THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO

JOHN

Commentary by David Brown

John

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John

INTRODUCTION

The author of the Fourth Gospel was the younger of the two sons of Zebedee, a fisherman

on the Sea of Galilee, who resided at Bethsaida, where were born Peter and Andrew his

brother, and Philip also. His mother's name was Salome, who, though not without her im-

perfections (Mt 20:20-28), was one of those dear and honored women who accompanied

the Lord on one of His preaching circuits through Galilee, ministering to His bodily wants;

who followed Him to the cross, and bought sweet spices to anoint Him after His burial, but,

on bringing them to the grave, on the morning of the First Day of the week, found their

loving services gloriously superseded by His resurrection ere they arrived. His father, Zebedee,

appears to have been in good circumstances, owning a vessel of his own and having hired

servants (Mr 1:20). Our Evangelist, whose occupation was that of a fisherman with his

father, was beyond doubt a disciple of the Baptist, and one of the two who had the first in-

terview with Jesus. He was called while engaged at his secular occupation (Mt 4:21, 22), and

again on a memorable occasion (Lu 5:1-11), and finally chosen as one of the Twelve Apostles

(Mt 10:2). He was the youngest of the Twelve—the "Benjamin," as Da Costa calls him—and

he and James his brother were named in the native tongue by Him who knew the heart,

"Boanerges," which the Evangelist Mark (Mr 3:17) explains to mean "Sons of thunder"; no

doubt from their natural vehemence of character. They and Peter constituted that select tri-

umvirate of whom see on Lu 9:28. But the highest honor bestowed on this disciple was his

being admitted to the bosom place with his Lord at the table, as "the disciple whom Jesus

loved" (Joh 13:23; 20:2; 21:7, 20:24), and to have committed to him by the dying Redeemer

the care of His mother (Joh 19:26, 27). There can be no reasonable doubt that this distinction

was due to a sympathy with His own spirit and mind on the part of John which the all-

penetrating Eye of their common Master beheld in none of the rest; and although this was

probably never seen either in his life or in his ministry by his fellow apostles, it is brought

out wonderfully in his writings, which, in Christ-like spirituality, heavenliness, and love,

surpass, we may freely say, all the other inspired writings.

After the effusion of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, we find him in constant but silent

company with Peter, the great spokesman and actor in the infant Church until the accession

of Paul. While his love to the Lord Jesus drew him spontaneously to the side of His eminent

servant, and his chastened vehemence made him ready to stand courageously by him, and

suffer with him, in all that his testimony to Jesus might cost him, his modest humility, as

the youngest of all the apostles, made him an admiring listener and faithful supporter of his

brother apostle rather than a speaker or separate actor. Ecclesiastical history is uniform in

testifying that John went to Asia Minor; but it is next to certain that this could not have

been till after the death both of Peter and Paul; that he resided at Ephesus, whence, as from

a center, he superintended the churches of that region, paying them occasional visits; and

that he long survived the other apostles. Whether the mother of Jesus died before this, or

Introduction

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Introduction

went with John to Ephesus, where she died and was buried, is not agreed. One or two anec-

dotes of his later days have been handed down by tradition, one at least bearing marks of

reasonable probability. But it is not necessary to give them here. In the reign of Domitian

(A.D. 81-96) he was banished to "the isle that is called Patmos" (a small rocky and then almost

uninhabited island in the Ægean Sea), "for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus

Christ" (Re 1:9). Irenæus and Eusebius say that this took place about the end of Domitian's

reign. That he was thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, and miraculously delivered, is one

of those legends which, though reported by Tertullian and Jerome, is entitled to no credit.

His return from exile took place during the brief but tolerant reign of Nerva; he died at

Ephesus in the reign of Trajan [Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 3.23], at an age above ninety,

according to some; according to others, one hundred; and even one hundred twenty, accord-

ing to others still. The intermediate number is generally regarded as probably the nearest

to the truth.

As to the date of this Gospel, the arguments for its having been composed before the

destruction of Jerusalem (though relied on by some superior critics) are of the slenderest

nature; such as the expression in Joh 5:2, "there is at Jerusalem, by the sheep-gate, a pool,"

&c.; there being no allusion to Peter's martyrdom as having occurred according to the pre-

diction in Joh 21:18—a thing too well known to require mention. That it was composed

long after the destruction of Jerusalem, and after the decease of all the other apostles, is next

to certain, though the precise time cannot be determined. Probably it was before his banish-

ment, however; and if we date it between the years 90 and 94, we shall probably be close to

the truth.

As to the readers for whom it was more immediately designed, that they were Gentiles

we might naturally presume from the lateness of the date; but the multitude of explanations

of things familiar to every Jew puts this beyond all question.

No doubt was ever thrown upon the genuineness and authenticity of this Gospel till

about the close of the eighteenth century; nor were these embodied in any formal attack

upon it till Bretschneider, in 1820, issued his famous treatise [Probabilia], the conclusions

of which he afterwards was candid enough to admit had been satisfactorily disproved. To

advert to these would be as painful as unnecessary; consisting as they mostly do of assertions

regarding the Discourses of our Lord recorded in this Gospel which are revolting to every

spiritual mind. The Tubingen school did their best, on their peculiar mode of reasoning, to

galvanize into fresh life this theory of the post-Joannean date of the Fourth Gospel; and

some Unitarian critics still cling to it. But to use the striking language of Van Oosterzee re-

garding similar speculations on the Third Gospel, "Behold, the feet of them that shall carry

it out dead are already at the door" (Ac 5:9). Is there one mind of the least elevation of

spiritual discernment that does not see in this Gospel marks of historical truth and a surpass-

ing glory such as none of the other Gospels possess, brightly as they too attest their own

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Introduction

verity; and who will not be ready to say that if not historically true, and true just as it stands,

it never could have been by mortal man composed or conceived?

Of the peculiarities of this Gospel, we note here only two. The one is its reflective char-

acter. While the others are purely narrative, the Fourth Evangelist, "pauses, as it were, at

every turn," as Da Costa says [Four Witnesses, p. 234], "at one time to give a reason, at an-

other to fix the attention, to deduce consequences, or make applications, or to give utterance

to the language of praise." See Joh 2:20, 21, 23-25; 4:1, 2; 7:37-39; 11:12, 13, 49-52; 21:18, 19,

22, 23. The other peculiarity of this Gospel is its supplementary character. By this, in the

present instance, we mean something more than the studiousness with which he omits many

most important particulars in our Lord's history, for no conceivable reason but that they

were already familiar as household words to all his readers, through the three preceding

Gospels, and his substituting in place of these an immense quantity of the richest matter

not found in the other Gospels. We refer here more particularly to the nature of the additions

which distinguish this Gospel; particularly the notices of the different Passovers which oc-

curred during our Lord's public ministry, and the record of His teaching at Jerusalem,

without which it is not too much to say that we could have had but a most imperfect con-

ception either of the duration of His ministry or of the plan of it. But another feature of

these additions is quite as noticeable and not less important. "We find," to use again the

words of Da Costa [Four Witnesses, pp. 238, 239], slightly abridged, "only six of our Lord's

miracles recorded in this Gospel, but these are all of the most remarkable kind, and surpass

the rest in depth, specialty of application, and fulness of meaning. Of these six we find only

one in the other three Gospels—the multiplication of the loaves. That miracle chiefly, it

would seem, on account of the important instructions of which it furnished the occasion

(Joh 6:1-71), is here recorded anew. The five other tokens of divine power are distinguished

from among the many recorded in the three other Gospels by their furnishing a still higher

display of power and command over the ordinary laws and course of nature. Thus we find

recorded here the first of all the miracles that Jesus wrought—the changing of water into

wine (Joh 2:1-11), the cure of the nobleman's son at a distance (Joh 4:43-54); of the numerous

cures of the lame and the paralytic by the word of Jesus, only one—of the man impotent for

thirty and eight years (Joh 5:1-9); of the many cures of the blind, one only—of the man born

blind (Joh 9:1-12); the restoration of Lazarus, not from a deathbed, like Jairus' daughter,

nor from a bier, like the widow of Nain's son, but from the grave, and after lying there four

days, and there sinking into corruption (Joh 11:1-44); and lastly, after His resurrection, the

miraculous draught of fishes on the Sea of Tiberias (Joh 21:5-11). But these are all recorded

chiefly to give occasion for the record of those astonishing discourses and conversations,

alike with friends and with foes, with His disciples and with the multitude which they drew

forth."

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Introduction

Other illustrations of the peculiarities of this Gospel will occur, and other points con-

nected with it be adverted to, in the course of the Commentary.

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Introduction

CHAPTER 1

Joh 1:1-14. The Word Made Flesh.

1. In the beginning—of all time and created existence, for this Word gave it being (Joh

1:3, 10); therefore, "before the world was" (Joh 17:5, 24); or, from all eternity.

was the Word—He who is to God what man's word is to himself, the manifestation or

expression of himself to those without him. (See on Joh 1:18). On the origin of this most lofty

and now for ever consecrated title of Christ, this is not the place to speak. It occurs only in

the writings of this seraphic apostle.

was with God—having a conscious personal existence distinct from God (as one is from

the person he is "with"), but inseparable from Him and associated with Him (Joh 1:18; Joh

17:5; 1Jo 1:2), where "THE Father" is used in the same sense as "God" here.

was God—in substance and essence God; or was possessed of essential or proper divinity.

Thus, each of these brief but pregnant statements is the complement of the other, correcting

any misapprehensions which the others might occasion. Was the Word eternal? It was not

the eternity of "the Father," but of a conscious personal existence distinct from Him and as-

sociated with Him. Was the Word thus "with God?" It was not the distinctness and the fel-

lowship of another being, as if there were more Gods than one, but of One who was Himself

God—in such sense that the absolute unity of the God head, the great principle of all religion,

is only transferred from the region of shadowy abstraction to the region of essential life and

love. But why all this definition? Not to give us any abstract information about certain

mysterious distinctions in the Godhead, but solely to let the reader know who it was that in

the fulness of time "was made flesh." After each verse, then, the reader must say, "It was He

who is thus, and thus, and thus described, who was made flesh."

2. The same, &c.—See what property of the Word the stress is laid upon—His eternal

distinctness, in unity, from God—the Father (Joh 1:2).

3. All things, &c.—all things absolutely (as is evident from Joh 1:10; 1Co 8:6; Col 1:16,

17; but put beyond question by what follows).

without Him was not any thing—not one thing.

made—brought into being.

that was made—This is a denial of the eternity and non-creation of matter, which was

held by the whole thinking world outside of Judaism and Christianity: or rather, its proper

creation was never so much as dreamt of save by the children of revealed religion.

4. In Him was life—essentially and originally, as the previous verses show to be the

meaning. Thus He is the Living Word, or, as He is called in 1Jo 1:1, 2, "the Word of Life."

the life … the light of men—All that in men which is true light—knowledge, integrity,

intelligent, willing subjection to God, love to Him and to their fellow creatures, wisdom,

purity, holy joy, rational happiness—all this "light of men" has its fountain in the essential

original "life" of "the Word" (1Jo 1:5-7; Ps 36:9).

Chapter 1

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5. shineth in darkness, &c.—in this dark, fallen world, or in mankind "sitting in darkness

and the shadow of death," with no ability to find the way either of truth or of holiness. In this

thick darkness, and consequent intellectual and moral obliquity, "the light of the Word"

shineth—by all the rays whether of natural or revealed teaching which men (apart from the

Incarnation of the Word) are favored with.

the darkness comprehended it not—did not take it in, a brief summary of the effect of

all the strivings of this unincarnate Word throughout this wide world from the beginning,

and a hint of the necessity of His putting on flesh, if any recovery of men was to be effected

(1Co 1:21).

6-9. The Evangelist here approaches his grand thesis, so paving his way for the full

statement of it in Joh 1:14, that we may be able to bear the bright light of it, and take in its

length and breadth and depth and height.

7. through him—John.

8. not that Light—(See on Joh 5:35). What a testimony to John to have to explain that

"he was not that Light!" Yet was he but a foil to set it off, his night-taper dwindling before

the Dayspring from on high (Joh 3:30).

9. lighteth every man, &c.—rather, "which, coming into the world, enlighteneth every

man"; or, is "the Light of the world" (Joh 9:5). "Coming into the world" is a superfluous and

quite unusual description of "every man"; but it is of all descriptions of Christ amongst the

most familiar, especially in the writings of this Evangelist (Joh 12:46; 16:28; 18:37; 1Jo 4:9;

1Ti 1:15, &c.).

10-13. He was in the world, &c.—The language here is nearly as wonderful as the

thought. Observe its compact simplicity, its sonorousness—"the world" resounding in each

of its three members—and the enigmatic form in which it is couched, startling the reader

and setting his ingenuity a-working to solve the stupendous enigma of Christ ignored in His

own world. "The world," in the first two clauses, plainly means the created world, into which

He came, says Joh 1:9; "in it He was," says this verse. By His Incarnation, He became an in-

habitant of it, and bound up with it. Yet it "was made by Him" (Joh 1:3-5). Here, then, it is

merely alluded to, in contrast partly with His being in it, but still more with the reception

He met with from it. "The world that knew Him not" (1Jo 3:1) is of course the intelligent

world of mankind. (See on Joh 1:11,12). Taking the first two clauses as one statement, we

try to apprehend it by thinking of the infant Christ conceived in the womb and born in the

arms of His own creature, and of the Man Christ Jesus breathing His own air, treading His

own ground, supported by substances to which He Himself gave being, and the Creator of

the very men whom He came to save. But the most vivid commentary on this entire verse

will be got by tracing (in His matchless history) Him of whom it speaks walking amidst all

the elements of nature, the diseases of men and death itself, the secrets of the human heart,

and "the rulers of the darkness of this world" in all their number, subtlety, and malignity,

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not only with absolute ease, as their conscious Lord, but, as we might say, with full conscious-

ness on their part of the presence of their Maker, whose will to one and all of them was law.

And this is He of whom it is added, "the world knew Him not!"

11. his own—"His own" (property or possession), for the word is in the neuter gender.

It means His own land, city, temple, Messianic rights and possessions.

and his own—"His own (people)"; for now the word is masculine. It means the Jews, as

the "peculiar people." Both they and their land, with all that this included, were "His own,"

not so much as part of "the world which was made by Him," but as "THE HEIR" of the in-

heritance (Lu 20:14; see also on Mt 22:1).

received him not—nationally, as God's chosen witnesses.

12. But as many—individuals, of the "disobedient and gainsaying people."

gave he power—The word signifies both authority and ability, and both are certainly

meant here.

to become—Mark these words: Jesus is the Son of God; He is never said to have become

such.

the sons—or more simply, "sons of God," in name and in nature.

believe on his name—a phrase never used in Scripture of any mere creature, to express

the credit given to human testimony, even of prophets or apostles, inasmuch it carries with

it the idea of trust proper only towards God. In this sense of supreme faith, as due to Him

who "gives those that believe in Himself power to become sons of God," it is manifestly used

here.

13. Which were born—a sonship therefore not of mere title and privilege, but of nature,

the soul being made conscious of the vital capacities, perceptions, and emotions of a child

of God, before unknown.

not of blood, &c.—not of superior human descent, not of human generation at all, not

of man in any manner of way. By this elaborate threefold denial of the human source of this

sonship, immense force is given to what follows,

but of God—Right royal gift, and He who confers must be absolutely divine. For who

would not worship Him who can bring him into the family, and evoke within him the very

life, of the sons of God?

14. And the Word, &c.—To raise the reader to the altitude of this climax were the thirteen

foregoing verses written.

was made flesh—BECAME MAN, in man's present frail, mortal condition, denoted by

the word "flesh" (Isa 40:6; 1Pe 1:24). It is directed probably against the Docetæ, who held

that Christ was not really but only apparently man; against whom this gentle spirit is vehe-

ment in his Epistles (1Jo 4:3; 2Jo 7, 10, 11), [Lucke, &c.]. Nor could He be too much so, for

with the verity of the Incarnation all substantial Christianity vanishes. But now, married to

our nature, henceforth He is as personally conscious of all that is strictly human as of all that

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is properly divine; and our nature is in His Person redeemed and quickened, ennobled and

transfigured.

and dwelt—tabernacled or pitched his tent; a word peculiar to John, who uses it four

times, all in the sense of a permanent stay (Re 7:15; 12:12; 13:6; 21:3). For ever wedded to

our "flesh," He has entered this tabernacle to "go no more out." The allusion is to that taber-

nacle where dwelt the Shekinah (see on Mt 23:38, 39), or manifested "Glory of the Lord,"

and with reference to God's permanent dwelling among His people (Le 26:11; Ps 68:18; 132:13,

14; Eze 37:27). This is put almost beyond doubt by what immediately follows, "And we beheld

his glory" [Lucke, Meyer, De Wette which last critic, rising higher than usual, says that thus

were perfected all former partial manifestations of God in an essentially Personal and histor-

ically Human manifestation].

full of grace and truth—So it should read: "He dwelt among us full of grace and truth";

or, in Old Testament phrase, "Mercy and truth," denoting the whole fruit of God's purposes

of love towards sinners of mankind, which until now existed only in promise, and the fulfil-

ment at length of that promise in Christ; in one great word, "the SURE MERCIES of David"

(Isa 55:3; Ac 13:34; compare 2Sa 23:5). In His Person all that Grace and Truth which had

been floating so long in shadowy forms, and darting into the souls of the poor and needy

its broken beams, took everlasting possession of human flesh and filled it full. By this Incarn-

ation of Grace and Truth, the teaching of thousands of years was at once transcended and

beggared, and the family of God sprang into Manhood.

and we beheld his glory—not by the eye of sense, which saw in Him only "the carpenter."

His glory was "spiritually discerned" (1Co 2:7-15; 2Co 3:18; 4:4, 6; 5:16)—the glory of sur-

passing grace, love, tenderness, wisdom, purity, spirituality; majesty and meekness, richness

and poverty, power and weakness, meeting together in unique contrast; ever attracting and

at times ravishing the "babes" that followed and forsook all for Him.

the glory as of the only begotten of the Father—(See on Lu 1:35); not like, but "such

as (belongs to)," such as became or was befitting the only begotten of the Father [Chrysostom

in Lucke, Calvin, &c.], according to a well-known use of the word "as."

Joh 1:15. A Saying of the Baptist Confirmatory of This.

15. after me—in official manifestation.

before me—in rank and dignity.

for he was before me—in existence; "His goings forth being from of old, from everlasting"

(Mic 5:2). (Anything lower than this His words cannot mean); that is, "My Successor is my

Superior, for He was my Predecessor." This enigmatic play upon the different senses of the

words "before" and "after" was doubtless employed by the Baptist to arrest attention, and

rivet the thought; and the Evangelist introduces it just to clinch his own statements.

Joh 1:16-18. Same Subject Continued.

16. of his fulness—of "grace and truth," resuming the thread of Joh 1:14.

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grace for grace—that is, grace upon grace (so all the best interpreters), in successive

communications and larger measures, as each was able to take it in. Observe, the word

"truth" is here dropped. "Grace" being the chosen New Testament word for the whole fulness

of the new covenant, all that dwells in Christ for men.

17. For, &c.—The Law elicits the consciousness of sin and the need of redemption; it

only typifies the reality. The Gospel, on the contrary, actually communicates reality and

power from above (compare Ro 6:14). Hence Paul terms the Old Testament "shadow," while

he calls the New Testament "substance" (Col 2:17) [Olshausen].

18. No man—"No one," in the widest sense.

hath seen God—by immediate gaze, or direct intuition.

in the bosom of the Father—A remarkable expression, used only here, presupposing

the Son's conscious existence distinct from the Father, and expressing His immediate and most

endeared access to, and absolute acquaintance with, Him.

he—emphatic; As if he should say, "He and He only hath declared Him," because He

only can.

Joh 1:19-36. The Baptist's Testimony to Christ.

19. record—testimony.

the Jews—that is, the heads of the nation, the members of the Sanhedrim. In this pecu-

liar sense our Evangelist seems always to use the term.

20. confessed, &c.—that is, While many were ready to hail him as the Christ, he neither

gave the slightest ground for such views, nor the least entertainment to them.

21. Elias—in His own proper person.

that prophet—announced in De 18:15, &c., about whom they seem not to have been

agreed whether he were the same with the Messiah or no.

25. Why baptizest thou, if not, &c.—Thinking he disclaimed any special connection

with Messiah's kingdom, they demand his right to gather disciples by baptism.

26. there standeth—This must have been spoken after the baptism of Christ, and possibly

just after His temptation (see on Joh 1:29).

28. Bethabara—Rather, "Bethany" (according to nearly all the best and most ancient

manuscripts); not the Bethany of Lazarus, but another of the same name, and distinguished

from it as lying "beyond Jordan," on the east.

29. seeth Jesus—fresh, probably, from the scene of the temptation.

coming unto him—as to congenial company (Ac 4:23), and to receive from him His

first greeting.

and saith—catching a sublime inspiration at the sight of Him approaching.

the Lamb of God—the one God-ordained, God-gifted sacrificial offering.

that taketh away—taketh up and taketh away. The word signifies both, as does the

corresponding Hebrew word. Applied to sin, it means to be chargeable with the guilt of it

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(Ex 28:38; Le 5:1; Eze 18:20), and to bear it away (as often). In the Levitical victims both

ideas met, as they do in Christ, the people's guilt being viewed as transferred to them, avenged

in their death, and so borne away by them (Le 4:15; 16:15, 21, 22; and compare Isa 53:6-12;

2Co 5:21).

the sin—The singular number being used to mark the collective burden and all-embracing

efficacy.

of the world—not of Israel only, for whom the typical victims were exclusively offered.

Wherever there shall live a sinner throughout the wide world, sinking under that burden

too heavy for him to bear, he shall find in this "Lamb of God," a shoulder equal to the weight.

The right note was struck at the first—balm, doubtless, to Christ's own spirit; nor was ever

after, or ever will be, a more glorious utterance.

31-34. knew him not—Living mostly apart, the one at Nazareth, the other in the Judean

desert—to prevent all appearance of collusion, John only knew that at a definite time after

his own call, his Master would show Himself. As He drew near for baptism one day, the last

of all the crowd, the spirit of the Baptist heaving under a divine presentiment that the moment

had at length arrived, and an air of unwonted serenity and dignity, not without traits,

probably, of the family features, appearing in this Stranger, the Spirit said to him as to Samuel

of his youthful type, "Arise, anoint Him, for this is He!" (1Sa 16:12). But the sign which he

was told to expect was the visible descent of the Spirit upon Him as He emerged out of the

baptismal water. Then, catching up the voice from heaven, "he saw and bare record that this

is the Son of God."

35. John stood—"was standing," at his accustomed place.

36. looking—having fixed his eyes, with significant gaze, on Jesus.

as he walked—but not now to him. To have done this once (see on Joh 1:29) was humility

enough [Bengel].

Behold, &c.—The repetition of that wonderful proclamation, in identical terms and

without another word, could only have been meant as a gentle hint to go after Him—as they

did.

Joh 1:37-51. First Gathering of Disciples—John Andrew, Simon, Philip, Nathanael.

38. What seek ye—gentle, winning question, remarkable as the Redeemer's first public

utterance. (See on Mt 12:18-20.)

where dwellest thou—that is, "That is a question we cannot answer in a moment; but

had we Thy company for a calm hour in private, gladly should we open our burden."

39. Come and see—His second utterance, more winning still.

tenth hour—not ten A.M. (as some), according to Roman, but four P.M., according to

Jewish reckoning, which John follows. The hour is mentioned to show why they stayed out

the day with him—because little of it remained.

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40. One … was Andrew—The other was doubtless our Evangelist himself. His great

sensitiveness is touchingly shown in his representation of this first contact with the Lord;

the circumstances are present to him in the minutest details; he still remembers the Very

hour. But "he reports no particulars of those discourses of the Lord by which he was bound

to Him for the whole of His life; he allows everything personal to retire" [Olshausen].

Peter's brother—and the elder of the two.

41. have found the Messias—The previous preparation of their simple hearts under

the Baptist's ministry, made quick work of this blessed conviction, while others hesitated

till doubt settled into obduracy. So it is still.

42. brought him to Jesus—Happy brothers that thus do to each other!

beheld him—fixed his eyes on him, with significant gaze (as Joh 1:36).

Cephas … stone—(See on Mt 16:18).

43. would go … into Galilee—for from His baptism He had sojourned in Judea

(showing that the calling at the Sea of Galilee [Mt 4:18] was a subsequent one, see on Lu

5:1).

Follow me—the first express call given, the former three having come to Him spontan-

eously.

44. the city of Andrew and Peter—of their birth probably, for they seem to have lived

at Capernaum (Mr 1:29).

45. Nathanael—(See on Mt 10:3).

Moses—(See Joh 5:46).

son of Joseph—the current way of speaking. (See Lu 3:23).

46. any good out of Nazareth—remembering Bethlehem, perhaps, as Messiah's predicted

birthplace, and Nazareth having no express prophetic place at all, besides being in no repute.

The question sprang from mere dread of mistake in a matter so vital.

Come and see—Noble remedy against preconceived opinions [Bengel]. Philip, though

he could not perhaps solve his difficulty, could show him how to get rid of it. (See on Joh

6:68).

47. an Israelite indeed … no guile—not only no hypocrite, but with a guileless simplicity

not always found even in God's own people, ready to follow wherever truth might lead him,

saying, Samuel-like, "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth" (1Sa 3:10).

48. Whence knowest thou me—conscious that his very heart had been read, and at this

critical moment more than ever before.

Before Philip called thee—showing He knew all that passed between Philip and him

at a distance.

when … under the fig tree, &c.—where retirement for meditation and prayer was not

uncommon [Lightfoot]. Thither, probably—hearing that his master's Master had at length

appeared, and heaving with mingled eagerness to behold Him and dread of deception—he

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had retired to pour out his guileless heart for light and guidance, ending with such a prayer

as this, "Show me a token for good!" (See on Lu 2:8). Now he has it, "Thou guileless one,

that fig tree scene, with all its heaving anxieties, deep pleadings and tremulous hopes—I

saw it all." The first words of Jesus had astonished, but this quite overpowered and won him.

49. Son of God … King of Israel—the one denoting His person, the other His office.

How much loftier this than anything Philip had said to him! But just as the earth's vital

powers, the longer they are frost-bound, take the greater spring when at length set free, so

souls, like Nathanael and Thomas (see on Joh 20:28), the outgoings of whose faith are

hindered for a time, take the start of their more easy-going brethren when loosed and let

go.

50, 51. Because I said, &c.—"So quickly convinced, and on this evidence only?"—an

expression of admiration.

51. Hereafter, &c.—The key to this great saying is Jacob's vision (Ge 28:12-22), to which

the allusion plainly is. To show the patriarch that though alone and friendless on earth his

interests were busying all heaven, he was made to see "heaven opened and the angels of God

ascending and descending upon a" mystic "ladder reaching from heaven to earth." "By and

by," says Jesus here, "ye shall see this communication between heaven and earth thrown

wide open, and the Son of man the real Ladder of this intercourse."

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CHAPTER 2

Joh 2:1-12. First Miracle, Water Made Wine—Brief Visit to Capernaum.

1. third day—He would take two days to reach Galilee, and this was the third.

mother there—it being probably some relative's marriage. John never names her [Bengel].

3. no wine—evidently expecting some display of His glory, and hinting that now was

His time.

4, 5. Woman—no term of disrespect in the language of that day (Joh 19:26).

what … to do with thee—that is, "In my Father's business I have to do with Him only."

It was a gentle rebuke for officious interference, entering a region from which all creatures

were excluded (compare Ac 4:19, 20).

mine hour, &c.—hinting that He would do something, but at His own time; and so she

understood it (Joh 2:5).

6. firkins—about seven and a half gallons in Jewish, or nine in Attic measure; each of

these huge water jars, therefore, holding some twenty or more gallons, for washings at such

feasts (Mr 7:4).

7, 8. Fill … draw … bear—directing all, but Himself touching nothing, to prevent all

appearance of collusion.

9, 10. well drunk—"drunk abundantly" (as So 5:1), speaking of the general practice.

10. the good wine … until now—thus testifying, while ignorant of the source of supply,

not only that it was real wine, but better than any at the feast.

11. manifested forth his glory—Nothing in the least like this is said of the miracles of

prophet or apostle, nor could without manifest blasphemy be said of any mere creature.

