Chapter XII
Ch. 12:1-11. ANOINTING OF JESUS BY MARY.--A COSTLY EXPRESSION OF A FERVENT LOVE IS NOT WASTE.--HYPOCRISY SETS PHILANTHROPY AND PIETY IN CONTRAST.--NONE ARE SO DEAF AS THEY THAT WILL NOT HEAR.
PRELIMINARY NOTE.--This anointing is not to be confounded with that of which Luke (7:36-50) gives an account. The reasons for distinguishing it from that anointing I have stated in the preliminary note there. This anointing is not mentioned by Luke. It is reported by Matthew (26:6-13) and Mark (14:3-9). It is true that some harmonists have supposed two distinct anointings in Bethany, but that opinion is entertained by very few scholars and by none of the moderns, and is not a reasonable hypothesis; the differences between John’s account and those of Matthew and Mark are not greater than might have been expected in accounts given by independent witnesses. Matthew and Mark say that Mary anointed Jesus’ head, John that she anointed Jesus’ feet; but certainly she may have anointed both the head and the feet. The principal difference lies in the fact that Matthew and Mark impliedly place the anointing two days before the Paschal feast (Matt. 26:2; Mark 14:1), while John impliedly places it six days before the feast (ver. 1). The chronology is uncertain; some scholars adopt that of Matthew and Mark (Robinson, Geo. W. Clark, Hackett)--others, that of John (Townsend, Andrews, Alford). The former of these opinions appears to me the more probable for reasons stated in the note on Matthew 26:6-16. In such a case as this, where there appears to be a conflict in the chronology of the evangelists, neither of whom puts any emphasis upon chronological data or gives what may properly be called a date, we may reasonably allow the order of events to be determined by a consideration of the probable way in which one event leads on to another. In this case the discourses of Jesus in the temple and the overthrow of the ambitious hopes of Judas Iscariot naturally led to his complaint at this anointing, and Christ’s sharp rebuke of his spirit here naturally led in turn to his final act of treachery. The note of time afforded by John in verses 1 and 12, though they certainly indicate that the anointing took place prior to the triumphal procession, are not conclusive; for verses 2-9 may be regarded as parenthetical. Thus Dr. Hackett: “John is the only one of the evangelists who speaks of the Saviour stopping at Bethany on the way between Bethany and Jerusalem. Hence, this feast being the principal event which John associates with Bethany during these last days, he not unnaturally inserts the account of the feast immediately after the speaking of the arrival at Bethany. But having (so to speak) discharged his mind of that recollection, he then turns back and resumes the historical order, namely, that on the next day after coming to Bethany Jesus made his public entry into Jerusalem as related by the Synoptists.” We suppose, then, that after the tarry in Ephraim Christ came up to the Passover; stopped at Jericho, where occurred the healing of the blind man, the conversion of Zaccheus, and the parable of the ten pounds (Luke 18:35 to 19:28); from Jericho proceeded to Jerusalem, stopping on the way at Bethany, where, perhaps, he spent the Sabbath; entered Jerusalem in triumph on the following day, and drove from the temple the traders (Luke 19:28-48), and there gave the instructions recorded more or less by all the Synoptists, but most fully by Matthew (chaps. 21:12 to 25:46); and thence retreated to Bethany, where this supper, made for him by Martha and her sister Mary, led directly to the conspiracy of Judas Iscariot for his betrayal (Matt. 26:14-16). See Tabular Harmony, page 45.
1 Then Jesus, six days before the passover, came to Bethany, where[467] Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.
[467] ch. 11:1, 43.
2 There they made him a supper, and Martha[468] served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.
[468] Luke 10:38-42.
=1, 2. Six days before the passover.= This note of time is quite inconclusive, because it is uncertain whether the day of Christ’s arrival and the first day of the passover should be excluded or included, or one should be excluded and the other included, and also because it is uncertain on which day of the month the passover is to be considered as having begun. For various chronological views, see Andrews’ Life of our Lord, page 397. The most probable hypothesis, and the one commonly accepted, makes Christ arrive at Bethany on Friday night, spending there the Sabbath and going on to Jerusalem on the following day, the first day of the week.--=Came to Bethany.= A well known village about fifteen stadia (ch. 11:18), that is, about a mile and a half, east of Jerusalem, on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, not far from the point at which the road to Jericho begins its more sudden descent toward the valley. Fruit and other trees growing around--olive, almond, and oak--give the spot an air of seclusion and repose. It is not mentioned in the O. T., but is intimately associated with the life of our Lord. Here Lazarus was raised from the dead; here Christ found a secluded retreat and the refreshment of friendship during the stormy periods of his ministry in Jerusalem; thence he ascended when the cloud received him from the side of his disciples. The present village, El-Azariyeh, is a ruinous and wretched hamlet of some twenty families, the inhabitants of which display even less than the ordinary Eastern thrift and industry.--=They made him a supper.= The word supper (δεῖπνος) represents the chief meal of the Jews and also of the Greeks and Romans, taken at evening after the labors of the day were over, and sometimes prolonged into the night. The same word is sometimes used to signify a banquet or feast (Matt. 23:6; Mark 6:21; Luke 14:12; 20:46; Rev. 19:9). Who made the supper is not directly stated, by either John or the other Evangelists. It was in the house of one Simon the leper (Matt. 26:6; Mark 14:3). Godet supposes that he was a leper who had been healed by Jesus and who claimed the privilege of entertaining, in the name of the rest of the inhabitants of Bethany, Jesus, who had conferred on their town so great a favor by raising Lazarus from the dead. This seems to me a wild hypothesis on the part of a very sober and cautious scholar. The fact that Martha served is at least an indication that the supper was given at the house of Martha and Mary, who were certainly Christ’s most intimate friends in the village. There is nothing to indicate that Simon was present or had been cured. The common hypothesis is more reasonable, that he was the father of the sisters, or possibly the husband of Martha, and was either dead or through his leprosy exiled from his home, and that the house is described by the two Synoptists as his house because he was a well-known resident, and also because they wished to avoid concentrating the attention of the Pharisees, who had already determined upon the death of Lazarus, on him and his two sisters. They are not mentioned by name in the Synoptical narratives. The difference in character between Martha and Mary, as indicated both by their conduct here and the incident narrated in Luke 10:38-42, is one of those incidental coincidences which attest the historic truth of the Gospels.
3 Then[469] took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.
[469] ch. 11:2; Matt. 26:6, etc.; Mark 14:3, etc.
4 Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, which should betray him,
5 Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?
6 This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief,[470] and had[471] the bag, and bare what was put therein.
[470] 2 Kings 5:20-27; Ps. 50:18.
[471] ch. 13:29.
=3-6. A pound of ointment of spikenard.= Mark and John both add a word characterizing this ointment, which is not elsewhere found, in either Biblical or classic Greek (πιστικῆς). Commentators disagree in their translation of this word, and the English translators seem to have avoided the difficulty by omitting it altogether. Some scholars derive it from a Greek verb (πίνω) meaning to drink, and suppose it to indicate that the ointment was liquid, perhaps drinkable. By other scholars it is derived from the verb (πιστεύω) to believe, and is supposed to signify a trustworthy or a reliable ointment; that is, one that was pure or unadulterated. This is the more probable meaning. Spikenard was liable to all kinds of adulteration. Pliny enumerates nine plants with which it might be mixed in preparing it for the market. The spikenard appears to have been procured from an Indian plant of the family of valeriana, and to have been imported from India by way of Arabia. It was highly prized among the ancients. Horace, writing to Virgil, asks his guests to bring as contribution to the feast a little spikenard, and by way of equivalent he would match it with a cask of wine. The use of fragrant oils and ointments were very common among the ancients, who anointed themselves twice or three times a day in order that the delicious fragrance might not be dissipated. The wealthier classes carried their ointments and perfumes in small boxes of costly material and beautiful workmanship. This ointment was contained in an alabaster box (Matt. 26:7; Mark 14:3). This box Mary broke, pouring the ointment first on Christ’s head and then on his feet. There is doubt as to the meaning of the expression “she brake the box;” some suppose that she simply broke the seal; others, that she broke off the neck of the box with a sharp blow, so pouring out the whole ointment as an offering to Christ, a very little of which would have sufficed for the purpose of an ordinary anointing. For an illustration of alabaster boxes see Luke 7:38, note.--=Very costly.= A pound was an enormous quantity to lavish on a single anointing.--=Wiped his feet with her hair.= So did the woman who was a sinner (Luke 7:38). But there is this characteristic difference between the two cases: the unknown woman in Luke washed his feet with her tears, and it was the tears which she wiped off with her hair. Here there are no tears; all is joy and gladness.--=And the house was filled with the odor of the ointment.= The service rendered to Christ did not stop with him alone. Such service never does; it becomes fragrant to all who are within the reach of its influence.--=One of his disciples.= The objection was started by Judas Iscariot. The others, however, shared this feeling; they too had indignation (Matt. 26:8; Mark 18:4), and regarded Mary’s action as wasteful. To prosaic natures the expression of love always seems a waste, but to ardent natures nothing seems too costly to express the enthusiasm of love.--=For three hundred denarii.= The denarius, or, as the word is translated in the New Testament, penny, was a coin of about seventeen cents in value, but at that time was a day’s wages (Matt. 20:10). Thus, this offering of Mary was practically equivalent to an offering in our time of three hundred dollars.--=And given to the poor.= A pretended regard for the poor is often made a cloak for an attack upon the Christian church, and especially upon Christian worship. In the case of Judas, as in many other cases, it was but a cover for a more sordid motive, but it served its purpose.--=But because he had the bag.= Possibly a box; more probably a money bag or purse (Latin, sacculus), in which the funds of Jesus and his disciples were carried. These funds were doubtless small and were made up of gifts from other disciples (Luke 8:3). This is implied by the language here, “what was put therein,” signifying literally what had been cast therein; that is, by friends of Jesus.--=And bare what was put therein.= The original is capable of being translated “purloined what was put therein.” This is the significance given to it by most of the scholars (Meyer, Alford, De Wette, Godet).
7 Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this.
8 For[472] the poor always ye have with you; but[473] me ye have not always.
[472] Deut. 15:11; Matt. 26:11; Mark 14:7.
[473] verse 35; chaps. 8:21; 13:33; 16:5-7.
=7, 8.= If we combine the reports of the three Evangelists, it will appear that Christ’s words were substantially as follows: “Let her alone. Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me; she hath done what she could; against the day of my burying hath she kept this, and is come beforehand to anoint my body for the burial. The poor always ye have with you, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good; but me ye have not always.” Let her alone is the language of sharp rebuke. Christ was indignant at the hypocrisy which made a pretended consideration of the poor an excuse for attacking and condemning an act of love towards himself. Why trouble ye the woman? indicates that Mary was herself abashed and downcast by the criticism of the twelve. Perhaps, as Maurice says, “she could not herself have answered Judas Iscariot’s complaining question.” For she hath wrought a good work upon me, is a strong expression of approbation of an act which was service only as it was an expression of love. The word rendered good is literally beautiful; but with the Greeks, who were an æsthetic race, the word expressive of moral beauty was one of the highest commendation. To express love to Christ is to render a good work unto Christ. She hath done what she could, commends Mary in the same spirit in which the poor widow was commended (Mark 12:44). Whether her act was wise or not was not to be questioned. It was the outpouring of a heart full of love, and there is no condemnation to those who are thus in Christ Jesus. There is some question respecting the reading of the phrase Against the day of my burying hath she kept this. Some critics (Meyer, Alford) understand its meaning to be, Against the day of my burying let her preserve this. And Meyer supposes that only a part of the ointment was used in the anointing, and that Christ expresses the idea that the rest is not to be sold for the poor, but to be preserved to complete Mary’s unfinished act. But there is no question respecting the reading of the text in Matthew. That the anointing was treated by Christ as a prophetic act is more in accordance both with the reports of the other Evangelists and with the spirit of the entire narrative. Christ’s declaration then is, not that Mary should reserve the rest of the ointment for the anointing of his corpse, nor that she had deliberately and intentionally preserved it for a prophetic anointing, but that it was in accordance with a divine purpose that she had poured it upon him while he lived. His body was not anointed at the time of his death, the completion of the funeral honors being prevented by his resurrection (Mark 16:1, 2).--The poor always ye have with you, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good, is founded upon the great principle that philanthropy needs no special emotion, only opportunity, and that is never wanting; while the expression of love can only be made when the love itself burns ardently in the heart, and that must of necessity be occasional and exceptional; in other words, philanthropy may always exhibit itself in acts of charity, but emotion can only occasionally exhibit itself in acts of reverence and love. Matthew and Mark add the declaration by Christ, that Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world over, shall also this that this woman hath done be told for a memorial for her. See Matt. 26:13, note.
9 Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there: and they came not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead.
10 But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also[474] to death;
[474] Luke 16:31.
11 Because that[475] by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus.
[475] verse 18; ch. 11:45.
=9-11. Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there.= This is an indication that he tarried there at least over one day, probably the Sabbath preceding the passion. See Prel. Note.--=But that they might see Lazarus also.= They were drawn together by curiosity.--=But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus to death.= That is, they were at this time consulting. While the people were drawn to Lazarus by curiosity, and others were led by the story of his resurrection, confirmed by himself, to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the chief priests in Jerusalem were consulting how they might get rid both of Jesus and of the witness to his divine power. Thus they demonstrate the truth of Christ’s saying, “Neither will they believe though one rose from the dead” (Luke 16:31).--=Believed on Jesus.= That is, they believed that he was the Messiah. Nor was this a mere intellectual opinion. It involved attachment to Christ and hope in him; a looking forward to a revelation of himself in some miraculous and decisive display of divine power against the Romans. The period was one of a brief but great popularity, which accounts for the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and the Pharisees’ fear of the people which kept them from openly arresting Christ during his teaching in the temple on the eventful days that immediately followed.
12 On[476] the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem,
[476] Matt. 21:8, etc.; Mark 11:8, etc.; Luke 19:36, etc.
13 Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried,[477] Hosanna! Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.
[477] Ps. 118:25, 26.
14 And Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is[478] written,
[478] Zech. 9:9.
15 Fear not, daughter of Sion; behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass’s colt.
16 These things[479] understood not his disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified,[480] then remembered[481] they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him.
[479] Luke 18:34.
[480] ch. 7:39.
[481] ch. 14:26.
17 The people therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him from the dead, bare record.
18 For[482] this cause the people also met him, for that they heard that he had done this miracle.
[482] verse 11.
=Ch. 12:12-18.= THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM. Comp. Matt. 21:1-17; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:29-44. The account is on the whole the fullest in Luke. See notes there. The statement that some from Jerusalem took palm branches and came out to meet the procession as it approached the city is peculiar to John. So also is his account of the effect produced on the Pharisees (ver. 19). The statement in Luke 19:39, that some of the Pharisees called on Jesus to rebuke his disciples is equally indicative of their feeling, which was one of intense though suppressed hostility. The next day, verse 12, might mean the day after the anointing, but I believe means the day after the visit to Bethany, the account of the anointing being parenthetical. See Prel. Note. Those who came out to meet Jesus are not described as Jews, and may have been, as Meyer surmises, unprejudiced pilgrims who had come to the feast and had there heard the fame of the Messiah. For account of how the young ass was found, see Matthew 21:2-7.
* * * * *
Ch. 12:19-50. GREEKS VISIT JESUS--HIS DISCOURSE THEREON.--DEATH THE CONDITION OF LIFE (24, 25).--FOLLOWING CHRIST THE CONDITION OF COMPANIONSHIP WITH HIM (26).--THE SOUL CONFLICTS OF CHRIST ILLUSTRATED (27-30).--THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST; IT JUDGES THE WORLD; DEFEATS OF THE WORLD’S FALSE PRINCE; DRAWS ALL MEN TO THE TRUE KING (31-33).--DISOBEDIENCE OF THE INNER LIGHT OF THE SOUL QUENCHES IT; FAITH IN AND FOLLOWING OF THAT LIGHT NOURISHES AND PERFECTS IT (34-40).--THE CRIME OF COWARDICE ILLUSTRATED (42, 43).--CHRIST A GUIDE TO THE FATHER (44-46).--CHRIST’S WORDS MAN’S JUDGE (47, 48).--THE SOURCE OF CHRIST’S AUTHORITY AND POWER (49, 50).
19 The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive[483] ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him.
[483] ch. 11:47, 48.
20 And there were certain[484] Greeks among them that[485] came up to worship at the feast:
[484] Acts 17:4; Rom. 1:16.
[485] 1 Kings 8:41, 42.
21 The same came therefore to[486] Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus.
[486] ch. 1:44.
22 Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus.
=19-22. The Pharisees therefore said among themselves.= Some among the Pharisees were friendly to Jesus, but dared not come out openly in his favor. Of this number was Nicodemus. To the same class belonged the lawyer that answered Christ discreetly and the ruler whom it is said Jesus loved (Mark 10:21; 12:34). Chrysostom supposes that the Pharisees here referred to were of this sort, and that their language is that of remonstrance against the endeavors of the rest to destroy him. The language seems to me rather that of approval of Caiaphas’ counsel. They point to the fact that the cautious methods have availed nothing. So Bengel and most modern critics.--=The world is gone out after him.= Literally are departing after him; that is, are leaving us, the old and acknowledged teachers, to go after him, this new and unordained rabbi. The world signifies the multitude, not especially the wicked; but it is a term of reproach.--=But there were certain Greeks.= But, not and. The particle (δέ) is adversative, and indicates a contrast between the persons mentioned in the previous sentence and those here referred to. So do the terms Pharisees, who were Hebrews of the Hebrews, and Greeks who were, not Jews dispersed in Greece and coming up thence to the feast, but men who belonged to the Greek nationality and had adopted the Hebrew religion, i. e., Greek proselytes. On the character of these proselytes from foreign nations, see Matthew 23:15, note. That these were Greeks, not Grecian Jews, is evident from the word employed to describe the Greeks (Ἕλληνες), which is one signifying nationality, not location; that they were proselytes is evident from the characterization as among them which were accustomed (present participle signifying habit--Meyer) to come up to worship at the feast. They were of the same character as the centurion whose son Christ healed, the Cornelius who sent for Peter, and the Eunuch to whom Philip preached (Matt. 8:7-10; Acts 8:27-40; ch. 10). The pilgrims to Jerusalem were increased considerably in the increasing decay of the polytheistic worship of Greece and Rome, with such converts to the simple and sublime monotheism of Judea.--=The same came therefore to Philip.= Why to Philip is purely a matter of conjecture. In fact, Philip and Andrew are both Greek names, and the only names of Greek origin among the twelve.--=Sir= (κύριε). The term is the same one translated lord when used in addressing Christ. Its fair equivalent in the English language is Sire. They address Philip with marked respect.--=We would see Jesus.= Rather, we have desired to see him. They assume that a private interview will be readily granted them. That this is what they desire is evident, because Christ was publicly teaching in the temple during the four days preceding his arrest, and therefore it was very easy for them to both see and hear him in public. The motive of this request may probably have been a mixed one; partly a curiosity to see and hear more of this extraordinary Rabbi, partly a real moral and spiritual appreciation of and drawing to him; possibly a dim and unconfessed wonder whether he might possibly be the promised Messiah. Stier compares this visit to that of the Magi at the birth, one a coming to the cradle, the other to the cross. Godet refers to the tradition narrated by Eusebius, that an embassy was sent by the king of Edessa, in Syria, to invite Jesus to take up his abode with him, and to furnish him such a royal welcome as should compensate him for the obstinacy with which the Jews rejected him.--=Andrew and Philip tell Jesus.= The two were of the same city (ch. 1:44). The fact that Philip takes Andrew with him is one of the not unfrequent indications of the awe with which, despite the fullness and even familiarity of his love, Christ inspired his most intimate disciples (Luke 9:45; Mark 9:32, etc.). So Bengel: “Philip feared to introduce the Greeks alone; with a friend he ventured to do so.” It is to be remembered, however, that the request would seem a doubtful one to them, since the Rabbinical theology forbade to teach the truth to a Gentile, who was regarded as unworthy of it, and Jesus himself had confined his ministry to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. 10:5; 15:24).
23 And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is[487] come, that the Son of man should be glorified.
[487] chaps, 13:32; 17:1.
24 Verily, verily, I say unto you,[488] Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
[488] 1 Cor. 15:36.
25 He[489] that loveth his life shall lose it: and he that hateth his life in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal.
[489] Matt. 10:39; 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24; 17:33.
26 If[490] any man serve me, let him follow me; and where[491] I am, there shall also my servant be: if[492] any man serve me, him will my Father honour.
[490] ch. 14:15; Luke 16:46; 1 John 5:3.
[491] chaps. 14:3; 17:24; 1 Thess. 4:17.
[492] 1 Sam. 2:30; Prov. 27:18.
