Opening…

Preface

TO ALL THE VOLUMES OF THIS SERIES OF COMMENTARIES.

The object of this Commentary is to aid in their Christian work those who are endeavoring to promote the knowledge of the principles which Jesus Christ came to propound and establish--clergymen, Christian parents, Sunday-School teachers, Bible-women, lay-preachers. Intended for Christian workers, it aims to give the results rather than the processes of scholarship, the conclusions rather than the controversies of scholars; intended for laymen as well as for clergymen, it accompanies the English version of the New Testament, in all references to the original Greek gives the English equivalent, and translates all quotations from the French, German, Latin and Greek authors.

The introduction to Volume I contains a statement of those principles of interpretation which appear to me to be essential to the correct understanding of the Word of God. This Commentary is the result of a conscientious endeavor to apply those principles to the elucidation of the New Testament.

It is founded on a careful examination of the latest and best text; such variations as are of practical or doctrinal importance are indicated in the notes. It is founded on the original Greek; wherever that is inadequately rendered in our English version, a new translation is afforded by the notes. The general purpose of the writer or speaker, and the general scope of the incident or teaching, is indicated in a Preliminary Note to the passage, or in an analysis, a paraphrase, or a general summary at the close. Special topics are treated in preliminary or supplementary notes. The results of recent researches in Biblical archæology have been embodied, so as to make the Commentary serve in part the purpose of a Bible Dictionary. A free use is made of illustrations, from antiques, photographs, original drawings, and other trustworthy sources. They are never employed for mere ornament, but always to aid in depicting the life of Palestine, which remains in many respects substantially unchanged by the lapse of time. Since the Commentary is prepared, not for devotional reading, but for practical workers, little space has been devoted to hortatory remarks or practical or spiritual reflections. But I have uniformly sought to interpret the letter by the spirit, and to suggest rather than to supply moral and spiritual reflections, a paragraph of hints is affixed to each section or topic, embodying what appears to me to be the essential religious lessons of the incident or the teaching; sometimes a note is appended elucidating them more fully. The best thoughts of the best thinkers, both exegetical and homiletical, are freely quoted, especially such as are not likely to be accessible to most American readers; in all such cases the thought is credited to the author. Parallel and contrasted passages of Scripture are brought together in the notes; in addition, full Scripture references are appended to the text. These are taken substantially from Bagster’s large edition of the English version of the Polyglot Bible, but they have been carefully examined and verified in preparing for the press, and some modifications have been made. For the convenience of that large class of Christian workers who are limited in their means, I have endeavored to make this Commentary, as far as practicable, a complete apparatus for the study of the New Testament. When finished it will be fully furnished with maps;--there are four in this volume; a Gazetteer gives a condensed account of all the principal places in Palestine, mentioned in our Lord’s life; and an introduction traces the history of the New Testament from the days of Christ to the present, giving some account of the evidence and nature of inspiration, the growth of the canon, the character and history of the manuscripts, the English version, the nature of the Gospels and their relation to each other, a brief life of Christ, and a complete tabular harmony of the four Gospels.

The want of all who use the Bible in Christian work is the same. The wish is often for a demonstration that the Scripture sustains the reader’s peculiar theological tenets, but the want is always for a clearer and better knowledge of Scripture teaching, whether it sanctions or overturns previous opinions. I am not conscious that this work is written in the interest of any theological or ecclesiastical system. In those cases in which the best scholars are disagreed in their interpretation, the different views and the reasons which lead me to my own conclusions have been given, I trust, in no controversial spirit. For the sole object of this work is to ascertain and make clear the meaning of the Word of God, irrespective of systems, whether ecclesiastical or doctrinal.

No work is more delightful than that which throws us into fellowship with great minds; of all work the most delightful is that which brings us into association with the mind of God. This is the fellowship to which the student of the Bible aspires. I can have for those who use this work no higher hope than that they may find in its employment some of the happiness which I have found in its preparation, and that it may serve them as it has served me, as a guide to the Word of God, and through that Word to a better acquaintance with God himself.

CORNWALL-ON-HUDSON, May, 1875. LYMAN ABBOTT.

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN.

PAGE

INTRODUCTION 3

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES--

ON THE INTRODUCTION TO JOHN’S GOSPEL 13

THE INCARNATION 21

THE LAMB OF GOD 24

CHRIST’S EXAMPLE IN THE USE OF WINE 32

CHRIST AS A CONVERSATIONALIST 58

CHRIST’S DISCOURSE ON THE BREAD OF LIFE 83

THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY 105

THE PARABLE OF THE SHEEPFOLD 125

THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS 135, 145

THE ANOINTING OF JESUS 150

THE LORD’S SUPPER 162

CHRIST’S LAST DISCOURSE WITH HIS DISCIPLES 171

THE PARABLE OF THE VINE 185

CHRIST’S INTERCESSORY PRAYER 201

THE CHARACTER OF PONTIUS PILATE 221

THE CHARACTER OF JOHN’S GOSPEL 240

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Most of the engravings in this volume have been drawn and engraved expressly for this work; some from original sketches by Mr. A. L. Rawson, others from careful study from the best accessible authorities, by Mr. R. F. Zogbaum.

PAGE

CANA OF GALILEE 29

AN ORIENTAL WEDDING 29

WATER-POTS AND EWERS 31

SUBSTRUCTURES OF THE TEMPLE 34

PLAN AND SECTION OF THE TEMPLE 36

THE EXPULSION OF THE TRADERS 36

EASTERN MONEY-CHANGER 37

A MODERN JEWISH RABBI 41

TRADITIONAL SITE OF ENON 48

JACOB’S WELL 52

JESUS AT THE WELL 54

SAMARITAN REMAINS IN GERIZIM 60

CHURCH OVER THE POOL OF BETHESDA 63

BETHSAIDA 77

TIBERIAS 85

BOOTH ON THE HOUSETOP 96

OFFICERS OF THE CHIEF PRIEST 104

THE MOUNT OF OLIVES 107

THE WOMAN AND HER ACCUSERS 108

AN EASTERN SHEEPFOLD 126

FELL AT HIS FEET 142

RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS 146

BETHANY 151

ANOINTING OF THE FEET 152

ANCIENT MONEY-BAG 153

WASHING OF FEET 163

DIPPING THE SOP 168

TORCHES 212

ANCIENT FIRE UTENSILS 214

DENIALS OF PETER 215

JESUS BEFORE PILATE 217

ROMAN JUDGMENT-SEAT 221

HE GIRT HIS FISHER’S COAT UNTO HIM 235

ANCIENT BREAD 236

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Introduction

From the beginning of the third century to near the close of the seventeenth, the Fourth Gospel was by a common and substantially a unanimous consent attributed to the Apostle John. This authorship was then questioned, at first by an English critic by the name of Evanson. The discussion was soon transferred to Germany, where it waxed warm, and whence it was again transferred to England and this country.[1] It may now be regarded as the most hotly contested question in biblical criticism. The controversy has been intensified by prejudices and feeling on both sides. It is indeed impossible to discuss it with cool indifference, as a mere matter of curious literary interest. If this Gospel was written by the Apostle John, we have the testimony of an undoubted eye-witness--not his conclusions but his account of facts in respect to which he could not well be deceived--certainly not, unless we are prepared to believe that Jesus was himself a deliberate deceiver; testimony of an eye-witness whose honesty not even the most resolute skepticism would or could well call in question. This testimony would establish beyond question such facts as the miraculous feeding of the five thousand, the healing of the man born blind, the resurrection of Lazarus, and the death and resurrection of Jesus himself. In other words, it would establish beyond the possibility of reasonable question, the truth of historical Christianity. Accordingly, Renan, who to a certain extent accepts the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel, is compelled to maintain that the pretended resurrection of Lazarus was a pious fraud to which Jesus lent himself because it was necessary to the success of his mission, and because his growing religious enthusiasm justified to his conscience this means, for the sake of the end to be accomplished by it. Moreover, we have in this Gospel a report of words of Jesus, which leave to us no alternative but to accept him as in a peculiar sense the Son of God, or to regard him either as a religious impostor or a religious enthusiast. The synoptics leave some opportunity for discussion as to the place which Jesus assumed to fill. The Fourth Gospel does not. Thus the question of the authorship of this Gospel is not merely a question in literary criticism, but even more one respecting the nature of Christianity. Accordingly we find, on the one hand, the advocates of its apostolic authorship more or less resting their belief upon the inherent beauty of the book, and the opponents more or less declaring the true ground of their opposition to it, viz., that it presents what they call a mythological view of Jesus, and a dogmatic view of his teachings; in other words, that it presents Jesus distinctively as the incarnate Son of God, and represents the central truth in his teaching to have been the necessity of faith in him. Both these aspects of truth are indeed presented in the other Gospels, but not with the same clearness, nor with the same prominence, as in the Fourth Gospel. Hence the latter is assailed with peculiar vigor by the opponents of evangelical Christianity, and is, for the same reason, maintained with equal vigor by evangelical believers. It does not come within the province of this work to enter into the details of this controversy. To give the arguments, pro and con, would require a treatise, and for a consideration of them the reader is of necessity referred to the various works which have been written on this subject. The student will find the most vigorous assault on the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel in the second volume of “Supernatural Religion,” which, however, must be read with considerable allowance for a scholarship evidently warped by determined prejudices, and which is certainly one-sided, if not absolutely false in many particulars. Among the many defences of the authenticity of the Gospel, I have found nothing more comprehensive or satisfactory than that contained in the first volume of Godet’s Commentary on John. With this, however, may be advantageously compared Luthardt’s “St. John, the Author of the Fourth Gospel,” Prof. Fisher’s “Supernatural Origin of Christianity,” and the introductions to the commentaries, especially those of Luthardt, Lange, Alford, Meyer and Tholuck. Here I propose merely to set before the reader briefly a compact statement of the more important facts in the case, confining myself mainly to those that are undisputed--facts which led the world for fifteen centuries to attribute the Fourth Gospel to John without a doubt, and which on a more careful examination have led the great majority of scholars to adhere to that conclusion.

=The Apostle John.= The Apostle John was probably a native, certainly a resident, of Galilee. His mother, Salome,[2] early became a follower of Jesus. She was probably one of the women of Galilee who accompanied him on his missionary tours, and ministered to him of their substance.[3] She was with him on his last journey to Jerusalem, and during the passion week, and was one of those women who were last at the cross and first at the sepulchre.[4] Like the other followers of Jesus, she anticipated the establishment of a temporal kingdom, was ambitious for her sons James and John, and made an application for special favors for them when the kingdom should be established. From a comparison of Matt. 27:56 with John 19:25, it would appear that she was own sister to the Virgin Mary, in which case John was own cousin to Jesus. This opinion is not accepted by all critics, but I believe it to be the correct one. See note on John 19:25. John’s father, Zebedee, was a well-to-do fisherman on the shores of the sea of Galilee. Of him we know very little. He was sufficiently prosperous to own several boats and to hire men to work for him. Tradition makes him of noble birth; and this tradition is perhaps confirmed by the fact that John had some acquaintance with the high-priest.

John has been characterized by those critics who wish to make out that his character is inconsistent with the idea of his authorship of the Fourth Gospel, as ignorant and unlettered, on the authority of Acts 4:13, and as a vehement and bigoted Jew on the authority of Galatians, chap. II, and of the peculiar Hebraic tone of the Book of Revelation. Both characterizations are quite gratuitous assumptions. In connection with every Jewish synagogue was a parochial school, in which the pupils were taught reading, writing, and the rudiments of such natural sciences as were then in existence. The Jewish children of the common people were far better educated than those of Greece or Rome. There is every reason to believe that John received this common education of the age and community in which he lived, and there is absolutely no reason whatever to suppose the contrary. It was only by the Pharisees that John was considered as ignorant and unlettered, and they affixed the same stigma upon Jesus himself.[5] To the Pharisees the only learning worth the name was learning in the traditional lore of the church. Of this the Galilean fisherman was ignorant. In the eyes of a Pharisee of Jerusalem, Plato himself would have been ignorant and unlearned. As little reason is there to believe that John was a vehement and bigoted Jew. There is not the slightest evidence that John was among the Judaizing Christians to whom Paul so frequently refers, and whom throughout his life he combated. With one exception, Judas Iscariot, all the twelve were taken from Galilee. This province of Palestine was innocent of that formalism and narrowness which characterized the southern province of Judea. The people had lived in amicable relations with their heathen neighbors, and had intermarried with them ever since the days of the treaty of amity between Solomon and the King of Tyre.[6] The line of commerce between Damascus and the Mediterranean lay directly across this province. Mineral springs of real or fancied value near the southern coast of the Sea of Gennesaret made it the summer resort of the wealthy Romans of the entire land. Thus history and location, commerce and social relations, combined to make the inhabitants of Galilee indifferent to the rigid formalism of the Judeans, and comparatively free from their narrow race and religious prejudices. Indeed, the two assertions that John was ignorant and unlearned, and at the same time a narrow and bigoted Jew, contradict each other. Jewish bigotry and reverence for the traditional lore of the Jewish church always went together.

The important facts in the history of John, so far as known, are few and soon told. John the Baptist was second cousin of Jesus, and John the Apostle was probably, as we have seen, his own cousin. The two Johns were, therefore, probably acquainted. At all events, when the Baptist began preaching the gospel of repentance for the remission of sins, the Apostle was among his disciples; and when the Baptist pointed out Jesus as the one whom God had indicated to him as the promised Messiah, John was among the first to leave the old teacher to follow the new one. This was, however, a temporary following only. We next meet him fishing with his father at the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus finds him and his brother, and calls them to become permanent followers of him. This summons, without hesitation or delay, they obey. From this time onward John is the constant companion of Jesus. With Peter and James he belongs to an inner circle of friends: the three are selected to be the sole witnesses of the resurrection of Jairus’s daughter; they alone go up into the Mount of Transfiguration, and witness his glory there; they alone accompany him to the Garden of Gethsemane, and are invited to be the sharers of his sorrow there; when the arrest takes place, and all the disciples forsake their Master and flee, John and Peter turn back and follow him to the scene of his trial, and the former, with a courage for which few critics give him credit, goes without concealment, as a disciple, openly, into the house of Caiaphas, follows the Master to the trial before Pilate, and when the sentence of crucifixion is pronounced, accompanies the procession to the place of execution, to remain by the cross till all is over. When the news of the resurrection is brought to the disciples, he and Peter are the first to reach the sepulchre. In the subsequent history of the Church, as recorded in the book of Acts, he does not take a prominent part. To him was committed the care of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and probably this sacred charge prevented him from quitting Palestine while she lived.[7]

For the subsequent history of John we are dependent on tradition. This is, however, in his case, less uncertain than in many other cases. As Christianity spread over the heathen world, Jerusalem ceased to be the centre of Christian operations; but, while the Roman Empire continued pagan and persecuting, Rome could not take the place of Jerusalem, as subsequently it did. Hence, for the first century, Asia Minor was the great field of missionary work, and Ephesus, which was the scene of Paul’s greatest triumphs and most successful labors,[8] became the centre of the Christian church. Here John became settled in his later life. From this point he seems to have exercised an apostolic supervision over the churches of all Asia Minor. The few traditional stories of his old age accord with what the Gospels indicate of his character. When he could no longer preach, it is said that he was accustomed to be carried into the church, and to repeat from the pulpit as the sum and substance of Christian doctrine, “Little children, love one another!” He was banished to the island of Patmos, where, according to the book of Revelation, he witnessed the vision therein recorded. He subsequently returned to Ephesus, where it is probable he died at an extremely advanced age--not much, if any, less than a hundred years old.

=The character of John= has been strangely misconceived. He is with reason identified with the unnamed “disciple whom Jesus loved,” and who at the Last Supper rested his head on Jesus’ bosom; the Epistles attributed to him breathe a spirit of love; the Gospel attributed to him is of all the Gospels the most spiritual in its tone. From these premises, the character of John has been constructed; it has been supposed that he was by nature peculiarly tender, gentle, loving, and spiritually-minded; that his was a woman’s character. He is so portrayed in art, and to some extent in literature; and the special friendship which Christ has been supposed to have entertained for him is attributed to a character by nature peculiarly loveable.

There are, however, other considerations which any such view totally ignores. James and John were by Jesus called Boanerges, “the sons of thunder;” it was John who prohibited a strange disciple from casting out devils in Jesus’ name, because he followed not the Twelve; it was John who desired to call down fire from Heaven upon the Samaritan village which refused to entertain his Master; it was James and John who, with their mother, applied secretly to Jesus for the highest offices for themselves in his anticipated kingdom; it was John who followed Jesus into the courtyard of the high-priest, when all the other disciples forsook him and fled; John who stood with the Galilean women near the cross at the time of the crucifixion; John who with Peter defied the edict of the Sanhedrim after the death of Jesus, prohibiting them from teaching or speaking in his name.[9] These are not the acts of one whose nature was characteristically timid, gentle, or spiritually-minded. By nature John was ardent, courageous, impetuous, and not more broad-minded or spiritually-minded than his co-disciples. Indications of these traits are not wanting, as we shall presently see, in the Gospel and the Epistles which bear his name.

But he was of all the Twelve the most receptive. When Christ foretold his passion, Peter remonstrated with him. When Jesus spoke of the heavenly mansions and of his departure to prepare a place therein for his disciples, Thomas expressed his doubt and his perplexity by the question, “We know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way?” When Jesus pointed to himself as the manifestation of the Father, Philip, dissatisfied, asked for a direct revelation of the Father. When Jesus promised to his disciples a spiritual manifestation of himself, Judas (not Iscariot), after the manner of modern theology, desired to have that manifestation explained to him before he could accept the truth. When Jesus rebuked Judas Iscariot for complaining of Mary’s act in anointing her Lord, Judas was angered.[10] But we look in vain in the Gospels for any instance in which John expressed any rebuke of Christ, or any opposition to him, or any doubt of his teaching, or demanded any other evidence of its truth than the simple word of his Lord. Of all the disciples the most receptive, he was the one whose character underwent the greatest and most radical change. The John that we know is the John transformed by the renewing influence of the spirit of Christ; he is the John that is a new creature in Christ Jesus. He was, I believe, the beloved disciple, because he was the one in whom the love of Christ had the freest course and wrought the fullest and the largest results. This simple fact must be borne in mind in considering the question of the internal evidences for and against the Johannine authorship of the Gospel.

=The external evidence.= Those who expect to find a demonstration of the Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel in the external evidences, will be disappointed. The literature of the first three centuries does not afford a demonstration of authorship of any ancient book. But the authorship of John’s Gospel I believe to be as well established, on a fair consideration of all the evidence, external and internal, as that of any work of the same era.

It is not questioned by any one that at the beginning of the third century the Fourth Gospel was in general use in the churches, and universally recognized as written by the Apostle John. Eusebius, Origen, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, are among those who bear testimony to this fact. The Fourth Gospel is recognized as John’s composition in the canon of Muratori, A. D. 175; and by Irenæus, who died about 202, and who was a pupil of Polycarp, himself a pupil of John. References to sayings of Jesus reported only by John are also found in the writings of Tatian, A. D. 170, Justin Martyr, A. D. 120-160, and the various Gnostic writers of the second century. These references do not conclusively prove the Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel, for these earliest writers are not accustomed to give the names of authors from whom they quote; but they do conclusively prove that as early as the first part of the second century, sayings of Christ, found only in the Fourth Gospel, were attributed by the Church to Jesus. The best report of these quotations which I have seen is to be found in the second volume of “Supernatural Religion,” and they are there the more effective because the author in vain endeavors to break their force, by what most readers will consider an ingenious but ineffective special pleading. Let the reader compare these quotations with the parallel passages in the Fourth Gospel; he will not doubt that the later writers borrowed from the earlier one. The only alternative is the irrational hypothesis that both borrowed from the same source and one generally recognized in the primitive Church; in other words, that there was a Gospel containing the same matter that is now found in the Fourth Gospel, but that it has so entirely disappeared that no tradition even of its existence has survived, and that in its place a forgery has been palmed off upon the Church so successfully, that in the beginning of the third century it was universally accepted as the original work of the Apostle whose name it has ever since borne.

