, having Life in Himself,
and the power to raise the dead, which is
characteristic of Almightiness (11:
25).
Accordingly, He does not say to His friend –
‘In
the name of Jehovah, come forth!’ - but in
His own name He raises the
sleeper.
The
false
teachers, unable to understand the love of God,
asserted that the Christ
who came on Jesus after ‘the
water’ (or the Saviour’s
baptism), left Him again before ‘the
blood’ (or
the Lord Jesus’ crucifixion).
John,
therefore, gives us the Father’s audible response
from the heaven to the appeal
of Jesus uttered in view of His sufferings and death
(12.)
He was ‘Son of Man,’
for
He was about to suffer (23). He must
die as the seed, to rise again as the
ripened plant.
Should He ask the Father
to deliver Him from that hour?
No, it
was with a view to that hour that He had come.
The Father then promised, that as He had
already glorified the Son, so
He would do it again (28). In His
last prayer He describes Himself to
the Father as still the Son (17:
1). And
to
Pilate He is accused as making Himself [Page 441]
the Son of God (19: 7). Now had He
been at that moment only Jesus -
the Christ who had led Him into that awful crisis
having fled away - that
was the occasion on which to say so; and His
testimony to that effect would
probably have disarmed His persecutors.
Moreover,
after
His resurrection, Jesus testifies that He had not
ascended yet to His
Father; but was going to do so.
This
again contradicts the Gnostic teaching.
According to them, the Christ had long before
ascended again to the
heaven (20: 17).
Next
comes
the further design of this inspired testimony. It is
-
(1) THAT WE MAY BELIEVE; and
(2) IN SO DOING FIND ETERNAL LIFE.
Not
all
believe this witness, though it is of God and of His
Son.
Through
unbelief
in God’s word, at the devil’s temptation, came in
disobedience and
death in
‘Ye might have life.’
By
‘life’ here is meant
not only ‘spiritual life now
enjoyed,’ but also eternal bliss
completed in resurrection.
It is very
noticeable how often the phrase ‘eternal
(or ‘everlasting’) life’
occurs in John’s Gospel.
While it is
found only three times in each of the other
evangelists, it occurs seventeen
times in John’s Gospel.
It
has
been already noticed how often ‘eternal
life’
is connected with the name of our Lord in some of
the passages which have been
cited; as in (1) John Baptist’s testimony; (2) in
our Lord’s word to Nicodemus;
in (3) His teaching at Capernaum.
[Page 442]
We
may,
however, take another passage or two.
(4)
‘He that eateth My flesh and
drinketh My blood hath eternal
life’
(John 6: 54).
(5)
The
Saviour enquires of the apostles if they were about
to forsake Him, as the
multitudes had done?
Peter replies ‘Lord,
to whom should we go?
Thou hast the words of eternal life’ (6: 68).
(6)
Jesus,
having taken to Himself the blind man whom He had
made to see - the
rejected by the men of Law - declares him to be a
specimen of the sheep who are
the Father’s gift to Him, and of whom He is the
Shepherd. He then adds -
‘My sheep hear My voice, and I
know them, and they follow Me, and I
give them eternal life,
and
they shall not perish for ever, neither shall any
pluck them out of My hand’
(10: 27, 28).
(7)
Lastly,
Jesus in His priestly prayer, says – ‘As
Thou
hast given Him power over all flesh, that He
should give eternal life
to as many as Thou hast given Him.’ And then
the saving truth through which this
is received. ‘Now
this is eternal
life, that
they should know
(recognise) Thee the only true God, and Him whom
Thou hast sent, Jesus Christ’
(17: 2, 3).
Jesus
Himself
is ‘Life.’
John testifies it in the opening of His
Gospel (1: 4). Jesus says
it of Himself (5: 26),
and asks the confession of it by His
disciple (11: 25).
We must confess Jesus as ‘the
Son’ –
God’s own Son, His ‘Only-begotten Son.’
In
this name of Christ
is life. And He who believes
hath the life which the Son of God bestows.
Nor is spiritual life all, for Jesus adds
that He will raise up such at
the last day; since eternal life will be spent in
the restored flesh.
