A commentary, critical, expository, and practical, on the Gospel of John, for the use of ministers, theological students, private Christians, Bible classes, and Sabbath schools

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PREFACE TO THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. Vll

cept in 12 : 2, where it is incidentally mentioned. That he remained however for some time at Jerusalem, is evident from Gal. 2: 1, 9, where we find his name mentioned in connection with Paul's second visit to Jerusalem (Acts 15 : 2). After this no further mention is made of him in the sacred narration, and in regard to his subsequent history in common with that of the other apostles, we are wholly dependent upon the traditions of the church.

It is evident from Gal. 2 : 9 as above cited, that John Was in Jerusalem as late as A. D. 50 or 51. That he was not present on the occasion of Paul's last visit to the city, is equally evident, for in that case his name would most unquestionably have been associated with that of James (21 : 18), as on the former visit special mention h^d been made of him in connection with James and Peter. It is uncertain, however, whether his absence was a temporary or permanent one, on the occasion of Paul's visit here referred to. The latter is the more probable conjecture, and it is the general opinion that he left Jerusalem and Judea and went abroad among the Gentiles, soon after Paul's second visit to the ecclesiastical metropolis. The best modern chronologists think that he went into Proconsular Asia, about the time when the war broke out in Judea. If so, it must have been about the year A. D. QQ, or the time when Paul and perhaps Peter suffered martyrdom. That previous to this time he did not take up his permanent residence in Asia, is quite evident from the fact, that no mention is made of him, or any salutation sent him by Paul in his Epistle to the Asiatic churches. A reason also may be found for his making at this time Proconsular Asia the field of his labor, in the fact that the martyrdom of Paul had deprived those important churches of his spiritual guidance and oversight, at a time when they preeminently stood in need of one having the spiritual gifts and ofiicial dignity of an apostle of Jesus Christ. He abode in Ephesus, at least a considerable part of the time, until the fourteenth year of the reign of Domitian, at which time he was banished by a decree of the emperor. According to Eusebius, he returned to Ephesus in the time of Nerva, where he died of extreme old age, A. I). 101, in the third year of the reign of Trajan.

In regard to the natural temperament of John, it is quite evident that he was bold, ardent, impetuous, one who scorned falsehood and hypocrisy, and was ever ready to give expression to his sentiments in the most simple and straightforward terms. It was probably these characteristics which formed the basis of his friendship and intimacy with Peter. Kindred spirits they were, although in moral heroism, especially during the earlier days of their apostleship, John was greatly the superior of his friend. I can see no evidence which Tholuck and some others find, that John's disposition and turn was of a feminine cast. On the very contrary, while he possessed an open, frank, loving

7111 PREFACE TO THE GOSPEL OP JOHN.

disposition, it was evidently connected with all that was bold, energetic, and manlike. It is thought by some expositors, that the epithet Boanerges, sons of thunder, was bestowed upon John and James on account of their impetuous spirit ; although not without reason others interpret it as predictive of their bold and powerful style of preaching. John's sincerity and frankness, which permitted no concealment of his opinions, or compromise with any form of error, is abundantly manifested in his writings, especially in his Epistles. Every portion of them is pervaded by his tender and loving spirit, and yet for plain, direct, out-spoken, burning denunciation against those who would seek to depreciate the glory of his Lord and turn away believers from the truth, they have no parallel in all God's word, not even in the most denunciatory of the prophetical writings. The epithets liar, antichrist, murderer, devil, are hurled against the enemies of truth, with a momentum increased ten-fold by the spirit of love and tenderness, which like a soft and sunny atmosphere bathes all his utterances. Neander styles him " a man of burning love and burning hate," of which Dr. Jacobus well remarks, that it " was the same disposition showing itself in opposite directions."