Space does not allow me to give in detail these quotations, which are numerous; it would be still more out of the province of this introduction to enter into the arguments by which the rationalistic writers endeavor to reconcile these quotations with their hypotheses. I can but briefly indicate a few of them, referring the student to the larger works for the examination in detail of the parallelism between these early ecclesiastical writers and the Fourth Gospel. Justin Martyr thus refers to the testimony of John the Baptist: “I am not the Christ ... for he cometh who is stronger than I, whose shoes I am not meet to bear” (comp. John 1:19-27). He cites Christ as saying, “Unless ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven,” and adds the comment, “Now that it is impossible for those who have been born to go into the matrices of the mother is evident to all” (comp. John 3:3-5). Tatian refers to the sayings, “The darkness comprehends not the light” (comp. John 1:5), and “All things were by him, and without him was not anything made” (comp. John 1:5, 3). Hegessippus (A. D. 125) refers to “that which is spoken in the Gospels, ‘That was the true light which lighteth every man who cometh into the world’” (comp. John 1:9). In the writings of the Naaseni and Peratæ, Gnostic sects of the beginning of the second century, we have several unmistakable references to sayings that are peculiar to the Fourth Gospel. “I am the door,” (comp. John 10:7); “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son be lifted up,” (comp. John 3:14); “If thou hadst known who it is that asketh thee, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water, springing up,” (comp. John 4:10); “The Saviour hath said, ‘That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,’” (comp. John 3:6); “Except ye eat my flesh and drink my blood, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven,” (comp. John 6:53). These are by no means all the citations from the writers of the first two centuries which appear to have been taken from the Fourth Gospel, but they will suffice to give the reader an idea of the nature of the evidence which is regarded by most Christian writers, and by some rationalistic critics--Matthew Arnold, for example--as establishing the fact that the Fourth Gospel was in existence and recognized as an authority in the Church in the beginning of the second century. If this is the fact, it is reasonably certain that it was the work of the Apostle John, since if it had been written by any one else as early as that date, that is, during the lifetime of some of the contemporaries of John, the forgery would certainly have been detected.

=The internal evidence.= The facts indicated above are not questioned by any critic. But though from the beginning of the third century to the close of the eighteenth, the Fourth Gospel was unanimously attributed to the Apostle John, it is maintained by those critics who deny the Johannine authorship that a fair consideration of the external evidence now extant, leaves it uncertain whether the unanimous opinion of the Church in the first century was correct, and that the internal evidence, i. e., the character of the Gospel itself, when contrasted (1) with the other Gospels, (2) with the known character of John, (3) with the other writings attributed to him, makes it certain that he was not the author.

Unquestionably the Fourth Gospel presents very different matter and a very different aspect of Christ’s life and character from that presented by the other three Gospels. The three Gospels give an impression almost exclusively Galilean; the Fourth Gospel narrates almost exclusively a ministry in Judea; the three Gospels indicate one which might have been completed in a single year; the fourth indicates three years as the duration of Christ’s ministry; the three Gospels report chiefly Christ’s ethical discourses; the fourth reports chiefly his doctrinal discourses; love to men’s neighbor is the predominate theme in the three Gospels; faith in a divine Saviour is the predominate theme in the fourth; the three Gospels portray the work of Jesus Christ; the fourth portrays his person and character; the three Gospels repeat the same incidents and instructions in slightly different language; the fourth repeats scarcely anything found in the other three; and when, as in its account of the feeding of the five thousand, it does repeat, the manifest object of the repetition is to introduce a report of a discourse of Jesus omitted in the other narratives.

It is also true that there is a marked difference between the style of John’s Gospel and the Book of Revelations. This difference is so considerable that it is vigorously maintained that the same author could not have written both books. “The difference,” says Lucke, “between the language, way of expression and mode of thought and doctrine of the Apocalypse and the rest of the Johannine writings is so comprehensive and intense, so individual and even so radical; the affinity and agreement on the contrary either so general, or in detail so fragmentary and uncertain, that the Apostle John, if he really is the author of the Gospel and of the Epistles--which we here advance--cannot have composed the Apocalypse either before or after the Gospel and the Epistles.” This difference is of two kinds, a difference both of style and of spirit. The language of the Apocalypse is comparatively harsh and Hebraic, that of the Gospel a comparatively fine and flowing Greek. The author of the Apocalypse, it is claimed, is an intense Jew, whose imagery is borrowed from the Hebrew Scriptures, and whose object is the exaltation of the Jewish people; who narrates the outpoured punishment of God on the enemies of God’s chosen people, and whose celestial capital of the kingdom without end is the new Jerusalem. The author of the Fourth Gospel, it is claimed, could not have been a Jew or of Jewish extraction; he makes no attempt to conceal his enmity of the Jews; he stigmatizes them as the enemies of Christ, and as the children of the devil;[11] and he writes of them and of their customs as no Jew would or could have written of the customs of his own people.[12]

It is not my purpose here to enter upon a discussion of these objections. It must suffice to say that they are founded on a false conception of the character of John and a false assumption that what John was when he first met Jesus by the banks of the Jordan, that he was after a life-time spent as a disciple, learning of him and undergoing that transformation of character which has been the peculiar and glorious fruitage of Christ’s husbandry. Instead of entering into such a discussion, I shall ask the reader to consider briefly what are some of the more notable characteristics of the Fourth Gospel, and what would be the conclusion as to its authorship from an independent and original examination of its pages.

Imagine then that we have just discovered this ancient manuscript, a manuscript which unquestionably dates from the beginning of the third century, probably from a still earlier period, and which we have abundant evidence was then unanimously attributed to the Apostle John. We enter upon its examination that we may form for ourselves a judgment who its real author probably was. In this examination there are three characteristics which force themselves upon our attention as predominant: (1) the claims which it presents; (2) its literary character; (3) the indications which it affords as to the personality of its author.

=1. Its claims.= It assumes to be written by an eye-witness. In his introduction the writer says distinctly of the subject of his biography: “We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father.” In the Epistle attributed to him, he reiterates this statement even more explicitly. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life ... that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you.” In his account of the crucifixion he emphasizes the fact that he is an eye-witness of the events described. “He that saw it bare record and the record is true; and he knoweth that he saith true that ye might believe.” And yet again in the closing chapter, generally regarded as written subsequent to the rest of the volume, and as supplementary to it, the writer is identified with the unnamed beloved disciple. “This is the disciple who testified of these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true.”[13]

In reading the book we constantly come upon indications that the work is by an eye-witness or by one who writes in order to give that impression. No one of the Evangelist’s narratives more abounds with graphic touches, slight but significant, such as indicate the vivid remembrance of one who was not only an eye and ear witness, but also one who treasures up in a remarkably retentive memory incidents which mere tradition would not have preserved. John the Baptist “looks upon Jesus,” and points him out to his disciples, by his peculiar gaze; Jesus “turns” and sees them follow; wearied with the journey he sits “thus on the well;” there is “much grass” where he feeds the five thousand; when Mary anointed Jesus the “house was filled with the odor of the ointment;” when Judas went out to complete the betrayal “it was night;” the night “was cold,” and Peter stands with the servant of the high-priest warming himself at a fire of coals in the court-yard.[14] These may serve as illustrations. Examples the reader will find in great abundance, and references to them in the notes. Of all the Gospels, the Fourth Gospel is the one which reports most fully the private conferences between Jesus and the Twelve, and the only one which reports his “asides” and his personal feelings in explanation of his public acts.[15] These features in the narrative do not prove that it was written by an eye-witness, but they indicate that it was written either by an eye-witness, or by one who desired to produce that impression; either by one of the Twelve or by a deliberate and skilful forger.

=2. Its literary character.= The differences between this Gospel and the other three which I have already very briefly described, are very considerable. They have led different minds to very different conclusions respecting the authorship of the Fourth Gospel. It is, however, safe to say that they are just such as might be expected if the Fourth Gospel was written after the other three, and by some one familiar with them, or at least with the traditions embodied in them. This Gospel presents precisely the aspect which would be presented by a book written for the purpose of supplementing the accounts already possessed by the primitive churches, and of portraying an aspect of character not adequately portrayed by the earlier writers. It presents, too, exactly that aspect which would be presented by a narrative written after the rapid growth of the Church, and its prophetic incursions into heathenism had given the writer a better conception than his co-disciples possessed of the spiritual character of the new religion. Matthew, Mark, and Luke might perhaps have believed that the privileges of Christianity were to be confined to Jews and Jewish proselytes. Though many of Christ’s words which they report indicate a broader scope, it is by no means clear that they comprehended them. But no one can doubt that the author of John’s Gospel, when he wrote, believed that the atonement of Jesus Christ was for all humanity, his religion for all classes, races, and conditions of mankind. It is the Fourth Gospel which tells us that He was the true Light which lighteth every man which cometh into the world, that God so loved the world that he gave his only beloved Son that whosoever believeth in him should have everlasting life, and that whosoever comes to him he will in no wise cast out; it is the Fourth Gospel which reports Christ’s interview with the woman of Samaria and his subsequent preaching to the Samaritans, which brings out more clearly than either of the others the grounds of Christ’s practical abrogation of the Pharisaic law of the Sabbath, which dwells more than any other Gospel on the spiritual aspects of his kingdom and the divine nature of the king.[16] All this we might expect from one writing after more than half a century of Catholic Christianity had interpreted the nature, mission, and words of Christ to his church.

Let us add that a forger would not have suffered his narrative to stand in such a marked contrast with the previous and recognized narratives already in the possession of the churches. He would have commingled the ethical with the doctrinal, the human with the divine. He would have repeated in a modified form some of the incidents and teachings already reported by the other Evangelists, that he might thus give a color of authenticity to his narrative. The very contrast between the Fourth Gospel and the other three, on which skeptic writers rely to prove its untrustworthiness, is an indication that it cannot be the work of fraud. If that aspect of Christ’s character and teachings reported by John’s Gospel was not recognized by the primitive church as true, or if the author was not himself known in the age in which the narrative was produced, and so known that his simple name was a sufficient guarantee of the accuracy of his narrative, an account so dissimilar from those already in the possession of the churches would have received little credit and no general, certainly no universal, acceptance.

=3. Indications of authorship.= A further examination of this Gospel gives a definite impression respecting the character of the author. He is evidently thoroughly familiar with Jewish manners and customs. He knows whereof he writes. He has lived in the country and mingled with the people. His knowledge is not that of a student of books, nor that of a mere casual traveler. But he writes for those who are not familiar with Palestine or its social life. He inserts parenthetical explications of Jewish customs. He explains to his Gentile readers the use of the firkins of water at the wedding-feast “for purifying after the manner of the Jews;” the wrapping of the body of Jesus, as the manner of the “Jews is to bury;” the refusal of the Pharisees to enter Pilate’s hall “lest they should be defiled.” The feast of Tabernacles is the Jews’ feast of Tabernacles, the Passover is the Jews’ Passover, and the Preparation for it is the Preparation of the Jews.[17] These references are so incidental as to indicate a writer thoroughly familiar with Jewish life; yet they are so marked as to indicate equally clearly a writer whose readers were not Jews but Gentiles.

The indications are not less clear that the writer, whoever he may have been, was not himself a sharer in Jewish prejudices. Jew he may have been; an intolerant Jew he certainly was not. He is familiar with the Pharisees and with the Pharisaic law, but he has no sympathy with the one and no admiration for the other. We can hardly be mistaken in thinking that his native prejudices are adverse rather than favorable to the inhabitants of Judea. More than any of the other Evangelists his language respecting them indicates his aversion to them. He is the Evangelist who reports the mobs in Jerusalem against Jesus, and the secret counsels for his assassination, and the deliberate judgment of Caiaphas that it is better for the rulers to kill the Galilean Rabbi than to hazard their own offices, and the persistent persecution of Jesus; he it is who with delicate sarcasm stigmatizes Caiaphas as high-priest for “that same year;” the very language which he employs in describing the religious festivals of Judea as “feasts of the Jews,” indicates an author not in sympathy with the religious formalism of Judea; the very phraseology with which he characterizes the reluctance of the Jews to enter into Pilate’s judgment-hall, indicates a writer having little sympathy for the formalism which was never a characteristic of the Galilean Jews, and always was a characteristic of the more intense and bigoted Jews of the Syrian province of Judea.[18]

Nor can we be mistaken in surmising that the author was, by nature and temperament, ardent, impulsive, vehement. The intensity of his nature has been tamed by age, experience or grace, or the three combined; but the indications of his native character crop out in occasional utterances. The records of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are absolutely colorless. They are without epithets. Their simple and artless narrative is left to produce its own impression. This is less true of the Fourth Gospel than of the other three. The intense indignation which the writer feels against Judas Iscariot, he is at no pains to conceal. He it is who reports Jesus as declaring early in his ministry, One of you is a devil; he it is who characterizes Judas Iscariot as a thief; he who twice declares that Satan entered into Judas Iscariot.[19] These are the most notable exhibitions of his feelings; but one can hardly read through the entire narrative without realizing in its tone and spirit the evidence that the author was a man of intense and passionate earnestness, kept under marvelous self-restraint.

Finally, it is clear that the author is a man of some native capacity for culture and of large education. He is familiar with the Greek language and with the Greco-Oriental philosophy. He writes with a pure and flowing style. His introduction could have been penned only by one who had become habituated to those forms of philosophic thought which some cities of Greece, and notably Ephesus, had imported from Alexandria and the further East. It could only have been written for readers who were familiar with that philosophy and could best be approached by employing its phraseology.

We find then in the direct claims and the incidental allusions of the Fourth Gospel indications that it was written by an eye and ear witness, who was with Jesus from the commencement to the close of his ministry; in the broad differences between the Fourth Gospel and the other three gospels, indications that it was written after the others and by one who was familiar with them or with the traditions embodied in them, and who wrote to supplement their accounts; in the general catholic and spiritual atmosphere of the book, indications that it was written after history had begun to interpret the words and work of Christ, and to make clearer his transcendent and incomparable character; and in the style and phraseology of the book, indications that it was written by one who was familiar with Jewish customs but not sharing Jewish prejudices, who possessed an ardent nature which had been brought under the power of a strong self-control, and who to a native capacity for culture added that familiarity with Greek literature and philosophy which only long residence in a thoroughly Greek society could impart.

Now, so far as our limited knowledge enables us to judge, John’s life and character remarkably correspond with these indications of the Gospel which was so long unanimously attributed to his pen. His parents were well-to-do Galileans, and he probably received a fair education in his childhood; his early education as a Galilean would have given him familiarity with Jewish customs, and yet would prejudice him against rather than in favor of the inhabitants of Judea; his later and prolonged residence in Ephesus, of all Greek cities the most Oriental, would have made him familiar with the best Greek culture, and with the mystic philosophy of the Greco-Oriental school; that he possessed a vehement nature is evident from his original title of Son of Thunder; his receptive disposition and his intense love for Jesus might have been expected to tame that nature, without eradicating from his writings all indications of its existence; of all the disciples the most courageous and the most sympathetically intimate with the subject of his biography, he was of them all the one to adhere to Jesus in his dangerous ministry in Jerusalem, and the one therefore to record what all the others have omitted; he was also the one to interpret Christ’s actions by his own suggestion of Christ’s unuttered thoughts; writing after the other Gospels had been written and were already being widely circulated, his omission of events and teachings which they had recorded is not only explicable, but natural and to be anticipated; finally, writing after the destruction of Jerusalem, after the dispersion of the Jews had begun, after the descent of the Holy Spirit had interpreted the mystical promises of another Comforter, after churches had been organized as far west as Rome in which Gentile and Jew met on equal terms, after, in a word, the history of the church had interpreted the prophecies and instructions of its Lord, it would have been strange indeed if he had not given a deeper, truer, and more catholic exposition of Christ’s Gospel than could have been written during the first half-century in Palestine, by those whose comprehension of Christ’s, teaching had not been broadened by residence in a foreign land and an observation of Christ’s redeeming work in a pagan community.

=Other hypotheses.= The conclusion to which a consideration of the external and internal evidence brings the candid student is confirmed by a consideration of the alternative hypotheses presented to him. These are many in form; for it is a significant fact that while those who believe in the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel are entirely agreed in respect to its authorship, and the time and place of its composition, those who disbelieve in its authenticity are not agreed among themselves respecting either. But in general their various opinions may be reduced to two classes.

The first is that the Fourth Gospel is the work of a Gentile Christian writing in the third century. Confessedly this Gospel purports to be written by an eye and ear witness. Confessedly it was unanimously attributed to the Apostle John in the third century. Confessedly it is without a peer in literature, ancient or modern, sacred or secular, Christian or pagan, in the purity of its doctrine, the moral elevation of its style, and the spirituality of its atmosphere. This hypothesis asks us to believe that it is the work of a deliberate ecclesiastical forger, with so little conscience that he neither hesitated to assume the pen of an Apostle nor to attribute to Jesus fictitious discourses and imaginary miracles, yet with so much conscience that he would not put an Apostle’s name to his composition, but left its authorship to be inferred by a self-deluded public; written too by a forger who was so skillful that he deceived the whole contemporaneous church, all sects and sections, Jewish and Gentile, Greek, Roman, and African, orthodox and heretic, and yet who was such a bungler that the gross discrepancies of his account, contrasted with that of the other three evangelists, make his fraud palpable to the ecclesiastical and literary critics of the nineteenth century. This hypothesis demands so great an exercise of credulity that sober critics of even the rationalistic school are generally abandoning it, or have already done so. This opinion may be already characterized as a thing of the past.

The other hypothesis is more plausible and captivating. This is that the Fourth Gospel was written by an amanuensis or a disciple of the Apostle John, that its essential facts were derived from him, that it was written in his old age, that his recollection was already growing dim and his reports of the words of Jesus are unconsciously modified by his philosophy and experience, and that these reports are still further modified by the free pen of the amanuensis or the disciple who perfected the written record; and it is urged that this hypothesis explains both verbal peculiarities and the title given to it from early ages, viz., not the Gospel of John, but the Gospel according to John.[20]

In support of this opinion there is quoted an ancient legend found in the canon of Muratori (A. D. 175), which runs as follows: “The fourth of the Gospels is by the disciple John. He was being pressed by his disciples and (fellow) bishops, and he said, ‘Fast with me this day, and for three days; and whatsoever shall have been revealed to each one of us, let us relate it to the rest.’ In the same night it was revealed to the Apostle Andrew that John should write the whole in his name, and that all the rest should revise it.” It must suffice to say of this opinion that in its most pronounced form it is wholly unsustained by evidence. It is ingenious, but not substantial. Doubtless the reports of Christ’s disciples are not verbatim. Doubtless we have in many instances the sentiments of Christ embodied in the words of John. Possibly some glosses and explanations added originally by an amanuensis or scribe may have become incorporated in the narrative.[21] But that the book is in no sense a composite production, that it is the work of one not of many minds, that we have essentially the portrayal of the life and character of Jesus by a single author, is evident on even a casual perusal, and still more on a careful analysis of the work.