=23-26. But Jesus answered them.= But (δέ) not and; the adversative particle indicates that the request was refused. So also does the word (ἀποκρίνομαι) rendered answered, literally to distinguish, then to reject after inquiry; then to make response; but primarily a negative response. So also, it appears to me, does the discourse which follows. Neither, however, is conclusive. Tholuck apparently thinks the request granted; Meyer supposes that Christ intended to grant the request, but was interrupted by the voice from heaven; a quite improbable conjecture. Whether the interview was granted or refused, is a point on which John lays no emphasis. He narrates the request only because it leads to a brief utterance by Jesus, called out by it, and which he could not intelligibly report without reporting the incident which led to it.--=The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified.= Hour is here equivalent to the more general word time or era. The prophets of the O. T. foretell the ingathering of the Gentiles through the Messiah. This is both his glory and the glory of the Jewish nation in him (Psalm 2:8; Isaiah 53:11). In this application of these Greek proselytes, Christ sees a prophetic indication of the time when, with a profounder meaning, the Gentile world will everywhere put forth a request to see Jesus, when, being lifted up, he will draw all men unto him, when they will come from the north and the south, the east and the west, to sit down with Jesus in his kingdom (Matt. 8:11), when he will break down the partition wall between Jew and Gentile (Ephes. 2:14), and gather into one nation the dispersed children of God (John 11:52; Col. 3:11; Rev. 7:9). The term Son of man is here, as always when used by Christ in reference to himself, equivalent to the Messiah.--=Verily, verily, I say unto you.= A customary prelude to an important saying (Matt. 5:18, note). Here it is used by Christ to emphasize a truth which the disciples had already proved themselves so loth to receive that they were practically unable to understand it (Mark 9:32; Luke 18:34), namely, that the Messiah’s death must precede this ingathering of the Gentiles and prepare the way for it, and itself become the instrument for its accomplishment. He states this truth, first under a figure drawn from nature (ver. 24), then as a general law, alike applicable to the Master and his disciples (ver. 25).--=Except a kernel of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.= In the granary it is safe, but useless. Its death is the precursor of its usefulness. Paul employs the same figure in a different connection in 1 Cor. 15:36. Christ embodies it in the Lord’s Supper, which reminds us of this law of self-sacrifice. It is the wheat ground to powder that makes the bread, and the body bruised that makes the bread of life; it is the grape crushed that makes the wine, and the blood poured out as a libation that makes the wine of life. This truth of self-sacrifice symbolized by nature is one of the universal laws of spiritual life.--=He that loveth his life shall lose it.= The life or soul (the same Greek word, ψυχή, is indiscriminately rendered by both English words in our English version) is the æsthetic and intellectual part of man in contrast with the spiritual nature (ὅ πνεῦμα). If one gives himself to the saving of this soul or life he destroys it; for this is but the adjunct of the spiritual nature, and perishes if that is left to perish. “Lange points out that this saying involved a condemnation of Hellenism. For what was Greek civilization but human life cultivated from the view-point of enjoyment, and withdrawn from the law of sacrifice.”--(Godet.) The same judgment Paul re-affirms in 1 Cor. 1:18-21; and it is equally applicable as a judgment of modern unreligious culture. Culture without religion destroys what it would preserve.--=He that hateth his life in this world shall guard it unto life eternal.= Two different Greek words (ψυχή and ζωή) are rendered by the same English word life in the two clauses of this sentence. Yet if we were to render it, He that hateth his soul shall guard it unto life eternal, the rendering would be at least equally liable to misapprehension. If the reader understands soul to mean the earthy side of human nature, in contrast with the spiritual, as explained above (and this is the N. T. use of the term), this substituted rendering will give him the true meaning of the original. Beware of understanding hate to mean merely does not love, or guard as merely equivalent to keep, as it is rendered in our English version. The meaning is that he who finds no satisfaction in earthly sources of enjoyment, who turns away from them with a sense of satiety that, at least at times, becomes a generous contempt and a noble loathing, toward the higher spiritual life which mere intellectual and æsthetic culture does nothing to satisfy, is by that very hate protected from the excesses and the demoralization which of necessity inheres in a life contented with the provisions for the earthly nature. The hate inspired in a noble nature by every unworthy thing is the best protection against subtle temptations.--=If any man would serve me, let him follow me.= This is Christ’s answer to the request of the Greeks. Service of Christ is to be sought, not by secret interviews, not by sacred and saintly communings, which he gives to whom he will, but by practical following of him in a life of daily self-sacrifice for others.--=And where I am, there shall my servant be.= This practical following is the way that leads to intimate fellowship. The sacred conversations of Christ with the twelve, recorded in John, chaps. 13-16, did not come till for three years they had followed him, forsaking all things for the sake of his companionship. This following has the promise both of heavenly companionship with Christ on earth (ch. 14:21-23), and eternal companionship with him in heaven (Rom. 8:17; 2 Tim. 2:11, 12).--=If any man serve me, him will my Father honor.= For it is with the Father, not with the Son, to determine who shall sit at his right hand and his left (Mark 10:40), who are to receive the honors, what is to be the allotment of rank in the kingdom of God. The Christian’s ambition, therefore, is to be Christ-like in the life of earthly service, and leave all else to the will of the Father concerning him.
27 Now[493] is my soul troubled: and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but[494] for this cause came I unto this hour.
[493] ch. 13:21; Matt. 26:38, 39; Luke 12:50.
[494] ch. 18:37.
28 Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice[495] from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.
[495] Matt. 3:17.
29 The people therefore that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him.
=27-29. Now is my soul troubled.= Literally, stirred up, in conflict. In 11:33 it is said that Jesus was indignant in spirit, here that his soul is in conflict. See note on 11:33, and on this contrast between soul and spirit, see above on verse 25; the one links man to God, the other to the animal. At the grave of Lazarus the higher spiritual nature was indignant at the exhibition of formalism and false pretence; here the lower and earthly nature was in conflict between the instincts of self-preservation and the impulse of love and duty. “A horror of death and an ardor of obedience concurred.”--(Bengel.) It was a real struggle; the narration of it refutes the rationalistic hypothesis that John omitted the agony at Gethsemane because he desired to portray a Son of God superior to all trial and conflict. It illustrates and is interpreted by Heb. 2:18; 4:15; 5:7; see Notes on Temptation of Christ, Matt. 4:1-11; and on Lessons of Gethsemane, Matt. 26:36-46.--=And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour?= This is to be taken not affirmatively but interrogatively. Christ does not first pray to be delivered from his passion and then change his mind, recall the prayer and put up another and a different one. Nor is it uttered didactically, to teach his disciples. The contrast between the two petitions is explained by the precedent declaration, “Now is my soul in conflict;” the nature of that conflict is hinted at in the twofold prayer, the first hypothetical, the second final: Shall I ask my Father to save me from this hour? (That is the suggestion of the natural instincts.) No! for this cause came I unto this hour. Rather, Father, glorify thy name. (That is the victory of the spiritual nature.) “The struggle is like one of those fissures in its crust, which enables science to fathom the bowels of the earth. It lets us read the very inmost depths of the Lord’s being.”--(Godet.) Beware of understanding this conflict as one between the God and the man in the God-man. The spirit is in every child of God, increasingly dominant, though in none absolutely, unquestionably and always supreme as in Jesus Christ. This hour is the hour of the passion toward which Christ had steadfastly set his face (Luke 9:51) in coming up for the last time to Jerusalem.--=For this cause came I unto this hour.= In order to be a sacrifice he had both come from heaven to earth, and also, at this very moment, from the safety and comparative popularity of Perea to Jerusalem.--=Father, glorify thy name.= Comp. Matthew 26:39. In both cases there is not merely resignation to a superior will, an invincible fate, but a real and supreme desire to fulfil that will whatever it may entail.--=Then came there a voice from heaven.= The critics since, as the people then, have discussed whether this was really an articulate voice, speaking words, or only a sound of thunder which Christ interpreted as a divine response to his prayer. The word voice (φωνὴ) is not conclusive, because it signifies sometimes an inarticulate sound, as of a trumpet, chariots, waters, thunder, and the like (Matt. 24:31; 1 Cor. 14:7, 8; John 3:8; Rev. 9:9; 6:1; 14:2; 18:22, etc.). But the plain implication of the narrative is that this was an articulate voice, the words of which were understood by others than Jesus, though not by all. So at Paul’s conversion his companions heard the sound, but understood not the words of the voice that spake to him (Acts 9:7 with 22:9, notes). This is the view of nearly all evangelical scholars, e. g., Alford, Meyer, Godet, etc. The latter’s illustration is apt: “The whole multitude heard a noise; but the meaning of the voice was only perceived by each in proportion to his spiritual intelligence. Thus the wild beast perceives only a sound in the human voice; the trained animal discovers a meaning, a command, for example, which it immediately obeys; man alone discerns therein a thought.”--Here the multitude (ὁ ὄχλος, the people) did not comprehend; but some (ἄλλοι, others), a smaller number, did.--=I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.= The Father had glorified his name by giving Jesus daily and hourly the power to do and to bear all that had been laid on him up to that moment; and he would glorify it by continuing to give him the power to do and to bear all that should be laid on him to the end. The prayer and the promise are both for us. In our passion-hour true prayer will be the cry, not of the soul, but of the spirit; a cry, not to be saved from our Calvary, but to be enabled to glorify our Father’s name in and through it. And the answer is interpreted by our experience in the past (Psalm 77:10-12); the grace that has been sufficient will be sufficient to the end.
30 Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but[496] for your sakes.
[496] ch. 11:42.
31 Now is the judgment of this world: now shall[497] the prince of this world be cast out.
[497] ch. 16:11; Luke 10:18; Acts 26:18; Ephes. 2:2.
32 And I, if I be lifted[498] up from the earth, will draw all[499] men unto me.
[498] ch. 8:28.
[499] Rom. 5:18.
33 This he said, signifying[500] what death he should die.
[500] ch. 18:32.
=30-33. Not for me but for you.= If there were no articulate words, if Christ simply imputed to the sound of thunder the meaning, there would have been in it no value to the bystanders. This declaration, therefore, seems to me conclusive that a voice spoke comprehensible words; and even to indicate that the hypothetical explanation “It thundered,” was not an honest one.--=Now is the judgment of this world.= The language is anticipative. Christ speaks as though the passion on which he was entering were already accomplished. That passion he declares will be characterized by a threefold result: the world will be judged, the devil conquered and cast out, and the all-conquering Christ brought in. The judgment of the world has already begun. It “dates from Good Friday” (Godet). While Christ came not to judge the world but that the world through him might be saved, his cross is in fact a judgment-seat, and men are discriminated morally and spiritually by their reception of the suffering, self-sacrificing Redeemer.--=Now the prince of this world is cast out.= The Prince of this world was a phrase much used by Jewish writers to designate the spiritual monarch of the Gentiles in opposition to the one true God whom they regarded as in a peculiar sense the God of Israel. Christ employs their language; he sees in the application of the Greeks for an interview with him a prophecy of the time when Satan will be cast out and all the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. This he regards as accomplished now, that is, by the sacrifice of Calvary. The world’s battle was fought and the victory won there. The second coming is not to redeem the world, but to realize for the world the fruits of redemption, in an established and eternal kingdom of righteousness, after, by the cross, humanity has been judged, the devil cast out, and the redeemed race lifted up into oneness with Christ Jesus. The passages of the N. T., which imply the continuing influence of the devil (Rom. 16:20; 2 Cor. 4:4; Ephes. 2:2; 6:12, etc.) are not inconsistent with Christ’s language here, because it is prophetic; he speaks of that as already accomplished which is absolutely certain to be accomplished by the power of that divine sacrifice so soon by him to be consummated.--=And I if I be lifted up will draw all men toward myself.= If is not to be rendered as equivalent to when. The language is sympathetic with that of verse 27; it is the last trace of that soul-storm. His crucifixion was contingent; it was made, to the last, dependent on his own voluntary submission. Even in the hour of his arrest the way of deliverance was open to him (Matt. 26:53). He is still, as it were, arguing with himself. The whole language is that of quasi soliloquy. The phrase lifted up from the earth certainly does not refer to his ascension, as Meyer interprets it. John’s own interpretation in the next verse is conclusive on that point. Apart from inspiration, he, as a sympathetic ear-witness, is to be trusted as a correct interpreter. Nor does it refer to the mere physical elevation from the ground of a foot or two in the crucifixion. The N. T. use of the original word rendered lifted up (ὑψόω) as well as the added words from the earth, is conclusive on that point. To give a physical interpretation to the phrase is to belittle and degrade it. The word here rendered lifted up is generally rendered exalted (Matt. 11:23; 23:12; Luke 1:52; 14:11), and is used in reference to Christ’s divine exaltation in consequence of his voluntary sacrifice (Acts 2:33; 5:31). The crucifixion is exaltation because self-sacrifice is divine glory (1 Cor. 1:23, 24). From the earth is added to mark the contrast between the kingdom of the Prince of this world which is to be overthrown and that of the Prince of Light which takes its place. The one is of the earth earthy; the other is not of this world (ch. 18:36), but over it, a kingdom lifted up from the world but dominating it. In each individual soul the kingdom of God begins, as it began in the world of humanity, in crucifixion. When we take up our cross and follow Christ, we are lifted up from the earth and in us the Prince of this world is cast out (Mark 9:49, 50; Luke 14:27, notes). The word drawing here refers not primarily to the influence of the Holy Spirit winning men to Christ (ch. 7:39; 14:18, 19; 16:7), certainly not to what theologians call effectual calling, but to the attractive power of the cross itself. Self-sacrifice always draws us toward the sacrificed one, the soldier, the martyr, the mother; and has drawn all hearts toward Christ as the pre-eminent martyr. This is not, however, a promise that all men shall be actually brought to Christlikeness of disposition. The original does not imply this. The preposition to (ηρός) should rather be rendered towards; for it indicates direction, not result, the place or person toward which anything moves or an affection is directed, not that to which anything comes or upon which an affection is finally centered. All men must not be rendered with Calvin as equivalent to “all the children of God;” nor does it merely mean men of both Gentile and Jewish origin, i. e., all classes of men. Christ’s words need no mending. All men to whom the simple story of the cross is told are drawn toward him who gave himself for us; whether they follow him and become like him through a like voluntary cross-bearing is another question. Of that Christ says nothing here. The whole sentence, then (vers. 31, 32), may be paraphrased thus: Already is the judgment of this world beginning to take place; already is the Prince of this world beginning to be cast out; and I, if I am faithful to the end in enduring that cross for which I came into this hour, will draw all hearts toward me, even as now these stranger hearts are drawn toward me.
34 The people answered him, We have heard[501] out of the law[502] that Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? who is this Son of man?
[501] Ps. 89:36, 37; 110:4; Isa. 9:7.
[502] Rom. 5:18; Ps. 72:17-19.
35 Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light[503] with you.[504] Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he[505] that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.
[503] ch. 8:12.
[504] Jer. 13:6.
[505] ch. 11:10.
36 While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be[506] the children of light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them.
[506] Ephes. 5:8.
=34-36. We have heard out of the law that the Messiah abideth forever.= They evidently understand Christ’s language to refer to his death, at least to his departure from the earth, and are really perplexed. For the idea of an earthly Messianic kingdom was so firmly fixed in the public mind that they were absolutely incapable of receiving any other; and the O. T. in many passages does describe that kingdom as an everlasting one (Ps. 89:36; 145:13; Isaiah 9:5, 7; Dan. 7:13, 14).--=Who is this Son of man?= The language is that of sneer. What strange sort of a Messiah is this, that must die in order to draw all nations unto him, and enter into his kingdom?--=Then Jesus said unto them.= His reply is not responsive to their question. He rarely if ever replied to sneers.--=Yet a little while is the light with you.= The commentators generally regard the phrase the Light as Christ’s designation of himself. So Alford, Godet, Meyer, among the moderns, and Chrysostom and Calvin among the older commentators. But this interpretation entangles the whole sentence. Christ then bids his auditors to walk, i. e., “be not slothful but spiritually active” (Meyer), for the two or three days that intervene before his death; for his death will bring darkness on them, and make it impossible for them to walk intelligently thereafter. The direction is thus deprived of all significance to us, and is contradicted by history; for the death of Christ brought light, not darkness, and was itself the necessary precursor of highest spiritual activity in all that believe on him. The light here, as in Matthew 6:23, is the moral and spiritual nature of man, that which links him to the divine and makes it possible for him to become a child of God. God is the Light of the world (1 John 1:5) because he is the fountain, the central sun which supplies and keeps alive this moral and spiritual nature in men. Christ is the Light of the world (ch. 9:5), because in him this spiritual nature shone out without any dimness from sin or moral infirmity. Christians are lights in the world (Matt. 5:14), because this spiritual nature in them is their guide, illuminating them and through them others. If one follows this inner light it grows brighter and brighter unto perfect day (Prov. 4:18); if he disobeys it he quenches it and goes into moral darkness, losing the very power of moral and spiritual discrimination (1 John 2:8-11). I understand Christ’s meaning then to be this: You have yet for a little while longer the light of conscience; it is not utterly quenched. Beware. Walk according to such light as you possess, lest utter moral darkness come upon you. And he who walks in such darkness knows not the future fate that awaits him. Walk while ye have the light should rather be rendered, Walk as ye have the light (ὡς not ἕως is the best reading, so Alford, Meyer, etc.); that is, According to the light ye possess. The phrase Come upon you is hardly forcible enough to express the meaning of the original (καταλαμβάνω) which is literally to seize or take violent possession of. See Mark 9:18; John 8:3; 1 Thess. 5:4. Knoweth not whither he goeth indicates the awful mystery which hangs about the final fate of those who refuse to follow the light of their own better nature, and so to accept the light which comes from God through Jesus Christ his Son.--=As ye have the light, have faith in the light, that ye may become the children of light.= Observe the difference between this rendering, which accurately follows the original, and that of the English version, from which it differs in three important particulars. Christ does not say while ye have the light, but according as ye have the light, that is, faith is to be exercised according to the opportunity; he does not say believe, a word which indicates an intellectual act, but have faith, a word which indicates a spiritual habit; he does not say may be the children of light, as though a single act of belief perfected the soul in sonship, but may become the children of light, faith in such light as the soul possesses being the way unto a final perfection in the divine life. Faith is the evidence of things unseen (Heb. 11:1), that is, the power of the soul by which it appreciates unseen moral qualities; hence the divine qualities in Christ: hence, by direct, immediate communion, the invisible spirit of God. The direction here is the natural outcome of the preceding warning, and may be paraphrased thus: “As you have moral and spiritual illumination, exercise faith toward it, apprehend, appreciate, obey the sacred inner monitions of your moral nature; so shall you be led constantly into clearer light, and shall at last become children of light, wholly possessed and pervaded by it.” This of course includes the exercise of faith in Christ according to the measure in which he is revealed to the soul; but it certainly is much more than a mere exhortation to the Jews to believe in Jesus as the Messiah while he remained in the flesh among them. Both the warning against quenching this inner light by disobedience, and the exhortation to nourish it by appreciating and following it are applicable to all men and for all time.--=And departed and hid himself from them.= The very fact that these were among Christ’s last words, and that immediately on uttering them he departed into a concealment from which apparently he did not issue till the time for his passion, should have sufficed to prevent the common but unspiritual interpretation controverted above. “This was the farewell of Jesus to Israel. He then retired and did not reappear on the morrow. This time it was no mere cloud which obscured the sun; the sun itself had set.”--(Godet.) This statement fixes the time of this incident; it was concurrent with his farewell to Jerusalem, that is, on the same day with, and probably just subsequent to the discourse recorded in Matthew, ch. 23. In the discourses of which that was the culmination, Christ plainly foretold the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews, and indicated the calling of the Gentiles (Matt. 21:43; 23:37-39). It may be that those prophecies led to this application of the Greeks for a more private interview with the prophet who thus foretold the ingathering of the Gentiles.
37 But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him:
38 That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake,[507] Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?
[507] Isa. 53:1.
39 Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said[508] again,
[508] Isa. 6:9, 10.
40 He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart: that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.
41 These things said Esaias, when[509] he saw his glory, and spake of him.
[509] Isa. 6:1.
42 Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but[510] because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue:
[510] ch. 9:22.
43 For[511] they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.
[511] ch. 5:44; Rom. 2:29.
=37-43.= These words are John’s comments on the whole incident and teaching. The passages from Isaiah (6:9, 10; Isaiah 53:1) illustrate Christ’s warning, and Christ’s warning interprets Isaiah’s prophecy. The blinding and hardening are here attributed to God because they take place in accordance with the divine law which Christ has enunciated, namely, that disobedience to the light quenches and destroys it. In Matthew 13:13-15, the Jews are represented as blinding their own eyes, etc., because they have done so by their disobedience. See notes on Matthew. To those who recognize the authority of John, his language here is conclusive that Isaiah spoke as a prophet, and under divine inspiration. Observe that Isaiah, though living seven centuries before Christ, saw his glory, which the blinded eyes of the Pharisees, though they were his contemporaries, could not see. Putting out of the synagogue, that is, excommunication, was in those days a very serious matter. See ch. 9:22, note. I make no attempt to follow other commentators in a discussion here respecting the relation of divine decrees and human free agency; that belongs not to the commentator but to the metaphysician and theologian. Taking the whole passage together with its context, it seems to me clear (against Alford) that the statement of John Therefore they could not believe, refers not backwards to the precedent prophecy of Isaiah, so that the meaning is that they could not believe “because it was otherwise ordained in the divine counsels,” but forward to the subsequent prophecy of Isaiah, so that the meaning is that they could not believe because their eyes were blinded and their hearts hardened. Either interpretation is grammatically possible; this one makes John’s comment germane to Christ’s discourse respecting the light, and the effect of refusing obedience to it; the other does not. An interpretation which represents God as blinding the eyes and hardening the heart, so as to prevent the exercise of faith, and this in order that a prophecy may be fulfilled, cannot be reconciled with the divine righteousness, much less with the divine infinite mercy.
44 Jesus cried and said, He[512] that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me.
[512] Mark 9:37; 1 Pet. 1:21.
45 And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me.
46 I[513] am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.
[513] chaps. 1:5; 3:19.