Confirmatory
of
all this is John’s first Epistle, which was
apparently sent with his Gospel,
and which discloses still more fully the deceits of
the errorists against whom
He was contending. There he says – ‘If
we receive the
witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for
this is the witness of God
which He hath testified of His Son. He that
believeth on the Son of God hath
the witness in himself: he that believeth not God
hath made Him a liar; because
he believeth not the record that God gave of His
Son. And
this is the record, that God hath given
to us eternal life, and
this life is in His Son.
He that hath
the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of
God hath not life.
These things have I written unto you that
believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may
know that ye have eternal
life, who believe on the name of the Son of God. And this
is the confidence that we have in
Him, that, if we ask any thing according
to
His will, He heareth us.’
Thus
the
preface of John’s Gospel answers to the close. He began
by the testimony that Jesus is the
Son of God, the Creator, possessed of life; and now
he asserts the same, and
the possession of eternal life by us who believe in
Him.
*
*
*
CHAPTER
21.
[Page 444]
1.
‘After these things Jesus
manifested Himself again to
His disciples at the
Jesus
is
said to manifest Himself now; because, while He was
aware of their
movements, they could not see Him, unless He was
pleased to show Himself to
them. This
was suited to His new
resurrection-life, and preparatory to His ascent,
which, however, John names
not. He
manifests Himself.
Who is John? or
who
is Peter? in presence of
His so great majesty.
He shows Himself in wisdom and power,
superior far to theirs.
This
appendix
to John’s Gospel confirms the authenticity of the
addition to
Mark’s. Both
are genuine. This
is in the style of John.
It carries its own evidence of reality with
it, in its simplicity, power, and the Divine wisdom
and grace, with which the
difficult task of restoring Peter after his fall is
handled. No
writer of fiction would ever have so
treated the matter.
Why was it
added? Many
reasons, doubtless, there
were in the mind of God.
But one strong
reason, as it seems to the writer, was,
that it was
intended to refute by facts the Gnostic idea - that
Jesus after resurrection
was not the same being of divine wisdom and power
that He was before His
death. And
here He is seen, not indeed
partaking of food, but providing it for disciples -
aye, even animal food, to
the errorists peculiarly obnoxious.
2, 3.
‘There were together Simon
Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of
Cana in
The
sacred
number seven here re-appears among the disciples. The eighth
person is the Risen One; eight
being the number of [Page 445] resurrection. Thomas the
doubter is there, but he doubts no more. Peter
is there, and now he is to be restored
to his lost place and spirit. There
are
also James and John, the sons of Zebedee. Here
alone they are called so. But
it, serves John’s purpose, thus to
withdraw his own name from prominence. They
have
left
Peter has the leader’s spirit. It is not, ‘Shall we
go fishing?’ He
has already decided it, and his energy
draws others after him. Jesus
does not
rebuke this turning to their nets and boats. For
it was excused by His
word (Luke
22: 36). ‘He
that hath a purse let him take it, and likewise a scrip.’ But
by this event He would put an end to the
catching of fish: henceforth the apostles were to
take men. Now,
too, the catching was to be followed by partaking.
John,
with his usual modesty, puts
himself and his brother last of the apostles who are
named.
4-6.
‘But when morning had
already come, Jesus stood on the
beach; but the disciples knew not that it was
Jesus.
Saith
therefore to them Jesus, “Little children, have ye,
any thing to eat?” They
answered Him, “No!” But 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 drag it up, because of the multitude of the
fishes.’
After
His
resurrection Jesus is no longer ever by their side
as before, but He comes
and goes at unexpected times. He
knows
their need, and is about to supply it. But
it
is not in
Jesus
is
on the land: He is on the firm element of eternity.
He does
not now sit on board their barks as
before. They are fishing now; it is their time of
labour in this unquiet world.
They
were
unable to lift up on deck out of the waters the vast
weight of fish. But
they were able to draw it through the
water - a much less difficult operation. The
net is the same as before, the lake and
the fishermen are the same; the difference lies in
the blessing given of God. In
their vain
toil we see the inefficiency of
man left to himself. In
their success,
the power of God. Jesus has Himself to complain (in Is. 49.)
of
His unsuccess.
The
miracle
in Luke was preparatory to the call of Peter, James,
and John. This
later one was designed to show that they
were to bid adieu to their earthly calling, and
devote themselves to the
apostleship, and its nobler work. There
is
a stranger on the beach at early morn. Who it is they know not, but
He will discover Himself by His word and work.