=Discourses of Jesus.= The Gospel of John abounds with reports of the discourses of Jesus; it is more a report of his discourses (λόγια) than of his works (ἔργα); the miracles reported are generally only a text for a discourse which follows. The student, passing from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, or the parables in Perea, in Luke, to the sermon on the Bread of life at Capernaum (John, ch. 6), or on the Good Shepherd, at Jerusalem (John, ch. 10), feels the difference between them, a difference chiefly in the phraseology employed, sometimes in the phases of truth taught, but never amounting to a contradiction in the essential teaching. The same doctrine respecting the authority of Christ is conveyed by Matt. 11:27, and John 5:19-30; the same truth as to the nature and necessity of a new and divine life in the soul is expressed in Mark 4:26-29, and in John 6:50-58; similar parallels in essential truth may be found in the synoptics to all that is taught in the Fourth Gospel; but the form of expression is strikingly different. Thus, in the study of the Fourth Gospel, the question is constantly pressed upon the student, how far the reports of Christ’s addresses by John are to be regarded as reported in the words of Christ.

In answer to this we have, on the one hand, Christ’s promise reported by John: “The Comforter ... shall bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you” (ch. 14:26); on the other, we have reason to believe that the reports are not verbatim. (a) This would require a supernatural exercise of memory nowhere claimed by the Evangelists, and therefore not to be claimed by the church for them. (b) In some instances, e. g., the case of the conversation with Nicodemus and the woman at the well, it is certain that John could not have been present, and must have derived his information either from Jesus or from the other party to the conference. (c) The language in which the discourse is reported is analogous not only in words, but also in the forms of expression to that of the narrator; the likeness is so marked that in several instances the critics are not fully agreed how much is to be regarded as the discourse of Jesus, and how much as the accompanying comment of John. (d) The thought is sometimes, and the language is often, obscure. And though this obscurity is increased by mistranslations, and by the division into verses, which hides from the reader the true unity of the discourse, nevertheless it exists in the Greek original. Such obscurity does not exist in the reports of Christ’s discourses in the other Gospels. (e) The largest public discourse as reported would not have required over eight minutes in delivery. I believe then that in the Fourth Gospel we have the substantial thoughts of Christ, reproduced generally in the words and with the phraseology of John, whose mind, under the divine inspiration, preserves the essential truth unimpaired, but represents it, not as a mechanical repeater of words, but as a disciple who freely reproduces the ideas of his Master, but largely in language of his own.

=Object and character.= We are not left to surmise the object of the author of the Fourth Gospel. He himself tells us what it was: “These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, believing, ye might have life through his name.”[22]

According to John’s Gospel, true religion consists not in obedience to an external law, but in a new life in the soul, by which it is transformed, and the soul, its habits and character, are brought into conformity with the law of God, that is, the law of love. This new and divine life is implanted supernaturally from above; it is fed perpetually by the influence of the divine Spirit; it emancipates the soul from all bondage to sin and the law; for it preparation is made by the life and death of the Lord; in it God is manifested in a peculiar manner to the soul and abides with it, an indwelling Comforter. This life comes through a vital faith in Jesus as in a peculiar sense the Son of God, in whose life the believer finds his ideal of true life, by whose death he is redeemed from death, by whose spiritual power he is raised a new creature in Christ Jesus, by whose abiding presence he is guided, guarded, strengthened, fed. Those incidents and discourses in the life of Christ which illustrate and enforce this aspect of Christian truth and experience are those which John gives us in his Gospel. The other Gospels represent the duties of the disciples, John their privileges; the other Gospels bid them what they ought to do, John points them to what they can become; the other Gospels represent Christ chiefly as a Saviour coming to seek and to save that which is lost, John as a Friend abiding with his own; in the other Gospels he is a Shepherd in the wilderness, in John the Shepherd in the fold; in the other Gospels the Son is either still in the far country or but just returning to his Father’s home, in John he has returned and is abiding in his Father’s love. In the other Gospels, therefore, Jesus is chiefly represented as a divine teacher, in John as a recognized Saviour; in the other Gospels as the Son of man, in John as the Son of God; in the other Gospels we have seen him as he appears to the wanderer, in John as he is interpreted by the heart of the saved; in the other Gospels the bridegroom is coming for his bride and is still the Unknown; in John he has taken her to himself, and her love at least dimly recognizes in him the One among ten thousand and altogether lovely.

These aspects of truth may be easily discerned in even a brief survey of the Fourth Gospel.

John opens his narrative by an introduction, in which he borrows the mystical language of Oriental philosophy to characterize Jesus, whom he describes as the Life, the Light, the Word; he reports John the Baptist, not as the preacher of the baptism of repentance, but as a prophet of the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world (ch. 1); in his account of the conversation with Nicodemus (ch. 3), he points out the origin of the spiritual life which Christ imparts to the believer, “Ye must be born from above;” in his report of the conversation with the Samaritan woman, and of the discourse at Capernaum (chaps. 4, 6), he indicates the means by which that life is sustained, by appropriating faith in Christ; and in his record of the intermediate discourse at Jerusalem (ch. 5), the basis for that faith in Christ’s own portrayal of himself as the Son and manifestation of God the Father; in his report of the discourses in the Temple, he sets forth in a different form the same truths. (ch. 7), declares the emancipation from bondage which faith in the Son achieves for the soul, contrasts it with the life of bondage unto sin (ch. 8), and describes the safety and security of the disciples, a security purchased by the death of their Lord (ch. 10); he narrates the resurrection of Lazarus, therein portraying Jesus as the resurrection and the life (ch. 11); he reports those words of Jesus at the Last Supper, the full meaning of which no Christian experience has ever yet fully sounded, in which is promised to the believing disciple a spiritual manifestation of God to the soul, an abiding life of God in the soul, and a joyful realization of all spiritual fullness in God by the soul (chaps. 14, 15, 16); he records the only reported intercessory prayer of the Lord for his disciples (ch. 17), the burden of which is, “As thou Father art in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us;” in the account of the Passion he alone gives the short dialogue between Jesus and Pilate, in which the Lord declares himself a king and his kingdom one of everlasting truth; and in his account of the resurrection (ch. 20), he tells the story of Thomas’s unbelief and of Christ’s warm commendation of “those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Life through faith--this is the burden of John’s Evangel; Jesus Christ the Life-giver, the disciple of Jesus Christ the recipient of a new life--this is the good news which constitutes the Fourth Gospel.

=When and where and for whom written.= A very ancient testimony, that of Irenæus, repeated by Jerome and later writers, fixes the place of publication at Ephesus. This accords with the character of the Gospel itself. The Oriental phraseology employed in the first chapter especially, but also in less degree in other portions of the Gospel, indicates that it was written in a city where Oriental philosophy had a strong hold; and of all Greek cities Ephesus was the most Oriental. Moreover, an ancient and apparently trustworthy tradition makes this city the home of John in his later years. The time of its composition is uncertain. Irenæus states that it was the latest written of the four Gospels. The character of the Gospel, as we have seen, confirms this tradition. The book bears marks of being written in old age; it is apparently the production of a ripened Christian experience. Alford fixes the date as between A. D. 70 and A. D. 85; Macdonald, A. D. 85 or 86; Godet, between A. D. 80 and 90; Tholuck, not far from A. D. 100.

[1] For same account in detail of these discussions, see Godet’s Commentary on St. John’s Gospel, Intro., Chap. II.

[2] Comp. Matt. 27:56 with Mark 15:40.

[3] Luke 8:3.

[4] Matt. 20:20, 21; Mark 15:40; 16:1.

[5] John 7:15, 48.

[6] 1 Kings 9:10, 11. See Abbott’s Dict. of Rel. Knowledge, art. Galilee.

[7] See John 1:35-37, notes; Matt. 4:21; 10:2; 17:1; 20:20; 26:37; Mark 5:37; John 13:23; 14:26, 27; 20:1-8; Acts 3:1, etc.; 8:14-25; Gal. 2:9.

[8] Acts, ch. 19; ch. 20:17-38.

[9] Mark 3:17; Luke 9:49-56; Matt. 20:20; John 18:15; 19:26; Acts 4:19, 20.

[10] Matt. 16:22; John 14:5, 8, 22; John 12:4, with Matt. 26:14.

[11] John 5:16, 18; 7:13, 19; 8:40, 44, 59; 9:22, 28; 18:31, etc.

[12] See John 2:6, 13; 5:1; 6:4; 7:2; 8:17; 10:34; 15:25; 19:40, 42.

[13] John 1:14; 19:35; 21:24; 1 John 1:1-3.

[14] John 1:36, 38; 4:6; 6:10; 12:3; 13:30; 18:18.

[15] John 12:27, 28; 13:3; chaps. 14-16.

[16] John 1:19; 3:16; 6:37; chaps. 4, 5, 10, 14, 15.

[17] John 2:6; 5:1; 6:4; 7:2; 18:28; 19:40.

[18] See John 7:1, 19, 25, 32; 8:6, 59; 9:22; 10:31; 11:49.

[19] John 6:70, 71; 11:6; 13:2, 27.

[20] The student will find this hypothesis urged with great literary ingenuity by Matthew Arnold, in “God and the Bible.”

[21] See John 5:4, and note there.

[22] John 20:31. This declaration makes it unnecessary to discuss the various theories which have been proposed, such as that it was written to supplement the other Gospels and supply their defects, or to refute certain Gnostic heresies, or to commend Christianity to the disciples of Oriental philosophy and the like. These may, or may not, have been subordinate aims of the writer: the main design he clearly indicates, and it is the design here indicated which affords the key to the true interpretation of the Gospel as a whole.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN.

1:1-18. THE CHRISTOLOGY OF JOHN.--THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST.--THE CREATIVE POWER OF CHRIST.--THE REGENERATING WORK OF CHRIST.--THE ILLUMINATION GIVEN BY CHRIST.--THE DIVINE MANIFESTATION IN CHRIST.--THE WORD; THE LIGHT; THE LIFE; THE TABERNACLE; THE ONLY-BEGOTTEN SON.--CONTRASTED WITH JOHN THE BAPTIST; WITH MOSES.--THE GIFTS HE CONFERS; THE WELCOME HE RECEIVES.

PRELIMINARY NOTE.--The ordinary English reader will find no difficulty in comprehending the truths which John expresses in this introduction to his Gospel, viz., the pre-existence, divine attributes, and divine nature of that Jesus, the Messiah, of whom his book is written. John identifies him with the Word, which was with God from eternity, and with the Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. But it is not so clear why he should use the peculiar and somewhat mysterious language here employed; for the full understanding of this, some historical explanation is necessary. My object in this note is to afford very briefly this historical explanation, as a basis for more detailed consideration of particular words and phrases in the notes.

From the earliest ages the ablest minds have been perplexed by the problem how to reconcile faith in an all-wise, all-powerful, and all-benevolent Creator, with the fact of a creation full of sin and suffering. One of the ablest thinkers of modern times (John Stuart Mill) has declared the problem insoluble, and from the facts of creation has deduced the conclusion that the Creator is neither all-wise, all-powerful, nor all-good; to use his own words respecting the Creator, “his wisdom is possibly, his power certainly limited, and his goodness, though real, is not likely to have been the only motive which actuated him in the work of creation.”--(Three Essays in Religion.) Oriental philosophy, pondering this problem, proposed for its solution an hypothesis which to a Western mind seems singularly puerile and fantastic, and yet which, in slightly different forms, gained, at one period in the world’s history, an acceptance quite as widespread as any form of philosophy or theology of to-day. This hypothesis, however modified in form, was in essence this, that the evil in the world came not from the Creator, but from some other and inferior Being. In the Persian religion there were two deities, a good and an evil god, Ormuzd and Ahriman, struggling with each other for the supremacy. In the Chaldean philosophy Light was the soul of the universe and the Original First Cause; in the lower realms, far below the space filled with pure and unapproachable light, were darkness, night, and all forth-springing evils, which either the Supreme Light regarded it beneath his dignity to contend with, or which were indestructible and could only be confined within narrow limits, not destroyed. In the Hindoo philosophy, the Great First Cause, the beatific Brahm, lived in perpetual repose, in a supreme and serene indifference to all things. From him, by emanations, proceeded lesser deities, and from these, by a process more or less remote, a corrupt creation. At the beginning of the Christian era, Alexandria, founded by and named in honor of Alexander the Great, was one of the intellectual centres of the world. Here was gathered a library of over 700,000 volumes; here congregated Oriental dreamers, Greek philosophers, and Jewish religionists. Here, in the third century before Christ, was translated into the Greek language the Old Testament Scriptures. Here about 20 B. C., was born Philo, a Jew, of a priestly family, a philosopher and litterateur, and a voluminous writer. He was not an original thinker; his works are therefore all the more valuable as a reflection of the current mystical philosophy of his age and school. This dreamy philosophy it is difficult to translate into modern forms of thought. So far as this can be done, it may be said to have involved the following statements: God is simply the absolute, unchangeable Existence, incomprehensible, inconceivable, yet ever to be the object of our thoughts and meditations. He could not come directly into contact with matter without losing something of his ineffable excellence. Hence he gave forth certain divine powers or influences, “incorporeal potencies,” which surround God as the members of a court surround an earthly monarch. The highest of these is the divine Logos or Word of God. Through this Word the world was created, and to the influence of the inferior potencies the evils of the world must be attributed. Again, borrowing the imagery of the Chaldeans, Philo conceives of God as the pure and absolute Light, the original source of effulgence, the Logos or Word as the nearest circle of light proceeding from it, and each separate power as a separate ray, fading more and more away into darkness, as it becomes removed from the original source and centre. From this philosophy was later developed that peculiar and incomprehensible form of thought known as Gnosticism. This Gnostic philosophy, which reached its climax in the second century after Christ, undertook to describe in detail all the emanations from the original inconceivable deity; Reason, the Word, practical Wisdom, theoretical Wisdom, Power, Light, Life, were all lesser deities. The God of the Jews was one of these lower deities; Jesus Christ was a higher deity--the Reason according to some, the Word according to others, who came to deliver the world from its subjection to the inferior deity, and who entered the body of Jesus at his baptism, and departed from it just before his crucifixion. Whether John was acquainted with the writings of Philo we do not know; but he was certainly familiar with this Gnostic philosophy. It had already begun to enter into and corrupt the Christian church during the lifetime of Paul, whose writings contain frequent references to different phases of it (e. g., Col. 2:18; 1 Tim. 4:1-4; 2 Tim. 2:16-18); Ephesus, a city of luxury, effeminacy and superstition (Acts, ch. 19, notes), was a centre of this philosophy; in Paul’s address to the elders of the church at Ephesus (Acts 20:29, 30), and in his letter to Timothy, first bishop of that church (subs. to 2 Tim.), he especially warns against it (2 Tim. 2:16-18; 3:8, 9); and Ephesus was John’s residence, and probably the city in which he wrote his Gospel. (See Introduction.)

John, then, employs the language of this mystical philosophy, in order more effectually to refute its errors. He finds a certain substratum of truth, viz., that there is one God and one Mediator between God and man, underlying this superstructure of error; he begins his Gospel by occupying this ground, and by his phraseology brings himself into sympathy with his Gnostic readers; then, from this common ground he leads them on to the truth respecting the incarnation. It is true, he says to them, that there is a Word of God, but this Word was from the beginning with God, and is indeed God himself, who is not incommunicable, but a self-manifesting God. It is true that there is a Life and a Light; but the Life is God himself, not an inferior and subordinate deity; and the Light is not remote and unapproachable, but lighteth every man that cometh into the world. For this Mediator is not an emanation from God, but God himself, the true Light shining in the darkness (verse 5), the true Life by whom we can not only commune with Christ, but become the very children of God (verses 12, 13). And he has come and tabernacled among men in the flesh, in the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth.

It only remains to add that there is to be found in the Old Testament (see notes below) a Scriptural basis for John’s use of the language here, particularly his phrase “the Word of God,” and that there is not the least ground for the claims of some rationalistic scholars that John derived his doctrine here from Philo, or from the Alexandrian or Gnostic schools. On the contrary, his doctrine and theirs are radically inconsistent. Philo holds that matter is inherently defiling, that God cannot come into contact with matter, even to fashion it in creation, without defilement; John, that God “was made flesh and dwelt among us,” and yet so far from being defiled thereby, manifested his glory, “the glory of the only-begotten of the Father.”

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter I

1 In[23] the beginning was the Word,[24] and the Word was with[25] God, and the Word was[26] God.

[23] Prov. 8:22, 31; Col. 1:16, 17; 1 John 1:1.

[24] Rev. 19:13.

[25] ch. 17:5.

[26] Phil. 2:6; Heb. 1:8-13; 1 John 5:7.

=1. In the beginning.= John begins the Gospel where Moses began the Law. The employment of and the reference to the language of the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis is unmistakable. In that beginning in which God created the heavens and the earth was the Word, and the Word was with God and was God and was the One through whom the act of creation was consummated. So in Prov., chap. 8, Wisdom personified is represented as with God in the creation and from the beginning (see especially verses 23-29). For parallel passages teaching the pre-existence of Christ, see John 8:58; 17:5; Phil. 2:5, 6; 1 John 1:1. In Rev. 3:14 he is described as “the beginning of the creation of God,” but this does not necessarily imply that he was a created Being. See notes there.--=Was the Word.= There are several Greek words meaning word; (1 and 2) ῥῆμα and ἔπος, word in the grammatical sense, i. e., that which is spoken; (3) μῦθος, word in the rhetorical sense, that which is delivered by words, the subject expressed; (4) ὄνομα, word in a technical sense, strictly a name, and only because words are names or appellations; (5) λόγος, word in the philosophical sense, the outward form by which the inward thought is expressed. The latter term is employed here. As the thoughts or experiences of the soul are completely hidden from us till they are uttered, so God is the Unknown and the Unknowable, save as he utters himself, discloses his nature to us, which he does chiefly if not solely through him who is for that reason called the Word, i. e., the utterance of God. The metaphor which underlies this phraseology is in part interpreted by the saying of Wordsworth that language is the incarnation of ideas. (2) In the Old Testament we have a partial employment of the same symbolism. In Moses’ account of the creation, God is represented as calling the various powers of nature into being by a word. “God said Light be! Light was!” (Gen. 1:3, see also 6, 9, 11, etc.) In the later Hebrew poetry this symbol is made more prominent in the distinct declaration that “by the word of the Lord were the heavens made.” (Ps. 33:6; comp. 107:20; Isaiah 55:10, 11; see also Heb. 11:3.) The same symbol, in a slightly different form, reappears in Prov., chap. 8, which is connected with that employed here by the language of certain of the apocryphal books, e. g., “I (Wisdom) came out of the mouth of the Most High and covered the earth as a cloud” (Ecclesiasticus 24:3). “She (Wisdom) is the breath of the power of God” (Wisdom of Solomon 1:25). (3) The same symbolism was employed as we have seen (Prel. Note above) in the mystical philosophy of Alexandria and of later Gnosticism, with which John was familiar, and of which, Ephesus, his city, was a centre, to represent an eon or emanation for the deity. That the Word here does not mean the Bible or the Gospel is evident both from the connection, since it cannot be said that the Bible became flesh (ver. 14), and also from John’s usage, who never employs the phrase Word of God to designate the Bible, but usually the term Scriptures or writings (John 2:22; 5:39; 7:38, 42; 19:24, 28, 36, 37, etc.). Moreover he does employ this phraseology elsewhere to designate Jesus Christ (1 John 1:1; Rev. 19:13). It cannot mean the Speaking One nor the Promised One. Though both these meanings have been attributed to it, it is not grammatically capable of either interpretation. There is classical authority for rendering it Reason or Order, and this meaning it still retains in words ending with ology, such as ge-ology (ge-logos), the order, i. e., science of the earth; path-ology (pathos-logos), the order, i. e., science of disease. But it is never used with this signification by John, and is never but once so used in the N. T. (1 Peter 3:15), if even there the translation is strictly accurate, which is doubtful. Seeking, then, to understand John as he would have been understood by his contemporaries, I think it clear that he declares, not that Reason or Wisdom was in the beginning with God, nor Speech, nor the Promised Messiah, but the Word, i. e., the One by and through whom he was chiefly to be manifested to the world, as one soul is to another by utterance.--=And the Word was with God and the Word was God.= Grammatically the last clause of the sentence may be read, and God was the Word. But the obvious connection calls for the rendering of our English version, and it is the rendering adopted by the best scholars. There is a difference in the language of the first and last clause of this sentence in the original which is significant, but difficult, if not impossible, to render in the English. In the first clause, “the Word was with God,” the article accompanies the word God; in the second clause, “the Word was God,” it is wanting. We should measurably reflect the meaning by reading the passage, “the Word was with God and the Word was divine;” or “the Word was with the Father and the Word was God.”