=44-46. But Jesus cried and said.= What follows, to the end of the chapter, is not to be regarded as a report of a further discourse by Jesus, but as a summary furnished by John, of his Lord’s previous discourses. This view is required by the context, what follows being closely connected with John’s previous comments, by the structure of the discourse, which is substantially a repetition of previously reported discourses (see notes), and by the consideration that, not only no time or place is indicated, but that none is allowed, since it is expressly asserted, immediately before, that Christ departed and hid himself from the people (ver. 36). This view is taken by all the moderns (Alford, Meyer, Godet, Luthardt). Bengel is hardly self-consistent. In his Grammar he characterizes this as “the peroration and recapitulation, in John’s Gospel, of Christ’s public discourses;” in his Harmony he suggests that Christ “spake in the very act of departure, when he was now at a considerable distance from the men; wherefore he is said to have cried, in order, doubtless, that those very persons with whom he had spoken might hear;” an hypothesis which Luthardt justly characterizes as artificial, unwarranted by the Gospel account, and disagreeable.--=He that hath faith in me, hath faith not in me but in him that sent me.= In (εἰς) indicates the ultimate end or object of the faith. The negative is not to be omitted or reduced to a mere rhetorical expression, or read as though it was equivalent to “hath not faith in me alone.” True scriptural faith in Christ does not stop with him, but finds in him the way to the Father, the Spirit who is to be worshipped in spirit as well as in truth, and whom no man hath seen at any time. Hence Paul’s declaration, “Yea, though we have seen Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth we know him no more.” “Christ descended to us that he might unite us to God. Until we have reached that point, we are, as it were, in the middle of the course. We imagine to ourselves but a half Christ, and a mutilated Christ, if he do not lead us to God.”--(Calvin.) For parallel teaching of Christ, see ch. 5:24, 30, 38, 43; 8:19, 42; 10:38; 14:10, 11.--=And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me.= See is here used not of external but of spiritual perception, as in chaps. 4:19; 6:40; 14:19; 17:24. He that has a spiritual perception and appreciation of the glory of Christ’s character has a perception and appreciation of the divine glory; for the Son is the express image of the Father’s person and the brightness of his glory (Heb. 1:3). “Jesus’ essence does not consist in his merely external appearance, but in his internal relation to the Father.”--(Luthardt.) Comp. ch. 14:9, where the language is almost precisely the same.--=I am come a light into the world.= A light to lead to the Father, and to the divine life which is lived only by communion with the Father through the Spirit.--=In order that whosoever believeth in me should not abide in darkness.= The object of Christ’s incarnation and atonement is that through faith in him we may be delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son (Col. 1:13), and thus walk no longer in the darkness but in the light, by walking in fellowship with God (1 John 1:5-7; 2:8-11). This light is the illumination and inspiration of the moral and spiritual nature afforded by faith in and a life of following after Jesus Christ. Comp. ch. 8:12; 9:5.
47 And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came[514] not to judge the world, but to save the world.
[514] ch. 3:17.
48 He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words,[515] hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.
[515] Deut. 18:19; Luke 9:26.
49 For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.
50 And I know that his commandment[516] is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.
[516] 1 John 3:23.
=47-50. I judge him not * * * * The word that I have spoken the same shall judge him.= This declaration is not inconsistent with other passages of the N. T. which declare that Jesus Christ shall judge the world (ch. 5:25-27); but it interprets them. That judgment shall not be an arbitrary one; nor one pronounced by a judge after trial, like a human judgment, in which questions of law and fact are involved. The book of each man’s life shall be opened, and compared with the life of Christ which is the pattern; and the life and teaching of Christ will itself be the judgment; the comparison will be conclusive; there will be no need of investigation or of sentence. Hence every man is judging and condemning himself, and if unrepentant and unpardoned is condemned already. Comp. ch. 3:18, 19; 5:45.--=He that rejecteth me= (ἀθετέω). Literally, displaces me. To reject Christ does not necessarily involve a deliberate decision against him. Simply putting him one side as of no practical importance is a rejection of him.--=And receiveth not my words.= We receive them only by obeying them. See Matthew 13:23.--=Because I have not spoken out of myself.= Christ is not the ultimate source of his own authority. His words are divine because they are God-given. The Father is the reservoir from whom Christ draws. Compare ch. 5:30; 7:16-28; 8:26, 28, 38.--=What I should say and what I should speak.= “The former is to be understood of the contents and the latter of the external act of speaking.”--(Luthardt.) To the same effect Meyer. The double expression indicates that not only the substance but also the form and method of expression of Christ’s teaching are God-given.--=And I know that his commandment is life eternal.= It has for its aim to produce life eternal; it has for its subject-matter the conditions and nature of life eternal; it is, in other words, the law of the spiritual life. As science has to do with the laws of the external, so Christianity with the laws of the internal or spiritual world. Comp. ch. 6:63, 68. There is a weighty significance in the words “I know.” By his own acceptance of and obedience to the Father’s commands Christ made, as it were, trial of them, and spoke out of his own personal experience of their value and effect. It is only as the Christian thus knows and speaks that his testimony is effective (2 Cor. 4:13).
Chapter XIII
Ch. 13:1-30. CHRIST WASHES HIS DISCIPLES’ FEET AND FORETELLS HIS BETRAYAL.--THE NATURE OF HUMILITY ILLUSTRATED: NOT SELF-ABASEMENT BUT SELF-ABNEGATION (3, 4).--TRUST AND OBEDIENCE HERE; KNOWLEDGE HEREAFTER (7).--THE DOUBLE CLEANSING WROUGHT BY CHRIST: THE WASHING OF THE WHOLE NATURE IN REGENERATION; THE WASHING AWAY OF SPECIFIC SINS IN SANCTIFICATION (10).--CHRIST’S DESIGNATION OF HIMSELF: MASTER AND LORD (13).--THE UTILITY AND THE INUTILITY OF CEREMONIAL.--CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE IN THE SPIRIT AND IN THE LETTER (14, 15).--THE OFFICE OF PROPHECY (19).--CHRIST SEEN BEARING THE SIN OF THE SINNER (21).--CHRIST’S ENDEAVOR TO RECLAIM THE IRRECLAIMABLE (26-29).
* * * * *
PRELIMINARY NOTE.--John alone of the Evangelists gives no account of the institution of the Lord’s Supper. But he alone gives us a report of the last words of Christ, and his last prayer with his disciples at the time of the institution of the Supper. This report occupies chapters 13-17. This most sacred legacy which the Lord has left to his disciples can never be interpreted except by the heart which enters into the secret place of the Most High. All that the commentator can hope to do is to point out the significance of the original, and the connection between the various parts of this uninterpretable disclosure of divine love. That the supper referred to in ver. 2 here is the same described in Matthew 26:26-29, Mark 14:22-25, and Luke 22:19, 20, I think is beyond question, and is indeed questioned by few if any of the scholars except Lightfoot, who endeavors to identify it with the supper at which Mary anointed the feet of Jesus (Matt. 26:1-16; John 12:2-8). The time when the Last Supper was celebrated, whether it was a true Paschal feast or one which ante-dated and anticipated it, is confessedly one of the most difficult questions in Biblical chronology. If we had only the Synoptical Gospels no one would doubt that the Last Supper was the real Jewish Passover; if we had only John, few would question that it was previous to the Passover. This question I have stated and discussed in the notes on Matthew (note on Lord’s Supper, Vol. I, p. 286), and to the discussion there refer the student. I have no doubt, on a careful comparison of the four accounts, that the four Evangelists refer to the same supper, and that it was taken at the time of and was for them the true Passover Supper. In that case Christ’s act here receives new significance from a comparison with the events recorded by Luke (ch. 22:24-30 and notes). The disciples sat down to the meal without washing their feet, after a hot and dusty walk. There was no servant to perform the menial act for them; and no one would volunteer to do it for the rest. They quarreled as to which should have the pre-eminence at the table. Christ said nothing, waited till the quarrel was over and they had taken their seats, and then rose from the table, and girding himself as a servant, performed the slave’s office in washing their feet. This was his answer to their unseemly strife for the post of honor at the table.
1 Now[517] before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour[518] was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having[519] loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.
[517] Matt. 26:2, etc.
[518] ch. 17:1, 11.
[519] Jer. 31:3; Ephes. 5:2; 1 John 4:19; Rev. 1:5.
=1. Now before the feast of the Passover.= That is, immediately before; just as he was about to sit down with his disciples to the Paschal feast.--=Jesus knew that his hour was come.= In the full consciousness of his approaching agony and passion. At the time when above all others he needed that friends should sustain him, he carried them in his heart; their burdens were his own.--=Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.= The end both in time and in accomplishment; that is, he loved them till death broke in on his life of love; he loved them till love had finished its purpose in them by their redemption--loved them despite their quarrels and contentions, that by love he might brood and perfect the new life in them. Properly the word (τέλος, τελέω) signifies not merely end but also completion. So in 1 Thess. 2:16: “Wrath is come upon them to the uttermost” (εἰς τέλος), i. e., till it has accomplished its purpose; and 1 Tim. 1:5, “The end of the commandment is love,” i. e., love is the purpose which the commandment is designed to accomplish. The phrase his own which were in the world, does not imply a limitation of love, as though his love were for a limited number; but it is only in his own that his love accomplishes its designs. The language does imply that he has others who are his own who are not in this world; either the O. T. saints who had died in hope of him, or inhabitants of some other world who belong to him by the purchase of his love, who are his own because redeemed by his blood (Acts 20:28; Rev. 5:9).
2 And supper being ended, the[520] devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him;
[520] ch. 6:70; Luke 22:3, 53.
3 Jesus knowing[521] that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that[522] he was come from God, and went to God;
[521] Matt. 28:18; Heb. 2:8.
[522] ch. 17:11.
4 He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself.
5 After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.
6 Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost[523] thou wash my feet?
[523] Matt. 3:14.
=2-6. And supper being in progress.= Not being ended; for (ver. 12) he sat down to supper again; nor does the original require the translation given to it in our English version (see Godet, Alford, Meyer). Christ waited till all contention was over, all had taken their seats and were ready to begin the meal, before he rose to wash their feet.--=The devil having already dropped into the heart of Judas Iscariot to betray him.= The devil was the sower, but the soil was ready to receive the seed. A past suggestion is indicated. The time when and the way in which this suggestion was made is reported by Matthew. It was at the time when Christ rebuked Judas for complaining of the anointing of her Lord by Mary at Bethany (comp. John 12:4-7 with Matt. 26:14).--=Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands.= See Col. 1:16. He acted in the full consciousness of his divine power and majesty. Humility consists not in a low estimate of one’s powers, but in a willingness to use them in a lowly service.--=That he was come from God and went to God.= This divine sense shone out in him, so that it was seen and felt by the apostles, perhaps most of all by John, who was the most susceptible to such spiritual impressions. For illustration of other times in which the divinity of our Lord thus shone out upon men, see Matt. 21:12; Mark 9:15; 10:32; Luke 4:20, 30; John 7:44-46; 18:6.--=He laid aside his garments= (ἱμάτια). His outer mantle or cloak (see note on Matt. 24:18). Then the inner tunic was girded about the loins with a towel, used partly in lieu of a girdle, partly to wipe the feet. Thus Christ put on the ordinary habit of a servant for a servant’s work. In this feet-washing the feet were not put into the basin; the water was poured over the feet and then they were wiped by the servant. The accompanying cut, from an original sketch by Mr. A. L. Rawson, shows the manner of feet-washing, dress of servant, etc., as observed to-day in the East.--=And began to wash the disciples’ feet.= Some of the commentators suppose that he came first to Simon Peter (Alford); but I see no ground in the narrative for this supposition, which indeed seems to me to be negatived by the natural reading of the original. The objection of Peter was an unexpected episode and interruption. So Meyer, Chrysostom, and others. Feet-washing did not rise to the dignity of a ritualistic observance, except in connection with the service of the sanctuary (Exod. 30:19-21). It held a high place, however, among the rites of hospitality. “Immediately after a guest presented himself at the tent door, it was usual to offer the necessary materials for washing the feet (Gen. 18:4; 19:2; 24:32; 43:24; Judges 19:21). It was a yet more complimentary act betokening equally humility and affection, if the host actually performed the office for his guest (1 Sam. 25:41; Luke 7:38-49; John 13:5-14; 1 Tim. 5:10). Such a token of hospitality is occasionally exhibited in the East either by the host or by his deputy. The feet were again washed (Sol. Song 5:3) before retiring to bed.”--(Smith’s Bible Dictionary.)--=Dost thou wash my feet?= There is an emphasis on the word thou. Dost thou, my Lord and Master, act as my menial? “‘With those hands,’ he saith, ‘with which thou hast opened eyes, and cleansed lepers, and raised the dead!’”--(Chrysostom.)
7 Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.
8 Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet, Jesus answered him, If[524] I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.
[524] 1 Cor. 6:11; Ephes. 5:26; Titus 3:5.
=7, 8. Thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.= The meaning is not merely that he would explain to them the significance of his act, nor that they would understand it and him in the future kingdom, though both may be indicated. But spiritual truth is only spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14, 15), and the most significant acts and teachings of Christ can be comprehended only as the character is conformed to his character (2 Pet. 1:5-8). The meaning for Peter was that he must submit to Christ’s authority and wait till time and spiritual development enabled him to understand it; the meaning for us is that if Christ is our Master, we must accept in his word, his life and his providence much that is now incomprehensible, and wait for the future to make it plain. But if this implies a limit to our present knowledge, it also promises revelation hereafter. “Thou shalt know” assures that all will be made plain by-and-by.--=Thou shalt never wash my feet.= Literally, Thou shall not wash my feet to eternity. Pride in Peter could not comprehend humility in Christ. He thought the act, which was a manifestation of the true glory of the Lord, dishonored him. The same spirit in our day accounts the declaration of the incarnation and of the atonement dishonorable to God; it sees no glory in the humiliation of love.--=If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.= The phrase to have part with another signifies to share in his riches and glory (Josh. 22:25; 2 Sam. 20:1). Here it includes the idea of a partnership in the divine nature of Christ (2 Pet. 1:4) as well as in the glory of Christ which he has with the Father (John 17:22-26; Rev. 20:6). Washing was, it must be remembered, a symbolical act, recognized so among the Jews, and signifying purification from uncleanness. Christ’s act in rising from the table and washing the feet of the disciples was the severest rebuke to their pride. See Prel. Note. Peter’s refusal to be washed was a resistance to this rebuke. That Christ’s language was understood by Peter to signify a spiritual cleansing is indicated by his reply.
9 Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.
10 Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all.
11 For[525] he knew who should betray him; therefore said he, Ye are not all clean.
[525] chap. 6:64.
12 So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you?
=9-12. Not my feet only, but also the hands and the head.= This is generally regarded as the expression of an impulsive revulsion of feeling in Peter. “We have here the same Peter who one minute rushes into the water, and the next calls out ‘I perish’; who now smites with the sword and now flees; who goes even into the high priest’s palace and who denies his Lord.”--(Godet.) I should rather regard it as the language of argument and remonstrance still continued. “If,” he says in effect, “this is the reason of your washing, why stop with the feet? why not go on and wash the rest, the hands and the head?” i. e., the face and neck. To this argument Christ replies--=He that is bathed needeth not save to wash the feet, but is wholly clean.= In the original there is a distinction between bathing of the whole person and washing of the feet which our English translation ignores, but which is important. The meaning is, As he that has been once bathed, and so cleansed, needs only to wash what has become soiled in his walk, so he who by the washing of regeneration has been once cleansed of his sins (Titus 3:5), needs only to come to Christ hereafter for partial cleansing, i. e., for forgiveness and redemption from those sins which are in some sense the product of his daily walk and life. He does not need to come again and again for the washing of regeneration, but only for the cleansing of special faults. But even he who has been bathed still needs to be constantly washed by Christ (1 John 1:8, 9).--=Ye are not all clean.= Not all that seem to have come to Christ and to have entered his service, are really cleansed by him (Matt. 7:21-23).--=He knew who should betray him.= Among those whose feet were washed was Judas. No love can touch or change the heart resolutely set to do evil.--=Know ye what I have done to you?= That is, do you comprehend the reason why it is done, and the meaning of the action. The disciples are silent. In the following verses Christ goes on to explain its significance.
13 Ye[526] call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.
[526] Matt. 23:8-10; Phil. 2:11.
14 If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.
15 For[527] I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.
[527] 1 Pet. 2:21.
16 Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him.
17 If[528] ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.
[528] James 1:25.
=13-17. Ye call me the Master= (literally Teacher) =and the Lord=. Observe the definite article, not merely a teacher, or your teacher, but the teacher and the Lord. For instances in which they had done so, see ver. 6, 9, 25, 36, 37; ch. 14:5, 8, 22. Stress is perhaps not to be laid on the fact that the phrase the Lord (ὁ κύριος) is used in the Septuagint (Greek O. T.) for Jehovah; but it certainly is here more than a mere title of respectful address; and the declaration of Christ here, coupled with the declaration of Matthew 23:8, One is your Master (Teacher), and all ye are brethren, distinguishes him clearly from his disciples, as not merely the chosen leader among them, but having a divine authority over them.--=Ye say well; for I am.= The humble office of feet-washing had been done by one who was not only fully conscious of his supremacy, but who in the very act claimed that supremacy. This divine authority Christ never abdicated; his divine consciousness he never lost.--=If I then, the Lord and the Master.= The Lord, not merely your Lord. He might have been their Lord and teacher by their selection; he was the Lord and teacher by divine appointment, and by virtue of his own character.--=Ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.= If we are to interpret literally the commands of Christ, the command of feet-washing as a perpetual observance is even more explicit than that for the observance of the Lord’s Supper. That is in form a simple request: “Do this in remembrance of me;” this is a request thrice repeated: “Ye ought also to wash one another’s feet;” “I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you;” “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” Nevertheless feet-washing has never been generally practised by the Christian church. There is no indication of its introduction into the apostolic church. The only reference to it in the N. T. is 1 Tim. 5:10, and the probability is that the reference there is to a rite of hospitality, not to a religious or symbolical service. We first meet with feet-washing in ecclesiastical history in the fourth century. It was practised in connection with baptism, on the catechumens in some parts of the early church, especially in Gaul, possibly in Africa and Spain. It is practised in some of the Greek convents of to-day; by the R. C. church once a year on Maunday-Thursday, when the Pope washes the feet of twelve pilgrims in Rome; and by the Brethren (popularly known as Dunkards), a sect of German Baptists chiefly found in Pennsylvania; the Mennonites, a sect of Dutch Anabaptists, chiefly confined also to the eastern district of Pennsylvania in this country; and possibly by some other minor sects. With these exceptions, it has never been attempted to maintain feet-washing as a religious observance in the Christian church. This apparent disregard of Christ’s seemingly explicit command can be defended only on the general ground that no ceremonial is of the essence of Christianity; that the thing symbolized, not the symbol, here the spirit of self-sacrifice and serving love, not the form by which it is typified, is the essential thing; that as eating the bread and drinking the wine, not discerning the Lord’s body (1 Cor. 11:29), is not a true observance of the Lord’s Supper, so, on the other hand, the spirit that is willing to serve others to their cleansing, in humbleness of love, is a true observance of the rite of feet-washing, though the rite itself is disused. “It is not the act itself, but its moral essence which, after his example, he enjoins upon them to exercise. This moral essence, however, consists not in lowly and ministering love generally, in which Jesus by washing the feet of his disciples desired to give them an example, but, as ver. 10 proves, in that ministering love which, in all self-denial and humility, is active for the moral purification and cleansing of others.”--(Meyer.)--=I have given you an example.= It is the inward spirit of Christ, not the mere outward act, that is an example for us to follow; the cleansing love, not the girded garment and the washing of feet, that is our pattern. For the spiritual signification of this declaration, see ch. 17:18; 1 John 3:16.--=The servant is not greater=, etc. The repetition of this seemingly self-evident truth indicates that Christ apprehended for his followers that spiritual pride which has been in the history of the church almost their greatest danger. See ch. 15:20; Matt. 10:24; Luke 6:40.--=If ye know these things.= This language itself should have sufficed to guard against the literalism which would maintain feet-washing as a perpetual ceremonial. Know what things? That he had washed their feet? Of course they knew that. The meaning clearly is, If ye understand the meaning of my act, happy are ye if ye exemplify the same spirit in your lives. Per contra, he that does not know, that does not comprehend the spirit, is not blessed in going through the mere form, and this is equally true respecting all ceremonials. He only is blessed in them who comprehends their spiritual significance.
18 I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the[529] scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me.
[529] Ps. 41:9.
19 Now I tell[530] you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he.
[530] ch. 14:29; 16:4.
20 Verily, verily, I say unto you,[531] He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me: and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.
[531] Matt. 10:40.
=18-20. I speak not of you all.= The highest service of Christ is serviceable only to those who will receive it. The fact that Christ washed the feet of Judas, and broke bread with him, added to the blackness of his treachery and the enormity of his guilt. The church, the Bible, the Sabbath, the Lord’s Supper will rise up in judgment against those who have participated in them but have not imbibed the spirit of Christ from them.--=I know whom I have chosen.= Couple this with the declaration of ch. 15:16, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” The meaning is that Christ comprehended the character of those whom he had selected for his work; he was not deceived; and he is not now deceived by false professions, however they may deceive the church, the world, and even the false professor himself. Why Christ should have chosen Judas is one of the unsolved enigmas of N. T. history. We can see (1) that there was in every apostle the same conflict between the spiritual and the earthly nature which there was in Judas Iscariot, though the final issue was so different. (2) We cannot say that there was not a possibility that it might have been different in the case of Judas Iscariot. In other words, we cannot say what are the limits to the freedom of the will, what the possibility of good for the evil soul, what the possibility of evil for him who is preserved from it by accepting the grace of God and so becoming his child. (3) The case of Judas Iscariot has been full of warning to the church in all ages; thus the development of his character in the apostolate has been made a means of service to mankind. His spirit was that of the Pharisee; his position simply gave that spirit an opportunity to exhibit itself.--=But that the Scripture might be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me, now I tell you before it come.= Observe the difference in the punctuation, from that of the English version. The meaning is not, I have chosen Judas that the Scripture might be fulfilled, for (1) this interpretation, though that of Alford and Meyer, requires us to supply or imagine a most important hiatus in the text. Christ says nothing about his choice of Judas; he lays emphasis on the fact that all the twelve were chosen by him, and therefore all were known to him. Nor is the meaning, I speak not of you all, in order that the Scripture may be fulfilled, which would make Christ withhold a blessing for the purpose of fulfilling a prophecy, an incredible interpretation. But that the Scripture (which he parenthetically quotes) may be fulfilled, i. e., that the disciples may recognize its fulfillment in the events soon to take place, I now tell you before it is come to pass. Thus the particle but (ἀλλά) connects this sentence not with the declaration which precedes, but with that which follows. The Scripture is Psalm 41:9. The Psalm is clearly not, in strictness of speech, a prophetic Psalm, uttered as by the Messiah, for ver. 4 contains a confession of sin and a prayer for redemption. “I said, Lord be merciful unto me and heal my soul; for I have sinned against thee.” In that Psalm, ver. 9, “Yea mine own familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me,” primarily refers to some treachery displayed towards the Psalmist, perhaps that of Ahithophel to David (2 Sam. 15:31; 16:23). But events as well as words are prophetic; and the treachery of Ahithophel towards David was itself a prophecy of the treachery of Judas towards David’s greater Son. To eat bread with another is, in the East, the highest possible confirmation of a sacred covenant with him. To lift up the heel is a figure taken from the kick of a horse, who turns suddenly upon one who has been feeding him. This seems to me a better interpretation than that of Canon Cook, who sees in it a figure taken from the act of a conqueror putting his heel on the neck of a prostrate foe.--=That when it is come to pass ye may believe that I am.= The office of prophecy is here intimated. It is not designed to give us in the present a definite knowledge of future events. The most spiritually minded among the Jews did not comprehend the O. T. prophecy of Christ, and did not understand the nature of his advent. It is rather so to depict the future as (1) to awaken hope or serve as a warning; and (2) to serve as an evidence of the inspiration of the writer of the book after the fulfillment of the prophecy has demonstrated the prescience of the author. On the phrase I am, see ch. 8:58, note.--=He that receiveth you=, etc. See Matt. 10:40, note, where the same declaration is made in a different connection. Here Christ, in order to encourage the disciples, reiterates a principle with which they were already familiar. Although, he says, you are to serve in humble ways, as I have served you, and although you will meet with many a discouraging rebuff from without and with treachery from among your own number, yet you are not to forget that you are sent into the world as your Master was sent into the world, so that to receive you will be to receive me.