His
address
is simple: such as any stranger might use.
‘Lads! have
you any provision on board?’
Christ
would attract their attention to
their previous toil, and its want of success. Those who go out in their own wisdom, and relying on their own
strength, have oft to learn their feebleness and
inability; and the Most High
would load us to note it.
But
now
a blessing is to come upon obedience. The
voice of the Son of Man enters into their
unfavourable circumstances, to supply all their
wants. They
obey the stranger’s advice, and great is
the reward. In
place of their many vain
casts, this one brings a great haul.
Let us now compare the
present incident with the
earlier [Page 447] one
related by
Luke. The
Saviour after preaching to the multitude,
bids Peter launch out into the deep, and let down
the nets for a draught. Peter
replies, ‘Teacher,
we have been labouring through all the night, and
have caught nothing, but at Thy
word I will let down the net.’
Observe the blended good humour
and unbelief of Peter!
The Teacher had
bid them let down all their nets. Peter will cast one of them. Jesus
bids him let them down for a take
of fish.
Peter
has no idea of such a thing. ‘What!
After
toiling
all the proper time for fishing, and taking
naught, are we to try in the hot
sun, and close to shore? What
will other
fishermen say of so foolish a proceeding? This
man may be a very excellent teacher, but
what can He know about fishing? We
know
this water well; were brought up to it from boys.
However,
I will let down one of the nets, just
to please Him; and then He will learn by the
practical results what a foolish
idea His was!’ He
does. And
the result amazes him. Had
the other nets been cast, they had taken
in part the strain from off this one; now the stress
is so great, that the net
keeps rending all along. Now they want all their
partners’ help to secure the
fish. They
are so filled, that they are
laden to the water’s edge. See,
then how
Peter’s thoughts are overturned! In
this
book-learned man, who knows nothing about fishing,
he has found One who
knows and can do vastly more than himself. He
blames himself sorely, then, for his
unbelief. Who
is this that does such
things? ‘Depart
from me, for I am a sinful man, 0 Lord.’
How soon can the Lord change
discouragement into joy! We
look to the
ordinary current of things, and imagine that all
must run its usual course, and
maintain the average level. But
the
Christian’s eye should be on Him who is able at a
moment to alter all for good,
and so to revive his work, that there shall not be
power to overtake all the
results of good.
7,
8. ‘Saith therefore that disciple
whom Jesus
loved to Peter, “It is the Lord.” Simon
Peter, therefore, hearing that it is the
Lord, girt round him his fisher’s coat, for he was
naked, and cast himself into
the sea. But
the [Page
448] other disciples came in the little vessel, for they were not far
from the land. but about
two hundred cubits off, dragging
the net with the fishes through the water.’
John
is
the first to discover Jesus by the instinct of love.
He gives
Him His title of ‘the
Lord.’ This may
answer in Hebrew to one of two words
(1) Adonai, or (2) Jehovah. The
Saviour
was discovering Himself as the Son of Man exalted
over all things, specially
over the fish of ‘the sea,
and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the
seas.’ Peter
at once displays himself as the man of
directness and action. He
will not wait
for the slow punting of the vessel to land. He
will dash through the water to the Lord. Thus
Peter is not supreme in discernment, but
in energy; he is led by John. God
gives
different gifts to different disciples at His
pleasure.
But
here
is great advance. Peter
has fallen,
since the miracle narrated by Luke; and has
displayed that he is ‘a
sinful man’ beyond what he thought. But he has
learned, too, that this Teacher of
his early thoughts is the Lord of Grace, who ‘receiveth
sinners and eateth with them.’ He
does
not ask Jesus, then, to depart from him; on the
contrary, he will overcome all obstacles to join Him.
But
he
is found naked and feels that he must not present
himself thus to the Lord
of all. He
clothes himself, therefore,
with his fisherman’s smock-frock, and swims ashore.
This may
remind us of Paul’s word ‘If at
least being
clothed [with
our resurrection-body] we shall not be
found naked’ [of good works].
The
other
disciples follow Peter more slowly to the land in
their vessel in the
ordinary mode, and are at so little distance from
the beach that they arrive at
it almost as soon as Peter, although they have to
drag the net with its weight
of fish.
