Text -- John 5:5 (NET)

5:5 Now a man was there who had been disabled for thirty-eight years.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Robertson: Joh 5:5

Which had been thirty and eight years ( triakonta kai oktō etē echōn ).

Literally, "having thirty and eight years,""having spent thirty and eight years."

Vincent: Joh 5:5

Had an infirmity thirty and eight years

Literally, having thirty and eight years in his infirmity .

JFB: Joh 5:5-9

But not all that time at the pool. This was probably the most pitiable of all the cases, and therefore selected.

Clarke: Joh 5:5

Had an infirmity thirty and eight years - St. Chrysostom conjectured that blindness was the infirmity of this person: what it was, the inspired writer does not say - probably it was a palsy: his case was deplorable - he was not able to go into the pool himself, and he had no one to help him; so that poverty and disease were here connected. The length of the time he had been afflicted makes the miracle of his cure the greater. There could have been no collusion in this case: as his affliction had lasted thirty-eight years, it must have been known to multitudes; therefore he could not be a person prepared for the occasion. All Christ’ s miracles have been wrought in such a way, and on such persons and occasions, as absolutely to preclude all possibility of the suspicion of imposture.

Calvin: Joh 5:5

5.And there was a man there The Evangelist collects various circumstances, which prove that the miracle may be relied on as certain. The long duration of the disease had taken away all hope of its being cured. This man complains that he is deprived of the remedy of the water. He had frequently attempted to throw himself into the water, but without success; there was no man to assist him, and this causes the power of Christ to be more strikingly displayed. Such, too, was the import of the command to carry his bed, that all might plainly see that he was cured in no other way than by the agency of Christ; for when he suddenly rises up healthy and strong in all the members in which he was formerly impotent, so sudden a change is the more fitted to arouse and strike the minds of all who beheld it.

TSK: Joh 5:5

thirty : Joh 5:14, Joh 9:1, Joh 9:21; Mar 9:21; Luk 8:43, Luk 13:16; Act 3:2, Act 4:22, Act 9:33, Act 14:8

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Joh 5:5

An infirmity - A weakness. We know not what his disease was. We know only that it disabled him from walking, and that it was of very long standing. It was doubtless regarded as incurable.

Poole: Joh 5:5

What this man’ s name was, or what his circumstances in the world, or what his particular disease, we are not told; nor is it said that he had lain there thirty-eight years, but that he had so long laboured under his weakness: which, whether it was the palsy or no, is uncertain: probably it was a disease hardly curable by human art and ordinary means; for it cannot be thought but in that time he had used all rational means, which he finding of no value as to his case, he came and lay at this fountain, waiting for a cure in this way of miraculous operation.

Haydock: Joh 5:5

Infirmity. The Greek, astheneia, signifies in its radical interpretation, a loss of strength: in this place it seems to denote a confirmed palsy.

Gill: Joh 5:5

And a certain man was there,.... At Bethesda's pool, in one of the five porches, or cloisters, that belonged to it:

which had an infirmity thirty and eight years; what his infirmity was, is not said; he was one of the weak, or impotent folk, for so he is called, Joh 5:7. Some think his distemper was the palsy, and though he had had this infirmity so many years, it is not certain that he had waited so long in this place for a cure; though it may be, for that he had attended some time, is clear from Joh 5:7. Nor indeed can it be known how long there had been such a preternatural motion in this pool, and such a miraculous virtue in the water; some have thought, that it began at the repairing of the sheep gate by Eliashib, in Nehemiah's time; so Tremellius and Junius, on Neh 3:1; and others have thought, that it had been some few years before the birth of Christ, and about the time that this man was first taken with his disorder. Tertullian says ^u, that there was in Judea a medicinal lake, before Christ's time; and that the pool of Bethsaida (it should be Bethesda) was useful in curing the diseases of the Israelites; but ceased from yielding any benefit, when the name of the Lord was blasphemed by them, through their rage and fury, and continuance in it ^w; but in what year it began, and the precise time it ceased, he says not. The Persic version here adds, "and was reduced to such a state that he could not move".

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Joh 5:5

¹ tn Grk “who had had thirty-eight years in his disability.”

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Joh 5:1-47

1 Jesus on the sabbath day cures him that was diseased eight and thirty years.

10 The Jews therefore cavil, and persecute him for it.

17 He answers for himself, and reproves them, shewing by the testimony of his Father,

31 of John,

36 of his works,

39 and of the scriptures, who he is.

Combined Bible: Joh 5:1-15

of the Gospel of John   

CHAPTER 17   

Christ at the pool of bethesda   

John 5:1-15   

We begin with the usual Analysis:—   

1. Jesus in Jerusalem at the feast, verse 1.  

2. The pool of Bethesda and the sick congregated about it, verses 2-4.  

3. The impotent man and Christ’ s healing of him, verses 5-9.  

4. The healed man and his critics, verses 10-12.  

5. The man’ s ignorance, verse 13.  

6. Christ’ s final word with him, verse 14.  

7. The man confesses Jesus, verse 15.  

The scene introduced to us in this passage is indeed a pathetic one. The background is the pool of Bethesda, around which lay a great multitude of impotent folk. The great Physician approaches this crowd of sufferers, who were not only sick but helpless. But there was no more stir among them than in the quiet waters of the pool. He was neither wanted nor recognized. Addressing one of the most helpless of the sufferers, the Lord asked him if he is desirous of being made whole. Instead of responding to the sympathetic Inquirer with a prompt request that He would have mercy upon him, the poor fellow thought only of the pool and of some man to help him into it. In sovereign grace the Savior spoke the life-giving word, and the man was immediately and perfectly healed. Yet even then he was still ignorant of the Divine glory of his Benefactor. The healing took place on the Sabbath day, and this evoked the criticism of the Jews; and when they learned that it was Jesus who had performed the miracle "they sought to slay him." All of this speaks loudly of the condition of Judaism, and tells of the rejection of the Christ of God.  

"After this there was a feast of the Jews" (John 5:1). "After this" or, as it should be. "After these things," is an expression which is characteristic of John’ s Gospel as "Then" is of Matthew, "Immediately’’ of Mark, and "It came to pass" of Luke. It occurs seven times in this Gospel (Luke 3:22; 5:1; 5:14; 6:1; 7:1, 11:11; 21:1) and nine times in the Apocalypse. "It gives one the thought of Jesus acting according to a plan and times marked out ‘ in the volume of the Book’ (Ps. 40:7) and of which He renders an account in John 17" (M. Taylor).  

"After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem" (John 5:1). There is nothing to indicate which of the Feasts this was. Some think it was the Passover, but this we believe is most unlikely, for when that feast is referred to in John it is expressly mentioned by name: see John 2:13; 6:4; 11:55. Others think it was the feast of Purim, but as that was a human invention and not of Divine institution we can hardly imagine the Lord Jesus going up to Jerusalem to observe it. Personally we think it much more likely that the view of almost all the older writers is the correct one, and that it was the feast of Pentecost that is here in view. Pentecost occurred fifty days after the Passover, and the feast mentioned in John 4:1 follows the Passover mentioned in John 2:13. Pentecost is one of the three great annual Feasts which the law required every male Israelite to observe in Jerusalem (Deut. 16), and here we see the Lord Jesus honoring the Divine Law by going up to Jerusalem at the season of its celebration. Doubtless there was a typical reason why the name of this feast should not be given here, for that to which the feast of Pentecost pointed received no fulfillment in the days of our Lord’ s early ministry— contrast Acts 2:1.  

"Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches" (John 5:2). We believe the reference here is to the sheep "gate" of Nehemiah 3:1. At first glance Nehemiah 3 does not seem to be very interesting reading, and yet there is much in it that is precious. It describes the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem in the days when a remnant of Israel returned from the Babylonian captivity. Various portions in the work of reconstruction were allotted to different individuals and companies. These portions or sections were from gate to gate. Ten gates are mentioned in the chapter. The first is the sheep gate (verse 1) and the last is "The gate Miphkad" which means "judgment," and speaks, perhaps, of the judgment-seat of Christ; and then the chapter concludes by saying, "And between the going up of the comer unto the sheep gate repaired the goldsmiths and the merchants." Thus the circle is completed, and at the close we are brought back to the point from which we started— "The sheep gate." This is the gate through which the sacrificial animals were brought to the temple— the "lamb" predominating, hence its name. The sheep gate, then, points us at once to Christ, and tells of His Cross.  

Now in the light of what we have just said, how exceedingly significant and blessed to note that we are here told the pool which was called Bethesda, meaning mercy, was by the "sheep" (gate). It is only in Christ that the poor sinner can find mercy, and it is only through His sacrifice on the Cross that this mercy is now obtainable for us in Him. What an instance is this of the great importance of noting carefully every little word in Scripture! There is nothing trivial in the Word of God. The smallest detail has a meaning and value; every name, every geographical and topographical reference, a message. As a further example of this, notice the last words of the verse— "having five porches." The number of the porches here is also significant. In Scripture the numerals are used with Divine design and precision. Five stands for grace or favor. When Joseph desired to show special favor to his brother Benjamin we read, "And he took and sent messes unto them from before him: but Benjamin’ s mess was five times so much as any of theirs" (Gen. 43:34); and again we are told, "To all of them he gave each man changes of raiment; but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver, and five changes of raiment" (Gen. 45:22). Five and its multiples are stamped on every part of the tabernacle. It was with five loaves the Lord Jesus fed the hungry multitude. The fifth clause in the Lord’ s prayer is, "Give us this day our daily bread." The fifth Commandment was the only one with a promise attached to it; and so we might go on. Thus we see the perfect propriety of five porches (colonnades) around the pool of Mercy, situated "by the sheep (gate)"!  

"In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water" (John 5:3). What a picture of the Jewish nation at that time! How accurately does the condition of that multitude of sufferers describe the spiritual state of Judaism as it then existed! God had dealt with their father in sovereign mercy and marvelous grace, but the Nation as such appreciated it not. A few here and there took the place of lost sinners, and were saved, but the "great multitude" remained in their wretchedness. Israel as a people were impotent. They had the Law, made their boast in it, but were unable to keep it. Not only were they impotent, but "blind"— blind to their own impotency, blind to their wretchedness, blind to their desperate need, and so blind to the Divine and moral glories of the One who now stood in their midst "they saw in him no beauty that they should desire him." A third word describing their condition is added, "halt:" the term signifies one who is lame, crippled. Israel had the Law but they were unable to walk in the way of God’ s commandments. A blind man is able to grope his way about: but a cripple cannot walk at all. Again; we are told this "great multitude" were "withered." This, no doubt, refers to those whose hands were paralyzed (cf. Matthew 12:10; Luke 6:6), and as a description of Israel it tells us that they were totally incapacitated to work for God. What a pitiable picture! First, a general summing up of their state— "impotent." Second, a detailed diagnosis under three descriptive terms "blind" (in their understandings and hearts), "halt" (crippled in their feet, so that they were unable to walk), "withered" (in their hands so that they were unable to work). Third, a word that speaks of their response to the prophetic word— "waiting"; waiting for the promised Messiah, and all the time ignorant of the fact that He was there in their midst! Who but the Spirit of God could have drawn so marvelously accurate a picture in such few and short lines!  

We must not, however, limit this picture to Israel, for it is equally applicable and pertinent to sinners of the Gentiles too. Israel in the flesh was only a sample of fallen man as such. What we have here is a pointed and solemn delineation of human depravity, described in physical terms; its moral application is to the whole of Adam’ s fallen race. Let every reader see here a portrait of what he or she is by nature. The picture is not flattering we know. No; it is drawn by One who searcheth the innermost recesses of the human heart, and is presented here to humble us. The natural man is impotent— "without strength" (Rom. 5:6). This sums up in a single word his condition before God: altogether helpless, unable to do a single thing for himself. Then follows an amplification of this impotency, given in three (the number of full manifestation) descriptive terms. First, he is blind. This explains the lethargic indifference of the great multitude today— sporting on the very brink of the Pit, because unable to see the frightful peril that menaces them; making merry as they hasten down the Broad Road, because incompetent to discern the eternal destruction which awaits them at the bottom of it. Yes, blind indeed is the natural man: "The way of the wicked is as darkness: they knew not at what they stumble" (Prov. 4:19).  

"Halt": lame, crippled, unable to walk. How inevitably this follows the other! How can one who is spiritually blind walk the Narrow Way that leadeth unto life? "Mine eye affecteth mine heart" (Lam. 3:51), and out of the heart are the issues of life (Prov. 4:23); if then the eye be evil, the body also is full of darkness (Luke 11:34). Halt— lame— a cripple— if, then, such an one is ever to come to Christ he must indeed be "drawn" (John 6:44).  

"Withered"— blind eyes, crippled feet, paralyzed hands: unable to see, unable to walk, unable to work. How striking is the order here! Consider them inversely: a man cannot perform good works unless he is walking with God; and he will not begin to walk with God until the eyes of his heart have been opened to see his need of Christ. This is the Divine order, and it never varies. First the eyes must be opened, and then an illumined understanding prepares us to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called; and that, in turn, equips us for acceptable service for God. But so long as the eyes are "blind" the feet will be "halt" and the hands "withered."  

"Waiting for the moving of the water." Surely this is not hard to interpret. This pool was the object in which the great multitude placed all their hopes. They were waiting for its waters to be "troubled" so that its curative property might heal them. But they waited in vain. The one invalid who is singled out from the crowd had been there "a long time," and little had it availed him. Is it not thus with the ordinances of the religious world? How many there are— "a great multitude" indeed— which place their faith in the waters of baptism, or in the ‘ mass’ and ‘ extreme unction’ ! And a long time all such will have to wait before the deep need of their souls will be met.  

"For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the waters stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had" (John 5:4). We return now to the Jewish application of our passage. The waters of this pool reflect the Sinaitic law, which was "given by the disposition of angels"; that law which promised "life" to him who did all that it enjoined. But whoever kept the law? Whoever obtained life by meeting its demands? None of Adam’ s fallen race. The law was "weak through the flesh." A perfect man could keep it, but a sinner could not. Why, then, was the law given? That the offense might abound; that sin might be shown to be exceeding sinful; that the sinner might discover his sinfulness. His very efforts to keep the law, and his repeated failures to do so, would but make manifest his utter helplessness. In like manner, when the angel troubled the water of Bethesda so that the first to step into it might be made whole, this only magnified the sufferings of those who lay around it. How could those who were "impotent" step in! Ah! they could not. Was, then, God mocking man in his misery? Nay, verily. He was but preparing the way for that which was "better" (Heb. 11:40). And this is what is brought before us in what follows.  

"And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years" (John 5:5). How this serves to confirm our interpretation of the previous verse, and what an illustration it furnishes us again of the deep significance of every word of Scripture. Why should the Holy Spirit have been careful to tell us the exact length of time this particular sufferer had been afflicted? What is the meaning and message of this "thirty and eight years"? Are we left to guess at the answer? No, indeed. Scripture is its own interpreter if we will but take the trouble to patiently and diligently search its pages and compare spiritual things with spiritual (1 Cor. 2:13). Thirty-eight years was exactly the length of time that Israel spent in the wilderness after they came under law at Sinai (see Deuteronomy 2:14). There it was, in the Wilderness of Sin, that of old Israel manifested their "impotency"— blind, halt, withered— under law.  

"When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had now been a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?" (John 5:6). Here is Light shining in the darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not. The very shining of the Light only served to reveal how great was the darkness. There was a great multitude of sick ones lying around that disappointing pool, and here was the great Physician Himself abroad in the land. Bethesda thickly surrounded, and Christ Himself passing by unheeded! Truly the "darkness comprehended not." And is it any different today? Here is human religion with all its cumbersome machinery and disappointing ordinances waited on, and the grace of God slighted. Go yonder to India with its myriad temples and sacred Ganges; visit Thibet, the land of praying-wheels; turn and consider the devotees of Mohammed and their holy pilgrimages; come nearer home, and look upon the millions of deluded Papists with their vigils and fasts, their beads and holy water; and then turn in to the religious performances in many of the Protestant churches, and see if there are any differences in the underlying principles which actuate them. They one and all fail, utterly fail, to meet the deep need of the soul. One and all they are unable to put away sin. And, yet, sad to say, they one and all supplant the Christ of God— He is not wanted; He passes by unnoticed.  

Such is fallen human nature. The whole world lieth in the wicked one (1 John 5:19), and were it not for sovereign grace every member of Adam’ s race would perish eternally. Grace is the sinner’ s only hope. Desert he has none. Spirituality he has none. Strength he has none. If salvation is to come to him, it must be by grace, and grace is unmerited favor shown toward the hell-deserving. And just because grace is this, God exercises His sovereign prerogative in bestowing His favors on whom He pleases— "For he saith to Moses, I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion" (Rom. 9:16). And let none murmur against this and suppose that any one is wronged thereby. Men prate about God being unjust, but if justice, real justice, bare justice, be insisted on, hope is entirely cut off for all of us. Justice requires that each should receive his exact due; and what, dear reader, is your due, my due, but judgment! Eternal life is a gift, and if a gift it can neither be earned nor claimed. If salvation is God’ s gift, who shall presume to tell Him the ones on whom He ought to bestow it? Was salvation provided for the angels that fell? If God has left them to reap the due reward of their iniquities, why should He be charged with injustice if He abandons to themselves those of mankind who love darkness rather than light? It is not that God refuses salvation to any who truly seek it. Not so; there is a Savior for every sinner who will repent and believe. But if out of the great multitude of the impenitent and unbelieving God determines to exercise His sovereign grace by singling out a few to be the objects of His irresistible power and distinguishing favors, who is wronged thereby? Has not God the right to dispense His charity as seemeth best to Himself (Matthew 20:15)? Certainly He has.  

The sovereignty of God is strikingly illustrated in the passage now before us. There lay a "great multitude" of impotent folk: all were equally needy, all equally powerless to help themselves. And here was the great Physician, God Himself incarnate, infinite in power, with inexhaustible resources at His command. It had been just as easy for Him to have healed the entire company as to make a single individual whole. But He did not. For some reason not revealed to us, He passed by the "great multitude’’ of sufferers and singled out one man and healed him. There is nothing whatever in the narrative to indicate that this "certain man" was any different from the others. We are not told that he turned to the Savior and cried "Have mercy on me." He was just as blind as were the others to the Divine glory of the One who stood before him. Even when asked "Wilt thou be made whole?" he evidenced no faith whatever; and after he had been healed "He wist not who it was" that had healed him. It is impossible to find any ground in the man himself as a reason for Christ singling him out for special favor. The only explanation is the mere sovereign pleasure of Christ Himself. This is proven beyond the shadow of doubt by His own declaration immediately afterwards— "For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will" (verse 21).  

This miracle of healing was a parable in action. It sets before us a vivid illustration of God’ s work of grace in the spiritual realm. Just as the condition of that impotent multitude depicts the depravity of Adam’ s fallen race, so Christ singling out this individual and healing him, portrays the sovereign grace of Him who singles out and saves His own elect. Every detail in the incident bears this out.  

"When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case." Note the individuality of this. We are not told that he saw them— the "great multitude"— but him. The eyes of the Savior were fixed on that one who, out of all the crowd, had been given to Him by the Father before the foundation of the world. Not only are we told that Christ "saw him," but it is added, "and knew that he had been now a long time in that case." Yes, He knew all about him; had known him from all eternity— "I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep" (John 10:11). And then we read, "And saith unto him." It was not the man who spoke first, but Christ. The Lord always takes the initiative, and invites Himself. And it was thus with you, Christian reader, when sovereign grace sought you out. You, too, were lying amid the "great multitude of impotent folk," for by nature you were a child of wrath, "even as others" (Eph. 2:3). Yes, you were lying in all the abject misery of a fallen creature— blind, halt, withered— unable to do a thing for yourself. Such was your awful state when the Lord, in sovereign grace, drew near to you. O thank Him now that He did not pass you by, and leave you to the doom you so richly deserved. Praise Him with a loud voice for His distinguishing grace that singled you out to be an object of His sovereign mercy. But we must now consider the force of the Savior’ s question here.  

"He saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?" (John 5:6). Does it seem strange that such a question should be put to that sufferer? Would not being made whole be the one thing desired above all others by a man who had suffered for thirty-eight years? Was not the very fact that he was lying there by the pool an indication of what he wished? Why, then, ask him "Wilt thou be made whole?" Ah! the question is not so meaningless as some might suppose. Not always are the wretched willing to be relieved. Invalids sometimes trade on the sympathy and indulgence of their friends. Others sink so low that they become despondent and give up all hope, and long for death to come and relieve them. But there is something much deeper here than this.  

Did not the Savior ask the question to impress upon this man the utter helplessness of his condition! Man must be brought to recognize and realize his impotency. Whilever we console ourselves we will do better next time, that is a sure sign we have not come to the end of ourselves. The one who promises himself that he will amend his ways and turn over a new leaf has not learned that he is "without strength." It is not till we discover we are helpless that we shall abandon our miserable efforts to weave a robe of righteousness for ourselves. It is not till we learn we are impotent that we shall look outside of ourselves to Another.  

No doubt one reason why Christ selected so many incurable cases on which to show forth His power, was in order to have suitable objects to portray to us the irreparable ruin which sin has wrought and the utter helplessness of man’ s natural estate. The Savior, then, was pressing upon the man the need of being made whole. But more: when the Savior said, "Wilt thou be made whole?" it was tantamount to asking, ‘ Are you willing to put yourself, just as you are, into My hands? Are you ready for Me to do for you what you are unable to do for yourself? Are you willing to be my debtor?’   

"The impotent man answered, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me" (John 5:7). How sadly true to life. When the great Physician said, "Wilt thou be made whole?" the poor sufferer did not promptly answer, ‘ Yea Lord; undertake for me.’ And not thus does the sinner act when first brought face to face with Christ. The impotent man failed to realize that Christ could cure him by a word. He supposed he must get into the pool. There are several lines of thought suggested here, but it is needless to follow them out. The poor man had more faith in means than he had in the Lord. And, too, his eye was fixed on "man," not God: he was looking to human kind for help. Again we would exclaim, How true to life! Moreover, he thought that he had to do something— "While I am coming." How this uncovers the heart of the natural man! How pathetic are the closing words of this verse! What a heartless world we live in. Human nature is lull of selfishness. Christ is the only unfailing Friend of the friendless.  

"Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk" (John 5:8). If the Savior waited until there was in the sinner a due appreciation of His person, none would ever be saved. The sufferer had made no cry for mercy, and when Christ inquired if he were willing to be made whole there was no faith evidenced. But in sovereign grace the Son of God pronounced the life-giving word, yet it was a word that addressed the human responsibility of the subject. A careful analysis of the command of Christ reveals three things. First, there must be implicit confidence in His word. "Rise" was the peremptory command. There must be a hearty recognition of His authority, and immediate response to His orders. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved" is something more than a gracious invitation; it is a command (1 John 3:23). Second, "Take up thy bed"— a cotton pallet, easily rolled up. There was to be no thought of failure, and no provision made for a relapse. How many there are who take a few feeble steps, and then return to their beds! ‘ The last state of such is worse than the first. If there is faith in the person of Christ, if there is a submission to His authority, then the new life within will find an outlet without: and we shall no longer be a burden to others, but able to shoulder our own burdens. Third, "And walk." I like that word coming here. It is as though the Savior said, ‘ You were unable to walk into the water: you could not walk in order to be cured, but now that you are made whole, "walk!"’ There are duties to be faced of which we have had no previous experience, and we must proceed to discharge them in faith; and in that faith in which He bids us do them will be found the strength needed for their performance.  

"And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath" (John 5:9). How blessed! The cure was both instantaneous and complete. Christ does not put the believing sinner into a salvable state. He saves, saves us with a perfect and eternal salvation the moment we believe: "I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it" (Ecclesiastes 3:14). We need hardly say that we are here shown, once more, the Word at work. The Savior did nothing but speak, and the miracle was accomplished. It is thus the Son of God is revealed to us again and again in this fourth Gospel.  

"The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, It is the sabbath day: it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed" (John 5:10). How true to life again! The one who surrenders to his Lord must expect to encounter criticism. The one who regulates his life by the Word of God will be met by the opposition of man. And it is the religious world that will oppose most fiercely. Unless we subscribe to their creed and observe their rules of conduct, persecution and ostracism will be our lot. Unless we are prepared to be brought into bondage by the traditions of the elders we must be ready for their frowns. Christ was not ignorant of the current teaching about the Sabbath, and He knew full well what would be the consequences should this healed man carry his bed on the sabbath day. But he had come here to set His people free from the shackles which religious zealots had forged. Never did He toady to the public opinion in His day; nor should we. There are thousands of His people who need to be reminded of Galatians 5:1: "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." If the child of God is regulated by the Scriptures and knows that he is pleasing his Lord, it matters little or nothing what his fellowmen (or his fellow-Christians either) may think or say about him. Better far to displease them than to be entangled again in the yoke of bondage, and thus "frustrate the grace of God" (Gal. 2:21).  

"He answered them, He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed, and walk" (John 5:11). This sets a fine example for us. How simply he met his critics. He did not enter into an argument about their perverted view of the Sabbath: he did not charge them with want of sympathy for those who were sufferers, though he might have done both. Instead, he hid behind Christ. He fell back upon the Word of God. Well for us when we have a "Thus saith the Lord" to meet our critics.  

"Then asked they him, What man is that which said unto thee, Take up thy bed and walk? And he that was healed wist not who it was" (John 5:12, 13). This illustrates the fact that there is much ignorance even in believers. We ought not to expect too much from babes in Christ. This man had been healed, and he had obeyed the command of his Benefactor; but not yet did he perceive His Divine glories. Intelligence concerning the person of Christ follows (and not precedes) an experimental acquaintance with the virtues of His work.  

"For Jesus had conveyed himself away, a multitude being in that place" (John 5:13). This brings out the moral Perfections of the Savior. It evidences the meekness of the Divine Servant: He ministered without ostentation. He never sought to be the popular idol of the hour, or the center of an admiring crowd. Instead of courting popularity, He shunned it. Instead of advertising Himself, He "received not honor from men." This lovely excellency of Christ appears most conspicuously in Mark’ s Gospel: see Mark 1:37, 38, 44; 7:17, 36; 8:26, etc.  

"Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee" (John 4:14). The Lord had withdrawn from the man. Christ had retired in order that he might be tested. New strength had been given him; opportunity was then afforded for him to use it. The restored sufferer did not falter. The One who had saved him was obeyed as Lord. The Jewish critics had not intimidated him. That a work of grace had been wrought in his soul as well as in his body is evidenced by the fact that he had gone to the House of Prayer and Praise. And there, we are told, the Lord Jesus found him. This is most blessed. Christ was not to be met with in the throng, but He was to be found in the temple!  

Having dealt in "grace" with the poor helpless sufferer Christ now applied the "truth." "Sin no more" is a word for his conscience. Grace does not ignore the requirements of God’ s holiness: "Awake to righteousness, and sin not" (1 Cor. 15:34) is still the standard set before us. "Lest a worse thing come unto thee" reminds us that the believer is still subject to the government of God. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Gal. 6:7). is addressed to believers, not unbelievers. If we sin we shall suffer chastisement. Bishop Ryle has pointed out that there is here an important message for those who have been raised from a bed of sickness. "Sin no more": renewed health ought to send us back into the world with a greater hatred of sin, a more thorough watchfulness over our ways, a greater determination to live for God’ s glory.  

"The man departed, and told the Jews that it was Jesus, that had made him whole" (John 5:15). This gives beautiful completeness to the whole incident. Here we see him who had been healed confessing with his lips the One who had saved him. It would seem that as soon as the Lord Jesus had revealed Himself to this newly-born soul, that he had sought out the very ones who had previously interrogated and criticized him, and told them it was Jesus who had made him whole.  

Study the following questions on the next lesson, verses 16-31:—   

1. What is the force of Christ’ s answer in verse 17?  

2. What is the meaning of Christ’ s words in verse 19?  

3. How does verse 20 bring out the Deity of Christ?  

4. What does verse 23 go to prove about Christ?  

5. How does verse 24 establish the eternal security of the believer?  

6. Why should the "Son of man" be the Judge? verse 28.  

7. Does verse 30 speak of Christ’ s humanity or Deity?  

  

MHCC: Joh 5:1-9

We are all by nature impotent folk in spiritual things, blind, halt, and withered; but full provision is made for our cure, if we attend to it. An angel went down, and troubled the water; and what disease soever it was, this water cured it, but only he that first stepped in had benefit. This teaches us to be careful, that we let not a season slip which may never return. The man had lost the use of his limbs thirty-eight years. Shall we, who perhaps for many years have scarcely known what it has been to be a day sick, complain of one wearisome night, when many others, better than we, have scarcely known what it has been to be a day well? Christ singled this one out from the rest. Those long in affliction, may comfort themselves that God keeps account how long. Observe, this man speaks of the unkindness of those about him, without any peevish reflections. As we should be thankful, so we should be patient. Our Lord Jesus cures him, though he neither asked nor thought of it. Arise, and walk. God's command, Turn and live; Make ye a new heart; no more supposes power in us without the grace of God, his distinguishing grace, than this command supposed such power in the impotent man: it was by the power of Christ, and he must have all the glory. What a joyful surprise to the poor cripple, to find himself of a sudden so easy, so strong, so able to help himself! The proof of spiritual cure, is our rising and walking. Has Christ healed our spiritual diseases, let us go wherever he sends us, and take up whatever he lays upon us; and walk before him.

Matthew Henry: Joh 5:1-16

This miraculous cure is not recorded by any other of the evangelists, who confine themselves mostly to the miracles wrought in Galilee, but John relates those wrought at Jerusalem. Concerning this observe,

I. The time when this cure was wrought: it was at a feast of the Jews, that is, the passover, for that was the most celebrated feast. Christ, though residing in Galilee, yet went up to Jerusalem at the feast, Joh 5:1. 1. Because it was an ordinance of God, which, as a subject, he would observe, being made under the law; though as a Son he might have pleaded an exemption. Thus he would teach us to attend religious assemblies. Heb 10:25. 2. Because it was an opportunity of good; for, (1.) there were great numbers gathered together there at that time; it was a general rendezvous, at least of all serious thinking people, from all parts of the country, besides proselytes from other nations: and Wisdom must cry in the places of concourse, Pro 1:21. (2.) It was to be hoped that they were in a good frame, for they came together to worship God and to spend their time in religious exercises. Now a mind inclined to devotion, and sequestering itself to the exercises of piety, lies very open to the further discoveries of divine light and love, and to it Christ will be acceptable.

II. The place where this cure was wrought: at the pool of Bethesda, which had a miraculous healing virtue in it, and is here particularly described, Joh 5:2-4.

1. Where it was situated: At Jerusalem, by the sheep-market; epi tē probatikē . It might as well be rendered the sheep-cote, where the sheep were kept, or the sheep-gate, which we read of, Neh 3:1, through which the sheep were brought, as the sheep-market, where they were sold. Some think it was near the temple, and, if so, it yielded a melancholy but profitable spectacle to those that went up to the temple to pray.

2. How it was called: It was a pool (a pond or bath), which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda - the house of mercy; for therein appeared much of the mercy of God to the sick and diseased. In a world of so much misery as this is, it is well that there are some Bethesdas - houses of mercy (remedies against those maladies), that the scene is not all melancholy. An alms-house, so Dr. Hammond. Dr. Lightfoot's conjecture is that this was the upper pool (Isa 7:3), and the old pool, Isa 22:11; that it had been used for washing from ceremonial pollutions, for convenience of which the porches were built to dress and undress in, but it was lately become medicinal.

3. How it was fitted up: It had five porches, cloisters, piazzas, or roofed walks, in which the sick lay. Thus the charity of men concurred with the mercy of God for the relief of the distressed. Nature has provided remedies, but men must provide hospitals.

4. How it was frequented with sick and cripples (Joh 5:3): In these lay a great multitude of impotent folks. How many are the afflictions of the afflicted in this world! How full of complaints are all places, and what multitudes of impotent folks! It may do us good to visit the hospitals sometimes, that we may take occasion, from the calamities of others, to thank God for our comforts. The evangelist specifies three sorts of diseased people that lay here, blind, halt, and withered or sinew - shrunk, either in one particular part, as the man with the withered hand, or all over paralytic. These are mentioned because, being least able to help themselves into the water, they lay longest waiting in the porches. Those that were sick of these bodily diseases took the pains to come far and had the patience to wait long for a cure; any of us would have done the same, and we ought to do so: but O that men were as wise for their souls, and as solicitous to get their spiritual diseases healed! We are all by nature impotent folks in spiritual things, blind, halt, and withered; but effectual provision is made for our cure if we will but observe orders.

5. What virtue it had for the cure of these impotent folks (Joh 5:4). An angel went down, and troubled the water; and whoso first stepped in was made whole. That this strange virtue in the pool was natural, or artificial rather, and was the effect of the washing of the sacrifices, which impregnated the water with I know not what healing virtue even for blind people, and that the angel was a messenger, a common person, sent down to stir the water, is altogether groundless; there was a room in the temple on purpose to wash the sacrifices in. Expositors generally agree that the virtue this pool had was supernatural. It is true the Jewish writers, who are not sparing in recounting the praises of Jerusalem, do none of them make the least mention of this healing pool, of which silence in this matter perhaps this is the reason, that it was taken for a presage of the near approach of the Messiah, and therefore those who denied him to be come industriously concealed such an indication of his coming; so that this is all the account we have of it. Observe,

(1.) The preparation of the medicine by an angel, who went down into the pool, and stirred the water. Angels are God's servants, and friends to mankind; and perhaps are more active in the removing of diseases (as evil angels in the inflicting of them) than we are aware of. Raphael, the apocryphal name of an angel, signifies medicina Dei - God's physic, or physician rather. See what mean offices the holy angels condescend to, for the good of men. If we would do the will of God as the angels do it, we must think nothing below us but sin. The troubling of the water was the signal given of the descent of the angel, as the going upon the tops of the mulberry trees was to David, and then they must bestir themselves. The waters of the sanctuary are then healing when they are put in motion. Ministers must stir up the gift that is in them. When they are cold and dull in their ministrations, the waters settle, and are not apt to heal. The angel descended, to stir the water, not daily, perhaps not frequently, but at a certain season; some think, at the three solemn feasts, to grace those solemnities; or, now and then, as Infinite Wisdom saw fit. God is a free agent in dispensing his favours.

(2.) The operation of the medicine: Whoever first stepped in was made whole. here is, [1.] miraculous extent of the virtue as to the diseases cured; what disease soever it was, this water cured it. Natural and artificial baths are as hurtful in some cases as they are useful in others, but this was a remedy for every malady, even for those that came from contrary causes. The power of miracles succeeds where the power of nature succumbs. [2.] A miraculous limitation of the virtue as to the persons cured: He that first stepped in had the benefit; that is, he or they that stepped in immediately were cured, not those that lingered and came in afterwards. This teaches us to observe and improve our opportunities, and to look about us, that we slip not a season which may never return. The angel stirred the waters, but left the diseased to themselves to get in. God has put virtue into the scriptures and ordinances, for he would have healed us; but, if we do not make a due improvement of them, it is our own fault, we would not be healed.

Now this is all the account we have of this standing miracle; it is uncertain when it began and when it ceased. Some conjecture it began when Eliashib the high priest began the building of the wall about Jerusalem, and sanctified it with prayer; and that God testified his acceptance by putting this virtue into the adjoining pool. Some think it began now lately at Christ's birth; nay, others at his baptism. Dr. Lightfoot, finding in Josephus, Antiq. 15.121-122, mention of a great earthquake in the seventh year of Herod, thirty years before Christ's birth, supposed, since there used to be earthquakes at the descent of angels, that then the angel first descended to stir this water. Some think it ceased with this miracle, others at Christ's death; however, it is certain it had a gracious signification. First, it was a token of God's good will to that people, and an indication that, though they had been long without prophets and miracles, yet God had not cast them off; though they were now an oppressed despised people, and many were ready to say, Where are all the wonders that our fathers told us of? God did hereby let them know that he had still a kindness for the city of their solemnities. We may hence take occasion to acknowledge with thankfulness God's power and goodness in the mineral waters, that contribute so much to the health of mankind; for God made the fountains of water, Rev 14:7. Secondly, It was a type of the Messiah, who is the fountain opened; and was intended to raise people's expectations of him who is the Sun of righteousness, that arises with healing under his wings. These waters had formerly been used for purifying, now for healing, to signify both the cleansing and curing virtue of the blood of Christ, that incomparable bath, which heals all our diseases. The waters of Siloam, which filled this pool, signified the kingdom of David, and of Christ the Son of David (Isa 8:6); fitly therefore have they now this sovereign virtue put into them. The laver of regeneration is to us as Bethesda's pool, healing our spiritual diseases; not at certain seasons, but at all times. Whoever will, let him come.

III. The patient on whom this cure was wrought (Joh 5:5): one that had been infirm thirty-eight years. 1. His disease was grievous: He had an infirmity, a weakness; he had lost the use of his limbs, at least on one side, as is usual in palsies. It is sad to have the body so disabled that, instead of being the soul's instrument, it is become, even in the affairs of this life, its burden. What reason have we to thank God for bodily strength, to use it for him, and to pity those who are his prisoners! 2. The duration of it was tedious: Thirty-eight years. He was lame longer than most live. Many are so long disabled for the offices of life that, as the psalmist complains, they seem to be made in vain; for suffering, not for service; born to be always dying. Shall we complain of one wearisome night, or one fit of illness, who perhaps for many years have scarcely known what it has been to be a day sick, when many others, better than we, have scarcely known what it has been to be a day well? Mr. Baxter's note on this passage is very affecting: "How great a mercy was it to live thirty-eight years under God's wholesome discipline! O my God,"saith he, "I thank thee for the like discipline of fifty-eight years; how safe a life is this, in comparison of full prosperity and pleasure!"

IV. The cure and the circumstances of it briefly related, Joh 5:6-9.

1. Jesus saw him lie. Observe, When Christ came up to Jerusalem he visited not the palaces, but the hospitals, which is an instance of his humility, and condescension, and tender compassion, and an indication of his great design in coming into the world, which was to seek and save the sick and wounded. There was a great multitude of poor cripples here at Bethesda, but Christ fastened his eye upon this one, and singled him out from the rest, because he was senior of the house, and in a more deplorable condition than any of the rest; and Christ delights to help the helpless, and hath mercy on whom he will have mercy. Perhaps his companions in tribulation insulted over him, because he had often been disappointed of a cure; therefore Christ took him for his patient: it is his honour to side with the weakest, and bear up those whom he sees run down.

2. He knew and considered how long he had lain in this condition. Those that have been long in affliction may comfort themselves with this, that God keeps account how long, and knows our frame.