21 When[532] Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.
[532] Matt. 26:21; Mark 14:18; Luke 22:21.
22 Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake.
=21, 22.= An account of this prophecy of the betrayal is given by all the Evangelists (Matt. 26:21-25; Mark 14:18-21; Luke 22:21-23). See notes on Matthew. There is some difficulty in determining the exact nature and order of the events, though not more than we might expect in a comparison of four independent accounts of circumstances involved in so great confusion. The fullest account is that of John. He alone mentions Judas’ departure from the room. Matthew declares that Christ replied directly in the affirmative to Judas’ question, Is it I? John, on the other hand, asserts that no one in the room knew why Judas went out (comp. Matt. 26:25 with vers. 28, 29 here). The differences are not irreconcilable. Comparing the four accounts, it would appear that Christ’s declaration, “One of you shall betray me,” produced the utmost consternation and excitement; that all the disciples eagerly asked, “Is it I?” “Is it I?” that Peter asked John to tell him who it was, assuming that John knew, or could ascertain (see ver. 24); that at the same time Judas, thunderstruck at the disclosure of his treachery, which had been already planned (Matt. 26:14-16), asked, perhaps somewhat tardily, the question, “Is it I?” to hide his confusion; that Jesus replied in an aside to him, “Thou hast said” (Matt. 26:25), a reply that in the confusion either was not heard or was not heeded; that John, turning toward Jesus so as to rest upon his bosom (ver. 25), asked who the betrayer should be; that Jesus seemed to give the information, but really refused to do so, in his reply, “He it is to whom I shall give a sop” (ver. 26), since he gave a sop in turn to all; so that when a moment or two later Judas went out angered by what he erroneously believed to be a public disclosure of his treachery before all the disciples, no one, not even John, knew why he had gone. The question whether Judas was at the Lord’s Supper has been greatly discussed. The question seems to me of no practical importance; and it is one impossible to answer with positiveness, for John, who alone mentions his going out, gives no account of the institution of the Lord’s Supper. I believe, however, on a comparison of the four accounts, that he was not at the Last Supper, but went out immediately before its institution. According to Matthew, the prophecy of the betrayal preceded the institution of the Supper; according to John, Judas went out immediately after receiving the sop (comp. Matt. 26:25, 26 with ver. 30 here). And the explanation of Christ’s course, as described by John, appears to me to be his desire to have, in this last sacred conference, only those who were really his friends, and measurably in spiritual sympathy with him. This I believe to be the explanation of the direction to Judas in ver. 27. For an elaborate discussion of this question, see Andrews’ Life of our Lord; for a fuller harmonic account of the events, Lyman Abbott’s Jesus of Nazareth.--=He was troubled in spirit.= Compare ch. 11:33; 12:27. Our own experience helps to interpret this, which Alford calls a “mysterious troubling of spirit.” The presence of an uncongenial soul often suffices to destroy the sympathy of a sacred circle; the presence of a known traitor might well have prevented Christ from an outpouring of his soul in confidential converse which renders the 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th chapters of John the most sacred in the Bible to the disciples of Christ.--=One of you shall betray me.= Christ had before foretold his betrayal, Matt. 17:22; 20:18; 26:2, etc., but now for the first time he declares that he should be betrayed by one of the twelve. No wonder that they were startled.--=The disciples looked one on another doubting of whom he spake.= And asking one another (Luke 22:23) and eagerly asking Christ (Matt. 26:22; Mark 14:19). Not one of them ventures to question the truth of the Lord’s prophecy, and each asks the personal question, “Is it I?” No one accuses, even by implication, his neighbor. Is not this a pattern for us in that self-examination which should always precede our seasons of sacred communion with our Lord (1 Cor. 11:28)? an examination which should look forward rather than backward; prepare for the future rather than attempt to measure the past; and always be a self examination.
23 Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one[533] of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.
[533] ch. 20:2; 21:7, 20.
24 Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake.
25 He then lying on Jesus’ breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it?
=23-25. There was leaning on Jesus’ bosom.= The party were reclining at the table according to the Greek and Roman fashion. For illustration, which better than any description shows the manner, see Matt. 26:20, note. John was lying next to Jesus.--=Whom Jesus loved.= “Here, out of the recollection of that sacred and by him never-to-be-forgotten moment, there first breaks from his lips this nameless, and yet so expressive designation of himself.”--(Meyer.) The phrase “whom Jesus loved” occurs seven times in John’s Gospel; twice as a designation of Martha, Mary and Lazarus (John 11:3, 5); five times as the designation of one of the disciples (John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7; 21:20). It has been almost universally regarded as a designation of John, the author of the Fourth Gospel, who is accordingly known in the church as the “beloved disciple,” though this designation is not found in the Gospels themselves. The main reasons for this opinion are two. (1) John is not once named in the Fourth Gospel, while an unnamed disciple is frequently referred to (John 1:35, 40; 18:15; 19:27; 21:3, 4, 8; 21:23; and see refs. above). It is not easy to conceive of any reason why the author should leave unnamed any other disciple, but it is not at all strange that he should use a circumlocution to designate himself. (2) His character, so far as we know it, corresponds with his designation as the “beloved disciple.” See Introduction. It has been, indeed, objected that there is a certain appearance of egotism in his singling himself out as the disciple whom Jesus loved, a designation never given to him by either of the other Evangelists. The reply to this is, or at least may be, that the designation was employed by John, not because he desired in any sense to claim or imply a supremacy above the other disciples, but because the wonder of his life was that Jesus should love such an one as he, and by love should transform him. All facts in his life sink into insignificance in his thought by the side of this fact, that he was beloved of Jesus, chosen to be the witness of his transfiguration, his nearest companion at the Last Supper, the sympathizing sharer in his agony at Gethsemane, and the guardian of his mother after the death of her son (Matt. 17:1; 26:37; John 13:23; 19:26, 27).--=Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him and said, Tell us who it is.= This is the true reading, adopted by all critics, Alford, Meyer, Lachmann, Tischendorf, etc. The expression has been altered to that of the Received Text in order to adapt Peter’s question to John’s account as described in the next verse. The Sinaitic manuscript has the Received Text, “That he should ask who it should be,” as an explanatory gloss or comment alongside the original expression, “Tell who it is.” Peter seems to have assumed that John would know. Possibly in the general tumult the latter preserved his composure, and conscious of his own supreme love for his Lord, did not join in the general exclamation, “Is it I?”--=He then throwing himself back on Jesus’ breast.= (See Robinson’s Lexicon, ἐπιπίπτω.) The language of the English version is inadequate and incorrect, since it merely repeats the phrase used in verse 23, as though to identify the person; whereas the original implies an action on John’s part, by which he turned and rested more closely than before on Christ’s bosom. He had before been reclining next to Jesus in the manner indicated in the illustration on page 282 of Vol. I of this Commentary. He now raises himself, and turns so as to rest upon Jesus’ breast and whisper in his ear. The graphic details of this entire narrative are unmistakably those of an eye-witness.
26 Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.
=26. He it is to whom I shall give a sop.= This reply, and Christ’s accompanying action, is generally regarded as a designation, at least to John, of the traitor. I think this is a mistake. It is no uncommon act in an Eastern meal for the host, as a special act of consideration, to dip a piece of bread or meat in the sauce or gravy and pass it to a special guest, or even put it into his mouth. In the Passover feast, the head of the house habitually took from the passover cake a piece, dipped it in the sauce of bitter herbs (Exod. 12:8), and passed it in turn to the persons at the table. Christ’s answer to John, therefore, was simply a more solemn reiteration of the declaration of ver. 18, “He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up the heel against me.” He dipped the piece of bread in the sauce, and passed it to the disciples in turn. In doing so he gave it first to Judas. John may have understood the significance of the act; but it is plain from ver. 28 that none of the others at the table did so. I should rather regard the act as a new endeavor on the part of Christ by love to turn Judas from his evil purpose. He has answered without designating him. He now endeavors to draw him to himself by singling him out for a manifestation of special love. In the same spirit are the last words he addressed to the apostate--words not of angry rebuke, but of pathetic remonstrance: “Friend, wherefore art thou come? Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?” (Matt. 26:50; Luke 22:48.)
27 And after the sop Satan[534] entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.
[534] Luke 22:3.
28 Now no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this unto him.
29 For some of them thought,[535] because Judas had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that we have need of against the feast: or, that he should give something to the poor.
[535] chap. 12:6.
30 He then, having received the sop, went immediately out: and it was night.
=27-30. Satan entered into him.= It is a mistaken literalism which interprets this phrase as indicating that Judas was from this time demoniacally possessed. Nor, on the other hand, is it to be regarded as a merely figurative expression, indicating that Judas gave himself up wholly and unreservedly to evil. The N. T. teaching assumes the existence of evil spirits and their influence over human beings (Matt. 13:19, 38; Luke 4:6; 22:31; John 14:30; Acts 5:3; 26:18; 2 Cor. 2:11; Ephes. 2:2; 4:27; 6:11; 2 Tim. 2:26; Jas. 4:7; 1 John 3:8; 5:18), and the language here is in accordance with its spiritual philosophy. It simply indicates that Judas’ determined resistance to the warning words and the winning love of Christ gave to the Evil One a new advantage and influence over him. The solemn lesson for us is that, as every faithful performance of known duty opens our heart to the incoming of God (ch. 14:23), so every determined resistance of sacred influences and every persistence in sin, opens our nature to the incoming of unknown but tremendous Satanic influences. It has before been said of Judas that Satan entered into him (Luke 22:3). There is growth in the kingdom of darkness as in that of light. As God enters by successive manifestations of himself into his saints, so Satan into those that give themselves up to him.--=That thou doest, do quickly.= Literally, more quickly (τάχιον); i. e., hasten it. This is not to be regarded as merely permission, as Adam Clarke: “What thou art determined to do, and I to permit, do directly; delay not; I am ready;” nor yet as mandatory, and involving the utterance of a divine decree, as Alford: “The course of sinful action is presupposed, and the command to go on is but the echo of that mysterious appointment by which the sinner in the exercise of his own corrupted will becomes the instrument of the purposes of God;” but as the expression of Christ’s desire to be rid of the oppressive proximity of the traitor, as Ambrose and Tholuck. He sees that the purpose of Judas is fully fixed; he will not have him remain there, contaminating the very atmosphere, and increasing his own guilt by his dissembling. We are apt to judge men by the external act; no wonder then that Christ has been accused of pushing Judas over the precipice. But he who judged by the heart, and accounted him already a murderer who has murder in his heart (Matt. 5:22), would not have the resolute apostate increase the guilt of betrayal by that of hypocrisy. Moreover, Christ wishes the few minutes that remain for sacred converse with his faithful friends; and that he cannot have in the presence of the hypocrite and traitor. So he bids him begone. “Play the hypocrite here no longer,” he says to him; “but since you are determined on treason, go on and consummate it.”--=Now no one at the table knew why he thus spake to him.= Perhaps the writer himself, that is John, is to be excepted from this general statement. This is the opinion of most of the commentators. Yet it is not at all impossible that not even John comprehended the significance of Christ’s act in handing the sop to Judas first of the disciples.--=Because Judas had the bag.= Being treasurer of the little band. See ch. 12:6, note.--=Buy those things we have need of against the feast.= From this phrase it is argued by Alford and Meyer that the supper at which our Lord was sitting with his disciples could not have been the Passover Supper. “Had it been the night of the Passover, the next day being hallowed as a Sabbath, nothing could have been bought.”--(Alford.) But Tholuck has shown that according to Rabbinical rules a purchase could be made on the Sabbath by leaving a pledge and afterwards settling the account. The feast lasted for the week; therefore the disciples may well have supposed that a purchase for a later period of the feast was contemplated. And the fact that Christ hastened Judas would have been better understood if the following day was the Sabbath, when the shops would be shut.--=Or that he should give something to the poor.= Evidently this little band carried out the precepts of Christian love which their Master inculcated. Small as was their store, it is clear that out of it they were accustomed to bestow alms on the more needy.--=Went out immediately.= There was then, clearly, no opportunity for the institution of the Lord’s Supper during his presence, unless it was instituted either before the feet-washing, which the order of the narrative and its probable connection with the contest about places described in Luke, makes exceedingly improbable, or between verses 20 and 21, which seems from the connection to be also very improbable. I believe it is to be regarded as occurring between the departure of Judas and the beginning of Christ’s discourse in ch. 14. Matthew and Mark both put it immediately after the prophecy of the betrayal; Luke before.--=And it was night.= A graphic addition to the picture; significant of the fact that the narration is that of an eye-witness in whose memory every detail was indelibly impressed; and suggestive of the darkness of the deed about to be consummated, and of the traitor’s heart. It is always night when a deed of determined sin is entered upon. “The night which this miserable wretch has in his heart is, without comparison, blacker and darker than that which he chooses for his work of darkness.”--(Quesnel.)
31 Therefore when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now[536] is the Son of man glorified, and God[537] is glorified in him.
[536] ch. 12:23; 17:1-6.
[537] ch. 14:13; 1 Pet. 4:11.
32 If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him.
=31, 32. When he was gone out Jesus said.= The departure of Judas is a relief. Now for the first time Christ can speak freely, unoppressed by the presence of a traitor and a hypocrite.--=Now has the Son of man been glorified, and God has been glorified in him= (ὲδοξάσθη, aorist). =If God has been glorified in him, God also shall glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him.= The significance of this utterance has been, it seems to me, misapprehended by the commentators, from a failure to consider the mental attitude and expectation of the disciples. The phrase Son of man was a common Jewish designation of the Messiah, borrowed from Daniel, and would have been so understood by the disciples (Matt. 10:23, note). They had come up to Jerusalem anticipating the coronation of the Messiah as King of the Jews. They had entered Jerusalem in triumph, hailing him as such (Matt. 21:1-11). Two of the disciples on the way had come to him privately for the best offices (Matt. 20:20, 21). The twelve even had quarreled for pre-eminence as they were sitting down at the table (Luke 22:24). The immediate object of Christ in the discourse which follows is to prepare them for the terrible revulsion of feeling, the shock of disappointment and despair which the morrow had in store for them. He begins, therefore, with the declaration that the glory of the Messiah is an already accomplished fact. He has been glorified; by his incarnation, his life of loving self-sacrifice, his patience, courage, fidelity, love; and in his life and character, God has been glorified. The disciples have beheld already the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (ch. 1:14). Then he adds a prophecy of further glory; not that of the death; not that of the resurrection; not that of the ascension; but that of being again one with the Father.--The Father shall glorify him, in himself. He foresees and foretells the answer to be given to the prayer “Glorify thou me, with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (ch. 17:5). And for this there is to be no waiting; no delay for an earthly coronation. There must be a long interval of redeeming work before he can see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied; before every knee will bow and every tongue confess him Lord; before he can reign King of kings and Lord of lords; but for this the Father will not wait. Immediately that his work of suffering and self-sacrifice is over, he will return to the bosom of the Father, to share with him the glory which he had from the foundation of the world.
33 Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and[538] as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you.
[538] chaps. 7:34; 8:21.
34 A new[539] commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
[539] ch. 15:12, 17; Lev. 19:18; Ephes. 5:2; 1 Thess. 4:9; Jas. 2:8; 1 Pet. 1:22; 1 John 2:7, 8; 3:11, 23; 4:20, 21.
35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
=33-35. Little children.= The only place where this phrase is used by Christ in addressing his disciples. But we find it more frequently in the Epistles of Paul (1 Cor. 4:14, 17; 2 Cor. 6:13; 1 Tim. 1:2; 2 Tim. 2:1). It “affectingly expresses his, not only brotherly, but fatherly love (Isa. 9:6) for his own, and at the same time their immature and weak state, now about to be left without him.”--(Alford.)--=And as I said to the Jews= (ch. 8:21), =Whither I go ye cannot come, so now I say to you.= But though they could not go to him, he would come to them, and abide with them (ch. 14:18, 23). The longing to depart and be with Christ is to be gratified only by our having Christ with us, until the time of final departure comes. It is one thing to desire him here, willing to fill up the measure of his suffering in our own life, if he is in us and with us (2 Cor. 12:10); it is another and very different thing to desire to depart and be with him that we may escape the suffering. The first is a Christian longing; not so the second.--=A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.= The commandment to love is not new (Lev. 19:18). But Christ’s life gives to it a new interpretation and makes it new. Love has, ever since the life and death of Christ, taken on a new signification. To forgive is now to bless those that curse us, and do good to those that despitefully use us. The language here is parallel to and interpreted by ch. 17:18, “As thou (Father) hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.” It is the interpretation of the direction, “Follow me.” We are to be followers of his spirit, especially of his love. This general definition includes other special definitions that have been given, e. g., it is new because with it there comes a new motive power, the love of Christ experienced in the heart, which becomes in turn the fountain of love to all others (Meyer); a renewed commandment, rejuvenated, cleansed of the overlay of ceremonialism which Pharisaism had put upon it (Calvin); new to the disciples, unexpected by them, who were looking for a new disclosure of divine glory in a very different direction (Semler quoted in Meyer); new because love is ever new, never can grow old (Olshausen); new because the law of the new covenant, the firstfruits of the Spirit in the new dispensation (Gal. 5:22). It is notable how this one law of love runs through and colors all this last sacred discourse of Jesus. Comp. ch. 14:15, 24; 15:9, 10, 17. The last words of Jesus are words full of the comfort and inspiration and exaltation of love.--=By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples.= Not by professions, or creeds, or ceremonials, or religious services, but by love one towards another. Love is the Christian water-mark, the Christian uniform. The banner over Christ’s church is love (Sol. Song 2:4).
36 Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but[540] thou shalt follow me afterwards.
[540] ch. 21:18; 2 Pet. 1:14.
37 Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will[541] lay down my life for thy sake.
[541] Matt. 26:33, etc.; Mark 14:29, etc.; Luke 22:33, etc.
38 Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice.
=36-38. Prophecy of Peter’s denial.= This is probably identical with the prophecy of Luke 22:31-38, see notes there; but distinct from that of Matt. 26:31-35; Mark 14:27-31. =Thou canst not follow me now.= Because it was not the divine will that the apostles should share in their Master’s death.--=But thou shalt follow me afterwards.= Peter, according to tradition, was crucified; thus he followed Christ in death, and through death into glory. Comp. John 21:18.--=The cock shall not crow.= The second crowing at dawn is intended. See Matt. 26:34, note.
Chapter XIV
Ch. 14:1-31. THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY--THE DIVINE IMMANENCE.--THE PROMISE OF THE COMFORTER: INVISIBLE, INDWELLING, ABIDING.--THE CONDITION OF THE PROMISE: THE OBEDIENCE OF LOVE.--THE RESULT: A FRUITFUL, SPIRITUAL LIFE, COMFORT, INSTRUCTION, PEACE, JOY, LOVE.
PRELIMINARY NOTE.--The 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th chapters of John are the Holy of Holies of the Bible. Christ is about to depart from his disciples; the cloud of the coming trouble casts its shadow on their hearts; he sees clearly, they feel vaguely the impending tragedy. They are to behold their Master spit upon, abused, execrated; they are to see him suffering the tortures of a lingering death upon the cross; they are to be utterly unable to interfere for his succor or even for his relief; they are to see all the hopes which they had built on him extinguished in his death. It is that he may prepare them for this experience, that he may prepare his disciples throughout all time (ch. 17:20) for similar experiences of world-sorrow (ch. 16:33), and that he may point out to them and to the church universal the source of their hope, their peace, their joy, and their life--moral and spiritual--that he speaks to the twelve, and through them to his discipleship in all ages, in these chapters, and finally offers for them and for us that prayer which we may well accept as the disclosure of his eternal intercession for his followers. The discourse is sympathetic, not philosophical or critical; it is addressed to sympathetic friends, not to a cold or critical audience; and it is to be interpreted rather by the sympathies and the spiritual experience than by a philosophical analysis. It sets forth the source of all comfort, strength, guidance and spiritual well-being in the truth of the direct personal presence of a seemingly absent but really present, a seemingly slain but really living, a seemingly defeated but really victorious Lord and Master. This truth appears and reappears in various forms in these chapters, like the theme in a sublime symphony. Now it is plainly stated, “I will come to you” (ch. 14:18); now it is interpreted by a metaphor, “Ye are the vine, I am the branches” (ch. 15:5); now it is a promise of the Spirit’s presence, now of Christ’s, now of the Father’s (ch. 14:16, 18, 21, 23); now the disciples are bid to turn their thoughts toward this spiritual presence, this Divine Immanence, for their own sake (ch. 16:7), now they are appealed to by the love they bear the Master (ch. 14:28). The conditions of this personal experience of the unseen spiritual presence of their God and Saviour is declared to be obedience in the daily life to the law of love (ch. 14:21, 23; 15:10); the result is declared to be a constant growth in the knowledge of divine truth (ch. 14:26; 16:12, 13); a sacred peace and joy (ch. 14:27; 15:11); a supernatural strength in sorrow (16:20-22). These truths are not logically arranged; the structure of the discourse is not that of a sermon, but that of a confidential conversation, in which in different forms the same essential truth is repeated and re-repeated, because the heart is so full that a single utterance does not suffice, and the truth is so transcendent that no logical statement is adequate. After the conversation is closed and the disciples rise to depart, Christ recurs to the theme in a new form, and continues the discourse, while the disciples wait standing for a new signal to go out (ch. 14:31; ch. 15, Prel. Note); and, finally, when for a second time he draws his discourse to a close, he re-embodies the same consolatory and inspiring truth in a prayer, breathing the aspiration that the reward and secret and source of his own power may be given to his disciples, sent into the world to complete the mission which he has but inaugurated (ch. 17:18). Thus these chapters of John contain a disclosure of the very heart of Christianity, the personal knowledge of a living God by direct communion with him, as a teacher, a comforter, an inspirer, the one and only true source of faith, hope, love. The commentator must point out the connection of the verses and the meaning of the words; his work must be in a measure critical and cold; but only the devout heart, which knows by experience that love of Christ which passes the knowledge of the intellect, can interpret the spiritual meaning of the truth, since the condition of understanding it is not a critical knowledge of words or an intellectual apprehension of theology, but a love for Christ that keeps Christ’s words, that recognizes Christ’s mission to be also the mission of the Christian, and that abides in Christ in the spirit that it may follow Christ in the life. Without this spirit the student in vain addresses himself to the study of this “wisdom of God in a mystery,” hidden except to the soul to whom God hath revealed it by his Spirit (1 Cor. 2:7-10).