Observe, (1) At a marriage Christ made His first public appearance in any company, and

at a marriage He wrought His first miracle—the noblest sanction that could be given to that

God-given institution. (2) As the miracle did not make bad good, but good better, so Chris-

tianity only redeems, sanctifies, and ennobles the beneficent but abused institution of mar-

riage; and Christ's whole work only turns the water of earth into the wine of heaven. Thus

"this beginning of miracles" exhibited the character and "manifested forth the glory" of His

entire Mission. (3) As Christ countenanced our seasons of festivity, so also that greater fulness

which befits such; so far was He from encouraging that asceticism which has since been so

often put for all religion. (4) The character and authority ascribed by Romanists to the Virgin

is directly in the teeth of this and other scriptures.

12. Capernaum—on the Sea of Galilee. (See on Mt 9:1).

his mother and his brethren—(See on Lu 2:51, and Mt 13:54-56).

Joh 2:13-25. Christ's First Passover—First Cleansing of the Temple.

14-17. in the temple—not the temple itself, as Joh 2:19-21, but the temple-court.

sold oxen, &c.—for the convenience of those who had to offer them in sacrifice.

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changers of money—of Roman into Jewish money, in which the temple dues (see on

Mt 17:24) had to be paid.

15. small cords—likely some of the rushes spread for bedding, and when twisted used

to tie up the cattle there collected. "Not by this slender whip but by divine majesty was the

ejection accomplished, the whip being but a sign of the scourge of divine anger" [Grotius].

poured out … overthrew—thus expressing the mingled indignation and authority of

the impulse.

16. my Father's house—How close the resemblance of these remarkable words to Lu

2:49; the same consciousness of intrinsic relation to the temple—as the seat of His Father's

most august worship, and so the symbol of all that is due to Him on earth—dictating both

speeches. Only, when but a youth, with no authority, He was simply "a Son in His own

house"; now He was "a Son over His own house" (Heb 3:6), the proper Representative, and

in flesh "the Heir," of his Father's rights.

house of merchandise—There was nothing wrong in the merchandise; but to bring it,

for their own and others' convenience, into that most sacred place, was a high-handed

profanation which the eye of Jesus could not endure.

17. eaten me up—a glorious feature in the predicted character of the suffering Messiah

(Ps 69:9), and rising high even in some not worthy to loose the latchet of His shoes. (Ex

32:19, &c.).

18-22. What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?—Though

the act and the words of Christ, taken together, were sign enough, they were unconvinced:

yet they were awed, and though at His very next appearance at Jerusalem they "sought to

kill Him" for speaking of "His Father" just as He did now (Joh 5:18), they, at this early stage,

only ask a sign.

19. Destroy this temple, &c.—(See on Mr 14:58, 59).

20. Forty and six years—From the eighteenth year of Herod till then was just forty-six

years [Josephus, Antiquities, 15.11.1].

21. temple of his body—in which was enshrined the glory of the eternal Word. (See on

Joh 1:14). By its resurrection the true Temple of God upon earth was reared up, of which

the stone one was but a shadow; so that the allusion is not quite exclusively to Himself, but

takes in that Temple of which He is the foundation, and all believers are the "lively stones."

(1Pe 2:4, 5).

22. believed the scripture—on this subject; that is, what was meant, which was hid

from them till then. Mark (1) The act by which Christ signalized His first public appearance

in the Temple. Taking "His fan in His hand, He purges His floor," not thoroughly indeed,

but enough to foreshadow His last act towards that faithless people—to sweep them out of

God's house. (2) The sign of His authority to do this is the announcement, at this first outset

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of His ministry, of that coming death by their hands, and resurrection by His own, which

were to pave the way for their judicial ejection.

23-25. in the feast day—the foregoing things occurring probably before the feast began.

many believed—superficially, struck merely by "the miracles He did." Of these we have

no record.

24. did not commit—"entrust," or let Himself down familiarly to them, as to His

genuine disciples.

25. knew what was in man—It is impossible for language more clearly to assert of Christ

what in Jer 17:9, 10, and elsewhere, is denied of all mere creatures.

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CHAPTER 3

Joh 3:1-21. Night Interview of Nicodemus with Jesus.

1, 2. Nicodemus—In this member of the Sanhedrim sincerity and timidity are seen

struggling together.

2. came to Jesus by night—One of those superficial "believers" mentioned in Joh 2:23,

24, yet inwardly craving further satisfaction, Nicodemus comes to Jesus in quest of it, but

comes "by night" (see Joh 19:38, 39; 12:42); he avows his conviction that He was

come from God—an expression never applied to a merely human messenger, and probably

meaning more here—but only as "a teacher," and in His miracles he sees a proof merely that

"God is with Him." Thus, while unable to repress his convictions, he is afraid of committing

himself too far.

3. Except, &c.—This blunt and curt reply was plainly meant to shake the whole edifice

of the man's religion, in order to lay a deeper and more enduring foundation. Nicodemus

probably thought he had gone a long way, and expected, perhaps, to be complimented on

his candor. Instead of this, he is virtually told that he has raised a question which he is not

in a capacity to solve, and that before approaching it, his spiritual vision required to be rectified

by an entire revolution on his inner man. Had the man been less sincere, this would certainly

have repelled him; but with persons in his mixed state of mind—to which Jesus was no

stranger (Joh 2:25)—such methods speed better than more honeyed words and gradual ap-

proaches.

a man—not a Jew merely; the necessity is a universal one.

be born again—or, as it were, begin life anew in relation to God; his manner of thinking,

feeling, and acting, with reference to spiritual things, undergoing a fundamental and per-

manent revolution.

cannot see—can have no part in (just as one is said to "see life," "see death," &c.).

the kingdom of God—whether in its beginnings here (Lu 16:16), or its consummation

hereafter (Mt 25:34; Eph 5:5).

4. How, &c.—The figure of the new birth, if it had been meant only of Gentile proselytes

to the Jewish religion, would have been intelligible enough to Nicodemus, being quite in

keeping with the language of that day; but that Jews themselves should need a new birth was

to him incomprehensible.

5. of water and of the Spirit—A twofold explanation of the "new birth," so startling to

Nicodemus. To a Jewish ecclesiastic, so familiar with the symbolical application of water,

in every variety of way and form of expression, this language was fitted to show that the

thing intended was no other than a thorough spiritual purification by the operation of the

Holy Ghost. Indeed, element of water and operation of the Spirit are brought together in a

glorious evangelical prediction of Ezekiel (Eze 36:25-27), which Nicodemus might have

been reminded of had such spiritualities not been almost lost in the reigning formalism.

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Already had the symbol of water been embodied in an initiatory ordinance, in the baptism

of the Jewish expectants of Messiah by the Baptist, not to speak of the baptism of Gentile

proselytes before that; and in the Christian Church it was soon to become the great visible

door of entrance into "the kingdom of God," the reality being the sole work of the Holy Ghost

(Tit 3:5).

6-8. That which is born, &c.—A great universal proposition; "That which is begotten

carries within itself the nature of that which begat it" [Olshausen].

flesh—Not the mere material body, but all that comes into the world by birth, the entire

man; yet not humanity simply, but in its corrupted, depraved condition, in complete subjection

to the law of the fall (Ro 8:1-9). So that though a man "could enter a second time into his

mother's womb and be born," he would be no nearer this "new birth" than before (Job 14:4;

Ps 51:5).

is spirit—"partakes of and possesses His spiritual nature."

7. Marvel not, &c.—If a spiritual nature only can see and enter the kingdom of God; if

all we bring into the world with us be the reverse of spiritual; and if this spirituality be solely

of the Holy Ghost, no wonder a new birth is indispensable.

Ye must—"Ye, says Jesus, not we" [Bengel]. After those universal propositions, about

what "a man" must be, to "enter the kingdom of God" (Joh 3:5)—this is remarkable, showing

that our Lord meant to hold Himself forth as "separate from sinners."

8. The wind, &c.—Breath and spirit (one word both in Hebrew and Greek) are constantly

brought together in Scripture as analogous (Job 27:3; 33:4; Eze 37:9-14).

canst not tell, &c.—The laws which govern the motion of the winds are even yet but

partially discovered; but the risings, failings, and change in direction many times in a day,

of those gentle breezes here referred to, will probably ever be a mystery to us: So of the oper-

ation of the Holy Ghost in the new birth.

9, 10. How, &c.—Though the subject still confounds Nicodemus, the necessity and

possibility of the new birth is no longer the point with him, but the nature of it and how it

is brought about [Luthardt]. "From this moment Nicodemus says nothing more, but has

sunk unto a disciple who has found his true teacher. Therefore the Saviour now graciously

advances in His communications of truth, and once more solemnly brings to the mind of

this teacher in Israel, now become a learner, his own not guiltless ignorance, that He may

then proceed to utter, out of the fulness of His divine knowledge, such farther testimonies

both of earthly and heavenly things as his docile scholar may to his own profit receive"

[Stier].

10. master—"teacher." The question clearly implies that the doctrine of regeneration is

so far disclosed in the Old Testament that Nicodemus was culpable in being ignorant of it.

Nor is it merely as something that should be experienced under the Gospel that the Old

Testament holds it forth—as many distinguished critics allege, denying that there was any

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such thing as regeneration before Christ. For our Lord's proposition is universal, that no

fallen man is or can be spiritual without a regenerating operation of the Holy Ghost, and

the necessity of a spiritual obedience under whatever name, in opposition to mere mechan-

ical services, is proclaimed throughout all the Old Testament.

11-13. We speak that we know, and … have seen—that is, by absolute knowledge and

immediate vision of God, which "the only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father" claims

as exclusively His own (Joh 1:18). The "we" and "our" are here used, though Himself only is

intended, in emphatic contrast, probably, with the opening words of Nicodemus, "Rabbi,

we know.", &c.

ye receive not, &c.—referring to the class to which Nicodemus belonged, but from

which he was beginning to be separated in spirit.

12. earthly things—such as regeneration, the gate of entrance to the kingdom of God

on earth, and which Nicodemus should have understood better, as a truth even of that more

earthly economy to which he belonged.

heavenly things—the things of the new and more heavenly evangelical economy, only

to be fully understood after the effusion of the Spirit from heaven through the exalted Saviour.

13. no man hath ascended, &c.—There is something paradoxical in this language—"No

one has gone up but He that came down, even He who is at once both up and down."

Doubtless it was intended to startle and constrain His auditor to think that there must be

mysterious elements in His Person. The old Socinians, to subvert the doctrine of the pre-

existence of Christ, seized upon this passage as teaching that the man Jesus was secretly

caught up to heaven to receive His instructions, and then "came down from heaven" to de-

liver them. But the sense manifestly is this: "The perfect knowledge of God is not obtained

by any man's going up from earth to heaven to receive it—no man hath so ascended—but

He whose proper habitation, in His essential and eternal nature, is heaven, hath, by taking

human flesh, descended as the Son of man to disclose the Father, whom He knows by im-

mediate gaze alike in the flesh as before He assumed it, being essentially and unchangeably

'in the bosom of the Father'" (Joh 1:18).

14-16. And as Moses, &c.—Here now we have the "heavenly things," as before the

"earthly," but under a veil, for the reason mentioned in Joh 3:12. The crucifixion of Messiah

is twice after this veiled under the same lively term—"uplifting," Joh 8:28; 12:32, 33. Here it

is still further veiled—though to us who know what it means, rendered vastly more instruct-

ive—by reference to the brazen serpent. The venom of the fiery serpents, shooting through

the veins of the rebellious Israelites, was spreading death through the camp—lively emblem

of the perishing condition of men by reason of sin. In both cases the remedy was divinely

provided. In both the way of cure strikingly resembled that of the disease. Stung by serpents,

by a serpent they are healed. By "fiery serpents" bitten—serpents, probably, with skin spotted

fiery red [Kurtz]—the instrument of cure is a serpent of brass or copper, having at a distance

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the same appearance. So in redemption, as by man came death, by Man also comes life—Man,

too, "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Ro 8:3), differing in nothing outward and apparent from

those who, pervaded by the poison of the serpent, were ready to perish. But as the uplifted

serpent had none of the venom of which the serpent-bitten people were dying, so while the

whole human family were perishing of the deadly wound inflicted on it by the old serpent,

"the Second Man," who arose over humanity with healing in His wings, was without spot

or wrinkle, or any such thing. In both cases the remedy is conspicuously displayed; in the

one case on a pole, in the other on the cross, to "draw all men unto Him" (Joh 12:32). In

both cases it is by directing the eye to the uplifted Remedy that the cure is effected; in the one

case the bodily eye, in the other the gaze of the soul by "believing in Him," as in that glorious

ancient proclamation—"Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth," &c. (Isa

45:22). Both methods are stumbling to human reason. What, to any thinking Israelite, could

seem more unlikely than that a deadly poison should be dried up in his body by simply

looking on a reptile of brass? Such a stumbling-block to the Jews and to the Greeks foolishness

was faith in the crucified Nazarene as a way of deliverance from eternal perdition. Yet was

the warrant in both cases to expect a cure equally rational and well grounded. As the serpent

was God's ordinance for the cure of every bitten Israelite, so is Christ for the salvation of

every perishing sinner—the one however a purely arbitrary ordinance, the other divinely

adapted to man's complicated maladies. In both cases the efficacy is the same. As one simple

look at the serpent, however distant and however weak, brought an instantaneous cure,

even so, real faith in the Lord Jesus, however tremulous, however distant—be it but real

faith—brings certain and instant healing to the perishing soul. In a word, the consequences

of disobedience are the same in both. Doubtless many bitten Israelites, galling as their case

was, would reason rather than obey, would speculate on the absurdity of expecting the bite

of a living serpent to be cured by looking at a piece of dead metal in the shape of

one—speculate thus till they died. Alas! is not salvation by a crucified Redeemer subjected

to like treatment? Has the offense of the cross" yet ceased? (Compare 2Ki 5:12).

16. For God so loved, &c.—What proclamation of the Gospel has been so oft on the

lips of missionaries and preachers in every age since it was first uttered? What has sent such

thrilling sensations through millions of mankind? What has been honored to bring such

multitudes to the feet of Christ? What to kindle in the cold and selfish breasts of mortals

the fires of self-sacrificing love to mankind, as these words of transparent simplicity, yet

overpowering majesty? The picture embraces several distinct compartments: "The World"—in

its widest sense—ready "to perish"; the immense "Love of God" to that perishing world,

measurable only, and conceivable only, by the gift which it drew forth from Him; THE Gift

itself—"He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son," or, in the language of

Paul, "spared not His own Son" (Ro 8:32), or in that addressed to Abraham when ready to

offer Isaac on the altar, "withheld not His Son, His only Son, whom He loved" (Ge 22:16);

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the Fruit of this stupendous gift—not only deliverance from impending "perdition," but the

bestowal of everlasting life; the MODE in which all takes effect—by "believing" on the Son.

How would Nicodemus' narrow Judaism become invisible in the blaze of this Sun of right-

eousness seen rising on "the world" with healing in His wings! (Mal 4:2).

17-21. not to condemn, &c.—A statement of vast importance. Though "condemnation"

is to many the issue of Christ's mission (Joh 3:19), it is not the object of His mission, which

is purely a saving one.

18. is not condemned—Having, immediately on his believing, "passed from death unto

life" (Joh 5:24).

condemned already—Rejecting the one way of deliverance from that "condemnation"

which God gave His Son to remove, and so wilfully remaining condemned.

19. this is the condemnation, &c.—emphatically so, revealing the condemnation already

existing, and sealing up under it those who will not be delivered from it.

light is come into the world—in the Person of Him to whom Nicodemus was listening.

loved darkness, &c.—This can only be known by the deliberate rejection of Christ, but

that does fearfully reveal it.

20. reproved—by detection.

21. doeth truth—whose only object in life is to be and do what will bear the light.

Therefore he loves and "comes to the light," that all he is and does, being thus thoroughly

tested, may be seen to have nothing in it but what is divinely wrought and divinely approved.

This is the "Israelite, indeed, in whom is no guile."

Joh 3:22-36. Jesus in the Neighborhood of the Baptist—His Noble Testimony to His

Master.

22-24. land of Judea—the rural parts of that province, the foregoing conversation being

held in the capital.

baptized—in the sense explained in Joh 4:2.

23. Ænon … Salim—on the west of Jordan. (Compare Joh 3:26 with Joh 1:28).

24. John not yet cast into prison—Hence it is plain that our Lord's ministry did not

commence with the imprisonment of John, though, but for this, we should have drawn that

inference from Mt 4:12 and Mark's (Mr 1:14) express statement.

25, 26. between some of—rather, "on the part of."

and the Jews—rather (according to the best manuscripts), "and a Jew,"

about purifying—that is, baptizing, the symbolical meaning of washing with water being

put (as in Joh 2:6) for the act itself. As John and Jesus were the only teachers who baptized

Jews, discussions might easily arise between the Baptist's disciples and such Jews as declined

to submit to that rite.

26. Rabbi, &c.—"Master, this man tells us that He to whom thou barest such generous

witness beyond Jordan is requiting thy generosity by drawing all the people away to Himself.

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At this rate, thou shalt soon have no disciples at all." The reply to this is one of the noblest

and most affecting utterances that ever came from the lips of man.

27-30. A man, &c.—"I do my heaven-prescribed work, and that is enough for me. Would

you have me mount into my Master's place? Said I not unto you, I am not the Christ? The

Bride is not mine, why should the people stay with me?? Mine it is to point the burdened

to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, to tell them there is Balm in Gilead,

and a Physician there. And shall I grudge to see them, in obedience to the call, flying as a

cloud, and as doves to their windows? Whose is the Bride but the Bridegroom's? Enough

for me to be the Bridegroom's friend, sent by Him to negotiate the match, privileged to bring

together the Saviour and those He is come to seek and to save, and rejoicing with joy un-

speakable if I may but 'stand and hear the Bridegroom's voice,' witnessing the blessed espous-

als. Say ye, then, they go from me to Him? Ye bring me glad tidings of great joy. He must

increase, but I must decrease; this, my joy, therefore is fulfilled."

A man can receive, &c.—assume nothing, that is, lawfully and with any success; that

is, Every man has his work and sphere appointed him from above, Even Christ Himself

came under this law (Heb 5:4).

31-34. He that, &c.—Here is the reason why He must increase while all human teachers

must decrease. The Master "cometh from above"—descending from His proper element, the

region of those "heavenly things" which He came to reveal, and so, although mingling with

men and things on the earth, is not "of the earth," either in Person or Word. The servants,

on the contrary, springing of earth, are of the earth, and their testimony, even though divine

in authority, partakes necessarily of their own earthiness. (So strongly did the Baptist feel

this contrast that the last clause just repeats the first). It is impossible for a sharper line of

distinction to be drawn between Christ and all human teachers, even when divinely com-

missioned and speaking by the power of the Holy Ghost. And who does not perceive it? The

words of prophets and apostles are undeniable and most precious truth; but in the words

of Christ we hear a voice as from the excellent Glory, the Eternal Word making Himself

heard in our own flesh.

32. what he hath seen and heard—(See on Joh 3:11 and Joh 1:18).

and no man receiveth, &c.—John's disciples had said, "All come to Him" (Joh 3:26).

The Baptist here virtually says, Would it were so, but alas! they are next to "none" [Bengel].

They were far readier to receive himself, and obliged him to say, I am not the Christ, and

he seems pained at this.

33. hath set to His seal, &c.—gives glory to God whose words Christ speaks, not as

prophets and apostles by a partial communication of the Spirit to them.

34. for God giveth not the Spirit by measure—Here, again, the sharpest conceivable

line of distinction is drawn between Christ and all human-inspired teachers: "They have the

Spirit in a limited degree; but God giveth not [to Him] the Spirit by measure." It means the

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entire fulness of divine life and divine power. The present tense "giveth," very aptly points

out the permanent communication of the Spirit by the Father to the Son, so that a constant

flow and reflow of living power is to be understood (Compare Joh 1:15) [Olshausen].

35, 36. The Father loveth, &c.—See on Mt 11:27, where we have the "delivering over of

all things into the hands of the Son," while here we have the deep spring of that august act

in the Father's ineffable "love of the Son."

36. hath everlasting life—already has it. (See on Joh 3:18 and Joh 5:24).

shall not see life—The contrast here is striking: The one has already a life that will endure

for ever—the other not only has it not now, but shall never have it—never see it.

abideth on him—It was on Him before, and not being removed in the only possible

way, by "believing on the Son," it necessarily remaineth on him! Note.—How flatly does this

contradict the teaching of many in our day, that there neither was, nor is, anything in God

against sinners which needed to be removed by Christ, but only in men against God!

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CHAPTER 4

Joh 4:1-42. Christ and the Woman of Samaria—The Samaritans of Sychar.

1-4. the Lord knew—not by report, but in the sense of Joh 2:25, for which reason He

is here styled "the Lord."

2. Jesus baptized not—John being a servant baptized with his own hand; Christ as the

Master, "baptizing with the Holy Ghost," administered the outward symbol only through

His disciples.

3. left Judea—to avoid persecution, which at that early stage would have marred His

work.

departed into Galilee—by which time John had been cast into prison (Mr 1:14).

4. must needs go through Samaria—for a geographical reason, no doubt, as it lay

straight in his way, but certainly not without a higher design.

5. cometh … to—that is, as far as: for He remained at some distance from it.

Sychar—the "Shechem" of the Old Testament, about thirty-four miles from Jerusalem,

afterwards called "Neapolis," and now "Nablous."

6-8. wearied … sat thus—that is, "as you might fancy a weary man would"; an instance

of the graphic style of St. John [Webster and Wilkinson]. In fact, this is perhaps the most

human of all the scenes of our Lord's earthly history. We seem to be beside Him, overhearing

all that is here recorded, nor could any painting of the scene on canvas, however perfect, do

other than lower the conception which this exquisite narrative conveys to the devout and

intelligent reader. But with all that is human, how much also of the divine have we here,

both blended in one glorious manifestation of the majesty, grace, pity, patience with which

"the Lord" imparts light and life to this unlikeliest of strangers, standing midway between

Jews and heathens.

the sixth hour—noonday, reckoning from six A.M. From So 1:7 we know, as from

other sources, that the very flocks "rested at noon." But Jesus, whose maxim was, "I must

work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day" (Joh 9:4), seems to have denied Himself

that repose, at least on this occasion, probably that He might reach this well when He knew

the woman would be there. Once there, however, He accepts … the grateful ease of a seat

on the patriarchal stone. But what music is that which I hear from His lips, "Come unto Me,

all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Mt 11:28).

7. Give me to drink—for the heat of a noonday sun had parched His lips. But "in the

last, that great day of the feast," Jesus stood and cried, saying, "If any man thirst let him come

unto Me and drink" (Joh 7:37).

9-12. How is it that thou—not altogether refusing, yet wondering at so unusual a request

from a Jew, as His dress and dialect would at once discover Him to be, to a Samaritan.

for, &c.—It is this national antipathy that gives point to the parable of the good

Samaritan (Lu 10:30-37), and the thankfulness of the Samaritan leper (Lu 17:16, 18).

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10. If thou knewest, &c.—that is, "In Me thou seest only a petitioner to thee but if thou

knewest who that Petitioner is, and the Gift that God is giving to men, thou wouldst have

changed places with Him, gladly suing of Him living water—nor shouldst thou have sued

in vain" (gently reflecting on her for not immediately meeting His request).

12. Art thou greater, &c.—already perceiving in this Stranger a claim to some mysterious

greatness.

our father Jacob—for when it went well with the Jews, they claimed kindred with them,

as being descended from Joseph; but when misfortunes befell the Jews, they disowned all

connection with them [Josephus, Antiquities, 9.14,3].

13, 14. thirst again … never thirst, &c.—The contrast here is fundamental and all

comprehensive. "This water" plainly means "this natural water and all satisfactions of a like

earthly and perishable nature." Coming to us from without, and reaching only the superficial

parts of our nature, they are soon spent, and need to be anew supplied as much as if we had

never experienced them before, while the deeper wants of our being are not reached by them

at all; whereas the "water" that Christ gives—spiritual life—is struck out of the very depths

of our being, making the soul not a cistern, for holding water poured into it from without,

but a fountain (the word had been better so rendered, to distinguish it from the word

rendered "well" in Joh 4:11), springing, gushing, bubbling up and flowing forth within us,

ever fresh, ever living. The indwelling of the Holy Ghost as the Spirit of Christ is the secret of

this life with all its enduring energies and satisfactions, as is expressly said (Joh 7:37-39).

"Never thirsting," then, means simply that such souls have the supplies at home.

into everlasting life—carrying the thoughts up from the eternal freshness and vitality

of these waters to the great ocean in which they have their confluence. "Thither may I arrive!"

[Bengel].

15-18. give me this water, &c.—This is not obtuseness—that is giving way—it expresses

a wondering desire after she scarce knew what from this mysterious Stranger.

16. call thy husband—now proceeding to arouse her slumbering conscience by laying

bare the guilty life she was leading, and by the minute details which that life furnished, not

only bringing her sin vividly up before her, but preparing her to receive in His true character

that wonderful Stranger to whom her whole life, in its minutest particulars, evidently lay

open.

19, 20. Sir, I perceive, &c.—Seeing herself all revealed, does she now break down and

ask what hopes there might be for one so guilty? Nay, her convictions have not reached that

point yet. She ingeniously shifts the subject from a personal to a public question. It is not,

"Alas, what a wicked life am I leading!" but "Lo, what a wonderful prophet I got into conver-

sation with! He will be able to settle that interminable dispute between us and the Jews. Sir,

you must know all about such matters—our fathers hold to this mountain here," pointing

to Gerizim in Samaria, "as the divinely consecrated place of worship, but ye Jews say that

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Jerusalem is the proper place—which of us is right?" How slowly does the human heart

submit to thorough humiliation! (Compare the prodigal; see on Lu 15:15). Doubtless our

Lord saw through the fetch; but does He say, "That question is not the point just now, but

have you been living in the way described, yea or nay? Till this is disposed of I cannot be

drawn into theological controversies." The Prince of preachers takes another method: He

humors the poor woman, letting her take her own way, allowing her to lead while He fol-

lows—but thus only the more effectually gaining His object. He answers her question, pours

light into her mind on the spirituality of all true worship, as of its glorious Object, and so

brings her insensibly to the point at which He could disclose to her wondering mind whom

she was all the while speaking to.

21-24. Woman, &c.—Here are three weighty pieces of information: (1) The point raised

will very soon cease to be of any moment, for a total change of dispensation is about to come

over the Church. (2) The Samaritans are wrong, not only as to the place, but the whole

grounds and nature of their worship, while in all these respects the truth lies with the Jews.

(3) As God is a Spirit, so He both invites and demands a spiritual worship, and already all is

in preparation for a spiritual economy, more in harmony with the true nature of acceptable

service than the ceremonial worship by consecrated persons, place, and times, which God

for a time has seen meet to keep up till fulness of the time should come.

neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem—that is, exclusively (Mal 1:11; 1Ti 2:8).

worship the Father—She had talked simply of "worship"; our Lord brings up before

her the great Object of all acceptable worship—"THE Father."

22. Ye worship ye know not what—without any revealed authority, and so very much

in the dark. In this sense, the Jews knew what they were about. But the most glorious thing

here is the reason assigned,

for salvation is of the Jews—intimating to her that Salvation was not a thing left to be

reached by any one who might vaguely desire it of a God of mercy, but something that had

been revealed, prepared, deposited with a particular people, and must be sought in connection

with, and as issuing from them; and that people, "the Jews."

23. hour cometh, and now is—evidently meaning her to understand that this new

economy was in some sense being set up while He was talking to her, a sense which would

in a few minutes so far appear, when He told her plainly He was the Christ.

25, 26. I know Messias cometh … when He is come, &c.—If we take our Lord's imme-

diate disclosure of Himself, in answer to this, as the proper key to its meaning to His ear,

we can hardly doubt that the woman was already all but prepared for even this startling an-

nouncement, which indeed she seems (from Joh 4:29) to have already begun to suspect by

His revealing her to herself. Thus quickly, under so matchless a Teacher, was she brought

up from her sunken condition to a frame of mind and heart capable of the noblest revelations.

tell us all things—an expectation founded probably on De 18:15.