9-11. ‘When
then they had come away to the land they see a
fire of
coals laid, and a fish lying thereon, and bread. Saith to
them Jesus – “Bring some of the fish
which ye have now caught.” Simon
Peter
then went up and drew the net on to the land, full
of great fishes, an hundred
and fifty-three; and although they were so many,
the net was not torn.’
‘They see.’
The
result is before them; but the
hands that had laid it, they saw not. There
is
much untold, much not to [Page 449] be known here. John
had
told us before of the feeding of the multitude
in
Whence
came that fire of coals,
that fish, and that bread? We
cannot say: we can only guess that it was
by the ministry of angels, at the word of the Lord
of all. They
ministered to Him in the days of His
flesh: much more are they at His beck now.
Jesus
calls
them ‘the fish which they
had then taken.’
The
Saviour will gladly own His people’s
co-operation with Him in the work, although the
power and blessing come from Himself.
Yet He
bids
us look on to the day, when the sowers and the
reapers shall rejoice together,
over the fruit gathered in to life eternal.
The
disciples
had fed Him before,
on the
first day of His resurrection, on a piece of broiled
fish and a honey-comb. He
now feeds them in return. He
has been aware of their want
of success, their fatigue, their discouragement,
and their hunger; and lo,
unexpectedly their wants are supplied, and their
souls encouraged. Poor
Christian! Around
you may be no visible supply of your
need. But
you serve a Master who has all
hearts and means at His disposal; and who can
furnish a table and provisions on
the sea-beach! Christian
in difficulty! You
are discouraged by previous
disappointment; perhaps, because you have left
the Lord out of the matter,
thinking it too small an affair to bring to the
Great Master of all. Look
up now to the Lord your Shepherd! See
here His goodness and power!
The
Apostles
shall help to furnish the table. The
Lord could do all alone. But
in His grace he will have us to be co-workers
with Him. They
had now caught a wealth
of fish, who before had been so cast down by
failure.
Here
is
something to be done. And
Peter,
despite his dripping clothes, is the man to do it. It would
seem as if he did it alone. The
net has been left just at the edge of the
water. He
draws it up on the land, and
throws out and counts the fishes.
‘Great fishes’
- filling the
net – ‘a
hundred-and-fifty-three.’ Why
is the number given? It is not easily said.
But
there is some [Page
450]
meaning in it. The
number given is a part of the book of God,
and of the Gospel of His grace; and there is nothing
idle there. Some
suggest, that it was because it was a
general idea of those times, that the number of the
nations of the world was a
hundred-and-fifty-three; and that this haul of fish
was intended to typify the
salvation of some out of every tribe and tongue. Though there
were so many, the net now does
not rend. Perhaps
it was typical of the
day, when, after Jesus’ reappearing, Israelite
messengers shall be sent to the
nations to lead them to
12. ‘Saith
to them, Jesus, “Come and breakfast!” Now
none of the disciples dared ask Him – “Who
art Thou?” - knowing that it is the Lord.’
This
scene
shows us that the God of the Old Testament and the
God of the New are
one; that the God of creation is also the God of the
Gospel: a truth quite
contrary to Gnostic speculations. After the long night of Gospel toil, Jesus shall meet His workmen on
the firm land of the promised heritage, and on
the glorious morn of
resurrection.
13, 14. ‘Jesus cometh, and taketh the bread and giveth to them, and the fish
likewise. This
is already the third time
that Jesus was manifested to the disciples after
His resurrection from the dead.’
It
seems
to have been a silent meal. None
doubted,
or durst ask, who was the stranger that spread the
feast? It
was the Lord! His
hand was on the fish. He
supplied, as Jehovah, the table, in the
midst of His foes.
Jesus
takes
the first place. He
is the host,
and they His guests, to whom He distributes. It is not
said, that on this occasion He
partook with them. He
would let us know, that
while the Risen One can eat, He is not now, as
those who are in their animal state, dependent on
the supply of food. But
against the deceits abroad in the latter
day, He sanctions anew [Page 451] the use of animal food. On this
question – food - Satan at first
overthrew men; he will again, at this point, make a
new breach, and enter
in. ‘What right
have you to kill, and feed upon the dead? How
cruel and unwarrantable, to take away a
life you cannot give! No
wonder man is so
savage and cruel, when he lives on flesh! Are
not the fruits of the earth sufficient,
that you must go down to the sea, and peril your
own life upon that treacherous
element, in order to take away the lives of the
creatures that disport
themselves there?’ What
is to be
our anchor, against this new wind of doctrine? The
Scripture! God’s
grant of animals for food in Noah’s day,
and the Saviour’s continual sanction of it,
and of the
use of fish especially - before
His death, and after His
resurrection!