2 The same was in the beginning with God.

=2. The same was in the beginning with God.= John recurs to his first statement and reiterates it, not merely for the sake of emphasis, but also to mark a real distinction between the Word and the unknown Father. For he labors to express two conflicting and even apparently contradictory ideas, the identity of the Word with God and the individuality of the Word, as distinct from the infinite and invisible deity. This contradiction subsequent theology has endeavored in vain to eliminate by drawing distinctions between essence and substance, person and being, etc., in such phraseologies as three in substance and one in essence, or three persons in one God. This philosophy of the Trinity is extra-Scriptural, framed to harmonize teachings respecting the divine nature, which are best harmonized by the frank confession that the knowledge of the divine nature is too wonderful for us, we cannot attain unto it (Ps. 139:6; Job 11:7). So Chalmers, “The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. God is one. If you ask me to reconcile the four (propositions), I answer, I cannot. We require no one to reconcile the personality of each with the unity of God.” So Calvin, “I could wish them (the extra-Scriptural phrases, person, hypostasis, etc.) to be buried in oblivion, provided this truth were universally received, that the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are the one God; and that nevertheless the Son is not the Father, nor the Spirit the Son, but that they are distinguished from each other by some peculiar properties.”

3 All[27] things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.

[27] Ps. 33:6; Eph. 3:9.

=3. All things were made by him.= To interpret this language “All things” as meaning simply the moral creation, is to distort plain language in order to conform it to preconceived ideas, a fault in exegesis of which no school of theology is entirely innocent. The reference to Genesis, ch. 1, is unmistakable. The declaration is parallel to and interpreted by such passages as Col. 1:16; 1 Cor. 8:6; Heb. 1:2. The Greek student will observe, however, and the English student should know, that the language here implies that the Word was the instrument by which God created the “all things,” not the original source of creative power. There are two Greek prepositions translated in English “by,” one (ἐκ) signifying the source or origin from which anything proceeds, or the power by which it is produced; the other (διά) signifying the means or instrument through which it is produced. One indicates the original, the other the proximate cause. The preposition here used is the latter, and the exact meaning of the sentence will be imparted by the rendering All things were made by means of him or through him. With this interpretation corresponds the general teaching of the New Testament, which represents Christ, both in his earthly life and in his heavenly administration, as always the executor of his Father’s will. This is in some sense especially prominent in John’s Gospel (see for example John 5:22, 23, 27; 6:37, 44, 57; 8:28, 42; 10:29; 14:10; 17:18, 24); but it is equally clearly taught elsewhere (Luke 2:49; 1 Cor. 15:27, 28; Phil. 2:9; Col. 1:19; comp. Mark 10:40, note and references there).--=And without him was not anything made that was made.= Simply an emphatic and exhaustive reiteration, such as is not infrequent in fervid writing. For analogous rhetorical repetition in John see verse 20; 1 John 2:4, 27. Some manuscripts and some few scholars put a period at the close of the first clause of the sentence, and connect the last clause with the following verse, so that the passage reads: And without him was not anything made. And what originated in him was life. But while this reading is grammatically possible, it is generally repudiated by the best scholars, who accept the punctuation and rendering of our English version as correct.

4 In him[28] was life; and the life was the light[29] of men.

[28] ch. 5:26; 1 John 5:11.

[29] ch. 8:12.

=4. In him was life.= There is probably a reference here again to the language of Gnostic philosophy (See Prel. Note), which supposed other eons or emanations from God, besides the Word, prominent among which was Light and Life. Here, as throughout this introduction, John employs the language of the Gnostics to correct their errors. The general and practical teaching for us of the declaration is that Christ is the source of both physical or external life (Col. 1:17), and of intellectual and spiritual life (ch. 10:10). It is admirably interpreted by Kaulbach’s famous cartoon of the Reformation, in which Luther with the open Bible in his hand is represented as the centre of the intellectual and moral awakening which characterized that century. Observe, since Christ is Life and Light, that any religion which dwarfs man, represses their life, belittles them, and any which shuts them up in darkness and denies them intellectual freedom and progress in any direction, is so far anti-Christ. The cause of Christ has nothing to fear from any intellectual life or any light of scientific discovery.--=And the life was the light of men.= Not merely shall be, not merely is, but was. The intimation is that all the light of Old Testament prophecy and instruction, if not all that dim religious light which has illuminated even heathen nations, through special instructors such as Buddha, Confucius and Socrates, came through the Word, i. e., through the Mediator by whom the invisible God reveals himself to man, of which revelation the incarnation (ver. 14) is only a part, though a most important part. Compare with the language here 1 John 1:5.

5 And the light shineth in[30] darkness; and the darkness comprehended[31] it not.

[30] ch. 3:19.

[31] 1 Cor. 2:14.

=5. And the light shineth in the darkness.= Shines, not merely appears; a real illumination is indicated; shines, not shone; a present and continuous illumination is indicated; the darkness, not merely darkness; as, before God said “Let there be light,” the earth is reported as enveloped in darkness (Gen. 1:2), so, before and apart from this spiritual illumination, through the Light of the world, the nations of the earth were in gross darkness. Comp. Isaiah 42:6, 7; Matt. 4:16, note; Ephes. 5:7, 8; John 12:46.--=And the darkness comprehended it not.= This has been universally true in the world’s history; the dim light of conscience has never been apprehended, taken hold of by heathen nations. The light afforded by special and signal moral geniuses has never been comprehended aright by the people, as witness the deterioration of Buddhism and Confucianism; the teachings of the Jewish prophets were not comprehended; they shone in darkness which was not dispelled by their instructors; and the clearer light of Christ has never, even in the best ages, been more than very imperfectly apprehended, even in the church. Here the primary reference is certainly to the constant closing of their eyes by the Jews to the light of the Old Testament teachings, concerning the spirit of true religion, the nature of the kingdom of God, and the character and appearance of the promised Messiah. For the reason why the darkness does not comprehend the light, see chap. 3:19; comp. Matt. 13:15, note.

6 There was a man[32] sent from God, whose name was John.

7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.

[32] Luke 3:2, 3.

=6, 7. There was a man sent from God.= From a characterization of the light, John passes to a description of the incarnation and its object, and to a discrimination between the incarnate Light and the prophet who foretold its coming. From the Greek word here rendered sent (ἀποστέλλω, apostello) comes our word apostle. The apostle is a man sent from God; Christ is the word or utterance, or manifestation of God. Comp. Heb. 1:1-3.--=John.= The Baptist.--=The same came for a witness.= As one who enters the witness-stand to testify what he knows, so John the Baptist came to declare what had been revealed to him concerning the coming Messiah. Comp. John 5:32-35.--=To bear witness of the Light.= Simply a repetition and amplification of the previous clause of the sentence. He was not a mere preacher of the law, nor of the duty of repentance, though this is the phase of his ministry most prominent in the reports of Matt. (3:1-12), and Luke (3:1-18). He was a forerunner of the great King, sent to bear witness of his approach. And this phase of his ministry, though indicated in the other Gospels (Matt. 3:11; 11:9, Mark 1:7, 8; Luke 3:16, 17), is most clearly brought out in John (verses 23, 29-36).--=That all through him might believe.= That is, through John might believe in the Light. The other construction, through the Light might believe, i. e., in God, is forced and unnatural, even if grammatically admissible. The true office of the Christian ministry is so to bear witness to the Light which the preacher knows by his own experience (Rom. 7:14; 8:28; 2 Tim. 1:12), that men may believe in and accept that Light (2 Cor. 4:5; Col. 1:28.)

8 He[33] was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

9 That was the true Light,[34] which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

[33] Acts 19:4.

[34] Isa. 49:6.

=8, 9.= An early Gnostic sect (second century) believed that John was the Messiah. The primary reference here appears to be to this error, which, in common with other Gnostic errors (see Prel. Note), John aims to correct in this introduction to his Gospel. Compare, with the declaration here, Christ’s characterization of John, “He was a burning and a shining light” (ch. 5:35). The Greek scholar will observe that the English word “light” represents different Greek words in the two passages. Here the word is one signifying original light (φῶς), there rather a borrowed or reflected light (λύχνοσ), though the latter word is once applied to Christ (Rev. 21:23). We are to be in a true sense the former kind of light (φῶς, Matt. 5:14), because Christ in us is our light, and by his indwelling we are made partakers of his nature (2 Pet. 1:4), and men seeing this light glorify, not us, but Him who shines in and through us.--=The true Light was that which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.= There is some difficulty about the construction of this sentence; this appears to me to be the best. For other constructions, see Alford and Meyer. On the meaning of the declaration observe, (1) That John’s use of the word true here is interpreted by his use of the same word in other and analogous passages, e. g., “true worshippers” (John 4:23); “true bread” (ch. 6:32); “true vine” (ch. 15:1). The light, the bread, the vine of earth are regarded only as symbols of the spiritual truths which they parabolically represent. Christ is the original pattern, or source of light; all prophets and teachers are only reflections from him; all material light is a symbol or parable of his illuminating grace. (2) The phrase, “lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” is not to be taken as an hyperbole. The latter clause is added, not merely, as Meyer, “as a solemn redundance,” “an epic fullness of words,” but to emphasize and make clear the declaration, and to show that “every man” means not merely (a) the Jews, nor (b) those who accept Christ as their light, nor (c) the Christian nations, but literally all men. The every (πᾶς) here is thus distinguished from the all (πᾶς) of verse 7 above. Christ is the universal light; all intellectual and political as well as moral illumination has come through him; and this, not only in Christendom, but also in heathendom. Such light as struggles through the thick darkness, in a partial disclosure of divine truth afforded by a Buddha or a Confucius, or dimly recognized by a Cornelius, comes from Him who, in larger or smaller measure, lighteth every man that cometh into the world. By this declaration we are to interpret such passages as Matt. 8:11; Acts 10:35; Rev. 5:9; whoever accepts even this imperfect and dim light, mistakenly called the light of Nature, in so far accepts Christ.

10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and[35] the world knew him not.

[35] verse 5.

11 He[36] came unto his own, and his own received him not.

[36] Acts 3:26; 13:46.

=10, 11.= Notice the rhetorical climax in these verses; he was in the world; he came unto his own; the world knew him not; his own received him not. The world is here humanity in general, Jew and Gentile, both of whom united in Christ’s crucifixion; the Jew, represented in the high-priest who deliberately rejected him (John 11:47-50), the Gentile, represented in Pilate and the soldiers, who simply did not know him. His own are the Jewish people, Jehovah’s peculiar possession (Exod. 19:5; Deut. 7:6; Psalm 135:4; Isaiah 31:9), to whom he first came and by whom he was rejected before he was preached to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46; Rom. 1:16). It was only the world of men that knew him not; nature knew and obeyed him whenever he commanded her obedience, as in the turning of water into wine, the stilling of the tempest, etc. The verbs in this sentence are in the imperfect tense, and the reference is to the incarnation of Christ and his earthly life. Observe that the Jewish nation which rejected the Messiah is rejected by God (Matt. 8:12), and that the disciples of Christ are not to know the world which knew not their Lord and Master (1 John 2:15-17).

12 But as many[37] as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them[38] that believe on his name:

[37] Isa. 56:4, 5; Rom. 8:14, 15; 1 John 3:1.

[38] Gal. 3:26.

=12. But as many as received him.= Not merely, as Alford, “recognized him as that which he was--the Word of God and Light of men,” but received him as the Word to be implicitly obeyed (ch. 14:21; 15:10, 15), and the Light in which to walk (1 John 1:6).--=To them gave he power= (ἐξουσίαν). Not capability, nor privilege, nor claim, but power and right; the original word combines the two ideas. He confers the power to become the sons of God, and confers the right to claim that privilege. Ryle is certainly correct in saying that this verse “does not mean that Christ confers on those who receive him a spiritual and moral strength, by which they convert themselves, change their own hearts, and make themselves God’s children.” He is as certainly wrong in saying, with Calvin and the marginal reading, that the original Greek word means “right or privilege.” The reader will best get its meaning by comparing John’s use of it in other passages, in no one of which could it be rendered either “right” or “privilege.” See ch. 5:27; 10:18; 17:2; 19:10, 11. Comp. Matt. 28:18, note. The plain implication here is that the power to become a son of God is not natural and inherent, but acquired, and is the especial gift of God. See Phil. 2:12, 13; Titus 3:4, 5.--=To become the sons of God.= Sons and therefore (1) partakers of the divine nature (Ephes. 4:13; Heb. 12:10; 2 Pet. 1:4); (2) entitled to and walking in freedom as children, not in bondage as servants (ch. 15:15; Gal. 4:1-7); (3) heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, his only-begotten Son (Rom. 8:16, 17). But the full conception of the meaning of this sonship we cannot know, till in the other world we see the Father as he is (1 John 3:1, 2).--=Even to them that have faith in his name.= His name is Jesus, i. e., Saviour, given to him because he saves his people from their sins (Matt. 1:21). To have faith in that name is to have faith in him as a personal Saviour from sin. Observe, then, that this verse comprises the whole Gospel in a sentence. It declares (1) the object of the Gospel: that we who are by nature the children of disobedience and of wrath (Ephes. 2:2, 3) may become the sons of God; (2) the source to which we are to look for this prerogative of sonship: power conferred by God; (3) the means by which we are to attain it: personal faith in a personal Saviour from sin. Observe too that John follows his description of the rejection of Christ, not by threatening punishment to them, but by depicting the infinite gain of those that accept Christ.

13 Which were born,[39] not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

[39] James 1:18.

=13. Not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.= That is, not by inheritance (Luke 3:8); nor by resolution (Rom. 8:5-8); nor by human teaching (1 Cor. 3:6, 7); but by the direct personal influence and contact of the Spirit of God on the heart (Titus 3:5, 6). Thus, John emphasizes the declaration of the preceding verse, that God gives the power to become the sons of God, by declaring that Christian character is not the product of either good parentage, a strong will, or a good education, but directly of a divine recreative act. (Gal. 6:15.) The Greek student will observe that the preposition used is of (ἐκ), not through (διά); the writer is speaking of the origin or source of Christian character, not of the instruments by which it is developed. Good parentage, will power, and education, are all means for the development of divine sonship; the original cause, without which a true son of God is never produced, is the creative act of God himself.

14 And the Word[40] was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and[41] we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full[42] of grace and truth.

[40] Luke 1:35; 1 Tim. 3:16.

[41] 2 Pet. 1:17; 1 John 1:1, 2.

[42] Ps. 45:2; Col. 2:3, 9.

=14. And the Word.= The self-manifesting God, as described in the first verse.--=Became flesh.= Not a man (ἄνθρωπος) nor a body (σῶμα), but flesh (σάρξ). The word is one whose signification would probably be best rendered to the English reader by the phrase human nature. Though occasionally used in the N. T. of the literal and material flesh (Acts 2:31), it almost always indicates man in his corporeal or earthly nature, sometimes signifying the predominance of that over the higher or spiritual nature, sometimes simply signifying this aspect of his nature, without any indication of its corrupt tendencies. Here, then, the declaration is that the Word became human nature; how is not indicated. The language gives no sanction to either of the two principal theories of the incarnation; the first, that Christ took on human nature as something superadded to the divine, so carrying through life a double nature, both divine and human; the second, that he simply entered a human body and became subject to the limitations which it imposed on him. How the divine became human we must learn elsewhere in the N. T., if the N. T. reveals it at all; but the declaration here is explicit that the divine Word became human.--=And tabernacled among us.= Pitched his tent with us. As God in the wilderness dwelt for a time in the transitory tabernacle, so the Word dwelt in the flesh, which is elsewhere in the N. T. compared to a tabernacle (2 Cor. 5:1, 4; 2 Pet. 1:13, 14). As God dwelt subsequently in the permanent Temple at Jerusalem, so the Word makes its permanent abode in the soul of the believer, which is the Temple, not the Tabernacle of God (ch. 15:6, 7; 2 Cor. 6:16; Rev. 21:3). That the reference here is to the incarnation, not to the spiritual presence of Christ with the believer, is evident from the fact that the verb (ἐσκίνωσεν) is in the historical tense. John says he tabernacled, not he tabernacles, among us.--=And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten from the Father.= We are made sons of God; but Christ alone is the only begotten Son. For the meaning of this phrase, see Luke 7:12; 8:42; 9:38. John uses it only of Jesus Christ. The Greek student should observe the use of the preposition from (παρά). It designates the source from which anything is derived, and here indicates that in a peculiar sense Christ is from the Father, directly and immediately; we are from him only through Christ. Comp. ch. 7:29. In a peculiar sense the Apostles beheld Christ’s glory (ch. 2:11; Matt. 17:1-4; 2 Pet. 1:16; 1 John 1:1). But in Christ’s life and character, and in their influence on the world, we are all beholders of the true divine glory, manifested in him (Heb. 1:3); and his earthly life is the brightness and glory of heaven (Rev. 21:23; 5:9, 10). The language, as of the only begotten, distinguishes the glory of Christ from that of all previous revealers of the divine will and nature. Since many of the prophets too were glorified, as Moses, Elijah, and Elisha, the one encircled by the fiery chariot, the other taken up by it; and after them Daniel and the three children, and the many others who showed forth wonders; and angels who have appeared among men, and partly disclosed to beholders the flashing light of their proper nature; and since not angels only, but even the cherubim were seen by the prophet in great glory and the seraphim also; the Evangelist, leading us away from all these, and removing our thoughts from created things, and from the brightness of our fellow-servants, sets us at the very summit of good. For, “not of prophets,” says he, “nor angel, nor archangel, nor of the higher powers, nor of any other created nature, if other there be, but of the Master himself, the King himself, the true only begotten Son himself, of the very Lord of all, did we behold the glory.”--(Chrysostom.)--=Full of grace and truth.= There is some doubt whether this is said of the glory beheld, or of the only begotten Son whose glory was beheld. The question is not very important; the latter construction is grammatically preferable. Thus rendered, the clause “And we beheld, etc.,” is parenthetical, John’s statement being: “The Word tabernacled among us, full of grace and truth.” Observe (1) that the grace here answers to the Life in verse 4, and the truth to the Light in verse 9. Because of his grace Christ is Life to all who accept him; because of his truth he is Light to all who follow him; (2) that the declaration here is explained by, and is possibly partially derived from Exodus 33:18, 19, where Moses asks to see God’s glory, and is promised a disclosure of the divine goodness; in the goodness of God in Christ Jesus we behold the divine glory; (3) that the Christian is to be, like his Master, full of grace and truth, and that to be at once perfectly truthful and also gracious is one of the most difficult practical problems of the Christian life (Rom. 12:9). It seems to me clear that John has in mind throughout this verse the manifestation of the glory of God, through the Shechinah, in the Tabernacle, and subsequently in the Temple (Exod. 40:34, 35; 1 Kings 8:10; see Matt. 17:5, note). As the Shechinah made luminous and glorious these earthly dwelling-places, so the Word, by his indwelling, made glorious the flesh.