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26. I that speak … am he—He scarce ever said anything like this to His own people,

the Jews. He had magnified them to the woman, and yet to themselves He is to the last far

more reserved than to her—proving rather than plainly telling them He was the Christ. But

what would not have been safe among them was safe enough with her, whose simplicity at

this stage of the conversation appears from the sequel to have become perfect. What now

will the woman say? We listen, the scene has changed, a new party arrives, the disciples have

been to Sychar, at some distance, to buy bread, and on their return are astonished at the

company their Lord has been holding in their absence.

27. marvelled that he talked with the woman—It never probably occurred to them to

marvel that He talked with themselves; yet in His eye, as the sequel shows, He was quite as

nobly employed. How poor, if not false, are many of our most plausible estimates!

no man said … What? … Why?—awed by the spectacle, and thinking there must be

something under it.

28-30. left her water-pot—How exquisitely natural! The presence of strangers made

her feel that it was time for her to withdraw, and He who knew what was in her heart, and

what she was going to the city to do, let her go without exchanging a word with her in the

hearing of others. Their interview was too sacred, and the effect on the woman too over-

powering (not to speak of His own deep emotion) to allow of its being continued. But this

one artless touch—that she "left her water-pot"—speaks volumes. The living water was

already beginning to spring up within her; she found that man doth not live by bread nor

by water only, and that there was a water of wondrous virtue that raised people above meat

and drink, and the vessels that held them, and all human things. In short, she was transported,

forgot everything but One, and her heart running over with the tale she had to tell, she

hastens home and pours it out.

29. is not this the Christ—The form of the question (in the Greek) is a distant, modest

way of only half insinuating what it seemed hardly fitting for her to affirm; nor does she

refer to what He said of Himself, but solely to His disclosure to her of the particulars of her

own life.

30. Then they went out, &c.—How different from the Jews! and richly was their openness

to conviction rewarded.

31-38. meantime—that is, while the woman was away.

Master, eat—Fatigue and thirst we saw He felt; here is revealed another of our common

infirmities to which the Lord was subject—hunger.

32. meat ye know not of—What spirituality of mind! "I have been eating all the while,

and such food as ye dream not of." What can that be? they ask each other; have any supplies

been brought Him in our absence? He knows what they are saying though He hears it not.

34. My meat is, &c.—"A Servant here to fulfil a prescribed work, to do and to finish,

that is 'meat' to Me; and of this, while you were away, I have had My fill." And of what does

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He speak thus? Of the condescension, pity, patience, wisdom He had been laying out upon

one soul—a very humble woman, and in some respects repulsive too! But He had gained

her, and through her was going to gain more, and lay perhaps the foundations of a great

work in the country of Samaria; and this filled His whole soul and raised Him above the

sense of natural hunger (Mt 4:4).

35. yet four months, and then harvest—that is, "In current speech, ye say thus at this

season; but lift up your eyes and look upon those fields in the light of another husbandry,

for lo! in that sense, they are even now white to harvest, ready for the sickle." The simple

beauty of this language is only surpassed by the glow of holy emotion in the Redeemer's

own soul which it expresses. It refers to the ripeness of these Sycharites for accession to Him,

and the joy of this great Lord of the reapers over the anticipated ingathering. Oh, could we

but so, "lift up our eyes and look" upon many fields abroad and at home, which to dull sense

appear unpromising, as He beheld those of Samaria, what movements, as yet scarce in em-

bryo, and accessions to Christ, as yet seemingly far distant, might we not discern as quite

near at hand, and thus, amidst difficulties and discouragements too much for nature to

sustain, be cheered—as our Lord Himself was in circumstances far more overwhelming—with

"songs in the night!"

36. he that reapeth, &c.—As our Lord could not mean that the reaper only, and not

the sower, received "wages," in the sense of personal reward for his work, the "wages" here

can be no other than the joy of having such a harvest to gather in—the joy of "gathering

fruit unto life eternal."

rejoice together—The blessed issue of the whole ingathering is the interest alike of the

sower as of the reaper; it is no more the fruit of the last operation than of the first; and just

as there can be no reaping without previous sowing, so have those servants of Christ, to

whom is assigned the pleasant task of merely reaping the spiritual harvest, no work to do,

and no joy to taste, that has not been prepared to their hand by the toilsome and often

thankless work of their predecessors in the field. The joy, therefore, of the great harvest

festivity will be the common joy of all who have taken any part in the work from the first op-

eration to the last. (See De 16:11, 14; Ps 126:6; Isa 9:3). What encouragement is here for

those "fishers of men" who "have toiled all the night" of their official life, and, to human

appearance, "have taken nothing!"

38. I sent you, &c.—The I is emphatic—I, the Lord of the whole harvest: "sent you,"

points to their past appointment to the apostleship, though it has reference only to their

future discharge of it, for they had nothing to do with the present ingathering of the

Sycharites.

ye bestowed no labour—meaning that much of their future success would arise from

the preparation already made for them. (See on Joh 4:42).

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others laboured—Referring to the Old Testament laborers, the Baptist, and by implica-

tion Himself, though He studiously keeps this in the background, that the line of distinction

between Himself and all His servants might not be lost sight of. "Christ represents Himself as

the Husbandman [rather the Lord of the laborers], who has the direction both of the sowing

and of the harvest, who commissions all the agents—those of the Old Testament as well as

of the New—and therefore does not stand on a level with either the sowers or the reapers"

[Olshausen].

39-42. many … believed, &c.—The truth of Joh 4:35 begins to appear. These Samaritans

were the foundation of the Church afterwards built up there. No miracle appears to have

been wrought there (but unparalleled supernatural knowledge displayed): "we have heard

Him ourselves" (Joh 4:42) sufficed to raise their faith to a point never attained by the Jews,

and hardly as yet by the disciples—that He was "the Saviour of the world" [Alford]. "This

incident is further remarkable as a rare instance of the Lord's ministry producing an

awakening on a large scale" [Olshausen].

40. abode two days—Two precious days, surely, to the Redeemer Himself! Unsought,

He had come to His own, yet His own received Him not: now those who were not His own

had come to Him, been won by Him, and invited Him to their town that others might share

with them in the benefit of His wonderful ministry. Here, then, would He solace His already

wounded spirit and have in this outfield village triumph of His grace, a sublime foretaste of

the inbringing of the whole Gentile world into the Church.

Joh 4:43-54. Second Galilean Miracle—Healing of the Courtier's Son.

43, 44. after two days—literally, the two days of His stay at Sychar.

44. For Jesus testified, &c.—This verse had occasioned much discussion. For it seems

strange, if "His own country" here means Nazareth, which was in Galilee, that it should be

said He came to Galilee because in one of its towns He expected no good reception. But all

will be simple and natural if we fill up the statement thus: "He went into the region of Galilee,

but not, as might have been expected, to that part of it called 'His own country,' Nazareth

(see Mr 6:4; Lu 4:24), for He acted on the maxim which He oft repeated, that 'a prophet,'"

&c.

45. received—welcomed Him.

having seen … at the feast—proud, perhaps, of their Countryman's wonderful works

at Jerusalem, and possibly won by this circumstance to regard His claims as at least worthy

of respectful investigation. Even this our Lord did not despise, for saving conversion often

begins in less than this (so Zaccheus, Lu 19:3-10).

for they also went—that is, it was their practice to go up to the feast.

46, 47. nobleman—courtier, king's servant, or one connected with a royal household;

such as Chuza (Lu 8:3), or Manaen (Ac 13:1).

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heard that Jesus was come out of Judea—"where he had doubtless seen or heard what

things Jesus had done at Jerusalem" (Joh 4:45), [Bengel].

come down—for Capernaum was down on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee.

48-54. Except ye see signs, &c.—He did believe, both as his coming and his urgent en-

treaty show; but how imperfectly we shall see; and our Lord would deepen his faith by such

a blunt and seemingly rough answer as He made to Nicodemus.

49. come down ere my child die—"While we talk, the case is at its crisis, and if Thou

come not instantly, all is over." This was faith, but partial, and our Lord would perfect it.

The man cannot believe the cure could be wrought without the Physician coming to the

patient—the thought of such a thing evidently never occurred to him. But Jesus will in a

moment bring him up to this.

50. Go thy way; thy son liveth—Both effects instantaneously followed:—"The man be-

lieved the word," and the cure, shooting quicker than lightning from Cana to Capernaum,

was felt by the dying youth. In token of faith, the father takes his leave of Christ—in the

circumstances this evidenced full faith. The servants hasten to convey the joyful tidings to

the anxious parents, whose faith now only wants one confirmation. "When began he to

amend? … Yesterday, at the seventh hour, the fever left him"—the very hour in which was

uttered that great word, "Thy son liveth!" So "himself believed and his whole house." He had

believed before this, first very imperfectly; then with assured confidence of Christ's word;

but now with a faith crowned by "sight." And the wave rolled from the head to the members

of his household. "To-day is salvation come to this house" (Lu 19:9); and no mean house

this!

second miracle Jesus did—that is, in Cana; done "after He came out of Judea," as the

former before.

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CHAPTER 5

Joh 5:1-47. The Impotent Man Healed—Discourse Occasioned by the Persecution

Arising Thereupon.

1. a feast of the Jews—What feast? No question has more divided the Harmonists of

the Gospels, and the duration of our Lord's ministry may be said to hinge on it. For if, as

the majority have thought (until of late years) it was a Passover, His ministry lasted three

and a half years; if not, probably a year less. Those who are dissatisfied with the Passover-

view all differ among themselves what other feast it was, and some of the most acute think

there are no grounds for deciding. In our judgment the evidence is in favor of its being a

Passover, but the reasons cannot be stated here.

2, 3. sheep market—The supplement should be (as in Margin) "sheep [gate]," mentioned

in Ne 3:1, 32.

Bethesda—that is, "house (place) of mercy," from the cures wrought there.

five porches—for shelter to the patients.

3. impotent—infirm.

4. an angel, &c.—This miracle differed in two points from all other miracles recorded

in Scripture: (1) It was not one, but a succession of miracles periodically wrought: (2) As it

was only wrought "when the waters were troubled," so only upon one patient at a time, and

that the patient "who first stepped in after the troubling of the waters." But this only the

more undeniably fixed its miraculous character. We have heard of many waters having a

medicinal virtue; but what water was ever known to cure instantaneously a single disease?

And who ever heard of any water curing all, even the most diverse diseases—"blind, halt,

withered"—alike? Above all, who ever heard of such a thing being done "only at a certain

season," and most singularly of all, doing it only to the first person who stepped in after the

moving of the waters? Any of these peculiarities—much more all taken together—must have

proclaimed the supernatural character of the cures wrought. (If the text here be genuine,

there can be no doubt of the miracle, as there were multitudes living when this Gospel was

published who, from their own knowledge of Jerusalem, could have exposed the falsehood

of the Evangelist, if no such cure had been known there. The want of Joh 5:4 and part of Joh

5:3 in some good manuscripts, and the use of some unusual words in the passage, are more

easily accounted for than the evidence in their favor if they were not originally in the text.

Indeed Joh 5:7 is unintelligible without Joh 5:4. The internal evidence brought against it is

merely the unlikelihood of such a miracle—a principle which will carry us a great deal farther

if we allow it to weigh against positive evidence).

5-9. thirty and eight years—but not all that time at the pool. This was probably the

most pitiable of all the cases, and therefore selected.

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6. saw him lie, and knew, &c.—As He doubtless visited the spot just to perform this

cure, so He knows where to find His patient, and the whole previous history of his case (Joh

2:25).

Wilt thou be made whole?—Could anyone doubt that a sick man would like to be made

whole, or that the patients came thither, and this man had returned again and again, just in

hope of a cure? But our Lord asked the question. (1) To fasten attention upon Himself; (2)

By making him detail his case to deepen in him the feeling of entire helplessness; (3) By so

singular a question to beget in his desponding heart the hope of a cure. (Compare Mr 10:51).

7. Sir, I have no man, &c.—Instead of saying he wished to be cured, he just tells with

piteous simplicity how fruitless had been all his efforts to obtain it, and how helpless and all

but hopeless he was. Yet not quite. For here he is at the pool, waiting on. It seemed of no

use; nay, only tantalizing,

while I am coming, another steppeth down before me—the fruit was snatched from

his lips. Yet he will not go away. He may get nothing by staying, he may drop into his grave

ere he get into the pool; but by going from the appointed, divine way of healing, he can get

nothing. Wait therefore he will, wait he does, and when Christ comes to heal him, lo! he is

waiting his turn. What an attitude for a sinner at Mercy's gate! The man's hopes seemed low

enough ere Christ came to him. He might have said, just before "Jesus passed by that way,"

"This is no use; I shall never get in; let me die at home." Then all had been lost. But he held

on, and his perseverance was rewarded with a glorious cure. Probably some rays of hope

darted into his heart as he told his tale before those Eyes whose glance measured his whole

case. But the word of command consummates his preparation to receive the cure, and in-

stantaneously works it.

8. Rise, take up thy bed, &c.—"Immediately" he did so. "He spake and it was done." The

slinging of his portable couch over his shoulders was designed to show the perfection of the

cure.

9. the same day was the sabbath—Beyond all doubt this was intentional, as in so many

other healings, in order that when opposition arose on this account men might be compelled

to listen to His claims and His teaching.

10-16. The Jews—that is, those in authority. (See on Joh 1:19.)

it is not lawful to carry thy bed—a glorious testimony to the cure, as instantaneous

and complete, from the lips of the most prejudiced! (And what a contrast does it, as all our

Lord's miracles, present to the bungling miracles of the Church of Rome!) In ordinary cir-

cumstances, the rulers had the law on their side (Ne 13:15; Jer 17:21). But when the man

referred them to "Him that had made him whole" (Joh 5:11) as his authority, the argument

was resistless. Yet they ingeniously parried the thrust, asking him, not who had "made him

whole"—that would have condemned themselves and defeated their purpose—but who had

bidden him "take up his bed and walk," in other words, who had dared to order a breach of

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the sabbath? It is time we were looking after Him—thus hoping to shake the man's faith in

his Healer.

13. he that was healed wist not, &c.—That some one, with unparalleled generosity,

tenderness and power, had done it, the man knew well enough: but as he had never heard

of Him before, so he disappeared too quickly for any inquiries.

conveyed himself away—slipped out of the crowd that had gathered, to avoid both

hasty popularity and precipitate hatred (Mt 12:14-19).

14. findeth him in the temple—saying, perhaps, "I will go into Thy house with burnt

offerings, I will pay my vows which my lips have uttered and my mouth hath spoken when

I was in trouble" (Ps 66:13, 14). Jesus, there Himself for His own ends, "findeth him

there"—not all accidentally, be assured.

sin no more, &c.—a glimpse this of the reckless life he had probably led before his thirty-

eight years' infirmity had come upon him, and which not improbably had brought on, in

the just judgment of God, his chronic complaint. Fearful illustration this of "the severity of

God," but glorious manifestation of our Lord's insight into "what was in man."

15. The man departed, and told, &c.—little thinking how unwelcome his grateful and

eager testimony would be. "The darkness received not the light which was pouring its rays

upon it" (Joh 1:5, 11) [Olshausen].

16. because he had done these things on the sabbath day—What to these hypocritical

religionists was the doing of the most glorious and beneficent miracles, compared with the

atrocity of doing them on the sabbath day! Having given them this handle, on purpose to

raise the first public controversy with them, and thus open a fitting opportunity of laying

His claims before them, He rises at once to the whole height of them, in a statement which

for grandeur and terseness exceeds almost anything that ever afterwards fell from Him, at

least to His enemies.

17, 18. My Father worketh hitherto and I work—The "I" is emphatic; "The creative

and conservative activity of My Father has known no sabbath-cessation from the beginning

until now, and that is the law of My working."

18. God was his Father—literally, "His own [or peculiar] Father," (as in Ro 8:32). The

addition is their own, but a very proper one.

making himself equal with God—rightly gathering this to be His meaning, not from

the mere words "My Father," but from His claim of right to act as His Father did in the like

high sphere, and by the same law of ceaseless activity in that sphere. And as, instead of in-

stantly disclaiming any such meaning—as He must have done if it was false—He positively

sets His seal to it in the following verses, merely explaining how consistent such claim was

with the prerogatives of His Father, it is beyond all doubt that we have here an assumption

of peculiar personal Sonship, or participation in the Father's essential nature.

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19, 20. the Son can do nothing of himself—that is, apart from and in rivalry of the

Father, as they supposed. The meaning is, "The Son can have no separate interest or action

from the Father."

for what things, &c.—On the contrary, "whatever the Father doeth that same doeth the

Son,"

likewise—"in the like manner." What claim to absolute equality with the Father could

exceed this: not only to do "the same things," but to do them as the Father does them?

20. Father loveth … and showeth him all, &c.—As love has no concealments, so it

results from the perfect fellowship and mutual endearment of the Father and the Son (see

on Joh 1:1; Joh 1:18), whose interests are one, even as their nature, that the Father commu-

nicates to the Son all His counsels, and what has been thus shown to the Son is by Him ex-

ecuted in His mediatorial character. "With the Father, doing is willing; it is only the Son who

acts in Time" [Alford]. Three things here are clear: (1) The personal distinctions in the

Godhead. (2) Unity of action among the Persons results from unity of nature. (3) Their

oneness of interest is no unconscious or involuntary thing, but a thing of glorious conscious-

ness, will, and love, of which the Persons themselves are the proper Objects.

show him greater things, &c.—referring to what He goes on to mention (Joh 5:21-31),

comprised in two great words, Life and Judgment, which Stier beautifully calls God's Regalia.

Yet these, Christ says, the Father and He do in common.

21-23. raiseth the dead and quickeneth them—one act in two stages. This is His absolute

prerogative as God.

so the Son quickeneth them—that is, raiseth up and quickeneth.

whom he will—not only doing the same divine act, but doing it as the result of His own

will, even as the Father does it. This statement is of immense importance in relation to the

miracles of Christ, distinguishing them from similar miracles of prophets and apostles, who

as human instruments were employed to perform super-natural actions, while Christ did

all as the Father's commissioned Servant indeed, but in the exercise of His own absolute right

of action.

22. For the Father judgeth no man, &c.—rather, "For neither doth the Father judge

any man," implying that the same "thing was meant in the former verse of the quickening

of the dead"—both acts being done, not by the Father and the Son, as though twice done,

but by the Father through the Son as His voluntary Agent.

all judgment—judgment in its most comprehensive sense, or as we should say, all ad-

ministration.

23. honour the Son as … the Father—As he who believes that Christ in the foregoing

verses has given a true account of His relation to the Father must of necessity hold Him

entitled to the same honor as the Father, so He here adds that it was the Father's express

intention in making over all judgment to the Son, that men should thus honor Him.

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honoureth not the Father—does not do it in fact, whatever he may imagine, and will

be held as not doing it by the Father Himself, who will accept no homage which is not ac-

corded to His own Son.

24. believeth on him that sent me—that is, believeth in Him as having sent Me. I have

spoken of the Son's right not only to heal the sick but to raise from the dead, and quicken

whom He will: And now I say unto you, That life-giving operation has already passed upon

all who receive My words as the Sent of the Father on the great errand of mercy.

hath everlasting life—immediately on his believing (compare Joh 3:18; 1Jo 5:12, 13).

is passed—"hath passed over"

from death unto life—What a transition! (Compare 1Jo 3:14).

25-29. The hour cometh—in its whole fulness, at Pentecost.

and now is—in its beginnings.

the dead—the spiritually dead, as is clear from Joh 5:28. Here He rises from the calmer

phrase "hearing his word" (Joh 5:24), to the grander expression, "hearing the voice of the Son

of God," to signify that as it finds men in a dead condition, so it carries with it a resurrection-

power.

shall live—in the sense of Joh 5:24.

26. given to the Son, &c.—Does this refer to the essential life of the Son before all time

(Joh 1:4) (as most of the Fathers, and Olshausen, Stier, Alford, &c., among the moderns),

or to the purpose of God that this essential life should reside in the Person of the Incarnate

Son, and be manifested thus to the world? [Calvin, Lucke, Luthardt, &c.] The question is as

difficult as the subject is high. But as all that Christ says of His essential relation to the

Father is intended to explain and exalt His mediatorial functions, so the one seems in our

Lord's own mind and language mainly the starting-point of the other.

27. because he is the Son of man—This seems to confirm the last remark, that what

Christ had properly in view was the indwelling of the Son's essential life in humanity as the

great theater and medium of divine display, in both the great departments of His work—life-

giving and judgment. The appointment of a Judge in our own nature is one of the most

beautiful arrangements of divine wisdom in redemption.

28. Marvel not at this—this committal of all judgment to the Son of man.

for the hour is coming—He adds not in this case (as in Joh 5:25), "and now is," because

this was not to be till the close of the whole dispensation of mercy.

29. resurrection of life—that is, to life everlasting (Mt 25:46).

of damnation—It would have been harsh to say "the resurrection of death," though that

is meant, for sinners rise from death to death [Bengel]. The resurrection of both classes is

an exercise of sovereign authority; but in the one case it is an act of grace, in the other of

justice. (Compare Da 12:2, from which the language is taken). How awfully grand are these

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unfoldings of His dignity and authority from the mouth of Christ Himself! And they are all

in the third person; in what follows He resumes the first person.

30-32. of mine own self do nothing—that is, apart from the Father, or in any interest

than My own. (See on Joh 5:19).

as I hear—that is, "My judgments are all anticipated in the bosom of My Father, to

which I have immediate access, and by Me only responded to and reflected. They cannot

therefore err, as I live for one end only, to carry into effect the will of Him that sent Me."

31. If I … witness of myself—standing alone, and setting up any separate interest.

32. There is another—that is, the Father, as is plain from the connection. How brightly

the distinction of the Persons shines out here!

and I know that the witness, &c.—"This is the Son's testimony to the Father's truth (see

Joh 7:28; 8:26, 55). It testifies to the full consciousness on the part of the Son, even in the

days of His humiliation, of the righteousness of the Father" [Alford]. And thus He cheered

His spirit under the cloud of human opposition which was already gathering over His head.

33-35. Ye sent unto John—(See Joh 1:19, &c.).

receive not testimony … from man—that is, depend not on human testimony.

but … that ye might be saved—"I refer to him merely to aid your salvation."

35. He was a burning and a shining light—literally, "the burning and shining lamp"

(or torch):—that is, "the great light of his day." Christ is never called by the humble word

here applied to John—a light-bearer—studiously used to distinguish him from his Master,

but ever the Light in the most absolute sense. (See on Joh 1:6).

willing for a season—that is, till they saw that it pointed whither they were not prepared

to go.

to rejoice in his light—There is a play of irony here, referring to the hollow delight with

which his testimony tickled them.

36-38. I have greater witness—rather, "The witness which I have is greater."

the works … bear witness of me—not simply as miracles nor even as a miracle of mercy,

but these miracles, as He did them, with a will and a power, a majesty and a grace manifestly

His own.

37. the Father himself … hath borne witness of me—not referring, probably, to the

voice of His baptism, but (as seems from what follows) to the testimony of the Old Testament

Scripture [Calvin, Lucke, Meyer, Luthardt, &c.].

neither heard his voice, &c.—never recognized Him in this character. The words are

"designedly mysterious, like many others which our Lord uttered" [Stier].

38. not his word abiding in you—passing now from the Witness to the testimony borne

by Him in "the lively oracles" (Ac 7:38): both were alike strangers to their breasts, as was

evidenced by their rejecting Him to whom all that witness was borne.

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39-42. Search the scriptures, &c.—"In the Scriptures ye find your charter of eternal

life; go search them then, and you will find that I am the Great Burden of their testimony;

yet ye will not come to Me for that life eternal which you profess to find there, and of which

they tell you I am the appointed Dispenser." (Compare Ac 17:11, 12). How touching and

gracious are these last words! Observe here (1) The honor which Christ gives to the Scriptures,

as a record which all have a right and are bound to search—the reverse of which the Church

of Rome teaches; (2) The opposite extreme is, resting in the mere Book without the living

Christ, to direct the soul to whom is its main use and chiefest glory.

41. I receive not honour from men—contrasting His own end with theirs, which was

to obtain human applause.

42. not the love of God in you—which would inspire you with a single desire to know

His mind and will, and yield yourselves to it, in spite of prejudice and regardless of con-

sequences.

43-47. if another shall come, &c.—How strikingly has this been verified in the history

of the Jews! "From the time of the true Christ to our time, sixty-four false Christs have been

reckoned by whom they have been deceived" [Bengel].

44. How can ye believe, &c.—(See on Joh 5:40,41). The "will not" of Joh 5:40, and

"cannot" here are just different features of the same awful state of the human heart.

45. Do not think I will accuse you to the Father—"My errand hither is not to collect

evidence to condemn you at God's bar."

one that accuseth you, even Moses, &c.—"Alas! that will be too well done by another,

and him the object of all your religious boastings—Moses," here put for "the Law," the basis

of the Old Testament Scriptures.

46. he wrote of me—"an important testimony to the subject of the whole Pentateuch—'of

Me'" [Alford].

47. If ye believe not—(See Lu 16:31).

his writings … my words—a remarkable contrast, not absolutely exalting Old Testament

Scripture above His own words, but pointing to the office of those venerable documents to

prepare Christ's way, to the necessity universally felt for documentary testimony in revealed

religion, and perhaps (as Stier adds) to the relation which the comparative "letter" of the

Old Testament holds to the more flowing "words" of "spirit and life" which characterize the

New Testament.

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CHAPTER 6

Joh 6:1-13. Five Thousand Miraculously Fed.

(See on Mr 6:31-44).

3. a mountain—somewhere in that hilly range which skirts the east side of the lake.

4. passover … was nigh—but for the reason mentioned (Joh 7:1), Jesus kept away from

it, remaining in Galilee.

Joh 6:14-21. Jesus Walks on the Sea.

(Also see on Mr 6:45-56).

14, 15. that prophet—(See on Joh 1:21).

15. departed … to a mountain himself alone—(1) to rest, which He came to this "desert

place" on purpose to do before the miracle of the loaves, but could not for the multitude

that followed Him (see Mr 6:31); and (2) "to pray" (Mt 14:23; Mr 6:46). But from His

mountain-top He kept watching the ship (see on Joh 6:18), and doubtless prayed both for

them, and with a view to the new manifestation which He was to give them of His glory.

16, 17. when even was come—(See on Mr 6:35).

entered into a ship—"constrained" to do so by their Master (Mt 14:22; Mr 6:45), in order

to put an end to the misdirected excitement in His favor (Joh 6:15), into which the disciples

themselves may have been somewhat drawn. The word "constrained" implies reluctance on

their part, perhaps from unwillingness to part with their Master and embark at night, leaving

Him alone on the mountain.

went—rather, "were proceeding."

toward Capernaum—Mark says (Mr 6:45), "unto Bethsaida," meaning "Bethsaida of

Galilee" (Joh 12:21), on the west side of the lake. The place they left was of the same name

(see on Mr 6:32).

Jesus was not come to them—They probably lingered in hopes of His still joining them,

and so let the darkness come on.

18, 19. sea arose, &c.—and they were "now in the midst of it" (Mt 14:24). Mark adds

the graphic and touching particular, "He saw them toiling in rowing" (Mr 6:48), putting

forth all their strength to buffet the waves and bear on against a head wind, but to little effect.

He saw this from His mountain-top, and through the darkness of the night, for His heart

was all with them; yet would He not go to their relief till His own time came.

19. they see Jesus—"about the fourth watch of the night" (Mt 14:25; Mr 6:48), or between

three and six in the morning.

walking on the sea—What Job (Job 9:8) celebrates as the distinguishing prerogative of

God, "Who alone spreadeth out the heavens, and TREADETH UPON THE WAVES OF

THE SEA"—What Agur challenges as God's unapproachable prerogative, to "GATHER

THE WIND IN His fists, and BIND THE WATERS IN A GARMENT" (Pr 30:4)—lo! this

is here done in flesh, by "THE Son of man."

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drawing nigh to the ship—yet as though He "would have passed by them," Mr 6:48

(compare Lu 24:28; Ge 18:3, 5; 32:24-26).

they were afraid—"cried out for fear" (Mt 14:26), "supposing it had been a spirit" (Mr

6:49). He would appear to them at first like a dark moving speck upon the waters; then as

a human figure, but—in the dark tempestuous sky, and not dreaming that it could be their

Lord—they take it for a spirit. (How often thus we miscall our chiefest mercies—not only

thinking them distant when they are near, but thinking the best the worst!)