3. He asked him, Wilt thou be made whole? A strange question to be asked one that had been so long ill. Some indeed would not be made whole, because their sores serve them to beg by and serve them for an excuse for idleness; but this poor man was as unable to go a begging as to work, yet Christ put it to him, (1.) To express his own pity and concern for him. Christ is tenderly inquisitive concerning the desires of those that are in affliction, and is willing to know what is their petition: "What shall I do for you?"(2.) To try him whether he would be beholden for a cure to him against whom the great people were so prejudiced and sought to prejudice others. (3.) To teach him to value the mercy, and to excite in him desires after it. In spiritual cases, people are not willing to be cured of their sins, are loth to part with them. If this point therefore were but gained, if people were willing to be made whole, the work were half done, for Christ is willing to heal, if we be but willing to be healed, Mat 8:3.

4. The poor impotent man takes this opportunity to renew his complaint, and to set forth the misery of his case, which makes his cure the more illustrious: Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool, Joh 5:7. He seems to take Christ's question as an imputation of carelessness and neglect: "If thou hadst had a mind to be healed, thou wouldest have looked better to thy hits, and have got into the healing waters long before now.""No, Master,"saith the poor man, "It is not for want of a good will, but of a good friend, that I am unhealed. I have done what I could to help myself, but in vain, for no one else will help me."(1.) He does not think of any other way of being cured than by these waters, and desires no other friendship than to be helped into them; therefore, when Christ cured him, his imagination or expectation could not contribute to it, for he thought of no such thing. (2.) He complains for want of friends to help him in: " I have no man, no friend to do me that kindness."One would think that some of those who had been themselves healed should have lent him a hand; but it is common for the poor to be destitute of friends; no man careth for their soul. To the sick and impotent it is as true a piece of charity to work for them as to relieve them; and thus the poor are capable of being charitable to one another, and ought to be so, though we seldom find that they are so; I speak it to their shame. (3.) He bewails his infelicity, that very often when he was coming another stepped in before him. But a step between him and a cure, and yet he continues impotent. None had the charity to say, "Your case is worse than mine, do you go in now, and I will stay till the next time;"for there is no getting over the old maxim, Every one for himself. Having been so often disappointed, he begins to despair, and now is Christ's time to come to his relief; he delights to help in desperate cases. Observe, How mildly this man speaks of the unkindness of those about him, without any peevish reflections. As we should be thankful for the least kindness, so we should be patient under the greatest contempts; and, let our resentments be ever so just, yet our expressions should ever be calm. And observe further, to his praise, that, though he had waited so long in vain, yet still he continued lying by the pool side, hoping that some time or other help would come, Hab 2:3.

5. Our Lord Jesus hereupon cures him with a word speaking, though he neither asked it nor thought of it. Here is,

(1.) The word he said: Rise, take up thy bed, Joh 5:8. [1.] He is bidden to rise and walk; a strange command to be given to an impotent man, that had been long disabled; but this divine word was to be the vehicle of a divine power; it was a command to the disease to be gone, to nature to be strong, but it is expressed as a command to him to bestir himself. He must rise and walk, that is, attempt to do it, and in the essay he should receive strength to do it. The conversion of a sinner is the cure of a chronic disease; this is ordinarily done by the word, a word of command: Arise, and walk; turn, and live; make ye a new heart; which no more supposes a power in us to do it, without the grace of God, distinguishing grace, than this supposed such a power in the impotent man. But, if he had not attempted to help himself, he had not been cured, and he must have borne the blame; yet it does not therefore follow that, when he did rise and walk, it was by his own strength; no, it was by the power of Christ, and he must have all the glory. Observe, Christ did not bid him rise and go into the waters, but rise and walk. Christ did that for us which the law could not do, and set that aside. [2.] He is bidden to take up his bed. First, To make it to appear that it was a perfect cure, and purely miraculous; for he did not recover strength by degrees, but from the extremity of weakness and impotency he suddenly stepped into the highest degree of bodily strength; so that he was able to carry as great a load as any porter that had been as long used to it as he had been disused. He, who this minute was not able to turn himself in his bed, the next minute was able to carry his bed. The man sick of the palsy (Mat 9:6) was bidden to go to his house, but probably this man had no house to go to, the hospital was his home; therefore he is bidden to rise and walk. Secondly, It was to proclaim the cure, and make it public; for, being the sabbath day, whoever carried a burden through the streets made himself very remarkable, and every one would enquire what was the meaning of it; thereby notice of the miracle would spread, to the honour of God. Thirdly, Christ would thus witness against the tradition of the elders, which had stretched the law of the sabbath beyond its intention; and would likewise show that he was Lord of the sabbath, and had power to make what alterations he pleased about it, and to over-rule the law. Joshua, and the host of Israel, marched about Jericho on the sabbath day, when God commanded them, so did this man carry his bed, in obedience to a command. The case may be such that it may become a work of necessity, or mercy, to carry a bed on the sabbath day; but here it was more, it was a work of piety, being designed purely for the glory of God. Fourthly, He would hereby try the faith and obedience of his patient. By carrying his bed publicly, he exposed himself to the censure of the ecclesiastical court, and was liable, at least, to be scourged in the synagogue. Now, will he run the hazard of this, in obedience to Christ? Yes, he will. Those that have been healed by Christ's word should be ruled by his word, whatever it cost them.

(2.) The efficacy of this word (Joh 5:9): a divine power went alone with it, and immediately he was made whole, took up his bed, and walked. [1.] He felt the power of Christ's word healing him: Immediately he was made whole. What a joyful surprise was this to the poor cripple, to find himself all of a sudden so easy, so strong, so able to help himself! What a new world was he in, in an instant! Nothing is too hard for Christ to do. [2.] He obeyed the power of Christ's word commanding him. He took up his bed and walked, and did not care who blamed him or threatened him for it. The proof of our spiritual cure is our rising and walking. Hath Christ healed our spiritual diseases? Let us go whithersoever he sends us, and take up whatever he is pleased to lay upon us, and walk before him.

V. What became of the poor man after he was cured. We are here told,

1. What passed between him and the Jews who saw him carry his bed on the sabbath day; for on that day this cure was wrought, and it was the sabbath that fell within the passover week, and therefore a high day, Joh 19:31. Christ's work was such that he needed not make any difference between sabbath days and other days, for he was always about his Father's business; but he wrought many remarkable cures on that day, perhaps to encourage his church to expect those spiritual favours from him, in their observance of the Christian sabbath, which were typified by his miraculous cures. Now here,

(1.) The Jews quarrelled with the man for carrying his bed on the sabbath day, telling him that it was not lawful, Joh 19:10. It does not appear whether they were magistrates, who had power to punish him, or common people, who could only inform against him; but thus far was commendable, that, while they knew not by what authority he did it, they were jealous for the honour of the sabbath, and could not unconcernedly see it profaned; like Nehemiah. Neh 13:17.

(2.) The man justified himself in what he did by a warrant that would bear him out, Joh 5:11. "I do not do it in contempt of the law and the sabbath, but in obedience to one who, by making me whole, has given me an undeniable proof that he is greater than either. He that could work such a miracle as to make me whole no doubt might give me such a command as to carry my bed; he that could overrule the powers of nature no doubt might overrule a positive law, especially in an instance not of the essence of the law. He that was so kind as to make me whole would not be so unkind as to bid me do what is sinful."Christ, by curing another paralytic, proved his power to forgive sin, here to give law; if his pardons are valid, his edicts are so, and his miracles prove both.

(3.) The Jews enquired further who it was that gave him this warrant (Joh 5:12): What man is that? Observe, How industriously they overlooked that which might be a ground of their faith in Christ. They enquire not, no, not for curiosity, "Who is it that made thee whole? "While they industriously caught at that which might be a ground of reflection upon Christ ( What man is it who said unto thee, Take up thy bed? ) they would fain subpoena the patient to be witness against his physician, and to be his betrayer. In their question, observe, [1.] They resolve to look upon Christ as a mere man: What man is that? For, though he gave ever such convincing proofs of it, they were resolved that they would never own him to be the Son of God. [2.] They resolve to look upon him as a bad man, and take it for granted that he who bade this man carry his bed, whatever divine commission he might produce, was certainly a delinquent, and as such they resolve to prosecute him. What man is that who durst give such orders?

(4.) The poor man was unable to give them any account of him: He wist not who he was, Joh 5:13.

[1.] Christ was unknown to him when he healed him. Probably he had heard of the name of Jesus, but had never seen him, and therefore could not tell that this was he. Note, Christ does many a good turn for those that know him not, Isa 45:4, Isa 45:5. He enlightens, strengthens, quickens, comforts us, and we wist not who he is; nor are aware how much we receive daily by his mediation. This man, being unacquainted with Christ, could not actually believe in him for a cure; but Christ knew the dispositions of his soul, and suited his favours to them, as to the blind man in a like case, Joh 9:36. Our covenant and communion with God take rise, not so much from our knowledge of him, as from his knowledge of us. We know God, or, rather, are known of him, Gal 4:9.

[2.] For the present he kept himself unknown; for as soon as he had wrought the cure he conveyed himself away, he made himself unknown (so some read it), a multitude being in that place. This is mentioned to show, either, First, How Christ conveyed himself away - by retiring into the crowd, so as not to be distinguished from a common person. He that was the chief of ten thousand often made himself one of the throng. It is sometimes the lot of those who have by their services signalized themselves to be levelled with the multitude, and overlooked. Or Secondly, Why he conveyed himself away, because there was a multitude there, and he industriously avoided both the applause of those who would admire the miracle and cry that up, and the censure of those who would censure him as a sabbath-breaker, and run him down. Those that are active for God in their generation must expect to pass through evil report and good report; and it is wisdom as much as may be to keep out of the hearing of both; lest by the one we be exalted, and by the other depressed, above measure. Christ left the miracle to commend itself, and the man on whom it was wrought to justify it.

2. What passed between him and our Lord Jesus at their next interview, Joh 5:14. Observe here,

(1.) Where Christ found him: in the temple, the place of public worship. In our attendance on public worship we may expect to meet with Christ, and improve our acquaintance with him. Observe, [1.] Christ went to the temple. Though he had many enemies, yet he appeared in public, because there he bore his testimony to divine institutions, and had opportunity of doing good. [2.] The man that was cured went to the temple. There Christ found him the same day, as it should seem, that he was healed; thither he straightway went, First, Because he had, by his infirmity, been so long detained thence. Perhaps he had not been there for thirty-eight years, and therefore, as soon as ever the embargo is taken off, his first visit shall be to the temple, as Hezekiah intimates his shall be (Isa 38:22): What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord? Secondly, Because he had by his recovery a good errand thither; he went up to the temple to return thanks to God for his recovery. When God has at any time restored us our health we ought to attend him with solemn praises (Psa 116:18, Psa 116:19), and the sooner the better, while the sense of the mercy is fresh. Thirdly, Because he had, by carrying his bed, seemed to put a contempt on the sabbath, he would thus show that he had an honour for it, and made conscience of sabbath-sanctification, in that on which the chief stress of it is laid, which is the public worship of God. Works of necessity and mercy are allowed; but when they are over we must go to the temple.

(2.) What he said to him. When Christ has cured us, he has not done with us; he now applies himself to the healing of his soul, and this by the word too. [1.] He gives him a memento of his cure: Behold thou art made whole. He found himself made whole, yet Christ calls his attention to it. Behold, consider it seriously, how sudden, how strange, how cheap, how easy, the cure was: admire it; behold, and wonder: Remember it; let the impressions of it abide, and never be lost, Isa 38:9. [2.] He gives him a caution against sin, in consideration hereof, Being made whole, sin no more. This implies that his disease was the punishment of sin; whether of some remarkably flagrant sin, or only of sin in general, we cannot tell, but we know that sin is the procuring cause of sickness, Psa 107:17, Psa 107:18. Some observe that Christ did not make mention of sin to any of his patients, except to this impotent man, and another who was in like manner diseased, Mar 2:5. While those chronical diseases lasted, they prevented the outward acts of many sins, and therefore watchfulness was the more necessary when the disability was removed. Christ intimates that those who are made whole, who are eased of the present sensible punishment of sin, are in danger of returning to sin when the terror and restraint are over, unless divine grace dry up the fountain. When the trouble which only dammed up the current is over, the waters will return to their old course; and therefore there is great need of watchfulness, lest after healing mercy we return again to folly. The misery we were made whole from warns us to sin no more, having felt the smart of sin; the mercy we were made whole by is an engagement upon us not to offend him who healed us. This is the voice of every providence, Go and sin no more. This man began his new life very hopefully in the temple, yet Christ saw it necessary to give him this caution; for it is common for people, when they are sick, to promise much, when newly recovered to perform something, but after awhile to forget all. [3.] He gives him warning of his danger, in case he should return to his former sinful course: Lest a worse thing come to thee. Christ, who knows all men's hearts, knew that he was one of those that must be frightened from sin. Thirty-eight years' lameness, one would think, was a thing bad enough; yet there is something worse that will come to him if he relapse into sin after God has given him such a deliverance as this, Ezr 9:13, Ezr 9:14. The hospital where he lay was a melancholy place, but hell is much more so: the doom of apostates is a worse thing than thirty-eight years' lameness.

VI. Now, after this interview between Christ and his patient, observe in the two following verses, 1. The notice which the poor simple man gave to the Jews concerning Christ, Joh 5:15. He told them it was Jesus that had made him whole. We have reason to think that he intended this for the honour of Christ and the benefit of the Jews, little thinking that he who had so much power and goodness could have any enemies; but those who wish well to Christ's kingdom must have the wisdom of the serpent, lest they do more hurt than good with their zeal, and must not cast pearls before swine. 2. The rage and enmity of the Jews against him: Therefore did the rulers of the Jews persecute Jesus. See, (1.) How absurd and unreasonable their enmity to Christ was. Therefore, because he had made a poor sick man well, and so eased the public charge, upon which, it is likely, he had subsisted; therefore they persecuted him, because he did good in Israel. (2.) How bloody and cruel it was: They sought to slay him; nothing less than his blood, his life, would satisfy them. (3.) How it was varnished over with a colour of zeal for the honour of the sabbath; for this was the pretended crime, Because he had done these things on the sabbath day, as if that circumstance were enough to vitiate the best and most divine actions, and to render him obnoxious whose deeds were otherwise most meritorious. Thus hypocrites often cover their real enmity against the power of godliness with a pretended zeal for the form of it.

Barclay: Joh 5:1-9

There were three Jewish feasts which were feasts of obligation--Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. Every adult male Jew who lived within fifteen miles of Jerusalem was legally bound to attend them. If we take Jn 6 before Jn 5 we may think of this feast as Pentecost, because the events of Jn 6 happened when the Passover was near (Joh 6:4). The Passover was in mid-April, and Pentecost was seven weeks later. John always shows us Jesus attending the great feasts, for Jesus did not disregard the obligations of Jewish worship. To him it was not a duty but a delight to worship with his own people.

When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem he was apparently alone; there is no mention of his disciples. He found his way to a famous pool. Its name was either Bethesda, which means House of Mercy, or more likely, Bethzatha which means House of the Olive. The better manuscripts all have the second name, and we know from Josephus that there was a quarter of Jerusalem actually known as Bethzatha. The word for pool kolumbethron (2861), which comes from the verb kolumban (2860), to dive. The pool was deep enough to swim in. The passage we have put in brackets is not in any of the greatest and best manuscripts and was probably added later as an explanation of what people were doing at the pool. Beneath the pool was a subterranean stream which every now and again bubbled up and disturbed the waters. The belief was that the disturbance was caused by an angel, and that the first person to get into the pool after the troubling of the water would be healed from any illness from which he was suffering.

To us this is mere superstition. But it was the kind of belief which was spread all over the world in ancient days and which still exists in certain places. People believed in all kinds of spirits and demons. The air was thick with them; they had their abodes in certain places; every tree, every river, every stream, every hill, every pool had its resident spirit.

Further, ancient peoples were specially impressed with the holiness of water and especially of rivers and springs. Water was so precious and rivers in spate could be so powerful that it is not surprising that they were so impressed. In the west we may know water only as something which comes out of a tap; but in the ancient world, as in many places still today, water was the most valuable and potentially the most dangerous of all things.

Sir J. G. Frazer in Folk-lore in the Old Testament (ii, 412-423) quotes many instances of this reverence for water. Hesiod, the Greek poet, said that when a man was about to ford a river, he should pray and wash his hands, for he who wades through a stream with unwashed hands incurs the wrath of the gods. When the Persian king Xerxes came to the Strymon in Thrace his magicians offered white horses and went through other ceremonies before the army ventured to cross. Lucullus, the Roman general, offered a bull to the River Euphrates before he crossed it. To this day in south-east Africa some of the Bantu tribes believe that rivers are inhabited by malignant spirits which must be propitiated by flinging a handful of corn or some other offering into the river before it is crossed. When anyone is drowned in a river he is said to be "called by the spirits." The Baganda in Central Africa would not try to rescue a man carried away by a river because they thought that the spirits had taken him. The people who waited for the pool in Jerusalem to be disturbed were children of their age believing the things of their age.

It may be that as Jesus walked around, the man of this story was pointed out to him as a most pitiable case, because his disability made it very unlikely, even impossible, that he would ever be the first to get into the pool after it had been troubled. He had no one to help him in, and Jesus was always the friend of the friendless, and the helper of the man who has no earthly help. He did not trouble to read the man a lecture on the useless superstition of waiting for the water to be moved. His one desire was to help and so he healed the man who had waited so long.

In this story we see very clearly the conditions under which the power of Jesus operated. He gave his orders to men and, in proportion as they tried to obey, power came to them.

(i) Jesus began by asking the man if he wanted to be cured. It was not so foolish a question as it may sound. The man had waited for thirty-eight years and it might well have been that hope had died and left behind a passive and dull despair. In his heart of hearts the man might be well content to remain an invalid for, if he was cured, he would have to shoulder all the burden of making a living. There are invalids for whom invalidism is not unpleasant, because someone else does all the working and all the worrying. But this man's response was immediate. He wanted to be healed, though he did not see how he ever could be since he had no one to help him.

The first essential towards receiving the power of Jesus is to have intense desire for it. Jesus says: "Do you really want to be changed?" If in our inmost hearts we are well content to stay as we are, there can be no change for us.

(ii) Jesus went on to tell the man to get up. It is as if he said to him: "Man, bend your will to it and you and I will do this thing together!" The power of God never dispenses with the effort of man. Nothing is truer than that we must realize our own helplessness; but in a very real sense it is true that miracles happen when our will and God's power cooperate to make them possible.

(iii) In effect Jesus was commanding the man to attempt the impossible. "Get up!" he said. His bed would simply be a light stretcher-like frame--the Greek is krabbatos (2895), a colloquial word which really means a pallet--and Jesus told him to pick it up and carry it away. The man might well have said with a kind of injured resentment that for thirty-eight years his bed had been carrying him and there was not much sense in telling him to carry it. But he made the effort along with Christ--and the thing was done.

(iv) Here is the road to achievement. There are so many things in this world which defeat us. When we have intensity of desire and determination to make the effort, hopeless though it may seem, the power of Christ gets its opportunity, and with him we can conquer what for long has conquered us.

Barclay: Joh 5:1-9

Certain scholars think this passage is an allegory.

The man stands for the people of Israel. The five porches stand for the five books of the law. In the porches the people lay ill. The law could show a man his sin, but could never mend it; the law could uncover a man's weakness, but could never cure it. The law, like the porches, sheltered the sick soul but could never heal it. The thirty-eight years stand for the thirty-eight years in which the Jews wandered in the desert before they entered the promised land; or for the number of the centuries men had been waiting for the Messiah. The stirring of the waters stands for baptism. In point of fact in early Christian art a man is often depicted as rising from the baptismal waters carrying a bed upon his back.

It may well be that it is now possible to read all these meanings into this story; but it is highly unlikely that John wrote it as an allegory. It has the vivid stamp of factual truth. But we do well to remember that any Bible story has in it far more than fact. There are always deeper truths below the surface and even the simple stories are meant to leave us face to face with eternal things.

Constable: Joh 1:19--13:1

II. Jesus' public ministry 1:19--12:50

The first part of the body of John's Gospel records Jesus' public ministry to the multitudes in Palestine who were primarily Jewish. Some writers have called this section of the Gospel "the book of signs" because it features seven miracles that signify various things about Jesus.

"Signs are miraculous works performed or mentioned to illustrate spiritual principles."⁶⁹

Often John recorded a lengthy discourse that followed the miracle, in which Jesus explained its significance to the crowds. This section also contains two extended conversations that Jesus had with two individuals (chs. 3 and 4).

"The opening of the narrative proper might well be understood as the account of the happenings of one momentous week. John does not stress the point, but he does give notes of time that seem to indicate this. The first day is taken up with a deputation from Jerusalem that interrogates the Baptist. The next day' we have John's public pointing out of Jesus (vv. 29-34). Day 3 tells of two disciples of the Baptist who followed Jesus (vv. 35-40). It seems probable that verse 41 takes us to day 4 . . . It tells of Andrew's bringing of Peter to Jesus. Day 5 is the day when Philip and Nathanael come to him (vv. 43-51). The marriage in Cana is two days after the previous incident (i.e., the sixth and seventh days, 2:1-11). If we are correct in thus seeing the happenings of one momentous week set forth at the beginning of this Gospel, we must go on to ask what significance is attached to this beginning. The parallel with the days of creation in Genesis 1 suggests itself, and is reinforced by the In the beginning' that opens both chapters. Just as the opening words of this chapter recall Genesis 1, so it is with the framework. Jesus is to engage in a new creation. The framework unobtrusively suggests creative activity."⁷⁰

Constable: Joh 5:1-11

4. The call of Peter, James, and John 5:1-11 (cf. Matt. 4:18-22; Mark 1:16-20)

Luke's account of this incident is the longest of the three. Luke stressed Peter and omitted any reference to Andrew, his brother (Matt. 4:18; Mark 1:16). He characteristically focussed on single individuals that Jesus' touched wherever possible to draw attention to Jesus. He also stressed the sovereignty and holiness of Jesus as well as these disciples' total abandonment of their possessions to follow Jesus. Jesus repeated the lesson of this incident after His resurrection (John 21:1-14).

Luke placed this account in his Gospel after the Capernaum incidents rather than before them as Mark did (Mark 1:21-28). He probably arranged his material this way to stress Jesus' sovereignty over people having established the general program of Jesus' ministry.¹⁷⁴ The emphasis on Jesus' sovereignty continues through chapter 5. This was not the first time Jesus had talked with Peter and the other disciples mentioned. Andrew had told his brother Peter that he had found the Messiah (cf. John 1:41). However these disciples' thought of the Messiah as their contemporaries did. They expected a political deliverer who was less than God. Jesus had to teach them that He was God as well as Messiah. This lesson and its implications took all of Jesus' ministry to communicate.

5:1-3 These verses give the setting for the incident. Again Luke pointed out that the crowd was listening to the word of God (v. 1; cf. 4:32, 36). The people were so interested that they pressed upon Jesus. Jesus put some distance between them and Himself by teaching from a boat not far off shore.

Luke described the Sea of Galilee as a lake, as most of His readers would have thought of it. Gennesaret was the town and plain on its northwest coast from which it received its name.

Luke's characteristic attention to detail is obvious in that he referred to two boats, setting the stage for verse 7. Evidently the fishermen had used large dragnets (Gr. diktau) when they had fished all night, which Zebedee, James, and John were now washing and mending (Matt. 4:21; Mark 1:19; Luke 5:2). Peter and Andrew were using a smaller round casting net (Gr. amphibleston) throwing it into the water from close to shore (Matt. 4:18; Mark 1:16).

5:4-5 Luke alone specified that Simon and his companions were "fishermen" (Gr. halieus, v. 2). Consequently Jesus' command to launch out into the deep water for another try at fishing contrasts Jesus' authority with the natural ability of these men. Peter's compliance shows his great respect for Jesus that led to obedience and ultimately to a large catch of fish. "Master" (Gr. epistata) is Luke's equivalent for "teacher" or "rabbi." Luke never used the term "rabbi" probably because it would have had little significance for most Greek readers. "Master" is a term that disciples or near disciples used of Jesus (8:24, 45; 9:33, 49), and it indicates submission to authority.

5:6-7 Luke first stressed the gathering of very many fish (cf. John 21:6). The details give the narrative the ring of truth. "Partners" (Gr. metochos) probably refers to partners in business (cf. v. 10; Heb. 1:9; 3:1, 14; 6:4; 12:8).

5:8-10a Luke's other emphasis was Peter's response to this miracle. The catch so amazed (Gr. thambos) Peter that he prostrated himself before Jesus, evidently in the boat. Peter now addressed Jesus as "Lord" (Gr. kyrios) instead of "Master." "Lord" obviously expressed more respect than "Master." In view of later developments in Peter's life, it is difficult to say that Peter viewed Jesus as God when he called Him "Lord" here. He may have done so and then relapsed into thinking of Him as only a mortal later. Nevertheless Peter expressed conviction of sin in Jesus' presence indicating that he realized that Jesus was very different from himself (cf. Isa. 6:5). "Depart from me," or, "Go away from me," expresses Peter's feeling of uncleanness in Jesus' presence. Jesus' superior ability caused Peter to sense that he was a sinner, one who fell short. "Sinner" (Gr. hamartolos) is one of Luke's characteristic words. Of the 22 occurrences of this word in the Synoptics, 15 are in Luke.

"Luke does not use the term pejoratively but compassionately, as a common term applied to those who were isolated from Jewish religious circles because of their open sin, their unacceptable occupation or lifestyle, or their paganism. Luke shows that these sinners are the objects of God's grace through the ministry of Jesus."¹⁷⁵

"What Peter does not realize is that admitting one's inability and sin is the best prerequisite for service, since then one can depend on God. Peter's confession becomes his résumé for service. Humility is the elevator to spiritual greatness."¹⁷⁶

5:10b-11 Jesus does not depart from nor reject sinners who feel conviction because of their sin. He draws them to Himself and sends them out to serve Him. Jesus used the fish to represent people that Peter would draw into the kingdom of God and before that into the church (cf. Acts. 2; 10:9-48). This seems to be a reference to catching in the sense of saving rather than in the sense of judging and destroying. Peter and his three companions immediately abandoned their life as fishermen to become Jesus' disciples full-time (cf. 14:33; 18:22).¹⁷⁷ It is unlikely that they were able to finance their life as Jesus' disciples with this catch of fish, as one commentator suggested.¹⁷⁸

"Luke did not lay particular stress on the thought of giving up all to follow Jesus (Mk. 1:18, 20): the accent is on v. 10 with its call to mission."¹⁷⁹

The general emphasis in this incident is on the authority of Jesus. His words had powerful effects. The only proper response to them was submission. Blessing would follow in the form of participation in Jesus' mission.

"The major application in the miracle of the catch of fish centers around Jesus' instructions and Peter's responses. In the midst of teaching many, Jesus calls a few people to more focused service. Peter is one example of such a call. Everyone has a ministry, and all are equal before God, but some are called to serve him directly. Peter has the three necessary qualities Jesus is looking for. He is willing to go where Jesus leads, he is humble, and he is fully committed."¹⁸⁰

This whole first section describing Jesus' teaching mission (4:14-5:11) focuses on Jesus' authority and the proper response to it.

Constable: Joh 5:1-47

F. Jesus' second visit to Jerusalem ch. 5

"In chapters 1-4 the subject is described from the standpoint of a spectator, ab extra, and we are thus enabled to see something of the impression created on others by our Lord as He deals with individuals in Jerusalem, Samaria, and Galilee. When, however, we turn to chapters 5-10, we cannot but be conscious of a change of standpoint, for we see Christ as it were from within, from His own point of view, in all the glory of His self-conscious personal revelation. In each chapter He is seen to concentrate attention on Himself in various aspects, and men are enabled to see something of what He claims to be in relation to God and man."²⁰⁷

Until now John presented Jesus dealing with individuals almost exclusively. This continues, but now he tells the reader that conflict arose with the Pharisees. John thus introduced another theme beside faith, namely opposition by Israel's religious leaders. The first two signs that John recorded were done privately, but the next two were public. Furthermore, Jesus did the miracle recorded in chapter 5 on the Sabbath day, which drew the attention and opposition of the Pharisees. Reactions to Jesus among the Jews moved from reservation (e.g., 3:1-15) to outright hostility. Chapters 5-10 trace the development of this antagonism. However the main emphasis in the section is what Jesus revealed about Himself through His actions and His words.

"Chapters v and vi should probably be grouped together as a single section. They are connected by a common theme, which may be described as the nature and causes of Israel's lack of faith in Jesus. Chapter v is concerned with the form which this unbelief took among the Jews at Jerusalem, and chapter vi with the expression of it by the peasants in Galilee."²⁰⁸

In chapter 5 opposition to Jesus began with objection to His healing on the Sabbath. This led to Jesus explaining His relationship to the Father.

Constable: Joh 5:1-9

1. The third sign: healing the paralytic 5:1-9

This third sign in John's Gospel signaled Jesus' identity and created controversy that followed. Particularly it testified to Jesus' authority over time.²⁰⁹

5:1 Some time later Jesus returned to Jerusalem to celebrate one of the Jewish feasts and to use that occasion to minister. John did not specify which feast it was. Elsewhere in his Gospel when John identified the feast in view he did so because the events and teaching that followed had relevance to that particular feast (cf. 2:13; 6:4; 7:2; 10:22; 11:55). Here they did not. Consequently the identity of the feast is unimportant for the interpretation of the text.²¹⁰ John probably just mentioned it to explain Jesus' return to and presence in Jerusalem.

5:2 John frequently used the "historic (dramatic) present" tense to describe past events. Therefore this verse does not prove that he wrote his Gospel before the fall of Jerusalem.²¹¹

The Sheep Gate was evidently a gate in the north part of Jerusalem's wall just west of its northeast corner (cf. Neh. 3:1, 32; 12:39). Various Greek manuscripts refer to this pool as Bethesda, Bethsaida, Bethzatha, and Belzetha, but the first name is probably the correct one. It means "house of outpouring" or perhaps "house of mercy."²¹² Evidently there were two pools with a covered colonnade or portico on all four sides of the complex and a fifth colonnade that separated the two pools.²¹³

5:3a Many disabled people used to lie in these porticoes because of the healing properties in the water.

5:3b-4 This section of the text has doubtful authenticity. No Greek manuscript before 400 A.D. contains these words.²¹⁴ Evidently scribes added these statements later to explain the troubling of the waters that occurred periodically (v. 7).²¹⁵ However their explanations seem superstitious. These explanations appear to have been common in Jesus' day. A more probable explanation for the troubling of the water is the presence of springs that occasionally gushed water into the pools below the surface of the water.²¹⁶ Probably the (warm?) water had a high mineral content that had medicinal benefits for people suffering from muscle and joint problems.

5:5 This man's sickness appears to have been paralysis resulting in inability to walk at least (v. 7) that seems to have been a result of sin (v. 14). Perhaps a severe arthritic condition complicated his ailment. John's reference to the length of his illness seems to be just to document its seriousness and the man's hopeless condition. Some commentators tried to find symbolic significance in the 38 years, but that seems unwarranted to me.²¹⁷

5:6 Jesus could have learned about the man's condition from others, or John may have written what he did to impress his readers with Jesus' supernatural knowledge. In Capernaum Jesus healed another paralytic lowered through the roof in front of him (Mark 2:1-12), but in this case He reached out to the man as one among many invalids. Jesus' question may have probed the man to discover if he had a desire for healing. Some people are perfectly content to remain in their miserable condition (cf. 3:19-20). Jesus only delivered people who wanted His help. Evidently this is the only person He healed this day even though there were many more whom He could have healed (v. 3; cf. Acts 3:2). He only saves people who want salvation and whom He sovereignly chooses to save (cf. 6:37).

5:7 Obviously the paralytic believed that only the first person to enter the water after its stirring would experience healing. This was probably the popular idea that arose from superstition. The man's statement that he had no one to help him appears to have been a veiled request that Jesus would volunteer to be that helper. The invalid had the desire for healing but not the means to obtain it.

"We must feel that, while faith was commonly the prerequisite of healing, it was not absolutely necessary. Jesus is not limited by human frailty as he works the works of God."²¹⁸

5:8 Jesus' words healed the man (cf. vv. 25, 28-29; 11:43). They also instructed him (cf. Mark 2:11). Obviously Jesus had given him enough strength, as well as health, to carry his light mat.

5:9 The invalid experienced healing immediately. Jesus did instantly what God normally does slowly. When the man walked away carrying his mat, he testified to his healing. Normally we cannot immediately use muscles that we have not used for a long time because they atrophy, but this man had the full use of his muscles instantaneously. The prophets had predicted that when Messiah came He would heal the lame (Isa. 35:1-7). Here was proof for all Jerusalem to see that Messiah had appeared. He had healed a man whom sickness had bound for 38 years.

By carrying his pallet on the Sabbath the man triggered a controversy. By commanding him to do so Jesus was responsible for the situation that followed. Indeed He deliberately created it.

College: Joh 5:1-47

JOHN 5

G. JESUS AND THE MAJOR JEWISH FESTIVALS (5:1-12:50)

1. A Feast, the Sabbath, and Jesus' Healing at the Pool in Jerusalem (5:1-47)

The Healing on the Sabbath (5:1-9a)

¹ Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. ² Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda ^a and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. ³ Here a great number of disabled people used to lie - the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. ^{b 5} One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, " Do you want to get well?"

⁷" Sir," the invalid replied, " I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."

⁸ Then Jesus said to him, " Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." ⁹ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

^a 2 Some manuscripts Bethzatha ; other manuscripts Bethsaida ^b 3 Some less important manuscripts paralyzed-and they waited for the moving of the waters. ⁴ From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease he had.

A number of commentators have sought to transpose chapters 5 and 6, but this opinion has not been widely adopted, and the sense has not been improved by the suggestion. Both chapters seem to be the opening part of a larger unit of the Gospel, 5:1-12:50. Following the lead of Aileen Guilding, Borchert called this section of the book the Festival Cycle because the Jewish feasts in this segment of the Gospel formed the settings for the evangelist's message.

5:1. An unnamed " feast of the Jews" introduces chapter 5, and in 5:9b the Sabbath is noted and serves as the cylinder around which to wind the dialogue in chapter 5. John hangs chapter 6 on the Passover festival (6:4), chapters 7-9 on the Feast of Tabernacles (7:2), and chapter 10 on the Feast of Hanukkah or Feast of Dedication (10:22). Chapter 11 closes with the Passover near at hand (11:55-56), and chapter 12 opens 6 days before Passover (12:1).

Jesus left Galilee for Jerusalem and attended an unnamed feast. Beside a pool lay many disabled people who waited for its waters to be stirred so that the first one to enter the waters might be healed (It is never indicated how often the stirring of the waters occurred). Jesus there encountered a man who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years and so could never enter the pool fast enough to be healed. Jesus healed the man and commanded him to take up his pallet and walk. Jesus then slipped away into the crowd.

The word for feast (eJorthv, heortç) was without the definite article in nearly all the earliest Greek manuscripts and versions. If the definite article had been read, then there would have been strong grounds for understanding this festival as a Passover, or possibly as Tabernacles, which was often referred to as " the Feast" (ghh, hahag ).

5:2. In Jerusalem there was " at the Sheep, a pool." To these words, a word such as pulhv (pylç, " gate" ) may be added and read " There is in Jerusalem, at the Sheep (Gate), a pool, which in Aramaic is called . . . ."

Also in 5:2 the name of this pool is written variously: Bethesda, Bethsaida, Belzetha, and Bethzatha. The last two do not have strong support in the manuscripts. The second has the best manuscript support but was the name of a town in Galilee and so may have been the product of transcriptional variation. The first (Bethesda) may be the best reading (so NIV), though Metzger and his group of textual experts chose Bethzatha (with a low rating, D, for this reading); however, Metzger noted that the Copper Scroll at Qumran contained a reference to a pool at Betheshdathayim , a word with a dual ending, probably because there were actually two pools at the site in Jerusalem. This word from Qumran certainly corroborated the reading Bethesda.

5:3. The pool, which has been excavated, had five colonnaded porches (v. 2), so that many lame persons could have been sheltered within its precincts (v. 3) as they awaited the stirring of its waters and the possibility of being healed by these waters. These five colonnaded porches have been allegorized as symbols of the five books of Moses, which are now ineffective for healing and saving.

5:4. An unknown copyist supplied this verse as an explanation for stirring of the waters (mentioned in 5:7), and was translated thus in the King James Version: " For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water; whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had." However, none of the early manuscripts contain this verse at all, so it is not a legitimate part of the New Testament. The NIV puts a translation of 5:4 in a footnote. The verse probably began as a marginal note explaining the local superstition and why the lame man thought he needed someone to help him get into the pool first (v. 7).

5:5. Notice that wherever he went, Jesus did not fraternize with only the upper classes who were wealthy, educated, and powerful, even in Jerusalem. Instead he fellowshipped with the disabled: " the blind, the lame, the paralyzed," (v. 3) and often helped them. In the present case the man had been lame for thirty-eight years. This " thirty-eight" is not to be allegorized in terms of the Israelites' thirty-eight year journey from Kadesh Barnea to the brook Zered (Deut 2:14). Actually, if John had wanted to show that the years of the lame man's infirmity were the same years as Israel's wandering in the wilderness, it would have been more accurate for him to have written forty than thirty-eight.

5:6. When Jesus asked the lame man if he wanted to get well, there was a momentary misunderstanding by the lame man, who did not immediately answer " yes" or " no," but began to explain why he had not been able to be healed, since he could not enter the troubled water fast enough. The text says nothing of the healed man's response: shock, joy, disbelief, gratitude, or a combination of several of these; nor is anything recorded as to how and why he had been paralyzed (5:14 may be such a clue to this latter question).

5:7-8. Over so long a time of sickness and helplessness, the man had developed a limited view of God's love and power: that God could (or would) heal only a few who were really able to help themselves; the rest God could (or would) not assist. The lame man also sensed his having been alone, as if human beings as well as divine had forsaken him (v. 7). The man, therefore, had become pessimistic and sought to charge fellow human beings and God himself with his plight. In reply, Jesus did not argue, pity, lecture, or fault him with ignorance and moroseness; instead, he commanded him to get up, pick up his mat and walk - and the man was cured. Notice that Jesus did not even call for faith in him by the lame man. On the lame man's part, faith was exhibited by the man's immediately doing what Jesus commanded: getting up, picking up, and walking - and the man kept on walking right on through the city. This healing, therefore, was quite like the previous one of the nobleman's son in Cana (4:43-54): in both cases the principal person involved simply took Jesus at his word and acted on his command - without question or hesitation.

The jarring twist to this otherwise delightful story lay in the opening line of the next paragraph.

Violations of the Sabbath and the Healed Man's Defense (5:9b-15)

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, ¹⁰ and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, " It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat."