15. ‘When,
therefore, they had breakfasted, Jesus saith to
Simon
Peter, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me
more than
these?” He
saith unto Him, “Yea, Lord,
thou knowest that I have a friendship for Thee.” He saith
unto him, “Feed My lambs.”
Divine wisdom and grace shine forth in the
Saviour’s treatment of the penitent
apostle. Most men would have felt, that all further
intercourse was cut off between Jesus and him who
had, after warning, denied
all knowledge of Him with oaths and curses. The
Lord
would restore Him in grace. He
does
not then reproach him. He does not
separate him from His company,
and from the company of his fellow-apostles, as
is commanded in cases of flagrant
sin. ‘With such an
one no, not to eat.’ He
seats him at the board which he has spread.
He
does
not allude to the past, till the meal was ended.
The
like
would never occur again in the apostle’s life, He
would die a martyr. But
still it
was not wise, that no notice should be taken of so
heavy a fall; a fall both
personal and official. The
offence
had been public, and now Jesus touches the root of
the matter; the
apostle’s too high thoughts of himself
and his powers. How
much of trouble
and mischief would have been spared to the ancient
churches of Christ in the
days of the Roman heathenism, if they had taken this
as their model of dealing
with a fallen brother! Many
refused ever
to re-accept to communion one, who, under stress of
persecution, had sacrificed
to heathen gods, to save his life.
[Page 452]
Our Lord
addresses him now by his old name of nature.
‘Simon,
son
of Jonas.’
He
had shown himself not to be the ‘Rock’
in his
late encounter with Satan. He
is called,
then, by the name of his earthly father. And
the Master questions his love to Him. There
is a remarkable change and play of words
in this narrative, which is difficult to render into
exactly equivalent
English. Jesus
uses one word to express
love. Peter
uses one implying a less
degree; which might best, I think, be translated by,
‘I
have a friendship for Thee.’
‘Lovest
thou
Me more than
these?’
In
the concluding words of this sentence the Saviour
alludes to Peter’s boastful
words of unbelief. Jesus
had said, ‘All ye shall be
stumbled because of Me
this night.’ Peter
answered and
said, ‘Though all should be
stumbled because of Thee,
yet will I never be stumbled,’ Matt.
26: 31-33.
He had
thus proudly taken a stand above
the other disciples, only to fall far worse than
they: Jesus, then, touches his
too high thoughts of himself, and the unjust
assumption of a height of love above
that of his fellow-apostles.
But
his fall has done him good; has abated his high ideas of
his superior love and steadfastness. He will not now
affirm any superiority over others. He will
only assert to Christ his friendship;
resting for proof now, not on his own asseveration,
but on His knowledge to Whom
all hearts were open.
Jesus bids him, ‘Feed
My lambs.’ They
would need gentle dealing; and Peter’s
sense of his weakness would be a good internal
preparation for intercourse with
the young and infirm in the faith. Inasmuch as he fell, being tempted, he was prepared to speak in grace
to those weak and tempted. He
was, then,
accredited by Christ with this charge.
When a
man has been ejected from his land, and
is by law reinstated, a sheriff’s officer puts into
his hand a sod of the land,
in token that the property is legally his once more. So Jesus
puts into Peter’s hand this service
to youthful Christians. It
is so
connected with love to Christ in the Saviour’s first
question, as to hint to us
the important truth, that such service can only be
undertaken, and executed
aright through the love of Christ as its motive. In [Page
453] the Saviour’s case we see how the firmness of love cab be combined with
its gentleness.
16. ‘He
saith again the second time, “Simon, son of Jonas,
lovest
Thou Me?” He
saith to him, “Yea, Lord,
Thou knowest I have a friendship for Thee.” He saith
unto him, “Shepherd My sheep.”’
Peter’s
denials
had brought his love into public question;
therefore, though the
Saviour knew his heart, He again enquires as one not
fully satisfied. Peter
answers as before, substituting a word
of less feeling than that of our Lord, as marking
his sentiments towards Christ.