20. It is I; be not afraid—Matthew (Mt 14:27) and Mark (Mr 6:50) give before these

exhilarating words, that to them well-known one, "Be of good cheer!"

21. willingly received him into the ship—their first fears being now converted into

wonder and delight.

and immediately the ship was at the land—This additional miracle, for as such it is

manifestly related, is recorded here alone. Yet all that is meant seems to be that as the storm

was suddenly calmed, so the little bark—propelled by the secret power of the Lord of Nature

now sailing in it—glided through the now unruffled waters, and while they were wrapt in

wonder at what had happened, not heeding their rapid motion, was found at port, to their

still further surprise.

Joh 6:22-71. Jesus Followed by the Multitudes to Capernaum, Discourses to Them in

the Synagogue of the Bread of Life—Effect of This on Two Classes of the Disciples.

22-24. These verses are a little involved, from the Evangelist's desire to mention every

circumstance, however minute, that might call up the scene as vividly to the reader as it

stood before his own view.

The day following—the miracle of the loaves, and the stormy night; the day on which

they landed at Capernaum.

the people which stood on the other side of the sea—not the whole multitude that had

been fed, but only such of them as remained over night about the shore, that is, on the east

side of the lake; for we are supposed to have come, with Jesus and His disciples in the ship,

to the west side, to Capernaum.

saw that there was none other boat there, &c.—The meaning is, the people had observed

that there had been only one boat on the east side where they were; namely, the one in which

the disciples had crossed at night to the other, the west side, and they had also observed that

Jesus had not gone on board that boat, but His disciples had put off without Him:

23. Howbeit, &c.—"Howbeit," adds the Evangelist, in a lively parenthesis, "there came

other boats from Tiberias" (which lay near the southwest coast of the lake), whose passengers

were part of the multitude that had followed Jesus to the east side, and been miraculously

fed; these boats were fastened somewhere (says the Evangelist)

nigh unto the place where they did eat bread, after that the Lord had given

thanks—thus he refers to the glorious "miracle of the loaves"—and now they were put in

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requisition to convey the people back again to the west side. For when "the people saw that

Jesus was not there, neither His disciples, they also took shipping [in these boats] and came

to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus."

25. when they had found him on the other side—at Capernaum.

they said, &c.—astonished at His being there, and wondering how He could have accom-

plished it, whether by land or water, and when He came; for being quite unaware of His

having walked upon the sea and landed with the disciples in the ship, they could not see

how, unless He had travelled all night round the head of the lake alone, He could have

reached Capernaum, and even then, how He could have arrived before themselves.

26. Ye seek me, &c.—Jesus does not put them through their difficulty, says nothing of

His treading on the waves of the sea, nor even notices their question, but takes advantage

of the favorable moment for pointing out to them how forward, flippant, and superficial

were their views, and how low their desires. "Ye seek Me not because ye saw the miracles"—lit-

erally, "the signs," that is, supernatural tokens of a higher presence, and a divine commission,

"but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled." From this He proceeds at once to that

other Bread, just as, with the woman of Samaria, to that other Water (Joh 4:9-15). We should

have supposed all that follows to have been delivered by the wayside, or wherever they

happened first to meet. But from Joh 6:59 we gather that they had probably met about the

door of the synagogue—"for that was the day in which they assembled in their synagogues"

[Lightfoot]—and that on being asked, at the close of the service, if He had any word of ex-

hortation to the people, He had taken the two breads, the perishing and the living bread, for

the subject of His profound and extraordinary discourse.

27. which the Son of man—taking that title of Himself which denoted His incarnate

life.

shall give unto you—in the sense of Joh 6:51.

him hath God the Father sealed—marked out and authenticated for that transcendent

office, to impart to the world the bread of an everlasting life, and this in the character of

"the Son of man."

28-31. What shall we do … the works of God—such works as God will approve. Dif-

ferent answers may be given to such a question, according to the spirit which prompts the

inquiry. (See Ho 6:6-8; Lu 3:12-14). Here our Lord, knowing whom He had to deal with,

shapes His reply accordingly.

29. This is the work of God—That lies at the threshold of all acceptable obedience, being

not only the prerequisite to it, but the proper spring of it—in that sense, the work of works,

emphatically "the work of God."

30. What sign showest thou, &c.—But how could they ask "a sign," when many of them

scarce a day before had witnessed such a "sign" as had never till then been vouchsafed to

men; when after witnessing it, they could hardly be restrained from making Him a king;

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when they followed Him from the one side of the lake to the other; and when, in the opening

words of this very discourse, He had chided them for seeking Him, "not because they saw

the signs," but for the loaves? The truth seems to be that they were confounded by the novel

claims which our Lord had just advanced. In proposing to make Him a king, it was for far

other purposes than dispensing to the world the bread of an everlasting life; and when He

seemed to raise His claims even higher still, by representing it as the grand "work of God,"

that they should believe on Himself as His Sent One, they saw very clearly that He was

making a demand upon them beyond anything they were prepared to accord to Him, and

beyond all that man had ever before made. Hence their question, "What dost Thou work?"

31. Our fathers did eat manna, &c.—insinuating the inferiority of Christ's miracle of

the loaves to those of Moses: "When Moses claimed the confidence of the fathers, 'he gave

them bread from heaven to eat'—not for a few thousands, but for millions, and not once

only, but daily throughout their wilderness journey."

32, 33. Moses gave you not, &c.—"It was not Moses that gave you the manna, and even

it was but from the lower heavens; 'but My Father giveth you the true bread,' and that 'from

heaven.'"

33. For the bread of God is he, &c.—This verse is perhaps best left in its own transparent

grandeur—holding up the Bread Itself as divine, spiritual, and eternal; its ordained Fountain

and essential Substance, "Him who came down from heaven to give it" (that Eternal Life

which was with the Father and was manifested unto us, 1Jo 1:2); and its designed objects,

"the world."

34. Lord, evermore give us this bread—speaking now with a certain reverence (as at

Joh 6:25), the perpetuity of the manna floating perhaps in their minds, and much like the

Samaritan woman, when her eyes were but half opened, "Sir, give Me this water," &c. (Joh

4:15).

35. I am the bread of life—Henceforth the discourse is all in the first person, "I," "Me,"

which occur in one form or other, as Stier reckons, thirty-five times.

he that cometh to me—to obtain what the soul craves, and as the only all-sufficient and

ordained source of supply.

hunger … thirst—shall have conscious and abiding satisfaction.

36. But … ye have seen me, and believe not—seen Him not in His mere bodily presence,

but in all the majesty of His life, His teaching, His works.

37-40. All that, &c.—This comprehensive and very grand passage is expressed with a

peculiar artistic precision. The opening general statement (Joh 6:37) consists of two members:

(1) "All that the Father Giveth me shall come to me"—that is, "Though ye, as I told you, have

no faith in Me, My errand into the world shall in no wise be defeated; for all that the Father

giveth Me shall infallibly come to Me." Observe, what is given Him by the Father is expressed

in the singular number and neuter gender—literally, "everything"; while those who come to

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Him are put in the masculine gender and singular number—"every one." The whole mass,

so to speak, is gifted by the Father to the Son as a unity, which the Son evolves, one by one,

in the execution of His trust. So Joh 17:2, "that He should give eternal life to all that which

Thou hast given Him" [Bengel]. This "shall" expresses the glorious certainty of it, the Father

being pledged to see to it that the gift be no empty mockery. (2) "And him that cometh to

me I WILL IN NO WISE CAST OUT." As the former was the divine, this is just the human

side of the same thing. True, the "coming" ones of the second clause are just the "given" ones

of the first. But had our Lord merely said, "When those that have been given Me of My

Father shall come to Me, I will receive them"—besides being very flat, the impression con-

veyed would have been quite different, sounding as if there were no other laws in operation,

in the movement of sinners to Christ, but such as are wholly divine and inscrutable to us;

whereas, though He does speak of it as a sublime certainty which men's refusals cannot

frustrate, He speaks of that certainty as taking effect only by men's voluntary advances to

Him and acceptance of Him—"Him that cometh to Me," "whosoever will," throwing the

door wide open. Only it is not the simply willing, but the actually coming, whom He will

not cast out; for the word here employed usually denotes arrival, as distinguished from the

ordinary word, which rather expresses the act of coming (see Joh 8:42, Greek), [Webster and

Wilkinson]. "In no wise" is an emphatic negative, to meet the fears of the timid (as in Re

21:27, to meet the presumption of the hardened). These, then, being the two members of

the general opening statement, what follows is meant to take in both,

38. For I came down from heaven not to do Mine own will—to play an independent

part.

but—in respect to both the foregoing things, the divine and the human side of salvation.

the will of Him that sent Me—What this twofold will of Him that sent Him is, we are

next sublimely told (Joh 6:39, 40):

39. And this—in the first place.

is the will of Him that sent me, that of all—everything.

which He hath given Me—(taking up the identical words of Joh 6:37).

I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day—The meaning is not, of

course, that He is charged to keep the objects entrusted to Him as He received them, so as

they should merely suffer nothing in His hands. For as they were just "perishing" sinners of

Adam's family, to let "nothing" of such "be lost," but "raise them up at the last day," must

involve, first, giving His flesh for them (Joh 6:51), that they "might not perish, but have

everlasting life"; and then, after "keeping them from falling," raising their sleeping dust in

incorruption and glory, and presenting them, body and soul, perfect and entire, wanting

nothing, to Him who gave them to Him, saying, "Behold I and the children which God hath

given Me." So much for the first will of Him that sent Him, the divine side of man's salvation,

whose every stage and movement is inscrutable to us, but infallibly certain.

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40. And this—in the second place.

is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on

Him—seeing the Son believeth on Him.

may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day—This is the human

side of the same thing as in the foregoing verse, and answering to "Him that cometh unto

Me I will in no wise cast out"; that is, I have it expressly in charge that everyone that so "be-

holdeth" (so vieweth) the Son as to believe on Him shall have everlasting life; and, that none

of Him be lost, "I will raise him up at the last day." (See on Joh 6:54).

41-46. Jews murmured—muttered, not in our Lord's hearing, but He knew it (Joh 6:43;

Joh 2:25).

he said, I am the bread, &c.—Missing the sense and glory of this, and having no relish

for such sublimities, they harp upon the "Bread from heaven." "What can this mean? Do we

not know all about Him—where, when, and of whom He was born? And yet He says He

came down from heaven!"

43, 44. Murmur not … No man—that is, Be not either startled or stumbled at these

sayings; for it needs divine teaching to understand them, divine drawing to submit to them.

44. can come to me—in the sense of Joh 6:35.

except the Father which hath sent me—that is, the Father as the Sender of Me and to

carry out the design of My mission.

draw him—by an internal and efficacious operation; though by all the means of rational

conviction, and in a way altogether consonant to their moral nature (So 1:4; Jer 31:3; Ho

11:3, 4).

raise him up, &c.—(See on Joh 6:54).

45. written in the prophets—in Isa 54:13; Jer 31:33, 34; other similar passages may also

have been in view. Our Lord thus falls back upon Scripture authority for this seemingly

hard saying.

all taught of God—not by external revelation merely, but by internal illumination,

corresponding to the "drawing" of Joh 6:44.

Every man therefore, &c.—that is, who hath been thus efficaciously taught of Him.

cometh unto me—with absolute certainty, yet in the sense above given of "drawing";

that is, "As none can come to Me but as divinely drawn, so none thus drawn shall fail to

come."

46. Not that any man hath seen, &c.—Lest they should confound that "hearing and

learning of the Father," to which believers are admitted by divine teaching, with His own

immediate access to Him, He here throws in a parenthetical explanation; stating, as explicitly

as words could do it, how totally different the two cases were, and that only He who is "from

God" hath this naked, immediate access to the Father. (See Joh 1:18).

47-51. He that believeth, &c.—(See on Joh 3:36; Joh 5:24).

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48. I am the bread of life—"As he that believeth in Me hath everlasting life, so I am

Myself the everlasting Sustenance of that life." (Repeated from Joh 6:35).

49. Your fathers—of whom ye spake (Joh 6:31); not "ours," by which He would hint

that He had a higher descent, of which they dreamt not [Bengel].

did eat manna … and are dead—recurring to their own point about the manna, as one

of the noblest of the ordained preparatory illustrations of His own office: "Your fathers, ye

say, ate manna in the wilderness; and ye say well, for so they did, but they are dead—even

they whose carcasses fell in the wilderness did eat of that bread; the Bread whereof I speak

cometh down from heaven, which the manna never did, that men, eating of it, may live for

ever."

51. I am, &c.—Understand, it is of Myself I now speak as the Bread from heaven; of

Meif a man eat he shall live for ever; and "THE Bread which i will give is my Flesh, which i

will give for the life of the world." Here, for the first time in this high discourse, our Lord

explicitly introduces His sacrificial death—for only rationalists can doubt this not only as

that which constitutes Him the Bread of life to men, but as THAT very element IN Him

which possesses the life-giving virtue.—"From this time we hear no more (in this discourse)

of "Bread"; this figure is dropped, and the reality takes its place" [Stier]. The words "I will

give" may be compared with the words of institution at the Supper, "This is My body which

is given for you" (Lu 22:19), or in Paul's report of it, "broken for you" (1Co 11:24).

52. Jews strove among themselves—arguing the point together.

How can, &c.—that is, Give us His flesh to eat? Absurd.

53-58. Except ye eat the flesh … and drink the blood … no life, &c.—The harshest

word He had yet uttered in their ears. They asked how it was possible to eat His flesh. He

answers, with great solemnity, "It is indispensable." Yet even here a thoughtful hearer might

find something to temper the harshness. He says they must not only "eat His flesh" but "drink

His blood," which could not but suggest the idea of His death—implied in the separation of

one's flesh from his blood. And as He had already hinted that it was to be something very

different from a natural death, saying, "My flesh I will give for the life of the world" (Joh

6:51), it must have been pretty plain to candid hearers that He meant something above the

gross idea which the bare terms expressed. And farther, when He added that they "had no

life in them unless they thus ate and drank," it was impossible they should think He meant

that the temporal life they were then living was dependent on their eating and drinking, in

this gross sense, His flesh and blood. Yet the whole statement was certainly confounding,

and beyond doubt was meant to be so. Our Lord had told them that in spite of all they had

"seen" in Him, they "did not believe" (Joh 6:36). For their conviction therefore he does not

here lay Himself out; but having the ear not only of them but of the more candid and

thoughtful in the crowded synagogue, and the miracle of the loaves having led up to the

most exalted of all views of His Person and Office, He takes advantage of their very difficulties

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and objections to announce, for all time, those most profound truths which are here ex-

pressed, regardless of the disgust of the unteachable, and the prejudices even of the most

sincere, which His language would seem only designed to deepen. The truth really conveyed

here is no other than that expressed in Joh 6:51, though in more emphatic terms—that He

Himself, in the virtue of His sacrificial death, is the spiritual and eternal life of men; and

that unless men voluntarily appropriate to themselves this death, in its sacrificial virtue, so

as to become the very life and nourishment of their inner man, they have no spiritual and

eternal life at all. Not as if His death were the only thing of value, but it is what gives all else

in Christ's Incarnate Person, Life, and Office, their whole value to us sinners.

54. Whoso eateth … hath, &c.—The former verse said that unless they partook of Him

they had no life; this adds, that whoever does so "hath eternal life."

and I will raise him up at the last day—For the fourth time this is repeated (see Joh

6:39, 40, 44)—showing most clearly that the "eternal life" which such a man "hath" cannot

be the same with the future resurrection life from which it is carefully distinguished each

time, but a life communicated here below immediately on believing (Joh 3:36; 5:24, 25); and

giving to the resurrection of the body as that which consummates the redemption of the entire

man, a prominence which in the current theology, it is to be feared, it has seldom had. (See

Ro 8:23; 1Co 15:1-58, throughout).

56. He that eateth … dwelleth in me and I in him—As our food becomes incorporated

with ourselves, so Christ and those who eat His flesh and drink His blood become spiritually

one life, though personally distinct.

57. As the living Father hath sent me—to communicate His own life.

and I live by the Father—literally, "because of the Father"; My life and His being one,

but Mine that of a Son, whose it is to be "of the Father." (See Joh 1:18; 5:26).

he that eateth me, … shall live by me—literally, "because of Me." So that though one

spiritual life with Him, "the Head of every man is Christ, as the head of Christ is God" (1Co

11:3; 3:23).

58. This is that bread, &c.—a sort of summing up of the whole discourse, on which let

this one further remark suffice—that as our Lord, instead of softening down His figurative

sublimities, or even putting them in naked phraseology, leaves the great truths of His Person

and Office, and our participation of Him and it, enshrined for all time in those glorious

forms of speech, so when we attempt to strip the truth of these figures, figures though they

be, it goes away from us, like water when the vessel is broken, and our wisdom lies in raising

our own spirit, and attuning our own ear, to our Lord's chosen modes of expression. (It

should be added that although this discourse has nothing to do with the Sacrament of the

Supper, the Sacrament has everything to do with it, as the visible embodiment of these figures,

and, to the believing partaker, a real, yea, and the most lively and affecting participation of

His flesh and blood, and nourishment thereby of the spiritual and eternal life, here below).

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59. These things said he in the synagogue—which seems to imply that what follows

took place after the congregation had broken up.

60-65. Many … of his disciples—His pretty constant followers, though an outer circle

of them.

hard saying—not merely harsh, but insufferable, as the word often means in the Old

Testament.

who can hear—submit to listen to it.

61, 62. Doth this offend … What and if, &c.—that is, "If ye are stumbled at what I have

said, how will ye bear what I now say?" Not that His ascension itself would stumble them

more than His death, but that after recoiling from the mention of the one, they would not

be in a state of mind to take in the other.

63. the flesh profiteth nothing—Much of His discourse was about "flesh"; but flesh as

such, mere flesh, could profit nothing, much less impart that life which the Holy Spirit alone

communicates to the soul.

the words that I speak … are spirit and … life—The whole burden of the discourse is

"spirit," not mere flesh, and "life" in its highest, not its lowest sense, and the words I have

employed are to be interpreted solely in that sense.

64. But there are some, &c.—that is, "But it matters little to some of you in what sense

I speak, for ye believe not." This was said, adds the Evangelist, not merely of the outer but

of the inner circle of His disciples; for He knew the traitor, though it was not yet time to

expose him.

65. Therefore said I, &c.—that is, "That was why I spoke to you of the necessity of divine

teaching which some of you are strangers to."

except it were given him—plainly showing that by the Father's "drawing" (Joh 6:44)

was meant an internal and efficacious operation, for in recalling the statement here He says,

it must be "given to a man to come" to Christ.

66-71. From that time, &c.—or, in consequence of this. Those last words of our Lord

seemed to have given them the finishing stroke—they could not stand it any longer.

walked no more—Many a journey, it may be, they had taken with Him, but now they

gave Him up finally!

67. the twelve—the first time they are thus mentioned in this Gospel.

Will ye also go away?—Affecting appeal! Evidently Christ felt the desertion of Him

even by those miserable men who could not abide His statements; and seeing a disturbance

even of the wheat by the violence of the wind which blew away the chaff (not yet visibly

showing itself, but open to His eyes of fire), He would nip it in the bud by this home question.

68. Then Simon Peter—whose forwardness in this case was noble, and to the wounded

spirit of His Lord doubtless very grateful.

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Lord, to whom, &c.—that is, "We cannot deny that we have been staggered as well as

they, and seeing so many go away who, as we thought, might have been retained by teaching

a little less hard to take in, our own endurance has been severely tried, nor have we been

able to stop short of the question, Shall we follow the rest, and give it up? But when it came

to this, our light returned, and our hearts were reassured. For as soon as we thought of going

away, there arose upon us that awful question, 'To whom shall we go?' To the lifeless form-

alism and wretched traditions of the elders? to the gods many and lords many of the heathen

around us? or to blank unbelief? Nay, Lord, we are shut up. They have none of that

'ETERNAL LIFE' to offer us whereof Thou hast been discoursing, in words rich and ravishing

as well as in words staggering to human wisdom. That life we cannot want; that life we have

learnt to crave as a necessity of the deeper nature which Thou hast awakened: 'the words of

that eternal life' (the authority to reveal it and the power to confer it). Thou hast: Therefore

will we stay with Thee—we must."

69. And we believe,—(See on Mt 16:16). Peter seems to have added this not

merely—probably not so much—as an assurance to his Lord of his heart's belief in Him, as

for the purpose of fortifying himself and his faithful brethren against that recoil from his

Lord's harsh statements which he was probably struggling against with difficulty at that

moment. Note.—There are seasons when one's faith is tried to the utmost, particularly by

speculative difficulties; the spiritual eye then swims, and all truth seems ready to depart

from us. At such seasons, a clear perception that to abandon the faith of Christ is to face

black desolation, ruin and death; and on recoiling from this, to be able to fall back, not merely

on first principles and immovable foundations, but on personal experience of a Living Lord

in whom all truth is wrapt up and made flesh for our very benefit—this is a relief unspeakable.

Under that blessed Wing taking shelter, until we are again fit to grapple with the questions

that have staggered us, we at length either find our way through them, or attain to a calm

satisfaction in the discovery that they lie beyond the limits of present apprehension.

70. Have not I chosen … and one of you is a devil:—"Well said, Simon-Barjonas, but

that 'we' embraces not so wide a circle as in the simplicity of thine heart thou thinkest; for

though I have chosen you but twelve, one even of these is a 'devil'" (the temple, the tool of

that wicked one).

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CHAPTER 7

Joh 7:1-53. Christ at the Feast of Tabernacles.

1, 2. After these things—that is, all that is recorded after Joh 5:18.

walked in Galilee—continuing His labors there, instead of going to Judea, as might

have been expected.

sought to kill him—referring back to Joh 5:18. Hence it appears that our Lord did not

attend the Passover mentioned in Joh 6:4—being the third since His ministry began, if the

feast mentioned in Joh 5:1 was a Passover.

2. feast of tabernacles … at hand—This was the last of the three annual festivals, celeb-

rated on the fifteenth of the seventh month (September). (See Le 23:33, &c.; De 16:13, &c.;

Ne 8:14-18).

3-5. His brethren said—(See on Mt 13:54-56).

Depart … into Judea, &c.—In Joh 7:5 this speech is ascribed to their unbelief. But as

they were in the "upper room" among the one hundred and twenty disciples who waited for

the descent of the Spirit after the Lord's ascension (Ac 1:14), they seem to have had their

prejudices removed, perhaps after His resurrection. Indeed here their language is more that

of strong prejudice and suspicion (such as near relatives, even the best, too frequently show

in such cases), than from unbelief. There was also, probably, a tincture of vanity in it. "Thou

hast many disciples in Judea; here in Galilee they are fast dropping off; it is not like one who

advances the claims Thou dost to linger so long here, away from the city of our solemnities,

where surely 'the kingdom of our father David' is to be set up: 'seeking,' as Thou dost, 'to be

known openly,' those miracles of Thine ought not to be confined to this distant corner, but

submitted at headquarters to the inspection of 'the world.'" (See Ps 69:8, "I am become a

stranger to my brethren, an alien unto my mother's children!")

6-10. My time is not yet come—that is, for showing Himself to the world.

your time is always ready—that is "It matters little when we go up, for ye have no great

plans in life, and nothing hangs upon your movements. With Me it is otherwise; on every

movement of Mine there hangs what ye know not. The world has no quarrel with you, for

ye bear no testimony against it, and so draw down upon yourselves none of its wrath; but

I am here to lift up My voice against its hypocrisy, and denounce its abominations; therefore

it cannot endure Me, and one false step might precipitate its fury on its Victim's head before

the time. Away, therefore, to the feast as soon as it suits you; I follow at the fitting moment,

but 'My time is not yet full come.'"

10. then went he … not openly—not "in the (caravan) company" [Meyer]. See on Lu

2:44.

as it were in secret—rather, "in a manner secretly"; perhaps by some other route, and

in a way not to attract notice.

11-13. Jews—the rulers.

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sought him—for no good end.

Where is He?—He had not been at Jerusalem for probably a year and a half.

12. much murmuring—buzzing.

among the people—the multitudes; the natural expression of a Jewish writer, indicating

without design the crowded state of Jerusalem at this festival [Webster and Wilkinson].

a good man … Nay … deceiveth the people—the two opposite views of His claims,

that they were honest, and that they were an imposture.

13. none spake openly of him—that is, in His favor, "for fear of the [ruling] Jews."

14, 15. about the midst of the feast—the fourth or fifth day of the eight, during which

it lasted.

went up into the temple and taught—The word denotes formal and continuous teaching,

as distinguished from mere casual sayings. This was probably the first time that He did so

thus openly in Jerusalem. He had kept back till the feast was half through, to let the stir

about Him subside, and entering the city unexpectedly, had begun His "teaching" at the

temple, and created a certain awe, before the wrath of the rulers had time to break it.

15. How knoweth … letters—learning (Ac 26:24).

having never learned—at any rabbinical school, as Paul under Gamaliel. These rulers

knew well enough that He had not studied under any human teacher—an important admis-

sion against ancient and modern attempts to trace our Lord's wisdom to human sources

[Meyer]. Probably His teaching on this occasion was expository, manifesting that unrivalled

faculty and depth which in the Sermon on the Mount had excited the astonishment of all.

16-18. doctrine … not mine, &c.—that is, from Myself unauthorized; I am here by

commission.

17. If any man will do his will, &c.—"is willing," or "wishes to do."

whether … of God, or … of myself—from above or from beneath; is divine or an im-

posture of Mine. A principle of immense importance, showing, on the one hand, that

singleness of desire to please God is the grand inlet to light on all questions vitally affecting

one's eternal interests, and on the other, that the want of his, whether perceived or not, is the

chief cause of infidelity amidst the light of revealed religion.

18. seeketh his own glory—(See on Joh 5:41-44).

19, 20. Did not Moses, &c.—that is, In opposing Me ye pretend zeal for Moses, but to

the spirit and end of that law which he gave ye are total strangers, and in "going about to

kill Me" ye are its greatest enemies.

20. The people answered, Thou hast a devil: who goeth about to kill thee?—This was

said by the multitude, who as yet had no bad feeling to Jesus, and were not in the secret of

the plot hatching, as our Lord knew, against Him.

21-24. I have done one work, &c.—Taking no notice of the popular appeal, as there

were those there who knew well enough what He meant, He recalls His cure of the impotent

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man, and the murderous rage it had kindled (Joh 5:9, 16, 18). It may seem strange that He

should refer to an event a year and a half old, as if but newly done. But their present attempt

"to kill Him" brought up the past scene vividly, not only to Him, but without doubt to them,

too, if indeed they had ever forgotten it; and by this fearless reference to it, exposing their

hypocrisy and dark designs, He gave His position great moral strength.

22. Moses … gave unto you circumcision, &c.—Though servile work was forbidden

on the sabbath, the circumcision of males on that day (which certainly was a servile work)

was counted no infringement of the Law. How much less ought fault to be found with One

who had made a man "every whit whole"—or rather, "a man's entire body whole"—on the

sabbath-day? What a testimony to the reality of the miracle, none daring to meet the bold

appeal.

24. Judge not, &c.—that is, Rise above the letter into the spirit of the law.

25-27. some of them of Jerusalem—the citizens, who, knowing the long-formed purpose

of the rulers to put Jesus to death, wondered that they were now letting Him teach openly.

26. Do the rulers know, &c.—Have they got some new light in favor of His claims?

27. Howbeit we know this man, &c.—This seems to refer to some current opinion that

Messiah's origin would be mysterious (not altogether wrong), from which they concluded

that Jesus could not be He, since they knew all about His family at Nazareth.

28, 29. cried Jesus—in a louder tone, and more solemn, witnessing style than usual.

Ye both, &c.—that is, "Yes, ye know both Myself and My local parentage, and (yet) I

am not come of Myself."

but he that sent me is true, &c.—Probably the meaning is, "He that sent Me is the only

real Sender of any one."

30-32. sought to take … none laid hands—their impotence being equal to their malignity.

31. When Christ cometh, will he, &c.—that is, If this be not the Christ, what can the

Christ do, when He does come, which has not been anticipated and eclipsed by this man?

This was evidently the language of friendly persons, overborne by their spiteful superiors,

but unable to keep quite silent.

32. heard that the people murmured—that mutterings to this effect were going about,

and thought it high time to stop Him if He was not to be allowed to carry away the people.