¹¹ But he replied, " The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'"

¹² So they asked him, " Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?" ¹³ The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

¹⁴ Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, " See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." ¹⁵ The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

5:9. The healing of the paralytic was a wonderful performance - until John added that it took place on the Sabbath day . All of the Jewish festivals, viewed in the light of Exodus 23, were, like a Sabbath celebration, a holy convocation before God. Part of this celebration of every festival was freedom from work so as properly to observe the occasion. This was especially true of the Sabbath day. In the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, a very large volume contains the Sabbath regulations concerning work or works that rabbinical debate had forbidden to be done on that day. The Jews have calculated the number of obligatory commands in the whole Old Testament at 613, but the regulations to be kept with reference to Sabbath day observance numbered over 2,000! To observe the Sabbath day conscientiously, therefore, became an intolerable burden. It may be true that not all the rules in the Talmudic tractate called Shabbath existed in the early first century, but too many of them did, and these Jesus met head on in the controversy evoked by Jesus' healing on the Sabbath in John 5.

In the second part of this verse the lame man obeyed Jesus: he got up, picked up his mat, and walked. The man's carrying his mat (probably made of straw and light enough to be rolled up and carried on one's shoulder or under one's arm) and his walking evidenced the completeness of his cure, just as the thirty-eight years had attested to the seriousness of his illness.

5:10. Immediately, " the Jews" saw him carrying a mat, and so said to him, " It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat." They paid no attention to the wonderful and helpful deed that Jesus had just performed on the man who had been a cripple for thirty-eight years. Surely a little celebration, such as pallet-carrying, was in order, even on a Sabbath.

5:11-13. The healed man did what he had previously done: blame his problem on someone else. The healed man's defense was in these words: " The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'" Naturally they asked who gave him such a command (v. 12), but the healed man did not know the healer or the healer's name, because Jesus had slipped away (ejxevneusen, exeneusen ) into the crowd that was there (v. 13). Borchert noted that the man's ignorance about Jesus who had healed him called to mind the familiar " secret" or " hidden" theme of Jesus' Messiahship in Mark, which William Wrede set forth in 1901 in his The Messianic Secret . The healed man's defense against the charge of Sabbath-breaking was very weak, since he could not identify his healer/commander. Notice that the healed man was charged with Sabbath-breaking, not Jesus (v. 10).

5:14-15. Jesus later found the man in the temple and told him to stop sinning lest something worse should happen to him. The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well, thereby casting the blame for breaking Sabbitical laws on his healer. It is not always true that the helper is thanked or appreciated (Luke 17:17-18). Notice, however, what a tremendous testimony to Jesus the man's report to the Jews finally turned out to be: it was Jesus who had made him whole.

Why should Jesus have spoken the words in verse 14, " Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you" ? What is the meaning of " his sinning" and " a worse thing happening to him" ? (1) One answer sees Jesus here as connecting sickness and suffering to sin; or at least that this man's illness resulted from his very own sin. (2) As in 9:3 and 11:4, the illness was to the glory of God. (3) For the sin of becoming an informer to the Jews, the healed man might be severely punished, though the same man had already done this without apparently too much punishment. (4) Further sin and its correlating punishment may refer to the final judgment day and the punishment handed out there - this would surely be the " something worse" that " might happen to him."

Violations of the Sabbath and Jesus' Defense (5:16-18)

¹⁶ So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. ¹⁷ Jesus said to them, " My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working." ¹⁸ For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

5:16. In verse 10 the healed man was accused of violating the Sabbath day by carrying his bed; his defense was that he did so in compliance with the command of the one who had healed him (v. 11). In verse 15 the healed man dropped from the story; presumably no charge against him was afterwards pursued.

Jesus, however, was open to charges of healing on the Sabbath and of causing others to bear a burden on the Sabbath, though these accusations were apparently not officially made (in court) at this time. In verse 16 the Jews (Jewish leaders) were persecuting Jesus because he was doing these things. " Persecuting" and " doing" are in the imperfect tense - Jesus " kept on doing" such things and the Jews " kept on persecuting." John did not say what these " persecutions" of Jesus were; hassling from the audience, threats to Jesus (and his disciples), spying on him in public and in private, etc. were possibilities. John did not at this time further stress the Sabbath question because he intended to pursue another and greater question, namely, the christological nature and work of Jesus.

Verses 16-18 have been said to introduce the controversy scenes in the Festival portion of the book. Jesus' person and relation to the Sabbath were in the spotlight, and the turning of attention from the healed man to Jesus marked the shift of the Jewish leaders' hostility to Jesus. The charges against him relative to the Sabbath, however, were speedily escalated to a much more serious accusation, an accusation that led eventually to his crucifixion. The argument that follows is, therefore, central to Jesus and to this book about him.

5:17-18. Jesus responded in a way that precipitated the real conflict with the Jews: his heavenly Father always was at work to that moment, so he too, was working. This statement seemed extreme to a Jew. It justified Jesus' work on the Sabbath and it placed Jesus on a par with God. The Synoptics show a different approach in treating the alleged violations of the Sabbath by Jesus. In the Synoptics Jesus is greater than the Sabbath because he is Lord over it. Here he seemed to some Jews to violate several commands, and also asserted that God worked on the Sabbath, and so he did as God did. What was here being asserted publicly for the first time by Jesus was the relation of Jesus to God, or in other words, the deity of Jesus.

Jesus defended his right to work on the Sabbath, saying, " My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working." The Sabbath was introduced in Genesis by God himself, who was said to have rested on the seventh day from his creation labors (Gen 2:2) though let it be noted that no command for mankind's observance of the Sabbath was given before it was revealed to Israel as a part of that nation's laws (Exod 20:8; Deut 5:12); i.e., the command to observe the Sabbath was not in force from the beginning. A number of ancient authors observed the seeming contradiction of verse 17 (God's continual working) and Genesis 2:2 (God's resting on the Sabbath day). Jewish attempts to reconcile the tension between the two positions included the following: (1) God's physical activity, such as that at the creation, did come to an end, but not his moral activity, such as judging good and evil persons. (2) As the Sabbath commandments concerning burden bearing did not prohibit one from carrying things about in one's own house, so God may create within his own homestead (the universe) even on the Sabbath without violating the Sabbath regulations. Pagan thought also asserted that God worked continually, though, the philosophers' " unmoved (axis of the) mover" suggests the idea of rest in God.

Jesus' Discourse on the Sabbath and His Work (5:19-29)

¹⁹ Jesus gave them this answer: " I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. ²⁰ For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. ²¹ For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. ²² Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, ²³ that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.

²⁴" I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. ²⁵ I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. ²⁶ For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. ²⁷ And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.

²⁸" Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice ²⁹ and come out - those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.

In verse 12 the question of the personal identity of Jesus stands out, " Who is the fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?" Afterwards, when Jesus' identity was learned as the one who performed the Sabbath miracles, he was not praised for his divine kindness, but criticized sharply for his good work. In verses 19-20 it made Jesus the object of doing what God did, while Jesus was acknowledged with power to do all that the Son saw the Father do.

5:19. In verses 19-29 Jesus makes the revelation concerning the Father known to the common people, the essence of which is that what Jesus learned from the Father he revealed to the people. What the Father has, he shows to the Son, and what the Father does, the Son does. This is to authenticate the nature and work of Jesus. It is no wonder that everyone who hears the Son and the Father are held to be condemned if they refuse to obey them because the Father and Son hold the same standards, truths, lifetime measures, etc. Jesus continues in verses 24-29 by telling the world that whoever hears him has been blessed with eternal life, and he has been given authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.

In verse 18 the Jews are not slow to see the implications of how the Son and Father love one another.

5:20. It means that the Son is loved extraordinarily by the Father and Jesus himself is willing to die at the hands of common people to make this truth obvious. This was not Jesus' way of making people jealous but of challenging his disciples to love God as God loved them.

5:21-23. The Son can do nothing but what he sees the Father do. Just as the Father raised the dead, so he has given power to the Son to raise the dead. Further, the Father judges no one but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may equally honor the Father and the Son. No higher claims to deity could be made than what Jesus here asserts: the power of life over death, and the authority to execute eternal judgment.

5:24. Jesus goes on to assert a new truth, that whoever hears the word and believes him who sent the Son will not be condemned but has crossed over from death to life.

5:25-27. The Father and the Son both have life in themselves. That is why the Father and the Son can both promise eternal life to those who believe God's word. The Father raised the dead and gave life to all those who accepted God's word. The Son accepts the same persons that the Father accepts and to the Jews' amazement the Son can do even greater things (v. 20) than heal a lame man and rule over the Sabbath. Whoever hears the word of God and believes him whom God sent can receive eternal healing of the soul.

5:28-29. In fact the time is coming when the dead will hear the voice of God and those who hear will live. Surely this implies a resurrection. Jesus expresses it stronger in verses 28f when he says that all in the graves will hear his voice, and they that hear will be raised to life. Two views of the resurrection jostle one another here: (1) as in the case of Lazarus (11:43) Jesus can summon the dead and give them physical life (2) the word of Jesus can give spiritual life to these who are dead in sin. Too much should not be made in the distinction of the two views because both are true and both are needed.

Jesus' Defense and the Four Witnesses (5:30-47)

³⁰" By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

³¹" If I testify about myself, my testimony is not valid. ³² There is another who testifies in my favor, and I know that his testimony about me is valid.

³³" You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. ³⁴ Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved. ³⁵ John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.

³⁶" I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me. ³⁷ And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, ³⁸ nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. ³⁹ You diligently study ^a the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, ⁴⁰ yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

⁴¹" I do not accept praise from men, ⁴² but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. ⁴³ I have come in my Father's name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. ⁴⁴ How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God ^b ?

⁴⁵" But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. ⁴⁶ If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. ⁴⁷ But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?"

^a 39 Or Study diligently (the imperative) ^b 44 Some early manuscripts the Only One

5:30-36. Jesus has made astonishing claims of deity. What proof or evidence could he offer in support of his claims? Jesus therefore singles out four major witnesses which give credence to his ministry. (1) The first is Jesus himself. Jesus well knew how that one's self-witness didn't really count in the courts, so he did not rely totally on his own testimony. (2) We move to the second form of testimony, namely John the Baptist. John's testimony pointed ultimately to Christ who is the Lamb of God. The form of John's testimony is rational; that is, it does not take the form of any miracle nor that of any miraculous manifestation. Testimonies to Jesus are of a verbal kind, not just of feelings or dreams. (3) The third source of testimony to Jesus was his works done before God and man. These showed Jesus to be as much divine as human because they were on a miraculous order. And yet they were not merely of a subjective order in which an event could mean anything.

5:37-38. (4) The fourth form of testimony is really the highest and rarest, because it is the testimony of the Father to the works of the Son. The Father bears testimony to the works of the Son in a way that He does not to any others. Jesus said that the Jews of his time had never heard God's voice nor seen his form, nor did God's word dwell in them, because they did not believe the form of the one whom God sent. Jesus was somewhat severe in his critique of his contemporaries, but they deserved it.

5:39-40. Jesus said, " You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me,yet you refuse to come to me to have life." Notice that life is granted through the knowledge of and obedience to written words. Notice also that this does not conform to the mode of seeking life today, which often employs visions, dreams, reliance on the physical, psychics etc., not in Christ, the living, unchanging Word of God. The Old Testament Scriptures constitute the highest manner of the ancient testimony of God to his Son. Notice that the Old Testament Scriptures are classical written documents; that is, the Father's testimony to the Son is solid, readable, even rationalistic and reliable as compared with, for example, supernatural " revelation" in the form of the flights of birds, yellow spots on the liver of animals and other weird attempts at deducing God's testimony. Scriptures always lead to life, yet Jesus' contemporaries refuse to seek life by him.

Jesus pointed out that part of the testimony of antiquity to himself was the Old Testament, and a vital part of that Old Testament was the Pentateuch, traditionally said to be authored by Moses. But the Jews disallowed the testimony of Moses to him and so rejected Jesus as a source of life.

5:41-47. Jesus did not accept the praise of men, though the Jews did constantly. They were unable to accept Moses' testimony because of its link to Jesus. Jesus said that the real accuser is not one's neighbor or himself but the word of God. This word will commend or condemn by its own standards of perfection; hence, to seek salvation apart from God's word is an impossibility. The Jews relied upon themselves rather than God. Even Christians who seek a salvation of their own will fail to realize it, and notice that salvation is a response to the gospel in the form of word (cf. Rom 1:16 or 1 Cor 1:21).

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

McGarvey: Joh 5:1-47

P A R T  F I F T H.
FROM SECOND PASSOVER UNTIL THIRD.
TIME: ONE YEAR.

XXXVII.
JESUS HEALS ON THE SABBATH DAY AND
DEFENDS HIS ACT.
(At Feast-time at Jerusalem, probably the Passover.)
^dJOHN V. 1-47.

   ^d1 After these things there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. [Though every feast in the Jewish calendar has found some one to advocate its claim to be this unnamed feast, yet the vast majority of commentators choose either the feast of Purim, which came in March, or the Passover, which came in April. Older commentators pretty unanimously regarded it as the Passover, while the later school favor the feast of Purim. Joh 4:35 locates Jesus in Samaria in December, and Joh 6:4 finds him on the shores of Galilee just before a Passover. If, then, this was the feast of Purim, the Passover of Joh 6:4 was the second in Jesus' ministry, and that ministry lasted but two years and a fraction. But if the feast here mentioned was a Passover, then the one at Joh 6:4 would be the third Passover, and the ministry of Jesus lasted three years and a fraction. Since, then, the length of Jesus' ministry is largely to be determined by what the feast was, it becomes important for us to fix the feast, if possible. That it was not Purim the following arguments may be urged. 1. Purim was not a [192] Mosaic feast, but one established by human laws; hence Jesus would not be likely to observe it. True, we find him at the feast of Dedication, which was also of human origin, but he did not "go up" to attend it; he appears to have attended because he was already in Jerusalem (Joh 10:22). 2. Here the pregnant juxtaposition of "feast" and "went up" indicates that Jesus was drawn to Jerusalem by this feast, but Purim was celebrated by the Jews everywhere, and did not require that any one should go to Jerusalem, as did the three great festivals -- Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. 3. It was kept in a boisterous, riotous manner, and was therefore not such a feast as Jesus would honor. 4. It came early in the year, when the weather was too rigorous and inclement for sick people to frequent porticos. 5. It did not include a Sabbath Day. 6. As Purim was just a month before the Passover, Jesus would hardly have returned to Galilee before the Passover (Joh 6:4) unless he intended to miss the Passover, which he would hardly do for the sake of attending Purim in Jerusalem. Those contending that it was not the Passover, present several arguments, which we note and answer as follows: 1. Since John gives the name of other Passovers, he would have named this also, had it been one. But the conclusion is inferential, and not logical; and the answer is to be twofold: first, perhaps John did give the name by prefixing the article to it, and calling it "the feast," for being the oldest -- older than the law and the Sabbath -- and most important of all feasts, it was rightly called by pre-eminence "the feast." Since the Sinaitic manuscript gives the article, and calls it "the feast," the manuscript authority for and against this reading is pretty evenly balanced. Second, if John did not name it, there is probably this reason for his silence. Where he names the feast elsewhere it is thought that the incidents narrated take color from, or have some references to, the particular festal occasion which is named; but here there is no such local color, and failure to name the feast prevents mistaken attempts to find such local color. 2. Again it is objected that if this is a different Passover from Joh 6:4, then John skips [193] a year in the life of Jesus. He probably does so skip, and this is not strange when the supplemental nature of his Gospel is considered. In favor of its being the Passover we submit two points: 1. Daniel seems to forecast the ministry of the Messiah as lasting one-half of a week of years (Dan 9:27). 2. It fits better in the chronological arrangement, for in the next scene we find the disciples plucking grain, and the Sabbath question is still at full heat. But the harvest season opens with the Passover.]  2 Now there is [the present tense is used, for while the city was destroyed, the pool evidently still existed.] in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew [i. e., in Aramaic, a dialect of the classic Hebrew, in which the Old Testament was written, and the language then in use in Palestine] Bethesda, having five porches [It had five covered porticos, probably erected for the accommodation of the sick, whence it is called Bethesda, i. e., "house of mercy." Dr. Barclay thinks that this pool is buried in the rubbish of the Kedron valley. Dr. Robinson suggested that it might be the Fountain of the Virgin, which is found in a cavern under the east side of Ophel, a little north of midway between the southeast corner of the temple wall and the Pool of Siloam. Though this pool's claim has been objected to because of its inaccessibility -- for it lies thirty feet below the surface of the valley and forty feet back under the mountain, and is approached by two flights of steps numbering in all twenty-six -- yet it has three distinct features which make its claim exceed those of any other known pool in the temple neighborhood: 1. It is fed by an intermittent spring, whose ebbing and flowing at intervals of several hours, would cause the troubled waters called for in Joh 5:7. 2. It has a superstition connected with it kindred to that which crept into the text at Joh 5:4, but the Mohammedans have changed the angel into a dragon; when the dragon is awake he swallows or stops the water, but when he sleeps the water flows! 3. The modern Jerusalem Jews believe in the special healing properties of this fountain. "Every day," says Conder, "crowds of both sexes go down [194] to the spring, and, entering the dark archway, descend the steps, and await the fitful troubling of the waters, which rise suddenly and immerse them, fully clothed, nearly up to the neck." But Nehemiah's description of the walls seems to locate the sheep gate near the middle or northern portion of the temple area, and too far north for the Virgin's fountain to be described as near it, unless John's sheep gate differs from that of Nehemiah.]  3 In these lay a great multitude of them that were sick, blind, halt, withered. [The Joh 5:3, Joh 5:4, as given in the King James version, were probably added as a marginal explanatory gloss early in the second century, and from thence gradually became incorporated in the text. John's failure to mention that the pool was thought to have medicinal qualities tempted transcribers to add a few marginal words in the nature of comments.]  5 And a certain man was there, who had been thirty and eight years in his infirmity. [It is not said that he had spent all these years beside the pool, nor is it likely that he had. The time is given to mark the inveteracy of the disease, and to show the pathos of his situation. The facts that he had a bed, and that his healing was demonstrated by his walking, argue that his disease was either rheumatism, or some form of paralysis.]  6 When Jesus saw him lying, and knew [By divine intuition, just as he also knew the lives of Nathanael and the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well] that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wouldest thou be made whole? [By this question Jesus aroused the man from the apathy of despair, awakening him to hope and effort. Moreover, Jesus only healed as men consented to his healing.]  7 The sick man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. [The man's lack of healing was not due to want of interest, but to want of means. The lower flight of ten steps leading to the Virgin's pool is only four and half feet wide, and the pool itself is but twenty-one feet and nine inches by nine feet [195] in breadth at its widest part. A half-dozen selfish men rushing down this narrow passage, and filling the small space in the pool, would easily crowd out one who was friendless and more than usually helpless.]  8 Jesus saith unto him, Arise, take up thy bed, and walk. [The bed was the light mattress or pallet of the poor elsewhere noted, which could be easily rolled up and carried under the arm.]  9 And straightway the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked. [Christ spoke, the man obeyed, and by the obedience of faith was made whole.] Now it was the sabbath on that day. [There was apparently nothing urgent in the sick man's condition which made an immediate cure necessary; but Jesus healed because it was the Sabbath, that he might thereby draw such an issue between himself and the Jewish rulers as would afford opportunity for him to present his divine claims to them in the clearest and most forceful manner. He healed on the sabbath, that he might assert divine relations to the Sabbath, and by so doing bring about a disputation which would enable him to develop before them his divine relations to the Father.]  10 So the Jews [That is, the Jewish rulers. John frequently uses the term with this restricted meaning (Joh 1:19, Joh 7:13, Joh 9:22, Joh 18:12, Joh 18:14). The man was officially stopped and questioned] said unto him that was cured, It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for thee to take up thy bed. [They would have cited in proof of their assertion Exo 31:13, Num 15:35, Jer 17:21-23, Neh 13:19. Alford and Schaff both assert that the man broke the Mosaic law; but this position is not well taken. Jesus would not have ordered the sabbath to be broken, for he came to fulfill and not to break the law. At no time did he break the sabbath or countenance its violation, as some able thinkers are erroneously led to suppose. In this case a man lying on his bed, away from home, is suddenly healed. Under such circumstances Jewish tradition said that he must either spend the rest of the day watching his bed, or else he must go off and leave it to be stolen. But He who rightfully interpreted the law of [196] his own devising, and who knew that "the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath," ordered the healed one to carry his bed along home with him. The modern notions that this constituted a breach of the Mosaic sabbath doubtless arose from the nature of the accompanying justification given by Jesus, which fails to assert that the law has not been broken, but seems almost to admit that it has. Nothing, however, can be argued against Jesus on this score. A man may be able to justify an act in a dozen different ways, and may choose to rest content in justifying himself in only one way. Such is the case here. Elsewhere we shall find that Jesus was careful to show that his sabbatic actions were strictly legal; but in this case, that he might bring his divine claims plainly before the rulers, he ignored the question as to the human legality of his act that he might present without confusion its divine legality. Hence he used only one order or method of justification; viz.: an appeal to his divine rights as exhibited in the habits of his Father. It was the divine and not the human in Jesus which wrought this miracle, so Jesus causes the whole controversy to turn on the divine rights, that he may use the occasion for an elaborate discussion of his divine claims and the proofs by which they are sustained.]  11 But he answered them, He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed, and walk. [The man very naturally shifts the burden of responsibility. If he was violating the sabbath, he had been ordered to do it by one who had alone empowered him to do it. Of himself he would not and could not have done it.]  12 They asked him, Who is the man that said unto thee, Take up thy bed, and walk? [By using the word "man" they suggest the contrast between human authority and divine law. They were more concerned about the law than about mercy.]  13 But he that was healed knew not who it was: for Jesus had conveyed himself away, a multitude being in the place. [Jesus, not wishing to unduly excite the multitude by his presence, had passed on.]  14 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the [197] temple [possibly he was there offering sacrifices in thanksgiving for his recovery, in the spirit of Psa 66:13, Psa 66:14, but it is as likely that he was there merely enjoying the sights and privileges from which he had so long been excluded], and siad unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee. [Many human ills are directly traceable to sin, and this one appears to have been so; for death is the wages of sin, and sickness is partial payment. It is a solemn thought that sin can produce worse conditions than even this case, where it found its victim in youth, and left him a withered old man, bed-ridden, helpless, and friendless.]  15 The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him whole. [There was evidently no unworthy motive in his action; for, as Chrysostom observes, he did not report it that it was Jesus who made him break the sabbath to condemn Jesus; on the contrary, he said it was Jesus who made him whole, so honoring Christ. Feeling (as any Jew would have felt) that he ought to clear himself before the rulers of his people, the man, no doubt, honestly thought that the name and authority of the great Prophet of Nazareth would end all question as to the conduct of both Healer and healed. If so, he was sadly mistaken.]  16 And for this cause the Jews persecuted Jesus [Literally, pursued, or hunted Jesus. This is John's first plain declaration of open hostility to Jesus, though he has already implied it. From this point the blood red line of conspiracy against the life of Jesus runs through this Gospel], because he did these things on the sabbath.  17 But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh even until now, and I work. [The dual nature of Jesus permitted both a divine and human attitude toward the sabbath. We have shown that Jesus chose to assert his divine attitude, for in no other matter did these Jews have clearer distinction as to the difference between divine and human right than in this matter of sabbath observance. If Jesus was a mere man, their ideas of law clearly condemned him; but if Jesus were indeed God, their knowledge of divine conduct in the whole realm of nature [198] clearly justified him, and the miracle asserted his divine control in nature's realm. While God rested from creation on the sabbath, nothing can be clearer than that in works of sustenance, reproduction, healing and providence, God has never rested, and never made distinctions between the days of our week. In the light of the gospel we find also that his redemptive work has never ceased and, considering the part which Jesus was even then accomplishing in this field of labor, his words, "and I work," are full of meaning.]  18 For this cause therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only brake the sabbath [Not only violated, but denied its authority over his divine nature], but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God. [They rightly interpreted Jesus as asserting relationship to God differing from that sustained by others, as expressed in some few passages in the Old Testament, where God is spoken of as a Father to the people generally; i. e., their Creator. No man could claim such unity of nature as would exempt him from the obligation of the fourth commandment. Had they misunderstood Jesus in this all-important point, how quickly would he have corrected them, for he could not have been less righteous than Paul and Barnabas -- Act 14:11-15.]  19 Jesus therefore answered and said unto them. [His answer is a connected address, the theme being his own character, mission, authority, and credentials as the Son of God. It is the Christology of Jesus, and instead of being a retraction of the claim to divinity which the Jews accused him of making, it is a complete and amplified reassertion of it, so that Luther fitly called it "a sublime apology, which makes the matter worse." Jesus first declares his relations to the Father (Joh 5:19-23), which are set forth in four divisions, each of which is introduced by the word "for;" viz.: 1. Unity of action. 2. Unity of love, counsel, and plan. 3. Unity in life-impartation. 4. Unity in judgment, resulting in unity of honor. This last division formed a turning-point in the discourse. Since there is there unity of honor, it is important that men should honor Jesus, [199] and also otherwise sustain right relationships to him, and Jesus therefore, to enlighten the Jews as to their duty toward him, proceeds to set forth his relations to men (Joh 5:23-30), which he also gives in four divisions, closely correlative to his four statements as to the Father, thus: 1. Right to receive divine honor from men. 2. Authority to execute life and death judgment over men. 3. Power of life-impartation as to men, and that both spiritually and literally. 4. All Jesus' relationships to man to be sustained and executed according to the will and plan or mission of God. But since all these various relationships grow out of his divine nature, Jesus next submits the credentials which establish his claim to such a nature (Joh 5:31-39). These also are given in four divisions; namely: 1. Testimony of the Baptist. 2. Testimony of the Father. 3. Jesus' own works and ministry. 4. Testimony of Scripture. Or we may regard Jesus as asserting that the Father testifies to the Son's divinity in four different ways; that is, "God is properly the sole and original testifier, and all others are his signatures and seals." The discourse then closes with an application of its truth to the Jewish auditors (Joh 5:40-47). They are told that all this truth is lost on them because of their own fourfold sinful condition, which is thus stated: 1. Want of will to come to Christ. 2. Want of real love toward God, or desire for his honor. 3. Love for the honor of men, rather than the honor of God. 4. Want of real faith in the Mosaic writings], Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing: for what things soever he doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner. [The Jews regarded Jesus as claiming equality with God in a vain-glorious, honor-seeking spirit; but Jesus restates himself, so as to show that the claim is really a renunciation or abdication of all independent greatness -- as having an equality exercised in absolute subservience (Isa 42:1, Phi 3:6-9). They had accused him as a human being acting contrary to the law of the Father. But he declares himself to be a divine being, so united to the Father as to have no will or action apart from the Father, a condition the resultant of which is [200] not weakness and insufficiency, but the strength and perfection arising from an absolute and indissoluble union with the Father -- the glory of divinity. Chrysostom remarks, "Just as when we say, it is impossible for God to do wrong, we do not impute to him any weakness, but confess in him an unutterable power, so also when Christ saith, 'I can of mine own self do nothing,' the meaning is that it is impossible -- my nature admits not -- that I should do anything contrary to the Father." Jesus asserts his equality with the Father in such a way as not to depreciate the dignity and glory of the Father.]  20 For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth: and greater works than these will he show him, that ye may marvel. [The words here indicate that the love of the Father towards the Son was source of revelation, and that the revelation was progressive. Love constrained the Father to reveal, and love in turn constrained the Son to act according to the revelation. Moreover, this unity of love would be evidenced by greater works in the future, of which two are enumerated; namely, resurrection and judgment, the former being at first spiritually and afterwards literally outlined. The Father would show these works to the Son by causing him to do them; there would be no separate act of the Father so that the works would be twice performed. These works would produce faith in those of right spirit. But among such hardened hearts as those whom Jesus addressed they would only produce wonder and consternation. Those who withheld the tribute of faith should pay that of amazement. Putting the statements of Joh 5:19, Joh 5:20 together, we find that the Son knows all that the Father does, and likewise does all that the Father does, and in like manner. There could be no higher assertion or equality than this; in fact, it asserts identity rather than equality. But the equality is not the result of conquest, nor was it one of power opposed to power, but is freely given and accorded by reason of love.]  21 For as the Father raiseth the dead and giveth them life, even so the Son also giveth life to whom he will. [Since the verbs in this [201] verse are in the present tense, and since Jesus is not known to have raised the physically dead before this time, it is rightly taken that he her speaks only of raising the spiritually dead, our miserable existence in sin being often spoken of in Scripture as a death from which we must be revived (Eph 2:1, Eph 2:5, Col 2:13, Rev 3:1). The use of the word "will" likewise indicates a spiritual resurrection, for Christ exercised a discrimination in such resurrections; but the final, literal resurrection is without discrimination. See the word "all" in Joh 5:28. The meaning, therefore, is that as the Father performs physical resurrections, so the Son (for the present) performs spiritual resurrections (to be followed by physical resurrections). Jesus later gave those at Jerusalem a sign of his power to literally raise the dead by the resurrection of Lazarus. Resurrection is bestowed or withheld according to Jesus' will, but his will is not arbitrarily exercised. He visits those who receive him, and revives those who believe him. If the Son possessed right of concurrent action on these lofty planes, concurrent use of the sabbath was a small matter indeed.]  22 For neither doth the Father judge any man, but he hath given all judgment unto the Son. [That is to say, the Father does not act in judgment without the Son, nor the Son without the Father, for in no work is either isolated from the other. Resurrection is nearly always associated with judgment, and in this instance it is in reviving that the judgment is manifested or executed. (See Joh 5:29 also.) Note that judgment begins in this world -- Joh 9:39];  23 that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. ["Even as" means in the same manner and in equal degrees. The prerogative of judgment was committed unto Jesus that men might behold his true majesty. If this verse does not teach us to worship Jesus as God, language can not teach it, for God gives not his glory unto another (Isa 42:8), nor could he, by reason of his very nature, arbitrarily will such honor to one whose character and nature were unworthy of it. In these words Jesus exposed the ruinous attitude assumed by the Jews in seeking to slay him.] [202] He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father that sent him. [Honor paid to the Father pertains or belongs to his nature and character. But the Son is the manifestation of that nature and character (Joh 14:7-11, Heb 1:3). Therefore to fail to honor the Son is to fail to honor the Father. Experience shows it to be the rule that only those who honor Jesus take pains to honor the Father.]  24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life. And cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life. [Eternal life is a present gift, just as condemnation is a present condition (Joh 3:18). To "hear" means in this case to receive and obey, so that eternal life is conditioned upon a knowledge of the revelation of the Father and Son, and a right use of that knowledge. Those who have learned of and obey Jesus have already escaped or avoided the judgment -- Rom 8:1.]  25 Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. [The "hath passed" of Joh 5:24 and the "now is" of this verse show that Jesus is, thus far, primarily speaking of a present and hence a spiritual resurrection, or regeneration. Christianity, or the dispensation of regeneration, was to formally begin at Pentecost, but it was already present in a preliminary form in the teaching of Jesus, for those who hearkened to it were counted as already redeemed. Yet the spiritual condition of even the apostles was at that time such that the hour of grace is spoken of as more future than present -- more "coming" than "at hand."]  26 For as the Father hath life in himself, even so gave he to the Son also to have life in himself [Not only an independent life, such as man does not possess (Act 2:27, Act 2:28), but a life which is a source of life to others. This regenerating power completed Jesus' official status as judge, so that wherever he awarded life, he could at the same time bestow it];  27 and he gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is a son of man. [We can see several reasons, [203] humanly speaking, why the humanity of Jesus should be made a ground for committing the judgment of the races of men to him: 1. Jesus having experienced our infirmities and temptations, we can feel sure of his sympathy (Heb 4:15, Heb 4:16). 2. Jesus, partaking of the nature of both God and man, is, because of his unique nature, the only fit daysman or umpire between them (Job 9:33). Possibly we may regard it as a reward of humility -- Phi 2:8, Phi 2:9.]  28 Marvel not at this [Jesus seems to here answer the surprised expression of their faces by enlarging his statements]: for the hour cometh, in the which all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice,  29 and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment. [We have here the future, literal, and final resurrection (Dan 12:2); a scene of such stupendous grandeur as to overshadow all the marvelous in all that Christ shall have previously done.]  30 I can of myself do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is righteous; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. [Jesus here reasserts his dependence upon the Father, not as a bare repetition of his relationship to the Father, but for the purpose of developing his relationship to men as based on or growing out of this relationship to the Father. The Jews, as they listened to him, were conscious that he was even then judging and passing sentence of condemnation upon them. Jesus does not deny the correctness of this view, but shows that, because of his relationship or dependence upon the Father, they are getting perfect justice, for: 1. His judgment was free from all personal bias and selfish retaliation, and was, 2. Positively perfect, being wholly inspired by the Father's will.]  31 If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.  32 It is another [i. e., the Father; for similar reference, see Joh 8:50-54] that beareth witness of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true. [These two verses form, as noted, a transition in the discourse. [204] In them Jesus passes from discussing himself and the divine and human phases of his nature and office to take up the evidences which attest him, first asserting that the truth of what he has said does not rest solely on his own veracity. There is here an indirect reference to that clause of the Jewish law which required two witnesses. See Joh 8:14-18. But the saying is deeply spiritual. Since Jesus did nothing of himself, his very testimony was not his own, but was the Father's who sent him, and was therefore absolutely true in the consciousness of Jesus. If Jesus had testified independently of the Father -- had it been possible -- it would have been in the nature of the case contrary to that consensus of the divine will which forms the truth.]  33 Ye have sent unto John [this shows that Jesus was addressing the rulers -- Joh 1:19], and he hath borne witness unto the truth. [John had witnessed the truth concerning the Messiahship of Jesus. Some think that the pronoun "another" in Joh 5:32 refers to John also, but by the present tense "witnesseth" of that verse, and the past tense "hath borne witness" of this verse, the ever-abiding testimony of the Father is contrasted with the finished testimony of John, who is now silenced by imprisonment.]  34 But the witness which I receive is not from man: howbeit I say these things, that ye may be saved. [In the light of Joh 1:6, Joh 1:7, it sounds strange to hear Jesus thus renounce the testimony of the Baptist. But the phrase, "is not from man," is the Hebrew negative, meaning not from man alone. Jesus therefore meant to accept it, as he in the next breath did that of Moses, as prophetic -- as the testimony of the Father spoken through a human medium; but meant to reject it as a merely human testimony, such as it was in the view of these Jews who denied in their hearts that John was a prophet. This mission of Jesus was not to be proved by uninspired testimony, for uninspired man can not testify of God from lack of full and adequate knowledge (Mat 11:27, Mat 16:17). And yet if the Jews were willing to accept such testimony, Jesus in kindness would permit it, that by any fair means they might believe and be saved.]  35 He was the lamp that burneth and shineth; and ye were willing to rejoice for a [205] season in his light. [They were willing, like children, to play in John's light without stopping to seriously consider its meaning, but when he bore testimony to Christ they blasphemed him -- Luk 7:33.]  36 But the witness which I have is greater than that of John; for the works which the Father hath given me to accomplish, the very works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me. [By "greater witness" Jesus means testimony which is more convincing. All divine testimony is of equal veracity, but some it is more obviously convincing. The less the testimony savors of humanity, and the more purely divine it appears, the more convincing it is (1Jo 5:9). The term "works" is not to be confined to miracles, for the word "accomplish" indicates a wider meaning. The entire Messianic mission or redemptive work which ended with our Lord's words, "It is finished" (Joh 17:4, Joh 19:30), and which is indicated in this very discourse in Joh 5:20, and outlined by referring to spiritual judgment and regeneration, should be included. Christ's transforming grace still witnesses to Jew and Gentile that the Father sent him, for it it manifests the love of God (Joh 3:16). The Father did not send the Son to merely work miracles, but to redeem the world.]  37 And the Father that sent me, he hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his form.  38 And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he sent, him ye believe not. [The testimony of the Father was given in three forms: 1. By direct or audible voice and the visible sending of the Spirit -- as at Jesus' baptism. 2. By revelations, through the medium of prophets and angels gathered and preserved in the Old Testament Scriptures. 3. Through the Son and his works. Jesus here asserts that all testimony of the first kind had failed to reach the Jewish rulers; that the testimony of the second kind has been utterly lost upon them, for they failed to see its accordance with the testimony of the third kind which he was even then exhibiting to them, neither had it taught them to expect a personal Saviour.]  39 Ye [206] search the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me;  40 and ye will not come to me, that ye may have life. ["Hillel used to say, More law, more life. . . . He who has gotten himself words of law has gotten himself the life of the world to come" (Talmud). In their zeal for the Scriptures the Jews had counted every letter of them, expecting to find life in the laws and precepts, but failed to find Him of whom the Scriptures spoke in figure, type and prophecy. In their reverence for the Book they failed to see that it was a mere means intended to acquaint them with him through whom life was to come. Hence, as Canon Cook suggests, there is deep pathos in the co-ordination "and -- and." The verses give us three points worthy of deepest reflection: 1. Protestantism may love the Book and show a martyr's loyalty to it, and yet fail utterly to render any acceptable love or loyalty toward the Being revealed in the Book. 2. Criticism, both higher and lower, may submit every text to microscopic investigation, and yet be as blind as the ancient Pharisees to its true meaning. It is profoundly true that the things of the Spirit are spiritually discerned (1Co 2:14), and that pride of literary culture, and the self-worship of intellectualism tend to spiritual blindness. It seems to come upon such a visitation from God, as in the case of Elymas (Mat 11:25, Mat 15:14, Luk 8:10, Eph 4:17, Eph 4:18, Isa 5:21). 3. Though free will is meant to be man's crowning glory, yet it may result in his shame and ruin.]  41 I receive not glory from men. [Jesus here shows that his rebuke of their disbelief does not spring from personal pique or disappointed ambition. He came seeking faith that he might save, not honor that he might be glorified, and honor paid to him is by him transferred to God (Phi 2:10, Phi 2:11), just as honor paid to the true Christian is transferred to Christ.]  42 But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in yourselves. [He speaks as the Searcher of hearts (Joh 1:47-50, Joh 2:24, Joh 2:25). Knowing them absolutely, he found them to be self-worshipers, devoid [207] of that love Godward which begets belief, and lacking in their natures that which would enable them to understand him and his spirit, no matter what evidence was submitted to them.]  43 I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. [Some think that this is spoken primarily of a pre-eminently great antichrist who is yet to come and deceive many of the Jews, and who, as Stier thinks, shall be such an incarnation of Satan as Jesus was of God (Rev 13:1-9). But they have already received many false christs with joy. According to Schudt, as quoted by Bengel, there have been sixty-four antichrists who have misled the Jews. Among them Bar Cocheba led 24,000 to ruin, including Akiba, the President of the Sanhedrim. False christs come in their own name -- for their own honor -- and make no war on bosom sins, but upon earthly enemies; but Jesus came not to manifest himself, but his Father.]  44 How can ye believe, who receive glory one of another, and the glory that cometh from the only God ye seek not? [The question was as to their believing Jesus to be the Messiah. Expecting one who would bring great honor to themselves by his triumphs over his foes, and seeing nothing of this kind to be expected from Jesus, they could not believe him to be the Messiah.]  45 Think not that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, on whom ye have set your hope. [Jesus here assumes that the Jews gave enough credence to his words to fear that he might hereafter appear as their accuser. But Jesus designs to appear rather as Advocate than as Prosecutor (1Jo 2:1). It was their fault that he was not their Advocate.]  46 For if ye believed Moses, ye would believe me; for he wrote of me.  47 But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? [In these verses Jesus explicitly endorses the Mosaic authorship and authenticity of the Pentateuch, and sets forth one purpose for which Moses wrote it. Jesus was the essential subject of the law and prophets (Luk 24:27, Luk 24:44-46, Rom 16:25, Rom 16:26). The emphasis is on "his writings" and "my words." They professed to reverence Moses and to receive his writings, while they openly despised Jesus and repudiated his words as fast as he spoke them. The phrase "wrote concerning me" is not to be restricted to Deu 18:15-18. Moses wrote symbolically of Jesus through his entire work, as Bengel tersely puts it, "Everywhere!" The Epistle to the Hebrews is a partial elaboration of the Christology of Moses. But there is doubtless a depth of meaning in the Pentateuch which has never yet been fully fathomed, for there is a fullness in Scripture greatly exceeding the popular conception. Moreover, the Old and New Testaments are so linked together that to reject one is eventually to reject the other, or to read it with veiled eyes -- 2Co 3:15.]