As might be expected in a writer of such an ardent and impetuous temperament, the style of John is singularly direct, plain, and simple. There are no involved constructions ; no complex and long extended sentences, with clauses elaborately arranged, adjusted, and bound together by logical connectives; no line of argumentation which lies so fairly exposed to the eye of the reader, that he may pursue it step by step, through premise and deduction with undeviatiug accuracy to the conclusion. The sentences are short, and so simple of construction as to be almost colloquial in style. The sentiment at first glance would seem so clear and apprehensible, as to be fully open to the feeblest intellect. But the more these great utterances are pondered upon, the more evident does it appear, that to fathom their depth requires the most patient, protracted, and intense application ; and even then unless taught of the Spirit, no exertion of intellect will suffice to attain to their full meaning. In this very feature consists a remarkable peculiarity of the Gospel by John, as well as of many other portions of God's Word, that such is its adaptation to persons of all classes and grades of intellect, that the learned and unlearned alike find the highest pleasure and profit in studying the truth therein revealed. The announcement in 1 : 1, is expressed in language which may be comprehended by a child of ordinary capacity and intelligence, and yet the most towering human intellect will never penetrate the mystery of that sublime revelation. The same may be said of many other doctrines and declarations of our Lord recorded in John's Gospel. They are spread out to the eye of the

Preface To The Gospel Of John. IX

reader, calm and placid as the summer's sea, but their vast and mysterious depths are wholly beyond the soundings of human reason.

In regard to the time when John published his Gospel, there has been a great diversity of views. Some have affixed to it as late a date as A. D. 97 or 98. Such was the opinion of Chrysostom and Epiphanius. Against this view it is argued, that the Gospel possesses in its style too much vigor to be the production of one who has entered upon extreme old age. Alford cites Lucke, as remarking that the style is that of a matured, but not of an aged writer. This criticism perhaps leaves too much out of account the agency of the Holy Spirit, in quickening, strengthening, and inspiring the sacred writers for the work assigned them. It is nevertheless true, that, unless we take the ground that the sacred penmen were mere amanuenses of the Spirit, their respective mental habits and characteristics as influenced and modified by age as well as other circumstances, are not to be left out of account in settling a question like the one before us. No one can read this Gospel, and not see in its style, if not the vivacity of 3-outh. yet the vigor and clearness of detail which mark the years of full manhood, rather than the imbecility of extreme old age. On the other hand, it appears very clear that its publication followed that of the Synoptic Evangelists. He evidently wrote for Gentile Christians ; he adds explanations to Jewish names and customs ; he opposes errors, which were not rife until after the publication of the other Gospels. All this indicates a date of publication, some time after John came to Ephesus, which as we have shown was not until Paul had been withdrawn by martyrdom from that important field, or about A. D. 66. That he did not publish his gospel while a resident in Palestine, is very evident from the internal and external evidence that it was written for Gentile readers. That he should publish it immediately on his arrival at Ephesus (A. D. 66), is not at all probable. We are justified therefore in referring it to a date at least as late as A. D. TO, probably as Alford and others conjecture, somewhere between the years 70-85.

Attempts have been made by skeptical and infidel writers to disprove the genuineness of John's Gospel. It is alleged that no mention was made of it by Polycarp the disciple of John, nor by Barnabas, Clemens Komanus, or Ignatius. But not to say that the silence of these writers proves nothing conclusive as to the canonicity of the Gospel or its authorship, being negative testimony, a slight examination will suffice to show, that it did not fall within the scope or design of these writers to refer to John's Gospel or make citations therefrom. Arrayed also against the silence of these writers, we find the names cf Irenssus — who in his youth had conversed with Polycarp, the disciple of John, and in whose writings are frequent quotations from this Gospel — Theophilus of Antioch, Tertullian,

X PEEFACE TO THE GOSPEL OF JOHN.

Clemens Alexandrinus, Hippolytus, Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria, and Eusebius, all whose writings abound with allusions and citations, proving beyond all doubt, the genuineness and authenticity of the Gospel. The adversaries of Christianity, Porphyry and Julian, refer to John's Gospel. Its canonicity is also proved from the ancient Syriac version, the Peschito. The voice of antiquity is therefore almost unanimous in assigning its authorship to John. The argument from these ancient writers is presented in detail by Tholuck, and is so conclusive as to remove every doubt as to its authorship and time of composition. The internal evidence that it was written in the apostolic period and by John, is of the most irresistible nature, but it is too vast a subject to be here entered upon. The attempt of Baur to prove that the Gospel is spurious, and was foisted upon the church in the latter part of the second century, has been fully and satisfactorily answered by Ebrard and more recently by Luthardt.