33, 34. Yet a little while, &c.—that is, "Your desire to be rid of Me will be for you all

too soon fulfilled. Yet a little while and we part company—for ever; for I go whither ye

cannot come: nor, even when ye at length seek Him whom ye now despise, shall ye be able

to find Him"—referring not to any penitential, but to purely selfish cries in their time of

desperation.

35, 36. Whither will he go, &c.—They cannot comprehend Him, but seem awed by the

solemn grandeur of His warning. He takes no notice, however, of their questions.

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37-39. the last day, that great day of the feast—the eighth (Le 23:39). It was a sabbath,

the last feast day of the year, and distinguished by very remarkable ceremonies. "The generally

joyous character of this feast broke out on this day into loud jubilation, particularly at the

solemn moment when the priest, as was done on every day of this festival, brought forth,

in golden vessels, water from the stream of Siloah, which flowed under the temple-mountain,

and solemnly poured it upon the altar. Then the words of Isa 12:3 were sung, With joy shall

ye draw water out of the wells of Salvation, and thus the symbolical reference of this act, in-

timated in Joh 7:39, was expressed" [Olshausen]. So ecstatic was the joy with which this ce-

remony was performed—accompanied with sound of trumpets—that it used to be said,

"Whoever had not witnessed it had never seen rejoicing at all" [Lightfoot].

Jesus stood—On this high occasion, then, He who had already drawn all eyes upon

Him by His supernatural power and unrivalled teaching—"Jesus stood," probably in some

elevated position.

and cried—as if making proclamation in the audience of all the people.

If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink!—What an offer! The deepest

cravings of the human spirit are here, as in the Old Testament, expressed by the figure of

"thirst," and the eternal satisfaction of them by "drinking." To the woman of Samaria He had

said almost the same thing, and in the same terms (Joh 4:13, 14). But what to her was simply

affirmed to her as a fact, is here turned into a world-wide proclamation; and whereas there,

the gift by Him of the living water is the most prominent idea—in contrast with her hesitation

to give Him the perishable water of Jacob's well—here, the prominence is given to Himself

as the Well spring of all satisfaction. He had in Galilee invited all the WEARY AND HEAVY-

LADEN of the human family to come under His wing and they should find REST (Mt 11:28),

which is just the same deep want, and the same profound relief of it, under another and

equally grateful figure. He had in the synagogue of Capernaum (Joh 6:36) announced

Himself, in every variety of form, as "the Bread of Life," and as both able and authorized to

appease the "HUNGER," and quench the "THIRST," of all that apply to Him. There is, and

there can be, nothing beyond that here. But what was on all those occasions uttered in

private, or addressed to a provincial audience, is here sounded forth in the streets of the

great religious metropolis, and in language of surpassing majesty, simplicity, and grace. It

is just Jehovah's ancient proclamation now sounding forth through human flesh, "Ho, every

one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no Money!" &c. (Isa 55:1). In this

light we have but two alternatives; either to say with Caiaphas of Him that uttered such

words, "He is guilty of death," or falling down before Him to exclaim with Thomas, " My

Lord AND MY God!"

38. as the scripture hath said—These words belong to what follows, "Out of his belly,

as the scripture hath said, shall flow," &c. referring not to any particular passage, but to such

as Isa 58:11; Joe 3:18; Zec 14:8; Eze 47:1-12; in most of which the idea is that of waters issuing

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from beneath the temple, to which our Lord compares Himself and those who believe in

Him.

out of his belly—that is, his inner man, his soul, as in Pr 20:27.

rivers of living water—(See on Joh 4:13). It refers primarily to the copiousness, but in-

directly also to the diffusiveness, of this living water to the good of others.

39. this spake he of the Spirit—who, by His direct personal agency, opens up this spring

of living waters in the human spirit (Joh 3:6), and by His indwelling in the renewed soul

ensures their unfailing flow.

they that believe, &c.—As the Holy Ghost is, in the redemption of man, entirely at the

service of Christ, as His Agent, so it is only in believing connection with Christ that any one

"receives" the Spirit.

for the Holy Ghost was not yet given—Beyond all doubt the word "given," or some

similar word, is the right supplement. In Joh 16:7 the Holy Ghost is represented not only

as the gift of Christ, but a gift the communication of which was dependent upon His own

departure to the Father. Now as Christ was not yet gone, so the Holy Ghost was not yet given.

Jesus not yet glorified—The word "glorified" is here used advisedly, to teach the reader

not only that the departure of Christ to the Father was indispensable to the giving of the

Spirit, but that this illustrious Gift, direct from the hands of the ascended Saviour, was God's

intimation to the world that He whom it had cast out, crucified, and slain, was "His Elect,

in whom His soul delighted," and that it was through the smiting of that Rock that the waters

of the Spirit—for which the Church was waiting, and with pomp at the feast of tabernacles

proclaiming its expectation—had gushed forth upon a thirsty world.

40-43. Many … when they heard this … said, Of a truth, &c.—The only wonder is

they did not all say it. "But their minds were blinded."

41. Others said, This is the Christ—(See on Joh 1:21).

Shall Christ come out of Galilee?

42. scripture said … of the seed of David, and out of … Bethlehem, &c.—We accept

this spontaneous testimony to our David-descended, Bethlehem-born Saviour. Had those

who gave it made the inquiry which the case demanded, they would have found that Jesus

"came out of Galilee" (Joh 7:41) and "out of Bethlehem" both, alike in fulfilment of prophecy

as in point of fact. (Mt 2:23; 4:13-16).

44-49. would have taken him; but, &c.—(See on Joh 7:30).

45. Then came the officers—"sent to take him" (Joh 7:32).

Why … not brought him?—already thirsting for their Victim, and thinking it an easy

matter to seize and bring Him.

46. Never man spake like this man—Noble testimony of unsophisticated men!

Doubtless they were strangers to the profound intent of Christ's teaching, but there was that

in it which by its mysterious grandeur and transparent purity and grace, held them spell-

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bound. No doubt it was of God that they should so feel, that their arm might be paralyzed,

as Christ's hour was not yet come; but even in human teaching there has sometimes been

felt such a divine power, that men who came to kill them (for example, Rowland Hiss) have

confessed to all that they were unmanned.

47. ye also deceived—In their own servants this seemed intolerable.

48. any of the rulers or … Pharisees believed—"Many of them" did, including

Nicodemus and Joseph, but not one of these had openly "confessed Him" (Joh 12:42), and

this appeal must have stung such of them as heard it to the quick.

49. But this people—literally, "multitude," meaning the ignorant rabble. (Pity these

important distinctions, so marked in the original of this Gospel, should not be also in our

version.)

knoweth not the law—that is, by school learning, which only subverted it by human

traditions.

are cursed—a cursed set (a kind of swearing at them, out of mingled rage and scorn).

50-53. Nicodemus—reappearing to us after nearly three years' absence from the history,

as a member of the council, probably then sitting.

51. Doth our law, &c.—a very proper, but all too tame rejoinder, and evidently more

from pressure of conscience than any design to pronounce positively in the case. "The

feebleness of his defense of Jesus has a strong contrast in the fierceness of the rejoinders of

the Pharisees" [Webster and Wilkinson].

52. thou of Galilee—in this taunt expressing their scorn of the party. Even a word of

caution, or the gentlest proposal to inquire before condemning, was with them equivalent

to an espousal of the hated One.

Search … out of Galilee … no prophet—Strange! For had not Jonah (of Gath-hepher)

and even Elijah (of Thisbe) arisen out of Galilee? And there it may be more, of whom we

have no record. But rage is blind, and deep prejudice distorts all facts. Yet it looks as if they

were afraid of losing Nicodemus, when they take the trouble to reason the point at all. It

was just because he had "searched," as they advised him, that he went the length even that

he did.

53. every man went unto his own home—finding their plot could not at that time be

carried into effect. Is your rage thus impotent, ye chief priests?

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CHAPTER 8

Joh 8:1-11. The Woman Taken in Adultery.

1, 2. Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives—This should have formed the last verse of

the foregoing chapter. "The return of the people to the inert quiet and security of their

dwellings (Joh 7:53), at the close of the feast, is designedly contrasted with our Lord's

homeless way, so to speak, of spending the short night, who is early in the morning on the

scene again. One cannot well see why what is recorded in Lu 21:37, 38 may not even thus

early have taken place; it might have been the Lord's ordinary custom from the beginning

to leave the brilliant misery of the city every night, that so He might compose His sorrowful

and interceding heart, and collect His energies for new labors of love; preferring for His

resting-place Bethany, and the Mount of Olives, the scene thus consecrated by many prepar-

atory prayers for His final humiliation and exaltation" [Stier].

3-6. scribes and Pharisees—foiled in their yesterday's attempt, and hoping to succeed

better in this.

4, 5. woman … in adultery … Moses … commanded … should be stoned—simply

put to death (De 22:22), but in aggravated cases, at least in later times, this was probably by

stoning (Eze 16:40).

but what sayest thou—hoping, whatever He might answer, to put Him in the wrong:—if

He said, Stone her, that would seem a stepping out of His province; if He forbade it, that

would hold Him up as a relaxer of the public morals. But these cunning hypocrites were

overmatched.

6. stooped down—It will be observed He was sitting when they came to Him.

with his finger wrote on the ground—The words of our translators in italics ("as though

He heard them not") have hardly improved the sense, for it is scarcely probable He could

wish that to be thought. Rather He wished to show them His aversion to enter on the subject.

But as this did not suit them, they "continue asking Him," pressing for an answer. At last,

raising Himself He said.

7. He that is without sin—not meaning sinless altogether; nor yet, guiltless of a literal

breach of the Seventh Commandment; but probably, he whose conscience acquits him of

any such sin.

cast a stone—"the stone," meaning the first one (De 17:7).

8. again he stooped down and wrote—The design of this second stooping and writing

on the ground was evidently to give her accusers an opportunity to slink away unobserved

by Him, and so avoid an exposure to His eye which they could ill have stood. Accordingly

it is added.

9. they … convicted … went out one by one … Jesus was left alone—that is, without

one of her accusers remaining; for it is added.

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the woman in the midst—that is, of the remaining audience. While the trap failed to

catch Him for whom it was laid, it caught those who laid it. Stunned by the unexpected

home thrust, they immediately made off—which makes the impudence of those impure

hypocrites in dragging such a case before the public eye the more disgusting.

10. Woman, &c.—What inimitable tenderness and grace! Conscious of her own guilt,

and till now in the hands of men who had talked of stoning her, wondering at the skill with

which her accusers had been dispersed, and the grace of the few words addressed to herself,

she would be disposed to listen, with a reverence and teachableness before unknown, to our

Lord's admonition. "And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no

more." He pronounces no pardon upon the woman (such as, "Thy sins are forgiven thee"

[compare Lu 5:28; 7:48]—"Go in peace" [compare Mr 5:34; Lu 7:50; 8:48]), much less does

He say that she had done nothing condemnable; He simply leaves the matter where it was.

He meddles not with the magistrate's office, nor acts the Judge in any sense (Joh 12:47). But

in saying, "Go and sin no more," which had been before said to one who undoubtedly believed

(Joh 5:14), more is probably implied than expressed. If brought suddenly to conviction of

sin, admiration of her Deliverer, and a willingness to be admonished and guided by Him,

this call to begin a new life may have carried with it what would ensure and naturally bring

about a permanent change. (This whole narrative is wanting in some of the earliest and

most valuable manuscripts, and those which have it vary to some extent. The internal evid-

ence in its favor is almost overpowering. It is easy to account for its omission, though

genuine; but if not so, it is next to impossible to account for its insertion).

Joh 8:12-59. Further Discourses of Jesus—Attempt to Stone Him.

12. I am the light of the world—As the former references to water (Joh 4:13, 14; 7:37-39)

and to bread (Joh 6:35) were occasioned by outward occurrences, so this one to light. In "the

treasury" where it was spoken (see on Joh 8:20) stood two colossal golden lamp-stands, on

which hung a multitude of lamps, lighted after the evening sacrifice (probably every evening

during the feast of tabernacles), diffusing their brilliancy, it is said, over all the city. Around

these the people danced with great rejoicing. Now, as amidst the festivities of the water from

Siloam Jesus cried, saying, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink," so now

amidst the blaze and the joyousness of this illumination, He proclaims, "I AM THE Light

of the world"—plainly in the most absolute sense. For though He gives His disciples the

same title, they are only "light in the Lord" (Eph 5:8); and though He calls the Baptist "the

burning and shining light" (or "lamp" of his day, Joh 5:35), yet "he was not that Light, but

was sent to bear witness of that Light: that was THE TRUE Light which, coming into the

world, lighteth every man" (Joh 1:8, 9). Under this magnificent title Messiah was promised

of old (Isa 42:6; Mal 4:2, &c.).

he that followeth me—as one does a light going before him, and as the Israelites did

the pillar of bright cloud in the wilderness.

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but shall have the light of life—the light, as of a new world, a newly awakened spiritual

and eternal life.

13-19. bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true—How does He meet this specious

cavil? Not by disputing the wholesome human maxim that "self-praise is no praise," but by

affirming that He was an exception to the rule, or rather, that it had no application to Him.

14. for I know whence I came, and whither I go, &c.—(See on Joh 7:28).

15. Ye judge after the flesh—with no spiritual apprehension.

I judge no man.

16. And yet if I judge, my judgment is true, &c.—Ye not only form your carnal and

warped judgments of Me, but are bent on carrying them into effect; I, though I form and

utter My judgment of you, am not here to carry this into execution—that is reserved to a

future day; yet the judgment I now pronounce and the witness I now bear is not Mine only

as ye suppose, but His also that sent Me. (See on Joh 5:31, 32). And these are the two witnesses

to any fact which your law requires.

20. These words spake Jesus in the treasury—a division, so called, of the fore court of

the temple, part of the court of the women [Josephus, Antiquities, 19.6.2, &c.], which may

confirm the genuineness of Joh 8:2-11, as the place where the woman was brought.

no man laid hands on him, &c.—(See on Joh 7:30). In the dialogue that follows, the

conflict waxes sharper on both sides, till rising to its climax, they take up stones to stone

him.

21-25. Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, &c.—(See on Joh 7:33).

22. Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself?—seeing something more in His words

than before (Joh 7:35), but their question more malignant and scornful.

23. Ye are from beneath; I am from above—contrasting Himself, not as in Joh 3:31,

simply with earthborn messengers of God, but with men sprung from and breathing an opposite

element from His, which rendered it impossible that He and they should have any present

fellowship, or dwell eternally together. (Again see on Joh 7:33; also see on Joh 8:44).

24. if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins—They knew well enough

what He meant (Mr 13:6, Greek; compare Mt 24:5). But He would not, by speaking it out,

give them the materials for a charge for which they were watching. At the same time, one

is irresistibly reminded by such language, so far transcending what is becoming in men, of

those ancient declarations of the God of Israel, "I AM He" (De 32:39; Isa 43:10, 13; 46:4;

48:12). See on Joh 6:20.

25. Who art thou?—hoping thus to extort an explicit answer; but they are disappointed.

26, 27. I have many things to say and to judge of you; but he that sent me is true,

&c.—that is, I could, and at the fitting time, will say and judge many things of you (referring

perhaps to the work of the Spirit which is for judgment as well as salvation, Joh 16:8), but

what I do say is just the message My Father hath given Me to deliver.

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28-30. When ye have lifted up the Son of man—The plainest intimation He had yet

given in public of the manner and the authors of His death.

then shall ye know that I am he, &c.—that is, find out, or have sufficient evidence, how

true was all He said, though they would be far from owning it.

29. the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him,

&c.—that is, To you, who gnash upon Me with your teeth, and frown down all open appear-

ance for Me, I seem to stand uncountenanced and alone; but I have a sympathy and support

transcending all human applause; I came hither to do My Father's will, and in the doing of

it have not ceased to please Him; therefore is He ever by Me with His approving smile, His

cheering words, His supporting arm.

30. As he spake these words, many believed on him—Instead of wondering at this, the

wonder would be if words of such unearthly, surpassing grandeur could be uttered without

captivating some that heard them. And just as "all that sat in the council" to try Stephen "saw

his face"—though expecting nothing but death—"as it had been the face of an angel" (Ac

6:15), so may we suppose that, full of the sweet supporting sense of His Father's presence,

amidst the rage and scorn of the rulers, a divine benignity beamed from His countenance,

irradiated the words that fell from Him, and won over the candid "many" of His audience.

31-33. Then said Jesus to those Jews who believed, If ye continue in my word, then

are ye my disciples indeed, &c.—The impression produced by the last words of our Lord

may have become visible by some decisive movement, and here He takes advantage of it to

press on them "continuance" in the faith, since then only were they His real disciples (compare

Joh 15:3-8), and then should they experimentally "know the truth," and "by the truth be

made (spiritually) free."

33. They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any

man, &c.—Who said this? Not surely the very class just spoken of as won over by His divine

words, and exhorted to continue in them. Most interpreters seem to think so; but it is hard

to ascribe such a petulant speech to the newly gained disciples, even in the lowest sense,

much less persons so gained as they were. It came, probably, from persons mixed up with

them in the same part of the crowd, but of a very different spirit. The pride of the Jewish

nation, even now after centuries of humiliation, is the most striking feature of their character.

"Talk of freedom to us? Pray when or to whom were we ever in bondage?" This bluster

sounds almost ludicrous from such a nation. Had they forgotten their long and bitter

bondage in Egypt? their dreary captivity in Babylon? their present bondage to the Roman

yoke, and their restless eagerness to throw it off? But probably they saw that our Lord

pointed to something else—freedom, perhaps, from the leaders of sects or parties—and

were not willing to allow their subjection even to these. Our Lord, therefore, though He

knew what slaves they were in this sense, drives the ploughshare somewhat deeper than this,

to a bondage they little dreamt of.

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34, 35. Whosoever committeth sin—that is, liveth in the commission of it—(Compare

1Jo 3:8; Mt 7:23).

is the servant of sin—that is, the bond-servant, or slave of it; for the question is not

about free service, but who are in bondage. (Compare 2Pe 2:19; Re 6:16). The great truth

here expressed was not unknown to heathen moralists; but it was applied only to vice, for

they were total strangers to what in revealed religion is called sin. The thought of slaves and

freemen in the house suggests to our Lord a wider idea.

35. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever, but the Son abideth ever—that

is, "And if your connection with the family of God be that of BOND-SERVANTS, ye have

no natural tie to the house; your tie is essentially uncertain and precarious. But the Son's

relationship to the Father is a natural and essential one; it is an indefeasible tie; His abode

in it is perpetual and of right: That is My relationship, My tie: If, then, ye would have your

connection with God's family made real, rightful, permanent, ye must by the Son be manu-

mitted and adopted as sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty." In this sublime statement

there is no doubt a subordinate allusion to Ge 21:10, "Cast out this bondwoman and her son,

for the son of this bond-woman shall not be heir with my son, with Isaac." (Compare Ga

4:22-30).

37-41. ye seek to kill me—He had said this to their face before: He now repeats it, and

they do not deny it; yet are they held back, as by some marvellous spell—it was the awe

which His combined dignity, courage, and benignity struck into them.

because my word hath no place in you—When did ever human prophet so speak of

His words? They tell us of "the word of the Lord" coming to them. But here is One who

holds up "His word" as that which ought to find entrance and abiding room for itself in the

souls of all who hear it.

38. my Father … your father—(See on Joh 8:23).

39. If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham—He had just

said He "knew they were Abraham's children," that is, according to the flesh; but the children

of his faith and holiness they were not, but the reverse.

40. this did not Abraham—In so doing ye act in direct opposition to him.

41. We be not born of fornication … we have one Father, God—meaning, as is generally

allowed, that they were not an illegitimate race in point of religion, pretending only to be

God's people, but were descended from His own chosen Abraham.

42, 43. If God were your Father, ye would love me—"If ye had anything of His moral

image, as children have their father's likeness, ye would love Me, for I am immediately of

Him and directly from Him." But "My speech" (meaning His peculiar style of expressing

Himself on these subjects) is unintelligible to you because ye cannot take in the truth which

it conveys.

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44. Ye are of your father the devil—"This is one of the most decisive testimonies to the

objective (outward) personality of the devil. It is quite impossible to suppose an accommod-

ation to Jewish views, or a metaphorical form of speech, in so solemn an assertion as this"

[Alford].

the lusts of your father—his impure, malignant, ungodly propensities, inclinations,

desires.

ye will do—are willing to do; not of any blind necessity of nature, but of pure natural

inclination.

He was a murderer from the beginning—The reference is not to Cain (as Locke, De

Wette, Alford, &c.), but to Adam [Grotius, Calvin, Meyer, Luthardt, &c.]. The death of the

human race, in its widest sense, is ascribed to the murderous seducer of our race.

and abode not in the truth—As, strictly speaking, the word means "abideth," it has

been denied that the fall of Satan from a former holy state is here expressed [Locke, &c.],

and some superior interpreters think it only implied [Olshausen, &c.]. But though the form

of the thought is present—not past—this is to express the important idea, that his whole

character and activity are just a continual aberration from his own original truth or rectitude;

and thus his fall is not only the implied basis of the thought, but part of the statement itself,

properly interpreted and brought out.

no truth in him—void of all that holy, transparent rectitude which, as His creature, he

originally possessed.

When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own—perhaps his own resources, treasures

(Mt 12:35) [Alford]. (The word is plural). It means that he has no temptation to it from

without; it is purely self-begotten, springing from a nature which is nothing but obliquity.

the father of it—that is, of lying: all the falsehood in the world owes its existence to

him. What a verse is this! It holds up the devil (1) as the murderer of the human race; but

as this is meant here in the more profound sense of spiritual death, it holds him up, (2) as

the spiritual parent of this fallen human family, communicating to his offspring his own

evil passions and universal obliquity, and stimulating these into active exercise. But as there

is "a stronger than he," who comes upon him and overcomes him (Lu 11:21, 22), it is only

such as "love the darkness," who are addressed as children of the devil (Mt 13:38; 1Jo 3:8-10).

45-47. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not—not although, but just be-

cause He did so, for the reason given in the former verse. Had He been less true they would

have hailed Him more readily.

46. Which of you convinceth me of sin—"Convicteth," bringeth home a charge of sin.

Glorious dilemma! "Convict Me of sin, and reject Me: If not, why stand ye out against My

claims?" Of course, they could only be supposed to impeach His life; but in One who had

already passed through unparalleled complications, and had continually to deal with friends

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and foes of every sort and degree, such a challenge thrown wide among His bitterest enemies,

can amount to nothing short of a claim to absolute sinlessness.

48-51. Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?—What intense

and virulent scorn! (See Heb 12:3). The "say we not well" refers to Joh 7:20. "A Samaritan"

means more than "no Israelite at all"; it means one who pretended, but had no manner of

claim to the title—retorting perhaps, this denial of their true descent from Abraham.

49. Jesus answered, I have not a devil—What calm dignity is here! Verily, "when reviled,

He reviled not again" (1Pe 2:23). Compare Paul (Ac 26:25), "I am not mad," &c. He adds

not, "Nor am I a Samaritan," that He might not even seem to partake of their contempt for

a race that had already welcomed Him as the Christ, and began to be blessed by Him.

I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me—the language of wounded feeling. But

the interior of His soul at such moments is only to be seen in such prophetic utterances as

these, "For thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face; I am become a

stranger unto my brethren, an alien unto my mother's children. For the zeal of thine house

hath eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me" (Ps

69:7-9).

50. I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh—that is, evidently, "that seeketh

My glory"; requiring "all men to honor the Son even as they honor the Father"; judicially

treating him "who honoreth not the Son as honoring not the Father that hath sent Him"

(Joh 5:23; and compare Mt 17:5); but giving to Him (Joh 6:37) such as will yet cast their

crowns before His throne, in whom He "shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied"

(Isa 53:11).

51. If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death—Partly thus vindicating His

lofty claims as Lord of the kingdom of life everlasting, and, at the same time, holding out

even to His revilers the scepter of grace. The word "keep" is in harmony with Joh 8:31, "If

ye continue in My word," expressing the permanency, as a living and paramount principle,

of that faith to which He referred: "never see death," though virtually uttered before (Joh

5:24; 6:40, 47, 51), is the strongest and most naked statement of a very glorious truth yet

given. (In Joh 11:26 it is repeated in nearly identical terms).

52, 53. Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil, &c.—"Thou

art now self-convicted; only a demoniac could speak so; the most illustrious of our fathers

are dead, and Thou promisest exemption from death to anyone who will keep Thy saying!

pray, who art Thou?"

54-56. If I honour myself, my honour is nothing, &c.—(See on Joh 5:31, &c.).

55. I shall be a liar like unto you—now rising to the summit of holy, naked severity,

thereby to draw this long dialogue to a head.

56. Abraham rejoiced to see my day, &c.—exulted, or exceedingly rejoiced that he

should see, he exulted to see it, that is, by anticipation. Nay,

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he saw it, and was glad—he actually beheld it, to his joy. If this mean no more than

that he had a prophetic foresight of the gospel-day—the second clause just repeating the

first—how could the Jews understand our Lord to mean that He "had seen Abraham?" And

if it mean that Abraham was then beholding, in his disembodied spirit, the incarnate Messiah

[Stier, Alford, &c.], the words seem very unsuitable to express it. It expresses something

past—"he saw My day, and was glad," that is, surely while he lived. He seems to refer to the

familiar intercourse which Abraham had with God, who is once and again in the history

called "the Angel of the Lord," and whom Christ here identifies with Himself. On those occa-

sions, Abraham "saw ME" (Olshausen, though he thinks the reference is to some unrecorded

scene). If this be the meaning, all that follows is quite natural.

57-59. Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old—"No inference

can be drawn from this as to the age of our Lord at the time as man. Fifty years was with

the Jews the completion of manhood" [Alford].

and hast thou seen Abraham?—He had said Abraham saw Him, as being his peculiar

privilege. They give the opposite turn to it—"Hast Thou seen Abraham?" as an honor too

great for Him to pretend to.

58. Before Abraham was, I am—The words rendered "was" and "am" are quite different.

The one clause means, "Abraham was brought into being"; the other, "I exist." The statement

therefore is not that Christ came into existence before Abraham did (as Arians affirm is the

meaning), but that He never came into being at all, but existed before Abraham had a being;

in other words, existed before creation, or eternally (as Joh 1:1). In that sense the Jews plainly

understood Him, since "then took they up stones to cast at Him," just as they had before done

when they saw that He made Himself equal with God (Joh 5:18).

hid himself—(See on Lu 4:30).

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CHAPTER 9

Joh 9:1-41. The Opening of the Eyes of One Born Blind, and What Followed on It.

1-5. as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from birth—and who "sat

begging" (Joh 9:8).

2. who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind—not in a former state

of existence, in which, as respects the wicked, the Jews did not believe; but, perhaps, express-

ing loosely that sin somewhere had surely been the cause of this calamity.

3. Neither … this man, &c.—The cause was neither in himself nor his parents, but, in

order to the manifestation of "the works of God," in his cure.

4. I must work the works of him that sent me, &c.—a most interesting statement from

the mouth of Christ; intimating, (1) that He had a precise work to do upon earth, with every

particular of it arranged and laid out to Him; (2) that all He did upon earth was just "the

works of God"—particularly "going about doing good," though not exclusively by miracles;

(3) that each work had its precise time and place in His programme of instructions, so to

speak; hence, (4) that as His period for work had definite termination, so by letting any one

service pass by its allotted time, the whole would be disarranged, marred, and driven beyond

its destined period for completion; (5) that He acted ever under the impulse of these consid-

erations, as man—"the night cometh when no man (or no one) can work." What lessons

are here for others, and what encouragement from such Example!

5. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world—not as if He would cease,

after that, to be so; but that He must make full proof of His fidelity while His earthly career

lasted by displaying His glory. "As before the raising of Lazarus (Joh 11:25), He announces

Himself as the Resurrection and the Life, so now He sets Himself forth as the source of the

archetypal spiritual light, of which the natural, now about to be conferred, is only a derivation

and symbol" [Alford].

6, 7. he spat on the ground, and made clay … and he anointed the eyes of the blind

man—These operations were not so incongruous in their nature as might appear, though

it were absurd to imagine that they contributed in the least degree to the effect which fol-

lowed. (See Mr 6:13 and see on Joh 7:33.)

7. Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, … Sent, &c.—(See 2Ki 5:10, 14). As the prescribed

action was purely symbolical in its design, so in connection with it the Evangelist notices

the symbolical name of the pool as in this case bearing testimony to him who was sent to

do what it only symbolized. (See Isa 8:6, where this same pool is used figuratively to denote

"the streams that make glad the city of God," and which, humble though they be, betoken

a present God of Israel.)

8-15. The neighbours therefore … said, Is not this he that sat and begged—Here are

a number of details to identify the newly seeing with the long-known blind beggar.

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13. They brought to the Pharisees—sitting probably in council, and chiefly of that sect

(Joh 7:47, 48).

16, 17. This man is not of God, &c.—(See on Joh 5:9; Joh 5:16).

Others said, &c.—such as Nicodemus and Joseph.

17. the blind man … said, He is a prophet—rightly viewing the miracle as but a "sign"

of His prophetic commission.

18-23. the Jews did not believe … he had been born blind … till they called the parents

of him that had received his sight—Foiled by the testimony of the young man himself, they

hope to throw doubt on the fact by close questioning his parents, who, perceiving the snare

laid for them, ingeniously escape it by testifying simply to the identity of their son, and his

birth-blindness, leaving it to himself, as a competent witness, to speak as to the cure. They

prevaricated, however, in saying they "knew not who had opened his eyes," for "they feared

the Jews," who had come to an understanding (probably after what is recorded, Joh 7:50,

&c.; but by this time well known), that whoever owned Him as the Christ would be put out

of the synagogue—that is, not simply excluded, but excommunicated.

24-34. Give God the praise; we know that this man is a sinner—not wishing him to

own, even to the praise of God, that a miracle had been wrought upon him, but to show

more regard to the honor of God than ascribe any such act to one who was a sinner.

25. He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, &c.—Not that the man meant

to insinuate any doubt in his own mind on the point of His being "a sinner," but as his

opinion on such a point would be of no consequence to others, he would speak only to what

he knew as fact in his own case.

26. Then said they … again, What did he to thee? &c.—hoping by repeated questions

to ensnare him, but the youth is more than a match for them.

27. I have told you already … will ye also be his disciples?—In a vein of keen irony he

treats their questions as those of anxious inquirers, almost ready for discipleship! Stung by

this, they retort upon him as the disciple (and here they plainly were not wrong); for them-

selves, they fall back upon Moses; about him there could be no doubt; but who knew about

this upstart?

30. The man answered, Herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence

he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes—He had no need to say another word; but waxing

bolder in defense of his Benefactor, and his views brightening by the very courage which it

demanded, he puts it to them how they could pretend inability to tell whether one who

opened the eyes of a man born blind was "of God" or "a sinner"—from above or from be-

neath—and proceeds to argue the case with remarkable power. So irresistible was his argu-

ment that their rage burst forth in a speech of intense Pharisaism, "Thou wast altogether

born in sins, and dost thou teach us?"—thou, a base-born, uneducated, impudent youth,

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teach us, the trained, constituted, recognized guides of the people in the things of God! Out

upon thee!

31. they cast him out—judicially, no doubt, as well in fact. The allusion to his being

"born in sins" seems a tacit admission of his being blind from birth—the very thing they

had been so unwilling to own. But rage and enmity to truth are seldom consistent in their

outbreaks. The friends of this excommunicated youth, crowding around him with their

sympathy, would probably express surprise that One who could work such a cure should

be unable to protect his patient from the persecution it had raised against him, or should

possess the power without using it. Nor would it be strange if such thoughts should arise in

the youth's own mind. But if they did, it is certain, from what follows, that they made no

lodgment there, conscious as he was that "whereas he was blind, now he saw," and satisfied

that if his Benefactor "were not of God, He could do nothing" (Joh 9:33). There was a word

for him too, which, if whispered in his ear from the oracles of God, would seem expressly

designed to describe his case, and prepare him for the coming interview with his gracious

Friend. "Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at His word. Your brethren that hated

you, that cast you out for My name's sake, said, Let the Lord be glorified; BUT He shall appear

to your joy, and they shall be ashamed" (Isa 66:5). But how was He engaged to whom such

noble testimony had been given, and for whom such persecution had been borne? Uttering,

perhaps, in secret, "with strong crying and tears," the words of the prophetic psalm, "Let not

them that wait on Thee, O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake; let none that seek

Thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel; because for Thy sake I have borne reproach

… and the reproaches of them that reproached Thee are fallen upon me" (Ps 69:6, 7, 9).

35-38. Jesus heard—that is, by intelligence brought Him.

that they had cast him out; and when he had found him—by accident? Not very likely.

Sympathy in that breast could not long keep aloof from its object.

he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?—A question stretching pur-

posely beyond his present attainments, in order the more quickly to lead him—in his present

teachable frame—into the highest truth.

36. He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I may believe on him?—"His reply

is affirmative, and believing by anticipation, promising faith as soon as Jesus shall say who

He is" [Stier].

37. Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him—the new sense of sight having at

that moment its highest exercise, in gazing upon "the Light of the world."

38. he said, Lord, I believe: and he worshipped him—a faith and a worship, beyond

doubt, meant to express far more than he would think proper to any human "prophet" (Joh

9:17)—the unstudied, resistless expression, probably of SUPREME faith and adoration,

though without the full understanding of what that implied.

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39-41. Jesus said—perhaps at the same time, but after a crowd, including some of the

skeptical and scornful rulers, had, on seeing Jesus talking with the healed youth, hastened

to the spot.

that they which see not might see, &c.—rising to that sight of which the natural vision

communicated to the youth was but the symbol. (See on Joh 9:5, and compare Lu 4:18).

that they which see might be made blind—judicially incapable of apprehending and

receiving the truth, to which they have wilfully shut their eyes.

40. Are we blind also?—We, the constituted, recognized guides of the people in spiritual

things? pride and rage prompting the question.

41. If ye were blind—wanted light to discern My claims, and only waited to receive it.

ye should have no sin—none of the guilt of shutting out the light.

ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth—Your claim to possess light, while reject-

ing Me, is that which seals you up in the guilt of unbelief.

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CHAPTER 10

Joh 10:1-21. The Good Shepherd.

This discourse seems plainly to be a continuation of the closing verses of the ninth

chapter. The figure was familiar to the Jewish ear (from Jer 23:1-40; Eze 34:1-31; Zec 11:1-17,

&c.). "This simple creature [the sheep] has this special note among all animals, that it quickly

hears the voice of the shepherd, follows no one else, depends entirely on him, and seeks

help from him alone—cannot help itself, but is shut up to another's aid" [Luther in Stier].

1, 2. He that entereth not by the door—the legitimate way (without saying what that

was, as yet).

into the sheepfold—the sacred enclosure of God's true people.

climbeth up some other way—not referring to the assumption of ecclesiastical office

without an external call, for those Jewish rulers, specially aimed at, had this (Mt 23:2), but

to the want of a true spiritual commission, the seal of heaven going along with the outward

authority; it is the assumption of the spiritual guidance of the people without this that is

meant.

2. he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep—a true, divinely recog-

nized shepherd.

3. To him the porter openeth—that is, right of free access is given, by order of Him to

whom the sheep belong; for it is better not to give the allusion a more specific interpretation

[Calvin, Meyer, Luthardt].

and the sheep hear his voice—This and all that follows, though it admits of important

application to every faithful shepherd of God's flock, is in its direct and highest sense true

only of "the great Shepherd of the sheep," who in the first five verses seems plainly, under

the simple character of a true shepherd, to be drawing His own portrait [Lampe, Stier, &c.].

7-14. I am the door of the sheep—that is, the way in to the fold, with all blessed priv-

ileges, both for shepherds and sheep (compare Joh 14:6; Eph 2:18).

8. All that ever came before me—the false prophets; not as claiming the prerogatives

of Messiah, but as perverters of the people from the way of life, all pointing to Him

[Olshausen].

the sheep did not hear them—the instinct of their divinely taught hearts preserving

them from seducers, and attaching them to the heaven-sent prophets, of whom it is said

that "the Spirit of Christ was in them" (1Pe 1:11).

9. by me if any man enter in—whether shepherd or sheep.

shall be saved—the great object of the pastoral office, as of all the divine arrangements

towards mankind.

and shall go in and out and find pasture—in, as to a place of safety and repose; out, as

to "green pastures and still waters" (Ps 23:2) for nourishment and refreshing, and all this

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only transferred to another clime, and enjoyed in another manner, at the close of this earthly

scene (Re 7:17).

10. I am come that they might have life, and … more abundantly—not merely to

preserve but impart LIFE, and communicate it in rich and unfailing exuberance. What a

claim! Yet it is only an echo of all His teaching; and He who uttered these and like words

must be either a blasphemer, all worthy of the death He died, or "God with us"—there can

be no middle course.

11. I am the good shepherd—emphatically, and, in the sense intended, exclusively so

(Isa 40:11; Eze 34:23; 37:24; Zec 13:7).

the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep—Though this may be said of literal

shepherds, who, even for their brute flock, have, like David, encountered "the lion and the

bear" at the risk of their own lives, and still more of faithful pastors who, like the early

bishops of Rome, have been the foremost to brave the fury of their enemies against the flock

committed to their care; yet here, beyond doubt, it points to the struggle which was to issue

in the willing surrender of the Redeemer's own life, to save His sheep from destruction.

12. an hireling … whose own the sheep are not—who has no property, in them. By

this He points to His own peculiar relation to the sheep, the same as His Father's, the great

Proprietor and Lord of the flock, who styles Him "My Shepherd, the Man that is My Fellow"

(Zec 13:7), and though faithful under-shepherds are so in their Master's interest, that they

feel a measure of His own concern for their charge, the language is strictly applicable only

to "the Son over His own house" (Heb 3:6).

seeth the wolf coming—not the devil distinctively, as some take it [Stier, Alford, &c.],

but generally whoever comes upon the flock with hostile intent, in whatever form: though

the wicked one, no doubt, is at the bottom of such movements [Luthardt].

14. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep—in the peculiar sense of 2Ti 2:19.

am known of mine—the soul's response to the voice that has inwardly and efficaciously

called it; for of this mutual loving acquaintance ours is the effect of His. "The Redeemer's

knowledge of us is the active element, penetrating us with His power and life; that of believers

is the passive principle, the reception of His life and light. In this reception, however, an

assimilation of the soul to the sublime object of its knowledge and love takes place; and thus

an activity, though a derived one, is unfolded, which shows itself in obedience to His com-

mands" [Olshausen]. From this mutual knowledge Jesus rises to another and loftier recipro-

city of knowledge.

15-18. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father—What claim to absolute

equality with the Father could exceed this? (See on Mt 11:27).

and I lay down my life for the sheep—How sublime this, immediately following the

lofty claim of the preceding clause! It is the riches and the poverty of "the Word made

flesh"—one glorious Person reaching at once up to the Throne and down even to the dust

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of death, "that we might live through Him." A candid interpretation of the words, "for the

sheep," ought to go far to establish the special relation of the vicarious death of Christ to the

Church.

16. other sheep I have … not of this fold: them also I must bring—He means the

perishing Gentiles, already His "sheep" in the love of His heart and the purpose of His grace

to "bring them" in due time.

they shall hear my voice—This is not the language of mere foresight that they would

believe, but the expression of a purpose to draw them to Himself by an inward and efficacious

call, which would infallibly issue in their spontaneous accession to Him.

and there shall be one fold—rather "one flock" (for the word for "fold," as in the fore-

going verses, is quite different).

17. Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, &c.—As the highest

act of the Son's love to the Father was the laying down of His life for the sheep at His

"commandment," so the Father's love to Him as His incarnate Son reaches its consummation,

and finds its highest justification, in that sublimest and most affecting of all acts.

that I might take it again—His resurrection-life being indispensable to the accomplish-

ment of the fruit of His death.

18. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down myself: I have power to lay it down,

and I have power to take it again—It is impossible for language more plainly and emphat-

ically to express the absolute voluntariness of Christ's death, such a voluntariness as it would

be manifest presumption in any mere creature to affirm of his own death. It is beyond all

doubt the language of One who was conscious that His life was His own (which no creature's

is), and therefore His to surrender or retain at will. Here lay the glory of His sacrifice, that

it was purely voluntary. The claim of "power to take it again" is no less important, as showing

that His resurrection, though ascribed to the Father, in the sense we shall presently see, was

nevertheless His own assertion of His own right to life as soon as the purposes of His voluntary

death were accomplished.

This commandment—to "lay down His—life, that He might take it again."

have I received of my Father—So that Christ died at once by "command" of His Father,

and by such a voluntary obedience to that command as has made Him (so to speak) infinitely

dear to the Father. The necessity of Christ's death, in the light of these profound sayings,

must be manifest to all but the superficial student.

19-21. There was a division … again among the Jews for these sayings—the light and

the darkness revealing themselves with increasing clearness in the separation of the teachable

from the obstinately prejudiced. The one saw in Him only "a devil and a madman"; the

other revolted at the thought that such words could come from one possessed, and sight be

given to the blind by a demoniac; showing clearly that a deeper impression had been made

upon them than their words expressed.

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Joh 10:22-42. Discourse at the Feast of Dedication—From the Fury of His Enemies Jesus

Escapes beyond Jordan, Where Many Believe on Him.

22, 23. it was … the feast of the dedication—celebrated rather more than two months

after the feast of tabernacles, during which intermediate period our Lord seems to have re-

mained in the neighborhood of Jerusalem. It was instituted by Jude Maccabeus, to commem-

orate the purification of the temple from the profanations to which it had been subjected

by Antiochus Epiphanes 165 B.C., and kept for eight days, from the twenty-fifth Chisleu

(December), the day on which Judas began the first joyous celebration of it (1 Maccabees

4:52,56,59; and Josephus, Antiquities, 7.7.7).

it was winter—implying some inclemency. Therefore,

23. Jesus walked … in Solomon's porch—for shelter. This portico was on the east side

of the temple, and Josephus says it was part of the original structure of Solomon [Antiquities,

20.9.7].

24. Then came the Jews—the rulers. (See on Joh 1:19).

How long dost thou make us to doubt?—"hold us in suspense" (Margin).

If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly—But when the plainest evidence of it was resisted,

what weight could a mere assertion of it have?

25, 26. Jesus answered them, I told you—that is, in substance, what I am (for example

Joh 7:37, 38; 8:12, 35, 36, 58).

26. ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said—referring to the whole

strain of the Parable of the Sheep, (Joh 10:1, &c.).

27-30. My sheep hear my voice, &c.—(See on Joh 10:8).

28. I give unto them eternal life—not "will give them"; for it is a present gift. (See on

Joh 3:36; Joh 5:24). It is a very grand utterance, couched in the language of majestic authority.

29. My Father, which gave them me—(See on Joh 6:37-39).

is greater than all—with whom no adverse power can contend. It is a general expression

of an admitted truth, and what follows shows for what purpose it was uttered, "and none is

able to pluck them out of My Father's hand." The impossibility of true believers being lost,

in the midst of all the temptations which they may encounter, does not consist in their fidelity

and decision, but is founded upon the power of God. Here the doctrine of predestination is

presented in its sublime and sacred aspect; there is a predestination of the holy, which is

taught from one end of the Scriptures to the other; not, indeed, of such a nature that an

"irresistible grace" compels the opposing will of man (of course not), but so that that will of

man which receives and loves the commands of God is produced only by God's grace

(Olshausen—a testimony all the more valuable, being given in spite of Lutheran prejudice).

30. I and my Father are one—Our language admits not of the precision of the original

in this great saying. "Are" is in the masculine gender—"we (two persons) are"; while "one" is

neuter—"one thing." Perhaps "one interest" expresses, as nearly as may be, the purport of the

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saying. There seemed to be some contradiction between His saying they had been given by

His Father into His own hands, out of which they could not be plucked, and then saying

that none could pluck them out of His Father's hands, as if they had not been given out of

them. "Neither have they," says He; "though He has given them to Me, they are as much in

His own almighty hands as ever—they cannot be, and when given to Me they are not, given

away from Himself; for He and I HAVE ALL IN COMMON." Thus it will be seen, that,

though oneness of essence is not the precise thing here affirmed, that truth is the basis of

what is affirmed, without which it would not be true. And Augustine was right in saying the

"We are" condemns the Sabellians (who denied the distinction of Persons in the Godhead),

while the "one" (as explained) condemns the Arians (who denied the unity of their essence).

31. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him—and for precisely the same

thing as before (Joh 8:58, 59).

32. Many good works have I showed you—that is, works of pure benevolence (as in

Ac 10:38, "Who went about doing good," &c.; see Mr 7:37).

from my Father—not so much by His power, but as directly commissioned by Him to

do them. This He says to meet the imputation of unwarrantable assumption of the divine

prerogatives [Luthardt].

for which of those works do ye stone me?—"are ye stoning (that is, going to stone)

me?"

33. for a blasphemy—whose legal punishment was stoning (Le 24:11-16).

thou, being a man—that is, a man only.

makest thyself God—Twice before they understood Him to advance the same claim,

and both times they prepared themselves to avenge what they took to be the insulted honor

of God, as here, in the way directed by their law (Joh 5:18; 8:59).

34-36. Is it not written in your law—in Ps 82:6, respecting judges or magistrates.

Ye are gods—being the official representatives and commissioned agents of God.

35, 36. If he called them gods unto whom the word of God came … Say ye of him

whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest—The whole

force of this reasoning, which has been but in part seized by the commentators, lies in what

is said of the two parties compared. The comparison of Himself with mere men, divinely

commissioned, is intended to show (as Neander well expresses it) that the idea of a commu-

nication of the Divine Majesty to human nature was by no means foreign to the revelations

of the Old Testament; but there is also a contrast between Himself and all merely human

representatives of God—the one "sanctified by the Father and sent into the world"; the other,

"to whom the word of God (merely) came," which is expressly designed to prevent His being

massed up with them as only one of many human officials of God. It is never said of Christ

that "the word of the Lord came to Him"; whereas this is the well-known formula by which

the divine commission, even to the highest of mere men, is expressed, as John the Baptist

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(Lu 3:2). The reason is that given by the Baptist himself (see on Joh 3:31). The contrast is

between those "to whom the word of God came"—men of the earth, earthy, who were merely

privileged to get a divine message to utter (if prophets), or a divine office to discharge (if

judges)—and "Him whom (not being of the earth at all) the Father sanctified (or set apart),

and sent into the world," an expression never used of any merely human messenger of God,

and used only of Himself.

because, I said, I am the Son of God—It is worthy of special notice that our Lord had

not said, in so many words, that He was the Son of God, on this occasion. But He had said

what beyond doubt amounted to it—namely, that He gave His sheep eternal life, and none

could pluck them out of His hand; that He had got them from His Father, in whose hands,

though given to Him, they still remained, and out of whose hand none could pluck them;

and that they were the indefeasible property of both, inasmuch as "He and His Father were

one." Our Lord considers all this as just saying of Himself, "I am the Son of God"—one nature

with Him, yet mysteriously of Him. The parenthesis (Joh 10:35), "and the Scripture cannot

be broken," referring to the terms used of magistrates in the eighty-second Psalm, has an

important bearing on the authority of the living oracles. "The Scripture, as the expressed

will of the unchangeable God, is itself unchangeable and indissoluble" [Olshausen]. (Compare

Mt 5:17).

37-39. though ye believe not me, believe the works—There was in Christ's words, in-

dependently of any miracles, a self-evidencing truth, majesty and grace, which those who

had any spiritual susceptibility were unable to resist (Joh 7:46; 8:30). But, for those who

wanted this, "the works" were a mighty help. When these failed, the case was desperate indeed.

that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him—thus reiterating

His claim to essential oneness with the Father, which He had only seemed to soften down,

that He might calm their rage and get their ear again for a moment.

39. Therefore they sought again to take him—true to their original understanding of

His words, for they saw perfectly well that He meant to "make Himself God" throughout all

this dialogue.

he escaped out of their hand—(See on Lu 4:30; Joh 8:59).

40-42. went away again beyond Jordan … the place where John at first baptized—(See

on Joh 1:28).

41. many resorted to him—on whom the ministry of the Baptist had left permanent

impressions.

John did no miracle, but all things John spake of this man were true—what they now

heard and saw in Jesus only confirming in their minds the divinity of His forerunner's

mission, though unaccompanied by any of His Master's miracles. And thus, "many believed

on Him there."

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CHAPTER 11

Joh 11:1-46. Lazarus Raised from the Dead—The Consequences of This.

1. of Bethany—at the east side of Mount Olivet.

the town of Mary and her sister Martha—thus distinguishing it from the other Bethany,

"beyond Jordan." (See on Joh 1:28; Joh 10:40).

2. It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, &c.—This, though not re-

corded by our Evangelist till Joh 12:3, was so well known in the teaching of all the churches,

according to our Lord's prediction (Mt 26:13), that it is here alluded to by anticipation, as

the most natural way of identifying her; and she is first named, though the younger, as the

more distinguished of the two. She "anointed THE Lord," says the Evangelist—led doubtless

to the use of this term here, as he was about to exhibit Him illustriously as the Lord of Life.

3-5. his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, he whom thou lovest is sick—a most

womanly appeal, yet how reverential, to the known affection of her Lord for the patient.

(See Joh 11:5, 11). "Those whom Christ loves are no more exempt than others from their

share of earthly trouble and anguish: rather are they bound over to it more surely" [Trench].

4. When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death—to result in death.

but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby—that is, by

this glory of God. (See Greek.) Remarkable language this, which from creature lips would

have been intolerable. It means that the glory of God manifested in the resurrection of dead

Lazarus would be shown to be the glory, personally and immediately, of THE Son.

5. Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus—what a picture!—one that in every

age has attracted the admiration of the whole Christian Church. No wonder that those

miserable skeptics who have carped at the ethical system of the Gospel, as not embracing

private friendships in the list of its virtues, have been referred to the Saviour's peculiar regard

for this family as a triumphant refutation, if such were needed.

6. When he heard he was sick, he abode two days still … where he was—at least twenty-

five miles off. Beyond all doubt this was just to let things come to their worst, in order to

display His glory. But how trying, meantime, to the faith of his friends, and how unlike the

way in which love to a dying friend usually shows itself, on which it is plain that Mary

reckoned. But the ways of divine are not as the ways of human love. Often they are the reverse.

When His people are sick, in body or spirit; when their case is waxing more and more des-

perate every day; when all hope of recovery is about to expire—just then and therefore it is

that "He abides two days still in the same place where He is." Can they still hope against hope?

Often they do not; but "this is their infirmity." For it is His chosen style of acting. We have

been well taught it, and should not now have the lesson to learn. From the days of Moses

was it given sublimely forth as the character of His grandest interpositions, that "the Lord

will judge His people and repent Himself for His servants"—when He seeth that their power

is gone (De 32:36).

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7-10. Let us go into Judea again—He was now in Perea, "beyond Jordan."

8. His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought, &c.—literally, "were

(just) now seeking" "to stone thee" (Joh 10:31).

goest thou thither again?—to certain death, as Joh 11:16 shows they thought.

9. Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day?—(See on Joh 9:4). Our Lord's

day had now reached its eleventh hour, and having till now "walked in the day," He would

not mistime the remaining and more critical part of His work, which would be as fatal, He

says, as omitting it altogether; for "if a man (so He speaks, putting Himself under the same

great law of duty as all other men—if a man) walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there

is no light in him."

11-16. Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I may wake him out of sleep—Illus-

trious title! "Our friend Lazarus." To Abraham only is it accorded in the Old Testament, and

not till after his death, (2Ch 20:7; Isa 41:8), to which our attention is called in the New

Testament (Jas 2:23). When Jesus came in the flesh, His forerunner applied this name, in a

certain sense, to himself (Joh 3:29); and into the same fellowship the Lord's chosen disciples

are declared to have come (Joh 15:13-15). "The phrase here employed, "our friend Lazarus,"

means more than "he whom Thou lovest" in Joh 11:3, for it implies that Christ's affection

was reciprocated by Lazarus" [Lampe]. Our Lord had been told only that Lazarus was "sick."

But the change which his two days' delay had produced is here tenderly alluded to. Doubtless,

His spirit was all the while with His dying, and now dead "friend." The symbol of "sleep" for

death is common to all languages, and familiar to us in the Old Testament. In the New

Testament, however, a higher meaning is put into it, in relation to believers in Jesus (see on

1Th 4:14), a sense hinted at, and clearly, in Ps 17:15 [Luthardt]; and the "awaking out of

sleep" acquires a corresponding sense far transcending bare resuscitation.

12. if he sleep, he shall do well—literally, "be preserved"; that is, recover. "Why then go

to Judea?"

14. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead—Says Bengel beautifully, "Sleep

is the death of the saints, in the language of heaven; but this language the disciples here un-

derstood not; incomparable is the generosity of the divine manner of discoursing, but such

is the slowness of men's apprehension that Scripture often has to descend to the more

miserable style of human discourse; compare Mt 16:11."

15. I am glad for your sakes I was not there—This certainly implies that if He had been

present, Lazarus would not have died; not because He could not have resisted the importun-

ities of the sisters, but because, in presence of the personal Life, death could not have reached

His friend [Luthardt]. "It is beautifully congruous to the divine decorum that in presence

of the Prince of Life no one is ever said to have died" [Bengel].

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that ye may believe—This is added to explain His "gladness" at not having been present.

His friend's death, as such, could not have been to Him "joyous"; the sequel shows it was

"grievous"; but for them it was safe (Php 3:1).

16. Thomas, … called Didymus—or "the twin."

Let us also go, that we may die with him—lovely spirit, though tinged with some sad-

ness, such as reappears at Joh 14:5, showing the tendency of this disciple to take the dark

view of things. On a memorable occasion this tendency opened the door to downright,

though but momentary, unbelief (Joh 20:25). Here, however, though alleged by many inter-

preters there is nothing of the sort. He perceives clearly how this journey to Judea will end,

as respects his Master, and not only sees in it peril to themselves, as they all did, but feels as

if he could not and cared not to survive his Master's sacrifice to the fury of His enemies. It

was that kind of affection which, living only in the light of its Object, cannot contemplate,

or has no heart for life, without it.

17-19. when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days—If he died

on the day the tidings came of his illness—and was, according to the Jewish custom, buried

the same day (see Jahn's Archæology, and Joh 11:39; Ac 5:5, 6, 10)—and if Jesus, after two

days' further stay in Perea, set out on the day following for Bethany, some ten hours' journey,

that would make out the four days; the first and last being incomplete [Meyer].

18. Bethany was nigh Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs—rather less than two miles;

mentioned to explain the visits of sympathy noticed in the following words, which the

proximity of the two places facilitated.

19. many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary to comfort them—Thus were provided,

in a most natural way, so many witnesses of the glorious miracle that was to follow, as to

put the fact beyond possible question.

20-22. Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him—true

to the energy and activity of her character, as seen in Lu 10:38-42. (See on Lu 10:38-42).

but Mary sat … in the house—equally true to her placid character. These undesigned

touches not only charmingly illustrate the minute historic fidelity of both narratives, but

their inner harmony.

21. Then said Martha … Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died—As

Mary afterwards said the same thing (Joh 11:32), it is plain they had made this very natural

remark to each other, perhaps many times during these four sad days, and not without

having their confidence in His love at times overclouded. Such trials of faith, however, are

not peculiar to them.

22. But I know that even now, &c.—Energetic characters are usually sanguine, the

rainbow of hope peering through the drenching cloud.

whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee—that is "even to the restoration

of my dead brother to life," for that plainly is her meaning, as the sequel shows.

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23-27. Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again—purposely expressing

Himself in general terms, to draw her out.

24. Martha said, … I know that he shall rise again … at the last day—"But are we

never to see him in life till then?"

25. Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life—"The whole power to restore, impart,

and maintain life, resides in Me." (See on Joh 1:4; Joh 5:21). What higher claim to supreme

divinity than this grand saying can be conceived?

he that believeth in me, though … dead … shall he live—that is, The believer's death

shall be swallowed up in life, and his life shall never sink into death. As death comes by sin,

it is His to dissolve it; and as life flows through His righteousness, it is His to communicate

and eternally maintain it (Ro 5:21). The temporary separation of soul and body is here re-

garded as not even interrupting, much less impairing, the new and everlasting life imparted

by Jesus to His believing people.

Believest thou this?—Canst thou take this in?