1 Let[542] not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe[543] also in me.
[542] verse 27; Isa. 43:1, 2; 2 Thess. 2:2.
[543] Isa. 12:2, 3; Ephes. 1:12, 13; 1 Pet. 1:21.
2 In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go[544] to prepare a place for you.
[544] Heb. 6:20; 9:8, 24; Rev. 21:2.
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will[545] come again, and receive you unto myself: that[546] where I am, there ye may be also.
[545] Heb. 9:28.
[546] ch. 12:26; 17:24; 1 Thess. 4:17.
=1-3. Let not your heart be troubled.= In this hour of unparalleled sorrow, with Gethsemane, the betrayal, the denial, the mock trials and the crucifixion full in view, Christ thinks not of himself, but of his disciples. He does not seek comfort, but imparts it. We may well imagine a momentary silence after the prophecy of the preceding verses. The disappointment of the Judaic expectation of temporal and political deliverance, the prophecy of treason, the sudden and unexpected departure of Judas, the prophecy of Peter’s denial, and of the abandonment of their Lord by the other disciples, have all tended to sober and sadden them.--=Ye have faith in God, have faith also in me.= The forms of the indicative and the imperative are the same (πιστεύετε). Some critics read both verbs indicative, Ye have faith in God, ye have faith also in me; some both imperative; treating both as an exhortation, Have faith in God; have faith also in me; and some, as our English version, which makes the statement of the first clause the ground of the exhortation of the second clause, Ye have faith in God, have faith also in me. Either rendering is grammatically legitimate; the latter seems to me preferable. As Jews they had faith in the one only true and living God; a faith which, in the experience of patriarchs and prophets, trial and trouble had not been able to shake (Hab. 3:17, 18). Christ urges them to a like faith in him, a faith strong enough to survive the brief though terrible separation of death. Theism is the foundation of Christianity; faith in one only living and true God precedes and prepares the way for faith in Christ his Son, the living and true way to the Father. To believe in him is not to believe anything about him, nor merely to trust in him, but to have such a spiritual apprehension of his character, that when he is crucified the disciples shall not lose their confidence in him as the Messiah. He warns them against that doubt which augmented and intensified their distress when they saw him whom they had trusted should have redeemed Israel put to an open shame and a cruel death (Luke 24:21). They were trusting in themselves. Peter’s declaration, “I will lay down my life for thy sake,” expressed the common confidence of all (Mark 14:31). Christ first demolished this false confidence, then seeks to build up a new and better confidence in himself.--=In my Father’s house are many dwelling-places.= The phrase “my Father’s house” is generally regarded as a circumlocution for heaven; Christ’s declaration as tantamount to the general statement that in heaven there is room enough for them all (Alford, Meyer, etc.); and in support of this view such O. T. passages as Ps. 23:13, 14; Isaiah 63:15, are quoted, which refer to the heavens as God’s habitation. I would rather regard the universe as God’s house according to the spirit of Isaiah 66:1, “Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool,” and the declaration that in it are many dwelling-places, as a new light thrown upon the abode of the dead who die in Christ Jesus. The ancients regarded Hades, or the abode of the dead, a deep and dark abode in the under-world, fastened with gates and bars, a ghostly abode, a prison-house of the disembodied (Job 10:21, 22; 11:8; Ps. 88:6; 89:48; Eccles. 9:4; Isa. 5:14; 14:9-20, 38:10; Ezek. 31:17; 32:21). The O. T. thought of death and the abode of the dead was hardly more hopeful than that of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Homer makes the dead Achilles declare:
“I would be A laborer on earth and serve for hire Some man of mean estate, who makes scant cheer, Rather than reign over all who have gone down To death.”
Parallel to this, in some respects more gloomy, were the ancient Hebrews’ thoughts of Hades. Dying was bidding farewell to God. “Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee? * * * Shall thy righteousness be known in the land of forgetfulness?” (Ps. 88:10-12). “In death there is no remembrance of thee” (Ps. 6:5). Comp. Isaiah, ch. 38, and Job, ch. 14. The hope of better things is but an occasional gleam in a night of great darkness and almost despair. See Job 10:21, 22; Ps. 89:45-49; Eccles. 9:4; Isaiah 5:14, 15; 14:9-20; Ezek. 31:16, 17; and especially Isaiah, ch. 38, and Job, ch. 14. In contrast with this gloomy view of death is that of the N. T., the germ of which is afforded by Christ’s declaration here, which may be paraphrased thus: “The earth is not the only abode of God’s children; in my Father’s house (the universe) are many dwelling-places for them; and I, in leaving you, am not going to the dark abode of the voiceless dead, but to prepare for you a place, and to return again to take you to myself, that you may witness and share the glory which I have with the Father.” Out of this declaration grows, as a fruitful tree out of a seed, the whole of the discourse contained in this and the two following chapters. Out of it grows, too, the Christian’s conception of and experience in death. See for example 2 Cor. 5:1-4. It should be added that the word house (οἰκία) is never used in the N. T. as a designation of heaven, but with the analogous word (οἷκος) household, is used of the world (John 8:35), the temple (John 2:16), and the whole kingdom of God (Heb. 3:2-6); so that N. T. usage confirms the interpretation here given. The word rendered mansions (μονή) occurs nowhere else in the N. T., but is derived from a verb (μένω) signifying to abide, and here unquestionably indicates not a mansion, but simply a permanent dwelling-place. This was indeed the original meaning of the English word mansion (Fr. maison).--=If not, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?= The reference is to some previous statement not preserved in our Gospels. The argument is this: I could not have assured you, as I have done, that I am going to prepare a place for you, if the place of the dead were the dark abode which you have imagined it to be. This, which is the interpretation of the French translation, seems to me, notwithstanding the objection of the modern writers (Meyer, Godet, Tholuck, etc.), better than the construction of our English version, though either is grammatically admissible. If we take the other construction, the connection is as Godet gives it: “If our separation was to be an eternal one, I would have forewarned you; I would not have waited for this last moment to declare it unto you.”--=And if I go and prepare a place for you.= The implication of this entire passage is not merely “heaven large enough for all,” but a heaven with various provisions for various natures. In the Father’s house is not merely a large mansion, but many mansions; and there is prepared a place not merely for all but for you, a personal preparation in glory for each child as by grace in each child; a room, a house for each nature adapted to its needs. But how does Christ prepare a place for us? To that question revelation makes no answer. We can only say that redemption did not end with Christ’s death, that he is still carrying on his work of redeeming love for us as well as in us. In every death of a friend he lays up treasure in heaven for us; those that have gone before and entered into their rest, and await our coming, are a part of this divine preparation. The sorrow here is a part of the preparation of unmeasured joy hereafter.--=I will come again and receive you unto myself.= In order to understand this, we must bear in mind what Stier well calls the perspective of prophecy. “The coming again of the Lord is not one single act--as his resurrection, or the descent of the Spirit, or his second personal advent, or the final coming in judgment--but the combination of all these, the result of which shall be his taking his people to himself to be where he is. This coming is begun (ver. 18) in his resurrection; carried on (ver. 23) in the spiritual life (see also ch. 16:22, etc.), the making them ready for the place prepared; further advanced when each by death is fetched away to be with him (Phil. 1:23); fully completed at His coming in glory when they shall be forever with Him (1 Thess. 4:17) in the perfected resurrection state.”--(Alford.)--=That.= In order that (ἵνα). The going, the preparing, the returning are all for the sake of them, his disciples.--=Where I am there ye may be also.= Death is no longer “farewell to God;” it is going home to be forever with the Lord (ch. 17:24; Phil. 1:23; 1 Thess. 4:17).
4 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.
5 Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?
=4, 5. And whither I go= (ye know and) =the way ye know=. There is some doubt as to the reading; most critics (Meyer, Alford, Tischendorf, Lachmann) either omit or doubt the words I put in brackets. But their omission obscures without changing the sense; the meaning is undoubtedly that conveyed by our Received Version. While in form a statement, it is in fact an inquiry; its object is to provoke questioning, as it does from Thomas. Whither he goes is to the Father (ch. 20:17); the way he goes is the way of death and resurrection, already foretold them (Matt. 16:21; 17:22, 23; 20:17-19).--=Thomas saith unto him, We know not=, etc. On the character of Thomas, see ch. 20:26. The few indications of his character afforded by the Gospels (John 11:16; 20:24-29) show him to have possessed an affectionate but unimaginative nature, desiring much, hoping little, and easily given to despair. Such a nature takes nothing for granted; it wants every statement explained, nothing left to the imagination, nothing to the interpretation of the future. “The heavenly whither, however distinctly Jesus had already designated it, Thomas did not yet know clearly how to combine with his circle of Messianic ideas; but he desired to arrive at clearness.”--(Meyer.)
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the[547] way, and the truth,[548] and the life:[549] no[550] man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
[547] ch. 10:9; Isa. 35:8, 9; Heb. 10:19, 20.
[548] ch. 1:17; 15:1.
[549] ch. 1:4; 11:25.
[550] Acts 4:12.
7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
=6, 7. Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.= This is not directly responsive to the implied question of Thomas. That is theoretical; this is practical. The disciples desire to understand the way by which Christ is to depart, and the place to which he is going; Christ’s answer points out the way in and by which the disciple can follow his Lord and be with him where he is. There is here, therefore, not merely a play upon the word “way,” though Christ uses it in one sense in ver. 4 and in a different sense in ver. 6; but the same word is used to turn the thoughts of the inquirer from a purely theoretical question about Christ to a practical truth concerning himself. It was always the habit of Christ to answer questions in theoretical theology by directions helpful to the spiritual life (see ver. 22-24; ch. 3:4-6; 4:19-24). The phrase, I am the way, the truth, and the life, may be interpreted, according to Lightfoot, as a Hebraism equivalent to the true and living way; but it is better to take the two latter phrases as explanations of the former. Christ is the way unto the Father, not because he points out the way, but because he is the truth concerning the Father, and possesses in himself the divine life, and has power to impart it to us. He does not merely reveal the truth; he is the truth; the truth incarnated in a living form; the truth of God, whom he manifests to the world (Matt. 11:27; John 1:1, 2, 14; 10:30; Phil. 2:6; Col. 2:9; Heb. 1:13), and the truth of life, which he illustrates more forcibly by his example than by his words, so that all his precepts are summed up in the one command, “Follow me.” He is the life, having life in himself (ch. 5:26), imparting it to others (ch. 10:10), and so giving them power to become sons of God (ch. 1:12) by the possession of that divine life without which no man can ever see God (ch. 3:3; Heb. 12:14). To come to the Father by Christ as the way is not, then, merely to accept him as an inspired teacher respecting the Father, nor merely as an atoning sacrifice, whose blood cleanses away the sins which intervene between the soul and the Father (Heb. 10:20); it is to be conformed to him as to the truth, and to be made partaker of his life (Phil. 3:8-14).--=No one cometh to the Father but by me.= He now says “to the Father,” not to the Father’s house, because, as Godet well says, “It is not in heaven that we are to find God, but in God that we are to find heaven.” By me is equivalent to, by me as the way, the truth, and the life. This does not necessarily require a knowledge of, still less a correct theological opinion concerning Christ. The conception of God’s character may be really derived from Christ’s teaching, the life may be conformed to Christ’s example, and the soul may be partaker of his spirit, and yet the individual may be unconscious of the source from which he has derived his knowledge of God, his ideal of life, and his inspiration. This declaration is inclusive rather than exclusive; it is equivalent to that of ch. 1:9 (see note there), “That was the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” All spiritual life comes through Christ, but not necessarily through a clear and correct knowledge about Christ.--=If ye had known me ye should have known my Father also.= Comp. ch. 8:19. The practical lesson for us clearly is that the way to come to a true spiritual knowledge of the Father is by a study of the life and character of Christ, and above all by a sympathetic and personal spiritual acquaintance with him. His disciples had not known Christ. They had up to this time believed in him as a temporal Messiah. Of a Messiah crucified, the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation to Gentile as well as Jew (1 Cor. 1:24), they had known nothing, and hence of God as their Father and their Friend they knew nothing.--=From henceforth ye have known him and have seen him.= From this time. He refers to what he has already disclosed of the divine nature, in the washing of the disciples’ feet, in the prophecy of his own betrayal and death, and in what he is about to tell them of the spiritual presence of himself and the Father, through the Holy Spirit, in their hearts. From the time of this disclosure it will indeed be their own fault if they fail to comprehend, at least in some measure, “the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ (and so the love of the Father revealed in and through Christ), which passeth knowledge” (Ephes 3:18, 19).
8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father and it sufficeth us.
9 Jesus saith unto him. Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he[551] that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
[551] Col. 1:15.
=8, 9. Philip saith unto him, Shew us the Father and it sufficeth us.= On Philip’s life and character, see Vol. I, p. 149. Compare the request of Moses (Exod. 33:18). Philip has in mind the O. T. appearances of God; he wants such a manifestation of the Deity, a seeing of God. “One such sight of God would set at rest all these fears, and give him perfect confidence.”--(Alford.) He wants to walk by sight, and not by faith. He expresses the universal longing of humanity for a vision of the unknown. This request furnishes the text on which the following discourse is founded. Christ replies that the unknown Father is manifested to the world in his Son (ver. 9-11), and in the spiritual life, the inward experience, of those that love him and keep his commandments (ver. 15-21); he points out the way to secure this inward experience, namely, by loving the Son and keeping his commandments (ver. 22-26); he declares that this indwelling of the Father in the soul of the believer brings abundant peace (ver. 27-31); it is more than a vision, it is an abiding, by which the life of God flows into the soul of man, making it partaker of the divine nature and fruitful in works of divine love (ch. 15:1-8); this love, patterned after and imbibed from Christ, extends to the world that hates both the Lord and his disciples (ch. 15:9-27); this love, born and kept alive by the indwelling of the unseen Father, is the illuminator, the instructor, and the inspirer of him who possesses it, and gives him assurance of the divine love and intimacy of spiritual communion with the divine Being (ch. 16). See, further, Prel. Note. There is a real connection in this discourse, though not that of an oration; the unity is spiritual rather than intellectual; but it all circles about a single central truth, the provision which divine love has made for satisfying the soul-hunger for a vision of the unseen and invisible God. In a sense Philip is right, though the sight, if the sight of a spirit was possible, would not satisfy; but we see God only as we become like him, and we shall be satisfied when we awake in his likeness and so see him as he is (Ps. 17:15; 1 John 1:2).--=Have I been so much time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?= Not merely the length of time is indicated; it had been but about three years, probably a little less; but during that three years he had been constantly with his disciples; they had eaten, slept, journeyed, lived together; the companionship was most intimate, the opportunity for familiar acquaintance perfect.--=He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?= There is a physical and there is a spiritual sight. The disciples had known Jesus after the flesh; but Christ according to the spirit they did not know till after the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. To admire the Son of man is one thing; to receive the Spirit of God manifested in and through him is quite different. He that has a spiritual discernment of Christ will recognize the spiritual character of the unknown Father, the truth, mercy, love of God, shining in and through the Son. There is and can be no physical vision of God; he is a spirit, and is to be spiritually known, to be worshipped in spirit as well as in truth (ch. 4:24). The language of Christ here, and indeed throughout this whole discourse, is utterly inconsistent with the conception of him as a mere human or superhuman ambassador of God. He represents not merely the divine government, but the divine Being. The Father is so in him that whoever looks within the tabernacle beholds the glory as of the only begotten of the Father (ch. 1:14). He is the manifestation in the flesh, not of the divine government, but of God (1 Tim. 3:16). It is impossible to refer this answer to the mere union in sympathy and purpose of Jesus with God. “No Christian, even if perfected, could say, ‘He that has seen me has seen Christ.’ How much less, then, could a Jew, though perfect, have said, ‘He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.’”--(Godet.)
10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.
=10, 11. Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?= God is in everything which he has made; the All and in All (Jer. 23:24; 1 Cor. 15:28). We also are intended to be temples in which he is to dwell (Ps. 91:1; Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 3:16; 2 Tim. 1:14). But sin, which has been admitted to dwell in us (Rom. 7:17), has driven out the Spirit of God, so that the temple is destroyed by defilement (1 Cor. 3:17, marg.); it ceases to be the temple of God. He dwells no longer in it. In Christ Jesus there was no sin; in Christ Jesus, therefore, dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2:9); and it is by union with him, and a new life received in and by and from him, that the fullness of the divine indwelling is to be at length restored to all that are his (ch. 17:21-23; Ephes. 3:17).--=The words that I speak to you I speak not of myself.= From myself (ἀπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ). From signifies the fountain or source; the source of Christ’s authority is not in himself, but in the Father, who dwells in and speaks through him. See ch. 5:19, note.--=But the Father, he who abides in me, he doeth the works.= Some read, doeth his own works. So Tischendorf and Meyer. The Received reading is preferable, but the meaning is much the same. Whether we read, He that dwelleth in me doeth his own works (ποιεῖ τὰ ἔργα ἀυτοῦ), or, He that dwelleth in me, he it is who doeth the works (αὐτὸς ποιεῖ τὰ ἔργα), the emphasis is equally put upon the Father as the One who, abiding in the Son, does all things through him. The works are here, not merely the miracles, but the whole range of beneficent action of the Son, including certainly the miracles, but those only as a part of the whole service of love. This word work (ἔργον) is rarely, I think never, used in the N. T. as equivalent to miracle (σημεῖον).--=Have faith in me, that I am in the Father.= Beware of understanding this as equivalent to, Believe me, on my mere personal assurance; this is apparently the interpretation of our English version, and is sustained by even so eminent an authority as Meyer. It is grammatically possible; but it neither accords with Jesus’ use of the word believe (πιστεύω), which he habitually uses to signify a spiritual apprehension, not merely an intellectual opinion; nor with the spirit of this discourse, which, beginning with ver. 1, is throughout addressed, not to the formation of correct opinions, but to the building up of a right spiritual apprehension of Christ, and through him of the eternal Father. The meaning is, Have faith in me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; i. e., Look beneath the surface, the flesh; behold in the inward grace, manifesting itself in the outward speech and action, the lineaments of the divine character; so have faith in me as one in whom the Father dwells, and through whom the Father is made manifest. But if this spiritual sense is lacking, then--=Through= (by reason of, διά) =the works themselves believe=. Μοι is omitted by Godet, Meyer, Lachmann, and Tischendorf, on the authority of the Sinaitic, Cambridge, and Vatican manuscripts. Christ places his own character in the front rank, as the principal evidence of the divine origin and authority of Christianity. He is his own best witness. But, for those who cannot discern the divinity of his life and character, he appeals to the works wrought by him and by the religion of which he is the founder, and which was more powerful after his death than during his life. The evidence from the miracles, and from the whole miraculous history of Christianity, is secondary to the evidence from the character and person of Christ himself.
12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He[552] that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
[552] Matt. 21:21.
=12. Verily, verily, I say unto you, * * * greater works than these shall he do; because I go to my Father.= If by works was meant merely miracles, this declaration would be difficult of interpretation; for none of Christ’s disciples have ever wrought greater miracles than the Master, nor is it easy to conceive of a greater miracle than the resurrection of the dead. But if by works was meant Christ’s whole life of beneficent activity, then this promise has been abundantly fulfilled. For Christ worked in a very narrow sphere, both of time and place; for three years, in a province no larger than the State of Vermont. More souls were converted at Peter’s preaching on the day of Pentecost than during the whole of Christ’s personal ministry. At Christ’s death the whole number of Christian converts does not seem to have exceeded five hundred, and Christianity was utterly unknown outside of Palestine. At John Wesley’s death Methodism had spread over Great Britain, the Continent of Europe, the United States, and the West Indies, and its communion embraced over eighty thousand members. Whitefield, Wesley, Spurgeon, Moody preached during their lives to immensely greater numbers than Christ ever personally taught; and probably many Christian physicians have healed more sick than Christ ever healed. Thus in extent the disciples have already done greater works than their Master. And this for the reason here assigned, namely, because he has gone to the Father; and because of that going the Comforter has come to bless the labors of the disciples with a wider and more powerful divine influence than could, in the nature of the case, proceed from God incarnate in a single human life (ch. 16:7). But we have no right to say that this promise does not await even further fulfillment. When the fullness of time shall have come, and God dwells in all his children in the fullness foreseen in ch. 17:21, there may be in them a power over nature of which modern science gives possibly a foreshadowing, and which will be, in its effects, much greater than that which Christ exercised over it, because they that exercise it will have the whole earth as their inheritance. Only thus can I understand such promises as that here and in Mark 11:23, etc.