15 John[43] bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.

[43] Matt. 3:11, etc.

=15. John is testifying concerning him.= John the Baptist was long since dead when these words were written; but his testimony was not dead; it was an ever-living testimony. The verb is therefore put in the present tense, not, as in our English version, in the past.--=And he cried, saying,= It is the echo of this cry which still resounds and witnesses to Jesus Christ. The language used implies a public testimony, and one borne with confidence and joy. On seeing the Christ of whom he had prophesied, John the Baptist cries out, “This is he of whom I spoke.” For illustration of John’s prophetic utterances concerning the Messiah, previous to the baptism of Jesus, see Matt. 3:11, 12; Mark 1:7, 8.--=He that cometh after me.= Christ did not begin his public ministry till the imprisonment of John the Baptist (Mark 1:14). Thus as a public teacher he came after John the Baptist.--=Came forth before me.= Not, was before me (γίγνομαι has not the force of εἰμί), for then the sentence would be tautological-- that Jesus was before John is in the next clause given as the reason for the statement in this, that he came forth before him; nor can the meaning be was preferred before me, in the sense of esteemed above me, for the mere fact of Christ’s pre-existence would be no reason for esteeming him more highly than John--the devil existed before John the Baptist; nor, was preferred before me, in the sense of, was exalted in rank above me, though some excellent scholars, e. g., Alford, Olshausen, De Wette, so interpret it; but, as I have rendered it above, came forth, or, was set before me. The reference is to the previous manifestations of the Word, in the partial revelations of God in the O. T. All the disclosures of the divine nature in the O. T. were made through the Word or utterance of God, through whom alone he speaks to the human race. See ver. 4, note, and ch. 8:56-58. John then says “He who is coming after me is the One who has already come forth before me; for he existed before me.” Christ’s pre-existence would not explain the preference, either in the divine love or in rank, but it does in part explain precedence in appearance or manifestation. So Hengstenberg, “My successor is my predecessor.”

16 And of his fulness[44] have all we received, and grace for grace.

[44] ch. 3:34.

=16. And of his fullness have we all received.= The fullness is that of the divine nature, of which we are made partakers through faith in Christ (Col. 1:19; 2:9, 10; Ephes. 3:19). The all are those who receive him and thus become the sons of God (verse 12). This and the two following verses are the addition of the Evangelist, not the continuance of John the Baptist’s discourse; this is evident both from their style, which better accords with that of the Evangelist, and because the fullness of Christ’s nature was not received by John the Baptist and his disciples, for it was not disclosed till after the Baptist’s death. Observe, (1) How inexhaustible the fountain. From Christ’s fullness all spiritual life is supplied. Chrysostom compares Christ to a fire from which ten thousand lamps are kindled, but which burns as brightly thereafter as before. “The sea is diminished if you take a drop from it, though the diminution be imperceptible; but how much soever a man draw from the divine Fountain, it continues undiminished.” (2) How free the supply; we have all received. “None went empty away.”--(Meyer.) (3) The nature of Christian experience. It is not a mere trust in a crucified Saviour for pardon for the past; it is also a personal and continuous receiving of divine life from the fullness of a living Saviour.--=And grace for grace.= Of this expression there are two interpretations. The ancient expositors understood it to mean, For the lesser grace of the O. T. we have received the greater grace of the N. T. So Chrysostom: “There was a righteousness and there is a righteousness (Rom. 1:17); there was a glory and there is a glory (2 Cor. 3:11); there was a law and there is a law (Rom. 8:2); there was a service and there is a service (Rom. 9:4; 12:11); there was a covenant and there is a covenant (Jer. 31:31, 32); there was a sanctification and there is a sanctification; there was a baptism and there is a baptism; there was a sacrifice and there is a sacrifice; there was a temple and there is a temple; there was a circumcision and there is a circumcision; and so too there was a grace and there is a grace.” The modern commentators, Alford, Meyer, Lange, etc., understand it to mean, “For each new accessory of grace we receive a still larger gift. Each grace, though, when given large enough, is, as it were, overwhelmed by the accumulation and fullness of that which follows.”--(Bengel.) “Grace for grace, grace in the place of that which preceded--therefore grace uninterrupted, unceasingly renewed.”--(Winer.) The spiritual signification of the passage is substantially the same on either interpretation. We have nothing to give in exchange for the divine grace; our only virtue is to receive. It is given to us in exchange for the grace already imparted. “Unto every one that hath shall be given;” but what he already hath is God’s gift, which bestows both the good and the purchase money, each new gift superseding the old, as the N. T. gift of grace and truth through Jesus Christ superseded the lesser gift of law through Moses. With this accords the teaching of both O. T. and N. T. See, for example, Deut. 7:7; Ps. 6:4; 23:3; 25:7; 31:16; 79:9; 115:1; Isaiah 55:1; Ephes. 2:4; 1 John 4:8, 10.

17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace[45] and truth came by Jesus Christ.

[45] Ps. 85:10; Rom. 5:21.

=17. For the law was given by Moses.= Through (διὰ) Moses as the instrument or mediator of the old covenant.--=Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.= Through (διὰ) Jesus Christ as the mediator of the new covenant. The grace is the favor of God (see below), the truth is the clear revelation of the divine character and will, seen only dimly under the old covenant. (2 Cor. 3:13, 14.) Observe the contrast between Christ and Moses (comp. Heb. 3:5, 6); and between the gifts brought by the two. The law was given, a completed thing, once for all; grace and truth came and continually come, grace for grace, out of the inexhaustible fullness of the giver.

ON THE MEANING OF THE WORD “GRACE.” The word here translated grace (χάρις) is also variously translated in the N. T. acceptable, benefit, favor, gift, joy, liberality, pleasure, thanks, and thankworthy. This fact will of itself sufficiently indicate that the word possesses various shades of meaning. They are all, however, etymologically derived from the same root idea. The noun is derived from a verb meaning to rejoice, and primarily signifies that which gives joy to another. With the Greeks, beauty was one of the chief joys; hence the first meaning of the word--grace of external form, manner, or language, a meaning which it but rarely bears in the N. T. (see Luke 4:22; Col. 4:6). Thence it derived a deeper meaning, viz., beauty in character, and this, according to the N. T. teaching, is good-will, the disposition to do a kindness to another, to make another rejoice; hence the word is used to signify that quality in God which leads him to confer freely happiness on men, either on special individuals (Luke 2:40; 1 Cor. 3:10), or on the whole human race (Rom. 3:24; Ephes. 1:6; Tit. 2:11). Thence it was employed to designate the kindness actually flowing from and conferred by this disposition, hence an alms, and in the N. T. the spiritual gifts conferred by the divine love on the soul (1 Cor. 16:3; 2 Cor. 8:4; 1 Cor. 15:10; 2 Cor. 6:1; 2 Pet. 3:18); in which sense it is employed in the apostolic benediction (1 Cor. 1:3; 2 Cor. 1:2; Gal. 1:3, etc.). Finally it was used to designate the feeling awakened by favors shown, the reflection in the human heart of the divine grace imparted, and hence gratitude and even its expression in thanks (Luke 6:32-34; 17:9; 1 Tim. 1:12; 2 Tim. 1:3). Underlying its meaning in all these uses is the radical idea that the gift is conferred freely and finds its only motive in the bounty and love of the giver, an idea which finds expression in the Latin word gratis (for nothing), now thoroughly Anglicized, a word which comes from the same root as grace (gratia). By the doctrine of grace, then, as it is variously expounded in the N. T., is meant that our own spiritual life is the free gift of God, bestowed on us without merit or desert on our part, purely from the love and good-will of God. Our graces are God’s free gifts. John here marks the contrast between the law which requires obedience of man, and grace and truth which confers spiritual power on man. The one says, Do this and live; the other says, Live, so that you can do this (Rom. 8:3). Nowhere in the N. T. is the doctrine of grace more clearly set forth than in these 16th and 17th verses, which may be paraphrased thus: From the divine fullness in Jesus Christ we have all received; the only condition which God attaches to the free impartation of his spiritual gifts is that we should have received willingly those already proffered to us; by Moses it was revealed to us what God would have us do and be; by Christ it is clearly disclosed to us what God is, and there is freely imparted to us power to become, like him, sons of God.

18 No man hath seen God[46] at any time; the[47] only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

[46] Ex. 33:20; 1 Tim. 6:16.

[47] 1 John 4:9.

=18. No one hath seen God at any time.= Not merely no man; no one--man, angel, archangel. The phrase here, seen God, is equivalent to the phrase knowing God perfectly, in Matt. 11:27 (see note there). We know him but in part, shall see him only when we awake in his likeness (Ps. 17:15); Christ sees him because he is one with him.--=The only begotten Son.= Some manuscripts have here, The only begotten God, and this reading is adopted by Tregelles, but rejected by Alford, Meyer, and Tischendorf. For examination of the authorities on both sides, see Alford (sixth edition) and Lange, critical note by Dr. Schaff. The external authorities are not conclusive; internal authority strongly favors the ordinary reading. The only begotten God is a phrase occurring nowhere else in the N. T., and is unnatural if not unmeaning. The change of a single letter in the early copies would account for the corruption of the text (Ψ to Θ).--=Which is in the bosom of the Father.= A metaphorical expression, indicating the closeness of intimacy, and drawn more probably from the relation of a child with its parents, than from the not infrequent reclining of one on the bosom of his friend, at meal-time (John 13:25).--=He hath declared him.= Comp. ch. 6:46; 14:6, 9, 10; 1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 1:3. These and other kindred passages indicate clearly how Christ declares the Father, viz., not merely by what he teaches concerning the divine nature, but yet more by his personal manifestation of the divine nature in his own life and character. This verse thus interprets the word truth in the preceding verse, as the word grace has already been interpreted by verses 11 and 12. Christ is the truth of God, because he reveals the divine nature; he is the grace of God because he imparts the divine nature to such as trust in him.

NOTE ON THE INCARNATION. A correct apprehension of the character and place in history of Jesus Christ is essential to a correct apprehension of Christianity. Our conception of the system will depend upon our conception of the Founder. The other Evangelists give simply the story of his life, leaving the readers to draw their own deductions respecting him. John, writing at a later date, and in a more philosophical atmosphere, begins his Gospel with a characterization of the One the story of whose earthly life he is about to narrate. It is evident on even a cursory examination of this preface that John believed and intended to teach, (1) That Christ existed prior to his earthly birth. He was the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world; was before John the Baptist, whom in his earthly history and mission he succeeded; and he was in the beginning with God (vers. 1, 4, 15). (2) That he possessed a superhuman character. He is carefully distinguished from and placed above John the Baptist, the last of the prophets and more than a prophet (Matt. 11:9), and from Moses the lawgiver and politically the founder of the Jewish nation; and he is emphatically declared not only to have been with God in the beginning, but to have partaken of the divine nature (vers. 1, 6-8, 17). (3) This superhuman character is further illustrated by what is declared of his office or work. He is the Creator, the Light and Life of men, the regenerating power through whom men are brought into divine sonship, the daily support of the spiritual life of the children of God, the disclosure of the divine nature to men (vers. 3, 4, 12, 13, 16, 18). (4) This truth is incidentally, but all the more effectively, enforced by John’s peculiar language in describing Christ’s earthly state: he “tabernacled among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten from the Father” (ver. 14). (5) Finally, it is illustrated in the various titles conferred upon him throughout this chapter, which are ten in number: the Word; the Light; the Life; the only begotten of the Father; Jesus Christ, i. e., the Saviour, the Messiah; the only begotten Son; the Lamb of God; the Son of God; Master; the Son of Man. It is not the province of the commentator to construct a systematic theology. But it is certain that these elements must enter into any conception of Jesus Christ which is founded on and accords with the N. T. There is probably no other single passage of equal length in the N. T. which contains so much respecting the character and office of Jesus Christ as this preface to John’s Gospel; with it, however, should be examined Paul’s Christology (e. g., Phil. 2:5-11), and that of the unknown author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb., chaps. 1, 2).

* * * * *

Ch. 1:19-51. INTRODUCTION OF CHRIST TO THE WORLD. BY JOHN THE BAPTIST (vers. 19-37); BY HIMSELF (vers. 38-51). CHRIST THE SIN-BEARER OF THE WORLD.--THE POWER OF CHRIST; THE ABIDING OF GOD’S SPIRIT ON HIM.-- CHRIST OUR PATTERN IN FISHING FOR MEN.--THE VALUE OF PERSONAL AND PRIVATE WORK.--THE POWER OF PREJUDICE IN GOOD MEN.--THE BEST ANSWER TO SKEPTICISM, “COME AND SEE.”--CHRIST REVEALS HIMSELF WHEN HE REVEALS US TO OURSELVES.--CHRIST’S FIRST COMING A PROPHECY AND FORETASTE OF HIS SECOND COMING.

The historical portion of the Fourth Gospel begins here. The interview between the deputation from the Sanhedrim and John the Baptist here described probably took place after the baptism of Jesus, and during the temptation, of which latter event this Gospel makes no mention. With the account of the Baptist’s ministry given here the reader should compare Matt., chap. 3, and Luke, chap. 3.

19 And this[48] is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou?

[48] Luke 3:15, etc.

20 And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ.

=19, 20. And this is the witness of John.= The writer goes back and gives a detailed history of John’s first explicit testimony to the Messiah, connecting it with his previous reference to that testimony in verse 15.--=When the Jews sent priests and Levites.= In John’s Gospel, the term Jews generally signifies, not the residents of Palestine, but those of Judea, and sometimes the official heads of the people. This appears to be the meaning here. It is clear from verse 22 that this was an official deputation, probably sent by the Sanhedrim. The Baptist’s preaching had produced a profound sensation throughout that part of Palestine; great crowds flocked to his ministry; he was universally regarded as a prophet, and by some as perhaps the Messiah; some of the Pharisees themselves came to his baptism, though his severe denunciation of their formalism, and their own opposition to such a personal reform as his preaching demanded, made them, as a class, bitterly opposed to him (Matt. 3:5, 7; 21:25, 26; Luke 3:15). It was therefore natural and fit that the Sanhedrim should send to inquire officially respecting his ministry. There is nothing to indicate whether this inquiry was conducted in a hostile spirit or otherwise.--=Who art thou?= Observe, throughout this interview, the difference in the spirit of the inquirers and of John. They persist in demanding to know who he is; he replies only by pointing out what he does. “They ever ask about his person; he ever refers them to his office. He is no one--a voice merely; it is the work of God, the testimony to Christ, which is everything. So the formalist ever in the church asks, Who is he? while the witness for Christ only exalts, only cares for Christ’s work.”--(Alford.)--=And he publicly acknowledged, and denied not.= We know from Luke 3:15 that some thought he might be the Messiah; and later, a Gnostic sect maintained that he was the Messiah. This testimony, amplifying the brief reference to it in verses 7, 8, is probably inserted in part to refute this error.

21 And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No.

=21. Art thou Elijah? And he saith, I am not.= Mal. 4:5 declares that Elijah should precede the Messiah. John the Baptist’s character, and even his appearance (comp. Matt. 3:4 with 2 Kings 1:8), resembled that of Elijah. Christ distinctly declares that John the Baptist is the Elijah foretold by the prophet and expected by the people (Matt. 17:12, 13; comp. Luke 1:17). Here John says he is not. The true explanation is, not that the people were expecting a literal resurrection of Elijah from the dead, and John denied that he fulfilled that expectation, but that, like many another great but humble messenger of God, he did not comprehend his own character and mission and relation to ancient prophecy. He was more than he knew.--=Art thou that prophet?= From Deut., 8:15 the Jews expected a prophet to precede the Messiah (John 6:14; 7:40). Not till later was this prophecy correctly interpreted by the Apostles as referring to Christ himself (Acts 3:22; 7:37).

22 Then said they unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?

23 He[49] said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet[50] Esaias.

[49] ch. 3:28; Matt. 3:3; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4.

[50] Isa. 40:3.

=22, 23.= See Matt. 3:3 and Mark 1:3, and notes. It is evident that the characterization of John the Baptist there and the application to him of the prophecy of Isaiah 40:3 was derived from John himself.

24 And they which were sent were of the Pharisees.

25 And they asked him, and said unto him, Why baptizeth thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet?

26 John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: but there standeth one[51] among you, whom ye know not;

[51] Mal. 3:1.

27 He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose.

=24-27. And they which were sent were of the Pharisees.= The Pharisees were scrupulous ceremonialists, and ablutions were an important part of their ceremonial. See Matt. 15:1-7; Mark 7:2-5, notes. To them John’s employment of baptism appeared irregular and unauthorized if he were not invested with some special divine authority.--=John answered them.= This answer is only indirectly responsive to their interrogatory. He passes at once from his own authority, which he disdains to defend, to testify to the Messiah, whose forerunner he is. The synoptical Evangelists (Matt. 3:11, 12, note; Mark 1:7, 8; Luke 3:16, 17) report more fully John’s characterization of his own baptism and its contrast with that which the Messiah would inaugurate; one in water, the other in fire and the Holy Ghost; one a symbol, the other the thing symbolized; one a prophecy, the other its fulfillment.--=There standeth one among you whom ye know not.= That is, do not recognize as what he really is, the Messiah. It is not necessarily implied that Jesus Christ was present at this interview, and verse 29 implies that he was not. The language simply points to one apparently of the common people and unknown.--=Who cometh after me, whose shoe-latchet I am unworthy to unloose.= This is the true reading; the words is preferred before me have been added by some copyist from verse 15. On the significance of the expression, see notes on Matt. 3:11 and Luke 3:16. The latchet of the shoe is the leather thong with which the sandal was bound on to the foot or the shoe was laced. For illustration, see Mark 6:7-13, Vol. 1, p. 362.

28 These things were done in Bethabara[52] beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing.

[52] Judges 7:24.

=28. Bethabara.= The best reading here is Bethany; the common reading, Bethabara, is derived from Origen, who found such a place about opposite Jericho. The Bethany intended is certainly not the well-known town of that name on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, for this one was beyond Jordan. The site is unknown; it has been fixed by Origen as far south as Jericho; by Stanley, 30 miles north of Jericho, near Succoth; by Lightfoot, north of the Sea of Galilee. We can only say that it was probably at one of the fords of the Jordan, in the great eastern line of travel, and certainly at some point between the sea of Galilee and the neighborhood of Jericho. There are two traditional sites, one Greek, the other Latin, and both historically worthless.

29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb[53] of God, which taketh[54] away the sin of the world.