27. Yea, … I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, &c.—that is, And having

such faith in Thee, I can believe all which that comprehends. While she had a glimmering

perception that Resurrection, in every sense of the word, belonged to the Messianic office

and Sonship of Jesus, she means, by this way of expressing herself, to cover much that she

felt her ignorance of—as no doubt belonging to Him.

28-32. The Master is come and calleth for thee—The narrative does not give us this

interesting detail, but Martha's words do.

29. As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly—affection for her Lord, assurance of

His sympathy, and His hope of interposition, putting a spring into her distressed spirit.

31. The Jews … followed her … to the grave—Thus casually were provided witnesses

of the glorious miracle that followed, not prejudiced, certainly, in favor of Him who wrought

it.

to weep there—according to Jewish practice, for some days after burial.

fell at his feet—more impassioned than her sister, though her words were fewer. (See

on Joh 11:21).

33-38. When Jesus … saw her weeping, and the Jews … weeping … he groaned in

the spirit—the tears of Mary and her friends acting sympathetically upon Jesus, and drawing

forth His emotions. What a vivid and beautiful outcoming of His "real" humanity! The word

here rendered "groaned" does not mean "sighed" or "grieved," but rather "powerfully checked

his emotion"—made a visible effort to restrain those tears which were ready to gush from

His eyes.

and was troubled—rather, "troubled himself" (Margin); referring probably to this visible

difficulty of repressing His emotions.

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34. Where have ye laid him? … Lord, come and see—Perhaps it was to retain composure

enough to ask this question, and on receiving the answer to proceed with them to the spot,

that He checked Himself.

35. Jesus wept—This beautifully conveys the sublime brevity of the two original words;

else "shed tears" might have better conveyed the difference between the word here used and

that twice employed in Joh 11:33, and there properly rendered "weeping," denoting the loud

wail for the dead, while that of Jesus consisted of silent tears. Is it for nothing that the

Evangelist, some sixty years after it occurred, holds up to all ages with such touching brevity

the sublime spectacle of the Son of God in tears? What a seal of His perfect oneness with us

in the most redeeming feature of our stricken humanity! But was there nothing in those

tears beyond sorrow for human suffering and death? Could these effects move Him without

suggesting the cause? Who can doubt that in His ear every feature of the scene proclaimed

that stern law of the Kingdom, "The wages of sin is death" (Ro 6:23), and that this element

in His visible emotion underlay all the rest?

36. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!—We thank you, O ye visitors from

Jerusalem, for this spontaneous testimony to the human tenderness of the Son of God.

37. And—rather, "But."

some … said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused

that this man should not have died?—The former exclamation came from the better-feeling

portion of the spectators; this betokens a measure of suspicion. It hardly goes the length of

attesting the miracle on the blind man; but "if (as everybody says) He did that, why could

He not also have kept Lazarus alive?" As to the restoration of the dead man to life, they

never so much as thought of it. But this disposition to dictate to divine power, and almost to

peril our confidence in it upon its doing our bidding, is not confined to men of no faith.

38. Jesus again groaning in himself—that is, as at Joh 11:33, checked or repressed His

rising feelings, in the former instance, of sorrow, here of righteous indignation at their un-

reasonable unbelief; (compare Mr 3:5) [Webster and Wilkinson]. But here, too, struggling

emotion was deeper, now that His eye was about to rest on the spot where lay, in the still

horrors of death, His "friend."

a cave—the cavity, natural or artificial, of a rock. This, with the number of condoling

visitors from Jerusalem, and the costly ointment with which Mary afterwards anointed Jesus

at Bethany, all go to show that the family was in good circumstances.

39-44. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone—spoken to the attendants of Martha and

Mary; for it was a work of no little labor [Grotius]. According to the Talmudists, it was for-

bidden to open a grave after the stone was placed upon it. Besides other dangers, they were

apprehensive of legal impurity by contact with the dead. Hence they avoided coming nearer

a grave than four cubits [Maimonides in Lampe]. But He who touched the leper, and the

bier of the widow of Nain's son, rises here also above these Judaic memorials of evils, every

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one of which He had come to roll away. Observe here what our Lord did Himself, and what

He made others do. As Elijah himself repaired the altar on Carmel, arranged the wood, cut

the victim, and placed the pieces on the fuel, but made the by-standers fill the surrounding

trench with water, that no suspicion might arise of fire having been secretly applied to the

pile (1Ki 18:30-35); so our Lord would let the most skeptical see that, without laying a hand

on the stone that covered His friend, He could recall him to life. But what could be done by

human hand He orders to be done, reserving only to Himself what transcended the ability

of all creatures.

Martha, the sister of … the dead—and as such the proper guardian of the precious

remains; the relationship being here mentioned to account for her venturing gently to re-

monstrate against their exposure, in a state of decomposition, to eyes that had loved him

so tenderly in life.

Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days—(See on Joh 11:17).

It is wrong to suppose from this (as Lampe and others do) that, like the by-standers, she

had not thought of his restoration to life. But the glimmerings of hope which she cherished

from the first (Joh 11:22), and which had been brightened by what Jesus said to her (Joh

11:23-27), had suffered a momentary eclipse on the proposal to expose the now sightless

corpse. To such fluctuations all real faith is subject in dark hours. (See, for example, the case

of Job).

40. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldest believe, thou

shouldest see the glory of God?—He had not said those very words, but this was the scope

of all that He had uttered to her about His life-giving power (Joh 11:23, 25, 26); a gentle yet

emphatic and most instructive rebuke: "Why doth the restoration of life, even to a decom-

posing corpse, seem hopeless in the presence of the Resurrection and the Life? Hast thou

yet to learn that 'if thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth?'" (Mr

9:23).

41. Jesus lifted up his eyes—an expression marking His calm solemnity. (Compare Joh

17:1).

Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me—rather, "heardest Me," referring to a

specific prayer offered by Him, probably on intelligence of the case reaching Him (Joh 11:3,

4); for His living and loving oneness with the Father was maintained and manifested in the

flesh, not merely by the spontaneous and uninterrupted outgoing of Each to Each in spirit,

but by specific actings of faith and exercises of prayer about each successive case as it emerged.

He prayed (says Luthardt well) not for what He wanted, but for the manifestation of what

He had; and having the bright consciousness of the answer in the felt liberty to ask it, and

the assurance that it was at hand, He gives thanks for this with a grand simplicity before

performing the act.

42. And—rather, "Yet."

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I knew that thou hearest me always, but because of the people that stand by I said it,

that they might believe that thou hast sent me—Instead of praying now, He simply gives

thanks for answer to prayer offered ere He left Perea, and adds that His doing even this, in

the audience of the people, was not from any doubt of the prevalency of His prayers in any

case, but to show the people that He did nothing without His Father, but all by direct com-

munication with Him.

43, 44. and when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice—On one other occa-

sion only did He this—on the cross. His last utterance was a "loud cry" (Mt 27:50). "He shall

not cry," said the prophet, nor, in His ministry, did He. What a sublime contrast is this "loud

cry" to the magical "whisperings" and "mutterings" of which we read in Isa 8:19; 29:4 (as

Grotius remarks)! It is second only to the grandeur of that voice which shall raise all the

dead (Joh 5:28, 29; 1Th 4:16).

44. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him and let him go—Jesus will no more do this

Himself than roll away the stone. The one was the necessary preparation for resurrection,

the other the necessary sequel to it. The life-giving act alone He reserves to Himself. So in

the quickening of the dead to spiritual life, human instrumentality is employed first to prepare

the way, and then to turn it to account.

45, 46. many … which … had seen … believed … But some … went … to the Pharisees

and told them what Jesus had done—the two classes which continually reappear in the

Gospel history; nor is there ever any great work of God which does not produce both. "It is

remarkable that on each of the three occasions on which our Lord raised the dead, a large

number of persons was assembled. In two instances, the resurrection of the widow's son

and of Lazarus, these were all witnesses of the miracle; in the third (of Jairus' daughter) they

were necessarily cognizant of it. Yet this important circumstance is in each case only incid-

entally noticed by the historians, not put forward or appealed to as a proof of their veracity.

In regard to this miracle, we observe a greater degree of preparation, both in the provident

arrangement of events, and in our Lord's actions and words than in any other. The preceding

miracle (cure of the man born blind) is distinguished from all others by the open and

formal investigation of its facts. And both these miracles, the most public and best attested

of all, are related by John, who wrote long after the other Evangelists" [Webster and

Wilkinson].

47-54. What do we? for this man doeth many miracles—"While we trifle, 'this man,'

by His 'many miracles,' will carry all before Him; the popular enthusiasm will bring on a

revolution, which will precipitate the Romans upon us, and our all will go down in one

common ruin." What a testimony to the reality of our Lord's miracles, and their resistless

effect, from His bitterest enemies!

51. Caiaphas … prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation—He meant nothing

more than that the way to prevent the apprehended ruin of the nation was to make a sacrifice

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of the Disturber of their peace. But in giving utterance to this suggestion of political expedi-

ency, he was so guided as to give forth a divine prediction of deep significance; and God so

ordered it that it should come from the lips of the high priest for that memorable year, the

recognized head of God's visible people, whose ancient office, symbolized by the Urim and

Thummim, was to decide in the last resort, all vital questions as the oracle of the divine will.

52. and not for that nation only, &c.—These are the Evangelist's words, not Caiaphas'.

53. they took council together to put him to death—Caiaphas but expressed what the

party was secretly wishing, but afraid to propose.

Jesus … walked no more openly among the Jews—How could He, unless He had

wished to die before His time?

near to the wilderness—of Judea.

a city called Ephraim—between Jerusalem and Jericho.

55-57. passover … at hand … many went … up … before the passover, to purify

themselves—from any legal uncleanness which would have disqualified them from keeping

the feast. This is mentioned to introduce the graphic statement which follows.

56. sought they for Jesus, and spake among themselves, as they stood in the

temple—giving forth the various conjectures and speculations about the probability of His

coming to the feast.

that he will not come—The form of this question implies the opinion that He would

come.

57. chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment that if any knew where

he were, he should show it, that they might take him—This is mentioned to account for

the conjectures whether He would come, in spite of this determination to seize Him.

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CHAPTER 12

Joh 12:1-11. The Anointing at Bethany.

(See on Mt 26:6-13).

1-8. six days before the passover—that is, on the sixth day before it; probably after

sunset on Friday evening, or the commencement of the Jewish sabbath preceding the pas-

sover.

2. Martha served—This, with what is afterwards said of Mary's way of honoring her

Lord, is so true to the character in which those two women appear in Lu 10:38-42, as to

constitute one of the strongest and most delightful confirmations of the truth of both nar-

ratives. (See also on Joh 11:20).

Lazarus … sat at the table—"Between the raised Lazarus and the healed leper (Simon,

Mr 14:3), the Lord probably sits as between two trophies of His glory" [Stier].

3. spikenard—or pure nard, a celebrated aromatic (So 1:12).

anointed the feet of Jesus—and "poured it on His head" (Mt 26:7; Mr 14:3). The only

use of this was to refresh and exhilarate—a grateful compliment in the East, amidst the

closeness of a heated atmosphere, with many guests at a feast. Such was the form in which

Mary's love to Christ, at so much cost to herself, poured itself out.

4. Judas … who should betray him—For the reason why this is here mentioned, see

on Mr 14:11.

5. three hundred pence—between nine and ten pounds sterling.

6. had the bag—the purse.

bare what was put therein—not, bare it off by theft, though that he did; but simply,

had charge of its contents, was treasurer to Jesus and the Twelve. How worthy of notice is

this arrangement, by which an avaricious and dishonest person was not only taken into the

number of the Twelve, but entrusted with the custody of their little property! The purposes

which this served are obvious enough; but it is further noticeable, that the remotest hint

was never given to the eleven of His true character, nor did the disciples most favored with

the intimacy of Jesus ever suspect him, till a few minutes before he voluntarily separated

himself from their company—for ever!

7. said Jesus, Let her alone, against the day of my burying hath she done this—not

that she thought of His burial, much less reserved any of her nard to anoint her dead Lord.

But as the time was so near at hand when that office would have to be performed, and she

was not to have that privilege even alter the spices were brought for the purpose (Mr 16:1),

He lovingly regards it as done now.

8. the poor always … with you—referring to De 15:11.

but me … not always—a gentle hint of His approaching departure. He adds (Mr 14:8),

"She hath done what she could," a noble testimony, embodying a principle of immense im-

portance. "Verily, I say unto you, Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole

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world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her" (Mt

26:13; Mr 14:9). "In the act of love done to Him she had erected to herself an eternal

monument, as lasting as the Gospel, the eternal word of God. From generation to generation

this remarkable prophecy of the Lord has been fulfilled; and even we, in explaining this

saying of the Redeemer, of necessity contribute to its accomplishment" [Olshausen]. "Who

but Himself had the power to ensure to any work of man, even if resounding in his own

time through the whole earth, an imperishable remembrance in the stream of history? Behold

once more here, the majesty of His royal judicial supremacy in the government of the world,

in this, Verily I say unto you" [Stier]. Beautiful are the lessons here: (1) Love to Christ

transfigures the humblest services. All, indeed, who have themselves a heart value its least

outgoings beyond the most costly mechanical performances; but how does it endear the

Saviour to us to find Him endorsing the principle as His own standard in judging of character

and deeds!

What though in poor and humble guise

Thou here didst sojourn, cottage-born,

Yet from Thy glory in the skies

Our earthly gold Thou didst not scorn.

For Love delights to bring her best,

And where Love is, that offering evermore is blest.

Love on the Saviour's dying head

Her spikenard drops unblam'd may pour,

May mount His cross, and wrap Him dead

In spices from the golden shore.

Keble

(2) Works of utility should never be set in opposition to the promptings of self-sacrificing

love, and the sincerity of those who do so is to be suspected. Under the mask of concern for

the poor at home, how many excuse themselves from all care of the perishing heathen

abroad. (3) Amidst conflicting duties, that which our "hand (presently) findeth to do" is to

be preferred, and even a less duty only to be done now to a greater that can be done at any

time. (4) "If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and

not according to that he hath not" (2Co 8:12).—"She hath done what she could" (Mr 14:8).

(5) As Jesus beheld in spirit the universal diffusion of His Gospel, while His lowest depth

of humiliation was only approaching, so He regards the facts of His earthly history as consti-

tuting the substance of this Gospel, and the relation of them as just the "preaching of this

Gospel." Not that preachers are to confine themselves to a bare narration of these facts, but

that they are to make their whole preaching turn upon them as its grand center, and derive

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from them its proper vitality; all that goes before this in the Bible being but the preparation

for them, and all that follows but the sequel.

9-11. Crowds of the Jerusalem Jews hastened to Bethany, not so much to see Jesus,

whom they knew to be there, as to see dead Lazarus alive; and this, issuing in their accession

to Christ, led to a plot against the life of Lazarus also, as the only means of arresting the tri-

umphs of Jesus (see Joh 12:19)—to such a pitch had these chief priests come of diabolical

determination to shut out the light from themselves, and quench it from the earth!

Joh 12:12-19. Christ's Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem.

(See on Mt 21:1-9; and Lu 19:29-36).

12. On the next day—the Lord's day, or Sunday (see on Joh 12:1); the tenth day of the

Jewish month Nisan, on which the paschal lamb was set apart to be "kept up until the four-

teenth day of the same month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel were

to kill it in the evening" (Ex 12:3, 6). Even so, from the day of this solemn entry into Jerusalem,

"Christ our Passover" was virtually set apart to be "sacrificed for us" (1Co 5:7).

16. when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written

of him, &c.—The Spirit, descending on them from the glorified Saviour at Pentecost, opened

their eyes suddenly to the true sense of the Old Testament, brought vividly to their recollec-

tion this and other Messianic predictions, and to their unspeakable astonishment showed

them that they, and all the actors in these scenes, had been unconsciously fulfilling those

predictions.

Joh 12:20-36. Some Greeks Desire to See Jesus—The Discourse and Scene Thereupon.

20-22. Greeks—Not Grecian Jews, but Greek proselytes to the Jewish faith, who were

wont to attend the annual festivals, particularly this primary one, the Passover.

The same came therefore to Philip … of Bethsaida—possibly as being from the same

quarter.

saying, Sir, we would see Jesus—certainly in a far better sense than Zaccheus (Lu 19:3).

Perhaps He was then in that part of the temple court to which Gentile proselytes had no

access. "These men from the west represent, at the end of Christ's life, what the wise men

from the east represented at its beginning; but those come to the cross of the King, even as

these to His manger" [Stier].

22. Philip … telleth Andrew—As follow townsmen of Bethsaida (Joh 1:44), these two

seem to have drawn to each other.

Andrew and Philip tell Jesus—The minuteness of these details, while they add to the

graphic force of the narrative, serves to prepare us for something important to come out of

this introduction.

23-26. Jesus answered them, The hour is come that the Son of man should be glori-

fied—that is, They would see Jesus, would they? Yet a little moment, and they shall see Him

so as now they dream not of. The middle wall of partition that keeps them out from the

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commonwealth of Israel is on the eve of breaking down, "and I, if I be lifted up from the

earth, shall draw all men unto Me"; I see them "flying as a cloud, and as doves to their

cotes"—a glorious event that will be for the Son of man, by which this is to be brought about.

It is His death He thus sublimely and delicately alluded to. Lost in the scenes of triumph

which this desire of the Greeks to see Him called up before His view, He gives no direct

answer to their petition for an interview, but sees the cross which was to bring them gilded

with glory.

24. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die,

it bringeth forth much fruit—The necessity of His death is here brightly expressed, and its

proper operation and fruit—life springing forth out of death—imaged forth by a beautiful

and deeply significant law of the vegetable kingdom. For a double reason, no doubt, this

was uttered—to explain what he had said of His death, as the hour of His own glorification,

and to sustain His own Spirit under the agitation which was mysteriously coming over it in

the view of that death.

25. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall

keep it unto life eternal—(See on Lu 9:24). Did our Lord mean to exclude Himself from

the operation of the great principle here expressed—self-renunciation, the law of self-preser-

vation; and its converse, self-preservation, the law of self-destruction? On the contrary, as He

became Man to exemplify this fundamental law of the Kingdom of God in its most sublime

form, so the very utterance of it on this occasion served to sustain His own Spirit in the

double prospect to which He had just alluded.

26. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant

be: If any man serve me, him will my Father honour—Jesus here claims the same absolute

subjection to Himself, as the law of men's exaltation to honor, as He yielded to the Father.

27, 28. Now is my soul troubled—He means at the prospect of His death, just alluded

to. Strange view of the Cross this, immediately after representing it as the hour of His glory!

(Joh 12:23). But the two views naturally meet, and blend into one. It was the Greeks, one

might say, that troubled Him. Ah! they shall see Jesus, but to Him it shall be a costly sight.

and what shall I say?—He is in a strait betwixt two. The death of the cross was, and

could not but be, appalling to His spirit. But to shrink from absolute subjection to the

Father, was worse still. In asking Himself, "What shall I say?" He seems as if thinking aloud,

feeling His way between two dread alternatives, looking both of them sternly in the face,

measuring, weighing them, in order that the choice actually made might be seen, and even

by himself the more vividly felt, to be a profound, deliberate, spontaneous election.

Father, save me from this hour—To take this as a question—"Shall I say, Father, save

me," &c.—as some eminent editors and interpreters do, is unnatural and jejune. It is a real

petition, like that in Gethsemane, "Let this cup pass from Me"; only whereas there He prefaces

the prayer with an "If it be possible," here He follows it up with what is tantamount to

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that—"Nevertheless for this cause came I unto this hour." The sentiment conveyed, then,

by the prayer, in both cases, is twofold: (1) that only one thing could reconcile Him to the

death of the cross—its being His Father's will He should endure it—and (2) that in this view

of it He yielded Himself freely to it. What He recoils from is not subjection to His Father's

will: but to show how tremendous a self-sacrifice that obedience involved, He first asks the

Father to save Him from it, and then signifies how perfectly He knows that He is there for

the very purpose of enduring it. Only by letting these mysterious words speak their full

meaning do they become intelligible and consistent. As for those who see no bitter elements

in the death of Christ—nothing beyond mere dying—what can they make of such a scene?

and when they place it over against the feelings with which thousands of His adoring followers

have welcomed death for His sake, how can they hold Him up to the admiration of men?

28. Father, glorify thy name—by a present testimony.

I have both glorified it—referring specially to the voice from heaven at His baptism,

and again at His transfiguration.

and will glorify it again—that is, in the yet future scenes of His still deeper necessity;

although this promise was a present and sublime testimony, which would irradiate the

clouded spirit of the Son of man.

29-33. The people therefore that stood by, said, It thundered; others, An angel spake

to him—some hearing only a sound, others an articulate, but to them unintelligible voice.

30. Jesus … said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes—that is,

probably, to correct the unfavorable impressions which His momentary agitation and

mysterious prayer for deliverance may have produced on the by-standers.

31. Now is the judgment of this world—the world that "crucified the Lord of glory"

(1Co 2:8), considered as a vast and complicated kingdom of Satan, breathing his spirit, doing

his work, and involved in his doom, which Christ's death by its hands irrevocably sealed.

now shall the prince of this world be cast out—How differently is that fast-approaching

"hour" regarded in the kingdoms of darkness and of light! "The hour of relief; from the dread

Troubler of our peace—how near it is! Yet a little moment, and the day is ours!" So it was

calculated and felt in the one region. "Now shall the prince of this world be cast out," is a

somewhat different view of the same event. We know who was right. Though yet under a

veil, He sees the triumphs of the Cross in unclouded and transporting light.

32. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me—The "I" here is

emphatic—I, taking the place of the world's ejected prince. "If lifted up," means not only

after that I have been lifted up, but, through the virtue of that uplifting. And truly, the death

of the Cross, in all its significance, revealed in the light, and borne in upon the heart, by the

power of the Holy Ghost, possesses an attraction over the wide world—to civilized and

savage, learned and illiterate, alike—which breaks down all opposition, assimilates all to itself,

and forms out of the most heterogeneous and discordant materials a kingdom of surpassing

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glory, whose uniting principle is adoring subjection "to Him that loved them." "Will draw

all men 'UNTO ME,'" says He. What lips could venture to utter such a word but His, which

"dropt as an honeycomb," whose manner of speaking was evermore in the same spirit of

conscious equality with the Father?

33. This he said, signifying what death he should die—that is, "by being lifted up from

the earth" on "the accursed tree" (Joh 3:14; 8:28).

34. We have heard out of the law—the scriptures of the Old Testament (referring to

such places as Ps 89:28, 29; 110:4; Da 2:44; 7:13, 14).

that Christ—the Christ "endureth for ever."

and how sayest thou, The Son of Man must be lifted up, &c.—How can that consist

with this "uplifting?" They saw very well both that He was holding Himself up as the Christ

and a Christ to die a violent death; and as that ran counter to all their ideas of the Messianic

prophecies, they were glad to get this seeming advantage to justify their unyielding attitude.

35, 36. Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, &c.—Instead

of answering their question, He warns them, with mingled majesty and tenderness, against

trifling with their last brief opportunity, and entreats them to let in the Light while they

have it in the midst of them, that they themselves might be "light in the Lord." In this case,

all the clouds which hung around His Person and Mission would speedily be dispelled, while

if they continued to hate the light, bootless were all His answers to their merely speculative

or captious questions. (See on Lu 13:23).

36. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them—He

who spake as never man spake, and immediately after words fraught with unspeakable

dignity and love, had to "hide Himself" from His auditors! What then must they have been?

He retired, probably to Bethany. (The parallels are: Mt 21:17; Lu 21:37).

37-41. It is the manner of this Evangelist alone to record his own reflections on the

scenes he describes; but here, having arrived at what was virtually the close of our Lord's

public ministry, he casts an affecting glance over the fruitlessness of His whole ministry on

the bulk of the now doomed people.

though he had done so many miracles—The word used suggests their nature as well

as number.

38. That the saying of Esaias … might be fulfilled—This unbelief did not at all set

aside the purposes of God, but, on the contrary, fulfilled them.

39-40. Therefore they could not believe, because Esaias said again, He hath blinded

their eyes, that they should not see, &c.—That this expresses a positive divine act, by which

those who wilfully close their eyes and harden their hearts against the truth are judicially

shut up in their unbelief and impenitence, is admitted by all candid critics [as Olshausen],

though many of them think it necessary to contend that this is in no way inconsistent with

the liberty of the human will, which of course it is not.

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41. These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him—a key of im-

mense importance to the opening of Isaiah's vision (Isa 6:1-13), and all similar Old Testament

representations. "The Son is the King Jehovah who rules in the Old Testament and appears

to the elect, as in the New Testament THE Spirit, the invisible Minister of the Son, is the

Director of the Church and the Revealer in the sanctuary of the heart" [Olshausen].

42, 43. among the chief rulers also—rather, "even of the rulers"; such as Nicodemus

and Joseph.

because of the Pharisees—that is, the leaders of the sects; for they were of it themselves.

put out of the synagogue—See Joh 9:22, 34.

43. they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God—"a severe remark,

considering that several at least of these persons afterwards boldly confessed Christ. It indic-

ates the displeasure with which God regarded their conduct at this time, and with which

He continues to regard similar conduct" [Webster and Wilkinson].

44-50. Jesus cried—in a loud tone, and with peculiar solemnity. (Compare Joh 7:37).

and said, He that believeth on me, &c.—This seems to be a supplementary record of

some weighty proclamations, for which there had been found no natural place before, and

introduced here as a sort of summary and winding up of His whole testimony.

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CHAPTER 13

Joh 13:1-20. At the Last Supper Jesus Washes the Disciples' Feet—The Discourse Arising

Thereupon.

1. when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world

unto the Father—On these beautiful euphemisms, see on Lu 9:31; Lu 9:51.

having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end—The

meaning is, that on the very edge of His last sufferings, when it might have been supposed

that He would be absorbed in His own awful prospects, He was so far from forgetting "His

own," who were to be left struggling "in the world" after He had "departed out of it to the

Father" (Joh 17:11), that in His care for them He seemed scarce to think of Himself save in

connection with them: "Herein is love," not only "enduring to the end," but most affectingly

manifested when, judging by a human standard, least to be expected.

2. supper being ended—rather, "being prepared," "being served," or, "going on"; for

that it was not "ended" is plain from Joh 13:26.

the devil having now—or, "already."

put into the heart of Judas … to betray him—referring to the agreement he had already

made with the chief priests (Lu 22:3-6).

3. Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, &c.—This verse

is very sublime, and as a preface to what follows, were we not familiar with it, would fill us

with inexpressible surprise. An unclouded perception of His relation to the Father, the

commission He held from Him, and His approaching return to Him, possessed His soul.

4, 5. He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments—outer garments which would

have impeded the operation of washing.

and took a towel and girded himself—assuming a servant's dress.

5. began to wash—proceeded to wash. Beyond all doubt the feet of Judas were washed,

as of all the rest.

6-11. Peter saith … Lord, dost thou wash my feet?—Our language cannot bring out

the intensely vivid contrast between the "Thou" and the "my," which, by bringing them to-

gether, the original expresses, for it is not good English to say, "Lord, Thou my feet dost

wash?" But every word of this question is emphatic. Thus far, and in the question itself, there

was nothing but the most profound and beautiful astonishment at a condescension to him

quite incomprehensible. Accordingly, though there can be no doubt that already Peter's

heart rebelled against it as a thing not to be tolerated, Jesus ministers no rebuke as yet, but

only bids him wait a little, and he should understand it all.

7. Jesus answered and said … What I do thou knowest not now—that is, Such condes-

cension does need explanation; it is fitted to astonish.

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but thou shall know hereafter—afterwards, meaning presently; though viewed as a

general maxim, applicable to all dark sayings in God's Word, and dark doings in God's

providence, these words are full of consolation.

8. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash, &c.—more emphatically, "Never shalt

Thou wash my feet": that is, "That is an incongruity to which I can never submit." How like

the man!