13 And[553] whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
[553] 1 John 5:14.
14 If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.
=13, 14. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do.= For analogous promises of answers to prayer, see Exod. 22:27; Deut. 4:29; Ps. 34:15; 37:4, 5; Jer. 29:12, 13; Joel 2:32; Matt. 7:7, 8; Mark 11:24; John 15:16; 16:23; James 1:5; 1 John 3:22; 5:14, 15. A comparison of these passages shows clearly that God does not give an unconditional promise of affirmative answer to every prayer. This would be to place omnipotence at the command of ignorance and selfishness; it would be a curse, not a blessing. The condition here is embodied in the words, In my name; the promise is only to those petitions asked in the name of Jesus Christ. To ask in the name of Christ is not to introduce his name into the petition, as in the familiar phrase, For Christ’s sake; nor is it merely to approach the Father through the mediatorship of Jesus; this, but much more than this, is included. “In the name” of any one, as used in the N. T., generally, if not always, signifies representing him, standing in his stead, fulfilling his purposes, manifesting his will, and imbued with and showing forth his life and glory. With John it always has this signification. Thus, “The works that I do in my Father’s name” (ch. 10:25) is equivalent to, The works that I do in my Father’s stead, for him and by his power and authority; “Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord” (ch. 12:13) is equivalent to, That cometh as the representative and manifestation of the Lord; “The Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name” (ch. 14:26) is equivalent to, The Holy Ghost who comes to represent me, and teach the truths concerning me, and implant and keep alive my life in the souls of my disciples; “I kept them in thy name” is equivalent to, I, as one with thee (ch. 10:29, 30), have kept them within the circle of thine influence, because within mine own, which is thine. Comp. Acts 3:6; 4:7; Phil. 2:10; Col. 3:17, and notes. Here, then, the declaration is that whatsoever we ask, speaking for Christ, seeking his will, representing him and his interests, and his kingdom, not merely our own special and personal interests (Phil. 2:21), will be granted. So in Matt. 6:9 (see note there) the Lord makes the petition, “Hallowed be thy name,” the portico to every prayer--so teaching us that in every prayer the desire for the glory of God should be supreme. So again in Rom. 8:26 the apostle represents us taught both how and for what to pray by the Spirit of Christ within us. But every prayer thus offered in the name of Christ and with a supreme allegiance to him, representing his kingdom and imbued by his spirit, will be in character, like his prayer at Gethsemane. It will carry with it the petition, “Not my will but thine be done,” and thus, as Meyer says, “The denial of the petition is the fulfillment of the prayer, only in another way.” See 2 Cor. 12:8, 9.--=That the Father may be glorified in the Son.= When the church is a true representative of Christ, filled with his spirit, manifesting his character and life, so that it prays in his name, in his name casts out devils (Luke 10:17), and in his name suffers, filling up what is behind of the Lord’s affliction (Col. 1:24), and doing all in his stead, as his representative, and because imbued with his spirit, then the Father is glorified in the Son, because he is glorified in humanity, whom he hath redeemed; for then the glorified and redeemed church is the body of Christ (Ephes. 1:23), the visible manifestation of his invisible presence, his perpetual incarnation.--=If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.= The promise is specific; a promise not merely to provide generally for the wants of the disciples, but to hear and answer their specific requests. Comp. Matt. 7:9, 10. Observe, too, the language, I will do it, and compare the phraseology here with that of the analogous promise in ch. 16:23, “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.” What inspired prophet or angelic messenger could make such a promise? “This I already indicates the glory” (Bengel), the glory of him who is one with the Father.
15 If[554] ye love me, keep my commandments.
[554] ver. 21, 23; ch. 15:10, 14; 1 John 5:3.
16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter,[555] that he may abide with you for ever;
[555] ch. 15:26.
17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom[556] the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and[557] shall be in you.
[556] 1 Cor. 2:14.
[557] Rom. 8:9; 1 John 2:27.
=15-17. If ye love me keep my commandments.= The object of the Gospel is the inspiration of love, not mere obedience; but obedience is the test because the manifestation of love. The N. T. recognizes no other test of love to Christ than compliance in the daily life with his will. See for striking illustration of this, ch. 21:15-17.--=And I will pray the Father.= The poverty of the English language has prevented our translators from producing in the English Bible the distinction between three Greek verbs, which bear different significations, but are all indiscriminately translated by the word pray. These are to request (προσεύχομαι), to ask (ἐρωτάω), and to entreat (αἰτέω). Christ is said in the N. T. to request the Father (Matt. 14:23; 26:36; Mark 1:35, etc.), and to ask of the Father (ch. 16:26; 17:9; 15:20), but never to entreat the Father. Here the second of these words is used. “Our Lord never uses entreat (aitein, aitesthai, αἰτεῖν or αἰτεῖσθαι) of Himself in respect of that which he seeks on behalf of his disciples from God; for his is not the petition of the creature to the Creator, but the request of the Son to the Father. The consciousness of his equal dignity, of his potent and prevailing intercession, speaks out in this, that as often as he asks or declares that he will ask, anything of the Father, it is always requesting or inquiring (erotas, erotaso, ἐρωτάω, ἐρωτήσω), that is, as upon equal terms, never entreating (aiteo, aiteso, αἰτέω or αἰτήσω).”--(Trench.) See further ch. 16:23, 24, note.--=And he shall give you another Paraclete.= The original word, inadequately rendered in our English version by the word Comforter, is simply untranslateable. It is composed of two Greek words (παρά καλέω), to call to one’s side, and signifies one who is called to aid another. And this etymological signification of the word indicates the office of the Holy Spirit in his relations to us; he is our present help in every time of need, the one with whom we walk, our Consoler, our Strength, our Guide, our Peace-giver, our ever present God. The word Comforter must then be taken in its etymological and old English sense, as one who gives not mere consolation, but strength (con fortis). He is here called another Comforter; yet a little below, Christ seemingly identifies him both with the Father and with himself, in the declaration “I will manifest myself to him (ver. 21), and we” (i. e., the Father and I,) “will make our abode with him” (ver. 23). In the Comforter Christ himself is ever present with his church (Matt. 28:20), for the Comforter is one with Christ as both are one with the Father, so that the presence of one is the presence of all (Rom. 8:9, 10; Gal. 2:20; 4:6). We know too little of the interior nature of the Deity to be able to draw any clear distinction between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. We only know that as God in the Father is manifested to us as providing for us, and in the Son as making atonement for us, so in the Spirit he is manifested by being spiritually ever present with us. The mystery of their diversity in unity defies philosophical analysis. But Christ is speaking to the experience, not to the intellect; and to the spiritual experience the father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, the Provider, the Atoning Saviour and the Indwelling Spirit, God in nature, in the flesh, and in our own souls, are one.--=That he may abide with you forever.= In contrast with the Son, who came but for a time, and because he was God manifest in the flesh, could abide only with a few and only for a limited period. To long for the laws of the O. T., or even for the visible presence of the limited and earthly manifestation of God afforded by the N. T., is to desire to go back from the broader, deeper, fuller manifestation, to one narrower and more limited. To be governed by precedents or rules of the past is to ignore the perpetually abiding presence of the Comforter, the promised guide into all truth. Of his office Christ speaks more fully in ver. 26 and ch. 16:7-15.--=The Spirit of Truth.= So called, (1) because it is by giving a spiritual knowledge of the truth that he ministers to those that receive him. The Comforter strengthens, guides, liberates, Sanctifies by the truth (ch. 8:32; 16:13; 17:17, 19; 1 Cor. 2:4; 1 Thess. 1:5). (2) Because his ministry is perfectly true without any admixture of error. All teaching that is ministered through human language, even that of Christ and the apostles, is subject to the errors and the misapprehensions of the human medium through which it passes. The instruction of the Spirit, ministered directly to our spirits, though still liable to be misapprehended and perverted by us, is not subject to error in the interpretation. It is perfect truth; all other teaching is truth with alloy, from which we must separate it, as best we may.--=Whom the world cannot receive.= To be literally understood. Cannot is not here equivalent to will not. He that is of the world, living unto it, making it his end, cannot receive spiritual truth or spiritual influences. His mind is blinded by the god of this world (Isa. 6:9, 10; 2 Cor. 4:4). The declaration here is analogous to that of Christ in John 3:3, “Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God,” and to that of Paul in 1 Cor. 2:14, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them; because they are spiritually discerned.”--=Because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him.= There is no visible manifestation of the Comforter; he is not and cannot be discerned by the senses as Christ could be and during his life was, by the manifestation of his miraculous power; and the unspiritual has no inward consciousness of his presence, no spiritual experience of his comfort, strength, or guidance. Hence, since the Comforter is not discernible by the outward sense, and the unspiritual have never had developed within them the inward sense of faith, they cannot receive him. In contrast with the world in this respect is the disciple of Christ, in whom the spiritual life has been awakened in the new birth.--=But ye know him because he abides with you, and shall be in you.= There is no hint here that the disciples can see the Comforter any more than the world. This should have prevented Godet’s misapprehension of this passage, that “before receiving they must have seen and known the Spirit.” To see (θεωρέω) is to recognize with the senses, or to recognize intellectually by deductions from what is perceived by the senses. Neither by sight, nor by deduction from sight can the Comforter be known. He is known only by those with and in whom, as a conscious Presence, he abides. Some texts read is in you instead of shall be in you. The future is the preferable reading, and the antithesis between the first and last clauses of the verse indicates a progressive development in the spiritual life. The Comforter was even then with the disciples, though they were not yet ready to receive him; he was in them, inspiring and moulding their life and character, after the day of Pentecost. So he is ever with the church and the individual Christian; but he is in the church and in the Christian only when they wait and watch for his appearing, as the apostles waited and watched before the day of Pentecost.
18 I will not leave you comfortless: I[558] will come to you.
[558] ver. 3:28.
19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more: but ye see me: because[559] I live, ye shall live also.
[559] Heb. 7:25.
20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
=18-20. I will not leave you orphans.= This, which is the marginal reading, exactly renders the original. Our English version, I will not leave you comfortless, though made sacred by many an association, deprives the promise of the singular significance involved in the original. An orphan is not a person without parents, but one who is separated from his parents by death; memory looks back to them, hope looks forward to them, but they are not personally present. Christ declares that he will not thus leave his disciples. Their Saviour shall be more than a memory, more than a hope; he will be their personal present God.--=I will come to you.= He refers here not to his reappearance in the resurrection, for that was followed by his disappearance in the ascension, so that if on this the disciples alone depended they were left more than ever before in orphanage. Nor did he then make his abode with the disciples; he vouchsafed them only brief and transient appearances of himself. He does not refer to his second coming; for the world, as well as his own disciples, will then see him (Rev. 1:7; 6:15-17). He refers to that spiritual manifestation which he makes of himself, and of the Father through him, by the gift and indwelling of the Holy Spirit, whom the Father sends in his name. This is clear from vers. 19, 20, 23, 26, etc.--=Yet a little while and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me, because I am living and ye shall live also.= According to the punctuation of our English version there is here a double promise, first that the disciples shall again see their Lord, secondly that they shall share his life. According to the punctuation which I have adopted, the second promise is implied rather than asserted, and is made the basis of the first. Either is grammatically possible; the second rendering is preferable, because the whole of Christ’s teaching here refers not to the life of the disciple, but to the manifestation to him of his Lord, and because thus the two clauses of the sentence are brought into close connection. The soul’s perception of the personal presence of Christ is then dependent upon sharing his spiritual life; and this is abundantly taught, both here and elsewhere. We are changed into the image of Christ by beholding him (2 Cor. 3:18), and we behold him by conforming to his image (2 Pet. 1:5-9). The promise is one of spiritual sight, dependent upon spiritual life. Since the world does not and cannot see him (ver. 17), arguments based on visible phenomena to prove the reality of that which is a spiritual experience are always in vain. Hence the futility of the ordinary methods of arguing with skeptics. They are endeavors to prove to the blind; whereas the blind must first see, then learn.--=At that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me and I in you.= That day was in the history of the church the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit was first revealed with power to the entire body of believers. But each believing soul has also its Pentecost, when it first learns the meaning of Christ’s promises in this chapter. This is to it that day, the one great day of its existence. It is not said that the disciple will understand how the Father, the Son, and the disciples are in one another, but he will know it as a fact; the unity of the Father and the Son, and the indwelling of both in the believer, will become a part of his experience. This experience, promised here, is expressed as a realized fact by Paul in Gal. 2:20: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
21 He[560] that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
[560] ver. 15, 23.
=21.= Having given expression to the mystical truth of the spiritual manifestation of their Lord to the believers, Christ next states the conditions under which it is realized. These are not external; this spiritual revelation is not made dependent upon retiring from the world and living a life of asceticism and artificial self-denial. They are not intellectual; this revelation and indwelling of Christ is not made dependent upon the creed of the disciple. They are moral; practical obedience to the words of Christ assures spiritual enjoyment of his presence and companionship.--=He that hath my commandments and keepeth them.= These clauses are not to be read as repetitions of the same idea, made for the sake of emphasis. To have is not the same as to keep. He hath Christ’s commandments not who has a knowledge of them, so that the promise is conditional upon a certain degree of Christian education, but who has a spiritual apprehension of them, who appreciates their spirit. Since all of Christ’s commands are comprised in the one direction “Follow me,” the first condition of receiving this spiritual manifestation of Christ as a real and living Presence in the daily life, is a spiritual appreciation of his life and character as they are disclosed in the N. T., and therewith a like appreciation of the precepts, principles, and spirit of the life which he has inculcated. He keeps Christ’s commandments who carefully guards them in his daily life, regarding them as a possession which he is in danger of losing. See Matt. 19:17, note.--=That one is he that loveth me.= The evidence of love which Christ recognizes is not profession, or ceremonial, or emotional experience, or intellectual opinion, but spiritual appreciation of his precepts and practical obedience to them. The good Samaritan is a more acceptable lover than the priest or the Levite.--=He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him.= Every disciple may thus become a “beloved disciple.” For the love here spoken of is not that love of compassion which the Father and the Son have for the whole world (ch. 3:16), even while it was dead in trespasses and sins (Ephes. 2:4, 5), but the love of spiritual fellowship and personal friendship (ch. 15:14, 15; Gal. 4:7). “There is between these two feelings the same difference as between a man’s compassion for his guilty and unhappy neighbors and the affection of a father for his child or of a husband for his wife.”--(Godet.) Christ is here speaking not of the condition on which men may become his disciples; he is instructing his disciples, is pointing out the condition on which each one of them may come into a higher spiritual experience of their Master’s love and spiritual presence. This is indicated not only by the context and general character of the discourse, but also by the peculiar language here, That one it is who loveth me. That one (ἐκεῖνος) indicates an exceptional individual, one among many, who, by his course, becomes the special friend of Jesus.
22 Judas[561] saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?
[561] Luke 6:16.
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and[562] we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
[562] 1 John 2:24; Rev. 3:20.
=22, 23. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot.= The same person called Lebbeus in Matt. 10:3 and Thaddeus in Mark 3:18. In Luke 6:16, etc., and Acts 1:13, he is called “Judas (the brother) of James.” See Note on Twelve Apostles, Vol. I, p. 149.--=Lord, and what has happened that thou wilt manifest thyself to us, but not at all= (οὐχὶ) =to the world?= His question is not, as represented by our English version, the expression of a mere curiosity, In what way wilt thou make this manifestation of thyself? it is the expression of amazement and perplexity. All the disciples were anticipating that Christ would manifest his Messiahship in some unexpected manner, striking terror into the hearts of all his opponents, and becoming, by some miraculous forth-putting of power, King of kings and Lord of lords. Judas, hastily concluding that there is to be no other manifestation than that of which Christ is now speaking, expresses his amazement and perplexity. What has happened to lead to the abandonment of a world manifestation of the Messiah? is the meaning of his question. But Christ has not said that he will not at all be manifested to the world; only that the world cannot see that manifestation of him of which he is now speaking.--=Jesus answered and said unto him.= He does not reply to the question of Judas; enters into no explanation; simply reiterates that the condition of receiving the spiritual manifestation of Christ as a personal Presence is obedience to his directions. Christ never suffers himself to be turned aside from practical instruction by inquiries in theoretical theology.--=If any one loves me, he will keep my word.= Word, not words; singular, not plural. His command is but one word: love.--=My Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him.= This promise is more than the preceding one (ver. 21). There Christ promises simply that the obedient disciple shall see his Lord; here that he shall become a temple in which his Lord will constantly dwell; there that Christ shall manifest himself to the soul; here that the Father and the Son shall dwell in the soul. “They shall come like wanderers from their home and lodge with him; will be daily his guests, yea, house and table companions.”--(Meyer.) Thus Christ by his commandments knocks at the door of the heart; he that hath those commandments hears the voice; he that keeps them opens the door (Rev. 3:20). Thus, too, the Christian’s experience on earth is a foretaste of his experience in heaven. “Here below it is God who dwells with the believer; above, it will be the believer who will dwell with God.”--(Godet.) By his language here, We will come unto him, Christ identifies himself as the companion of the Father in the spiritual experience of the disciple. See ver. 15-17, note.
24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.
=24.= In contrast with the disciple who has and keeps the word of Christ, our Lord portrays the opposite character. He loves not Christ; he makes no attempt to treasure and guard his instruction; and in rejecting the word and its Bearer he rejects the Father whom the Bearer represents and by whom the word is given. Beware of reading the negative, “The word is not mine,” as equivalent to The word is not merely mine. Christ here, as in many other passages, disavows the paternity of his own instructions. They are not his; they are the Father’s who dwells in him, and inspires the words and performs the works. See ch. 12:49, note.
25 These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.
26 But[563] the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he[564] shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
[563] verse 16.
[564] ch. 16:13; 1 John 2:20, 27.
=25, 26. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.= That is, As far as this I am able to carry my instructions, but no farther; the Spirit shall complete them. Christ has already contrasted the work of the Spirit with his own: his own dwelling with his disciples is temporary, the abiding of the Spirit is forever; he speaks to his disciples, the Spirit speaks in them (ver. 16, 17). He now indicates a further point in the contrast. His own teaching was partial; for he had many things to say which they could not bear (John 16:12), and much which he did say they could not understand till their experience, developed by the indwelling of the Spirit of God, had prepared them to comprehend it. But the promised Spirit shall, as the Christian is able to bear the truth, teach all things.--=But the Comforter.= See above on ver. 16.--=The Holy Spirit.= That is, the Spirit of holiness. As he is the Spirit of truth, because all experience of the higher spiritual truth comes in and through him, so he is the Spirit of holiness, because all holiness of life and character is wrought out by the soul only as the Holy Spirit works in and with us the good pleasure of God (Phil. 2:12, 13; Heb. 13:20, 21).--=Whom the Father will send in my name.= As the disciple is to pray in Christ’s name (see ver. 13, note), so the Father will answer him in Christ’s name. That name is Jesus, i. e., Saviour, because he saves his people from their sins (Matt. 1:21), and Christ, i. e., The Anointed One, because he is the High Priest who makes atonement for the sins of his people, and reconciles them unto God. See Vol. I, p. 57, Note, etc., on Names of Jesus. The Holy Spirit is, then, sent in his name, not because he is sent in his stead; he is not; the work of the Spirit and of the Son are not the one in lieu of the other; nor because he is sent in answer to the intercessory prayer of the Son; the love of the Father is the cause of the dispensation of the Spirit, as of the incarnation and the atonement of the Son; but because he is sent to complete the work of the Son, to perfect that salvation which is represented by the name Jesus, and that atonement and reconciliation which is represented by the word Christ (John 3:5, 6; 7:39; Rom. 8:14-16, 26; 14:17; Gal. 5:16, 17; Ephes. 2:18, etc.).--=He shall teach you all things.= That is, all things respecting the divine life.--=And bring to your remembrance all things whatsoever I have said unto you.= “He will teach new truths by recalling the old, and will recall the old by teaching the new.”--(Godet.) In its application to the apostles, this is a promise of inspiration and a guarantee of substantial accuracy, both in their reports of events and of the instructions of Jesus Christ, and in their interpretation of the laws and principles of the spiritual life. “It is in the fulfillment of this promise to the apostles that their sufficiency as witnesses of all that the Lord did and taught, and consequently the authenticity of the Gospel narrative, is grounded.”--(Alford.) But there is no reason to limit this promise to the twelve to whom it was immediately spoken. It occurs in the middle of a discourse which by universal consent belongs to the church universal. There is no consistency in claiming the promise of the manifestation of Christ in ver. 21, the indwelling of the Father and the Son in ver. 23, and the peace of God in ver. 27, and rejecting the promise of inspired instruction in ver. 26. This promise, then, like that of Matt. 28:20, is made to the church for all time; it is a promise of a continually progressive instruction in the spiritual life, adapted to varying needs and exigencies, both of the community and of the individual, carrying on to its consummation the necessarily incomplete instruction of the N. T., as well as making clear to the spiritual apprehension that which preceding generations either imperfectly understood, wholly failed to understand, or only partially comprehended. The spiritual guide of the church is not an official hierarchy, nor ecclesiastical tradition, but the living experience of those that love Christ, have his words and keep them. This promise points to and assures the church of a progressive Christian theology, and corresponds with the apostle Paul’s declaration, “We know in part and we prophesy in part” (1 Cor. 13:9, 10).
27 Peace[565] I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
[565] Ephes. 2:14-17; Phil. 4:7.