[FFG 192-209]

Lapide: Joh 5:1-36

1-47

CHAPTER 5

After these things, &c . Observe, John here omits many things which Christ did in Galilee, but which Matthew records from the 4th to the 12th chapter of his Gospel. For what Matthew relates in his 12th chapter concerning the disciples plucking the ears of corn took place after the following feast, as will appear presently.

A feast. SS. Chrysostom, Cyril, and others think that this was the Feast of Pentecost. With more probability, S. Irenæus ( lib. 2, c. 39), Ruperti, and others, think it was the Passover. They show this (1.) Because in chap. iv., ver. 35, Jesus said there were still four months unto harvest. That therefore must have been before the Passover: thus the Passover must have been the first great subsequent feast.

2. Because the Passover was the feast of feasts. When therefore it is said absolutely, there was a feast, the Passover, which was the feast par excellence, is to be understood.

3. Because Christ after His baptism preached for three years and a half, according to the common consent of divines. It follows from this that there ought to be notices in the Gospels of four Passovers, which is the case. The first is mentioned in Joh 2:13; the second in this place; the third in Joh 6:4; the fourth, just before His death, xix. 14. But if the feast mentioned in this 5th chapter were not the Passover, we could only gather the mention of three by S. John.

Here then comes to a close the account of the first year and three months of Christ's ministry, that is to say, from January 6, when He was baptized, until this second Passover, which was kept in Nisan, or March.

Ver. 2.— Now there is . . . sheep-market : Vulgate , Probatica. The pool took its name both because it was nigh the gate adjacent to the Temple, through which the flocks of sheep for the sacrifices were driven, and also because the sheep, which were offered to God every morning and evening in the Temple, were there gathered together and washed.

A pool : i.e. a place which contained fishes, or at least might have held them. The Greek is κολυμβήθζα, a place to swim in, because fishes, or even men, might swim in it. The Vulgate has piscina. This poo1 was constructed by Solomon for the service of the Temple; hence it is called by Josephus ( Bell. Jud 6: 6) Solomon's Pool. In it the Nethinims washed the victims which they handed over to the priests to be offered in the Temple.

Some Greek codices instead of pool read πύλη, a Porch, or gate, but S. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Cyril, Euthymius, S. Jerome, and others passim, read κολυμβήθζα, i.e., a pool. The Syriac has a baptistery, or font.

Bethsaida : so read the Vulgate, and among the Greeks SS. Chrysostom and Cyril. And appositely, for Bethsaida means in Hebrew a house, i.e., a place of hunting, or fishing. And this is the signification of the Greek κολυμβήθζα, a place for fish to swim in. The Greek MSS., however, read βηθεσδα : so also S. Jerome ( loc. Hebræis). Bethesda means in Hebrew a place of pouring forth, because the rain from the roofs of the houses, and streams of water from aqueducts, flowed into it. The Syriac has Bethchesda, or house of mercy, from the Hebrew çñã, chesed, mercy, because there God showed His mercy to the miserable sick whom He healed; or else because righteous men relieved with their alms the sick poor who lay there.

Having five porches, or porticoes: these porches or porticoes were places covered above, but open below, either for walking, or taking rest in, that sick persons might rest in them secure from rain, or the heat of the sun, and immediately step out of them into the pool when its angel moved the water.

Ver. 3.— In them . . . languishing people (Vulg.); Greek, α̉σθενόντων ; Eng. Ver. sick folk ; withered (Vulg.) aridorum, dry, i.e., whose arm, or hand, or foot, or some other limb, was lifeless.

An angel of the Lord ; either Raphael, or some other . Raphael, who presides over bodily healing, is so called from the Hebrew, which signifies the medicine, or physician of God. Whence he cured Tobit of his blindness.

According to a time (Vulg.), i.e., at a certain time determined by God, or the angel, but unknown to men. Wherefore what Tertullian and Cyril say does not seem to be correct, that it was only once in the year, namely, at Pentecost, that the angel went down into the pool. For if so, the sick folk would not have lain beside it (for so long a time), but would have waited at home until Pentecost was close at hand. As Euthymius says, "By speaking of a stated time, he showed that the miracle was not continually taking place, but at certain times, unknown indeed to men, though often, as I think, in the course of the year."

The water was moved (Vulg.); Greek, ε̉ταζάσσετο ύδω̃ζ, i.e. he disturbed or troubled the water. "The sound of moving signified that angels were present to sanctify the water," says S. Cyril. "The water was moved in order to show that the angel had descended," says S. Ambrose.

And he that first went down, &c. In order to show the value of labour and diligence, and that we ought to be swift and active to take God's benefits. Thus it was necessary for him who would gather the manna to rise at dawn, for when the sun was risen it melted, "that it might be made known unto all that it was needful to prevent the rising of the sun for Thy blessing, and to worship Thee at the dawning of the day" (Wis 6:28). For God gives His gifts to the watchful and earnest, not to the slow and sleepy. Thus in the race only he who excels the rest receives the prize (1Co 9:24).

You will ask why, after the troubling of the water, as it is in the Greek, only he who first stepped in after the troubling was healed? I answer, that the literal reason was to show that this power of healing did not proceed from any natural virtue of the water, but from the moving of the angel, and the command of God. This moving of the angel did not impress any physical power or quality upon the water to heal any disease, but it was a sign of the Divine power and working, which were about to heal that sick person who had previously, by his own diligence, stirred up himself, and had, gone down into the water that he might there receive the miraculous blessing of God. This moving, therefore, was an invitation to the sick to receive healing in the troubled water.

Appositely indeed did the angel make use of this sign of motion, because, whilst it was being moved, the virtue of the water became lively and efficacious. For life consists in motion, death in quietude and torpor.

Tropologically, the reason was to signify that the sinner, when he is converted and healed by God, is wont to be troubled and agitated in his conscience by various emotions of fear, shame, and hope. For by these God moves a man to repentance and contrition, that he may thereby be healed, as the Council of Trent teaches.

0f whatsoever disease. From hence it is plain that the healing virtue of this pool did not proceed from the victims which were washed in it, nor from wood lying at the bottom, of which the cross of Christ was afterwards made, as some have supposed, but was supernatural and miraculous. For God wished to bestow this benefit upon believing people about the time of Christ's coming (for there is no mention of it in the Old Testament), in order that Christ thus healing a sick man might show that He was God, who had given this property to the pool, and therefore that He without it could heal the sick. Wherefore it would seem that this gift was taken away from the ungrateful Jews when they killed Christ, for we find no subsequent mention of it. As Tertullian says ( cont. Jud., c. 13) , "The pool of Bethsaida, which, to the coming of Christ, healed the sicknesses of Israel, afterwards ceased from bestowing its benefits through their persevering fury."

Allegorically, God willed that this pool should be a token of His Passion and His Baptism. For as the angel descended into the water, so Christ went down to His Passion and torments; and in them, as in water, He was immersed and buried. And as the pool was red with the blood of the victims which were washed in it, so was Christ ruddy, and stained with His own blood (Isa 63:2), that by the merit of His blood He might cause baptism (wherefore the Syriac here translates baptistery ), in whose water believers are washed, to heal all spiritual infirmities. So Tertullian ( de Baptismo, c. 5), S. Ambrose ( de Spir. Sc., lib. 1, c. 7), and S. Chrysostom. The latter says, "For when God wished to instruct us in the belief of baptism now nigh at hand, He drove away not only pollutions, but diseases by means of water: for the nearer the images and figures were to the truth, they were more illustrious than the ancient figures." And S. Austin says, "To descend into the troubled water is humbly to believe in the Lord's Passion. There one was healed to signify unity. Whosoever came afterwards was not healed, because whoso is outside of unity cannot be healed."

Ver. 5 . — A man having an infirmity : Greek and Vulgate.  S. Chrysostom and others say that this sick man was a paralytic.

Tropologically, this infirm man represents one who has grown old in a course of sin: who lies without strength in habits of vice, and is without any power to do good. For as palsy dissolves the bonds which knit the limbs together, so does a habit of sin enervate and dissolve the strength of the soul, so that men cannot arise out of it, and resist it, unless they are raised and strengthened by the mighty grace of God. Hence it is plain that such a palsy as this was naturally incurable; and we see that for thirty-eight years it could not be healed by any skill. Christ therefore took upon Himself to heal this palsy rather than the diseases of the other sick who were there, in order to show forth both His Almighty power and His infinite mercy. This was why Christ determined to heal Paul, who was labouring even beyond the rest of the incredulous and impious Jews under the worst spiritual disease of unbelief, as he himself shows us in the beginning of his 1st Epistle to Timothy. As S. Austin says, "The great Physician descended from heaven because one who was sick unto death lay on the earth." On the symbolical meaning of the thirty-eight years see S. Augustine in loc., where he says, amongst other things, that it was the symbol of weakness, as forty is the symbol of healing and perfection. "If therefore," he says, "the number forty has the perfection of the Law, and the Law is not fulfilled except by the twofold precept of charity, what wonder that he was sick, who lacked two of the forty?" The twofold love, viz., of God and his neighbour, was lacking.

Ver. 6.— When Jesus saw, &c. Christ knew well that he had a desire to be healed, but He asked the question - 1. To afford the sick man an opportunity for conversation, and from thence of being healed. As S. Cyril says, "Herein was a great proof of the compassion of Christ, that He did not (always) wait for the entreaties of those who were sick, but prevented them by His mercy."

2. That He might sharpen the man's attention to the instantaneous character of the miracle, and so to the words and deeds of Christ. From all these He might know with certainty that he was healed, not by the pool, nor by medicine, but by Christ alone, who was superior to all the virtue of the pool, or of medicine, and so might believe in Him as a prophet, and the Messiah, and might in penitence ask and obtain of Him remission of his sins. Wherefore He healed him beside the healing pool, but without touching it, that He might show that it was He who had given its virtue to the pool, and that He therefore, without the aid of the pool, could heal him by His word alone.

Ver. 7 . — The sick man answered, &c. The sick man does not answer Christ's question directly. He takes for granted that every one knew that he desired to be healed. Therefore he makes mention of the way of obtaining healing by means of the pool. As though he had said, "I am prevented by palsy from going into the pool, for I have none to carry me. I am a poor man. If therefore Thou canst help me in this matter, do so." For he thought that when Christ asked the question, Dost thou wish to be healed? He meant, "Dost thou wish that I should carry thee into the pool, when the angel moves the water, that thou mayest in it be healed?" As yet he did not know the power of Jesus, for he had never seen Him.

The Syriac translates a little differently: Even so, Lord (I do wish to be healed), but I have not a man. Beautifully does S. Augustine say, "In very deed was that man (Jesus) necessary for his salvation, but it was that man who is also God."

Ver. 8.— Jesus saith unto him, &c. These words of Christ were practical and efficacious. In saying Arise, He caused him to arise, and healed him. As S. Augustine says, "It was not a command of work, but an operation of healing." And S. Cyril, "Such power and virtue were not of man; it is a property of God alone to command like this." Christ bade him take up his bed, that it might be evident to all that He had healed him, yea, that he had been made instantly stout and strong, so as to be able to carry his bed. Wherefore Euthymius in this passage observes that Christ was accustomed, after the miracles which He wrought, to add something by which their truth and greatness might be perceived. Thus in this instance He bade the paralytic take up his bed, which he could not have done unless he was healed; yea, stout and strong. So after the multiplication of the loaves, He ordered more fragments to be taken up than were originally in the bread. So He said to the leper whom He healed, "Go show thyself to the priest." So He ordered something to be given to eat to the girl whom He raised from the dead (Mark v. 43).

Tropologically, S. Gregory ( Hom. 12 in Ezech.) applies these words to sinners who have been justified by penance, who, by the just judgment of God, suffer temptations from their former sins. He says, "The sick man restored to health is bidden to carry the bed in which he had been carried. For it is necessary that every one who is healed should bear the contumely of the flesh, in which he had before lain in his sickness. What then is it to say, Take up thy bed, and go unto thine house, but, Bear the temptations of the flesh, in which thou hast hitherto lain?"

Thus S. Mary of Egypt for seventeen years after her conversion suffered dreadful temptations of the flesh, because she had previously lived for that number of years immodestly. Sins therefore are their own executioners, and their own righteous avengers. What before pleased afterwards torments: what willingly thou hast done, the same thou shalt hereafter unwillingly suffer.

Symbolically, S. Augustine says ( Tract. 17), " Arise ; that is, love God, who is above. Take up thy bed; i.e., love thy neighbour, bear his infirmities, according to the words, 'Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.' When thou wast weak thy neighbour carried thee: thou art made whole, carry now thy neighbour. Carry him with whom thou walkest, that thou mayest come to Him with whom thou desirest to abide."

Ver. 9.— And immediately (Syriac) in that moment . . . for on that day was the Sabbath. Christ designedly healed upon the Sabbath, both because the Sabbath was the highest festival of the Jews, which therefore it was right to sanctify above other days by good works, such as healing a sick man like this paralytic: and also because He hereby wished to show the Jews that He was the Lord of the Sabbath. For in bidding him take up his bed, which was a thing forbidden by the old Law, He showed that He was Messiah and God. Moreover, because the Sabbath was a day dedicated to rest and the praise of God, Christ gave rest from his pains to this sick man, and so afforded a notable occasion for praising God on this day.

Ver. 10.— The Jews therefore, &c. As Nonnus paraphrases, "Clamorously they uttered an accusing charge, 'It is the Sabbath, which every one ought to keep wholly in rest: it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed.'" Speaking generally, they say the truth; for among the Jews it was a matter of the highest obligation to keep the Sabbath. All work was then forbidden, as appears from Exo 20:8. And especially the carrying of burdens on that day is forbidden by Jeremiah (Jer 17:21, &c.). Christ, however, here says the contrary to the sick man whom He cured, because He, being Lord of the Sabbath, could dispense with its obligation. Moreover, what was forbidden by the Law upon the Sabbath was servile work, not a pious and Divine work like this. Christ bade the man who was healed take up his bed that the crowds of people who were flocking into the Temple on the Sabbath might become acquainted with the miracle, and acknowledge Jesus, its author, to be the Messiah, giving Him thanks.

Ver. 11 . — He answered them, &c. Understand, This was indeed a Divine man, and by Divine power has healed me. Therefore He is a friend of God, and would not bid me do anything except what is pleasing to God. As S. Augustine says, "Should I not receive a command from Him from whom I have received healing?" Just indeed was this defence of the sick man, which the Jews ought to have understood and accepted, but being blinded by pride they could not receive it, and so sinned by persecuting Christ and fell into hell.

Ver. 12.— Therefore they asked him, &c. Being indignant, they say with threats, "Who is that bold and insolent man, who dare bid thee, contrary to the Law, carry thy bed upon the Sabbath day? Verily, that man is not of God who does not keep the Sabbath which God has ordained." Thus they spoke through a blind prejudice derived from this Law, which they did not understand. Whereas, on the contrary, they ought to have understood that He who had miraculously healed the sick man, could not have done it except by the singular authority and help of God, and therefore that He had equally received from God the right to say on the Sabbath, Take up thy bed and walk.

Ver. 13.— But he who was healed, &c. The man knew not the name of Jesus, nor whither He had gone, nor indeed who He was, for he had never seen Him before.

Departed. Euthymius gives the reason. "As soon as He had healed the man, He withdrew because of the crowd, partly to avoid the praise of the just, and partly to take away occasion for the envy of the unjust." S. Chrysostom gives another reason: That the man's testimony in the absence of Jesus might be less liable to suspicion. For if he who was healed had praised Christ to the Jews before His face, he might have seemed to have done it out of favour. But now that he praised Him in His absence, it is evident that he did so from the love of the truth.

Ver. 14.— Afterwards Jesus, &c. The Arabic is, Now thou art healed, return not to sin, less a worse evil be done thee.

In the Temple. From this it appears that this man who was healed by Christ, as soon as he had carried his bed to his house, went to the Temple to give God thanks for His great benefit of healing. As Chrysostom says, "Assuredly a great mark of piety and reverence. He did not go to the marketplace, or the porch; he did not indulge in pleasure, or ease; he was occupied in the Temple."

Sin no more. From hence it is plain that God often sends diseases upon sick persons on account of their sins; and that this man had been afflicted because of his sins. Thus this paralytic, who had been sick for thirty-eight years, from a time before Christ was born, had committed some crime, which God wished him to suffer for, and expiate, by this protracted disease. Christ therefore tacitly admonishes the man's conscience that he should be mindful of his sin, and be contrite, and avoid it for the time to come. At the same time He intimates that He, being a Prophet, knew this by Divine revelation. Wherefore when sickness is sent by God upon any one, let him examine his conscience, and blot out by repentance and confession the sin for which God has sent the sickness, and let him pray to God to pardon his sin, and take away the disease.

I said, often sends, for God sometimes sends diseases upon holy men that he may prove, increase, and crown their patience, as He did in the case of Job, whose whole dispute with his friends turned upon this point; his friends urging that his sins had given occasion to his being so grievously afflicted, whilst he, on the contrary, contended that he was free from sins, and had not deserved those afflictions. And God in the last chapter adjudges the dispute in his favour, and condemns his friends. The same thing will appear in the case of the man who was born blind (chap. ix.), of whom Christ spake thus, "Neither did this man sin, nor his parents, that he was born blind."

Moreover, as Christ healed this sick man's body at the pool, so did He both by His inward inspiration, and by his external admonition, heal his soul in the Temple. He brought back to his memory the sins of his youth, by reason of which he had deserved so long a sickness, and he moved his heart to contrition for them, and to ask pardon from God, that so he might be justified. Indeed, Christ healed his body for this very reason that He might heal his soul.

Lest a worse thing, &c. "For," as Theophylact says, "he who is not made better by a former punishment is kept for greater torments, as being insensate, and a despiser." "And this happens," says Euthymius, "either in this life, or in the life to come, or in both." "A relapse is worse than the original disease." So a relapse into a fault is worse than the fault on account of the greater ingratitude, boldness, impudence.

Ver. 15.— The man went away, and told, &c. Not out of malevolence, but from gratitude, that he might not hide the author of so great a kindness. So Augustine, Chrysostom, and others. "He went away and told," says Euthymius, "not as being wicked, that he might betray, but as being grateful to disclose who was his benefactor. Because he thought he should be guilty of a crime if he kept silence, therefore he proclaimed the benefit."

Ver. 16.— Wherefore the Jews persecuted Jesus, &c. Some Greek MS., also the Syriac and Arabic Versions, add, And sought to kill Him. Wherefore, i.e., on this pretext, for the true cause was envy. For the Jews, especially the scribes and Pharisees, were envious at this glory of Jesus, and grieved that the people should prefer Him to themselves. They were indignant that their wickedness was reproved by Him, and condemned by His holiness. For they wished to be paid court to as Rabbis, and doctors of the Law, and oracles of wisdom and sanctity.

Ver. 17.— But Jesus answered, &c. " The Father worketh," says S. Augustine ( lib. 4. de Gen., cap. 12) , "both affording suitable government to things created and having in Himself eternal tranquillity:" for, as he says elsewhere, "being still He worketh, and working He is at rest." And after an interval, "The power and virtue of the Creator is the cause of existence of every creature. And if this virtue were ever to cease from governing created things, their forms ( species) would cease at the same time, and all nature would come to an end." Like as the light in the air vanishes if the sun withdraw his rays, by which light is produced. The meaning is, "You, 0 ye scribes, object against Me the law of Sabbatical rest, which God commanded you because He Himself rested on the Sabbath from all His work. But I answer that God on the Sabbath only rested from producing new species of things. But He did not rest in such a manner that He is not every Sabbath continually working, that is to say, governing and preserving the world, and all the things that are in it, moving the heavens, bringing forth one thing out of another, feeding and healing all living things, &c. This, which is work of the highest beneficence, is not servile work, but pious and Divine. Such work is indeed lawful; yea, it adorns and hallows the Sabbath. So too I, who am the co-equal Son of the Father, always work, and always have wrought the same things with Him. For neither do I work without the Father, nor the Father without Me." So S. Augustine and others.

Observe the Hebraism: and I work, that is, so, or in like manner, I work. For the word and, when it is the mark of conjunction, since it joins like things, is a sign of comparison and similitude, and means the same thing as thus, as is constantly the case in the Book of Proverbs.

Ver. 18.— Wherefore, &c. His Father, Greek, πατέζα ίδιον,. i.e., His own Father, because Christ alone is the peculiar, and by nature, Son of God.

Making Himself equal with God, because He had said that not merely like things, but that the self same things which the Father works, were wrought by Him, and therefore that He in all things co-operated, not as a servant, but as a Son, of the same substance with the Father. As Cyril says, "Seeing that He was a man, and not knowing that God dwelt in Him, they could not bear that He should call God His Father in a special manner." The chief priests and scribes therefore wished to kill Jesus, because they feared lest, as His glory increased, their authority should decrease; indeed lest Jesus, persuading the people that He was God, should be preferred by the people to the priests, and should deprive them of their authority, and should bring in His own new priests and pontiffs, which we see He actually did do.

Ver. 19.— Verily, Verily, &c . . . cannot : "not from defect of power," says Euthymius, "but on account of inseparability. For it is impossible that the Son should do anything which the Father does not." So S. Chrysostom and S. Augustine. Except, or unless. This word is not here exceptive, signifying the same as but only. It has the same meaning in Mat 12:4.

What He seeth : Greek, βλέπη, i.e., may see. For it is not before He worketh, but as soon as He seeth the Father working, that He, Christ, worketh with Him. For Christ as God does not produce what is similar, but what is identical with the work of the Father. For the action of the Father, which both see and work together, is the same. I say action, but not the Hypostatic Union, nor the things which depend upon it, for this union has not to do with action, but with the terminus in quo. Wherefore, although the whole Blessed Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, by their Divine action, have brought about this Hypostatic Union, yet the union itself is terminated in the Son, and does not extend to the Father and the Holy Ghost. Wherefore the Son only, not the Father and the Holy Ghost, became incarnate, and died, &c.

Observe, Christ in this place only means to say that He has received from God the Father His Divine Essence, power, and working, as from His Author. He makes use of the word see, as if the Son did nothing except what He seeth the Father do, or what He sees to be the work of His Father. For children and pupils are wont to imitate the ways and deeds of their fathers and teachers. Christ is speaking after the manner of men, or as amongst men it becomes a son to speak of his father.

It may be added that Christ in a proper and theological sense uses the word see, because He proceeds from the Father as the Word, which is the term of the vision and the notional cognition of God the Father. For the Father, as seeing and understanding Himself and all things, produces and begets the Word, and by this communicates to Him His own vision and action. Therefore the Son neither seeth, nor doeth anything except what He seeth the Father see, or do. For He Himself is the Word and the Idea, in whom, as a Term, the Father expresses and imprints all His own vision and cognition, both speculative and practical. The meaning then is this, "Whatever I work, the Father worketh the same, and by altogether the same vision, cognition, will, power, and action. Wherefore if ye accuse Me because I have healed one paralysed on the Sabbath day, ye accuse God the Father also. For He hath wrought this with Me, because He in Me and by Me worketh all things. Indeed, I have received all My work from the Father. Wherefore, if ye believe that God the Father works all things rightly, wisely, and holily, ye ought to believe the same of Me, and therefore that this healing on the Sabbath was a work prudent, holy, and Divine."

Doth likewise : altogether in the same manner, with the same liberty, the same power, the same authority. So S. Gregory Nazianzen ( Orat. 2 , de Filio ). S. Cyril says, "They do likewise, or work in like manner, who are altogether of the same nature: but as to things which have a diverse essence there cannot be in them the same mode of working. As therefore He (the Son) is God of true God, He is able to do likewise the same things as the Father."

Ver. 20.— For the Father, &c. Showeth, not as a master to a disciple, says Euthymius, but as a father to a son, as God to God. Showeth therefore means gives, communicates, especially because, as I have said, the Son by demonstration, i.e., by understanding and vision, proceedeth as the Word from the Father. To show in the sense of give, exhibit, attribute, is used in 1Sa 14:12; Exo 33:19; Psa 4:6, &c. That this is the meaning here is plain from what follows. Moreover, the Father showeth, i.e., communicates all things to the Son in that He is God, not by free love, but by nature, out of the fecundity of the Divine Essence, of which the greatest sign among men is love. For he who among men communicates all things to his son, by so doing gives an eminent token that he loves him in the highest degree. Moreover, the Father communicates all things to the Son in that He is Man, of which communication love is not the sign, but the cause. "For the Father to show to the Son," says Bede, "is by the Son to do what He doeth."

Admirably does S. Athanasius say ( Disp. cont. Arium. lib. 1), "The Almighty Father hath given to the Son omnipotence, majesty to majesty, to virtue He has given virtue, to the prudent one He has given prudence, foreknowledge to the foreknowing, eternity to eternity, Divinity to Divinity, equality to equality, immortality to immortality, invisibility to invisibility, to a king a kingdom, life to life; and He hath given not something other than that which He hath; and as much as He hath, so much hath He given."

You will ask why to manifest and to show here and elsewhere are put for to give and to communicate. I reply (1.) because God by showing Himself and His works to the Son, communicates to Him His own knowledge, and consequently His essence. For God's knowledge is the same thing as His essence. (2.) By showing, He illuminates the Son, i.e., He communicates His own light of wisdom, and of all good, and Himself, wholly to Him. For God is the uncreate and infinite Light, as S. John shows (1 Epist. i. 5). Lastly, by showing, i.e., by understanding, He produces the Word, i.e., the Son. For in God the most noble thing is understanding, and the most noble action is to understand, to illuminate, to show. For the noblest and chief power of the soul is intellect and reason. These command the will, and guide it as it were blindfold; and by it they rule and move all the other senses and powers of the soul. Hence comes the axiom of the wise, "Mind effects all things:" it is the part of reason to govern. Just as strong as any one is in intellect, so far is he able to command. For the intellect in conceiving and understanding, by means of conception and intelligence, in a lively manner incorporates all those things into itself, and as it were possesses them. For it conceives all things in itself in a certain lively manner, and forms an appearance of them in itself, which presents to it all the goodness and beauty of things. Wherefore the understanding is the eye of the mind. As in the body the eye is the noblest and most efficacious sense, which incorporates into itself the forms of all things, far more does the understanding do this in the mind. Wherefore the blessed in heaven, by means of the understanding, in understanding and seeing God, incorporate Him into themselves, possess Him, and are blessed by Him. This then is the reason of this mode of speech by which to show is taken for to give, to communicate, to bring one into possession of the thing shown. This is what Aristotle says, "The intellect by understanding becomes all things," because by a lively conception of things it assimilates itself to them, and them to itself. Thus it seizes and holds them, and makes them to exist in a nobler and better manner in itself than they are in themselves. For in themselves they are often dead and inanimate, but in the intellect they are living and animated. They live in the highest and most excellent vital act.

And will show greater things : by showing will give and communicate. These greater things are more illustrious mysteries and miracles, especially the raising of the dead, and the authority to judge all men; of both which Christ proceeds to speak.

That ye may marvel. He does not say that ye may believe. For the scribes and the Jews, when they saw so many miracles of Christ, wondered at His power, but yet were blinded by envy and hatred, and would not believe in Him as the Messiah. Still Christ did those things with the intention that they should believe in Him. The heretics act in just the same way even now. They admire the wisdom, holiness, and miracles of the orthodox saints, but will not follow their faith, nor imitate their manner of living. Such is heresy, and the blindness, obstinacy, and malignity of error.

Ver. 21.— For as the Father &c. Behold here is the first greater work which Christ said the Father would show, that is, communicate, to the Son. As S. Cyril says, "Marvel not that one who was utterly weakened by long disease was strengthened by a word, and took up his bed, and went away, for I am about altogether to destroy death, and to judge the whole world."

So also the Son, &c. He tacitly signifies that He is God, equal to the Father in power and liberty to raise and quicken whom He will.

Whom He will. It is not that the Father wills to quicken some, and the Son wills to quicken others, but the same, because His will is conformable, yea, the same as the will of the Father. So Augustine.

Quickeneth, i.e., raiseth from the dead, both in this life, as He raised Lazarus, and in the day of judgment, when He will raise all mankind.

Ver. 22.— For neither doth the Father judge, &c. The Arabic omits for, but the Greek has it, and appositely. For this is the second reason by which Christ proves that He is God, and the second greater work which He said the Father would show Him. As Cyril says, "He brings forward another Divine and excellent argument, by which He shows that He is by nature truly God. For to whom else does it belong to judge the world but to God only?"

To His Son. One God with Himself, but by His Incarnation made man. As S. Austin says ( lib. 1, de. Trin., c. 13) , "No one shall see the Father at the judgment of the quick and the dead, but all shall see the Son, because He is the Son of Man, that He may be seen by the wicked also, when 'they shall look on Him whom they pierced.'"

You will say, Christ has been created judge as man, according to the words (Act 10:42), "Who has been constituted by God the judge of quick and dead," therefore Christ cannot prove from His being judge that He is God. I answer, that this correctly proves it, because the power of judgment is a thing peculiar to God: it is a matter of the highest and most ample right. Wherefore neither would God communicate it, nor could it be fittingly communicated to a mere man, but to Christ alone, who is both God and man. For He as God has the supreme authority to judge, but as man, He is able to exercise this judgment visibly before men, to acquit, or to condemn. For a judge ought to be seen and heard by those who are accused.

Ver. 23.— That all, &c. For the Jews who would not then honour the Son of God, or acknowledge Him to be such, when they shall see His Divine power and majesty in the day of judgment, will be compelled to acknowledge, honour, and adore Him as God.

Like as they honour the Father : the words like as signify equality, not similitude.

He who honoureth not the Son, &c. Because by denying the Son he denies also the Father; for father and son are correlative terms: and he who has not a son cannot be a father. With regard to God, he who denies that the Son is the Son of God, denies that God the Father is truly and properly the Father, and has begotten. Tacitly he asserts that He could not beget a consubstantial and co-equal son. Moreover he denies the Father, because the Father sent the Son into the world, that by Him He might be honoured, in such a manner that He should be acknowledged to be the Father properly so called, and to have begotten a Son of the same substance with Himself, and to be adored with the same latria as Himself. He therefore who denies that the Son is God, denies that the Father begat God, which is the highest blasphemy of the Father. For he deprives the Father of that offspring which is His equal and worthy of Himself, and instead of a Divine and uncreated offspring assigns to Him one that is created and mean. Wherefore he denies Him to be a proper and Divine Father.

Ver. 24.— Verily, verily, &c. See what has been said on Joh 3:3. Heareth, so as to believe and obey My word. Thus He subjoins, and believeth in Him that sent Me, and by consequence believeth in Me as His Son, sent by the Father into the world to save it. He saith not, and believeth in Me, but speaks with greater amplitude. For in saying, and believeth in Him that sent Me, He implies the mystery of the Trinity, and the Incarnation, which two things are the chief articles of the Faith, and chiefly necessary to salvation. For He who sent the Son is God the Father; the Father and the Son together necessarily breathe the Holy Ghost. Lo, you have the whole Trinity.

Hath, i.e., by right, deservedly, and in hope. See on iii. 16.

Hath passed, i.e., certainly will pass (the perfect is used instead of the future because of the certainty of the thing, meaning, he will as certainly and infallibly pass as if He had already passed), from death, the temporal death of the body, unto life, eternal and blessed, in heaven. For although the reprobate who will be damned will also be raised again to life, that they may burn in hell, yet that life in hell is rather a continual death, than life. For, as St. Austin saith, ( de Civ., lib. 6, c. 12), "There is no more complete and worse death, than where death dieth not." For in hell there will be living death, and deathly life, that is, always dying, but never dead. Again He speaks yet more plainly. He who believeth and obeyeth God the Father, and the Son who is sent by Him, hath passed from the death of the soul, dead through sin, to the spiritual life of grace, that he may after the death of the body pass to the life of glory.

Ver. 25.— Verily, verify, &c. "Lest thou shouldst think that this is to come to pass after a very long time, He subjoins, and now is. For if He were only announcing things future, there might not unreasonably be doubt, but He saith that these things shall come to pass whilst He is still conversant upon earth." So Chrysostom. For, as Theophylact says, "He is speaking here of those three whom He was about to raise, the widow's son, the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, and especially of Lazarus. For this last He was about to raise in Judea. And Christ is here speaking in Judea to Jews. This then is the signification of now is. Christ then rises from the spiritual resurrection of souls from sin to the life of grace, to the resurrection of those bodies which He was about to raise whilst He lived on earth. From this He rises to the full resurrection glory of the bodies which He will raise in the day of judgment. For from His power to raise souls from the death of sin to the life of grace, as from a thing greater and more difficult, Christ proves that He has power to raise the body, a thing less difficult. So Toletus, Jansen, and others. But S. Cyril and others think that the reference in this place is to the general resurrection, and they take the expression, and now is, to refer to the last judgment. For S. John (1st Epist. ii. 18) calls the whole time of the New Law the last hour, i.e., the last time, because this is the last stage of the world, and therefore all things which are done in it seem to be, as it were, present, and to be done in this present hour.

Some add that Christ is here speaking of the saints whom He raised when He Himself arose from the dead (S. Matt. xxvii. 52). The fullest meaning of the passage is to understand it of all whom Christ has raised, and will raise from the dead.

And they that hear, i.e., who shall feel the force of the voice of Christ, or who shall obey Him, as bearing the voice of the Son of God, who calls the things which are not as though they were.

Ver. 26.— For as the Father, &c. To have life in Himself signifies three things. 1. To have life from Himself and from His own Essence, and from no other source. For the Essence of God is life, and His life is His Essence. God therefore essentially, and by His Essence, is essential, uncreated, and infinite life. 2. That God has life in Himself, is that He is the fountain of all life, of angels, men, and animals. As Euthymius says, To have life in Himself means that after the manner of a living fountain He is the Author of life, according to the words, "With Thee is the well of life" (Psa 36:10). 3. Which follows from the two previous meanings, to have life in Himself means to have life in His own power, to be the Lord of life to all things living, so that He according to His own good pleasure gives them life, preserves it, and takes it away. This makes plain the unity of Essence, i.e., of Deity, in the Father and the Son. For if the Son had a different Essence from the Father, then He would have life in another, that is to say, in the Father, who gave Him life. But now He hath life in Himself, i.e., in His own Divine Essence, which He hath altogether in common with the Father. So S. Chrysostom. "Behold," he says, "how they differ not in any respect whatsoever, save that the one is the Father, and the other the Son."

So hath He given also, &c In that He is the Son of God, and that according to the three ways just spoken of. As S. Augustine says, that His life might not have need of life, that He should not be understood to have life by way of participation: for if He had life by way of participation, He might, by losing the participation, become without life. Such doctrine concerning the Son accept not, think not, believe not. The Father therefore continues as life, the Son also continues as life. The Father is life in Himself, not from the Son: the Son is life in Himself, but from the Father.

Ver. 27.— And hath given, &c. Because Christ as God hath life in Himself, from hence, in that He is man, He hath power to judge all men. The word because must here be taken specifically, and means inasmuch as. But it may be taken even more expressively in a reduplicative and causative sense, as giving the express reason why God gave Christ judicial authority. That reason is because Christ is the Son of Man, i.e., because He deigned to become Incarnate. As though it were said, "God hath willed to judge men by Christ a man, that judgment might take place in a congruous manner, that is, after a sensible and human manner, that as He Himself saved the world by the man Christ, so He would also judge it by the same, by that man, I say, who is God, who took human life, and laid it down for man's salvation."

Wherefore it is that He by this great emptying of Himself, by which He willed to become man, merited this exaltation of judicial power, that He who was the Saviour of all should be the judge of all. So Maldonatus and others. S. Augustine gives also a twofold reason. The first is, "that those who are to be judged might see their judge. For those who shall be judged will be both good and bad. It was right that in the judgment the form of a servant should be shown both to the good and the bad, but the form of God should be reserved for the good only." The second reason is, "because the judge shall have that form in which He stood before His judge. That form which was judged shall judge: unrighteously was it judged, but righteously shall it judge."

Ver. 28.— Marvel not, &c. . . . the hour, i.e., the time of the Evangelical Law, which is the last, and in the end of which shall be the resurrection of the dead, and the final judgment.

In their graves : those who are dead and buried, including also the unburied dead. For as S. Augustine says, "By those who are buried in ordinary course, He signified also those who do not receive ordinary burial."

The voice of the Son of God : this shall be the sound of the archangel's, probably Michael's trumpet, Arise, ye dead, come to judgment. This shall be accompanied by the sound of the trumpets and voices of other angels. The sound is spoken of as the voice of God, because by His command, through the ministry of angels, an effect shall be produced on the air which shall resound throughout the whole world, and be effectual as at least a moral instrument to raise the dead. For it is not necessary to attribute to this trumpet any physical power of raising the dead.

Ver. 29.— They that have done good, &c. ... shall proceed, Greek ε̉κποζεύσονταί, i.e., shall go forth, out of their tombs and their graves, towards the Valley of Jehoshaphat, where the universal judgment shall take place.

Christ here sets before the unbelieving Jews His authority to judge, that through fear of it He may make them fear, may make them contrite, and convert them. He did the same at the end of His life, when, being adjured by Caiaphas, the High Priest, to say if He was the Son of God, He answered that He was, and added (Matt. xxvi. 64), "Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven."

There is nothing more terrible, and at the same time more effectual for rousing the minds of men to repentance and leading a holy life than a lively representation of the last judgment. So Christ, when He ascended into heaven, commanded His apostles by the angels to preach his return to judgment (Act 1:11).  S. Paul pressed the same thing upon the Areopagites (Act 17:31). For in that judgment shall the destiny of each be finally decided for everlasting happiness or everlasting woe. "In all thy works," therefore, "remember thy last end, and thou wilt never sin" (Ecclus. 7:40). In very deed that fateful day will be the last of this world, and the horizon of eternity, which shall separate the just from the unjust and set them far apart, heaping upon the just utmost felicity, and weighing down the unjust with calamity, and that for ever and ever. Think constantly of this wonderful difference, be zealous for holiness, live for eternity.