The
Saviour makes this profession the
occasion or restoring to him the place over the
elders of the flock.
He says, ‘My sheep.’
‘My lambs.’ The flock
is not Peter’s, but Christ’s.
Nor does Peter ever assert it; whatever use
some may make of Peter’s supposed rights.
He speaks of Christ as ‘the
chief Shepherd,’
and of himself as only ‘fellow-elder,’
and ‘under-shepherd’
(1 Pet. 5:
1-9).
Here,
Jesus
takes the place of Jehovah. Even
the
earthly flock of
17. ‘Jesus
saith to him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonas,
hast
thou a friendship for Me?”
Peter
was grieved because He said to him the
third time, “Hast thou a friendship for Me?”
and he
said unto Him, “Lord, Thou knowest all things;
Thou knowest that I have a
friendship for Thee.” Jesus saith unto him, “Feed
My sheep.”’
This
third
time of calling Peter’s love in question is most
manifestly in allusion
to Jesus’ threefold warning of his fall, and to
Peter’s nine-fold denials - three
for each warning. Christ
still calls him
by his name as a child of Adam. This
third
time grieves Peter. Doubtless
it
was saddening to have even his asserted friendship
for Christ questioned, and
that before the other apostles. Doubtless
it
touched him the more closely, that it brought back
to memory the hour of his
self-confidence, and of his fall. But
it
was a wound with a view to heal. And
it
was effectual. Even
with the martyr’s
death in its most cruel form before him, Peter
denied no more. But
he now asserts [Page 454]
Jesus’ omniscience, which before he had questioned,
when on that night the Lord had foretold Peter’s
fall.
He
appeals
now not to his own feelings - as if Christ could not
be aware of their
depth and sincerity, or he never would have spoken
of Him as he had done - but
he appeals to Christ, as the reader of all hearts,
that he had the sentiments
which he had asserted. Here
is Gospel
grace. The Lord restores
after a fall. How
unlike to
the treatment of Eli under Law!
This
profession
again, is met on our Lord’s part by a committing to
him His sheep! This
was not constituting
Peter supreme over the other apostles; as, for
instance, over John. These
three commissions were not so much to
Peter’s credit, as a reminding him of his sin. The absence
of them was a glory to John. Jesus
never thus questions John’s love. But, for the
third time we have it intimated
to us, that love to
Christ is the alone true and
stable foundation of service to Christ’s flock. He is no
shepherd owned of Christ, who,
however consecrated by men, has neither faith nor
love to Christ.
Again,
we
learn that Jesus is the true and central object of
love to all His people. Thus
once more He tacitly asserts His Godhead.
For who, save
our Creator and Preserver, may challenge our undivided
love as the principle of our
service? ‘Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.’
18. ‘Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, when thou wert younger,
thou
usedst to gird thyself, and walkedst where thou
wouldest, but when thou shalt
become old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands,
and another shall gird thee,
and bear thee whither thou wouldest not.’
Jesus
in
resurrection shows Himself the same person in look,
in speech, in power, as
before His death. Here
we have His
characteristic – ‘Verily,
verily, I say.’ He
now discovers Himself as the Prophet. Though
Peter had once denied Him, his faith at
last would be so firm as to stand the sorest shock.
The Lord
had already said - ‘Whither
I go, thou canst not follow Me
now, but
thou shalt follow Me hereafter.’ This He
expands. At
the close of his service for Christ and
His Church, Peter would endure the martyr’s death. He would
suffer even the kind [Page
455] of
death endured by our Lord. The
Saviour speaks of it, in contrast with his
youthful energy and independence. There
is
an allusion to his previously described conduct in
this miraculous draught
of fishes. There we read of Peter’s girding
himself, and plunging into the sea alone of the apostles. But
in his old age, he would be arrested, and
bound, and carried, probably on some vehicle (as we
read of Polycarp), to
execution. His stretching forth his hands, and his
helplessness, allude to his
arms thrown and nailed apart in crucifixion. Where
and when did this take
place? There
is variety of testimony,
and nothing certain.
‘Whither
thou wouldest
not.’ How
wise and
temperate the Scripture!
It is not – ‘Thou
shalt go joyfully to death.’ Even
where the spirit quells the flesh, the
martyr’s death, specially
by crucifixion, must give
the soul a shock. We
see in the Lord
Himself a moment’s pause.