=27. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you.= As the peace of a child depends on the presence of his mother, so the peace of these disciples on the presence of their Lord. He speaks to their unuttered forebodings, and declares that he will leave this peace in his departure as a legacy to them. But he will do more than this. Thus far they have had peace in his presence; he will henceforth impart to them his own source of strength in sending to them the indwelling Spirit of God, so that they shall have, as he had, peace in themselves. “My peace” implies the peace which belongs to himself, is a characteristic of his own experience and a part of his own nature. So in Phil. 4:7 the “peace of God” is that peace which is characteristic of the Divine Being. It was this peace which enabled Christ to stand unmoved and unperturbed in the court of Caiaphas and the hall of Pilate. It was the fulfillment of this promise which enabled the apostles to meet in like manner, unfearing and untroubled, the threats and persecutions of the authorities in Jerusalem immediately after the day of Pentecost (Acts 4:8, 19, 31; 5:29, 41); which gave Stephen serenity in the storm of stones (Acts 6:15; 7:59, 60); enabled Peter to sleep in chains (Acts 12:6); gave to Paul and Silas their songs in the night (Acts 16:25); kept Paul unmoved in the midst of the mob at Jerusalem (Acts 21:31-40), and in the peril of shipwreck (Acts 27:21-26, 31-35). Compare also, for expressions of this peace of Christ in the Christian’s experience, Rom. 5:1-5; 8:35-39; 2 Cor. 4:7-9; Phil. 4:11-13; Heb., ch. 4. This peace is a characteristic of the divine nature (Phil. 4:7), therefore a characteristic of Christ, who is called Prince of Peace, because one of the distinguishing characteristics of his kingdom is peace (Isa. 9:6; Rom. 14:17); therefore a fruit of the Spirit in the experience of the followers of Christ (Rom. 8:6; Gal. 5:22); therefore the privilege and duty of every disciple, who because of his peace and his power to bestow it upon others is called a son of God (Matt. 5:9). It is therefore not the peculiar luxury of a favored few, but the duty and privilege of all (Rom. 2:10); not dependent on temperament or circumstances, but on a faith which receives and recognizes an indwelling God (Rom. 5:1; Ephes. 2:14; Phil. 4:9); not the occasional siesta of the wearied worker, but the abiding spirit and sacred power of his work (Phil. 4:7; Col. 1:11; 3:15). It is not without Spiritual significance that Christ’s last words, as of “one who is about to go away and says goodnight and leaves his blessing” (Luther), are a promise of peace.--=Not as the world giveth give I unto you.= The wish of peace was a customary leave-taking among the Jews (1 Sam. 1:17; Luke 7:50; Acts 16:36; 1 Pet. 5:14; 3 John 14. Compare Gen. 43:23; Judges 6:23). Christ distinguishes his promise here from the salutations, which were often, as with us, mere empty formalities, and which at best were but wishes or possibly prayers. This salutation is more than a benediction, it is the promise of an actual gift.--=Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.= He thus returns to the opening words of his discourse, words of strength-giving and reassurance (see ver. 1).
28 Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I[566] go unto the Father: for my[567] Father is greater than I.
[566] verse 12.
[567] 1 Cor. 15:27, 28.
=28. Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away= (verses 2, 3, 12).--=If ye loved me ye would rejoice.= There is a gentle rebuke in this language. It does not involve a denial or even a doubt of their love, but it recalls them from the selfish thoughts fixed wholly on their own sorrow to their allegiance and love to him. It may well be repeated to ourselves in the hour of death--parting from any Christian friend. Their thought of their own future gives them comfort (ver. 2 and 3); their thought of Christ’s love for and presence with them gives them peace (ver. 26, 27); their thought of his glory and their love for him gives them joy. Thus in the fruit of the Spirit joy and peace follow because they grow out of love (Gal. 5:22). We, as well as they, should rejoice, not sorrow, because Christ no longer dwells incarnate on the earth, but has gone to the Father.--=Because I said I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.= His departure to be with the greater Father was to be a cause of rejoicing, not merely to the eleven, but to his church universal. This is not because he is thus enabled to ensure his disciples a more powerful and perfect protector, for the protection of the Father is accorded through the Son, and as a protector the Son is one in power as well as in will with the Father (John 10:30, note). Moreover, it is our love for Christ, not the thought of our own interest, not even our spiritual interest, which is the secret of the joy which the Christian should experience in the exaltation of his Lord. Nor is the cause of that joy the fact that Christ was about to enter into glory and blessedness; for it is of the greatness, not of the blessedness of the Father, nor of his own heavenly condition, Christ speaks; the phrase, “The Father is greater than I,” cannot, without violation of the meaning, be rendered, The Father is more blessed than I. It is true that because the Father is greater than Christ, Christ in going to the Father went to a condition of greater power for his own redemptive work, for the up-building of that kingdom to which he and his followers are consecrated. Christ is more to his followers, more powerful in his work of redeeming love, in the Spirit than in the flesh, absent from his disciples and with the Father than absent from the Father and with the disciples. But more than this, more than in our ignorance of both the Father and Son we can comprehend, is meant by the declaration that Christ’s going to the Father was an exaltation, and in that exaltation we, his followers, ought to rejoice with and in him, if indeed we love him. The declaration, “The Father is greater than I,” is not inconsistent with the preceding declaration, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,” for that declaration is interpreted by the one which immediately follows, “I am in the Father and the Father in me;” he that has a spiritual apprehension of Christ has a spiritual apprehension of the Father, who is manifested in and through him. Nor is it inconsistent with Christ’s declaration, “I and my Father are one,” for Christ as the protector of his people may be one with the Father, and yet the Father may be greater than the Son in the eternal relation between the two. Nor is it inconsistent with John’s declaration that “The Word was God,” for the Word is not Jesus Christ (see ch. 1:1, note), but God as manifested to the race, Jesus Christ being the Word made flesh (ch. 1:14). It is inconsistent with any view of Christ’s character which denies the essential divinity of his nature; for the creature cannot say of God, without an extraordinarily irreverent egotism, “My Father is greater than I.” “The creature who should say, ‘God is greater than I,’ would blaspheme no less than one who should say, ‘I am equal with God.’ God alone can compare himself with God.”--(Godet.) It accords with Christ’s habitual teaching concerning himself, as one who is sent forth the Father, derives his authority from the Father, does all things through the power of the Father, in all things obeys the will of the Father, and will return to the Father again (Matt. 11:26, 27; 20:23; John 5:19, 22, 26, 27; 6:57; 8:18, 29; 10:18, 36; 15:15; 17:18); and with that of the N. T. generally, which constantly represents Christ as receiving his divine power as Creator, Redeemer, and Judge from the Father (Ephes. 1:20-22; Phil. 2:9; Heb. 1:8, 9; 1 Cor. 15:28). Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh, and God in his absolute essence is greater than any manifestation of him is or can be. As the artist is greater than his picture, the architect than his house, the orator than his oration, so God is greater than the Word through which he utters himself to human apprehension. In thus interpreting this much debated passage, according to the plain and natural meaning of the words, and, as it seems to me, the teachings of Christ and his apostles, I accept substantially the interpretation of Meyer, who sees in this declaration an illustration of “the absolute monotheism of Jesus (ch. 17:3), and of the whole N. T., according to which the Son, although of divine essence, of one nature with the Father (ch. 1:1; Phil. 2:6; Col. 1:15-18), nevertheless was and is and remains subordinated to the Father, the immutably higher one, since the Son as Organ, as Commissioner of the Father, as Intercessor with Him, etc., has received his whole power in the kingly office from the Father (ch. 17:5), and, after the accomplishment of the work committed to him, will restore it to the Father (1 Cor. 15:28).” To the same effect, but more concisely, Edward H. Sears (Heart of Christ): “God as absolute is more than God as revealed.” Similarly Olshausen and Ellicott’s Commentary. Observe, however, that Christ’s language here involves only the relations between the Son as incarnate and the Father; in saying that the Son was and remains subordinated to the Father, Meyer attributes to the words here a meaning confessedly borrowed from other passages.
Two other interpretations have been offered from the orthodox point of view: (1) That Christ speaks here of himself as a man. But this ancient interpretation, invented in the early controversy with the Arians, and revived recently by Ryle, has not, I think, despite the authority of Augustine in its favor, the sanction of a single modern exegetical scholar of any eminence. It is repudiated by Schaff, Godet, Luthardt, Meyer, Alford, Tholuck. This easy method of solving the seeming contradictions of Christ’s mysterious nature is utterly untenable, for whatever opinion may be entertained respecting his twofold nature as both God and man, no reader is authorized to say what acts and words were manifestations of the human and what of the divine nature. It is utterly inapplicable here, for “this interpretation implies a mere platitude. Who needs to be told that the human nature is inferior to the divine?”--(Schaff.) (2) That Christ here compares his present earthly condition with that to which he will attain in going to the Father. This is Calvin’s interpretation. “Christ does not here make a comparison between the divinity of the Father and his own, nor between his own human nature and the divine essence of the Father, but rather between his present state and the heavenly glory to which he is afterwards to be received.” To the same effect, substantially, are Alford, Luthardt, and Tholuck. This is certainly involved in the language; the return from union with humanity to union with the Father was a change from a lower and lesser to a higher and greater condition. But much more is involved, for Christ by his words institutes a comparison, not between his earthly and his heavenly condition, as does Paul in Phil. 2:6-11, but between himself and his Father.
29 And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe.
30 Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince[568] of this world cometh, and hath nothing[569] in me.
[568] ch. 16:11; Ephes. 2:2.
[569] 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 1 John 3:5.
31 But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as[570] the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.
[570] Ps. 40:8; Phil. 2:8.
=29-31. And now I have told you * * * that when it is come to pass ye might have faith.= That is, before the Passion he foretells it and directs the thoughts and hopes of his disciples to a point beyond, to the results which are to be produced by the crucifixion, so that when the night of darkness comes these words may remain to keep alive their faith in him as one not dead, but only gone to the companionship of the Father, and coming again with the Father to be the spiritual and indwelling companion of his own. Indirectly the office of prophecy is implied in these words; it is not to give in the present a clear view of the future, but to sustain faith and hope and courage, and make it clear to the believer, when the events themselves take place, that nothing is unexpected and unprovided for by his Father and Saviour.--=The prince of this world is coming.= See note on ch. 12:31. “Jesus sees the devil himself in the agents and executors of his designs (ch. 13:2, 27; 6:70; Luke 4:13).”--(Meyer.) And yet the cup which they presented to him he accounts the cup which his Father giveth him (ch. 18:11), for even the prince of this world is not beyond the supreme control of God. The language here, as in ch. 12:31, plainly implies Christ’s belief in a personal devil, and the devil’s influence over and use of men as his instruments.--=Hath nothing in me.= Satan never succeeds in the accomplishment of his evil designs except when he finds in the tempted something that recognizes him and pays allegiance to him. He that is only in the world but not of the world may be under the power of Satan, but cannot be in his power. The declaration here is confirmatory of that implied by ch. 8:46.--=But that the world may know that I love the Father=, etc., * * * =arise, let us go hence=. Our English version is erroneously punctuated. There should be no break in the verse. Christ knew that Judas had gone out to perfect arrangements for the betrayal, knew the shame and torture that were before him, knew also the power of the Father to accomplish the world’s redemption by that suffering if it was endured to the end, and bade his disciples arise that they might go forth with him, as he went forth to show the world his love for and obedience to the Father. Thus, as he has just told his disciples that they are to show their love to him by their obedience (ver. 21, 23), he prepares to show his love to the Father by his obedience. But though they arose, they did not go immediately out. See Prel. Note to next chapter, and ch. 18:1.
Chapter XV
Ch. 15:1-27. CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH.--CHRIST ABIDES IN THE SOUL.--THE SOUL IS SAFE ONLY AS IT ABIDES IN CHRIST.--THIS ABIDING IS THE CONDITION OF SUCCESSFUL PRAYER; OF PRACTICAL GODLINESS; OF SELF-SACRIFICING LOVE; OF SPIRITUAL JOY.--CHRIST A REVEALER, NOT A LAW-GIVER.--THE WORLD AND THE CHURCH.--THE PERSECUTION OF THE WORLD; THE WITNESSING POWER OF THE CHURCH.
PRELIMINARY NOTE.--Some scholars suppose that Christ, at the close of the preceding discourse, arose with his disciples and passed out of the room where they had been at supper into the valley of the Kedron, the vicinity of the garden of Gethsemane, and that the discourse was continued there, in or near one of the vineyards which abound in the neighborhood of the city. Others suppose that they arose to go; that, the heart of the Master being surcharged with the truth which he was endeavoring to express to them, the Divine Immanence, he broke forth afresh with the same truth in a new form, and that the discourse recorded in this and the next chapter, and the prayer recorded in ch. 17, were uttered in the same room in which the preceding discourse was uttered. Both suppositions are purely conjectural; the latter appears to me the more rational, because: (1) The truths embodied in this and the succeeding chapter are the same as the one embodied in the preceding one; the form alone varies. The structure and the fibre of the discourse is that of one which flows from a heart burdened with a profound truth which can be expressed only by reiteration, and even then only inadequately. (2) It is hardly credible that such a conversation could have been uttered, as some have imagined, while Jesus and his disciples were on their way out of the city; and no reason is offered for the hypothesis that it was abruptly broken off and transferred to another and apparently less convenient place. (3) Ch. 18:1 plainly implies that Jesus did not go forth, i. e., from the room where they were gathered, till the end of this conversation with them and after the prayer with which it was closed. Various hypotheses have also been proffered respecting the probable circumstance that suggested to Christ the metaphor which underlies the first part of this chapter: Vineyards on the way to Gethsemane (Lampe), the carved vine on the great doors of the temple (Rosenmuller), a vine trained about the window of the great chamber (Knapp), the cup so lately partaken (Meyer, Stier), O. T. symbolism of the vineyard and the vine (Alford). These are also all conjectural; it is enough to say that the parable here must be studied in the light of the teachings both of nature and of the O. T. use of nature in the passages below referred to. The use of the vine as a symbol by O. T. prophets was so familiar that it could hardly have been absent from the minds of both Christ and the apostles. Examine with care Jer. 2:21; Ezek. 15:2, 6; and especially Psalm 80:8-19, and Isaiah 5:1-7. The truth taught here by a metaphor is the same as that taught in the preceding chapter unmetaphorically, and in other passages by other metaphors. (1) The vine and its branches are a perpetual parable of Christ and his church. It is not enough to learn of Christ as from a teacher, to follow him as an example, or to accept forgiveness through him as both priest and sacrifice; we must be personally united to him, and from him draw our spiritual life, and so grow into his image. As the branch draws its sap by a continuous flow from the vine, and becomes identified with it in character, and bears its fruit, and dies when separated from it, so we must abide in a living Christ, draw our spiritual sustenance from him, become more and more Christlike in our nature, and bear his fruit in our lives. See John 6:56-58, note, and refs. there cited. (2) In the O. T. imagery the vine planted by the husbandman was the house of Israel. But despite the divine cultivator it brought forth wild grapes; it proved to be no true vine. Wherefore it was broken down, laid waste, burned, and a new vine was planted in its place. This true vine is Christ; not the man Christ Jesus, but the living, abiding Christ, the Christ who is with his people alway, even unto the end of the world (Matt. 28:20), the Christ whose true body is his church (1 Cor. 12:27), who is the head from which they all draw their life (Ephes. 4:15; Col. 1:18), who reproduces himself in every true disciple, since only they in whom is the spirit of Christ are truly his (Rom. 8:9), and who is thus far more widely and potently in the earth to-day than he ever was or could be in the flesh. This living and perpetually incarnate Christ is in a sense identical with his living church, as the vine is identical with its branches; for as there could be no vine without branches, so neither could this Christ be without the church which he animates. This Christ incarnate, not in the body of a single man, but in the church universal which is now his body, is the true Israel of God, the nation to whom the kingdom of God has been given, that was taken from the old Israel because it brought not forth the fruits thereof (Matt. 21:43). This true vine is contrasted with the old Israel which proved to be no true vine. No longer is there any possibility that the vine shall be broken down and destroyed with fire as the old vine was (Isa. 5:5; Ps. 80:16); but each branch that abides not in this everlasting vine, this living, perpetually incarnate and ever extending Christ, is broken off from the vine and destroyed. In brief, in studying this parable, the student must not forget, what the commentators have often forgotten, that throughout this last discourse with his disciples Christ speaks of himself not as a man about to die, but as a living Christ, forever incarnate in the hearts and lives of his own, living on in the world with mightier and wider influence, and in more intimate communion and companionship with his disciples after his crucifixion than before. It is this ever-living Christ, reproduced in all his members, and spreading over the whole earth, that is the true vine, in contrast with the old Israel, which proved to be no true vine; of this vine the Father is the husbandman; in this vine each individual disciple is a branch or shoot.
1 I am the true vine,[571] and my Father is the husbandman.[572]
[571] Isa. 4:2.
[572] Cant. 8:12.
2 Every branch[573] in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth[574] fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
[573] Matt. 15:13.
[574] Heb. 12:15; Rev. 3:19.
=1, 2. I am the true vine.= So he is the true light (ch. 1:9) and true bread (ch. 6:32, 33), the spiritual being the true, the external and material being the shadows that are “figures of the true” (Heb. 9:24). The images of the Bible, especially those employed by Christ, are not merely poetic figures. The outward world is a real symbol of the invisible world, physical growths are a parable of spiritual growths, the kingdom of nature a picture of the kingdom of grace, because both come from the same creative hand, are made subject to the same great laws, and are under the same great King. The physical vine is the shadow; Christ is the true, real vine, whom the shadow symbolizes; and it will last when the shadow has passed away; as he is the true priest and sacrifice, outlasting the apparent priest and sacrifice of the O. T. dispensation.--=My Father is the husbandman.= Cultivating the vine, and superintending its growth. This cultivation has been going on through the centuries, in all the growth of that invisible but perpetually incarnated Christ whose body is the church, and who dwells in and is therefore represented by all his members. The language shows clearly that it is not of the man Christ Jesus about to die upon the cross, but of the ever-living Christ, immanent in the Holy Catholic Church, that he here speaks.--=Every branch in me that beareth not fruit.= How can a branch be in Christ and bear no fruit? Calvin’s explanation that in me is equivalent to supposed to be in me is inadmissible. It does not explain Christ’s words, but substitutes others for them. Alford’s explanation is better, but it labors under the serious disadvantage of substituting for Christ’s declaration “I am the vine,” the very different declaration, The visible church is the vine. “The vine is the visible church here, of which Christ is the inclusive head; the vine contains the branches, hence the unfruitful as well as the fruitful are in me.” But to be in the visible church and to be in living communion with Christ are very different things. I should rather say that Christ here lays down, in a simile, the general law that to him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. If the soul, in the measure in which it has knowledge of Christ, bears Christian fruit, it will grow more and more into oneness with and likeness of Christ; if, on the other hand, it does not realize the fruits of its knowledge in a life fruitful in Christian works, it will gradually lose its knowledge and become separated from Christ. Thus both the grafting into and the separating from the vine are in the spiritual experience gradual processes, and they depend on the fidelity with which the conscious branch avails itself of its privilege, and shows itself worthy of larger privilege. Thus Christ gives grace for grace (ch. 1:16).--=He taketh away.= The same word (αἴρω) is used in 1 Cor. 5:2 of excommunication; that indicates the meaning here. It is not declared that the fruitless Christian shall be destroyed, though later, in ver. 6, destruction is declared to be the final result of cutting off from Christ. Fruitlessness cuts off (excommunicates) the soul from communion with and drawing life from Christ; this ends in spiritual withering, death, and destruction (ver. 6). Thus this declaration is the converse of that of ch. 14:23, “If a man love me he will keep my words (bear my fruit), and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him.” If he keep not Christ’s words (bear not Christ’s fruit), he will not have the abiding of the Father and the Son. The fruit of Christ is the same as the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22, 23); and in the measure in which this fruit is borne in the life, is the soul enriched in the spiritual knowledge of Christ which enables it to bear still more fruit. Thus fruitfulness in the life develops the consciousness of Christ’s indwelling, and the consciousness of Christ’s indwelling in the soul develops Christian fruitfulness in the life. The whole truth is well illustrated by 2 Pet. 1:5-9.--=And every branch that beareth fruit, he cleanseth it that it may bring forth more fruit.= The word rendered in ver. 2 purgeth and that rendered in ver. 3 clean are radically the same. Christ cleanseth the soul (1) by the operation of the law that right doing develops right feeling and opens the heart to higher influences (ch. 7:17); (2) by the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, which is given to each soul in the measure in which each proves itself worthy of and willing to receive him; (3) by the discipline of life, which is the manifestation of God’s special love to the soul (Heb. 12:6). The object of all this redemptive work is in order that (ἵνα) the soul may bring forth more fruit. Thus Christian fruitfulness in the life is both the condition and the final result of the divine purifying process in the life of the soul.
3 Now ye[575] are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
[575] ch. 17:17; Ephes. 5:26; 1 Pet. 1:22.
4 Abide[576] in me, and I in you. As[577] the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
[576] 1 John 2:6.
[577] Hosea 14:8; Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:11.
=3, 4. Already ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.= Ver. 3 must be read in connection with ver. 4, to which it is introductory. Through (δὶα) always indicates the instrument, never the cause. The spoken word is the instrument in God’s hand for the cleansing of the soul (ch. 17:17); and when received by an obedient faith, becomes the means of regeneration (James 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:23) and the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16). This word is not any particular utterance of Christ, but his whole ministry, both of promise and teaching, including his gift of pardon and peace, and his call to Christian activity. The meaning, then, is this: You are already cleansed from past sin through your acceptance of and obedience to my word. But you are not to imagine that my work is done when I depart and cease to be visibly present with you. You are still to abide in me spiritually; for without this spiritual abiding all your past cleansing can accomplish nothing; without me as a living and life-giving Saviour you can bear no Christ-like fruit in your lives. The lesson for us is that Christ’s work was not finished (though his sacrifice was) on the cross, that our work is not finished in accepting forgiveness through him and consecrating ourselves to obedience to his will, but that the finished work of his death was only preparatory for the entire work of his life in us (Rom. 5:10), and that our acceptance of pardon is only a preparation for a life continually hid with Christ in God (Gal. 2:20; Col. 3:3).--=Abide in me and I in you.= This is not a direction and a promise, equivalent to, If you abide in me I will abide in you; it is a twofold direction: Abide in me; see to it that I abide in you. It thus implies that Christ’s indwelling in us is dependent upon ourselves. If any man hear Christ’s voice and opens the door, Christ comes in to him and sups with him (Rev. 3:20). He that hungers and thirsts after righteousness is filled (Matt. 5:6). By fidelity and obedience we abide in Christ; by docility and spiritual obedience we open the door that Christ may abide with us.--=As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself= (ἀφ ἑαυτοῦ) =except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me=. So the Son can do nothing of himself (ch. 5:19, note), but does all things abiding in and through the power of the Father. The disciple abiding in Christ comes at last to abide with Christ in the Father; and this is the consummation, when the Father becomes all in all (ch. 17:21, 24; 1 Cor. 15:28). Thus all spiritual life comes from the Father by Christ, through the instrumentality of the word, to the soul that abides in and with Christ as Christ abides in and with the Father.