Ver.30.— I cannot, &c. Christ shows that His judgment, by which, as man, He will judge all men, will be a last judgment, for his reason that He cannot either judge or will any other thing than that which the Father judges and wills. For He, in that He is God, has the very same judgment, the very self-same Divine mind and will that the Father has. But in that He is man, He is wholly governed by the Divinity and the indwelling Word, so that He can neither judge nor will anything but that which the Godhead judges and wills. So S. Augustine.

As I hear, so I judge : always, and especially in the judgment day. I hear, i.e., I know, I understand. As S. Chrysostom says, "By hearing nothing else is meant than that nothing else is possible but the Father's judgment. I so judge as if the Father Himself were judge."

Because I seek not Mine own will, i.e., Mine own alone, or diverse from the Father's will, for I have no such will, but the will of Him that sent Me : for My Divine will is identical with the Father's, and My human will is wholly conformable to the Divine will. As S. Augustine says, "not that He has no will of His own in judging, but because His will is not so His own as to be diverse from the Father's will." He gives the reason à priori why His future judgment should be just, because, indeed, His will is altogether subject and conformed to the Divine will, because it subsists in the Divine Person of the Word, and is ruled by it. For the will bends and rules the intellect and its judgment in whatever direction it pleases.

Ver. 31 . — If I bear witness of Myself, that I am the Son of God, and therefore as man altogether conformed to the judgment and will of God, My witness is not true, that is, legitimate, judicial, worthy of credit. The word true here is not opposed to false, but to untrustworthy, uncertain. It answers to the Hebrew word neeman, faithful, worthy of credit. For it may be that a man may utter most true testimony concerning himself, and yet may fail to gain credit because of a suspicion that he has too great love of himself, as Euthymius says.

There is a prolepsis by which Christ meets a tacit objection of the scribes, to the following effect. "Thou, 0 Jesus, proclaimest Thyself to be the Son of God, and so in all things to follow the judgment of God. But we will not believe Thee unless Thou shalt prove what Thou sayest by the testimony of God, or of men worthy of credit. This testimony of Thine in a matter which peculiarly concerns Thyself appears to us open to suspicion." Jesus replies, "I grant you that My testimony concerning Myself is not legitimate, nor worthy of credit, if I alone bear witness of Myself. I grant therefore that you need not believe Me alone; but I am not alone, but others worthy of credit bear witness of Me, as will appear by what follows." Christ is here speaking of the common opinion of the Jews, not uttering His own sentiments, as appears from chap. viii. 13, where the Jews openly object to Christ, Thou bearest testimony of Thyself, Thy testimony is not true. Then Christ answers, My testimony is true, &c ., because I am not alone, but I, and the Father who sent Me. So S. Cyril

Ver. 32.— There is another who beareth, &c. Another, viz., God the Father, who at My baptism spoke in thunder from heaven, This is My beloved Son. So S. Cyril, Bede. Again, another, i.e., John the Baptist, testifies to Me. So S. Chrysostom and others. Another then here means, there are others who testify that I am the Son of God, namely, God the Father, John the Baptist, Moses and the Prophets, also My Divine works and miracles. For all of these Christ proceeds to adduce as witnesses to prove that He is Messiah, and the Son of God.

And I know that it is true. So far as I Myself am concerned, I do not need these witnesses, for by Divine knowledge I know that what they testify is true, that I am the Son of God. But I bring forward their testimony for your sakes, that ye may believe what is attested by so many witnesses.

Ver. 33.— Ye sent unto John, &c. Ye sent messengers to him as a man in your estimation holy, and worthy of all credit, to ask him if he were the Messias. John answered that not he, but I, am the Messias. This testimony he gave not out of friendship, or favour to Me, but to the truth. For that he would testify to nothing but the truth, ye yourselves thought, when ye were willing to receive him as the Messiah. Therefore ye cannot reject his testimony, says Euthymius.

Ver. 34.— But I receive not, &c. I do not require the witness of John, for I am God, and the Son of God, to whom John, Moses, and the Prophets ought to yield, and be taught by, and receive authority from.

But this I say that ye may be saved : meaning, as S. Chrysostom says, "I do not need the testimony of man, for I am God. But since John, whom ye admire as a prophet, is of so great authority with you, when ye do not believe Me working miracles, I bring back to your remembrance his testimony, that I may draw you and save you."

Ver. 35.— He was a burning and shining lamp. Greek, ό λύχνος, the illustrious and famous lamb. John was not the light itself, shining of itself (for this was what Christ Himself was), but he was the lamp or lantern which, receiving light from Christ, burnt in himself with the knowledge and love of God, and afforded light to others by the example of his sanctity, and the fervour of his preaching. For God sent John after a long silence for ages of all the prophets, as it were a heavenly prophet, to be a lamp to illuminate the dark ignorance of the Jews, and to show them the true Light, Christ the Lord, and to bear a torch before Him. So S. Cyril and others. For the Only Begotten One is Light by nature, who, out of Light, that is, the Substance of the Father, hath shone forth. John indeed was a lamp, because he shone with light derived from Him. He shone through oil, i.e., with the grace of the Holy Spirit, which coming into our souls as it were lamps, nourishes and keeps them. Wherefore the type of John was the lamp of oil burning before God in the Temple in the Holy of Holies. For so did John shine before Christ. Therefore was John the Baptist always a burning and shining lamp in the tabernacle of witness, as Cyril says.

Moraliter,  S. Bernard ( Serm. de S. Joan Bapt.) teaches that holy men and preachers ought first to burn with charity and zeal in themselves before they shine in preaching to others. " John was a burning and shining lamp. It does not say, shining and burning, because the brightness of John sprang from his fervour, not his fervour from his splendour. For there are some who do not shine because they burn, but rather burn in order that they may shine. But these plainly do not burn with the spirit of charity, but with the love of vanity. Listen to Alcuin on this passage: "John was a lamp, enlightened by light from Christ, burning with faith and love, shining in word and action, who was sent before to confound the enemies of Christ, according to the words, 'I have prepared a lamp for My Christ, I will clothe His enemies with confusion'" (Vulg.)

Such a one was S. Athanasius. Hence S. Gregory Nazianzen ( Orat. 21), speaking in his praise, calls him "the eye of the world, the prelate of priests, the leader and master of confessors, a sublime voice, a firm pillar of the faith, next to John the Baptist, a second burning and shining lamp." He adds, "Athanasius was as an adamant to the persecutors" (by his invincible patience), "a magnet to disputers, to attract them to himself, and to make them be at harmony one with another." And again, "Let virgins praise him as their betrothed, wives as their director, anchorites as him who wakes them up, monks as their lawgiver, the simple as their guide, those given to speculation as their theologian, the joyous as their moderator, the unfortunate as their consoler, the aged as their staff, youths as their instructor, the poor as a dispenser, the rich as their almoner, the sick as their physician, the whole as the guardian of their health, and, in short, all as he who is made all things to all that he may gain all, or as many as possible." Such a one was S. Basil, of whom the same Nazianzen says, "The voice of Basil was as thunder, because his life was as lightning." Because he lightened in his life, therefore did he thunder with his voice.

But ye wished to rejoice for an hour (Vulg.), i.e., for a short time, in his light. When John began to preach with so much sanctity of life and zeal, ye rejoiced because so great a prophet had been sent by God, who, ye trusted, would be your Messiah. But when John began to rebuke your wickedness, and to indicate that I, the poor and lowly One, was the Messiah, ye despised John. Ye would not believe his testimony, because if ye had believed it, ye would have received Me as the Messiah.

Ver. 36.— But I have greater witness, &c.: i.e., than John's witness; greater in the sense of surer, more efficacious, that I am Messiah, the Son of God. This greater testimony is My works, My miracles which the Father hath given Me, that by them I may show that He Hath sent Me. "For one might find fault with John's testimony, as if it were given out of favour," says Euthymius; "but the works being free from all suspicion stop the mouths of the contentious," says S. Chrysostom. "For the works might convince even the insane."

The works (the miracles) which I do, &c., such as the recent healing of the paralytic. I speak of My supernatural works, which could not be effected by any natural cause, but are peculiar to God alone. Wherefore they are as it were the seal of God, by which He bears testimony to Me, and seals and confirms My doctrine. So S. Chrysostom and others.

From this it follows that the Jews both could and ought to have known of a certainty that Jesus was the Messiah, or the Christ, and the Son of God, by the miracles which He wrought. 1. Because He did them with this end and object, that by them He might prove that He was Christ and God. 2. Because Jesus did all the miracles which the prophets had foretold would be done by Christ. 3. Because although certain of the prophets and holy men had done some miracles, they had done neither so many nor so gre

Introduction / Outline

Robertson: John (Book Introduction)

THE Fourth Gospel

By Way of Introduction

Greatest of Books

The test of time has given the palm to the Fourth Gospel over all the books of the world. If Luke’s Gospel is the most beautiful, John’s Gospel is supreme in its height and depth and reach of thought. The picture of Christ here given is the one that has captured the mind and heart of mankind. It is not possible for a believer in Jesus Christ as the Son of God to be indifferent to modern critical views concerning the authorship and historical value of this Holy of Holies of the New Testament. Here we find The Heart of Christ (E. H. Sears), especially in chapters John 14-17. If Jesus did not do or say these things, it is small consolation to be told that the book at least has symbolic and artistic value for the believer. The language of the Fourth Gospel has the clarity of a spring, but we are not able to sound the bottom of the depths. Lucidity and profundity challenge and charm us as we linger over it.

The Beloved Disciple

The book claims to be written by " the disciple whom Jesus loved" (Joh_21:20) who is pointedly identified by a group of believers (apparently in Ephesus) as the writer: " This is the disciple which beareth witness of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his witness is true" (Joh_21:24). This is the first criticism of the Fourth Gospel of which we have any record, made at the time when the book was first sent forth, made in a postscript to the epilogue or appendix. Possibly the book closed first with Joh_20:31, but chapter 21 is in precisely the same style and was probably added before publication by the author. The natural and obvious meaning of the language in Joh_21:24 is that the Beloved Disciple wrote the whole book. He is apparently still alive when this testimony to his authorship is given. There are scholars who interpret it to mean that the Beloved Disciple is responsible for the facts in the book and not the actual writer, but that is a manifest straining of the language. There is in this verse no provision made for a redactor as distinct from the witness as is plausibly set forth by Dr. A. E. Garvie in The Beloved Disciple (1922).

A Personal Witness

It is manifest all through the book that the writer is the witness who is making the contribution of his personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ during his earthly ministry. In Joh_1:14 he plainly says that " the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory" ( etheasametha tēn doxan autou ). He here associates others with him in this witness to the glory of the Word, but in Joh_21:25 he employs the singular " I suppose" ( oimai ) in sharp distinction from the plural " we know" ( oidamen ) just before. The writer is present in nearly all the scenes described. The word witness ( marturě , marturia ) so common in this Gospel (Joh_1:7, Joh_1:8, Joh_1:19; Joh_3:11, Joh_3:26, Joh_3:33; Joh_5:31; Joh_12:17; Joh_21:24, etc.) illustrates well this point of view. In the Gospel of Luke we have the work of one who was not a personal witness of Christ (Luk_1:1-4). In the Gospel of Matthew we possess either the whole work of a personal follower and apostle or at least the Logia of Matthew according to Papias preserved in it. In Mark’s Gospel we have as the basis the preaching of Simon Peter as preserved by his interpreter John Mark. John’s Gospel claims to be the personal witness of " the disciple whom Jesus loved" and as such deserves and has received exceptional esteem. One may note all through the book evidences of an eyewitness in the vivid details.

With a Home in Jerusalem

It is not only that the writer was a Jew who knew accurately places and events in Palestine, once denied though now universally admitted. The Beloved Disciple took the mother of Jesus " to his own home" ( eis ta idia , Joh_19:27) from the Cross when Jesus commended his mother to his care. But this Beloved Disciple had access to the palace of the high priest (Joh_18:15.). Delff ( Das vierte Evangelium wiederhergestellt , 1890) argues that this fact shows that the Beloved Disciple was not one of the twelve apostles, one of a priestly family of wealth in Jerusalem. He does seem to have had special information concerning what took place in the Sanhedrin (Joh_7:45-52; Joh_11:47-53; Joh_12:10.). But at once we are confronted with the difficulty of supposing one outside of the circle of the twelve on even more intimate terms with Jesus than the twelve themselves and who was even present at the last passover meal and reclined on the bosom of Jesus (Joh_13:23). Nor is this all, for he was one of the seven disciples by the Sea of Galilee (Joh_21:1.) when Peter speaks to Jesus about the " Beloved Disciple" (Joh_21:20).

Only One John of Ephesus

It is true that an ambiguous statement of Papias (circa a.d. 120) is contained in Eusebius where the phrase " the Elder John " ( ho presbuteros Iōannēs ) occurs. The most natural way to understand Papias is that he is referring to the Apostle John by this phrase as he describes the teachings of the apostles by " the words of the elders" just before. This interpretation of the allusion of Papias has been rendered almost certain by the work of Dom John Chapman, John the Presbyter and the Fourth Gospel (1911). Not before Eusebius is the error found of two Johns in Ephesus, one the apostle, the other the so-called Presbyter. " Papias is no witness for the admission of two Johns of Asia Minor. Irenaeus, too, in any case, knows of but one John of Asia Minor. And this John was an eye-witness of our Lord’s Life" (Bousset, Die Offenbarumg des Joh. , p. 38, translation of Nolloth, The Fourth Evangelist , p. 63, note). Let this be admitted and much becomes clear.

No Early Martyrdom for the Apostle John

In 1862 a fragment of the Chronicle of Georgius Hamartolus, a Byzantine monk of the ninth century, was published. It is the Codex Coislinianus , Paris, 305, which differs from the other manuscripts of this author in saying that John according to Papias was slain by the Jews ( hupo Ioudaiōn anēirethē ) while the other manuscripts say that John rested in peace ( en eirēnēi anepausato ). The passage also quotes Eusebius to the effect that John received Asia as his sphere of work and lived and died in Ephesus. This same George the Sinner misquotes Origen about the death of John for Origen really says that the Roman king condemned him to the Isle of Patmos, not to death. Another fragment of Philip of Side, apparently used by Georgius, makes the same erroneous reference to Papias. It is therefore a worthless legend growing out of the martyrdom promised James and John by Jesus (Mar_10:39; Mat_20:23) and realized by James first of all (Act_12:1.). John drank the cup in the exile to Patmos. The correction to Peter in Joh_21:20-23 would have no meaning if the Apostle John had already been put to death.

The Author the Apostle John

Loisy ( Le Quatr. Evangile , p. 132) says that if one takes literally what is given in the body of the Gospel of the Beloved Disciple he is bound to be one of the twelve. Loisy does not take it " literally." But why not? Are we to assume that the author of this greatest of books is playing a part or using a deliberate artifice to deceive? It may be asked why John does not use his own name instead of a nom de plume . Reference can be made to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, no one of which gives the author’s name. One can see a reason for the turn here given since the book consists so largely of personal experiences of the author with Christ. He thus avoids the too frequent use of the personal pronoun and preserves the element of witness which marks the whole book. One by one the other twelve apostles disappear if we test their claims for the authorship. In the list of seven in chapter John 21 it is easy to drop the names of Simon Peter, Thomas, and Nathanael. There are left two unnamed disciples and the sons of Zebedee (here alone mentioned, not even named, in the book). John in this Gospel always means the Baptist. Why does the author so uniformly slight the sons of Zebedee if not one of them himself? In the Acts Luke does not mention his own name nor that of Titus his brother, though so many other friends of Paul are named. If the Beloved Disciple is John the Apostle, the silence about James and himself is easily understood. James is ruled out because of his early death (Act_12:1). The evidence in the Gospel points directly to the Apostle John as the author.

Early and Clear Witness to the Apostle John

Ignatius ( ad Philad . vii. 1) about a.d. 110 says of the Spirit that " he knows whence he comes and whither he is going," a clear allusion to Joh_3:8. Polycarp ( ad Phil . S 7) quotes 1Jo_4:2, 1Jo_4:3. Eusebius states that Papias quoted First John. Irenaeus is quoted by Eusebius (H.E. V, 20) as saying that he used as a boy to hear Polycarp tell " of his intercourse with John and the others who had seen the Lord." Irenaeus accepted all our Four Gospels. Tatian made his Diatessaron out of the Four Gospels alone. Theophilus of Antioch ( ad Autol . ii. 22) calls John the author of the Fourth Gospel. This was about a.d. 180. The Muratorian Canon near the close of the second century names John as the author of the Fourth Gospel. Till after the time of Origen no opposition to the Johannine authorship appears outside of Marcion and the Alogi. No other New Testament book has stronger external evidence.

The Use of the Synoptic Gospels

As the latest of the Gospels and by the oldest living apostle, it is only natural that there should be an infrequent use of the Synoptic Gospels. Outside of the events of Passion Week and the Resurrection period the Fourth Gospel touches the Synoptic narrative in only one incident, that of the Feeding of the Five Thousand and the walking on the water. The author supplements the Synoptic record in various ways. He mentions two passovers not given by the other Gospels (Joh_2:23; Joh_6:4) and another (Joh_5:1) may be implied. Otherwise we could not know certainly that the ministry of Jesus was more than a year in length. He adds greatly to our knowledge of the first year of our Lord’s public ministry (" the year of obscurity," Stalker) without which we should know little of this beginning (John 1:19-4:45). The Synoptics give mainly the Galilean and Perean and Judean ministry, but John adds a considerable Jerusalem ministry which is really demanded by allusions in the Synoptics. The Prologue (John 1:1-18) relates the Incarnation to God’s eternal purpose as in Col_1:14-20 and Heb_1:1-3 and employs the language of the intellectuals of the time ( Logos - Word) to interpret Christ as the Incarnate Son of God.

A Different Style of Teaching

So different is it in fact that some men bluntly assert that Jesus could not have spoken in the same fashion as presented in the Synoptics and in the Fourth Gospel. Such critics need to recall the Socrates of Xenophon’s Memorabilia and of Plato’s Dialogues . There is a difference beyond a doubt, but there is also some difference in the reports in the Synoptics. Jesus for the most part spoke in Aramaic, sometimes in Greek, as to the great crowds from around Palestine (the Sermon on the Mount, for instance). There is the Logia of Jesus (Q of criticism) preserved in the non-Markan portions of Matthew and Luke besides Mark, and the rest of Matthew and Luke. Certain natural individualities are preserved. The difference is greater in the Fourth Gospel, because John writes in the ripeness of age and in the richness of his long experience. He gives his reminiscences mellowed by long reflection and yet with rare dramatic power. The simplicity of the language leads many to think that they understand this Gospel when they fail to see the graphic pictures as in chapters John 7-11. The book fairly throbs with life. There is, no doubt, a Johannine style here, but curiously enough there exists in the Logia (Q) a genuine Johannine passage written long before the Fourth Gospel (Mat_11:25-30; Luk_10:21-24). The use of " the Father" and " the Son" is thoroughly Johannine. It is clear that Jesus used the Johannine type of teaching also. Perhaps critics do not make enough allowance for the versatility and variety in Jesus.

The Same Style in the Discourses

It is further objected that there is no difference in style between the discourses of Jesus in John’s Gospel and his own narrative style. There is an element of truth in this criticism. There are passages where it is not easy to tell where discourse ends and narrative begins. See, for instance, Joh_3:16-21. Does the discourse of Jesus end with Joh_3:15, Joh_3:16, or Joh_3:21? So in Joh_12:44-50. Does John give here a resumé of Christ’s teaching or a separate discourse? It is true also that John preserves in a vivid way the conversational style of Christ as in chapters 4, 6, 7, 8, 9. In the Synoptic Gospels this element is not so striking, but we do not have to say that John has done as Shakespeare did with his characters. Each Gospel to a certain extent has the colouring of the author in reporting the words of Jesus. An element of this is inevitable unless men are mere automata, phonographs, or radios. But each Gospel preserves an accurate and vivid picture of Christ. We need all four pictures including that of John’s Gospel for the whole view of Christ.

Historical Value of the Fourth Gospel

It is just here that the chief attack is made on the Fourth Gospel even by some who admit the Johannine authorship. It is now assumed by some that the Fourth Gospel is not on a par with the Synoptics in historical reliability and some harmonies omit it entirely or place it separately at the close, though certainly Tatian used it with the Synoptics in his Diatessaron , the first harmony of the Gospels. Some even follow Schmiedel in seeing only a symbolic or parabolic character in the miracles in the Fourth Gospel, particularly in the narrative of the raising of Lazarus in chapter John 11 which occurs here alone. But John makes this miracle play quite an important part in the culmination of events at the end. Clearly the author professes to be giving actual data largely out of his own experience and knowledge. It is objected by some that the Fourth Gospel gives an unnatural picture of Christ with Messianic claims at the very start. But the Synoptics give that same claim at the baptism and temptation, not to mention Luke’s account of the Boy Jesus in the temple. The picture of the Jews as hostile to Jesus is said to be overdrawn in the Fourth Gospel. The answer to that appears in the Sermon on the Mount, the Sabbath miracles, the efforts of the Pharisees and lawyers to catch Jesus in his talk, the final denunciation in Matt 23, all in the Synoptics. The opposition to Jesus grew steadily as he revealed himself more clearly. Some of the difficulties raised are gratuitous as in the early cleansing of the temple as if it could not have happened twice, confounding the draught of fishes in chapter John 21 with that in Luke 5, making Mary of Bethany at the feast of a Simon in chapter John 12 the same as the sinful woman at the feast of another Simon in Luke 7, making John’s Gospel locate the last passover meal a day ahead instead of at the regular time as the Synoptics have it. Rightly interpreted these difficulties disappear. In simple truth, if one takes the Fourth Gospel at its face value, the personal recollections of the aged John phrased in his own way to supplement the narratives in the Synoptics, there is little left to give serious trouble. The Jerusalem ministry with the feasts is a case in point. The narrative of the call of the first disciples in chapter John 1 is another. The author followed Simon in bringing also his own brother James to Jesus. John was present in the appearance of Christ before Annas, and Pilate. He was at the Cross when no other apostles were there. He took the mother of Jesus to his home and then returned to the Cross. He saw the piercing of the side of Jesus. He knew and saw the deed of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. E. H. Askwith has a most helpful discussion of this whole problem in The Historical Value of the Fourth Gospel (1910).

Like the Johannine Epistles

Critics of all classes agree that, whoever was the author of the Fourth Gospel, the same man wrote the First Epistle of John. There is the same inimitable style, the same vocabulary, the same theological outlook. Undoubtedly the same author wrote also Second and Third John, for, brief as they are, they exhibit the same characteristics. In Second and Third John the author describes himself as " the Elder" ( ho presbuteros ), which fact has led some to argue for the mythical " Presbyter John" as the author in place of the Apostle John and so of First John and the Fourth Gospel. It is argued that the Apostle John would have termed himself " the Apostle John" after the fashion of Paul. But the example of the Apostle Peter disposes of that argument, for in addressing the elders (1Pe_5:1) he calls himself " your fellow-elder" ( ho sunpresbuteros ). In the Epistles John opposes Gnosticism both of the Docetic type which denied the actual humanity of Jesus as in 1Jo_1:1-4 and the Cerinthian type which denied the identity of the man Jesus and the aeon Christ which came on Jesus at his baptism and left him at his death on the Cross as in 1Jo_2:22. One of the many stories told about John is his abhorrence of Cerinthus when found in the same public bath with him. As Westcott shows, the Epistles of John prove his actual humanity while assuming his deity, whereas the Fourth Gospel proves his deity while assuming his humanity.

But Different from the Apocalypse

It should be said at once that the Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel does not depend on that of the Apocalypse. In fact, some men hold to the Johannine authorship of the Apocalypse who deny that of the Gospel while some hold directly the opposite view. Some deny the Johannine authorship of both Gospel and Apocalypse, while the majority hold to the Johannine authorship of Gospel, Epistles, and Apocalypse as was the general rule till after the time of Origen. The author of the Apocalypse claims to be John (Rev_1:4, Rev_1:9; Rev_22:8), though what John he does not say. Denial of the existence of a " Presbyter John" naturally leads one to think of the Apostle John. Origen says that John, the brother of James, was banished to the Isle of Patmos where he saw the Apocalypse. There is undoubted radical difference in language between the Apocalypse and the other Johannine books which will receive discussion when the Apocalypse is reached. Westcott explained these differences as due to the early date of the Apocalypse in the reign of Vespasian before John had become master of the Greek language. Even J. H. Moulton ( Prolegomena , p. 9, note 4) says bluntly: " If its date was 95 a.d., the author cannot have written the fourth Gospel only a short time after." Or before, he would say. But the date of the Apocalypse seems definitely to belong to the reign of Domitian. So one ventures to call attention to the statement in Act_4:13 where Peter and John are described as agrammatoi kai idiōtai (unlettered and private or unschooled men). It is curious also that it is precisely in 2Peter and the Apocalypse that we have so many grammatical solecisms and peculiarities. We know that the Fourth Gospel was reviewed by a group of John’s friends in Ephesus, while he was apparently alone in the Isle of Patmos. The excitement of the visions would naturally increase the uncouth vernacular of the Apocalypse so much like that in the Greek papyri as seen in Milligan’s Greek Papyri , for instance. This being true, one is able, in spite of Moulton’s dictum, to hold to the Johannine authorship of both Gospel and Apocalypse and not far apart in date.

The Unity of the Gospel

This has been attacked in various ways in spite of the identity of style throughout. There are clearly three parts in the Gospel: the Prologue, John 1:1-18, the Body of the Book, John 1:19-20:31, the Epilogue, John 21. But there is no evidence that the Prologue was added by another hand, even though the use of Logos (Word) for Christ does not occur thereafter. This high conception of Christ dominates the whole book. Some argue that the Epilogue was added by some one else than John, but here again there is no proof and no real reason for the supposition. It is possible, as already stated, that John stopped at Joh_20:31 and then added John 21 before sending the book forth after his friends added Joh_21:24 as their endorsement of the volume. Some scholars claim that they detect various displacements in the arrangement of the material, but such subjective criticism is never convincing. There are undoubtedly long gaps in the narrative as between chapters 5 and 6, but John is not giving a continuous narrative, but only a supplementary account assuming knowledge of the Synoptics. It is held that editorial comments by redactors can be detected here and there. Perhaps, and perhaps not. The unity of this great book stands even if that be true.

Original Language of the Book

The late Dr. C. F. Burney of Oxford wrote a volume called, The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel (1922) in which he tried to prove that the Fourth Gospel is really the first in time and was originally written in Aramaic. The theory excited some interest, but did not convince either Aramaic or Greek scholars to an appreciable extent. Some of the examples cited are plausible and some quite fanciful. This theory cannot be appealed to in any serious interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. The author was beyond doubt a Jew, but he wrote in the Koiné Greek of his time that is comparatively free from crude Semiticisms, perhaps due in part to the help of the friends in Ephesus.

The Purpose of the Book

He tells us himself in Joh_20:30. He has made a selection of the many signs wrought by Jesus for an obvious purpose: " But these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in his name." This is the high and noble purpose plainly stated by the author. The book is thus confessedly apologetic and this fact ruins it with the critics who demand a dull and dry chronicle of events without plan or purpose in a book of history. Such a book would not be read and would be of little value if written. Each of the Synoptics is written with a purpose and every history or biography worth reading is written with a purpose. It is one thing to have a purpose in writing, but quite another to suppress or distort facts in order to create the impression that one wishes. This John did not do. He has given us his deliberate, mature, tested view of Jesus Christ as shown to him while alive and as proven since his resurrection. He writes to win others to like faith in Christ.

John’s Portrait of Christ

No one questions that the Fourth Gospel asserts the deity of Christ. It is in the Prologue at the very start: " And the Word was God" (Joh_1:1) and in the correct text of Joh_1:18, " God only begotten" ( theos monogenēs ). It occurs repeatedly in the book as in the witness of the Baptist: " This is the Son of God" (Joh_1:34). It is in the charge of the Pharisees (Joh_5:18) and the claim of Christ himself (Joh_5:20-23; Joh_6:48; Joh_8:12, Joh_8:58; Joh_11:25; Joh_14:9; Joh_17:5) with the full and frank conviction of the author in Joh_20:31. He has made good his purpose. He has proven that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God. With some critics this purpose has vitiated the entire book. The effort has been made to show that Paul, Peter, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Synoptics give a lower view of Christ without the term theos applied to him. In particular it was once argued that Q, the Logia of Jesus, used by Matthew and Luke (the non-Markan portions in both Matthew and Luke), gives a reduced picture of Jesus as on a lower plane than God, the Arian or Ritschlian view at any rate as answering for God to us though not God in actual nature. But in the Logia of Jesus we find the same essential picture of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Son of Man as I have shown in my The Christ of the Logia (1924). The only way to get rid of the deity of Christ in the New Testament is to throw overboard all the books in it as legendary or reflections of late theological development away from the original picture. The very earliest picture drawn of Christ that has been preserved to us, that in the Logia of Jesus (drawn W. M. Ramsay believes before Christ’s crucifixion), is in essential agreement with the fully drawn portrait in the Fourth Gospel. Each picture in the Four Gospels adds touches of its own, but the features are the same, those of the God-Man Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world. The brilliant blind preacher of Edinburgh, George Matheson, sees this clearly ( Studies in the Portrait of the Messiah , 1900; St. John’s Portrait of Christ , 1910).

JFB: John (Book Introduction)

THE author of the Fourth Gospel was the younger of the two sons of Zebedee, a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, who resided at Bethsaida, where were born Peter and Andrew his brother, and Philip also. His mother's name was Salome, who, though not without her imperfections (Mat 20:20-28), was one of those dear and honored women who accompanied the Lord on one of His preaching circuits through Galilee, ministering to His bodily wants; who followed Him to the cross, and bought sweet spices to anoint Him after His burial, but, on bringing them to the grave, on the morning of the First Day of the week, found their loving services gloriously superseded by His resurrection ere they arrived. His father, Zebedee, appears to have been in good circumstances, owning a vessel of his own and having hired servants (Mar 1:20). Our Evangelist, whose occupation was that of a fisherman with his father, was beyond doubt a disciple of the Baptist, and one of the two who had the first interview with Jesus. He was called while engaged at his secular occupation (Mat 4:21-22), and again on a memorable occasion (Luk 5:1-11), and finally chosen as one of the Twelve Apostles (Mat 10:2). He was the youngest of the Twelve--the "Benjamin," as DA COSTA calls him--and he and James his brother were named in the native tongue by Him who knew the heart, "Boanerges," which the Evangelist Mark (Mar 3:17) explains to mean "Sons of thunder"; no doubt from their natural vehemence of character. They and Peter constituted that select triumvirate of whom see on Luk 9:28. But the highest honor bestowed on this disciple was his being admitted to the bosom place with his Lord at the table, as "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (Joh 13:23; Joh 20:2; Joh 21:7, Joh 20:24), and to have committed to him by the dying Redeemer the care of His mother (Joh 19:26-27). There can be no reasonable doubt that this distinction was due to a sympathy with His own spirit and mind on the part of John which the all-penetrating Eye of their common Master beheld in none of the rest; and although this was probably never seen either in his life or in his ministry by his fellow apostles, it is brought out wonderfully in his writings, which, in Christ-like spirituality, heavenliness, and love, surpass, we may freely say, all the other inspired writings.

After the effusion of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, we find him in constant but silent company with Peter, the great spokesman and actor in the infant Church until the accession of Paul. While his love to the Lord Jesus drew him spontaneously to the side of His eminent servant, and his chastened vehemence made him ready to stand courageously by him, and suffer with him, in all that his testimony to Jesus might cost him, his modest humility, as the youngest of all the apostles, made him an admiring listener and faithful supporter of his brother apostle rather than a speaker or separate actor. Ecclesiastical history is uniform in testifying that John went to Asia Minor; but it is next to certain that this could not have been till after the death both of Peter and Paul; that he resided at Ephesus, whence, as from a center, he superintended the churches of that region, paying them occasional visits; and that he long survived the other apostles. Whether the mother of Jesus died before this, or went with John to Ephesus, where she died and was buried, is not agreed. One or two anecdotes of his later days have been handed down by tradition, one at least bearing marks of reasonable probability. But it is not necessary to give them here. In the reign of Domitian (A.D. 81-96) he was banished to "the isle that is called Patmos" (a small rocky and then almost uninhabited island in the Ægean Sea), "for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Rev 1:9). IRENÆUS and EUSEBIUS say that this took place about the end of Domitian's reign. That he was thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, and miraculously delivered, is one of those legends which, though reported by TERTULLIAN and JEROME, is entitled to no credit. His return from exile took place during the brief but tolerant reign of Nerva; he died at Ephesus in the reign of Trajan [EUSEBIUS, Ecclesiastical History, 3.23], at an age above ninety, according to some; according to others, one hundred; and even one hundred twenty, according to others still. The intermediate number is generally regarded as probably the nearest to the truth.

As to the date of this Gospel, the arguments for its having been composed before the destruction of Jerusalem (though relied on by some superior critics) are of the slenderest nature; such as the expression in Joh 5:2, "there is at Jerusalem, by the sheep-gate, a pool," &c.; there being no allusion to Peter's martyrdom as having occurred according to the prediction in Joh 21:18 --a thing too well known to require mention. That it was composed long after the destruction of Jerusalem, and after the decease of all the other apostles, is next to certain, though the precise time cannot be determined. Probably it was before his banishment, however; and if we date it between the years 90 and 94, we shall probably be close to the truth.

As to the readers for whom it was more immediately designed, that they were Gentiles we might naturally presume from the lateness of the date; but the multitude of explanations of things familiar to every Jew puts this beyond all question.

No doubt was ever thrown upon the genuineness and authenticity of this Gospel till about the close of the eighteenth century; nor were these embodied in any formal attack upon it till BRETSCHNEIDER, in 1820, issued his famous treatise [Probabilia], the conclusions of which he afterwards was candid enough to admit had been satisfactorily disproved. To advert to these would be as painful as unnecessary; consisting as they mostly do of assertions regarding the Discourses of our Lord recorded in this Gospel which are revolting to every spiritual mind. The Tubingen school did their best, on their peculiar mode of reasoning, to galvanize into fresh life this theory of the post-Joannean date of the Fourth Gospel; and some Unitarian critics still cling to it. But to use the striking language of VAN OOSTERZEE regarding similar speculations on the Third Gospel, "Behold, the feet of them that shall carry it out dead are already at the door" (Act 5:9). Is there one mind of the least elevation of spiritual discernment that does not see in this Gospel marks of historical truth and a surpassing glory such as none of the other Gospels possess, brightly as they too attest their own verity; and who will not be ready to say that if not historically true, and true just as it stands, it never could have been by mortal man composed or conceived?

Of the peculiarities of this Gospel, we note here only two. The one is its reflective character. While the others are purely narrative, the Fourth Evangelist, "pauses, as it were, at every turn," as DA COSTA says [Four Witnesses, p. 234], "at one time to give a reason, at another to fix the attention, to deduce consequences, or make applications, or to give utterance to the language of praise." See Joh 2:20-21, Joh 2:23-25; Joh 4:1-2; Joh 7:37-39; Joh 11:12-13, Joh 11:49-52; Joh 21:18-19, Joh 21:22-23. The other peculiarity of this Gospel is its supplementary character. By this, in the present instance, we mean something more than the studiousness with which he omits many most important particulars in our Lord's history, for no conceivable reason but that they were already familiar as household words to all his readers, through the three preceding Gospels, and his substituting in place of these an immense quantity of the richest matter not found in the other Gospels. We refer here more particularly to the nature of the additions which distinguish this Gospel; particularly the notices of the different Passovers which occurred during our Lord's public ministry, and the record of His teaching at Jerusalem, without which it is not too much to say that we could have had but a most imperfect conception either of the duration of His ministry or of the plan of it. But another feature of these additions is quite as noticeable and not less important. "We find," to use again the words of DA COSTA [Four Witnesses, pp. 238, 239], slightly abridged, "only six of our Lord's miracles recorded in this Gospel, but these are all of the most remarkable kind, and surpass the rest in depth, specialty of application, and fulness of meaning. Of these six we find only one in the other three Gospels--the multiplication of the loaves. That miracle chiefly, it would seem, on account of the important instructions of which it furnished the occasion (John 6:1-71), is here recorded anew. The five other tokens of divine power are distinguished from among the many recorded in the three other Gospels by their furnishing a still higher display of power and command over the ordinary laws and course of nature. Thus we find recorded here the first of all the miracles that Jesus wrought--the changing of water into wine (Joh 2:1-11), the cure of the nobleman's son at a distance (Joh 4:43-54); of the numerous cures of the lame and the paralytic by the word of Jesus, only one--of the man impotent for thirty and eight years (Joh 5:1-9); of the many cures of the blind, one only--of the man born blind (Joh 9:1-12); the restoration of Lazarus, not from a deathbed, like Jairus' daughter, nor from a bier, like the widow of Nain's son, but from the grave, and after lying there four days, and there sinking into corruption (John 11:1-44); and lastly, after His resurrection, the miraculous draught of fishes on the Sea of Tiberias (Joh 21:5-11). But these are all recorded chiefly to give occasion for the record of those astonishing discourses and conversations, alike with friends and with foes, with His disciples and with the multitude which they drew forth."

Other illustrations of the peculiarities of this Gospel will occur, and other points connected with it be adverted to, in the course of the Commentary.