[53] Ex. 12:3; Isa. 53:7, 11; Rev. 5:6.

[54] Acts 13:39; 1 Pet. 2:24; Rev. 1:5.

=29. The next day.= Not merely, some following day, for the original Greek word (ἐπαύριον) never has this meaning in the N. T. It has been so rendered by some commentators here, in order to introduce the Temptation between the testimony of the Baptist to the delegation from Jerusalem and his testimony here uttered to his own disciples.--=He seeth Jesus.= The word John has been inserted by some copyists to make the meaning clearer.--=Coming toward him.= Not, as in our English version, unto him. The preposition employed (πρός) signifies simply direction. Why he was coming toward him is not a matter for profitable conjecture. Not, as some suppose, for baptism, for the temptation followed the baptism, and the order of events in John’s narrative follow each other so closely up to and after the marriage at Cana (vers. 35, 43; ch. 2:1), that no time is afforded for the temptation, which was forty days in duration, and which must have occurred prior to the interview between the Baptist and the Jewish delegation.--=And said.= Publicly, probably to his own disciples, perhaps to the multitude. This first preaching of Christ produced no observable effect. It was not till John repeated it on the following day (ver. 37) that any of his auditors followed Jesus.--=Behold the Lamb of God.= Not a lamb of God. The meaning cannot therefore be, Behold a pure and innocent man; an interpretation which would probably never have been conceived, but for the purpose of escaping the doctrine of atonement for sin, which can be escaped only by rejecting both the Old and the New Testaments in their entirety.--=Which taketh away.= This exactly represents the significance of the original verb (αἴρω), which means, not bears, or suffers, or releases from the penalty of, but takes away. For its non-metaphorical use, see Matt. 13:12, shall be taken away; 21:21, be removed; Luke 6:30, that taketh away thy goods; John 11:39, take away the stone; 11:48, the Romans shall take away both our place, etc. It thus corresponds almost exactly with the word (ἁφίηγι) ordinarily translated forgive. See Matt. 6:12, note. Observe that the verb is in the present tense, is taking away. The sacrifice has been offered once for all; but its effect is a continuous one. Christ is ever engaged in lifting up and taking away the sin of the world.--=The sin of the world.= Not sins from the world, which would be a very different matter. The sin is represented as one burden, which Christ as a whole lifts up and carries away. His redemption is not a limited redemption; it provides a finished salvation for the entire human race. See ch. 16:22, note.

Very unnecessary difficulty has been made respecting the interpretation of the Baptist’s simple metaphor here. The lamb was throughout the O. T. times commonly used for sacrifice as a sin-offering (Lev. 4:32); in cleansing the leper (Lev. 14:10); at the morning and evening sacrifice (Exod. 29:38); at all the great feasts (Numb. 28:11; 29:2, 13, 37; Lev. 23:19); and in large numbers on special occasions (1 Chron. 29:21; 2 Chron. 29:32; 35:7). The sacrifice of the paschal lamb at the Passover connected the lamb as a sacrifice with the greatest feast day of the nation, and with the national redemption from bondage and deliverance from death (Exod. 12:21-27). The ceremony with the scape-goat on the day of atonement, the only fast-day in the Jewish calendar, interpreted clearly, and by an annual symbol, the meaning of these sacrifices. On that day two kids of goats were chosen, closely resembling each other; one was slain as a sin-offering; over the other the high-priest confessed the sins of the people, “putting them on the head of the goat,” who was then led away into the wilderness, “to bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited” (Lev. 16:5-10, 20-22). Isaiah, with unmistakable reference to these typical sacrifices, declared that the Messiah should bear the sins and sorrows of the world as a lamb slaughtered (Isaiah 53:1-7); and the Baptist, speaking to a people whose national education had led them to regard the lamb as the type of sacrifice, through the shedding of whose blood there was a redemption, a carrying away of sins, points to Jesus with the declaration, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, that is, the true Sin-bearer, of whom all that went before were but types and prophecies. How he was to take away this load of sin the Baptist does not say, and probably did not know. That he did not realize that Christ was to be a true sacrifice for sin is indicated by his subsequent perplexity and message to Jesus (Matt. 11:2-6, note). Observe the analogy and the contrast between the O. T. and the N. T. Under the O. T. there were provided by the sinner lambs, whose sacrifice took sin away from the individual or the nation, but for the time only, and therefore the sacrifice needed to be continually repeated; under the N. T. one Lamb is provided, the Lamb of God, i. e., proceeding from and provided by God, as intimated by Abraham to Isaac (Gen. 22:8), whose sacrifice once for all (Heb. 10:10-12) takes away the sin of the whole world (1 John 2:2), and therefore never needs to be repeated. It is worthy of note that the word lamb is never used in the N. T. except in reference to Jesus Christ (John 1:29, 36; Acts 8:32; 1 Peter 1:19; Rev. 5:6, 8, 12, etc.). The word lambs in the plural form occurs twice, but both times refer to the disciples of Christ (Luke 10:3; John 21:15).

30 This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me.

31 And I knew him not: but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water.

=30, 31. After me cometh=, etc. See on verse 15.--=But that he should be made manifest to Israel therefore am I come=, etc. The object of the Baptist’s ministry was not then merely to preach repentance, but to preach repentance as a preparation for the coming of the kingdom of God in the incarnation of the King. And with this agrees his own definition of his mission (verse 23) and the other Evangelists’ epitome of his ministry (Matt. 3:2). The true office of the minister is always that Christ may be made manifest.

32 And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.

33 And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining[55] on him, the same is he which baptizeth[56] with the Holy Ghost.

[55] chap. 3:34.

[56] Acts 1:5; 2:4.

34 And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.

=32-34. And John witnessed.= Evidently the Evangelist here speaks of his witness at some period subsequent to the baptism, and therefore subsequent to the temptation which immediately succeeded the baptism.--=I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove.= That is, in the form of a dove. The vision was seen only by Jesus and John. On it see Matt. 3:16, note.--=And it abode upon him.= The Spirit of God, not the dove, abode. That John in some way recognized the abiding as a part of the sign of Christ’s Messiahship, is evident from the next verse; how he recognized it is not indicated.--=I also knew him not.= He connects himself with the people who knew him not (verse 26). =I=, as well as you, knew him not, till this sign was vouchsafed me. Why then did he at first object to baptizing Jesus, if he did not recognize in him the Christ (Matt. 3:14). He was second cousin of Jesus; knew him, probably, as a pure and holy man; perhaps knew the facts respecting Jesus’ birth, which were certainly known to John’s mother; may even have suspected that he was the promised Messiah; and at all events may have believed that he needed no baptism of repentance. He did not, however, know him to be the Messiah, and did not recognize him as such, till after the promised sign, and this followed the baptism of Jesus.--=Saw and bare witness.= That is, at that time. He refers the people to his witness-bearing at the time of the baptism, a testimony which was still fresh in their memory.

35 Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples:

36 And looking upon Jesus as he walketh, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!

37 And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.

=35-37. Again the next day.= That is, the day following the apparent public discourse, so briefly reported in the preceding verses (29-34).--=And two of his disciples.= See on their names verse 40 and note. As they were disciples of the Baptist it is to be presumed that they had been baptized, but by John’s baptism which was unto repentance and not in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. See Acts 19:3-5.--=As he walked.= Or, as we should say, As he was taking a walk. One of the numerous indications in the Gospels that Christ was a lover of nature, and accustomed to meditate and study in communion with nature.--=Saith, Behold the Lamb of God.= See on verse 29. Observe the practical value of line upon line. John’s private message recalls and repeats his public testimony. See Phil. 3:1.--=And the two disciples heard him speak.= He spoke possibly in soliloquy, more probably to them. It is clear that it was not a public discourse which is here reported. There is no ground for the hypothesis that the two disciples had not heard the discourse of the previous day. Rather the implication is that they had heard it, and these words uttered to them in private by their teacher, enforced the public lesson, and led them to seek further knowledge concerning the one who was pointed out to them as the Messiah. Observe how this passage teaches the value of personal work and personal influence. The first disciples are led to seek Christ, not by the public discourse, but by the private words of the Baptist; by private influence they bring Peter (41); by private invitation Philip is added to the disciples (43); and by his personal solicitation Nathanael is brought to Christ (45).--=And they followed Jesus.= Not, in the religious sense of the words, became followers of Jesus; not till later did they leave all to follow him (Luke, ch. 5). The simplest is also the truest interpretation of these words. They literally followed him; drawn partly by curiosity, partly, perhaps, by a real spiritual desire for closer acquaintance with the one whom their teacher designated as the Lamb of God.

38 Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, (which is to say being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou?

39 He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day: for it was about the tenth hour.

=38, 39. Jesus * * * saith unto them, What seek ye?= Not because he was ignorant of their purpose, for he knew what was in man (ch. 2:25; comp. Mark 2:8, etc.); but because he would draw them out. In a similar manner he opens conversation with the woman at the well (ch. 4:10, 16), with the disciples fishing at the sea of Galilee (ch. 21:5), and with the disciples on their way to Emmaus (Luke 24:17). Christ as a conversationalist is a study for the Christian. Observe how he opens the way and leads on to familiar acquaintance, first by his question, then by his invitation, finally by his hospitality.--=Rabbi * * * Master.= Rather, teacher, or doctor. Rabbi is a Hebrew word; teacher (διδάσκαλος) is its Greek equivalent. John, writing for the Gentile world, habitually translates the Hebrew phrases into their Greek equivalents.--=Where dwellest thou?= They are timid and dare not, or at least do not, express their whole desire. Often in the spiritual reticence, so common to the first experiences of the awakened soul, its real aspirations after truth are concealed beneath an assumed curiosity respecting some indifferent matter. Christ meets this non-pertinent if not impertinent curiosity with an invitation which attaches the two inquirers to him for life.--=Come and see.= Rather, Come and ye shall see. This is the best reading, and is given by Alford, Meyer, Tischendorf, Tregelles, etc. (ὄψεσθε not ἴδετε).--=And abode with him that day.= For the rest of the day.--=For it was about the tenth hour.= Reckoning from 6 A. M., according to Jewish fashion, this would make it 4 P. M. Observe, as indicative of the Evangelist John’s character, and of the force of the impression made on him from the outset by Christ, that he remembered not only the day, but the very hour, of his first interview with his subsequent Lord. This, too, is one of those minute touches which would not be found in either a mythical tradition or an ecclesiastical forgery.

40 One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.

41 He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ.

42 And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou[57] shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.

[57] Matt. 16:18.

=40-42. One of the two * * * was Andrew.= It is the almost universal belief of scholars that the other was John the Evangelist, an opinion which rests on the following considerations: (1) John never mentions himself in his Gospel; if he refers to himself at all it is never by name (ch. 13:23; 18:15; 19:26; 20:3; 21:20). (2) The name of the other disciple would have been mentioned if there had not been some special reason for not mentioning it, and John’s habit of suppressing his own name constitutes a sufficient reason; no other plausible reason has been suggested. (3) The minute accuracy of detail in this narrative, extending to the specification of the day and of the hour, justifies the belief that it is the narrative of an eye and ear witness. On the life and character of Andrew see note at close of Matt. ch. 10, Vol. 1.--=He first findeth his own brother.= Our English version is ambiguous if not misleading. The meaning is not, Before going to Jesus’ residence he found his own brother, but of the two he was the first to find Simon. The implication is that both went in search of him; all three, John, Andrew, and Simon were probably at the baptism of John the Baptist, and were his disciples. There is no evidence to sustain the hypothesis that John brought his brother James to Jesus at this time, or even that James was with John at the Jordan.--=The Messiah * * * the Christ.= One is a Hebrew, the other a Greek word. The meaning is the Anointed One. On the spiritual meaning of the names of Jesus, see note at close of Matt. ch. 1, Vol. I. Andrew’s exclamation of delight on finding the Messiah, eureka (εὐρήκαμεν, we have found), is the same attributed to Archimedes on his discovery of the adulteration of Hiero’s crown. He detected the mixture of silver in a crown which Hiero had ordered to be made of gold, and determined the proportions of the two metals by a method suggested to him by the overflow of the water when he stepped into a bath. When the thought struck him, he is said to have been so pleased that, forgetting to put on his clothes, he ran home shouting Eureka, Eureka, I have found it, I have found it. What is the grandest discovery compared with that which the soul makes when it finds its Messiah?--=Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation Peter.= Cephas is Hebrew; Peter is Greek; both words mean a stone. On the significance of this change of name, see Matt. 16:18, note. At the interview there reported Christ refers to the name here given, and confirms and interprets it; at least this is the view of the best Evangelical scholars, Meyer, Alford, Lange, Schaff; and it is more reasonable, on the whole, than the supposition that the Evangelist John anticipates and reports the change of name out of its place. The careful student will observe that here Christ’s language is that of prophecy: Thou shalt be called Peter; there it is the language of fulfillment. Thou art Peter. The apostle did not become Peter till he made the inspired confession of Christ as the divine Messiah, which is recorded in Matthew.

43 The day following. Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me.

44 Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.

45 Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses[58] in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

[58] Luke 24:27, 44.

=43-45. The day following.= That is, the day following the bringing of Peter to Jesus, which Meyer thinks occurred on the same day in which Andrew and John accompanied Jesus to his home, but which it appears to me, from verse 39, must have occurred on the following day; and this is the view of the ancient and of many of the modern expositors. In that case the order would be as follows: first day, John’s conference with the delegation from Jerusalem (19-28); second day, John’s public testimony to Jesus (29-34); third day, John’s private testimony to Jesus (35-39); fourth day, Peter brought to Jesus (40-42); fifth day, Nathanael brought to Jesus (43-51); seventh day, one day intervening, the marriage at Cana in Galilee (ch. 2:1, etc.).--=Findeth Philip and saith unto him, Follow me.= This is Christ’s first personal call of a disciple to follow him. There is no evidence that Philip ever withdrew from this personal following of Christ as did John and Peter and Andrew; they did not permanently attach themselves to Jesus till his subsequent call to them by the sea of Galilee (Luke 5:1-11). On Philip’s life, see note at close of Matt. 10, Vol. I. He is not to be confounded with Philip the deacon, mentioned in Acts 6:5; 8:5-12, etc.--=Bethsaida.= There is no good ground for the hypothesis that there were two towns of this name on or near the sea of Galilee. The city was on the northern shore, near the entrance of the Jordan into the sea. See Mark 6:45, note; and for illustration of site, John ch. 6.--=Philip findeth Nathanael.= Observe that the young disciple does not wait, but as soon as he has found Christ begins to declare his discovery to others. So with Andrew above (41), with the woman of Samaria (ch. 4:28, 29), with Paul after his conversion (Acts 9:20). Nathanael’s name occurs in the N. T. only here and in John 21:2. It is not among the list of apostles furnished by Matt. 10:2-5; Mark 3:16-19; Luke 6:14-16; and Acts 1:13. But they all mention, in close connection with Philip, a Bartholomew, which is not properly a name but only a patronymic, its meaning being Son of Tholmai. These facts have led most scholars to adopt, as a reasonable hypothesis, the opinion that Nathanael and Bartholomew are different names for the same person. The name Nathanael, like our Theodore, means gift of God.--=We have found him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write.= The reference is unmistakably to the Messiah. For references in the books of Moses to the promised Messiah, see Gen. 3:15 and 17:7, with Gal. 3:16, and Deut. 18:15-19.--=Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.= This is the language, not of the Evangelist, but of Philip. Unquestionably at that time Philip knew nothing of the supposed birth of Jesus; to him Jesus was, as to the Nazarenes subsequently (Matt. 13:54-56), simply the son of Joseph. The supposed inconsistency of this language and the account of Christ’s supernatural birth as given by Matthew, is therefore purely imaginary.

46 And Nathanael said unto him,[59] Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.

[59] chap. 7:41.

=46. Out of Nazareth is it possible that anything good can come!= There is a scornful emphasis on the word Nazareth not preserved in our English version. That Nazareth was an unimportant and insignificant town is indicated by the fact that it is neither mentioned in the O. T. nor in Josephus; that the moral condition of its inhabitants was below that of the rest of Galilee is indicated by the declaration of Mark 6:5, 6, and by the mob which threatened the life of Christ at a time when he was just growing into popularity elsewhere in Galilee (Luke 4:28-30). No other definite reason is known for the evident odium which attached to Nazareth even in the minds of Galileans. Comp. Matt. 2:23, note. The question of Nathanael furnishes a striking illustration of the spirit of prejudice in even good men. To Nathanael it seems impossible that the promised Prophet can appear elsewhere than in or near the city of the Great King.--=Come and see.= This is the best answer to make to unbelief. Christ is his own best witness (ch. 5:34). It is not merely true that “personal experience is the best test of the truth of Christianity, which, like the sun in heaven, can only be seen in its own light” (Schaff), but it is also true that Christ is a greater miracle than any he ever wrought; and that the supreme character of Christ carries in itself a moral conviction to hearts which resist all arguments drawn from nature. Of this truth John Stuart Mill, in his Three Essays on Religion, affords a striking illustration. After considering all the arguments for the existence and perfection of the Divine Being derived from nature, and declaring that Natural Religion points to a Being “of great but limited power,” “who desires and pays some regard to the happiness of his creatures, but who seems to have other motives of action which he cares more for,” he comes to the character of Christ, and not only pays a tribute to it, eloquent and reverent, but adds his conviction that it would not “even now be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete, than to endeavor so to live that Christ would approve our life.” Chrysostom notices the gentleness and candor of Philip’s reply; he furnishes a model to all disputants in dealing with religious prejudice. See 2 Tim. 2:24.

47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold[60] an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!

[60] Ps. 32:2; Rom. 2:28, 29.

48 Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw[61] thee.

[61] Ps. 139:1, 2.

49 Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou[62] art the Son of God; thou art the King[63] of Israel.

[62] chap. 20:28, 29; Matt. 14:33.

[63] Matt. 21:5; 27:11.

=47-49. An Israelite indeed.= Because in faith and love a true child of God. Comp. Luke 19:9; Romans 2:28, 29; Gal. 3:29; 6:15, 16. For O. T. description of such an Israelite, see Psalm 15.--=In whom is no guile.= Therefore, characteristically unlike the Pharisees, whose pride it was that they were children of Abraham (Luke 3:8; John 8:33), and who were full of hypocrisy (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16; 23:14-33).--=Whence knowest thou me?= As Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:5, 6, notes), so Nathanael is surprised by the Lord’s reading of his character and inward experience.--=When thou wast under the fig-tree.= The whole course of the narrative indicates in this response a supernatural sight, as in the previous characterization of Nathanael a supernatural insight. If Christ had merely chanced to see Nathanael without being seen by him, this fact would afford, surely, no basis for Nathanael’s faith, or Christ’s commendation of it. It seems also clear that something more is implied than the mere fact that Christ saw Nathanael under a fig-tree, since that would neither explain Christ’s commendation of him as an Israelite without guile, nor Nathanael’s astonishment. Hence the surmise of the commentators that he had retired there for purposes of prayer, and that Christ had seen him there, like the Israel from whom he descended (Gen. 32:24-23) wrestling with God, for the bestowal of the long-promised blessing to his realm, in the gift of the Messiah. It was probably this revelation of the secret of his soul which caused Christ to characterize him as a true Israelite, and Nathanael to recognize in the One who read his inmost life so perfectly, the King of Israel.--=The Son of God * * * the King of Israel.= The Messiah. See Ps. 2:7; Matt. 16:16; Luke 22:70; John 1:34; 11:27. Observe that Christ recognizes and accepts this characterization of himself at the outset of his ministry, a quite sufficient refutation of the theory of Renan, that it was the outgrowth of his followers’ later admiration, and tacitly accepted by Christ at or near the close of his earthly life. That Nathanael fully comprehended the meaning of his own confession is not, however, probable.