It is the unanimous testimony of tradition that this Gospel was written in Greek, at Ephesus, for Gentile readers. Although it abounds in Hebraisms, yet it approaches nearer to classic Greek than any of "the other Gospels. This shows that John must have lived in Asia Minor some time before its composition. Unfavorable criticisms have been made upon his frequent employment of the Greek connectives for hut and then. But a careful examination will show that these particles are in hardly a single instance needlessly or incorrectly used. His short and pithy sentences enabled him to dispense with the use of many connectives, which in writings like those of Paul, would be found in great abundance. The frequent use of the slightly adversative but, was the natural result of his emphatic, energetic style, which abounds in antitheses, sudden turns of thought, rapid and unexpected transitions, and the introduction of new points and aspects of the subject under discussion. As to the employment of the Greek prepositions, I know of no writer, not purely Hellenistic, who uses them with more discrimination and effect than John. I have taken occasion to refer to the extraordinary power of some of his prepositional forms of expression, in the Notes on certain passages. On the whole we think that none of the New Testament writers approached nearer to classic Greek, than did John.

It remains to say a few words in regard to the design of this Gospel. This has been so fully descanted upon in the comments on 1 : 1, that comparatively little need here be said on the subject. It appears that about the time when John came to Ephesus, the Gnostic heresy was beginning to creep into the churches, and under the heresiarch Cerinthus and others, to assume an organized and rampant position. This heresy arose from the union with Christianity of the fanciful elements of Grecian philosophy, especially in regard to the

PREFACE TO THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. Xi

Deity and the emanations or ceous, which were supposed at different periods of time, to have proceeded from the Infinite and Supreme God. Prof. Burton, in his Bampton Lectures, very clearly sets forth the principles of the Gnostic theology : " The supreme God, according to the Gnostics, had dwelt from all eternity in a pleroma of inaccessible light ; and beside the name of first Father, or first Principle, they called him also Bythos, as if to denote the unfathomable nature of his perfections. This Being, by an operation purely mental, or by acting upon himself, produced two other beings of different sexes, from whom by a series of descents, more or less numerous according to different schemes, several pairs of beings were formed, who were called ceons, from the period of their existence before time was, or emanations, from the mode of their production. These successive seons or emanations appear to have been inferior each to the preceding; and their existence was indispensable to the Gnostic scheme, that they might account for the creation of the world without making God the author of evil [which in their estimation was an intrinsic and essential element of matter]. These seons lived through countless ages with their first Father. But the system of emanations seems to have resembled concentric circles, and they gradually deteriorated as they approached nearer and nearer to the extremity of the pleroma. Beyond this pleroma was matter, inert and powerless, though coeternal with the supreme God, and, like him, without beginning. At length one of the aeons passed the limits of the pleroma, and meeting with matter, created the world after the form and model of an ideal world, which existed in the pleroma, or the mind of the supreme God."

This Creator of the world or Demiurgus, as he was called, was not therefore the supreme Deity, although proceeding from him as an aeon or emanation. Hence as the creator of the world, on the principle that matter was evil, he was regarded as the author of evil, and it was to remedy this evil which even the supreme God could neither destroy or reduce to its primeval and inactive form, that Jesus Christ, who together with the Holy Ghost, were the two last aeons produced, made his advent on earth. The principal object of his mission was to reveal the true God to men, and acquaint them with the way of securing his favor, so that they also in due time might enter the sacred precincts of the divine pleroma. The knowledge cf God through Christ being the principal object to be sought after, the authors of this theory assumed the name of Gnostics.