If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me—What Peter could not submit to was,

that the Master should serve His servant. But the whole saving work of Christ was one con-

tinued series of such services, ending with and consummated by the most self-sacrificing and

transcendent of all services: The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but TO MINIS-

TER, AND TO GIVE His life a ransom for many. (See on Mr 10:45). If Peter then could not

submit to let his Master go down so low as to wash his feet, how should he suffer himself to

be served by Him at all? This is couched under the one pregnant word "wash," which though

applicable to the lower operation which Peter resisted, is the familiar scriptural symbol of

that higher cleansing, which Peter little thought he was at the same time virtually putting

from him. It is not humility to refuse what the Lord deigns to do for us, or to deny what He

has done, but it is self-willed presumption—not rare, however, in those inner circles of lofty

religious profession and traditional spirituality, which are found wherever Christian truth

has enjoyed long and undisturbed possession. The truest humility is to receive reverentially,

and thankfully to own, the gifts of grace.

9. Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head—that is, "To be severed

from Thee, Lord, is death to me: If that be the meaning of my speech, I tread upon it; and

if to be washed of Thee have such significance, then not my feet only, but hands, head, and

all, be washed!" This artless expression of clinging, life-and-death attachment to Jesus, and

felt dependence upon Him for his whole spiritual well-being, compared with the similar

saying in Joh 6:68, 69 (see on Joh 6:68,69), furnishes such evidence of historic verity such as

no thoroughly honest mind can resist.

10. He that is washed—in this thorough sense, to express which the word is carefully

changed to one meaning to wash as in a bath.

needeth not—to be so washed any more.

save to wash his feet—needeth to do no more than wash his feet (and here the former

word is resumed, meaning to wash the hands or feet).

but is clean every whit—as a whole. This sentence is singularly instructive. Of the two

cleansings, the one points to that which takes place at the commencement of the Christian

life, embracing complete absolution from sin as a guilty state, and entire deliverance from it

as a polluted life (Re 1:5; 1Co 6:11)—or, in the language of theology, Justification and Regen-

eration. This cleansing is effected once for all, and is never repeated. The other cleansing,

described as that of "the feet," is such as one walking from a bath quite cleansed still needs,

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in consequence of his contact with the earth. (Compare Ex 30:18, 19). It is the daily cleansing

which we are taught to seek, when in the spirit of adoption we say, "Our Father which art

in heaven … forgive us our debts" (Mt 6:9, 12); and, when burdened with the sense of manifold

shortcomings—as what tender spirit of a Christian is not?—is it not a relief to be permitted

thus to wash our feet after a day's contact with the earth? This is not to call in question the

completeness of our past justification. Our Lord, while graciously insisting on washing

Peter's feet, refuses to extend the cleansing farther, that the symbolical instruction intended

to be conveyed might not be marred.

and ye are clean—in the first and whole sense.

but not all—important, as showing that Judas, instead of being as true-hearted a disciple

as the rest at first, and merely falling away afterwards—as many represent it—never experi-

enced that cleansing at all which made the others what they were.

12-15. Know ye what I have done?—that is, its intent. The question, however, was put

merely to summon their attention to His own answer.

13. Ye call me Master—Teacher.

and Lord—learning of Him in the one capacity, obeying Him in the other.

and ye say well, for so I am—The conscious dignity with which this claim is made is

remarkable, following immediately on His laying aside the towel of service. Yet what is this

whole history but a succession of such astonishing contrast from first to last?

14. If I then—the Lord.

have washed your feet—the servants'.

ye—but fellow servants.

ought to wash one another's feet—not in the narrow sense of a literal washing, profanely

caricatured by popes and emperors, but by the very humblest real services one to another.

16, 17. The servant is not greater than his lord, &c.—an oft-repeated saying (Mt 10:24,

&c.).

If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them—a hint that even among real

Christians the doing of such things would come lamentably short of the knowing.

18, 19. I speak not of you all—the "happy are ye," of Joh 13:17, being on no supposition

applicable to Judas.

I know whom I have chosen—in the higher sense.

But that the scripture may be fulfilled—that is, one has been added to your number,

by no accident or mistake, who is none of Mine, but just that he might fulfil his predicted

destiny.

He that eateth bread with me—"did eat of my bread" (Ps 41:9), as one of My family;

admitted to the nearest familiarity of discipleship and of social life.

hath lifted up his heel against me—turned upon Me, adding insult to injury. (Compare

Heb 10:29). In the Psalm the immediate reference is to Ahithophel's treachery against

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David (2Sa 17:1-23), one of those scenes in which the parallel of his story with that of His

great Antitype is exceedingly striking. "The eating bread derives a fearful meaning from the

participation in the sacramental supper, a meaning which must be applied for ever to all

unworthy communicants, as well as to all betrayers of Christ who eat the bread of His

Church" (Stier, with whom, and others, we agree in thinking that Judas partook of the Lord's

Supper).

19. I tell you before … that when it comes to pass, ye may believe—and it came to

pass when they deeply needed such confirmation.

20. He that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth me, &c.—(See on Mt 10:40). The

connection here seems to be that despite the dishonor done to Him by Judas, and similar

treatment awaiting themselves, they were to be cheered by the assurance that their office,

even as His own, was divine.

Joh 13:21-30. The Traitor Indicated—He Leaves the Supper Room.

21. When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily,

verily, I say unto you, One of you shall betray me—The announcement of Joh 13:18 seems

not to have been plain enough to be quite apprehended, save by the traitor himself. He will

therefore speak it out in terms not to be misunderstood. But how much it cost Him to do

this, appears from the "trouble" that came over His "spirit"—visible emotion, no

doubt—before He got it uttered. What wounded susceptibility does this disclose, and what

exquisite delicacy in His social intercourse with the Twelve, to whom He cannot, without

an effort, break the subject!

22. the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake—Further intensely

interesting particulars are given in the other Gospels: (1) "They were exceeding sorrowful"

(Mt 26:22). (2) "They began to inquire among themselves which of them it was that should

do this thing" (Lu 22:23). (3) "They began to say unto Him one by one, Is it I, and another,

Is it I?" (Mr 14:19). Generous, simple hearts! They abhorred the thought, but, instead of

putting it on others, each was only anxious to purge himself and know if he could be the

wretch. Their putting it at once to Jesus Himself, as knowing doubtless who was to do it,

was the best, as it certainly was the most spontaneous and artless evidence of their innocence.

(4) Jesus, apparently while this questioning was going on, added, "The Son of man goeth as

it is written of Him, but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It had

been good for that man if he had not been born" (Mt 26:24). (5) "Judas," last of all, "answered

and said, Lord, is it I?" evidently feeling that when all were saying this, if he held his peace,

that of itself would draw suspicion upon him. To prevent this the question is wrung out of

him, but perhaps, amidst the stir and excitement at the table, in a half-suppressed tone as

we are inclined to think the answer also was—"Thou hast said" (Mt 26:25), or possibly by

little more than a sign; for from Joh 13:28 it is evident that till the moment when he went

out, he was not openly discovered.

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23-26. there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved—Thus

modestly does our Evangelist denote himself, as reclining next to Jesus at the table.

Peter … beckoned to him to ask who it should be of whom he spake—reclining

probably at the corresponding place on the other side of Jesus.

25. He then lying—rather leaning over on Jesus' bosom.

saith—in a whisper, "Lord, who is it?"

26. Jesus answered—also inaudibly, the answer being communicated to Peter perhaps

from behind.

He … to whom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it—a piece of the bread soaked

in the wine or the sauce of the dish; one of the ancient ways of testifying peculiar regard;

compare Joh 13:18, "he that eateth bread with Me."

And when he had dipped … he gave it to Judas, &c.—Thus the sign of Judas' treachery

was an affecting expression, and the last, of the Saviour's wounded love!

27-30. after the sop Satan entered into him—Very solemn are these brief hints of the

successive steps by which Judas reached the climax of his guilt. "The devil had already put

it into his heart to betray his Lord." Yet who can tell what struggles he went through ere he

brought himself to carry that suggestion into effect? Even after this, however, his compunc-

tions were not at an end. With the thirty pieces of silver already in his possession, he seems

still to have quailed—and can we wonder? When Jesus stooped to wash his feet, it may be

the last struggle was reaching its crisis. But that word of the Psalm, about "one that ate of

his bread who would lift up his heel against Him" (Ps 41:9) probably all but turned the dread

scale, and the still more explicit announcement, that one of those sitting with Him at the

table should betray Him, would beget the thought, "I am detected; it is now too late to draw

back." At that moment the sop is given; offer of friendship is once more made—and how

affectingly! But already "Satan has entered into him," and though the Saviour's act might

seem enough to recall him even yet, hell is now in his bosom, and he says within himself,

"The die is cast; now let me go through with it"; fear, begone!" (See on Mt 12:43).

Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly—that is, Why linger here? Thy

presence is a restraint, and thy work stands still; thou hast the wages of iniquity, go work

for it!

28, 29. no man … knew for what intent he spake this unto him … some thought …

Jesus … said … But what we need … or, … give … to the poor—a very important statement,

as showing how carefully. Jesus had kept the secret, and Judas his hypocrisy, to the last.

30. He then, having received the sop, went immediately out—severing himself for

ever from that holy society with which he never had any spiritual sympathy.

and it was night—but far blacker night in the soul of Judas than in the sky over his

head.

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Joh 13:31-38. Discourse after the Traitor's Departure—Peter's Self-Confidence—His

Fall Predicted.

31. when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified—These remark-

able words plainly imply that up to this moment our Lord had spoken under a painful re-

straint, the presence of a traitor within the little circle of His holiest fellowship on earth

preventing the free and full outpouring of His heart; as is evident, indeed, from those oft-

recurring clauses, "Ye are not all clean," "I speak not of you all," &c. "Now" the restraint is

removed, and the embankment which kept in the mighty volume of living waters having

broken down, they burst forth in a torrent which only ceases on His leaving the supper room

and entering on the next stage of His great work—the scene in the Garden. But with what

words is the silence first broken on the departure of Judas? By no reflections on the traitor,

and, what is still more wonderful, by no reference to the dread character of His own ap-

proaching sufferings. He does not even name them, save by announcing, as with a burst of

triumph, that the hour of His glory has arrived! And what is very remarkable, in five brief

clauses He repeats this word "glorify" five times, as if to His view a coruscation of glories

played at that moment about the Cross. (See on Joh 12:23).

God is glorified in him—the glory of Each reaching its zenith in the Death of the Cross!

32. If God be glorified in him, God shall also—in return and reward of this highest of

all services ever rendered to Him, or capable of being rendered.

glorify him in himself, and … straightway glorify him—referring now to the Resur-

rection and Exaltation of Christ after this service was over, including all the honor and glory

then put upon Him, and that will for ever encircle Him as Head of the new creation.

33-35. Little children—From the height of His own glory He now descends, with sweet

pity, to His "little children," all now His own. This term of endearment, nowhere else used

in the Gospels, and once only employed by Paul (Ga 4:19), is appropriated by the beloved

disciple himself, who no fewer than seven times employs it in his first Epistle.

Ye shall seek me—feel the want of Me.

as I said to the Jews—(Joh 7:34; 8:21). But oh in what a different sense!

34. a new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved

you, that ye also love one another—This was the new feature of it. Christ's love to His

people in giving His life a ransom for them was altogether new, and consequently as a

Model and Standard for theirs to one another. It is not, however, something transcending

the great moral law, which is "the old commandment" (1Jo 2:7, and see on Mr 12:28-33),

but that law in a new and peculiar form. Hence it is said to be both new and old (1Jo 2:7, 8).

35. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples—the disciples of Him who laid

down His life for those He loved.

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if ye have love one to another—for My sake, and as one in Me; for to such love men

outside the circle of believers know right well they are entire strangers. Alas, how little of it

there is even within this circle!

36-38. Peter said—seeing plainly in these directions how to behave themselves, that

He was indeed going from them.

Lord, whither guest thou?—having hardly a glimmer of the real truth.

Jesus answered, … thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me after-

wards—How different from what He said to the Jews: "Whither I go ye cannot come" (Joh

8:21).

37. why not … now? I will lay down my life for thy sake—He seems now to see that

it was death Christ referred to as what would sever Him from them, but is not staggered at

following Him thither. Jesus answered,

38. Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake?—In this repetition of Peter's words there

is deep though affectionate irony, and this Peter himself would feel for many a day after his

recovery, as he retraced the painful particulars.

Verily … The cock, &c.—See on Lu 22:31-34.

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CHAPTER 14

Joh 14:1-31. Discourse at the Table, after Supper.

We now come to that portion of the evangelical history which we may with propriety

call its Holy of Holies. Our Evangelist, like a consecrated priest, alone opens up to us the

view into this sanctuary. It is the record of the last moments spent by the Lord in the midst

of His disciples before His passion, when words full of heavenly thought flowed from His

sacred lips. All that His heart, glowing with love, had still to say to His friends, was com-

pressed into this short season. At first (from Joh 13:31) the intercourse took the form of

conversation; sitting at table, they talked familiarly together. But when (Joh 14:31) the repast

was finished, the language of Christ assumed a loftier strain; the disciples, assembled around

their Master, listened to the words of life, and seldom spoke a word (only Joh 16:17, 29).

"At length, in the Redeemer's sublime intercessory prayer, His full soul was poured forth in

express petitions to His heavenly Father on behalf of those who were His own. It is a pecu-

liarity of these last chapters, that they treat almost exclusively of the most profound rela-

tions—as that of the Son to the Father, and of both to the Spirit, that of Christ to the Church,

of the Church to the world, and so forth. Moreover, a considerable portion of these sublime

communications surpassed the point of view to which the disciples had at that time attained;

hence the Redeemer frequently repeats the same sentiments in order to impress them more

deeply upon their minds, and, because of what they still did not understand, points them

to the Holy Spirit, who would remind them of all His sayings, and lead them into all truth

(Joh 14:26)" [Olshausen].

1. Let not your heart be troubled, &c.—What myriads of souls have not these opening

words cheered, in deepest gloom, since first they were uttered!

ye believe in God—absolutely.

believe also in me—that is, Have the same trust in Me. What less, and what else, can

these words mean? And if so, what a demand to make by one sitting familiarly with them

at the supper table! Compare the saying in Joh 5:17, for which the Jews took up stones to

stone Him, as "making himself equal with God" (Joh 14:18). But it is no transfer of our trust

from its proper Object; it is but the concentration of our trust in the Unseen and Impalpable

One upon His Own Incarnate Son, by which that trust, instead of the distant, unsteady, and

too often cold and scarce real thing it otherwise is, acquires a conscious reality, warmth,

and power, which makes all things new. This is Christianity in brief.

2. In my Father's house are many mansions—and so room for all, and a place for each.

if not, I would have told you—that is, I would tell you so at once; I would not deceive

you.

I go to prepare a place for you—to obtain for you a right to be there, and to possess

your "place."

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3. I will come again and receive you unto myself—strictly, at His Personal appearing;

but in a secondary and comforting sense, to each individually. Mark again the claim

made:—to come again to receive His people to Himself, that where He is there they may be

also. He thinks it ought to be enough to be assured that they shall be where He is and in His

keeping.

4-7. whither I go ye know … Thomas saith, Lord, we know not whither thou guest

… Jesus saith, I am the way, &c.—By saying this, He meant rather to draw out their inquiries

and reply to them. Christ is "THE Way" to the Father—"no man cometh unto the Father

but by Me"; He is "THE Truth" of all we find in the Father when we get to Him, "For in Him

dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Col 2:9), and He is all "THE Life" that shall

ever flow to us and bless us from the Godhead thus approached and thus manifested in

Him—"this is the true God and eternal life" (1Jo 5:20).

7. from henceforth—now, or from this time, understand.

8-12. The substance of this passage is that the Son is the ordained and perfect manifest-

ation of the Father, that His own word for this ought to His disciples to be enough; that if

any doubts remained His works ought to remove them (see on Joh 10:37); but yet that these

works of His were designed merely to aid weak faith, and would be repeated, nay exceeded,

by His disciples, in virtue of the power He would confer on them after His departure. His

miracles the apostles wrought, though wholly in His name and by His power, and the

"greater" works—not in degree but in kind—were the conversion of thousands in a day, by

His Spirit accompanying them.

13, 14. whatsoever ye … ask in my name—as Mediator.

that will I do—as Head and Lord of the kingdom of God. This comprehensive promise

is emphatically repeated in Joh 14:14.

15-17. If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, &c.—This

connection seems designed to teach that the proper temple for the indwelling Spirit of Jesus

is a heart filled with that love to Him which lives actively for Him, and so this was the fitting

preparation for the promised gift.

he shall give you another Comforter—a word used only by John; in his Gospel with

reference to the Holy Spirit, in his First Epistle (1Jo 2:1), with reference to Christ Himself.

Its proper sense is an "advocate," "patron," "helper." In this sense it is plainly meant of Christ

(1Jo 2:1), and in this sense it comprehends all the comfort as well as aid of the Spirit's work.

The Spirit is here promised as One who would supply Christ's own place in His absence.

that he may abide with you for ever—never go away, as Jesus was going to do in the

body.

17. whom the world cannot receive, &c.—(See 1Co 2:14).

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he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you—Though the proper fulness of both these

was yet future, our Lord, by using both the present and the future, seems plainly to say that

they already had the germ of this great blessing.

18-20. I will not leave you comfortless—in a bereaved and desolate condition; or (as

in Margin) "orphans."

I will come to you—"I come" or "am coming" to you; that is, plainly by the Spirit, since

it was to make His departure to be no bereavement.

19. world seeth—beholdeth.

me no more, but ye see—behold.

me—His bodily presence, being all the sight of Him which "the world" ever had, or was

capable of, it "beheld Him no more" after His departure to the Father; but by the coming of

the Spirit, the presence of Christ was not only continued to His spiritually enlightened dis-

ciples, but rendered far more efficacious and blissful than His bodily presence had been before

the Spirit's coming.

because I live—not "shall live," only when raised from the dead; for it is His unextin-

guishable, divine life of which He speaks, in view of which His death and resurrection were

but as shadows passing over the sun's glorious disk. (Compare Lu 24:5; Re 1:18, "the Living

One"). And this grand saying Jesus uttered with death immediately in view. What a brightness

does this throw over the next clause, "ye shall live also!" "Knowest thou not," said Luther to

the King of Terrors, "that thou didst devour the Lord Christ, but wert obliged to give Him

back, and wert devoured of Him? So thou must leave me undevoured because I abide in

Him, and live and suffer for His name's sake. Men may hunt me out of the world—that I

care not for—but I shall not on that account abide in death. I shall live with my Lord Christ,

since I know and believe that He liveth!" (quoted in Stier).

20. At that day—of the Spirit's coming.

ye shall know that I am in my Father, ye in me, I in you—(See on Joh 17:22,23).

21. He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, &c.—(See on Joh 14:15).

my Father and I will love him—Mark the sharp line of distinction here, not only between

the Divine Persons but the actings of love in Each respectively, towards true disciples.

22. Judas saith … not Iscariot—Beautiful parenthesis this! The traitor being no longer

present, we needed not to be told that this question came not from him. But it is as if the

Evangelist had said, "A very different Judas from the traitor, and a very different question

from any that he would have put. Indeed [as one in Stier says], we never read of Iscariot

that he entered in any way into his Master's words, or ever put a question even of rash

curiosity (though it may be he did, but that nothing from him was deemed fit for immortality

in the Gospels but his name and treason)."

how … manifest thyself to us, and not to the world—a most natural and proper

question, founded on Joh 14:19, though interpreters speak against it as Jewish.

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23. we will come and make our abode with him—Astonishing statement! In the Father's

"coming" He "refers to the revelation of Him as a Father to the soul, which does not take

place till the Spirit comes into the heart, teaching it to cry, Abba, Father" [Olshausen]. The

"abode" means a permanent, eternal stay! (Compare Le 26:11, 12; Eze 37:26, 27; 2Co 6:16;

and contrast Jer 14:8).

25, 26. he shall teach you all things, and bring all to … remembrance, whatsoever I

have said unto you—(See on Joh 14:15; Joh 14:17). As the Son came in the Father's name,

so the Father shall send the Spirit in My name, says Jesus, that is, with like divine power and

authority to reproduce in their souls what Christ taught them, "bringing to living conscious-

ness what lay like slumbering germs in their minds" [Olshausen]. On this rests the credibility

and ultimate divine authority of THE Gospel history. The whole of what is here said of THE

Spirit is decisive of His divine personality. "He who can regard all the personal expressions,

applied to the Spirit in these three chapters ('teaching,' 'reminding,' 'testifying,' 'coming,'

'convincing,' 'guiding,' 'speaking,' 'hearing,' 'prophesying,' 'taking') as being no other than a

long drawn-out figure, deserves not to be recognized even as an interpreter of intelligible

words, much less an expositor of Holy Scripture" [Stier].

27. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you—If Joh 14:25, 26 sounded like a

note of preparation for drawing the discourse to a close, this would sound like a farewell.

But oh, how different from ordinary adieus! It is a parting word, but of richest import, the

customary "peace" of a parting friend sublimed and transfigured. As "the Prince of Peace"

(Isa 9:6) He brought it into flesh, carried it about in His Own Person ("My peace") died to

make it ours, left it as the heritage of His disciples upon earth, implants and maintains it by

His Spirit in their hearts. Many a legacy is "left" that is never "given" to the legatee, many a

gift destined that never reaches its proper object. But Christ is the Executor of His own

Testament; the peace He "leaves" He "gives"; Thus all is secure.

not as the world giveth—in contrast with the world, He gives sincerely, substantially,

eternally.

28. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father, for my

Father is greater than I—These words, which Arians and Socinians perpetually quote as

triumphant evidence against the proper Divinity of Christ, really yield no intelligible sense

on their principles. Were a holy man on his deathbed, beholding his friends in tears at the

prospect of losing him, to say, "Ye ought rather to joy than weep for me, and would if ye

really loved me, "the speech would be quite natural. But if they should ask him, why joy at

his departure was more suitable than sorrow, would they not start back with astonishment,

if not horror, were he to reply, "Because my Father is greater than I?" Does not this strange

speech from Christ's lips, then, presuppose such teaching on His part as would make it ex-

tremely difficult for them to think He could gain anything by departing to the Father, and

make it necessary for Him to say expressly that there was a sense in which He could do so?

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Thus, this startling explanation seems plainly intended to correct such misapprehensions

as might arise from the emphatic and reiterated teaching of His proper equality with the

Father—as if so Exalted a Person were incapable of any accession by transition from this

dismal scene to a cloudless heaven and the very bosom of the Father—and by assuring them

that this was not the case, to make them forget their own sorrow in His approaching joy.

30, 31. Hereafter I will not talk much with you—"I have a little more to say, but My

work hastens apace, and the approach of the adversary will cut it short."

for the prince of this world—(See on Joh 12:31).

cometh—with hostile intent, for a last grand attack, having failed in His first formidable

assault (Lu 4:1-13) from which he "departed [only] for a season" (Joh 14:13).

and hath nothing in me—nothing of His own—nothing to fasten on. Glorious saying!

The truth of it is, that which makes the Person and Work of Christ the life of the world (Heb

9:14; 1Jo 3:5; 2Co 5:21).

31. But that the world may know that I love the Father, &c.—The sense must be

completed thus: "But to the Prince of the world, though he has nothing in Me, I shall yield

Myself up even unto death, that the world may know that I love and obey the Father, whose

commandment it is that I give My life a ransom for many."

Arise, let us go hence—Did they then, at this stage of the discourse, leave the supper

room, as some able interpreters conclude? If so, we think our Evangelist would have men-

tioned it: see Joh 18:1, which seems clearly to intimate that they then only left the upper

room. But what do the words mean if not this? We think it was the dictate of that saying of

earlier date, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accom-

plished!"—a spontaneous and irrepressible expression of the deep eagerness of His spirit to

get into the conflict, and that if, as is likely, it was responded to somewhat too literally by

the guests who hung on His lips, in the way of a movement to depart, a wave of His hand,

would be enough to show that He had yet more to say ere they broke up; and that disciple,

whose pen was dipped in a love to his Master which made their movements of small con-

sequence save when essential to the illustration of His words, would record this little outburst

of the Lamb hastening to the slaughter, in the very midst of His lofty discourse; while the

effect of it, if any, upon His hearers, as of no consequence, would naturally enough be passed

over.

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CHAPTER 15

Joh 15:1-27. Discourse at the Supper Table Continued.

1-8. The spiritual oneness of Christ and His people, and His relation to them as the Source

of all their spiritual life and fruitfulness, are here beautifully set forth by a figure familiar to

Jewish ears (Isa 5:1, &c.).

I am the true vine—of whom the vine of nature is but a shadow.

my Father is the husbandman—the great Proprietor of the vineyard, the Lord of the

spiritual kingdom. (It is surely unnecessary to point out the claim to supreme divinity involved

in this).

2. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit … every branch that beareth fruit—As

in a fruit tree, some branches may be fruitful, others quite barren, according as there is a

vital connection between the branch and the stock, or no vital connection; so the disciples

of Christ may be spiritually fruitful or the reverse, according as they are vitally and spiritually

connected with Christ, or but externally and mechanically attached to Him. The fruitless He

"taketh away" (see on Joh 15:6); the fruitful He "purgeth" (cleanseth, pruneth)—stripping it,

as the husbandman does, of what is rank (Mr 4:19), "that it may bring forth more fruit"; a

process often painful, but no less needful and beneficial than in the natural husbandry.

3. Now—rather, "Already."

ye are clean through—by reason of.

the word I have spoken to you—already in a purified, fruitful condition, in consequence

of the long action upon them of that searching "word" which was "as a refiner's fire" (Mal

3:2, 3).

4. Abide in me, and I in you; as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide

in the vine, &c.—As all spiritual fruitfulness had been ascribed to the mutual inhabitation,

and living, active interpenetration (so to speak) of Christ and His disciples, so here the

keeping up of this vital connection is made essential to continued fruitfulness.

5. without me—apart, or vitally disconnected from Me.

ye can do nothing—spiritually, acceptably.

6. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch … withered … cast into the

fire … burned—The one proper use of the vine is to bear fruit; failing this, it is good for

one other thing—fuel. (See Eze 15:1-5). How awfully striking the figure, in this view of it!

7. If ye abide in me, and my words … in you—Mark the change from the inhabitation

of Himself to that of His words, paving the way for the subsequent exhortations (Joh 15:9,

10).

ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you—because this indwelling of His words

in them would secure the harmony of their askings with the divine will.

8. glorified that ye bear much fruit—not only from His delight in it for its own sake,

but as from "the juices of the Living Vine."

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so shall ye be my disciples—evidence your discipleship.

9-11. continue ye in my love—not, "Continue to love Me," but, "Continue in the pos-

session and enjoyment of My love to you"; as is evident from the next words.

10. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love—the obedient spirit of

true discipleship cherishing and attracting the continuance and increase of Christ's love;

and this, He adds, was the secret even of His own abiding in His Father's love!

12-16. That ye love one another, &c.—(See on Joh 13:34, 35).

13. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his

friends—The emphasis lies not on "friends," but on "laying down his life" for them; that is,

"One can show no greater regard for those dear to him than to give his life for them, and

this is the love ye shall find in Me."

14. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you—hold yourselves in absolute

subjection to Me.

15. Henceforth I call you not servants—that is, in the sense explained in the next words;

for servants He still calls them (Joh 15:20), and they delight to call themselves so, in the

sense of being "under law to Christ" (1Co 9:20).

the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth—knows nothing of his master's plans

and reasons, but simply receives and executes his orders.

but … friends, for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto

you—admitted you to free, unrestrained fellowship, keeping back nothing from you which

I have received to communicate. (Compare Ge 18:17; Ps 25:14; Isa 50:4).

16. Ye have not chosen me, but I … you—a wholesale memento after the lofty things

He had just said about their mutual indwelling, and the unreservedness of the friendship

they had been admitted to.

ordained—appointed.

you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit—that is, give yourselves to it.

and that your fruit should remain—showing itself to be an imperishable and ever

growing principle. (Compare Pr 4:18; 2Jo 8).

that whatsoever ye shall ask, &c.—(See on Joh 15:7).

17-21. The substance of these important verses has occurred more than once before.

(See on Mt 10:34-36; Lu 12:49-53, &c.).

22-25. (See on Joh 9:39-41).

If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin—comparatively none;

all other sins being light compared with the rejection of the Son of God.

now they have no cloak for their sin—rather, "pretext."

24. If I had not done … the works which none other … did—(See on Joh 12:37).

25. that the word might be fulfilled … They hated me without a cause—quoted from

the Messianic Ps 69:4, applied also in the same sense in Joh 2:17; Ac 1:20; Ro 11:9, 10; 15:3.

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