19
‘This He said, hinting by
what kind of death He would
glorify God.
And when He had spoken this
He said – “Follow Me.”’
Death, to those in Christ
is now no longer the dread
penalty of the Law inflicted on the guilty culprit.
It is a falling asleep in Christ;
which opens to the departed a new world and a vision
of Christ which is very
far better than this life. What
the mode
of death of each of the saints shall be, we know
not. But
borne
with faith, it glorifies God. We
may be thankful that its time and mode are arranged by our Father on high. Peter’s
was a cruel death, but it glorified God. It
showed how firm his faith, how strong his
hope and confidence in Christ.
‘The blood of
the martyrs is the seed of the Church.’ ‘If we with Him suffer, we
shall with Him reign.’
The Saviour’s last words to Peter and
to us are – ‘Follow Me!’
Our
great
Captain of salvation has gone first, and it is
ours to tread in His stops.
With Him
the Father was ever well
pleased. And
all that God desires is
summed up in
a following of Christ.
This, in
relation
to Peter’s case, more definitely foretold His death
by crucifixion. The
tradition is that Peter declared himself
to his persecutors unworthy to die as his Lord and
Master had done; and hence
he begged them to crucify him [Page 456] with his head downward. His
request,
it is said, was complied with. Thus
again
he glorified God.
20-22. ‘Peter
having turned, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved
following, (who
also reclined on His breast at
the supper, and said, “Lord, who is it that
betrayeth Thee)?” Peter, on
seeing him,
saith to Jesus, “Lord,
and what of him?” Saith to
him Jesus, “If I
wish him to remain till I come, what is that to
thee? Do
thou follow me.”’
Peter
having
a peculiar friendship for John, and knowing also
Jesus’ love for John,
desired to learn of our Lord as a prophet what end
should befall John, their
mutual friend? John’s
description of
himself, here fuller than elsewhere, points to the
mutual love which reigned
between him and our Lord. At
Peter’s request,
John had asked the Lord - Who was the betrayer? and
had obtained a reply. Peter
now asks for
John, but gets no direct reply. This
does
not, then, manifest Peter’s superiority but the
reverse. The
Saviour’s answer is in part rebuke. It is
the reply of a Sovereign, who does not narrate to
every one his counsels. He
assumes, that all
shall be regulated by His will.
Here
again, the Divine Majesty shines out. ‘My
counsel shall
stand, and I will do all MY pleasure.’ Our own path is of
prime
importance to us. How many turn
aside to look at others instead of minding their
own work! Of
ourselves we shall give account.
But
what
did Jesus mean by John’s abiding till He came? Strange and
untrue guesses are uttered
concerning it. (1) ‘It
meant that John would over-live
the destruction of
(2)
Some
make it John’s writing the Apocalypse concerning our
Lord’s advent. (3)
Some, more strangely still, make it the
believer’s death. Now
that is his going
to be with Christ, but not Christ’s coming, which
takes effect once for all on
His people, both the living and the dead. That
idea is the more unsuited, because the
next verse tells us, that the disciples of that day
understood the Lord Jesus
to mean, that John should not die.
[Page
457]
They believed and hoped, that
the Lord might come before their death, really and
in person; and that is to be
our hope too. It
is the Scripture hope,
set before the whole Church; and it has not altered,
in spite of passing
centuries of the Lord’s tarrying.
Jesus
prophesied
to Paul and Peter of their individual death. But our hope
is the being caught away to
Christ without death. The
verse which
immediately follows was probably added after John’s
death, to obviate the stumbling
of some, as if our Lord’s word had failed.
That the two next verses
are from the hands of some
uninspired person, I make no doubt; convinced both
internal and external
evidence. They
are of no more value than
the notes at the end of the Epistles; such as the
subscription to Titus.
‘Written to Titus,
ordained
the first bishop of the church of the Cretans,
from Nicopolis, of
The general lesson
derivable from the concluding
verses of this Gospel is,
that the Saviour’s disciples
are distributable into two classes, with reference
to their end. Wither
we shall fall asleep before Christ
comes; or we shall be alive on earth at His advent. In which
of these classes shall we be
found? We
do not know. It
is not designed we should.
We are to watch and follow Christ!
-------
BEMROSE AND SONS, PRINTERS,
LONDON AND DERBY