It was to oppose and counteract this insidious and fatal heresy, that John seems to have composed and published his Gospel. He commences by a declaration in his bold, simple, straightforward manner, that Jesus Christ, so far from being an aeon or emanation, was in the beginning with God, and was himself God ; that the creation

Xll PREFACE TO THE GOSPEL OF JOHN.

was to be attributed to him and not according to the G-nostic theory, to Demiurgus, or any other of their so called seons. Prof. Burton remarks, that John was by no means the first to apply the term Logos to Christ. He considers the term to have been borrowed by the first Christian converts from the Gnostics, and to have been applied by them to Christ, and that it is one of the peculiar objects of John's Gospel to show in what sense the term Logos can be applied properly to Christ.

It will be remembered that one of the tenets of Gnosticism, was the inherent evil of matter. Hence the Gnostics denied that Jesus Christ was possessed of a truly human body, inasmuch as this would have allied him to evil, and incapacitated him to free men from the bondage of matter. They clothed him therefore in an unsubstantial or phantasmical form, physical only in appearance ; and hence they took the name Docetce, from a Greek verb signifying to seem. In opposition to this heresy, John affirms (1 : 14), that the Logos became flesh and dwelt on earth, and that his body possessed all the physical properties which belong to the bodies of men (1 John 1:1; 4:2).

John's design in composing his Gospel was evidently twofold, to prove Christ's supreme divinity and complete manhood or humanity. This will appear manifest to every intelligent reader, especially in those great discourses of our Lord recorded in chaps. Y.-X. and in his farewell discourse to his disciples and his prayer in chaps. XIV.- XVII. This feature of his Gospel is more fully brought to view in the comments which accompany the text. Alford well and succinctly expresses the subject-matter of the Gospel in the single proposition : " that the Eternal Creator Word became Flesh, and was glorified by means of that work which he undertook in the flesh."

Of the subdivisions of this Gospel, Alford cites that of Lucke as the simplest and most satisfactory : (1) the prologue I : 1-18 ; (2) the first main division of the Gospel, 1 : 18-XIL : 50 ; (3) the second main division, XIII. : 1-XX:31; (4) the appendix, chap. XXL Luthardt's general division is : (1) Jesus the Son of God, chaps. I.— IV. ; (2) Jesus and the Jews, V.-XII. ; (3) Jesus and his own, XIII.-XX. ; (4) the appendix, XXL Under these leading heads, he arranges the subdivisions with much skill and minuteness. It is very difficult, however, to construct a syllabus of this Gospel, which shall be based on divisions designated by chapter and verse, for the simple reason that the thoughts and utterances are so blended and interfused, that the argument under no one head or general division is so exhausted, that it does not receive additional confirmation and illustration in other portions of the Gospel.

It seems to me therefore preferable, both in a logical and sesthetical point of view, for the reader, instead of relying upon any abstract

PREFACE TO THE GOSPEL OP JOHN. Xlll

or compendium of the Gospel, to possess himself first of the great and leading theme, which is : Jesus Christ, the Eternal and Incarnate Son of God, the Light and Life of the icorld. Then with a reliance upon the aid of the promised Helper and Comforter (see N. on 14 : 16), let him slowly, patiently, carefully, read the Gospel through in course, weighing, sifting, and comparing the great truths and facts which meet his eye, and aiming as far as possible to map out their true and relative position in regard to the central and pervading theme of the Gospel. Let this reading of the whole Gospel in course be repeated again and again, until the great outlines are indelibly impressed upon the mind, and an eminence is gained from the summit of which this divine Scripture may be surveyed at a glance, with its lines of thought all converging to one common centre, JESUS THE SON OF GOD AND SAVIOUR OF MEN, — let this process, I say, be entered upon and faithfully carried out, and it will be found far better than a blind reliance upon artificial helps and tables of contents, which, as above said, from the very structure and composition of the Gospel must prove inadequate and defective.