JFB: John (Outline)

• THE WORD MADE FLESH. (Joh 1:1-14)
• A SAYING OF THE BAPTIST CONFIRMATORY OF THIS. (Joh 1:15)
• SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. (Joh 1:16-18)
• THE BAPTIST'S TESTIMONY TO CHRIST. (John 1:19-36)
• FIRST GATHERING OF DISCIPLES--JOHN ANDREW, SIMON, PHILIP, NATHANAEL. (Joh 1:37-51)
• FIRST MIRACLE, WATER MADE WINE--BRIEF VISIT TO CAPERNAUM. (Joh 2:1-12)
• CHRIST'S FIRST PASSOVER--FIRST CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE. (Joh 2:13-25)
• NIGHT INTERVIEW OF NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. (John 3:1-21)
• JESUS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF THE BAPTIST--HIS NOBLE TESTIMONY TO HIS MASTER. (John 3:22-36)
• CHRIST AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA--THE SAMARITANS OF SYCHAR. (John 4:1-42)
• SECOND GALILEAN MIRACLE--HEALING OF THE COURTIER'S SON. (Joh 4:43-54)
• THE IMPOTENT MAN HEALED--DISCOURSE OCCASIONED BY THE PERSECUTION ARISING THEREUPON. (John 5:1-47)
• FIVE THOUSAND MIRACULOUSLY FED. (Joh 6:1-13)
• JESUS WALKS ON THE SEA. (Joh 6:14-21)
• JESUS FOLLOWED BY THE MULTITUDES TO CAPERNAUM, DISCOURSES TO THEM IN THE SYNAGOGUE OF THE BREAD OF LIFE--EFFECT OF THIS ON TWO CLASSES OF THE DISCIPLES. (John 6:22-71) These verses are a little involved, from the Evangelist's desire to mention every circumstance, however minute, that might call up the scene as vividly to the reader as it stood before his own view.
• CHRIST AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. (John 7:1-53)
• THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY. (Joh 8:1-11)
• FURTHER DISCOURSES OF JESUS--ATTEMPT TO STONE HIM. (John 8:12-59)
• THE OPENING OF THE EYES OF ONE BORN BLIND, AND WHAT FOLLOWED ON IT. (John 9:1-41)
• THE GOOD SHEPHERD. (John 10:1-21)
• DISCOURSE AT THE FEAST OF DEDICATION--FROM THE FURY OF HIS ENEMIES JESUS ESCAPES BEYOND JORDAN, WHERE MANY BELIEVE ON HIM. (John 10:22-42)
• LAZARUS RAISED FROM THE DEAD--THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS. (John 11:1-46)
• THE ANOINTING AT BETHANY. (Joh 12:1-11)
• CHRIST'S TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM. (Joh 12:12-19)
• SOME GREEKS DESIRE TO SEE JESUS--THE DISCOURSE AND SCENE THEREUPON. (John 12:20-36)
• AT THE LAST SUPPER JESUS WASHES THE DISCIPLES' FEET--THE DISCOURSE ARISING THEREUPON. (John 13:1-20)
• THE TRAITOR INDICATED--HE LEAVES THE SUPPER ROOM. (Joh 13:21-30)
• DISCOURSE AFTER THE TRAITOR'S DEPARTURE--PETER'S SELF-CONFIDENCE--HIS FALL PREDICTED. (Joh 13:31-38)
• DISCOURSE AT THE TABLE, AFTER SUPPER. (John 14:1-31)
• DISCOURSE AT THE SUPPER TABLE CONTINUED. (John 15:1-27) The spiritual oneness of Christ and His people, and His relation to them as the Source of all their spiritual life and fruitfulness, are here beautifully set forth by a figure familiar to Jewish ears (Isa 5:1, &c.).
• DISCOURSE AT THE SUPPER TABLE CONCLUDED. (John 16:1-33)
• THE INTERCESSORY PRAYER. (John 17:1-26)
• BETRAYAL AND APPREHENSION OF JESUS. (Joh 18:1-13)
• JESUS BEFORE PILATE. (Joh 18:28-40)
• JESUS BEFORE PILATE--SCOURGED--TREATED WITH OTHER SEVERITIES AND INSULTS--DELIVERED UP, AND LED AWAY TO BE CRUCIFIED. (John 19:1-16)
• CRUCIFIXION AND DEATH OF THE LORD JESUS. (Joh 19:17-30)
• BURIAL OF CHRIST. (Joh 19:31-42)
• MARY'S VISIT TO THE SEPULCHRE, AND RETURN TO IT WITH PETER AND JOHN--HER RISEN LORD APPEARS TO HER. (John 20:1-18)
• JESUS APPEARS TO THE ASSEMBLED DISCIPLES. (Joh 20:19-23)
• JESUS AGAIN APPEARS TO THE ASSEMBLED DISCIPLES. (Joh 20:24-29)
• FIRST CLOSE OF THIS GOSPEL. (Joh 20:30-31)
• SUPPLEMENTARY PARTICULARS. (John 21:1-23)
• FINAL CLOSE OF THIS GOSPEL. (Joh 21:24-25)
• JESUS BEFORE ANNAS AND CAIAPHAS--FALL OF PETER. (Joh 18:13-27)

TSK: John (Book Introduction)

John, who, according to the unanimous testimony of the ancient fathers and ecclesiastical writers, was the author of this Gospel, was the son of Zebedee, a fisherman of Bethsaida, by Salome his wife (compare Mat 10:2, with Mat 27:55, Mat 27:56 and Mar 15:40), and brother of James the elder, whom " Herod killed with the sword," (Act 12:2). Theophylact says that Salome was the daughter of Joseph, the husband of Mary, by a former wife; and that consequently she was our Lord’s sister, and John was his nephew. He followed the occupation of his father till his call to the apostleship (Mat 4:21, Mat 4:22, Mar 1:19, Mar 1:20, Luk 5:1-10), which is supposed to have been when he was about twenty five years of age; after which he was a constant eye-witness of our Lord’s labours, journeyings, discourses, miracles, passion, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. After the ascension of our Lord he returned with the other apostles to Jerusalem, and with the rest partook of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, by which he was eminently qualified for the office of an Evangelist and Apostle. After the death of Mary, the mother of Christ, which is supposed to have taken place about fifteen years after the crucifixion, and probably after the council held in Jerusalem about ad 49 or 50 (Acts 15), at which he was present, he is said by ecclesiastical writers to have proceeded to Asia Minor, where he formed and presided over seven churches in as many cities, but chiefly resided at Ephesus. Thence he was banished by the emperor Domitian, in the fifteenth year of his reign, ad 95, to the isle of Patmos in the Agean sea, where he wrote the Apocalypse (Rev 1:9). On the accession of Nerva the following year, he was recalled from exile and returned to Ephesus, where he wrote his Gospel and Epistles, and died in the hundredth year of his age, about ad 100, and in the third year of the emperor Trajan. It is generally believed that St. John was the youngest of the twelve apostles, and that he survived all the rest. Jerome, in his comment on Gal VI., says that he continued preaching when so enfeebled with age as to be obliged to be carried into the assembly; and that, not being able to deliver any long discourse, his custom was to say in every meeting, My dear children, love one another. The general current of ancient writers declares that the apostle wrote his Gospel at an advanced period of life, with which the internal evidence perfectly agrees; and we may safely refer it, with Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Mill, Lev. Clerc, and others, to the year 97. The design of St. John in writing his Gospel is said by some to have been to supply those important events which the other Evangelists had omitted, and to refute the notions of the Cerinthians and Nicolaitans, or according to others, to refute the heresy of the Gnostics and Sabians. But, though many parts of his Gospel may be successfully quoted against the strange doctrines held by those sects, yet the apostle had evidently a more general end in view than the confutation of their heresies. His own words sufficiently inform us of his motive and design in writing this Gospel: " These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life through his name" (Joh 20:31). Learned men are not wholly agreed concerning the language in which this Gospel was originally written. Salmasius, Grotius, and other writers, have imagined that St. John wrote it in his own native tongue, the Aramean or Syriac, and that it was afterwards translated into Greek. This opinion is not supported by any strong arguments, and is contradicted by the unanimous voice of antiquity, which affirms that he wrote it in Greek, which is the general and most probable opinion. The style of this Gospel indicates a great want of those advantages which result from a learned education; but this defect is amply compensated by the unexampled simplicity with which he expresses the sublimest truths. One thing very remarkable is an attempt to impress important truths more strongly on the minds of his readers, by employing in the expression of them both an affirmative proposition and a negative. It is manifestly not without design that he commonly passes over those passages of our Lord’s history and teaching which had been treated at large by other Evangelists, or if he touches them at all, he touches them but slightly, whilst he records many miracles which had been overlooked by the rest, and expatiates on the sublime doctrines of the pre-existence, the divinity, and the incarnation of the Word, the great ends of His mission, and the blessings of His purchase.

TSK: John 5 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Joh 5:1, Jesus on the sabbath day cures him that was diseased eight and thirty years; Joh 5:10, The Jews therefore cavil, and persecute him for it; Joh 5:17, He answers for himself, and reproves them, shewing by the testimony of his Father, Joh 5:31. of John, Joh 5:36. of his works, Joh 5:39. and of the scriptures, who he is.

Poole: John 5 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 5

MHCC: John (Book Introduction)

The apostle and evangelist, John, seems to have been the youngest of the twelve. He was especially favoured with our Lord's regard and confidence, so as to be spoken of as the disciple whom Jesus loved. He was very sincerely attached to his Master. He exercised his ministry at Jerusalem with much success, and outlived the destruction of that city, agreeably to Christ's prediction, Joh 21:22. History relates that after the death of Christ's mother, John resided chiefly at Ephesus. Towards the close of Domitian's reign he was banished to the isle of Patmos, where he wrote his Revelation. On the accession of Nerva, he was set at liberty, and returned to Ephesus, where it is thought he wrote his Gospel and Epistles, about A. D. 97, and died soon after. The design of this Gospel appears to be to convey to the Christian world, just notions of the real nature, office, and character of that Divine Teacher, who came to instruct and to redeem mankind. For this purpose, John was directed to select for his narrative, those passages of our Saviour's life, which most clearly displayed his Divine power and authority; and those of his discourses, in which he spake most plainly of his own nature, and of the power of his death, as an atonement for the sins of the world. By omitting, or only briefly mentioning, the events recorded by the other evangelists, John gave testimony that their narratives are true, and left room for the doctrinal statements already mentioned, and for particulars omitted in the other Gospels, many of which are exceedingly important.

MHCC: John 5 (Chapter Introduction)

(Joh 5:1-9) The cure at the pool of Bethesda.

(Joh 5:10-16) The Jews' displeasure.

(Joh 5:17-23) Christ reproves the Jews.

(v. 24-47) Christ's discourse.

Matthew Henry: John (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Gospel According to St. John

It is not material to enquire when and where this gospel was written; we are sure that it was given by inspiration of God to John, the brother of James, one of the twelve apostles, distinguished by the honourable character of that disciple whom Jesus loved, one of the first three of the worthies of the Son of David, whom he took to be the witnesses of his retirements, particularly of his transfiguration and his agony. The ancients tell us that John lived longest of all the twelve apostles, and was the only one of them that died a natural death, all the rest suffering martyrdom; and some of them say that he wrote this gospel at Ephesus, at the request of the ministers of the several churches of Asia, in opposition to the heresy of Corinthus and the Ebionites, who held that our Lord was a mere man. It seems most probable that he wrote it before his banishment into the isle of Patmos, for there he wrote his Apocalypse, the close of which seems designed for the closing up of the canon of scripture; and, if so, this gospel was not written after. I cannot therefore give credit to those later fathers, who say that he wrote it in his banishment, or after his return from it, many years after the destruction of Jerusalem; when he was ninety years old, saith one of them; when he was a hundred, saith another of them. However, it is clear that he wrote last of the four evangelists, and, comparing his gospel with theirs, we may observe, 1. That he relates what they had omitted; he brings up the rear, and his gospel is as the rearward or gathering host; it gleans up what they has passed by. Thus there was a later collection of Solomon's wise sayings (Pro 25:1), and yet far short of what he delivered, 1Ki 4:32. 2. That he gives us more of the mystery of that of which the other evangelists gave us only the history. It was necessary that the matters of fact should be first settled, which was done in their declarations of those things which Jesus began both to do and teach, Luk 1:1; Act 1:1. But, this being done out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, John goes on to perfection (Heb 6:1), not laying again the foundation, but building upon it, leading us more within the veil. Some of the ancients observe that the other evangelists wrote more of the ta sōmatika - the bodily things of Christ; but John writes of the ta pneumatika - the spiritual things of the gospel, the life and soul of it; therefore some have called this gospel the key of the evangelists. Here is it that a door is opened in heaven, and the first voice we hear is, Come up hither, come up higher. Some of the ancients, that supposed the four living creatures in John's vision to represent the for evangelists, make John himself to be the flying eagle, so high does he soar, and so clearly does he see into divine and heavenly things.

Matthew Henry: John 5 (Chapter Introduction)

We have in the gospels a faithful record of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach, Act 1:1. These two are interwoven, because what he taught explained what he did, and what he did confirmed what he taught. Accordingly, we have in this chapter a miracle and a sermon. I. The miracle was the cure of an impotent man that had been diseased thirty-eight years, with the circumstances of that cure (v. 1-16). II. The sermon was Christ's vindication of himself before the sanhedrim, when he was prosecuted as a criminal for healing the man on the sabbath day, in which, 1. He asserts his authority as Messiah, and Mediator between God and man (Joh 5:17-29). 2. He proves it by the testimony of his Father, of John Baptist, of his miracles, and of the scriptures of the Old Testament, and condemns the Jews for their unbelief (v. 30-47).

Barclay: John (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO SAINT JOHN

The Gospel Of The EagleEye

For many Christian people the Gospel according to St. John is the most precious book in the New Testament. It is the book on which above all they feed their minds and nourish their hearts, and in which they rest their souls. Very often on stained glass windows and the like the gospel writers are represented in symbol by the figures of the four beasts whom the writer of the Revelation saw around the throne (Rev_4:7 ). The emblems are variously distributed among the gospel writers, but a common allocation is that the man stands for Mark, which is the plainest, the most straightforward and the most human of the gospels; the lion stands for Matthew, for he specially saw Jesus as the Messiah and the Lion of the tribe of Judah; the ox stands for Luke, because it is the animal of service and sacrifice, and Luke saw Jesus as the great servant of men and the universal sacrifice for all mankind; the eagle stands for John, because it alone of all living creatures can look straight into the sun and not be dazzled, and John has the most penetrating gaze of all the New Testament writers into the eternal mysteries and the eternal truths and the very mind of God. Many people find themselves closer to God and to Jesus Christ in John than in any other book in the world.

The Gospel That Is Different

But we have only to read the Fourth Gospel in the most cursory way to see that it is quite different from the other three. It omits so many things that they include. The Fourth Gospel has no account of the Birth of Jesus, of his baptism, of his temptations; it tells us nothing of the Last Supper, nothing of Gethsemane, and nothing of the Ascension. It has no word of the healing of any people possessed by devils and evil spirits. And, perhaps most surprising of all, it has none of the parable stories Jesus told which are so priceless a part of the other three gospels. In these other three gospels Jesus speaks either in these wonderful stories or in short, epigrammatic, vivid sentences which stick in the memory. But in the Fourth Gospel the speeches of Jesus are often a whole chapter long; and are often involved, argumentative pronouncements quite unlike the pithy, unforgettable sayings of the other three.

Even more surprising, the account in the Fourth Gospel of the facts of the life and ministry of Jesus is often different from that in the other three.

(i) John has a different account of the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. In the other three gospels it is quite definitely stated that Jesus did not emerge as a preacher until after John the Baptist had been imprisoned. "Now after John was arrested Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God" (Mar_1:14 ; Luk_3:18 , Luk_3:20 ; Mat_4:12 ). But in John there is a quite considerable period during which the ministry of Jesus over-lapped with the activity of John the Baptist (Joh_3:22-30 ; Joh_4:1-2 ).

(ii) John has a different account of the scene of Jesusinistry. In the other three gospels the main scene of the ministry is Galilee and Jesus does not reach Jerusalem until the last week of his life. In John the main scene of the ministry is Jerusalem and Judaea, with only occasional withdrawals to Galilee (Joh_2:1-13 ; Joh_4:35 through Joh_5:1 ; Joh_6:1 through Joh_7:14 ). In John, Jesus is in Jerusalem for a Passover which occurred at the same time as the cleansing of the Temple, as John tells the story (Joh_2:13 ); he is in Jerusalem at the time of an unnamed feast (Joh_5:1 ); he is there for the Feast of Tabernacles (Joh_7:2 , Joh_7:10 ); he is there at the Feast of Dedication in the winter-time (Joh_10:22 ). In fact according to the Fourth Gospel Jesus never left Jerusalem after that feast; after Jn 10 he is in Jerusalem all the time, which would mean a stay of months, from the winter-time of the Feast of the Dedication to the spring-time of the Passover at which he was crucified.

In point of fact in this particular matter John is surely right. The other gospels show us Jesus mourning over Jerusalem as the last week came on. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!" (Mat_23:37 ; Luk_13:34 ). It is clear that Jesus could not have said that unless he had paid repeated visits to Jerusalem and made repeated appeals to it. It was impossible for him to say that on a first visit. In this John is unquestionably right.

It was in fact this difference of scene which provided Eusebius with one of the earliest explanations of the difference between the Fourth Gospel and the other three. He said that in his day (about A.D. 300) many people who were scholars held the following view. Matthew at first preached to the Hebrew people. The day came when he had to leave them and to go to other nations. Before he went he set down his story of the life of Jesus in Hebrew, "and thus compensated those whom he was obliged to leave for the loss of his presence." After Mark and Luke had published their gospels, John was still preaching the story of Jesus orally. "Finally he proceeded to write for the following reason. The three gospels already mentioned having come into the hands of all and into his hands too, they say that he fully accepted them and bore witness to their truthfulness; but there was lacking in them an account of the deeds done by Christ at the beginning of his ministry.... They therefore say that John, being asked to do it for this reason, gave in his gospel an account of the period which had been omitted by the earlier evangelists, and of the deeds done by the Saviour during that period; that is, of the deeds done before the imprisonment of John the Baptist.... John therefore records the deeds of Christ which were performed before the Baptist was cast into prison, but the other three evangelists mention the events which happened after that time.... The Gospel according to John contains the first acts of Christ, while the others give an account of the latter part of his life." (Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History 5: 24.)

So then according to Eusebius there is no contradiction at all between the Fourth Gospel and the other three; the difference is due to the fact that the Fourth Gospel is describing a ministry in Jerusalem, at least in its earlier chapters, which preceded the ministry in Galilee, and which took place while John the Baptist was still at liberty. It may well be that this explanation of Eusebius is at least in part correct.

(iii) John has a different account of the duration of Jesusinistry. The other three gospels, on the face of it, imply that it lasted only one year. Within the ministry there is only one Passover Feast. In John there are three Passovers, one at the Cleansing of the Temple (Joh_2:13 ); one near the Feeding of the Five Thousand (Joh_6:4 ); and the final Passover at which Jesus went to the Cross. According to John the ministry of Jesus would take a minimum of two years, and probably a period nearer three years, to cover its events. Again John is unquestionably right. If we read the other three gospels closely and carefully we can see that he is right. When the disciples plucked the ears of corn (Mar_2:23 ) it must have been spring-time. When the five thousand were fed, they sat down on the green grass (Mar_6:39 ); therefore it was spring-time again, and there must have been a year between the two events. There follows the tour through Tyre and Sidon, and the Transfiguration. At the Transfiguration Peter wished to build three booths and to stay there. It is most natural to think that it was the time of the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths and that that is why Peter made the suggestion (Mar_9:5 ). That would make the date early in October. There follows the space between that and the last Passover in April. Therefore, behind the narrative of the other three gospels lies the fact that Jesusinistry actually did last for at least three years, as John represents it.

(iv) It sometimes even happens that John differs in matters of fact from the other three. There are two outstanding examples. First, John puts the Cleansing of the Temple at the beginning of Jesusinistry (Joh_2:13-22 ), the others put it at the end (Mar_11:15-17 ; Mat_21:12-13 ; Luk_19:45-46 ). Second, when we come to study the narratives in detail, we will see that John dates the crucifixion of Jesus on the day before the Passover, while the other gospels date it on the day of the Passover.

We can never shut our eyes to the obvious differences between John and the other gospels.

JohnSpecial Knowledge

One thing is certain--if John differs from the other three gospels, it is not because of ignorance and lack of information. The plain fact is that, if he omits much that they tell us, he also tells us much that they do not mention. John alone tells of the marriage feast at Cana of Galilee (Joh_2:1-11 ); of the coming of Nicodemus to Jesus (Joh_3:1-15 ); of the woman of Samaria Jn 4 ; of the raising of Lazarus (Jn 11 ); of the way in which Jesus washed his discipleseet (Joh_13:1-17 ); of Jesusonderful teaching about the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, which is scattered through Jn 14 Jn 15 Jn 16 and Jn 17 . It is only in John that some of the disciples really come alive. It is in John alone that Thomas speaks (Joh_11:16 ; Joh_14:5 ; Joh_20:24-29 ); that Andrew becomes a real personality (Joh_1:40-41 ; Joh_6:8-9 ; Joh_12:22 ); that we get a glimpse of the character of Philip (Joh_6:5-7 ; Joh_14:8-9 ); that we hear the carping protest of Judas at the anointing at Bethany (Joh_12:4-5 ). And the strange thing is that these little extra touches are intensely revealing. Johnpictures of Thomas and Andrew and Philip are like little cameos or vignettes in which the character of each man is etched in a way we cannot forget.

Further, again and again John has little extra details which read like the memories of one who was there. The loaves which the lad brought to Jesus were barley loaves (Joh_6:9 ); when Jesus came to the disciples as they crossed the lake in the storm they had rowed between three and four miles (Joh_6:19 ); there were six stone waterpots at Cana of Galilee (Joh_2:6 ); it is only John who tells of the four soldiers gambling for the seamless robe as Jesus died (Joh_19:23 ); he knows the exact weight of the myrrh and aloes which were used to anoint the dead body of Jesus (Joh_19:39 ); he remembers how the perfume of the ointment filled the house at the anointing at Bethany (Joh_12:3 ). Many of these things are such apparently unimportant details that they are inexplicable unless they are the memories of a man who was there.

However much John may differ from the other three gospels, that difference is not to be explained by ignorance but rather by the fact that he had more knowledge or better sources or a more vivid memory than the others.

Further evidence of the specialised information of the writer of the Fourth Gospel is his detailed knowledge of Palestine and of Jerusalem. He knows how long it took to build the Temple (Joh_2:20 ); that the Jews and the Samaritans had a permanent quarrel (Joh_4:9 ); the low Jewish view of women (Joh_4:9 ); the way in which the Jews regard the Sabbath (Joh_5:10 ; Joh_7:21-23 ; Joh_9:14 ). His knowledge of the geography of Palestine is intimate. He knows of two Bethanys, one of which is beyond Jordan (Joh_1:28 ; Joh_12:1 ); he knows that Bethsaida was the home of some of the disciples (Joh_1:44 ; Joh_12:21 ); that Cana is in Galilee (Joh_2:1 ; Joh_4:46 ; Joh_21:2 ); that Sychar is near Shechem (Joh_4:5 ). He has what one might call a street by street knowledge of Jerusalem. He knows the sheep-gate and the pool near it (Joh_5:2 ); the pool of Siloam (Joh_9:7 ); SolomonPorch (Joh_10:23 ); the brook Kidron (Joh_18:1 ); the pavement which is called Gabbatha (Joh_19:13 ); Golgotha, which is like a skull (Joh_19:17 ). It must be remembered that Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70 and that John did not write until A.D. 100 or thereby; and yet from his memory he knows Jerusalem like the back of his hand.

The Circumstances In Which John Wrote

We have seen that there are very real differences between the Fourth and the other three gospels; and we have seen that, whatever the reason, it was not lack of knowledge on Johnpart. We must now go on to ask, What was the aim with which John wrote? If we can discover this we will discover why he selected and treated his facts as he did.

The Fourth Gospel was written in Ephesus about the year A.D. 100. By that time two special features had emerged in the situation of the Christian church. First, Christianity had gone out into the Gentile world. By that time the Christian church was no longer predominantly Jewish; it was in fact overwhelmingly gentile. The vast majority of its members now came, not from a Jewish, but an Hellenistic background. That being so, Christianity had to be restated. It was not that the truth of Christianity had changed; but the terms and the categories in which it found expression had to be changed.

Take but one instance. A Greek might take up the Gospel according to St. Matthew. No sooner had he opened it than he was confronted with a long genealogy. Genealogies were familiar enough to the Jew but quite unintelligible to the Greek. He would read on. He would be confronted with a Jesus who was the Son of David, a king of whom the Greeks had never heard, and the symbol of a racial and nationalist ambition which was nothing to the Greek. He would be faced with the picture of Jesus as Messiah, a term of which the Greek had never heard. Must the Greek who wished to become a Christian be compelled to reorganize his whole thinking into Jewish categories? Must he learn a good deal about Jewish history and Jewish apocalyptic literature (which told about the coming of the Messiah) before he could become a Christian? As E. J. Goodspeed phrased it: "Was there no way in which he might be introduced directly to the values of Christian salvation without being for ever routed, we might even say, detoured, through Judaism?" The Greek was one of the worldgreat thinkers. Had he to abandon all his own great intellectual heritage in order to think entirely in Jewish terms and categories of thought?

John faced that problem fairly and squarely. And he found one of the greatest solutions which ever entered the mind of man. Later on, in the commentary, we shall deal much more fully with Johngreat solution. At the moment we touch on it briefly. The Greeks had two great conceptions.

(a) They had the conception of the Logos. In Greek logos (G3056) means two things--it means word and it means reason. The Jew was entirely familiar with the all-powerful word of God. "God said, Let there be light; and there was light" (Gen_1:3 ). The Greek was entirely familiar with the thought of reason. He looked at this world; he saw a magnificent and dependable order. Night and day came with unfailing regularity; the year kept its seasons in unvarying course; the stars and the planets moved in their unaltering path; nature had her unvarying laws. What produced this order? The Greek answered unhesitatingly, The Logos (G3056), the mind of God, is responsible for the majestic order of the world. He went on, What is it that gives man power to think, to reason and to know? Again he answered unhesitatingly, The Logos (G3056), the mind of God, dwelling within a man makes him a thinking rational being.

John seized on this. It was in this way that he thought of Jesus. He said to the Greeks, "All your lives you have been fascinated by this great, guiding, controlling mind of God. The mind of God has come to earth in the man Jesus. Look at him and you see what the mind and thought of God are like." John had discovered a new category in which the Greek might think of Jesus, a category in which Jesus was presented as nothing less than God acting in the form of a man.

(b) They had the conception of two worlds. The Greek always conceived of two worlds. The one was the world in which we live. It was a wonderful world in its way but a world of shadows and copies and unrealities. The other was the real world, in which the great realities, of which our earthly things are only poor, pale copies, stand for ever. To the Greek the unseen world was the real one; the seen world was only shadowy unreality.

Plato systematized this way of thinking in his doctrine of forms or ideas. He held that in the unseen world there was the perfect pattern of everything, and the things of this world were shadowy copies of these eternal patterns. To put it simply, Plato held that somewhere there was a perfect pattern of a table of which all earthly tables are inadequate copies; somewhere there was the perfect pattern of the good and the beautiful of which all earthly goodness and earthly beauty are imperfect copies. And the great reality, the supreme idea, the pattern of all patterns and the form of all forms was God. The great problem was how to get into this world of reality, how to get out of our shadows into the eternal truths.

John declares that that is what Jesus enables us to do. He is reality come to earth. The Greek word for real in this sense is alethinos (G228); it is very closely connected with the word alethes (G227), which means true, and aletheia (G225), which means "the truth." The King James and Revised Standard Versions translate alethinos (G228) true; they would be far better to translate it "real." Jesus is the real light (Joh_1:9 ); Jesus is the real bread (Joh_6:32 ); Jesus is the real vine (Joh_15:1 ); to Jesus belongs the real judgment (Joh_8:16 ). Jesus alone has reality in our world of shadows and imperfections.

Something follows from that. Every action that Jesus did was, therefore, not only an act in time but a window which allows us to see into reality. That is what John means when he talks of Jesusiracles as signs (semeia - G4592). The wonderful works of Jesus were not simply wonderful; they were windows opening onto the reality which is God. This explains why John tells the miracle stories in a quite different way from the other three gospel writers. There are two differences.

(a) In the Fourth Gospel we miss the note of compassion which is in the miracle stories of the others. In the others Jesus is moved with compassion for the leper (Mar_1:41 ); his sympathy goes out to Jairus (Mar_5:22 ); he is sorry for the father of the epileptic boy (Mar_9:14 ); when he raises to life the son of the widow of Nain, Luke says with an infinite tenderness, "He gave him to his mother" (Luk_7:15 ). But in John the miracles are not so much deeds of compassion as deeds which demonstrate the glory of Christ. After the miracle at Cana of Galilee, John comments: "This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory" (Joh_2:11 ). The raising of Lazarus happens "for the glory of God" (Joh_11:4 ). The blind manblindness existed to allow a demonstration of the glory of the works of God (Joh_9:3 ). To John it was not that there was no love and compassion in the miracles; but in every one of them he saw the glory of the reality of God breaking into time and into human affairs.

(b) Often the miracles of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel are accompanied by a long discourse. The feeding of the five thousand is followed by the long discourse on the bread of life (Jn 6 ); the healing of the blind man springs from the saying that Jesus is the light of the world (Jn 9 ); the raising of Lazarus leads up to the saying that Jesus is the resurrection and the life (Jn 11 ). To John the miracles were not simply single events in time; they were insights into what God is always doing and what Jesus always is; they were windows into the reality of God. Jesus did not merely once feed five thousand people; that was an illustration that he is for ever the real bread of life. Jesus did not merely once open the eyes of a blind man; he is for ever the light of the world. Jesus did not merely once raise Lazarus from the dead; he is for ever and for all men the resurrection and the life. To John a miracle was never an isolated act; it was always a window into the reality of what Jesus always was and always is and always did and always does.

It was with this in mind that that great scholar Clement of Alexandria (about A.D. 230) arrived at one of the most famous and true of all verdicts about the origin and aim of the Fourth Gospel. It was his view that the gospels containing the genealogies had been written first--that is, Luke and Matthew; that then Mark at the request of many who had heard Peter preach composed his gospel, which embodied the preaching material of Peter; and that then "last of all, John, perceiving that what had reference to the bodily things of Jesusinistry had been sufficiently related, and encouraged by his friends, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote a spiritual gospel" (quoted in Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History 6 : 14). What Clement meant was that John was not so much interested in the mere facts as in the meaning of the facts, that it was not facts he was after but truth. John did not see the events of Jesusife simply as events in time; he saw them as windows looking into eternity, and he pressed towards the spiritual meaning of the events and the words of Jesusife in a way that the other three gospels did not attempt.

That is still one of the truest verdicts on the Fourth Gospel ever reached. John did write, not an historical, but a spiritual gospel.

So then, first of all, John presented Jesus as the mind of God in a person come to earth, and as the one person who possesses reality instead of shadows and able to lead men out of the shadows into the real world of which Plato and the great Greeks had dreamed. The Christianity which had once been clothed in Jewish categories had taken to itself the greatness of the thought of the Greeks.

The Rise Of The Heresies

The second of the great facts confronting the church when the Fourth Gospel was written was the rise of heresy. It was now seventy years since Jesus had been crucified. By this time the church was an organisation and an institution. Theologies and creeds were being thought out and stated; and inevitably the thoughts of some people went down mistaken ways and heresies resulted. A heresy is seldom a complete untruth; it usually results when one facet of the truth is unduly emphasised. We can see at least two of the heresies which the writer of the Fourth Gospel sought to combat.

(a) There were certain Christians, especially Jewish Christians, who gave too high a place to John the Baptist. There was something about him which had an inevitable appeal to the Jews. He walked in the prophetic succession and talked with the prophetic voice. We know that in later times there was an accepted sect of John the Baptist within the orthodox Jewish faith. In Act_19:1-7 we come upon a little group of twelve men on the fringe of the Christian church who had never gotten beyond the baptism of John.

Over and over again the Fourth Gospel quietly, but definitely, relegates John to his proper place. Over and over again John himself denies that he has ever claimed or possessed the highest place, and without qualification yields that place to Jesus. We have already seen that in the other gospels the ministry of Jesus did not begin until John the Baptist had been put into prison, but that in the Fourth Gospel their ministries overlap. The writer of the Fourth Gospel may well have used that arrangement to show John and Jesus in actual meeting and to show that John used these meetings to admit, and to urge others to admit, the supremacy of Jesus. It is carefully pointed out that John is not that light (Joh_1:8 ). He is shown as quite definitely disclaiming all Messianic aspirations (Joh_1:20 ; Joh_3:28 ; Joh_4:1 ; Joh_10:41 ). It is not even permissible to think of him as the highest witness (Joh_5:36 ). There is no criticism at all of John the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel; but there is a rebuke to those who would give him a place which ought to belong to Jesus and to Jesus alone.

(b) A certain type of heresy which was very widely spread in the days when the Fourth Gospel was written is called by the general name of Gnosticism. Without some understanding of it much of Johngreatness and much of his aim will be missed. The basic doctrine of Gnosticism was that matter is essentially evil and spirit is essentially good. The Gnostics went on to argue that on that basis God himself cannot touch matter and therefore did not create the world. What he did was to put out a series of emanations. Each of these emanations was further from him, until at last there was one so distant from him that it could touch matter. That emanation was the creator of the world.

By itself that idea is bad enough, but it was made worse by an addition. The Gnostics held that each emanation knew less and less about God, until there was a stage when the emanations were not only ignorant of God but actually hostile to him. So they finally came to the conclusion that the creator god was not only different from the real God, but was also quite ignorant of and actively hostile to him. Cerinthus, one of the leaders of the Gnostics, said that "the world was created, not by God, but by a certain power far separate from him, and far distant from that Power who is over the universe, and ignorant of the God who is over all."

The Gnostics believed that God had nothing to do with the creating of the world. That is why John begins his gospel with the ringing statement: "All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that was made" (Joh_1:3 ). That is why John insists that "God so loved the world" (Joh_3:16 ). In face of the Gnostics who so mistakenly spiritualized God into a being who could not possibly have anything to do with the world, John presented the Christian doctrine of the God who made the world and whose presence fills the world that he has made.

The beliefs of the Gnostics impinged on their ideas of Jesus.

(a) Some of the Gnostics held that Jesus was one of the emanations which had proceeded from God. They held that he was not in any real sense divine; that he was only a kind of demigod who was more or less distant from the real God; that he was simply one of a chain of lesser beings between God and the world.

(b) Some of the Gnostics held that Jesus had no real body. A body is matter and God could not touch matter; therefore Jesus was a kind of phantom without real flesh and blood. They held, for instance, that when he stepped on the ground he left no footprint, for his body had neither weight nor substance. They could never have said: "The Word became flesh" (Joh_1:14 ). Augustine tells how he had read much in the work of the philosophers of his day; he had found much that was very like what was in the New Testament, but, he said: "e Word was made flesh and dwelt among us did not read there." That is why John in his First Letter insists that Jesus came in the flesh, and declares that any one who denies that fact is moved by the spirit of antichrist (1Jo_4:3 ). This particular heresy is known as Docetism. Docetism comes from the Greek word dokein (G1380) which means to seem ; and the heresy is so called because it held that Jesus only seemed to be a man.

(c) Some Gnostics held a variation of that heresy. They held that Jesus was a man into whom the Spirit of God came at his baptism; that Spirit remained with him throughout his life until the end; but since the Spirit of God could never suffer and die, it left him before he was crucified. They gave Jesusry on the Cross as : "My power, my power, why hast thou forsaken me?" And in their books they told of people talking on the Mount of Olives to a form which looked exactly like Jesus while the man Jesus died on the Cross.

So then the Gnostic heresies issued in one of two beliefs. They believed either that Jesus was not really divine but simply one of a series of emanations from God, or that he was not in any sense human but a kind of phantom in the shape of a man. The Gnostic beliefs at one and the same time destroyed the real godhead and the real manhood of Jesus.

The Humanity Of Jesus

The fact that John is out to correct both these Gnostic tendencies explains a curious paradoxical double emphasis in his gospel. On the one hand, there is no gospel which so uncompromisingly stresses the real humanity of Jesus. Jesus was angry with those who bought and sold in the Temple courts (Joh_2:15 ); he was physically tired as he sat by the well which was near Sychar in Samaria (Joh_4:6 ); his disciples offered him food in the way in which they would offer it to any hungry man (Joh_4:31 ); he had sympathy with those who were hungry and with those who were afraid (Joh_6:5 , Joh_6:20 ); he knew grief and he wept tears as any mourner might do (Joh_11:33 , Joh_11:35 , Joh_11:38 ); in the agony of the Cross the cry of his parched lips was: "I thirst" (Joh_19:28 ). The Fourth Gospel shows us a Jesus who was no shadowy, docetic figure; it shows us one who knew the weariness of an exhausted body and the wounds of a distressed mind and heart. It is the truly human Jesus whom the Fourth Gospel sets before us.

The Deity Of Jesus

On the other hand, there is no gospel which sets before us such a view of the deity of Jesus.

(a) John stresses the preexistence of Jesus. "Before Abraham was," said Jesus, "I am" (Joh_8:58 ). He talks of the glory which he had with the Father before the world was made (Joh_17:5 ). Again and again he speaks of his coming down from heaven (Joh_6:33-38 ). John saw in Jesus one who had always been, even before the world began.

(b) The Fourth Gospel stresses more than any of the others the omniscience of Jesus. It is Johnview that apparently miraculously Jesus knew the past record of the woman of Samaria (Joh_4:16-17 ); apparently without anyone telling him he knew how long the man beside the healing pool had been ill (Joh_5:6 ); before he asked it, he knew the answer to the question he put to Philip (Joh_6:6 ); he knew that Judas would betray him (Joh_6:61-64 ); he knew of the death of Lazarus before anyone told him of it (Joh_11:14 ). John saw in Jesus one who had a special and miraculous knowledge independent of anything which any man might tell him. He needed to ask no questions because he knew all the answers.

(c) The Fourth Gospel stresses the fact, as John saw it, that Jesus always acted entirely on his own initiative and uninfluenced by anyone else. It was not his motherrequest which moved him to the miracle at Cana of Galilee; it was his own personal decision (Joh_2:4 ); the urging of his brothers had nothing to do with the visit which he paid to Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles (Joh_7:10 ); no man took his life from him--no man could; he laid it down purely voluntarily (Joh_10:18 ; Joh_19:11 ). As John saw it, Jesus had a divine independence from all human influence. He was self-determined.

To meet the Gnostics and their strange beliefs John presents us with a Jesus who was undeniably human and who yet was undeniably divine.

The Author Of The Fourth Gospel

We have seen that the aim of the writer of the Fourth Gospel was to present the Christian faith in such a way that it would commend itself to the Greek world to which Christianity had gone out, and also to combat the heresies and mistaken ideas which had arisen within the church. We go on to ask, Who is that writer? Tradition answers unanimously that the author was John the apostle. We shall see that beyond doubt the authority of John lies behind the gospel, although it may well be that its actual form and penmanship did not come from his hand. Let us, then, collect what we know about him.

He was the younger son of Zebedee, who possessed a fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee and was well enough off to be able to employ hired servants to help him with his work (Mar_1:19-20 ). His mother was Salome, and it seems likely that she was the sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus (Mat_27:56 ; Mar_16:1 ). With his brother James he obeyed the call of Jesus (Mar_1:20 ). It would seem that James and John were in partnership with Peter in the fishing trade (Luk_5:7-10 ). He was one of the inner circle of the disciples, for the lists of the disciples always begin with the names of Peter, James and John, and there were certain great occasions when Jesus took these three specially with him (Mar_3:17 ; Mar_5:37 ; Mar_9:2 ; Mar_14:33 ).

In character he was clearly a turbulent and ambitious man. Jesus gave to him and to his brother the name Boanerges, which the gospel writers take to mean Sons of Thunder. John and his brother James were completely exclusive and intolerant (Mar_9:38 ; Luk_9:49 ). So violent was their temper that they were prepared to blast a Samaritan village out of existence because it would not give them hospitality when they were on their journey to Jerusalem (Luk_9:54 ). Either they or their mother Salome had the ambition that when Jesus came into his kingdom, they might be his principal ministers of state (Mar_10:35 ; Mat_20:20 ). In the other three gospels John appears as a leader of the apostolic band, one of the inner circle, and yet a turbulent ambitious and intolerant character.