50 Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these.

51 And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you. Hereafter ye shall see heaven[64] open, and the angels[65] of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.

[64] Ezek. 1:1.

[65] Gen. 28:12; Dan. 7:9, 10; Acts 1:10, 11.

=50, 51.= There is some difficulty respecting the proper interpretation of Christ’s promise here. The word hereafter is rather henceforth; but it is omitted by the best critics, e. g., Alford, Tischendorf, Lachmann. The figure is undoubtedly drawn from the vision of Jacob (Israel) of the ladder between heaven and earth, and the angels ascending and descending on it (Gen. 28:12). Some suppose the reference to the angelic appearances to Christ, and the divine signs given in attestation of his mission (ver. 32; Matt. 4:11; Luke 2:13; 9:29-31; 22:43), but the earlier of these had already taken place, and Nathanael was neither present at the temptation, at the transfiguration, nor at the garden of Gethsemane. Chrysostom refers in addition to the angelic appearances at the resurrection, but they by no means furnish a literal fulfillment of the promise. Some interpret it spiritually, of the manifest opening of the heavens and the intercommunication between earth and heaven, through Jesus Christ. So Maurice: “Faithful and true Israelite! the vision to thy progenitor who first bore that name, shall be substantiated for thee, and for those who trust in me in lonely hours, through clouds and darkness, as thou hast done. The ladder set upon earth and reaching to heaven--the ladder upon which the angels of God ascended and descended--is a ladder for thee and for all. For the Son of man, who joins earth to heaven, the seen to the unseen, God and man in one, He is with you; through Him your spirits may arise to God; through Him God’s Spirit shall come down upon you.” Similarly Luther, Calvin, Tholuck, Alford, and others. But this interpretation is not wholly satisfactory, since it converts Christ’s words into an allegory, and deprives them of all literal meaning. According to this view the angels are but spiritual blessings, the open heavens are not seen, and the angelic appearances are not upon the Messiah, but through him to mankind. A third interpretation connects Christ’s words here with his analogous declarations in Matt. 25:31; 26:64, etc., and refers it to his Second Coming. So Ryle: “When He comes the second time to take his great power and reign, the words of this text shall be literally fulfilled. His believing people shall see heaven open, and a constant communication kept up between heaven and earth--the tabernacle of God with men, and the angels visibly ministering to the King of Israel, and King of all the earth.” I believe that these three views are congruous and consistent, and are all embraced in the promise. Christ opened the communication between earth and heaven; manifested that fact by the angelic appearances which accompanied his coming, his presence, and his departure; still manifests it, by the spiritual blessings which he constantly confers in answer to the prayers of his people; and will finally manifest it yet more gloriously when he comes to take possession of his established kingdom, with his holy angels with him. The past and present fulfillments of this prophecy are but fragmentary and imperfect. The final and perfect fulfillment awaits us in the future.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter II

Ch. 2:1-11. THE MARRIAGE AT CANA IN GALILEE. CHRISTIANITY NOT ASCETICISM.

This miracle is recounted only by the Evangelist John. That fact does not discredit the account: it incidentally confirms the view that he wrote to supply what was lacking in the other Gospels.

1 And the third day there was a marriage in Cana[66] of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there.

[66] ch. 4:46; Joshua 19:28.

2 And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage.[67]

[67] Heb. 13:4.

=1, 2. The third day.= That is, probably, after the interview with Nathanael described at the close of the preceding chapter. Lightfoot says that, according to Jewish custom, the weddings of virgins took place on the fourth day of the week, our Wednesday, and of widows on the fifth day, our Thursday.--=There was a marriage.= For description of wedding ceremonies among the Jews, with illustration of wedding procession, see Matt. 25:1-13, Prel. Note.--=In Cana of Galilee.= The traditional site is Kefr Kenna, four and one-half miles northwest of Nazareth. The more probable site is about nine miles north of Nazareth and six or eight hours from Capernaum. See Map, Vol. I, p. 50. Robinson describes it as a fine situation, and once a considerable village of well-built houses. They are now uninhabited and the whole region is wild and desolate.--=And the mother of Jesus was there.= Her name is never mentioned by John. The fact that Joseph is not mentioned in either of the Gospels, after Christ’s manhood, has led to the universal opinion that he was dead. The presence of Mary, and her apparent authority (ver. 5), indicates that the bride or bridegroom were connections or relatives. Different traditions represent respectively Alphæus, one of his sons, John the Apostle, and Simon the Canaanite as the bridegroom, but they are all equally untrustworthy. The Mormons maintain that this was the marriage of Jesus himself.The student will observe that it is said of Mary that she was there, of Jesus that he was called, an indication that he came at a later period, and probably after the marriage feast, which usually lasted for several days, had begun.--=And his disciples.= Probably those who had already begun to follow him, though not yet ordained as apostles, nor summoned by him to leave their regular avocations to become his constant companions. These were Andrew, John, Simon Peter, Philip, and Nathanael, and they were probably invited because they were with Christ, and out of consideration for him.

3 And when[68] they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine.

[68] Eccles. 10:19; Isa. 24:11.

=3. And the wine failing.= Not merely, as in our English version, when they wanted wine. The implication is that wine had been provided, but the supply proved insufficient. Possibly the unexpected addition of the five disciples of Christ exhausted it.--=The mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine.= Why did she appeal to him? There is certainly no ground for such an explanation as that of Bengel, that she meant to give a hint to Jesus and his disciples to go away! Nor is there any evidence that she asked him to work a miracle, or even definitely anticipated or desired it. If she were in any way responsible for the success of the feast, and the supply was falling short, the appeal for help to her son was natural; and it was specially so, if, as modern customs in the Orient indicate (see Ellicott’s Life of Christ, p. 118), the guests often contribute to the supplies at such entertainments. Along with this desire to do the bride and bridegroom a favor, there may have been, as Chrysostom suggests, a desire through her son to render herself conspicuous, and a vague and inexpressible feeling that he could, if he would, supply the want by a miracle, as Elijah supplied the widow’s cruse (1 Kings 17:14-16). And his quasi rebuke, if rebuke it be, may have been addressed to this mother’s vanity.

4 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.

=4. Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.= Some question has been made respecting the meaning of this language. It is clear (1) that woman is not a harsh term, and involves no tone of rebuke or reproof; for when Christ on the cross commends his mother to John’s care, he uses the same term, “Woman, behold thy son” (ch. 19:26); (2) the Greek phrase (τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοὶ) is properly rendered in our English version, What have I to do with thee? Though literally capable of the translation proposed by Dr. Adam Clarke, What is this to thee and me? that is, What is this to us? the uniform usage of the N. T. forbids this translation. The Greek is the same in the following passages, where the translation cannot be other than that given both there and here. Matt. 8:29, note; Mark 1:24; 5:7; Luke 8:28. I can only understand it as a disclaimer on Christ’s part of any responsibility in the matter, and an intimation that in his future mission he was not, as he had heretofore been, subject unto his mother. There may also be in it implied a gentle rebuke of her endeavor to elicit from him some display of his miraculous power, before the time for the commencement of his public ministry. Chrysostom interprets her spirit here by that of Christ’s brethren (ch. 7:4), and his reply by his refusal, later, to turn aside from his work at her solicitation (Matt. 12:47, 48). Evidently she did not regard his language as that of refusal, for she expects his aid, and bids the servants do his bidding. “She read a yes latent in his apparent no.”--(Trench.)--=Mine hour is not yet come.= Not mine hour to die, though that is usually the signification of this oft-repeated phrase in John’s Gospel (ch. 7:30; 8:20; 12:23, 27; 13:1); but that would be here meaningless; nor, The hour to work this miracle, because the wine is not yet wholly exhausted, or the guests are not conscious of the lack, and have not asked for supply; but, The hour for me to begin my public ministry, accompanied as it is to be with the working of miracles, the hour for my manifestation. The Protestant commentaries see in the language here a rebuke of the spirit of Mariolatry, in this following the fathers; e. g., Chrysostom: “The answer was not that of one rejecting his mother, but of One who would show her that having borne him would have availed nothing, had she not been very good and faithful;” and Augustine: “As God he has no mother. And now that he was about to perform a divine work, he ignores, as it were, the human womb, and asks, ‘Woman, what have I to do with thee?’ as much as to say, Thou art not the mother of that in me which works miracles; thou art not the mother of my Godhead.”

5 His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever[69] he saith unto you, do it.

[69] Luke 5:5, 6.

=5. His mother saith onto the servants.= The fact that there were servants, and more than one, indicates that the family was in at least comfortable if not opulent circumstances. Christ associated with the rich as readily as with the poor; but the rich did not, as readily as the poor, associate with him. Her direction to the servants and their unquestioning obedience indicates that in this marriage festival she had some degree of authority.

6 And there were set there six water-pots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece.

7 Jesus saith unto them, Fill the water-pots with water. And they filled them up to the brim.

8 And he saith unto them, Draw[70] out now, and bear unto the governor[71] of the feast. And they bare it.

[70] Eccles. 9:7.

[71] Rom. 13:7.

=6-8.= The forms of the water-pot and of the ewer, with which the water was drawn or dipped out, are shown in the accompanying illustration. The water-pots may have set in the room; more probably in an ante-room or in the courtyard of the house. The fact that the water was provided for purifying is stated to account for the presence of so much water; and the reference to the manner of the Jews is added for the Gentile readers, for whom John especially wrote. On these ceremonial washings, see Mark 7:2-5, notes. The firkin (μετρητης) is equivalent to 8⅞ gallons; the whole amount of water, therefore, was between 100 and 150 gallons. Since the jars were filled to the brim, the water was apparent after they were filled; there was, therefore, no room for fraud or mistake. The statement of the exact number and proximate size indicates that we have here the description of an eye-witness. It also indicates that there were a large number of guests.

The quantity of wine made by Christ on this occasion has been the subject of some hostile criticism, as though it were an invitation to excessive drinking. But (1) there is no evidence that any more wine was created than was used. Whether it was changed in the stone jars, or as it was carried to the guests, does not appear; (2) in Palestine, a wine-growing and wine-consuming country, where it is not merely a beverage, but the beverage of the common people, four or five barrels of wine would not seem so extraordinary a supply as it would to us, nor would it produce any such effect in the consumption as an equal amount of the ordinary wines of to-day; (3) it is God’s way to pour out his bounty, not only in abundance, but in superabundance. As Christ created, not merely barely enough bread for the 5,000, but the disciples, after all were fed, gathered up twelve baskets full, so we may well believe that here he created not barely sufficient for the hour, but a superabundance which remained to bless the home after the departure of the guests. On the probable character of this wine, see below, Note on Christ’s example in the use of wine.

9 When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants[72] which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom,

[72] ch. 7:17; Ps. 119:100.

10 And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine[73] until now.

[73] Ps. 104:15; Prov. 9:2, 5.

=9, 10. The ruler of the feast.= The same word as governor of the feast, in the preceding verse. Among the Greeks and Romans, a ruler of the feast (symposiarch) was commonly chosen, usually by lot, who regulated the whole order of the festivities, proposed the amusements, etc. A reference in the Apocrypha (Eccles. 32:1, 2) indicates that the same practice prevailed among the Jews. There is no ground for supposing the ruler of the feast in this case to have been other than a guest, who occupied this honorary office.--=But the servants knew, they having drawn the water.= Not merely, the servants which drew, knew; the reason of their knowledge is indicated; they knew because they had themselves filled the jars with the water, and drawn it out.--=Called the bridegroom.= Called out to him, probably across the table. The language which follows is sportive, and characteristic of such an occasion of festivity.--=Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men are drunken, then that which is worse.= The verb rendered in our English version “have well drunk” is literally are drunken. It is in the passive voice. This does not necessarily imply that in the East men counted on the inebriacy of their guests, and for that reason provided the best wine first, still less that the guests here were intoxicated. “The man says only in joke, as if it were a general experience, what he certainly may have often observed.”--(Meyer.) The ancient commentators have observed the difference between the feasts of the world and the feasts of Christ; the world gives its best wine at first, and when men have become intoxicated with it, then the poor, as the prodigal son experienced (Luke 15:13-16); Christ ever reserves the good wine to the last. See this thought beautifully drawn out by Jeremy Taylor in his Life of Christ. Comp. John 4:13, 14.

11 This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested[74] forth his glory: and his disciples believed[75] on him.

[74] ch 1:14.

[75] 1 John 5:13.

=11. This beginning of miracles.= An incidental and indirect testimony that the miracles of Christ’s infancy, narrated in the apocryphal Gospels, are spurious.--And manifested forth his glory. Observe his glory; the miracles of the disciples did not manifest forth their glory, but that of their Lord (Acts 3:8; 14:11-15).--=And his disciples believed in him.= That is, the five that had already begun to follow him. But what or how much they believed is not indicated. They began to have that confidence in him which was not consummated till after his resurrection.

In respect to this miracle, observe, (1) The simplicity of the narrative. John does not directly assert that the water was made wine, nor that a miracle was performed, nor does he deduce any conclusion from the event; he simply narrates what he saw and heard--the jars filled with water, the contents drawn out, the testimony of the governor of the feast to the excellence of the wine carried to him; the reader is left to draw his own conclusion. (2) The utter failure of all naturalistic explanations, such as that Christ simply accelerated the process of nature, or changed the attributes of the water after the analogy of mineral waters, so as to give it the taste and appearance of wine, or that the taste and semblance of wine was due to a state of spiritual exaltation on the part of the company, all of which views have had defenders even among orthodox critics. See Lange’s and Meyer’s Commentaries for a statement of these and kindred interpretations. Meyer well says, respecting them all, “Instead of a transmutation of water we have a frivolous transmutation of history.” (3) The impossibility of deception or fraud. The jars are those belonging to the household; they are filled to the brim with water; it is drawn out by the servants; the judgment respecting the wine is pronounced by the governor of the feast, who does not know of the miracle. (4) The analogy of nature. “He who made the wine at this wedding does the same thing every year in the vines. As the water which the servants put into the water-pots was turned into wine by the Lord, so that which the clouds pour down is turned into wine by the same Lord. It excites no wonder in us, because it occurs every year.”--(Augustine.) (5) The moral and spiritual significance of the miracle. Contrast Christ’s ready consent to convert water into wine to add to the festivities of others, with his refusal to convert stones into bread to supply his own imperative needs (Matt. 4:3, 4); his conversion of water into wine, the symbol of inspiration and life, with the first miracle of Moses, who converted water into blood, an instrument and a symbol of death (Exod. 7:20, 21)--Christ brings life and power, Moses brings law and condemnation (Rom. 7:8, 9); his entrance on his ministry by attendance on a marriage festivity, and his miracle to prolong its festivities, with the asceticism of John the Baptist (Luke 1:15; Matt. 3:4). Compare his inauguration of the new covenant by a miracle at a marriage with God’s inauguration of the old covenant by ordaining and creating the marriage relation (Gen. 1:21-24). Notice in this miracle a type of Christ’s redeeming love, who converts the water of the law into the wine of the Gospel, and every soul which hears and obeys his creative command into an inspiring life-giving spirit (John 5:21; 6:33; 1 Cor. 15:45). Observe the fundamental lesson, that Christ’s example bids us not to withdraw from the world, nor abstain from its use, but to use without abusing it (1 Cor. 7:31), and that the assertion that Christianity bids men “make this earth as unpleasant to themselves as possible so as to secure hereafter the joys of heaven,” is a monstrous perversion of the teaching and example of Jesus Christ. Comp. Matt. 9:9, 10; 11:19; Luke 7:36; 11:37; 14:1; John 12:1, 2.

* * * * *

CHRIST’S EXAMPLE IN THE USE OF WINE. 1. The facts. These are that Christ inaugurated his public ministry by attending a wedding feast, and there by a miracle creating a large quantity of wine--certainly all that the guests could use--for the simple purpose of prolonging the festivities of the occasion; that he was accustomed throughout his life to attend social gatherings where wine was freely used; that he used it freely himself, notwithstanding the fact that it subjected him to the reproaches and the misrepresentations of his enemies (Matt. 11:19; Luke 7:34); that he never directly or indirectly condemns the use of wine, though he does condemn drunkenness (Matt. 24:49; Luke 12:45); and that he directs its use by his church as a perpetual memorial of his atoning love, and employs it as a symbol of joy and fellowship in the world to come (Matt. 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:18; 1 Cor. 10:16). The force of this example is strengthened by the reflection that drunkenness was common in the East before Christ’s day (Esther 1:10; Isa. 5:22; 28:7; Dan. 5:2-4; Hosea 4:11), and in Palestine and the neighboring countries during Christ’s lifetime, so that even the church of Christ had need of constant admonition against it (Matt. 24:49; Luke 15:13; Rom. 13:13; 1 Cor. 11:21; Gal. 5:21; 1 Pet. 4:3); that a Jewish Sect existed, the Essenes (Matt. 3:7, note), who were total abstainers, with whom Christ never identified himself; and that he directly contrasts his life and example with that of John the Baptist (Matt. 11:19), who, as a Nazarite, was pledged against the use of wine and strong drink (Luke 1:15; Numb. 6:3). Attempts have been made to show that the wine which Christ made on this occasion and used on other occasions was not fermented. It is certain that there were in use in the Greek and Roman world, and presumptively in Palestine, three kinds of wine--fermented wines, which, however, were unlike our own fiery wines and contained only a small percentage of alcohol, and which were usually mixed in the use with water, in the proportion of two or three parts of water to one of wine; new wine, made of the juice of the grape, and, like our new cider, not fermented and not intoxicating; and wines in which, by boiling the unfermented juice of the grape, or by the addition of certain drugs, the process of fermentation had been stopped, and the formation of alcohol prevented. It is claimed that fermented wine was not used at the Passover, though I can find no other reason for this opinion than the fact that leavened, i. e., fermented bread was prohibited--a prohibition the sole object of which was to remind the Jews of the haste of the original passover. Paul’s language in 1 Cor. 11:21 (see note there) makes it evident that fermented wine was used by the primitive church in the administration of the Lord’s Supper; and the Rabbinical rule, requiring water to be mixed with the wine at the paschal feast (see Lightfoot on Matt. 26:27), lest drunkenness should disgrace it, makes it equally evident that wine was used in the original O. T. festival. There is nothing in the language of the N. T. to indicate any discrimination between fermented and unfermented wines; Christ himself never directly or indirectly discriminates between them; neither do any of his apostles; and it is apparently indicated if not necessarily implied in the account here, and in other passages, that it was the ordinary fermented wine which Christ employed; see especially Matt. 11:19, “Behold a glutton and a wine-bibber,” and Matt. 9:17, “No man having drunk old (fermented) wine, straightway desireth new (that of the last vintage and unfermented), for he saith the old is better.” The language of Mark 14:25, “I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine,” etc., plainly implies that he had been accustomed to drink it freely and as a beverage with his followers. I judge then that Christ here made, and throughout his life ordinarily used, fermented wine; and this is the nearly unanimous judgment of the best unprejudiced Biblical scholars. The opposite opinion is of later origin, an after-thought, the product not of impartial Biblical research, but of the temperance reformation. (2) Significance of these facts. It appears to me clear, in the light of these facts, that neither Christ’s precept nor his example can be cited in favor of the doctrine of total abstinence, as a universal and permanent obligation from all use of wine, even as a beverage; that it rather indicates that he recognizes the right and propriety of so using it; and that the doctrine and practice of total abstinence must be maintained, if at all, not by any specific precept, nor by the general course of Christ’s life, but from local and perhaps temporary considerations, and solely on the ground that the Christian must always be willing to surrender a lawful gratification for the sake of a higher good, either to himself or to others (Matt. 5:29, 30; Rom. 14:21; 1 Cor. 6:12). It is equally clear that neither Christ’s precepts nor his example justifies the ordinary drinking usages of American society of to-day, with its bars, its wine-shops, its beer-gardens, its fiery wines and strong liquors, and all its attendant evils. The ordinary wine of to-day is a very different article from that in Christ’s day. The word is the same, the thing is different. And the usages are equally different. It is not my province here to enter into a general discussion of the temperance question, or even of the Bible teaching on the subject; but for the convenience of the student I add, from my Dictionary of Religious Knowledge, a tabular view of the principal Bible passages which bear on the subject, either for or against the use of wines.