The following remarks of Claudius, cited by Tholuck (Introduction p. 22) are so beautiful and apposite, that I take pleasure in making a full quotation of his words : " I love best of all to read in St. John. There is in him something so perfectly wonderful — dusk and night, and the quick lightning throbbing through them. The soft clouds of evening, and behind the mass, the big full moon bodily ! — something so sad, so high, so full of presage, that one can never weary of it. When I read John, it always seems to me that I see him before me, reclining at the Last Supper on the bosom of his Lord, as if his angel held the light for me, and at certain parts would place his arm around me, and whisper something in my ear. I am far from understanding all I read, yet often John's idea seems to hover before me in the distance ; and even when I look into a place that is entirely dark, I have a presension of a great and glorious sense, which I shall some day understand, and hence I catch so eagerly at every new exposition of the Gospel of John. 'Tis true — most of them only ruffle the evening clouds, and never trouble the moon behind them." In the same spirit, Tholuck himself remarks of this wondrous Gospel : " The noble simplicity on the one side, on the other, the hovering nature and the dim mystery of the narration, the tone of grief and longing, with the light of love shedding its tremulous beam on the whole, these impart to the Gospel a charm, a peculiar originality, to which, out of the writings of John, no parallel can be found."

May it ever be studied by God's people with a prayerful spirit, and with a becoming zeal to enter into the full sense of its great utterances. May the Spirit of light illuminate the mind and guide the

XIV PREFACE TO THE GOSPEL OP JOHN.

labors of all who now or hereafter seek to explain this portion of divine truth. It is a deep, exhaustless, fresh-flowing fountain, from which the loving and obedient disciples of Christ may draw water as from the well of salvation — even the living water which springeth up in the soul unto everlasting life (John 4 : 14 ; 7 : 37, 38 ; Rev. 21:1).

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN.

The exposition of the gospel of John is attended with far greater difficulties than that of the other gospels. This arises not so much from the style, which is remarkably clear and simple, as from the subject itself, which may be concisely expressed in the twofold proposition : the Eternal Word became incarnate, and is the Light and Life of man. Around these great central truths of John's gospel, other important truths revolve, such as the rejection of Christ by the Jews, the fulfilment in him of the ceremonial law, the necessity and inexplicableness of the new birth, the union of the believer with Christ, his body and blood the spiritual sustenance of the soul, the certainty and universality of the resurrection and final judgment. These themes and others kindred and subordinate to them, are descanted upon by John, so that his gospel is not to be regarded as designed to fill up chasms in the history of our Lord, which were left by the other Evangelists, but to teach the realities and nature of the interior and hidden life of the believer, and the union of the soid by faith with the Eternal Son of God. The external acts of our Lord were the main theme of the Synoptic gospels ; the spiritual essence and life of Jesus — apprehended and received into the soul by faith, and raising it to fellowship and communion with God — constitute the principal burden of John's gospel. Both these aspects of the mission of Christ are important, and even essential, to a full and right understanding of the relation subsisting between Him and the believing soul.

The order in which these two phases of our Lord's life and ministry, as found in the gospels, are presented," is worthy of notice. It would have been unsuited to the wants of the infant church, had John's gospel been written before those of the other Evangelists. The first three gospels were needed to meet the general inquiry which everywhere would be made, as to the circumstances of the birth, life, doctrine, miracles, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. After the church had become conversant with these historical facts, the way was prepared to enter more deeply into the spiritual nature of his mission, to develop more fully and explicitly his eternal and divine nature, and to show the respective offices and functions of each Person of the blessed Trinity, in the great work of man's redemption. John's gospel therefore very appropriately followed those of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, in which were recorded more especially the acts and sayings of our Lord.

Chapter I

1-18. Preface to John's Gospel. The position assigned by Dr. Robinson and other harmonists to these opening verses which relate to our Lord's divinity, is immediately after the Temptation. It has always seemed to me, that the appropriate place for this preface would be the very commencement of the Harmony. The section in which the pre-existent nature of Christ is so fully made known, should most surely stand in the very forefront of the gospels, when arranged in accordance with the probable order and sequence of events. But this is, however, a matter of comparatively little consequence. The great fact of his divinity, as here taught, stands forth conspicuous, and like a sun irradiates not only the gospel of John, in which it is found, but also the other gospels, where this truth is less distinctly revealed, and is to be gathered from the divine works of Jesus rather than from any formal doctrinal state? ment.