5 I am the vine, ye are the branches; He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
6 If a[578] man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
[578] Matt. 3:10; 7:19.
=5, 6. I am the vine, ye are the branches.= Note the contrast. No mere teacher or prophet could have spoken thus to his fellow-creatures.--=He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.= This mystical dwelling with a living and present Christ is the condition of a fruitful Christian character.--=Because apart from me ye can do nothing.= Rather severed, as a branch from the vine; and the negation is intense, a double negative: ye can by no means do anything. All Christless activity counts for nothing; it harvests “nothing but leaves.” Thus moral excellence is not the preparation for and the condition of spiritual life; spiritual life is the preparation for and the condition of moral excellence. Though each promotes the other, the first step for the reforming soul should be to seek union with Christ, without whom we can do nothing. Contrast with Christ’s declaration here Paul’s in Phil. 4:13, “I can do all things through Him (Christ) that strengtheneth me.” No conclusion can be drawn from this utterance respecting the vexed question of the natural ability of the soul to repent of sin and accept Christ by faith. For Christ is here speaking to those who have thus accepted him, and he declares simply the condition of fruitful Christian activity for all those who are, at least in avowed purpose, already his.--=In case any one shall not have abided in me he has been cast out like the branch that is withered, and they gather them together and they are burned.= This translation is Meyer’s, who thus comments on the significance of the change in the tenses: “Jesus places himself at the point of time of the execution of the last judgment, when those who have fallen away from him are gathered together and cast into the fire, after they have been previously cast out of his communion and become withered, having completely lost the true life.” They that gather the withered branches for the fire are not men, but the angels (Matt. 13:49, 50). The metaphorical language ought not, however, to be too far pressed. The parable ends in a tragic consummation, but Christ pictures only the end of the fruitless and severed branches, as a warning to the disciples; he does not declare that this fate actually impends over any truly new-born soul. Hence we cannot deduce from his language the conclusion of Meyer and Alford that the verse involves the possibility of falling from grace. The whole teaching is full of warning to every one to make his calling and election sure, not to rest in a “finished salvation;” and in this it corresponds with the uniform teaching of the N. T. (Phil. 2:12, 13; Heb. 4:11; 12:15; 2 Pet. 1:10). The admonition is somewhat analogous to and may be interpreted by that of Paul in Ephes. 5:6, 7, and Col. 3:5, an admonition pertinent to all who substitute a supposed faith in Christ’s perfect work for practical obedience, a faith that works by love. Alford’s interpretation “burneth, not is burned in any sense of being consumed,” is a striking illustration, such as Alford does not often afford, of modifying the text to escape an unwelcome conclusion. The verb (καίεται) is in the passive tense, and the figure is certainly one of destruction, not of torment. But it is not to be taken literally. The essential truth which underlies the metaphor is simply this, that the soul which is separated from Christ is separated from the source of spiritual life, withers away, and is eventually destroyed. What is soul destruction is a question not here considered.
7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye[579] shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
[579] ch. 16:23.
8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
=7, 8. If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Therein is my Father glorified; so that ye shall bear much fruit and shall become my disciples.= The words of Christ are his whole teaching, his commandments, revelations, promises; to be accepted by obedience, faith, hope. They are said to abide in the soul only as they spring up and bear fruit in the life (Matt. 13:8, 23). Thus to have Christ’s words abiding in us is the same as to bear Christian fruit. To him who thus abides in Christ and bears his fruit this promise is made, analogous to and interpreted by that of ch. 14:13, 14. The prayers of those who are thus pervaded by the spirit of Christ are, like their Master’s, those of not merely a humble submission to, but a supreme desire for, the will of God (Matt. 6:9, 10; 26:39).--Hence in answering them the Father is glorified. For the prayer of him in whom Christ’s words abide will always embrace a supreme desire for the Father’s glory. Comp. Christ’s prayer in ch. 17. Answer to such prayers is given that the praying Christian may both bear much fruit and become a disciple; both fruit-bearing in the life and docility of spirit, i. e., both practical obedience to Christ and the spiritual capacity to appreciate Christ’s instructions, are the result of this life of prayer, and are a divine answer to prayer. The translation given in the English version, so shall ye be my disciples, is possibly legitimate, but it reverses the true order of the spiritual life, by representing that fruit-bearing is the condition of becoming a disciple of Christ; and the other construction is both more in harmony with the general teaching of the N. T. and also with the original here. That (ἵνα is telic) is equivalent to in order that, but the meaning is not that God is glorified for the purpose of perfecting Christian character, but that prayer in the name and spirit of Christ is answered for that purpose.
9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.
10 If ye[580] keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.
[580] ch. 14:21, 23.
11 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your[581] joy might be full.
[581] ch. 16:24; 17:13.
=9-11. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Abide ye in my love.= As indicates the quality and character of the love. Christ’s love for the disciples is, like the Father’s love for Christ, a love personal, warm, strong; but one that does not shield from all temptation, suffering, or even injustice. The word rendered continue in ver. 9 is the same rendered abide in ver. 7. My love is Christ’s love for us, not our love for him. The meaning then is, I have loved you with the love which the Father has for me; so live as to retain this love. And the next sentence indicates how this is to be done.--=If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love, even as=, etc. On the meaning of the word keep, see ch. 14:21, note. The commandments are all summed up in the one command, “Follow me,” and this again is interpreted by the command, “That ye love one another as I have loved you.” Love is the key to Christ’s character; to love is to follow Christ. A life of asceticism or of retirement and meditation is not the way to this indwelling with Christ. The condition is love in activity of service; a love and life like that of Christ, which was neither one of asceticism nor one of repose.--=These things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you, and your joy might be full.= One object of his address (comp. ver. 17; ch. 16:1, 4, 33) is that he may perfect in them and in us that Christian joy which is one of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22; Rom. 14:17), joy in the Lord, i. e., in his companionship, in fulfilling his will, in suffering with and for him, in doing his service (Acts 5:41; Phil. 2:17, 18; 4:4); the joy which Christ sets before himself, and for which he endured the cross, despising the shame (Luke 24:26; Heb. 12:2). By my joy is meant, not joy concerning Christ, nor joy derived from Christ, nor joy of Christ himself in us, his disciples, though this last is a possible interpretation, but his own joy, i. e., joy like his, having the same source in God and the same quality, enduring and invincible. And if this joy is in the soul, the soul is full; it leaves nothing to be desired. In words there is, in experience there is not, a contradiction in the implication that he who was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief was also one possessing the most radiant joyfulness. This promise of joy, uttered by Christ just before Gethsemane and Calvary, is itself a song in the night, and a promise of one to every Christian soul in its own passion hour.
12 This[582] is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
[582] ch. 13:34.
13 Greater love[583] hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
[583] Rom. 5:7, 8.
14 Ye[584] are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
[584] verse 10.
=12-14. This is my commandment, that=, etc. Comp. ch. 13:34, note. Christ reiterates the commandment which he has before given, and points to his own life as the true interpreter of that commandment, in order that he may guard them and us against that Pharisaic obedience of external rules which selfishness and earthliness are continually substituting for a spiritual obedience to the one interior law of Christian character, self-sacrificing love.--=Greater love hath no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.= Beware of reading this as though laying down the life were equivalent to dying. To die for a friend is not the greatest manifestation of love; to live for him, by consecrating the whole life to him, is far greater. See ch. 10:11, 17, notes.--As Christ consecrates not only his earthly life, but, in his intercession with us and for us, his eternal life, to his friends, so, if we are his friends, we shall lay down our lives for him, not necessarily by dying for him, but by doing whatsoever he commands us, that is, by living for him. Thus Christ points out at once both the perfection of his love for his disciples and the perfection of that love which he desires from his disciples. He does not here say, however, that to lay down one’s life for one’s friends is the highest manifestation of love; still higher is that manifestation made by laying down the life for enemies. (Rom. 5:8; 1 John 4:10.)
15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends:[585] for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.
[585] James 2:23.
=15. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth; but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.= There is a verbal but not a spiritual inconsistency between the language here and that of ver. 20. The service which Christ expects of his disciples is that of love. His declaration here explains his previous language, which is that of authority. He has said, “I am your Lord and Master” (ch. 13:13), and has reiterated again and again that the condition of their spiritual life is obedience to his commandments (ch. 14:15, 23; 15:10). He now explains the sense in which he is a lawgiver. He does not issue an imperial ukase and demand of his disciples a blind and unquestioning obedience; he speaks as a divine friend, interpreting to his disciples those laws of the spiritual life which he has himself learned in the indwelling of the Father.
16 Ye[586] have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained[587] you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever[588] ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
[586] 1 John 4:10, 19.
[587] Ephes. 2:10.
[588] verse 7; ch. 14:13.
=16. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you.= Primarily the reference is to the choice of the twelve from among the disciples of Christ to be witnesses and apostles (Luke 6:13; John 6:70; Acts 9:15); and this choice did not prevent one of them from becoming an apostate. It is Christ who chooses for each one of us his place and work in life. That this is the primary meaning is evident, not only from the parallel language employed in the passages above cited, but also from the second clause of the verse here. The word rendered ordained is literally placed; and that is the meaning in this passage: I have chosen you and appointed you your place in life. So in Acts 13:47; 20:28; 1 Tim. 2:12. But it is also clear from the language of ver. 19, I have chosen you out of the world, that Christ refers not merely to a choice of the twelve from among the whole discipleship for a particular work, but also to a choice of them from the world to be followers of him. And as an historic fact, so far as we know the history of the twelve, each one was first called by Christ. See for example Matt. 9:9; Mark 1:16-20; John 1:43. The vine precedes the branches; the first life flows from the vine into the branches; the first choice is the choice of the dead soul by the living Christ, not the choice of the living Christ by the dead soul. We love him because he first loves us (1 John 4:10, 19; Ephes. 2:4, 5), and choose him because he first chooses us. And, however difficult it may be for us to reconcile this truth with our a priori conceptions of divine impartiality, rightly held it is an inspiration to Christian activity and a source of Christian humility. “Even when this doctrine of election has taken a narrow form--even when it has been recognized chiefly as exclusive--it has had a mighty power over the hearts of men. They have given themselves up, as they never could do when they thought they had selected their own destiny, or were going on errands of their own. But when it takes the form it has here * * * there cannot be any principle which is at once so humbling and so elevating, which so takes away all notion from the disciple that there is any worth in his own deeds or words, which gives him so confident an assurance that God’s word, spoken through him or through any man, will not return to Him void.”--(Maurice.)--=That you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.= They were chosen that they should go forth as apostles, everywhere carrying the gospel of reconciliation, and bringing back to their Master the fruits, in sinners converted and saints edified. So every Christian is chosen that he may go forth out of himself, out of a life of mere personal enjoyment of religion, and bring forth fruit that shall abide in other lives after his life comes to its close. And he is bound to take heed that both in his life (2 John, ver. 8), and in other lives (Rev. 14:13), there is fruit that abides unto life eternal.--=That whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.= Both clauses of the verse are dependent on the general declaration, “I have chosen you.” For analogous construction, see ch. 13:34. Christ chooses his disciples that they may go out into the world and bring forth much fruit, and also that they may ask of the Father in his name what they need; that is, both for a life of Christian activity and of Christian devotion. And the one is necessary to the other. The Christian brings forth much fruit only as he has power in prayer, the power of a faith that God is able to do much in and through him (Phil. 4:13); and he has power in prayer only as he brings forth much fruit (ch. 9:31; 14:7). Besser notes an evidence of emphasis which Christ lays upon prayer in the fact that prayer in the name of Jesus is urged in all three chapters of this farewell discourse.
17 These things[589] I command you, that ye love one another.
[589] verse 12.
=17. These things I command you that ye love one another.= These things are all the precepts which have preceded from the beginning of this interview, ch. 13:12. The whole object of Christ’s precepts is to produce a loving spirit and a loving life in his followers. See Matt. 22:37-40; Rom. 13:8-10; Gal. 5:14; 1 Tim. 1:5.
18 If the world[590] hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
[590] 1 John 3:13.
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore[591] the world hateth you.
[591] ch. 17:14.
20 Remember[592] the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they[593] have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
[592] ch. 13:16; Matt. 10:24; Luke 6:40.
[593] Ezek. 3:7.
21 But all[594] these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.
[594] ch. 16:3; Matt. 10:22; 24:9.
=18-21.= From this point to the end of the chapter Christ passes to speak of the relation of the disciples to the world, and continuing the theme in the next chapter, points out (ch. 16:1-4) the particular manifestation of the world’s enmity which the disciples may expect.--=If the world hates you, know that it hated me before you.= The world, in John’s use of the term, signifies the unspiritual portion of mankind, those who have not been taken out of an animal and sensual condition by being born from above. See for illustration of his meaning ch. 1:10, 29; 3:16; 4:42; 12:31, etc. Many in the visible church may be of the world; some without the visible church may not be of the world. It was the church which most bitterly hated Christ; the publicans and sinners were drawn to him, and their enthusiasm for him was his protection against the machinations of the hierarchy (Mark 12:12; Luke 20:19; 22:2). Christ does not assert that the world will necessarily hate the disciples. The disciple’s life may be so ordered of God that it is never brought into direct collision with the self-interest, the pride, and the ambition of the world. But if the collision does arise, and the disciple suffers the world’s enmity, he is to be strengthened and comforted by the reflection that that has befallen him which previously befel his Master. Comp. ch. 7:7, where Christ declares that the world cannot hate those that act in accordance with worldly policies and principles, and 1 Pet. 4:12, 13; 1 John 3:13, 14; 4:4, 5, where the apostles employ the same consideration employed by Christ here, and for the same purpose. It is better to take know as an imperative than as an indicative, as an exhortation than as a mere statement of a fact. It is thus analogous to remember in ver. 20.--=If ye were of the world * * * because ye are not of the world.= The Christian is in but not of the world, because he is born from above (John 3:3), and so is made a member of a kingdom which, like its king, is not of this world (ch. 8:23; 18:36).--=Therefore the world hateth you.= Not merely because the disciple is chosen by Christ, but because he is chosen out of the world, and by his life of nonconformity bears a perpetual testimony against the world. This enmity is illustrated by the case of Daniel (Dan. 6:1-5), Peter and John (Acts 4:21), and Christ himself (John 11:49, 50). It is aroused whenever Christian principle comes into collision with worldly interests.--=Be mindful of the word which I said unto you.= Bear it in mind as a talisman in time of persecution. See marg. ref. This truth, employed here and in Matt. 10:24 for encouragement, is assigned in ch. 13:16 as a reason for humility.--=If they have kept my saying they will keep yours also.= This is not to be regarded as ironical, as rendered by Grotius, nor is the word keep to be rendered watch with a hostile intent, a forced meaning given to it by Bengel, nor is the language merely general and hypothetical, which is apparently Meyer’s interpretation. Some will persecute, others will accept and carefully keep, the gospel. The disciple must anticipate both results, persecution and glad reception. So it was in Paul’s experience (Acts 13:42, 45, 48, 50; 14:4; 17:4, 5, etc.). The most popular preachers are also the most reviled and persecuted, from the days of Christ down through those of Luther and Whitefield, to the present day.--=They will do unto you for my name’s sake.= As the name of Christ inspires the Christian with peculiar courage and devotion, so it incites in his enemies peculiar hostility. The fact that this hostility is directed against Christ, and that in enduring it the disciples are suffering for Christ and in his stead, gives them peculiar strength and joy in their sufferings (Acts 5:41; 21:13; Rom. 5:3; 2 Cor. 11:23; 12:10, 11; Phil. 2:17, 18; Gal. 6:14; 1 Pet. 4:12, 13). Thus the declaration here interprets the promise of Matt. 5:11, 12.--=Because they know not him that sent me.= See ver. 23; ch. 8:42.
22 If I[595] had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but[596] now they have no cloke for their sin.
[595] ch. 9:41.
[596] James 4:17.
23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also.
24 If I had not done among them the works[597] which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.
[597] ch. 7:31.
25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated[598] me without a cause.
[598] Ps. 35:19; 69:4.
=22-25. If I had not come * * * they had not known sin.= The meaning is not, They would not have had the sin of hating me without a cause; there is no definite article attached to the word sin; the declaration is general, as it is rendered by our English version. Moreover, to say that men would not have been guilty of the sin of hating Christ if Christ had never come to their knowledge is to utter the merest truism. This, though it is the common interpretation, and is adopted, though not defended, by such scholars as Meyer and Alford, seems to me utterly untenable. Nor is the meaning, They would not have had so great sin; Christ often uses metaphor, but he never exaggerates. By his death the Lamb of God has taken away, not some sins from the world, but the sin of the world. See ch. 1:29, note. Hence the only sin for which men are condemned is that of deliberately rejecting the offer of free forgiveness and a new life through Jesus Christ (ch. 3:18, 19, notes). Other sins are not reckoned against them (Acts 17:30; Rom. 3:25). They are judged by Christ, because they are judged worthy of life if they accept his free offer of it, and unworthy of life if they put it away when it is offered to them (Acts 13:46). Hence those to whom Christ has been offered are not condemned because of their past sins, which are freely forgiven; they are measured by their acceptance or rejection of Him. “No man shall die in his sins, except him who through unbelief thrusts from him the forgiveness of sin, which in the name of Jesus is offered to him. This is the real sin which contains all others. For if the word of Christ was received every sin would be forgiven and remitted; but since men will not receive it, this constitutes a sin which is not to be forgiven.”--(Luther.)--=But now they have no cloak for their sin.= No cover or excuse. Ignorance is an excuse; but when the offer of pardon and a new life is refused, the sin is shown to be deliberately chosen. Every man naturally seeks an excuse for his sin (Gen. 3:12, 13). Christ takes away every excuse and leaves the sinner, at the judgment day, to the sentence of condemnation. “I would * * * but ye would not” (Matt. 23:37).--=He that hateth me hateth my Father also.= Because Christ is the manifestation of the Father, therefore anti-Christ is anti-God. See ch. 8:42.--=If I had not done among them works which none other did.= Not merely miracles; the whole life-work of beneficent activity is that which attested to the Jews Christ’s character; and the whole work of beneficent activity wrought by him in the church universal is the ever-living testimony to the divine nature and authority of Christianity. The evidence of a divine redemption through Jesus Christ is cumulative; and the sin of hating Christ, as embodied in Christian principles, truths, and lives, is consequently continually enhanced.--=They have both seen and hated both me and my Father.= This was literally true in respect to the hierarchy at Jerusalem, who even as these words were spoken were plotting with Judas for the arrest and execution of Christ. They determined to slay him, because in no other way could they countervail his wonderful works (ch. 11:47-50).--=They hated me without a cause.= See marg. ref. The language was employed by the original author--whether David or not is not quite certain--not with any distinct understanding of its prophetic significance. It is here applied by Christ to himself, not by an accommodation, but because all godly suffering in the O. T. was itself a type of the great sacrifice for God and man consummated by the cross of Christ, as all suffering in the Christian church fills up what is lacking of that sacrifice to perfect the world’s redemption (Col. 1:24). “These (verses 21-25) are perhaps the most terrible words in the O. T. or the N. T. No descriptions of divine punishment which are written anywhere can come the least into comparison with them for awfulness and horror. This gratuitous hatred, this hatred of Christ by men because they hate God, this hatred of God because he has manifested and proved himself to be love, is something which passes all our conception, and yet which would not mean anything to us if our conscience did not bear witness that the possibility of it lies in ourselves. Do not let us put away that thought, brethren, or the one which is closely akin to it, that such hatred is only possible in a nation which, like the Jewish, is full of religious knowledge and of religious profession.”--(Maurice.)
26 But when the Comforter[599] is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he[600] shall testify of me:
[599] ch. 14:17.
[600] 1 John 5:6.
27 And ye[601] also shall bear witness, because ye[602] have been with me from the beginning.
[601] Luke 24:48; Acts 2:32; 4:20, 33; 2 Pet. 1:16.
[602] 1 John 1:2.
=26, 27. But when the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the presence of= (παρὰ) =the Father= (ch. 14:16), =even the Spirit of truth= (ch. 14:17, note), =which proceedeth from the presence= (παρὰ) =of the Father=. On the meaning of the particle here rendered from, see ch. 5:34, note. These two clauses are not repetitions; the one defines the other. The Comforter whom Jesus sent at the day of Pentecost to the church is that Spirit of truth who ever proceeds from the Father. Christ attributes all blessed redemptive influences in the last instance to his Father; as he is himself from the Father, so the Spirit is from the Father (ch. 7:29; 8:26, 38; 10:18; Gal. 4:6), and is sometimes called his (Christ’s) Spirit (Rom. 8:9; Gal. 4:6; Phil. 1:19; 1 Pet. 1:11). To trace out from this verse the eternal relations between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is to import into this spiritual converse the unspiritual metaphysics of the scholastic period of theology.--=He shall testify of me= (ch. 16:13-15). =And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning= (Luke 1:2; Acts 1:22). A double testimony to the truth of Christianity, the spiritual and the historical. After Christ’s death and resurrection the Spirit made clear to the apostles the meaning of the enigma, interpreted the prophets to them, and opened unto them the true nature of Christ’s spiritual kingdom, that they might testify unto others (Acts 1:8; 1 Cor. 2:9, 10; comp. Matt. 10:20; Mark 13:11). The apostles also testified to the facts which they had themselves witnessed in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, as evidences of his Messiahship (Acts 1:22; 3:15). But, secondarily, every Christian is a witness of Christ by his own life and conversation, testifying things which in his own experience he has both seen and heard; and the Spirit of truth bears witness both in him and through him to the power of God in a devout life (Rom. 8:16; 9:1; 1 Cor. 12:8-11; 1 Pet. 1:11; 1 John 3:24).