THE BIBLE

COMMENDS WINE: CONDEMNS WINE:

_As an offering to God As a cause of violence and woe: with oil and wheat_: Prov. 4:17; 23:29-32. Numb. 18:12. Neh. 10:37-39. Of self-security and irreligion: Isa. 28:7; 56:12. As a blessing to man: Hab. 2:5. Gen. 27:28-37. Deut. 7:13. As a poison: Judges 9:13. Deut. 32:33. Prov. 3:10. Prov. 23:31. Isa. 65:8. Hosea 7:5. Joel 3:18. Ps. 104:15. _As an accompaniment of Zech. 9:17. wickedness_: Isa. 5:22. _As an emblem of spiritual blessing_: _As an emblem of divine Isa. 55:1. wrath_: Sol. Song 7:9. Ps. 60:3; 75:8. Isa. 51:17. _As a perpetual memorial Jer. 25:15. of Christ’s atoning Rev. 14:10; 16:19. sacrifice_: Matt. 26:26-29. _By the example of priests Mark 14:22-25. on entering the tabernacle_: 1 Cor. 10:16. Lev. 10:8-11.

As a medicine: Of Rechabites: Prov. 31:6, 7. Jer. 35:6. 1 Tim. 5:23. Of Nazarites: _By the example of Jesus Numb. 6:2, 3. Christ_: John 2:1-11. Of Daniel: Luke 7:34. Dan. 1:8, 12.

* * * * *

Ch. 2: 12-22. CHRIST CASTS THE TRADERS OUT OF THE TEMPLE. AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST.--A SYMBOL OF THE WORK OF CHRIST.--AN EXAMPLE TO THE FOLLOWERS OF CHRIST.

This incident is narrated only by John. It is not to be confounded with the second casting out narrated by the synoptists. See note on Matt. 21:12, 13. This occurred at the first Passover in Christ’s public ministry; that at the last. There is a significance in the repetition. It indicates both the tendency of a corrupt church to corruption in spite of cleanings, a truth unhappily abundantly illustrated in history; and the persistence of Christ’s zeal, a quality imperfectly reflected in the zeal of his disciples. The probable date of this event was March, A. D. 28.

12 After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and they continued there not many days.

=12. Went down to Capernaum.= From Cana, which was the hill country, to Capernaum, which was on the shore of the sea of Galilee. For description of Capernaum, see Matt. 4:13. It would be on the natural though not necessary route from Cana to Jerusalem. This visit is not to be confounded with Christ’s permanent change of residence from Nazareth to Capernaum, which resulted from the mob in the former city (Luke 4:28-31); this did not take place till after the imprisonment of John the Baptist (Matt. 4:12, 13). The statement that they continued not there many days, distinguished this visit from that permanent change of residence.--=His mother and his brethren and his disciples.= His public ministry had not yet fully begun; he had not, therefore, yet left his mother and brethren to devote himself to his work. That these were real brethren, not cousins or other relations, I think is clear, though by many doubted. See note on “Brethren of our Lord,” Vol. I, p. 187.

13 And the Jews’ passover[76] was at hand, and Jesus[77] went up to Jerusalem,

[76] Ex. 12:14.

[77] Verse 23; chap. 5:1; 6:4; 11:55.

=13. And the Jews’ Passover was at hand.= For origin of Passover see Exodus, ch. 12; for some account of its ceremonies see Matt. 26:26-30, Prel. Note.--=And Jesus went up to Jerusalem.= Observe, that he was accustomed to attend the Jewish feasts as well as the synagogue services. The corruption of the church did not cause his withdrawal from its public services (ch. 10:25).

14 And found[78] in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:

[78] Matt. 21:12; Mark 11:15; Luke 19:45.

=14. In the temple.= Historically there were three temples: Solomon’s (1 Kings, ch. 6, 7; 2 Chron., ch. 3, 4), the temple of Zerubbabel, constructed at the time of the restoration under Nehemiah (Ezra 3:8-11; 6:3-5), and Herod’s. The latter, named for its builder, Herod the Great (Matt. 2:1, note), is the one mentioned here and elsewhere in the N. T. Its site, established with as much certainty as any in the N. T., was a rock platform in the southeast corner of Jerusalem, now occupied by the Mohammedan Mosque of Omar. In its erection ten thousand skilled workmen were employed; among them one thousand priests especially instructed in the arts of the stonecutter and the carpenter. The result was a temple whose architectural magnificence is thought never to have been surpassed in ancient or modern times. It was less a building than a collection of buildings, and covered an area of over nineteen acres. The stone was white marble, the roof cedar, the architecture probably a combination of the Greek and the Roman. On the east it overlooked the valley of the Cedron, forming an effective fortification. It also served as a defence on the north, where adjoined the tower of Antonia, the barracks of the Roman soldiery. On the south a single gateway, on the west four gateways, gave exit and entrance. On the east it was connected by a bridge over the Tyrophœan valley with Mount Zion, the site of Solomon’s and later of Herod’s palace. The remains of this bridge have been lately discovered. The annexed ground plan, from Henry Ward Beecher’s “Life of Christ,” will enable the reader to understand the internal structure of the temple. The illustration in Vol. I, p. 257, will give an idea of its external appearance. The reader is there supposed to be on the Mount of Olives looking down upon the temple from the east; Mount Zion with its palaces and towers is in the background; the long-roofed structure on the left, that is, the south, is the royal cloister or Stoa basilica. This is minutely described by Josephus (Ant. 15:11, 5). It consisted of a nave and two aisles, the side toward the country being closed by a wall, that toward the temple proper being open. It was 105 feet in breadth, 600 feet in length; the centre aisle was 100 feet high, the side aisles 50. The roof of cedar was supported by 102 Corinthian columns of white marble, the floor was a magnificent mosaic. Between this cloister and the temple structure was the open court of the Gentiles. It was open to all, heathen and Jew alike, and was used for the purpose of social and intellectual exchange, as well as for religious processional services. Here Christ (Matt. 21:23), and subsequently his disciples (Luke 24:53; Acts 5:21, 42), taught the people. Inscriptions in Greek and Latin forbade the heathen from passing beyond this court, under penalty of death. For a supposed infringement of this law Paul was mobbed (Acts 21:26-30). Within were the successive courts of the women, of Israel, of the priests. In this latter was the sacred furniture and utensils, the table of shewbread, the altar, the laver, etc. In the heart of this enclosure, investing all with a mysterious sacredness, was the Holy of Holies, veiled from even priestly gaze by the curtain, which was subsequently rent in twain at the time of Christ’s death (Matt. 27:57). This Holy of Holies, 90 × 30 feet, is seen in the illustration of the temple as restored, in the centre of the building; it constituted the most prominent feature. It was in the outer court of the Gentiles that the sheep and cattle and money-changers had gathered. The scattered Israelites were unable to bring in person the sacrifices for the altar. The Mosaic law permitted them to sell their first-fruits, and with the money purchase their gifts at Jerusalem (Deut. 14:24-26). They were also required to pay for the support of the temple service a half-shekel (Exod. 3:11-16; Matt. 17:24-27, notes). This must be paid in Jewish money, for Gentile coin would pollute the sacred coffers. Thus, gradually, the feast-days became great market-days, as they still are among the nomadic tribes of the Mohammedan religion. The priesthood, sharing in the profits, suffered the traffickers gradually to intrude into and occupy the outer court of the temple. Thus, not only were the religious services of the Jews disturbed by the bleating of sheep, the lowing of cattle, the cooing of doves, the clangor of the money-changers, and the hum of a busy market, but the Gentiles were absolutely driven from all participation in the religious benefits of the temple. To their exclusion Christ referred in the second expulsion (Mark 11:15-19, note). The priests winked not only at the sacrilege, but also at the double defrauding of God and man which accompanied it (Mal. 1:7, 8). The court of the Gentiles was worse than a market-place; it was a den of thieves. Thus Christ’s act was not only a vehement protest against the sacrilege which suffers business to encroach on the house and worship of God, but also a rebuke of the bigotry which is indifferent to the religious wants and worship of men not of our race, faith, or companionship.--=Those that sold cattle, sheep, and doves.= For sacrifices under the Levitical law; sheep, rams, lambs, goats, kids, bulls, cows, calves, doves, and sparrows were offered for this purpose. All sacrifices were required to be offered by the priesthood and in the temple. On the great feast-days, when the population of Jerusalem was increased to a million or more, the traffic must have been both large and profitable.--=And the changers of money.= Money-changers had in Greece and Rome their stalls or tables in the streets and market-places for the purpose of exchanging the coin of one nation for another. They are still to be found in Jerusalem, seated by their little glass cases, in which are saucers of brass filled with coins of silver and gold, of every size and value.

15 And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables;

16 And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.

=15, 16. And when he had made a scourge of rushes.= The original indicates that the scourge was made of the rushes which were used to bed the cattle. Christ picked these up from the floor and wove them together into a whip. Of course this fragile lash would not do much real execution. It was used as one might use a switch to alarm and so drive out the animals. The original shows very clearly that it was used for this purpose alone, and not to threaten the men with physical chastisement.--=He drove all out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle.= This is the correct rendering; our English version is ambiguous and so misleading.--=And poured out the changers’ money.= Poured it out upon the floor. This prevented their resisting, for it occupied their energies to pick up and save the coin.--=And said unto them that sold doves.= It is noteworthy that he drove out the sheep and cattle, which the owners could reclaim in the streets, but did not set the doves free, which would thus have been lost to their owners. A true Christian indignation never blinds to the true rights even of the most flagrant wrong-doers.--=Make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise.= Compare Christ’s language at the second expulsion, Mark 11:17, note.

17 And his disciples remembered that it was written,[79] The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.

[79] Psalm 69:9.

=17. And his disciples remembered=, etc. At the time, not afterward; if this had been meant it would have been expressed, as in ver. 22. It is not here stated that the utterance in Ps. 69:9 was a prophecy which Christ fulfilled; simply that his course recalled the language there. The fact indicates the vigor and intensity of Christ’s zeal in the manner and spirit of his action, as well as in the act itself.

This and the subsequent purification of the temple during the Passion week, indicate in Christ a vigor and intensity of character, and a power of indignation, which modern thought rarely attributes to him. They interpret the suggestive description of Christ’s personal appearance given by John in Rev. 1:13-16, the only hint of his personal appearance afforded by the New Testament. We can imagine that in this expulsion his eyes were as flames of fire, his feet firm in their tread like feet of brass, his voice as the sound of the ocean, his words as a two-edged sword. This indignation was aroused by (a) the sacrilegious covetousness which made God’s house a house of merchandise; (b) the fraud which converted it into a den of thieves; (c) the selfishness of the bigotry which excluded the heathen from the only court reserved for them. It should inspire in his disciples a like spirit of indignation (a) against the sacrilegious covetousness which converts the house of God into a mart of merchandise, whether by the sale of indulgences, masses, and prayers to others, or by employing it not for the praise of God but for the social and pecuniary profit of the pretended worshipper; (b) against the bigotry which permits us to look with indifference upon the exclusion of the poor, the outcast, the despised from the privileges of God’s house. It is a type of (a) the cleansing which Christ comes to do for every soul, which is a temple of God (1 Cor. 3:16), and out of which all unclean things must be driven by the power of God, before it is fit for God’s indwelling; (b) the final cleansing when he will come to cast out all things that defile and work abomination (Rev. 21:27). Observe that in Revelation the world is represented as dreading “the wrath of the Lamb.” Christ’s example here does not justify the use of physical force by the church to cleanse it from corruption; for Christ did not employ physical force. His whip was not a weapon; the power before which the traders fled was the moral power of Christ, strengthened by the concurring judgment of their own consciences and the moral sense of the mass of the people (Mark 11:15, note).

18 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign[80] showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?

[80] ch. 6:30; Matt. 12:38, etc.

19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy[81] this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

[81] Matt. 26:61; 27:40.

=18, 19. What sign showest thou unto us?= What evidence of authority to expel from the temple practices allowed by the priesthood. They questioned not the right of an inspired prophet to act thus, but the authority of Jesus as a prophet. The moral power before which all quailed was the greatest of signs; but to that they were indifferent. “They required signs to be proved by signs.”--(Bengel.) No other authority for any reformation is ever required than the power and grace to achieve it. The same question was repeated at the second cleansing, but it elicited a very different answer (Matt. 21:23).--=Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.= In interpreting this passage observe that (1) John himself explicitly declares Christ’s meaning, “He spake of the temple of his body” (ver. 21); (2) that not only the Jews, who might have willfully perverted Christ, misunderstood his meaning, but his own followers did not, till after his death, understand him (ver. 22); hence (3) the hypothesis that he pointed to himself when he said, “Destroy this temple,” is not only unnecessary but improbable. The words are a prophecy, but are purposely left enigmatical, to be interpreted by the event. The temple is itself a type of man, who is intended to be the temple of God, in which he will dwell; and therefore a type perfectly fulfilled only in Christ, in whom alone the Spirit of God dwelt without measure, and with no periods of partial or complete exclusion. The Jews in crucifying Christ destroyed the divine reality of which the building was only a symbol or prophecy; moreover they inaugurated that terrible drama of passion which ended in the literal destruction of the temple itself. For description of this destruction see Matt. ch. 24, Prel. Note. Some objections to this passage have been suggested. (1) The crucifixion of Christ and his resurrection taking place three years later cannot be a sign of his authority here. Ans. In fact Christ does not comply with the Pharisees’ demand for a sign but refuses it, as in the analogous passage in Matt. 12:34-40, where he also by a metaphor refers to his resurrection. (2) The prophecy would not be and in fact was not understood. Ans. It was not intended to be understood then, but to afford a basis for the faith of the disciples when subsequent history had interpreted it. It was an enigma more likely to be remembered because enigmatical. “Many such sayings he uttered which were not intelligible to his immediate hearers, but which were to be so to those who should come after. And wherefore doth he do this? In order that when the accomplishment of his predictions should have come to pass, he might be seen to have foreknown from the beginning what was to follow.”--(Chrysostom.) (3) The language is imperative and thus involves a command by Christ to crucify him. Ans. The imperative, Destroy this temple, is not equivalent to the future, You will destroy this temple; nor is it permissive merely, You may destroy this temple; nor yet is it a command, You must destroy this temple. It is a challenge. Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up. “It springs from painfully excited feelings, as he looks with heart-searching gaze upon that implacable opposition which was already beginning to show itself, and which would not be satisfied till it had put him to death.”--(Meyer.) (4) The language, I will raise it up, imputes to Christ the power of the resurrection which is uniformly attributed to the Father. Ans. This objection is founded on a misapprehension. The N. T. recognizes no such distinction between the Father and the Son as this objection implies, and Christ uses language elsewhere, as distinctly implying his own act in the resurrection as that used here (ch. 10:18; 11:25; comp. 5:39, 40, 44). The interpretation proposed by some writers, that Christ here speaks of the decay of the Jewish religion in its temple, and the building up of a new spiritual theocracy, will not be accepted by those who believe that John’s explicit declaration of Christ’s meaning is inspired and authoritative. Observe how the Jews intentionally misrepresented Christ’s saying; they accused him of threatening to destroy the temple (Matt. 26:61, note), when he had really prophesied that they would destroy it.

20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?

21 But he spake of the temple[82] of his body.

[82] Ephes. 2:21, 22; Col. 2:9; Heb. 8:2.

=20. Forty and six years was this temple in building.= The argument is a natural one, and seemed conclusive. The temple was commenced by Herod twenty years previous to the birth of Christ, and had been forty-six years in construction up to this time. It was not finally completed, however, till A. D. 64, under Herod Agrippa II; so that it was really over eighty years in building. The workmen were at this time still engaged upon it, and the language of the people refers to the work up to this time.

22 When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he[83] had said this unto them: and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.

[83] Luke 24:8.

=22. When therefore he was risen from the dead.= Not merely after but at the time of his resurrection and in the light of that fact, the disciples interpreted both what he had said and what the O. T. contained on this subject.--=They believed the Scripture.= Not the N. T., no part of which was written at the time of the resurrection; and the “Scripture” is here distinguished from the words which Jesus had spoken. The O. T. contained prophecies of the resurrection which are enigmatical, and probably were but imperfectly comprehended by even the most devout Jews, but which were interpreted by the event (Ps. 16:4 with Acts 3:15; Ps. 17:15; 73:23, 24; Isaiah 26:19; Hosea 6:2). For evidence that Christ, and subsequently the apostles, recognized in the O. T. prophecies of the resurrection, see Luke 24:26, 27; John 20:9; 1 Cor. 15:4.

23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did.

24 But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he[84] knew all men,

[84] ch. 16:30; 1 Sam. 16:7; 1 Chron. 28:9; 29:17; Jer. 17:9, 10; Matt. 9:4; Acts 1:24; Rev. 2:23.

25 And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.

=23-25. Many trusted in his name, seeing the signs which he wrought, but Christ did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all men and needed not=, etc. Compare with the English version the translation here given which approximates more nearly to the original; and observe respecting this that (1) the term miracle has acquired in modern theology a technical meaning it does not possess in the N. T. Christ may have wrought miracles at this time not recorded by the Evangelist (ch. 21, 25), but the belief of the Jewish disciples may have rested on such signs of his moral power as the expulsion of the traders from the temple; (2) their trust in his name was not necessarily a true spiritual acceptance of him as a personal Saviour from sin; the reverse is implied by the statement that they trusted him because they saw his miracles; and still more by the declaration respecting himself that he did not entrust himself to them; (3) this declaration would scarcely need interpretation were it not for a common misinterpretation. It does not imply that he held back from them his doctrine, or refused to work miracles for their benefit, but simply that he did not and could not enter into that close and unreserved personal intercourse with them which characterized his Galilean life and companionships. He knew them too well to do this; knew that when the spiritual and universal nature of his kingdom of love was revealed unto them, they would reject and crucify him. The statement that he knew what was in man, indicates a divine and supernatural reading of the secrets of the human heart, of which the N. T. affords many and striking illustrations (Matt. 9:4; Mark 2:8; Luke 7:39, 40). The declaration that he knew all men, indicates that this interior knowledge of the heart was not occasional and exceptional, but universal. Melancthon sees in the example of our Lord here an admonition of caution in opening our hearts unreservedly to strangers, even though they may seem to receive our word with kindness. Be friendly to all, be intimate with few.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us