In the Book of Acts John always appears as the companion of Peter, and he himself never speaks at all. His name is still one of the three names at the head of the apostolic list (Acts 1:13). He is with Peter when the lame man is healed at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple (Act_3:1 ). With Peter he is brought before the Sanhedrin and faces the Jewish leaders with a courage and a boldness that astonished them (Act_4:1-13 ). With Peter he goes from Jerusalem to Samaria to survey the work done by Philip (Act_8:14 ).

In Paulletters he appears only once. In Galatians 2:9 he is named as one of the pillars of the church along with Peter and James, and with them is depicted as giving his approval to the work of Paul.

John was a strange mixture. He was one of the leaders of the Twelve; he was one of the inner circle of Jesuslosest friends; at the same time he was a man of temper and ambition and intolerance, and yet of courage.

We may follow John into the stories told of him in the early church. Eusebius tells us that he was banished to Patmos in the reign of Domitian (Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History 3 : 23). In the same passage Eusebius tells a characteristic story about John, a story which he received from Clement of Alexandria. John became a kind of bishop of Asia Minor and was visiting one of his churches near Ephesus. In the congregation he saw a tall and exceptionally fine-looking young man. He turned to the elder in charge of the congregation and said to him: "I commit that young man into your charge and into your care, and I call this congregation to witness that I do so." The elder took the young man into his own house and cared for him and instructed him, and the day came when he was baptized and received into the church. But very soon afterwards he fell in with evil friends and embarked on such a career of crime that he ended up by becoming the leader of a band of murdering and pillaging brigands. Some time afterwards John returned to the congregation. He said to the elder: "Restore to me the trust which I and the Lord committed to you and to the church of which you are in charge." At first the elder did not understand of what John was speaking. "I mean," said John, "that I am asking you for the soul of the young man whom I entrusted to you." "Alas!" said the elder, "he is dead." "Dead?" said John. "He is dead to God," said the elder. "He fell from grace; he was forced to flee from the city for his crimes and now he is a brigand in the mountains." Straightway John went to the mountains. Deliberately he allowed himself to be captured by the robber band. They brought him before the young man who was now the chief of the band and, in his shame, the young man tried to run away from him. John, though an old man, pursued him. "My son," he cried, "are you running away from your father? I am feeble and far advanced in age; have pity on me, my son; fear not; there is yet hope of salvation for you. I will stand for you before the Lord Christ. If need be I will gladly die for you as he died for me. Stop, stay, believe! It is Christ who has sent me to you." The appeal broke the heart of the young man. He stopped, threw away his weapons, and wept. Together he and John came down the mountainside and he was brought back into the church and into the Christian way. There we see the love and the courage of John still in operation.

Eusebius (3 : 28) tells another story of John which he got from the works of Irenaeus. We have seen that one of the leaders of the Gnostic heresy was a man called Cerinthus. "The apostle John once entered a bath to bathe; but, when he learned that Cerinthus was within, he sprang from his place and rushed out of the door, for he could not bear to remain under the same roof with him. He advised those who were with him to do the same. t us flee,e said, st the bath fall, for Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within."here we have another glimpse of the temper of John. Boanerges was not quite dead.

Cassian tells another famous story about John. One day he was found playing with a tame partridge. A narrower and more rigid brother rebuked him for thus wasting his time, and John answered: "The bow that is always bent will soon cease to shoot straight."

It is Jerome who tells the story of the last words of John. When he was dying, his disciples asked him if he had any last message to leave them. "Little children," he said, "love one another." Again and again he repeated it; and they asked him if that was all he had to say. "It is enough," he said, "for it is the Lordcommand."

Such then is our information about John; and he emerges a figure of fiery temper, of wide ambition, of undoubted courage, and, in the end, of gentle love.

The Beloved Disciple

If we have been following our references closely we will have noticed one thing. All our information about John comes from the first three gospels. It is the astonishing fact that the Fourth Gospel never mentions the apostle John from beginning to end. But it does mention two other people.

First, it speaks of the disciple whom Jesus loved. There are four mentions of him. He was leaning on Jesusreast at the Last Supper (Joh_13:23-25 ); it is into his care that Jesus committed Mary as he died upon his Cross (Joh_19:25-27 ); it was Peter and he whom Mary Magdalene met on her return from the empty tomb on the first Easter morning (Joh_20:2 ); he was present at the last resurrection appearance of Jesus by the lake-side (Joh_21:20 ).

Second, the Fourth Gospel has a kind of character whom we might call the witness. As the Fourth Gospel tells of the spear thrust into the side of Jesus and the issue of the water and the blood, there comes the comment: "He who saw it has borne witness--his testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth--that you also may believe" (Joh_19:35 ). At the end of the gospel comes the statement that it was the beloved disciple who testified of these things "and we know that his testimony is true" (Joh_21:24 ).

Here we are faced with rather a strange thing. In the Fourth Gospel John is never mentioned, but the beloved disciple is and in addition there is a witness of some kind to the whole story. It has never really been doubted in tradition that the beloved disciple is John. A few have tried to identify him with Lazarus, for Jesus is said to have loved Lazarus (Joh_11:3 , Joh_11:5 ), or with the Rich Young Ruler, of whom it is said that Jesus, looking on him, loved him (Mar_10:21 ). But although the gospel never says so in so many words, tradition has always identified the beloved disciple with John, and there is no real need to doubt the identification.

But a very real point arises--suppose John himself actually did the writing of the gospel, would he really be likely to speak of himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved? Would he really be likely to pick himself out like this, and, as it were, to say: "I was his favourite; he loved me best of all"? It is surely very unlikely that John would confer such a title on himself. If it was conferred by others, it is a lovely title; if it was conferred by himself, it comes perilously near to an almost incredible self-conceit.

Is there any way then that the gospel can be Johnown eye-witness story, and yet at the same time have been actually written down by someone else?

The Production Of The Church

In our search for the truth we begin by noting one of the outstanding and unique features of the Fourth Gospel. The most remarkable thing about it is the long speeches of Jesus. Often they are whole chapters long, and are entirely unlike the way in which Jesus is portrayed as speaking in the other three gospels. The Fourth Gospel, as we have seen, was written about the year A.D. 100, that is, about seventy years after the crucifixion. Is it possible after these seventy years to look on these speeches as word for word reports of what Jesus said? Or can we explain them in some way that is perhaps even greater than that? We must begin by holding in our minds the fact of the speeches and the question which they inevitably raise.

And we have something to add to that. It so happens that in the writings of the early church we have a whole series of accounts of the way in which the Fourth Gospel came to be written. The earliest is that of Irenaeus who was bishop of Lyons about A.D. 177; and Irenaeus was himself a pupil of Polycarp, who in turn had actually been a pupil of John. There is therefore a direct link between Irenaeus and John. Irenaeus writes:

"John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leant upon his breast,

himself also published the gospel in Ephesus, when he was living

in Asia."

The suggestive thing there is that Irenaeus does not merely say that John wrote the gospel; he says that John published (exedoke) it in Ephesus. The word that Irenaeus uses makes it sound, not like the private publication of some personal memoir, but like the public issue of some almost official document.

The next account is that of Clement who was head of the great school of Alexandria about A.D. 230. He writes:

"Last of all, John perceiving that the bodily facts had been made

plain in the gospel, being urged by his friends, composed a

spiritual gospel."

The important thing here is the phrase being urged by his friends. It begins to become clear that the Fourth Gospel is far more than one manpersonal production and that there is a group, a community, a church behind it. On the same lines, a tenth-century manuscript called the Codex Toletanus, which prefaces the New Testament books with short descriptions, prefaces the Fourth Gospel thus:

The apostle John, whom the Lord Jesus loved most, last of all

wrote this gospel, at the request of the bishops of Asia, against

Cerinthus and other heretics."

Again we have the idea that behind the Fourth Gospel there is the authority of a group and of a church.

We now turn to a very important document, known as the Muratorian Canon. It is so called after a scholar Muratori who discovered it. It is the first list of New Testament books which the church ever issued and was compiled in Rome about A.D. 170. Not only does it list the New Testament books, it also gives short accounts of the origin and nature and contents of each of them. Its account of the way in which the Fourth Gospel came to be written is extremely important and illuminating.

"At the request of his fellow-disciples and of his bishops, John,

one of the disciples, said: úst with me for three days from

this time and whatsoever shall be revealed to each of us, whether

it be favourable to my writing or not, let us relate it to one

another.n the same night it was revealed to Andrew that John

should relate all things, aided by the revision of all."

We cannot accept all that statement, because it is not possible that Andrew, the apostle, was in Ephesus in A.D. 100; but the point is that it is stated as clearly as possible that, while the authority and the mind and the memory behind the Fourth Gospel are that of John, it is clearly and definitely the product, not of one man, but of a group and a community.

Now we can see something of what happened. About the year A.D. 100 there was a group of men in Ephesus whose leader was John. They revered him as a saint and they loved him as a father. He must have been almost a hundred years old. Before he died, they thought most wisely that it would be a great thing if the aged apostle set down his memories of the years when he had been with Jesus. But in the end they did far more than that. We can think of them sitting down and reliving the old days. One would say: "Do you remember how Jesus said ... ?" And John would say: "Yes, and now we know that he meant..."

In other words this group was not only writing down what Jesus said; that would have been a mere feat of memory. They were writing down what Jesus meant; that was the guidance of the Holy Spirit. John had thought about every word that Jesus had said; and he had thought under the guidance of the Holy Spirit who was so real to him. W. M. Macgregor has a sermon entitled: "What Jesus becomes to a man who has known him long." That is a perfect description of the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel. A. H. N. Green Armytage puts the thing perfectly in his book John who saw. Mark, he says, suits the missionary with his clear-cut account of the facts of Jesusife; Matthew suits the teacher with his systematic account of the teaching of Jesus; Luke suits the parish minister or priest with his wide sympathy and his picture of Jesus as the friend of all; but John is the gospel of the contemplative.

He goes on to speak of the apparent contrast between Mark and John. "The two gospels are in a sense the same gospel. Only, where Mark saw things plainly, bluntly, literally, John saw them subtly, profoundly, spiritually. We might say that John lit Markpages by the lantern of a lifetimemeditation." Wordsworth defined poetry as "Emotion recollected in tranquillity ". That is a perfect description of the Fourth Gospel. That is why John is unquestionably the greatest of all the gospels. Its aim is, not to give us what Jesus said like a newspaper report, but to give us what Jesus meant. In it the Risen Christ still speaks. John is not so much The Gospel according to St. John; it is rather The Gospel according to the Holy Spirit. It was not John of Ephesus who wrote the Fourth Gospel; it was the Holy Spirit who wrote it through John.

The Penman Of The Gospel

We have one question still to ask. We can be quite sure that the mind and the memory behind the Fourth Gospel is that of John the apostle; but we have also seen that behind it is a witness who was the writer, in the sense that he was the actual penman. Can we find out who he was? We know from what the early church writers tell us that there were actually two Johns in Ephesus at the same time. There was John the apostle, but there was another John, who was known as John the elder.

Papias, who loved to collect all that he could find about the history of the New Testament and the story of Jesus, gives us some very interesting information. He was Bishop of Hierapolis, which is quite near Ephesus, and his dates are from about A.D. 70 to about A.D. 145. That is to say, he was actually a contemporary of John. He writes how he tried to find out "what Andrew said or what Peter said, or what was said by Philip, by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the disciples of the Lord; and what things Aristion and the elder John, the disciples of the Lord, say." In Ephesus there was the apostle John, and the elder John; and the elder John was so well-loved a figure that he was actually known as The Elder. He clearly had a unique place in the church. Both Eusebius and Dionysius the Great tell us that even to their own days in Ephesus there were two famous tombs, the one of John the apostle, and the other of John the elder.

Now let us turn to the two little letters, Second John and Third John. The letters come from the same hand as the gospel, and how do they begin? The second letter begins: "The elder unto the elect lady and her children" (2Jo_1:1 ). The third letter begins: "The elder unto the beloved Gaius" (3Jo_1:1 ). Here we have our solution. The actual penman of the letters was John the elder; the mind and memory behind them was the aged John the apostle, the master whom John the elder always described as "the disciple whom Jesus loved."

The Precious Gospel

The more we know about the Fourth Gospel the more precious it becomes. For seventy years John had thought of Jesus. Day by day the Holy Spirit had opened out to him the meaning of what Jesus said. So when John was near the century of life and his days were numbered, he and his friends sat down to remember. John the elder held the pen to write for his master, John the apostle; and the last of the apostles set down, not only what he had heard Jesus say, but also what he now knew Jesus had meant. He remembered how Jesus had said: "I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth" (Joh_16:12-13 ). There were many things which seventy years ago he had not understood; there were many things which in these seventy years the Spirit of Truth had revealed to him. These things John set down even as the eternal glory was dawning upon him. When we read this gospel let us remember that we are reading the gospel which of all the gospels is most the work of the Holy Spirit, speaking to us of the things which Jesus meant, speaking through the mind and memory of John the apostle and by the pen of John the elder. Behind this gospel is the whole church at Ephesus, the whole company of the saints, the last of the apostles, the Holy Spirit, the Risen Christ himself.

FURTHER READING

John

C. Kingsley Barrett, The Gospel According to Saint John (G)

J. H. Bernahrd, St. John (ICC; G)

E. C. Hoskyns (ed. F. M. Davey), The Fourth Gospel (E)

R. H. Lightfoot, St. JohnGospel: A Commentary (E)

G. H. C. Macgregor, The Gospel of John (MC; E)

J. N. Saunders (ed. B. A. Mastin), The Gospel According to Saint John (ACB; E)

R. V. G. Tasker, The Gospel According to Saint John (TC; E)

B. F. Westcott, The Gospel According to Saint John (E)

The SpeakerCommentary (MmC; G)

Abbreviations

ACB: A. and C. Black New Testament Commentary

ICC: International Critical Commentary

MC: Moffatt Commentary

MmC: Macmillan Commentary

TC: Tyndale Commentary

E: English Text G: Greek Text

Barclay: John 5 (Chapter Introduction)

Man's Helplessness And Christ's Power (Joh_5:1-9)

The Inner Meaning (Joh_5:1-9 Continued)

Healing And Hatred (Joh_5:10-18)

The Tremendous Claims (Joh_5:19-29)

5:19-29 This is the truth I tell you--the Son cannot do anything which proceeds from himself. He can only do what he sees the Father doing. In whatever way the Father acts, the Son likewise acts in the same way; for the Father loves the son and has shown him everything that he does. And he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be moved to wondering amazement. For, as the Father raises the dead and makes them alive, so also the Son makes alive those whom he wishes. Neither does the Father judge anyone, but he has given the whole process of judging to the Son, that all may honour the Son, as they honour the Father. He who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent him. This is the truth I tell you--he who listens to my word and believes on him who sent me has eternal life, and is not on the way to judgment, but he has crossed from death to life. This is the truth I tell you--the hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and, when they have heard, they will live. For, as the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son to have life in himself; and he has given him authority to exercise the process of judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not be astonished at this, for the hour is coming when everyone in the tombs will hear his voice, and will come forth; those who have done good will come out to a resurrection which will give them life, but those whose actions were base will come out to a resurrection which will issue in judgment.

Here we come to the first of the long discourses of the Fourth Gospel. When we read passages like this we must remember that John is not seeking so much to give us the words that Jesus spoke as the things which Jesus meant. He was writing somewhere round about A.D. 100. For seventy years he had thought about Jesus and the wonderful things which Jesus had said. Many of these things he had not fully understood when he had heard them. But more than half a century of thinking under the guidance of the Holy Spirit had shown him deeper and deeper meaning in the words of Jesus. And so he sets down for us not only what Jesus said, but also what Jesus meant. This passage is so important that we must first study it as a whole and then take it in shorter sections. First, then let us look at it as a whole. We must try to think not only how it sounds to us, but also how it sounded to the Jews who heard it for the first time. They had a background of thoughts and ideas, of theology and belief, of literature and religion which is very far from our background; and, to understand a passage like this, we must try to think ourselves into the mind of a Jew who listened to it for the first time. This is an amazing passage, because it is woven together of thoughts and expressions which are all claims by Jesus to be the promised Messiah. Many of these claims we do not now readily see, but they would be crystal clear to the Jews and would leave them aghast. (i) The clearest claim is the statement that Jesus is the Son of Man. We know how common that strange title is in the gospels. It has a long history. It was born in Dan_7:1-14 . The King James Version mistranslates the Son of Man for a son of man (Dan_7:13). The point of the passage is this. Daniel was written in days of terror and of persecution, and it is a vision of the glory which will some day replace the suffering which the people are undergoing. In Dan_7:1-7 the seer describes the great heathen empires which have held sway under the symbolism of beasts. There is the lion with eagle's wings (Dan_7:4), which stands for the Babylonian Empire; the bear with the three ribs in his mouth, as one devouring the carcase (Dan_7:5), which stands for the Median Empire; the leopard with four wings and four heads (Dan_7:6), which stands for the Persian Empire; the beast, great and terrible, with iron teeth and with ten horns (Dan_7:7), which stands for the Macedonian Empire. All these terrible powers will pass away and the power and the dominion will be given to one like a son of man. The meaning is that the Empires which have held sway have been so savage that they could be described only in terms of wild beasts; but into the world there is going to come a power so gentle and kind that it will be human and not bestial. In Daniel the phrase describes the kind of power which is going to rule the world. Someone has to introduce and exercise that power; and the Jews took this title and gave it to the chosen one of God who some day would bring in the new age of gentleness and love and peace; and so they came to call the Messiah Son of Man. Between the Old and the New Testaments there arose a whole literature which dealt with the golden age which was to come. One book which was specially influential was the Book of Enoch and in it there appears again and again a great figure called That Son of Man, who is waiting in heaven until God sends him to earth to bring in his kingdom and rule over it. So when Jesus called himself the Son of Man, he was doing nothing less than call himself the Messiah. Here was a claim so clear that it could not be misunderstood. (ii) But not only is this claim to be God's Messiah made in so many words; in phrase after phrase it is implicit. The very miracle which had happened to the paralysed man was a sign that Jesus was Messiah. It was Isaiah's picture of the new age of God that "then shall the lame man leap like a hart" (Isa_35:6). It was Jeremiah's vision that the blind and the lame would be gathered in (Jer_31:8-9). (iii) There is Jesus' repeated claim to raise the dead and to be their judge when they are raised. In the Old Testament God alone can raise the dead and alone has the right to judge. "I, even I, am he and there is no god beside me: I kill and I make alive" (Deu_32:39). "The Lord kills and brings to life" (1Sa_2:6). When Naaman, the Syrian, came seeking to be cured from leprosy, the king of Israel said in bewildered despair: "Am I God to kill and to make alive?" (2Ki_5:6). The function of killing and making alive belonged inalienably to God. It is the same with judgment. "The judgment is God's" (Deu_1:17). In later thought this function of resurrecting the dead and then acting as judge became part of the duty of God's chosen one when he brought in the new age of God. Enoch says of the Son of Man: "The sum of judgment was committed to him" (Enoch 69: 26-27). Jesus in our passage speaks of those who have done good being resurrected to life and of those who have done evil being resurrected to death. The Apocalypse of Baruch lays it down that when God's age comes: "The aspect of those who now act wickedly shall become worse than it is, as they shall suffer torment," whereas those who have trusted in the law and acted upon it shall be clothed in beauty and in splendour (Bar. 51:1-4). Enoch has it that in that day: "The earth shall be wholly rent asunder, and all that is on earth shall perish, and there shall be judgment on all men" (Enoch 1: 5-7). The Testament of Benjamin has it: "All men shall rise, some to the exalted, and some to be humbled and put to shame." For Jesus to speak like this was an act of the most extraordinary and unique courage. He must have known well that to make claims like this would sound the sheerest blasphemy to the orthodox Jewish leaders and was to court death. The man who listened to words like this had only two alternatives--he must either accept Jesus as the Son of God or hate him as a blasphemer. We now go on to take this passage section by section.

The Father And The Son (Joh_5:19-20)

Life, Judgment And Honour (Joh_5:21-23)

Acceptance Means Life (Joh_5:24)

Death And Life (Joh_5:25-29)

The Only True Judgment (Joh_5:30)

Witness To Christ (Joh_5:31-36)

The Witness Of God (Joh_5:37-43)

The Ultimate Condemnation (Joh_5:44-47)

Constable: John (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Writer

The writer of this Gospel did not identify himself as such in the text. This is true of all the Gospel evangelists. Nevertheless there is evidence within this Gospel as well as in the writings of the church fathers that the writer was the Apostle John.

The internal evidence from the Gospel itself is as follows. In 21:24 the writer of "these things" (i.e., the whole Gospel) was the same person as the disciple whom Jesus loved (21:7). That disciple was one of the seven disciples mentioned in 21:2. He was also the disciple who sat beside Jesus in the upper room when He instituted the Lord's Supper and to whom Peter motioned (13:23-24). This means that he was one of the Twelve since only they were present in the upper room (Mark 14:17; Luke 22:14). The disciple whom Jesus loved was also one of the inner circle of three disciples, namely Peter, James, and John (Mark 5:37-38; 9:2-3; 14:33; John 20:2-10). James died in the early history of the church, probably in the early 40s (Acts 12:2). There is good evidence that whoever wrote this Gospel did so after then. The writer was also not Peter (21:20-24). This evidence points to John as the disciple whom Jesus loved who was also the writer of this Gospel. The writer claimed to have seen Jesus' glory (1:14; cf. 1:1-4), which John did at the Transfiguration. There are several Johns in the New Testament. This one was one of Zebedee's sons who was a fisherman before Jesus called him to leave his nets and follow Him.

"To a certain extent each of the Gospels reflects the personality of its author, but in none of them is there a more distinctive individuality manifested than in John."¹

The external evidence also points to the Johannine authorship of the fourth Gospel. Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons (c. 130-200 A.D.), wrote that he had heard Polycarp (c. 69-155 A.D.), a disciple of John. It was apparently from Polycarp that Irenaeus learned that, "John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, had himself published a Gospel during his residence in Ephesus in Asia."² Other later church fathers supported this tradition including Theophilus of Antioch (c. 180 A.D.), Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian of Carthage, and Tatian.³ Eusebius (fourth century) also specifically mentioned that Matthew and John among the apostles wrote the Gospels that bear their names.⁴

Some scholars have rejected this seemingly clear evidence and have refused to accept Johannine authorship. This criticism comes from those who hold a lower view of Scripture generally. Answering their objections lies outside the purpose of these notes.⁵

Place of Writing

Eusebius wrote that John ministered to the church in Ephesus, which Paul had founded (Acts 19:1-20), for many years.⁶ The Isle of Patmos where John spent some time in exile is close to Ephesus (cf. Rev. 1:9-11). As previously noted, Eusebius wrote that John composed his Gospel when he was at Ephesus.⁷ During the first century, that city was one of the largest centers of Christian activity in the Gentile world.⁸

Date

A few scholars believe John could have written this book as early as 45 A.D., the date when Saul of Tarsus' persecutions drove many Christians out of Jerusalem (cf. Acts 8:1-4).⁹ There are two main problems with such an early date. First, John seems to have assumed that the Synoptic Gospels were available to the Christian public. There is some doubt about this since it assumes an assumption, but most scholars believe, on the basis of content, that John selected his material to supplement material in the Synoptics. This would put the fourth Gospel later than the Synoptics. Second, according to early church tradition the Apostle John lived long into the first century. This would make a later date possible even though it does not prove a later date. Some students of the book believe that John 21:18-22 implies that Peter would die before John did, and Peter died about 67 A.D. In general, most authorities reject a date this early for these and other reasons.

Some conservatives date the Gospel slightly before 70 A.D. because John described Palestine and Jerusalem as they were before the Roman destruction (cf. 5:2).¹⁰ This may be a weak argument since John frequently used the Greek present tense to describe things in the past.¹¹ Some who hold this date note the absence of any reference to Jerusalem's destruction in John. However there could have been many reasons John chose not to mention the destruction of Jerusalem if he wrote after that event. A date of writing before the destruction of Jerusalem is also a minority opinion among scholars.

Many conservative scholars believe that John wrote his Gospel between 85 and 95 A.D.¹² Early church tradition was that John wrote it when he was an older man. Moreover even the early Christians regarded this as the fourth Gospel and believed that John wrote it after the Synoptics. It is not clear if John had access to the Synoptic Gospels. He did not quote from any of them. However, his choice of material for his own Gospel suggests that he probably read them and chose to include other material from Jesus' ministry in his account to supplement them.¹³

The latest possible date would be about 100 A.D. Some liberal scholars date this Gospel in the second century. The Egerton papyrus that dates from early in the second century contains unmistakable allusions to John's Gospel.¹⁴ This seems to rule out a second century date.

It seems impossible to identify the date of writing very exactly, as evidenced by the difference of opinion that exists between excellent conservative scholars. A date sometime between 65 and 95 A.D. is probable.

Characteristic features and purpose

John's presentation of Jesus in his Gospel has been a problem to many modern students of the New Testament. Some regard it as the greatest problem in current New Testament studies.¹⁵ Compared to the Synoptics that present Jesus as a historical figure, John stressed the deity of Jesus. Obviously the Synoptics present Jesus as divine also, but the emphasis in the fourth Gospel is more strongly on Jesus' full deity. This emphasis runs from the beginning, with the Word becoming flesh (1:1, 14), to the end, were Thomas confessed Jesus as his Lord and God (20:28). John's purpose statement (20:30-31) explains why he stressed Jesus' deity. It was so his readers would believe that He is the Christ, the Son of God, and thereby have eternal life.

The key word in the book is the verb "believe" (Gr. pisteuo), which appears 98 times. The noun form of the word (Gr. pistis, "faith") does not occur at all. This phenomenon shows that John wanted to stress the importance of active vital trust in Jesus. Other key words are witness, love, abide, the Counselor (i.e., the Holy Spirit), light, life, darkness, Word, glorify, true, and real.¹⁶ These words identify important themes in the Gospel.

John's unique purpose accounted for his selection of material, as was true of every biblical writer. He omitted Jesus' genealogy, birth, baptism, temptation, exorcizing demons, parables, transfiguration, institution of the Lord's Supper, agony in Gethsemane, and ascension. He focused on Jesus' ministry in Jerusalem, the Jewish feasts, Jesus' private conversations with individuals, and His preparation of His disciples (chs. 13-17). John selected seven signs or miracles that demonstrate that Jesus was the divine Messiah (chs. 2-12). He also recorded the discourses that Jesus gave following these signs that explained their significance. Moreover he stressed Jesus' claims that occur in the unique "I am" statements (6:35; 8:12; 10:7, 9, 11, 14; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1, 5).

About 93% of the material in John's Gospel does not appear in the Synoptics.¹⁷ This fact indicates the uniqueness of this Gospel compared with the other three and explains why they bear the title "Synoptic" and John does not. All four Gospels are quite similar, though each of them has its own distinctive features. John, on the other hand, is considerably different from the others. Specifically it stresses Jesus' deity stronger than the others do. It is, I believe, impossible to determine for certain whether or not John used or even knew of the Synoptic Gospels.¹⁸ I suspect that he did.

Another difference between the Synoptics and the fourth Gospel is the writers' view of eschatology. They all share the same basic view, namely that the Jews' rejection of their Messiah resulted in the postponement of the messianic kingdom. However the Synoptic writers stressed the future aspects of eschatology more than John who put more emphasis on the present or realized aspects of eschatology. This is not to say that John presented the kingdom as having begun during Jesus' first advent. He did not. He did stress, however, the aspects of kingdom life that Christians currently enjoy as benefits of the new covenant, which Jesus ratified by His death. These include especially the Holy Spirit's ministries of indwelling and illuminating the believer. Such a shift in emphasis is understandable if John wrote later than the other Gospel evangelists. By then it was clear that God had postponed the messianic kingdom, and believers' interest was more on life in the church than it was on life in the messianic kingdom (cf. chs. 13-17).

"It is . . . quite possible that one of John's aims was to combat false teaching of a docetic type. The Docetists held that the Christ never became incarnate; everything was seeming.'¹⁹ That the docetic heresy did not appear in the first century seems clear, but certain elements that later were to be embodied in this heresy seem to have been quite early."²⁰

"We have suggested that the Fourth Gospel was addressed to two groups within the Johannine community, each of which represented an extreme interpretation of the nature of Jesus: one which did not accept him as God, and the other which did not accept him as man (see the introduction, xxiii; also Smalley, John, 145-48). The perfectly balanced christology of the Fourth Gospel was intended, we believe, to provide a resolution of this theological crisis: to remind the ex-Jewish members of the group, with their strong emphasis on the humanity of Jesus, that the Christ was divine; and to insist, for the benefit of the ex-pagan members (with their docetic outlook), that Jesus was truly human."²¹

The context of Jesus' ministry accounts for the strong Jewish flavor that marks all four Gospels. Yet John's Gospel is more theological and cosmopolitan than the others.

"It has . . . a wider appeal to growing Christian experience and to an enlarging Gentile constituency than the others.

"The Synoptics present him for a generation in process of being evangelized; John presents him as the Lord of the maturing and questioning believer."²²

As a piece of literature, John's Gospel has a symphonic structure.

"A symphony is a musical composition having several movements related in subject, but varying in form and execution. It usually begins with a dominant theme, into which variations are introduced at intervals. The variations seem to be developed independently, but as the music is played, they modulate into each other until finally all are brought to a climax. The apparent disunity is really part of a design which is not evident at first, but which appears in the progress of the composition."²³

Tasker described the fourth Gospel as "the simplest and yet the most profound of the Christian Gospels."²⁴

Original recipients

The preceding quotation implies that John wrote primarily for Christians. This implication may seem to be contrary to John's stated purpose (20:30-31). Probably John wrote both to convince unbelievers that Jesus was the Son of God and to give Christians who faced persecution confidence in their Savior. The word "believe" in 20:31 may be in the present tense implying that Christian readers should continue believing. It could be in the aorist tense suggesting that pagan readers should believe initially. An evangelistic purpose does not exclude an edification purpose. Indeed all 66 books of the Bible have edifying value for God's people (2 Tim. 3:16-17). John's purpose for unbelievers is that they might obtain eternal life, and his purpose for believers is that we might experience abundant eternal life (10:10).

John explained Jewish customs, translated Jewish names, and located Palestinian sites. These facts suggest that he was writing for Gentile readers outside Palestine. Furthermore the prologue seems addressed to readers who thought in Greek categories. John's inclusion of the Greeks who showed interest in seeing Jesus (12:20-22) may also suggest that he wrote with them in view. Because of John's general purposes it seems best to conclude that the original readers were primarily Gentile Christians and Gentile unbelievers.²⁵

"By the use of personal reminiscences interpreted in the light of a long life of devotion to Christ and by numerous episodes that generally had not been used in the Gospel tradition, whether written or oral, John created a new and different approach to understanding Jesus' person. John's readers were primarily second-generation Christians he was familiar with and to whom he seemed patriarchal."²⁶

The writer did not indicate the geographical location of the original recipients of his Gospel. This was undoubtedly intentional since the message of John has universal appeal. Perhaps its first readers lived in the Roman province of Asia the capital of which was Ephesus.

Summary of Gospel Introductions
Gospel	Matthew	Mark	Luke	John
Date	40-70probably 40s	63-70probably 60s	57-59probably 50s	65-95probably 90s
Origin	Palestine	Rome	Caesarea	Ephesus
Audience	Jews	Romans	Greeks	Gentiles
Emphasis	King	Servant	Man	God

Message²⁷

In one sense the Gospel of John is more profound than the Synoptics. It is the most difficult Gospel for most expositors to preach and to teach for reasons that will become evident as we study it. In another sense, however, the fourth Gospel is the easiest Gospel to understand. Leon Morris wrote that it is a pool in which a child can wade and an elephant can swim.²⁸ It is both simple and profound. It clarifies some things that the Synoptics leave as mysteries.

What are these mysteries? Matthew presents Jesus as the King, but it does not articulate the reason for Jesus' great authority. John does. Mark presents Jesus as the Servant, but it does not account for His depth of consecration to God. John does. Luke presents Jesus as the perfect Man, but it does not explain His uniqueness from the rest of humankind. John does.

The Gospel of John reveals answers to the mysteries about Jesus that the Synoptics leave hidden. It is therefore an apocalypse, an unveiling similar to the Book of Revelation in this respect. The Book of Revelation is the climax of biblical Christology. The Gospel of John plays that part among the Gospels. It is a revelation of the person of Jesus Christ more than any of the others. John told us that it would be this in his prologue (1:1-18).

The statement of the message of this Gospel occurs in 1:18: "No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him." John claimed that Jesus was the explanation of God the Father. This Gospel presents Jesus as the One who manifested God to humankind. This book then stresses the revelation of the truth about God.

Mankind has constantly sought to represent God in some way. We want to know what God is like. Ideas about God that do not come from the revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ are idolatrous. They create a false view of God. Typically human beings without divine revelation have imagined God as being an immense version of themselves, a projection of human personality into cosmic proportions. God's revelation of Himself, however, involved the limitation of Himself to humanity, the exact opposite approach. This is what God did in the Incarnation. God's revelations are often the exact opposite of what one would expect.

John presented Jesus as the Son of God. He wanted his readers to view Jesus and to see God. In the tears of Jesus, we should see what causes God sorrow. In the compassion of Jesus, we should see how God cares for His own. In the anger of Jesus, we should see what God hates.

What do we learn about God from Jesus in John? The prologue gives us the essential answer, and the body of the book explains this answer with various illustrations from Jesus' ministry. The prologue tells us that Jesus has manifested the glory of God by revealing two things about Him: His grace and His truth (1:14). All that Jesus revealed about God that this Gospel narrates is contractible into these two words. Notice first the revelation of grace in this Gospel.

The Gospel of John presents God as a gracious person. Behind His gracious dealings lies a heart of love. There are probably hundreds of evidences of God's love resulting in gracious action in this book. Let us note just the evidence of these qualities in the seven signs that John chose to record.

The miracle of changing water into wine (ch. 2) shows God's concern for marital joy. The healing of the official's son (ch. 4) shows God's desire that people experience family unity. The healing of the paralytic (ch. 5) shows God's grace in providing physical restoration. The feeding of the 5000 (ch. 6) shows God's love in providing material needs. The miracle of Jesus walking on the water (ch. 6) shows God's desire that people enjoy supernatural peace. The healing of the man born blind (ch. 9) illustrates God's desire that we have true understanding. The raising of Lazarus (ch. 11) shows God's grace in providing new life. All these miracles are revelations of God's love manifesting itself in gracious behavior toward us in our various needs. These are only the most obvious manifestations of God's grace in this book.

This Gospel also reveals that God is a God of truth. Another one of God's attributes that we see revealed in this Gospel lies behind the truth that we see revealed in this Gospel. That attribute is His holiness. The figure that John used to describe God's holiness is light. Light is a common figure for God's holiness in the Old Testament too. The principle of God's holiness governs the passion of His love.

Jesus' great works in John reveal God's love and His great words reveal God's truth. Let us select seven of the great "I am" claims of Jesus as illustrations of the various aspects of the truth that Jesus revealed about God. All these claims point to God as the source and to Jesus as the mediator of things having to do with truth.

The bread of life claim (ch. 6) points to God as the source of true sustenance. The light of the world claim (ch. 9) points to God as the source of true illumination. The door claim (ch. 10) points to God as the source of true security. The good shepherd claim (ch. 10) points to God as the source of true care. The resurrection and the life claim (ch. 11) points to God as the source of true life. The way, the truth, and the life claim (ch. 14) points to God as the source of true authority. The vine claim (ch. 15) points to God as the source of true fruitfulness. All of these claims pointed directly to Jesus as the mediator, but they also pointed beyond Him to God the Father. They were revelations of the truth concerning God.

These are all further revelations of the character of God introduced first in Exodus 3 where God began to reveal Himself as "I am." The Law of Moses was an initial revelation about God. The revelation that Jesus Christ brought was a further, fuller, and final revelation of the grace and truth that characterize God (1:17). These revelations find their most comprehensive expression in the fourth Gospel.

What are the implications of the revelation in this Gospel? First, such a revelation calls for worship.

In the Old Testament, God revealed Himself and dwelt among His people through the tabernacle. In the Incarnation, God revealed Himself and dwelt among His people through His Son (1:14). The tabernacle was the place where God revealed Himself and around which His people congregated to worship Him in response. The Son of God is the person through whom God has now given the greatest and fullest revelation of Himself and around whom we now bow in worship.

Second, such a revelation calls for service. Under the old Mosaic economy, worship prepared God's people to serve Him. Their service consisted of carrying out His mission for them in the world. The revelation of God should always result in service as well as worship (cf. Isa. 6:1-8). When we learn who God is as we study this Gospel, our reaction should not only be worship but service. This is true of the church as a whole and of every individual believer in it. Thomas' ascription of worship (20:28) was only preliminary to his fulfilling God's mission for him (20:21-23). Worship should never be an end in itself. Even in heaven we will serve as well as worship God (Rev. 22:3).

As recipients of this revelation of God, our lives too should be notable for grace and truth. These qualities should not only be the themes of our worship. They should also be the trademarks of our service. Truth and holiness should mark our words and motives. Graciousness should stamp our works as we deal with people. If they do not, we have not yet comprehended the revelation of God that Jesus came to bring to His own. Sloppy graciousness jeopardizes truthfulness, and rigid truthfulness endangers graciousness. Jesus illustrated the balance.

This Gospel has a strong appeal to the unsaved as well. John wrote it specifically to bring the light of revelation about Jesus' true identity to those who sit in spiritual darkness (20:30-31). The knowledge of who Jesus really is is the key to the knowledge of who God really is. Therefore our service must not only bear the marks of certain characteristics, namely grace and truth, but it must also communicate a specific content: who Jesus is. People need to consider who Jesus is. There is no better way for them to do this than by reading this Gospel. Remember the stated purpose of this book (20:30-31). Use it as an evangelistic tool.