JOHN.

CHAPTER I.

IN the beginning a was the Word, and the Word was b with God, 4 and the Word was God.

; & 19 : 13.

1. This verse is the great proof-text of the supreme divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore has been subjected to the ordeal of more severe criticism, than perhaps any other portion of God's Word. In the limits assigned to these notes, I cannot make extensive reference to the different expositions of this verse, or the conflict of opinions and fierce discussions to which it has given rise. I must content myself with a brief and simple statement of the truth, which I deem to be here taught, and which, although one of the sublimest that can challenge the attention of man, yet lies so conspicuous on the very face of the passage, that it can emphatically be said, that he may run that readeth it (Hab. 2 : 2). The doctrine of the eternal divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, seems impossible to be expressed in clearer and more emphatic terms than here made use of; and every attempt to refute or throw discredit upon it, must be abortive, so long as this great text j stands, as it does, on an immovable ! foundation, proof against all the shafts j of criticism, or charges of absurdity, J with which the opponents of Christ's j divinity are ever ready to assail it. I When we take into consideration its I conspicuous position in John's gospel, j standing as it does in the foreground of his evangelium, as the great key to the j right understanding of the sublime and j spiritual truths therein contained, we j cease to wonder that the opponents of i the supreme divinity of the Son, have I endeavored in various ways to set aside ! its authority, by boldly denying its genuineness, or frittering away its power by mere verbal and shallow criticisms. Against all these efforts to impugn its I authority, it has ever stood and will J continue to stand, in its unassailable integrity, giving clear and calm utter- J

2 d The same was in the beginning with God.

ance to one of the most sublime and mysterious truths ever revealed to mortals, and one which lies at the very foundation of every hope of salvation through the atoning blood of Christ.

In the beginning, i. e. at the time of the creation of the universe. Compare Gen. 1 : 1, where reference is had to the same great time-period. But here the expression has necessarily a more enlarged signification, comprehending the whole eternity past, when as yet no created being or thing had been called into existence. Word. The ancient heathen philosophers were in the habit of regarding the Supreme God in two aspects, one as existing in himself, and the other as developing himself by his operations. This was especially a favorite notion with the Platonic school. Creation was ascribed by them to the Nous or Divine Intelligence, which they went so far as to call the Second God.

This twofold aspect in which the Divine Mind, in its uncreated and unseen essence, and its active development or manifestation, was regarded, found its place also in the Jewish writings, and became a favorite dogma of the Jewish Rabbins. After the return of the Jews from Babylon, the Scriptures were translated into the Chaldee language, because the Jews from their long residence in Chaldea, had forgotten their own tongue. This Chaldee version, about the time of our Saviour's advent, was translated into Greek. Amongst other singularities introduced from the philosophical speculations of the age, was this, that every place in the Hebrew version, where it is said " God appeared," &c, the translators say " the Word of the Lord appeared." Prof. Stuart remarked once in the hearing of the writer, that such instances

CHAPTEE I.

occur no less than 600 times. This singularity is to be traced to the Oriental philosophy, which pervaded the Jewish mind after the captivity, and tinged all their writings and speculations.

The early Christian Fathers were influenced in no small degree by this view of the Deity, as a Supreme Intelligence, acting through and developing Himself by the Word which proceeded from Him. They received this from the Platonic notion of God, as sustaining the twofold relation of Theos and Nous, God and Intelligence, above referred to. In adopting this view, or at least in seeming to conform to the Platonic school by employing these terms in relation to God, they hoped to recommend themselves to the heathen philosophers, and thus do an essential service to the cause of Christianity. Justin Martyr says that the Logos anciently appeared to mankind, because the great God could not be manifest to man. This philosophy was in full vogue in the time when John wrote his gospel. In the latter part of his life he went to Ephesus, and there resided for a number of years, and could not but have been conversant with the Greek philosophy, and its influence in modifying the doctrinal views of the church, especially in relation to the mode of the Divine existence.