Constable: John (Outline)

Outline

I. Prologue 1:1-18

A. The preincarnate Word 1:1-5

B. The witness of John the Baptist 1:6-8

C. The appearance of the Light 1:9-13

D. The incarnation of the Word 1:14-18

II. Jesus' public ministry 1:19-12:50

A. The prelude to Jesus' public ministry 1:19-51

1. John the Baptist's veiled testimony to Jesus 1:19-28

2. John the Baptist's open identification of Jesus 1:29-34

3. The response to John the Baptist's witness 1:35-42

4. The witness of Philip and Andrew 1:43-51

B. Jesus' early Galilean ministry 2:1-12

1. The first sign: changing water to wine 2:1-11

2. Jesus' initial stay in Capernaum 2:12

C. Jesus' first visit to Jerusalem 2:13-3:36

1. The first cleansing of the temple 2:13-22

2. Initial response to Jesus in Jerusalem 2:23-25

3. Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus 3:1-21

4. John the Baptist's reaction to Jesus' ministry 3:22-30

5. The explanation of Jesus' preeminence 3:31-36

D. Jesus' ministry in Samaria 4:1-42

1. The interview with the Samaritan woman 4:1-26

2. Jesus' explanation of evangelistic ministry 4:27-38

3. The response to Jesus in Samaria 4:39-42

E. Jesus' resumption of His Galilean ministry 4:43-54

1. Jesus' return to Galilee 4:43-45

2. The second sign: healing the official's son 4:46-54

F. Jesus' second visit to Jerusalem ch. 5

1. The third sign: healing the paralytic 5:1-9

2. The antagonism of the Jewish authorities 5:10-18

3. The Son's equality with the Father 5:19-29

4. The Father's witness to the Son 5:30-47

G. Jesus' later Galilean ministry 6:1-7:9

1. The fourth sign: feeding the 5,000 6:1-15

2. The fifth sign: walking on the water 6:16-21

3. The bread of life discourse 6:22-59

4. The responses to the bread of life discourse 6:60-7:9

H. Jesus' third visit to Jerusalem 7:10-10:42

1. The controversy surrounding Jesus 7:10-13

2. Jesus' ministry at the feast of Tabernacles 7:14-44

3. The unbelief of the Jewish leaders 7:45-52

[4. The woman caught in adultery 7:53-8:11]

5. The light of the world discourse 8:12-59

6. The sixth sign: healing a man born blind ch. 9

7. The good shepherd discourse 10:1-21

8. The confrontation at the feast of Dedication 10:22-42

I. The conclusion of Jesus' public ministry chs. 11-12

1. The seventh sign: raising Lazarus 11:1-44

2. The responses to the raising of Lazarus 11:45-57

3. Mary's anointing of Jesus 12:1-8

4. The official antagonism toward Lazarus 12:9-11

5. Jesus' triumphal entry 12:12-19

6. Jesus' announcement of His death 12:20-36

7. The unbelief of Israel 12:37-50

III. Jesus' private ministry chs. 13-17

A. The Last Supper 13:1-30

1. Jesus' washing of the disciples' feet 13:1-20

2. Jesus' announcement of His betrayal 13:21-30

B. The Upper Room Discourse 13:31-16:33

1. The new commandment 13:31-35

2. Peter's profession of loyalty 13:36-38

3. Jesus' comforting revelation in view of His departure 14:1-24

4. The promise of future understanding 14:25-31

5. The importance of abiding in Jesus 15:1-16

6. The warning about opposition from the world 15:17-27

7. The clarification of the future 16:1-24

8. The clarification of Jesus' destination 16:25-33

C. Jesus' high priestly prayer ch. 17

1. Jesus' requests for Himself 17:1-5

2. Jesus' requests for the Eleven 17:6-19

3. Jesus' requests for future believers 17:20-26

IV. Jesus' passion ministry chs. 18-20

A. Jesus' presentation of Himself to His enemies 18:1-11

B. Jesus' religious trial 18:12-27

1. The arrest of Jesus and the identification of the high priests 18:12-14

2. The entrance of two disciples into the high priests' courtyard and Peter's first denial 18:15-18

3. Annas' interrogation of Jesus 18:19-24

4. Peter's second and third denials of Jesus 18:25-27

C. Jesus' civil trial 18:28-19:16

1. The Jews' charge against Jesus 18:28-32

2. The question of Jesus' kingship 18:33-38a

3. The Jews' request for Barabbas 18:38b-40

4. The sentencing of Jesus 19:1-16

D. Jesus' crucifixion 19:17-30

1. Jesus' journey to Golgotha 19:17

2. The men crucified with Jesus 19:18

3. The inscription over Jesus' cross 19:19-22

4. The distribution of Jesus' garments 19:23-24

5. Jesus' provision for His mother 19:25-27

6. The death of Jesus 19:28-30

E. The treatment of Jesus' body 19:31-42

1. The removal of Jesus' body from the cross 19:31-37

2. The burial of Jesus 19:38-42

F. Jesus' resurrection 20:1-29

1. The discovery of Peter and John 20:1-9

2. The discovery of Mary Magdalene 20:10-18

3. The appearance to the Eleven minus Thomas on Easter evening 20:19-23

4. The transformed faith of Thomas 20:24-29

G. The purpose of this Gospel 20:30-31

V. Epilogue ch. 21

A. Jesus' appearance to seven disciples in Galilee 21:1-14

B. Jesus' teachings about motivation for service 21:15-23

C. The writer's postscript 21:24-25

Constable: John

John

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Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

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Haydock: John (Book Introduction)

THE

HOLY GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST,

ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN.

INTRODUCTION

St. John, the evangelist, a native of Bathsaida, in Galilee, was the son of Zebedee and Salome. He was by profession a fisherman. Our Lord gave to John, and to James, his brother, the surname of Boanerges, or, sons of thunder; most probably for their great zeal, and for their soliciting permission to call fire from heaven to destroy the city of the Samaritans, who refused to receive their Master. St. John is supposed to have been called to the apostleship younger than any of the other apostles, not being more than twenty-five or twenty-six years old. The Fathers teach that he never married. Our Lord had for him a particular regard, of which he gave the most marked proofs at the moment of his expiring on the cross, by intrusting to his care his virgin Mother. He is the only one of the apostles that did not leave his divine Master in his passion and death. In the reign of Domitian, he was conveyed to Rome, and thrown into a caldron of boiling oil, from which he came out unhurt. He was afterwards banished to the island of Patmos, where he wrote his book of Revelations; and, according to some, his Gospel. Tota antiquitas in eo abunde consentit, quod Domitianus exilii Joannis auctor fuerit. (Lampe. Proleg. lib. i. cap. 4.) --- In his gospel, St. John omits very many leading facts and circumstances mentioned by the other three evangelists, supposing his readers sufficiently instructed in points which his silence approved. It is universally agreed, that St. John had seen and approved of the other three gospels. (St. Hier. [St. Jerome,] de vir. illust. Eusebius, lib. iii, chap. 24.) --- St. Luke, says a learned author, seems to have had more learning than any other of the evangelists, and his language is more varied, copious, and pure. This superiority in style may perhaps be owing to his longer residence in Greece, and greater acquaintance with Gentiles of good education. --- St. Denis, of Alexandria, found in the gospel of St. John, elegance and precision of language, not only in the choice and arrangement of expressions, but also in his mode of reasoning and construction. We find here, says this saint, nothing barbarous and improper, nothing even low and vulgar; insomuch, that God not only seems to have given him light and knowledge, but also the means of well clothing his conceptions. (Dion. Alex. [Denis of Alexandria] apud Euseb. lib. vii, chap. 25.) --- Our critics do not join with St. Denis. They generally conceive St. John, with respect to language, as the least correct of the writers of the New Testament. His style argues a great want of those advantages which result from a learned education: but this defect is amply compensated by the unexampled simplicity with which he expresses the sublimest truths, by the supernatural lights, by the depth of the mysteries, by the superexcellency of the matter, by the solidity of his thoughts, and importance of his instructions. The Holy Ghost, who made choice of him, and filled him with infused wisdom, is much above human philosophy and the art of rhetoric. He possesses, in a most sovereign degree, the talent of carrying light and conviction to the mind, and warmth to the heart. He instructs, convinces, and persuades, without the aid of art or eloquence. --- St. John is properly compared to the eagle, because in his first flight he ascends above all sublunary objects, and does not stop till he meets the throne of the Almighty. He is so sententious, says St. Ambrose, that he gives us as many mysteries as words. (De Sacram. lib. iii, chap. 2) --- From Patmos our saint returned to Ephesus, where he died. (Euseb. lib. iii. hist. eccles.) --- It is said that the original gospel was preserved in the church of Ephesus till the seventh age [century], at least till the fourth; for St. Peter, of Alexandria, cites it. See Chron. Alex. and manuscript fragment. de paschate apud Petav. et Usher. --- Besides the gospel, we have of St. John three epistles and the Book of Revelations; and though other productions have been palmed on the world under the name of our evangelist, the Catholic Church only approves of those above specified. Ancient Fathers have given him the name of the Theologian: a title his gospel, and particularly the first chapter, deserves. Polycratus, bishop of Ephesus, tells us that St. John carried on his forehead a plate of gold, as priest of Jesus Christ, to honour the priesthood of the new law, in imitation of the high priests of the Jews. (Polycr. apud Euseb. liv. v, chap. 24.) --- This gospel was written in Greek, about the end of the first hundred years from Christ's nativity, at the request of the bishops of the Lesser Asia [Asia Minor], against the Cerinthians and the Ebionites, and those heretics, or Antichrists, as St. John calls them, (1 John iv. 3.) who pretended that Jesus was a mere man, who had no being or existence before he was born of Joseph and Mary. The blasphemies of these heretics had divers abettors in the first three ages [centuries], as Carpocrates, Artemon, the two Theodotus, Paul of Samosata, Sabellius, and some others; on whom, see St. Irenæus, St. Epiphanius, St. Augustine, &c. To these succeeded, in the beginning of the fourth century, Arius, of Alexandria, and the different branches of the blasphemous Arian sect. They allowed that Jesus Christ had a being before he was born of Mary; that he was made and created before all other creatures, and was more perfect than any of them; but still that he was no more than a creature: that he had a beginning, and that there was a time when he was not: that he was not properly God, or the God, not the same God, nor had the same substance and nature, with the eternal Father and Creator of all things. This heresy was condemned by the Church in the first General Council, at Nice, ann. 325. --- After the Arians rose up the Macedonians, who denied the divinity of the Holy Ghost; and afterwards the Nestorians, Eutychians, &c. In every age pride and ignorance have produced some heresies; for, as the Apostle says, (1 Corinthians xi. 19.) there must be heresies. Towards the beginning of the sixteenth age [century] Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, &c. set themselves up for reformers, even of that general and Catholic faith which they found every where taught, and believed in all Christian Churches. Luther owns that he was then alone, the only one of his communion, (if so it may be called); yet none of these called in question the mysteries of the Trinity, or of the Incarnation. --- But not many years after, came the blasphemous sect of the Socinians, so called from Lælius and Faustus Socini. These, and their followers, renewed the condemned errors of the Arians. We scarce find any thing new in the systems of these men, who would pass for somebody, like Theodas, Acts v. 36.; or who, like Simon, the magician, and first heretic, would be looked upon as great men, and great wits, by daring to be free-thinkers, and thereby bold blasphemers. --- To do justice to Calvin, he did not think these Socinians fit to live in any Christian society: and therefore he got Michael Servetus burnt alive at Geneva, ann. 1553; and Valentinus Gentilis, one of the same sect, was beheaded at Berne, ann. 1565. I must needs say, it seems an easier matter to excuse the warm sharp zeal of Calvin, and his Swiss brethren, in persecuting to death these Socinians with sword and faggot, than to shew with what justice and equity these men could be put to death, who followed the very same principle, and the only rule of faith; i.e. Scriptures expounded by every man's private reason, or private spirit; which the pretended Reformers, all of them, maintain with as much warmth as ever, to the very day. --- Heretics in all ages have wrested the sense of the Scriptures, to make them seem to favour their errors: and by what we see so frequently happen, it is no hard matter for men who have but a moderate share of wit and sophistry, by their licentious fancies and arbitrary expositions, to turn, change, and pervert Scripture texts, and to transform almost any thing into any thing, says Dr. Hammond, on the second chapter of St. John's Revelation. But I need not fear to say, this never appeared so visibly as in these last two hundred years; the truth of which no one can doubt, who reads the History of the Variations, written by the learned bishop of Meaux. --- These late Reformers seem to make a great part of their religion consist in reading, or having at least the Bible in their mother-tongue. The number of translations into vulgar languages, with many considerable differences, is strangely multiplied. Every one rashly claims a right to expound them according to his private judgment, or his private spirit. And what is the consequence of this; but that as men's judgments and their private interpretations are different, so in a great measure are the articles of their creed and belief? --- The Scriptures, in which are contained the revealed mysteries of divine faith, are, without all doubt, the most excellent of all writings: these divers volumes, written by men inspired from God, contained not the words of men, but the word of God, which can save our souls: (1 Thessalonians ii. 13. and James i. 21.) but then they ought to be read, even by the learned, with the spirit of humility; with a fear of mistaking the true sense, as so many have done; with a due submission to the Catholic Church, which Christ himself commanded us to hear and obey. This we might learn from the Scripture itself. The apostle told the Corinthians, that even in those days there were many who corrupted and adulterated the word of God. (2 Corinthians ii. 17.) St. Peter gives us this admonition: that in the Epistles of St. Paul, are some things hard to understand, which the unlearned and the unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. --- It was merely to prevent and remedy this abuse of the best of books, that it was judged necessary to forbid the ignorant to read the Scriptures in vulgar languages, without the advice and permission of their pastors and spiritual guides, whom Christ appointed to govern his Church. (Acts xx. 28.) The learned University of Paris, 1525, at that time, and in those circumstances, judged the said prohibition necessary: and whosoever hath had any discourses with persons of different religions and persuasions in our kingdom, especially with Anabaptists, Quakers, and such as pretend to expound the Scriptures, either by their private reason or by the private spirit, will, I am confident, be fully convinced that the just motives of the said prohibition subsist to this very day. Ignorant men and women turn Scripture texts to the errors of their private sects, and wrest them to their own perdition; as the very best of remedies prove pernicious and fatal to those who know not their virtues, nor how to use them, and apply them. --- They might learn from the Acts of the Apostles, (Chap. xv.) that as soon as a doubt and dispute was raised, whether the Gentiles converted by the apostles, were obliged to observe any of the ceremonies of the law of Moses, this first controversy about religion was not decided by the private judgment, or private spirit, even of those apostolical preachers, but by an assembly or council of the apostles and bishops, held at Jerusalem; as appears by the letter of the council sent to the Christians at Antioch. It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, &c. to us, whom Christ promised to direct by the Spirit of truth; with whom, he assured us, he would remain to the end of the world. --- The very same method, as it is evident by the annals of Church history, hath been practised to the very time, and will be to the end of the world. It is the rule grounded on the command and promises of Christ, when he founded and established the Christian Church. All disputes about the sense of the Scriptures, and about points of the Christian belief, have been always decided by the successors of St. Peter, and the other apostles; even by general councils, when judged necessary: and they who, like Arius, obstinately refused to submit their private judgment to that of the Catholic Church, were always condemned, excommunicated, and cut off from the communion of the Church of Christ. --- Nor is this rule and this submission to be understood of the ignorant and unlearned only, but also of men accomplished in all kind of learning. The ignorant fall into errors for want of knowledge, and the learned are many times blinded by their pride and self-conceit. The sublime and profound mysteries, such as the Trinity, the Incarnation of the eternal Son of God, the manner of Christ's presence in the holy sacrament, are certainly above the reach of man's weak reason and capacity; much less are they the object of our senses, which are so often deceived. Let every reader of the sacred volumes, who pretends to be a competent judge of the sense, and of the truths revealed in them, reflect on the words which he finds in Isaias: (Chap. lv. 8, 9) For my thoughts are not your thoughts; nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts. How then shall any one, by his private reason, pretend to judge, to know, to demonstrate, what is possible or impossible to the incomprehensible power of God? --- A self-conceited Socinian, big with the opinion he has of his own wit and knowledge, will boldly tell us, that to say or believe that three distinct persons are one and the same God, is a manifest contradiction. Must we believe him? Or the Christian Catholic Church, in all ages? That is, against the greatest authority upon earth: whether we consider the Church as the most illustrious society and body of men; or whether we consider the same Church as under the protection of Christ and his divine promises, to teach them all truth to the end of the world. Besides this, experience itself should make the said Socinian distrust his own judgment as to such a pretended contradiction, when he finds that the brightest wits, and most subtle philosophers, after all their study and search of natural causes and effects, for so many hundred years, by the light of their reason could never yet account for the most common and obvious things in nature, such as are the parts of matter, and extension, local motion, and the production of numberless vegetables and animals, which we see happen, but know not how. See the author of a short answer to the late Dr. Clark and Mr. Whiston, concerning the divinity of the Son of God, and of the Holy Ghost. An. 1729. --- The latest writers among the pretended Reformers hesitate not to tell us, that what the Church and its councils have declared, as to Christ's real presence in the holy sacrament, is contradicted by all our senses; as if our senses, which are so often mistaken, were the supreme and only judges of such hidden mysteries. Another tells us, that for Christ to be truly and really present in many places, in ten thousand places at once, is a thing impossible in nature and reason; and his demonstrative proof is, that he knows it to be impossible. With this vain presumption, he runs on to this length of extravagant rashness, and boldly pronounces, that should he find such a proposition in the Bible, nay, though with his eyes he should see a man raise the dead, and declare that proposition true, he could not believe it: and merely because he knows it impossible: which is no more than to say, that it does not seem possible to his weak reason. I do not find that he offers to bring any other proof, but that it is contrary to his senses, and that God cannot assert a contradiction. And why must we take it for a contradiction, only because he tells us, he knows it to be so? It was certainly the safest way for him, to bring no reasons to shew it impossible to the infinite and incomprehensible power of the Almighty: this vain attempt would only have given new occasions to his learned antagonist, the author of the Single Combat, to expose his weakness even more than he has done. --- May not every Unitarian, every Arian, every Socinian, every Latitudinarian, every Free-thinker, tell us the same? And if this be a sufficient plea, none of them can be condemned of heresy or error. Calvin could never silence Servetus, (unless it were by lighting faggots round him) if he did but say, I know that three distinct persons cannot be one and the same God. It is a contradiction, and God cannot assert a contradiction. I know that the Son cannot be the same God with the Father. It is a contradiction, and therefore impossible. So that though I find clear texts in the Scriptures, that three give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one: though Christ, the Son of God, tells us, that he and the Father are one, or one thing; nay, though I should with my own eyes, see men raise the dead to confirm these mysteries, (as many are recorded to have done) and declare them to be revealed divine truths, I cannot believe them, because I know them to be false, to be nonsense, to be contradictions to reason and nature. The like the Free-thinker may tell us, with the Pelagians, as to the existence of original sin, that all men should become liable to eternal death for Adam's sinning; with the Manicheans, that men cannot have free will to do, or abstain from, sinful actions, and yet God know infallibly from eternity what they will do; with the Origenists, that God, who is infinite goodness itself, will not punish sinners eternally, for yielding to what the inclinations of their corrupt nature prompt them. They have the same right to tell all Christendom, that they know these pretended revealed mysteries to be nonsense, impossibilities, and contradictions. And every man's private judgment, when, with an air of confidence, he says, I know it, must pass for infallible; though he will not hear of the Catholic Church being infallible, under the promises of our Saviour, Christ. --- But to conclude this preface, already much longer than I designed, reason itself, as well as the experience we have of our own weak understanding, from the little we know even of natural things, might preserve every sober thinking man from such extravagant presumption, pride and self-conceited rashness, as to pretend to measure God's almighty and incomprehensible power by the narrow and shallow capacity of human understanding, or to know what is possible or impossible for Him that made all things out of nothing. In fine, let not human understanding exalt itself against the knowledge of God, but bring into a rational captivity and submission every thought to the obedience of Christ. Let every one humbly acknowledge with the great St. Augustine, whose learning and capacity, modestly speaking, were not inferior to those of any of those bold and rash pretenders to knowledge, that God can certainly do more than we can understand. Let us reflect with St. Gregory of Nazianzus (Orat. xxxvii. p. 597. C.) that if we know not the things under our feet, we must not pretend to fathom the profound mysteries of God. [1] --- And, in the mean time, let us pray for those who are thus tossed to and fro with every wind and blast of different doctrines, (Ephesians iv. 14.) that God, of his infinite mercy, would enlighten their weak and blinded understanding with the light of the one true faith, and bring them to the one fold of his Catholic Church. (Witham)

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[1] Naz. Orat. xxxvii. Greek: Mede ta en posin eidenai dunamenoi ... me theou bathesin embateuein.

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Gill: John (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO JOHN

The author of this Gospel is John, the son of Zebedee and Salome, the brother of James the greater; he outlived the rest of the disciples, and wrote this Gospel after the other evangelists; and in it many things are recorded, which are not in the other Gospels; as various discourses of Christ, and miracles done by him; several incidents in his life, and circumstances that attended his sufferings and death: the occasion of it is generally thought to be the errors of Ebion and Cerinthus, who denied the divinity of Christ, asserted he was a mere man, and that he did not exist before his incarnation; and the design of it is to confute them: and it is easy to observe, that he begins his Gospel with the divinity of Christ; asserts him to be God, and proves him to be truly and properly so, by the works of creation, which were wrought by him, as well as shows that he was really man. Clemens ^a calls this Gospel of John, pneumatikon euaggelion "a spiritual Gospel", as indeed it is; consisting of the spiritual discourses of our Lord, on various occasions, both at the beginning, and in the course of his ministry, and especially a little before his sufferings and death: and the same writer observes, that John, the last of the evangelists, considering that in the other Gospels were declared the things relating to the body of Christ, that is, to him, as he was after the flesh; to his genealogy and birth as man; to what was done to him, or by him, in his infancy; to his baptism, temptations, journeys, &c. at the request of his familiar friends, and moved by the Spirit of God, composed this Gospel. Moreover, it is observed by some ^b, that the other three evangelists only record what was done by Christ, in one year after John the Baptist was cast into prison, as appears from Mat 4:12 wherefore John, at the entreaty of his friends, put these things into his Gospel, which were done or said by Christ, before John was cast into prison. He was called very early by Christ, though young; and was with him throughout the whole of his ministry, and was an eye and ear witness of what he here relates, and his testimony is to be received; he was the beloved disciple, he leaned on the bosom of Jesus, and had great intimacy with him; and might be privy to some things, which others were not acquainted with; and though he was a Galilean, and an unlearned man, Act 4:13 yet being endowed with the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, he was abundantly qualified to write this book: for what some ancient writers ^c say of him, that he was a priest, and wore a plate, that is, of gold upon his forehead, cannot be true, since he was not of the tribe of Levi; and besides, only the high priest wore that upon his mitre; unless they mean, as seems most likely, that he was a Christian bishop: perhaps the mistake may arise from John the Baptist, who was of the priestly order, and is called by some Jewish writers ^d, John the high priest. When and where this Gospel was written, is not certain; some say in ^e Asia, after he had wrote his Revelation in Patmos; and others say particularly, that it was wrote at Ephesus; the title of it in the Syriac version, signifies much, which runs thus;

"the holy Gospel, the preaching of John, which he spoke and published in Greek at Ephesus.''

And to the same purpose is the title of it in the Persic version;

"the Gospel of John, one of the twelve apostles, which was spoken in the city of Ephesus, in the Greek Roman tongue.''

College: John (Book Introduction)

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

Even the casual reader of the New Testament will notice that the first three accounts of Jesus' life are generally similar in their overall story line, whereas the fourth Gospel (John) is quite different. Scholars refer to Matthew, Mark, and Luke as the Synoptic Gospels (Synoptic = "seen together" or "as parallel") because of their similarities, but John is called, well . . . John (no special name). It is part of the New Testament collection known as the Johannine Writings (John, 1, 2, 3 John, and Revelation).

The differences between the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John are readily apparent to the alert reader. For example the Synoptics all present one major trip of Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem, whereas John portrays Jesus as being in Judea and Jerusalem often. Indeed, for John the primary ministry of Jesus seems to be in Judea rather than the Galilean setting of the Synoptics. Another difference is seen in John's lack of true parables in his recorded teachings of Jesus. In the Synoptics, parables are the characteristic form of Jesus' teaching, with the often repeated introduction, "Jesus told them a parable, saying, 'the kingdom of God is like this . . . .'" John is also loaded with characters we do not find in the Synoptics: Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman at the well, and Lazarus, just to name a few. Furthermore, some of our most memorable Gospel phrases are not found in the Synoptics, but only in John: "In the beginning was the Word." "Behold the Lamb of God!" "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son." "I am the way, the truth, and the life." "I am the vine." "What is truth?" "It is finished!" "So send I you." By some estimates about 90% of the material found in John is not found in the Synoptic Gospels.

Christian scholars have noticed these differences from ancient times. Clement of Alexandria, writing approximately AD 185, called John the "spiritual Gospel." By this, Clement did not mean that John was nonhistorical, but that John was more concerned with internal, spiritual matters. In the more recent past overly critical scholars have pronounced the differences between John and the Synoptics to be irreconcilable and concluded that John is, in effect, the first commentary on the Gospels. This assumption (that John is historical fiction) exists in many commentaries of previous generations and is still held by some today. In general, though, current scholarship is much less certain about the nonhistorical character of John. In this commentary we assume that John relates a historically reliable version of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, albeit quite different from that of the Synoptic Gospels. These differences are part of what makes the study of this book so fascinating and will be discussed at the appropriate places through the commentary.

WHO IS THE AUTHOR?

We have been writing as if we knew for sure that John was the author of this Gospel. But this begs the question, how do we know for sure that John wrote it, and if so, which John was this? To answer the first question in complete honesty, we do not know for sure who wrote this book, for it was published anonymously in line with the publishing standards of the ancient world. We do have some very early witnesses to John as the author, however. The so-called "Muratorian Canon" (date disputed, but probably AD 150-200) says, "John, one of the disciples, wrote the fourth book of the Gospel." An early church leader by the name of Irenaeus (AD 185) is also an important witness. Tradition claims that Irenaeus was a student of Polycarp of Smyrna, and that Polycarp was a student of John himself. This means that Irenaeus is only one generation of believers removed from John, which gives added weight to what he writes. Irenaeus states in no uncertain terms that John was the author of the Fourth Gospel (in his book Against Heresies 3.1.1).

Some scholars have suggested, however, that the author of the Fourth Gospel was indeed a man named John, but not John the Apostle. It is true that there were other early Christian leaders named John, and it is possible that one of them is the true author of the Fourth Gospel. This issue may be addressed by determining the identity of the so-called "beloved disciple" within the book of John.

In John 21:20-24 the "disciple whom Jesus loved" is said to be the author of the book. If we work backwards through the book, we encounter the beloved disciple in other places. He is the one who recognizes Jesus after the resurrection during the miraculous catch of fish (21:7). Jesus entrusts the care for his mother, Mary, to this disciple while hanging on the cross (19:26-27). This disciple reclines next to Jesus at the Last Supper (13:23, 25). The beloved disciple is intended to be seen in some places where he is simply called the "other disciple." He is the one who races Peter to the tomb on Easter morning, and arrives first (20:3-5, probably indicating that he was younger than Peter). It is the "other disciple" who gains entrance for Peter and himself into the high priest's courtyard during the interrogation of Jesus (18:15-16). The "other disciple" may also be the unnamed disciple of John the Baptist who, along with Andrew, is pointed to Jesus by the Baptist himself (1:35-40).

The intimacy the beloved disciple has with Jesus points to one of the inner circle of disciples. In the Synoptic Gospels, this "inner circle" is pictured as Peter, James, and John. Peter is clearly not the author of the Fourth Gospel, because he is often portrayed as being with the "beloved disciple." James is an unlikely candidate, because he suffers early martyrdom at the hands of Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:2). This leaves only John the Apostle, the son of Zebedee, the brother of James. This case is somewhat strengthened by the fact that the Apostle John is named nowhere in the Fourth Gospel (nor is James, the only reference being to the "sons of Zebedee" at 21:2). It is not easy to understand why any other early Christian writer would have omitted the name of such a prominent Apostle. The solution to the mystery is that we are intended to see John himself as the author, and that he does not mention himself except as the "beloved disciple" or the "other disciple." We should also note that this is not an expression of pride (he "loved me best"). It is an expression of deep humility, wonderment, and thankfulness on the part of the author: Jesus loved me, even me?!

WHEN AND WHERE WAS IT WRITTEN?

Many locations have been suggested as the place of composition for the Gospel of John, but the traditional site is the city of Ephesus. The ruins of Ephesus are in southwestern Turkey, near the modern city of Kusadasi. Ephesus was one of the largest and most important cities of the Roman Empire in the first century. Ephesus was the site of the Temple of Artemis (sometimes incorrectly called the Temple of Diana, see Acts 19:28). This temple was recognized as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world according to the Greek geographer, Strabo. This large city (perhaps as many as 500,000 inhabitants) had a very mixed population. There was a strong Christian community in Ephesus, for Paul had a three-year ministry there in the AD 50s. The presence of the Temple of Artemis shows that there was also a strong pagan community, dedicated to the worship of the ancient Greek gods. Overall it was a large, cosmopolitan city, with a well-developed Greek culture. The common language of the city would have been Greek, the language of the New Testament.

Although it cannot be proven, there is strong tradition that the Apostle John, along with Mary the mother of Jesus, made his way to Ephesus sometime after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. John, at least, was probably in Ephesus during the reign of Emperor Domitian (AD 81-96). After a few years, Domitian seems to have actively persecuted the Christian community, and this atmosphere of persecution probably forms the background for the Fourth Gospel, written sometime between AD 85-95. Also, by this time, the Jewish synagogue community had solidified in its opposition to the Christians, and Jews had to make a choice between the two. Jews who chose to believe in Jesus were "thrown out of the synagogue," a circumstance mentioned by John (9:22; 16:2).

This makes John one of the last books of the New Testament to be written, and certainly the last of the Gospels. If we theorize that John was about 20 when Jesus was crucified (AD 30), then he would have been 75-85 years old when this book was written, a very old man in the ancient world. For this and other reasons, it is likely that John had quite a bit of help in writing this book. Some scholars want to speak of the "Johannine community" or the "community of the beloved disciple" as the author, and there is some merit to this (cf. 21:24, "we know his testimony in true"). For our purposes, however, we will assume that the Apostle John, an eyewitness to many of the Gospel events, is the primary author of this book.

WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF JOHN?

First, we would say that the style of John's writing is simple, but its thought is profound. John is written in some of the simplest Greek in the New Testament, although this does not mean it is "bad" Greek. It uses many common words, many monosyllabic words, and relatively short sentences. Yet the message of the book is profound. Fred Craddock notes that this is a Gospel in which "a child can wade and an elephant can swim."

A second characteristic of John is that he has laid out the bulk of the book as a series of lengthy accounts of works followed by words. We can characterize these combinations as miraculous signs followed by discourses or sermons of Jesus. John has only seven miracles, five of which are not found in the Synoptic Gospels. The story of each of these miracles is told at some length, and the material of the sermon that follows is primarily material not found in the Synoptics.

A third characteristic of the Fourth Gospel is the emphasis upon the personal ministry of Jesus. John relates several one-on-one situations (e.g., Jesus with Nicodemus, chapter 3), which teach us that Jesus had an active private ministry. It was not all public preaching, although this was important, too. In John we see a Jesus who cares for people and has time for them. This has another side, however. Sometimes it emphasizes the aloneness of Jesus. He often seems to be by himself without the support of the disciples or anyone else, a solitary figure.

Fourthly, John has a highly developed theological interest. He is particularly concerned with the matter of Christology, explaining who Jesus is in relation to God. John lays stress on the divinity of Jesus, often referring to him as the Son or the Son of God. He also stresses the humanity of Jesus: he is thirsty at Sychar and weeps at the tomb of Lazarus. John develops the theme of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, the one God sent to his people.

John also explores the nature of God the Father, particularly through the Father-Son relationship between Jesus and God. John emphasizes that faith for the Christian must be in both the Father and in the Son. And John also has a great deal of discussion about the Holy Spirit. This is found throughout the book, but particularly in the Farewell Discourses of chapters 13-17. Here the Holy Spirit is portrayed as the coming Paraclete or Advocate for the community of believers.

A fifth characteristic might also be called the purpose of John. This purpose is strongly evangelistic, to bring the readers to faith. There is a constant contrast in the Fourth Gospel between believers and unbelievers, between faith and unfaith. Toward the end of the book John lays out his purpose in very straightforward language, "These [things] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name" (20:31).

HOW WILL THE STUDY OF JOHN

BE APPROACHED?

There are many possible ways to study John, but it is helpful to know what the primary emphasis will be in this commentary. Our main focus will be to listen carefully to what John is saying to us, to understand his intended message. This is not as easy as it may seem at first glance, for John is far removed from twentieth century English speakers. We want to know the general story, to pick up on the nuances, to be sensitive to the theological implications John is drawing out. For the most part we will not be concerned with evaluating the historical nature of John's account. When we bring historical data into the mix, it will be to help the reader understand the background of John's story, not to judge his accuracy. This is a modified narrative approach, an attempt to understand John's story as it is intended to be understood. While some may find this intolerably naïve, it is certainly the first and necessary step to a full appreciation of this marvelous book. If we can get you to listen to John carefully and hear his message, we will have succeeded in what we set out to do.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Note: There are many, many commentaries and other books related to the study of John. Dr. Bryant's favorites were the ones by Rudolf Bultmann, Barnabas Lindars, and Raymond Brown (even though he had sharp disagreements with all of them). Bultmann has a great deal of excellent material, although his theological bent makes him difficult for less advanced students. Lindars is excellent in technical discussion, but spiritually dry. Brown is wordy, but often gives great insights. I think the finest commentary on John is that of D.A. Carson. While Carson may be too conservative for some, he never avoids the hard questions and takes the time necessary to do thorough exegesis. Other outstanding choices for the more advanced student include the commentary of C.K. Barrett and George Beasley-Murray's commentary in the Word Biblical Commentary series. For the less advanced student the commentary by Paul Butler contains a wealth of accessible material, although written for an earlier generation.

Abbot, Ezra, Andrew P. Peabody, and J.B. Lightfoot. The Fourth Gospel: Evidences External and Internal of Its Johannean Authorship . London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1892.

Ashton, John. Understanding the Fourth Gospel . Oxford: Clarendon, 1991.

Bacon, Benjamin W. The Fourth Gospel in Research and Debate: A Series of Essays on Problems Concerning the Origin and Value of the Anonymous Writings Attributed to the Apostle John . New York: Moffatt, 1910.

. The Gospel of the Hellenists . New York: Holt, n.d., c.1933.

Barclay, William. The Gospel of John . The Daily Study Bible Series. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1956.

Barrett, C.K. The Gospel according to St. John . Second Edition. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978.

. The Gospel of John and Judaism . Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975.

Bauer, Walter. Das Johannesevangelium . Tübingen: Mohr, 1925.

Beasley-Murray, George R. John . Word Biblical Commentary 36. Waco: Word, 1987.

Bernard, John H. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John. 2 volumes. International Critical Commentary. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1928.

Blomberg, Craig L. Jesus and the Gospels. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1997.

Boice, James M. Witness and Revelation in the Gospel of John . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978.

Borchert, Gerald L. John 1-11 . The New American Commentary 25A. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1996.

Bowman, John. The Fourth Gospel and the Jews: A Study in R. Akiba, Esther, and the Gospel of John . Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1975.

Brown, Raymond E. The Community of the Beloved Disciple. New York: Paulist, 1979.

. The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave . 2 volumes. New York: Doubleday, 1994.

. The Gospel according to John . 2 volumes. The Anchor Bible 29A-B. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966-70.

Bruce, F.F. The Gospel of John . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983.

Bultmann, Rudolf. The Gospel of John . Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971.

Burney, Charles F. The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel . Oxford: Clarendon, 1922.

Butler, Paul. The Gospel of John . 2 volumes in 1. Bible Study Textbook Series. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1961.

Carpenter, Joseph E. The Johannine Writings: A Study of the Apocalypse and the Fourth Gospel. London: Constable, 1927.

Carson, D.A. The Gospel According to John. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991.

Charlesworth, James H., editor. John and Qumran . London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1972.

Colwell, Ernest C., The Greek of the Fourth Gospel: A Study of Its Aramaisms in the Light of Hellenistic Greek . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, n.d., c. 1931.

Craddock, Fred B. John . Knox Preaching Guides. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982.

Cullmann, Oscar. The Johannine Circle . Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975.

Culpepper, R. Alan. The Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design . Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983.

. The Gospel and Letters of John . Interpreting Biblical Texts Series. Nashville: Abingdon, 1998.

Dodd, C.H. Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963.

. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953.

Drummond, James. An Inquiry into the Character and Authorship of the Fourth Gospel. New York: Scribner, 1904.

Eisler, Robert. The Enigma of the Fourth Gospel . London: Methuen, 1938.

Erdman, Charles R. The Gospel of John . Philadelphia: Westminster, 1917.

Fortna, Robert T. The Gospel of Signs: A Reconstruction of the Narrative Source Underlying the Fourth Gospel . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.

Foster, R.C. Studies in the Life of Christ . Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985. Reprint, Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996.

Gardner-Smith, Percival. St. John and the Synoptic Gospels . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938.

Gnilka, J. Johannesevangelium . Neue Echter Bibel. Würzburg: Echter, 1983.

Godet, Frederic. Commentary on the Gospel of John . Translated by Timothy Dwight. 2 volumes. New York: Funk & Wagnall, 1886.

Haenchen, Ernst. A Commentary on the Gospel of John . Hermeneia Series. 2 volumes. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984. (German ed., 1980.)

Hendriksen, William. Exposition of the Gospel according to John . 2 volumes. New Testament Commentary Series. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1954.

Hengel, Martin. The Johannine Question . Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1989.

Higgins, A.J.B. The Historicity of the Fourth Gospel . London: Lutterworth, 1960.

Hoskyns, Edwyn C. The Fourth Gospel. 2 volumes. London: Faber, 1940. Revised. ed. in one vol., 1947.

Howard, Wilbert F. Christianity According to St. John . Philadelphia: Westminster, 1946.

. The Fourth Gospel in Recent Criticism and Interpretation . London: Epworth, 1931.

Howard, Wilbert F., and Arthur J. Gossip. "The Gospel According to St. John." In Interpreter's Bible 7:437-811. Nashville: Abingdon/ Cokesbury, 1952.

Hunter, Archibald M. According to John . The Cambridge Bible Commentary. London: SCM Press, 1968.

. The Gospel According to John . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965.

Jauncey, James H. The Compelling Indwelling [Studies on John 15]. Chicago: Moody, 1972.

Jeremias, Joachim. New Testament Theology. Old Tappan, NJ: Scribners Reference, 1977.

Jervell, Jacob. Jesus in the Gospel of John . Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984.

Kysar, Robert. The Fourth Evangelist and His Gospel . Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1975.

. John . Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986.

. John's Story of Jesus . Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984.

. John, the Maverick Gospel . Atlanta: John Knox, 1976. Reprinted Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1993.

Lee, Edwin Kenneth. The Religious Thought of St. John . London: S.P.C.K., 1950.

Lenski, R.C.H. Interpretation of John's Gospel . Columbus: Lutheran Book Concern, 1936.

Leon-Dufour, Xavier. Dictionary of the New Testament . New York: Harper & Row, 1980.

Lightfoot, Robert H. St. John's Gospel . Edited by C.F. Evans. Oxford: Clarendon, 1956.

Lindars, Barnabas. The Gospel of John . New Century Bible Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.

MacGregor, George H.C. The Gospel of John . The Moffatt New Testament Commentary. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1928.

MacGregor, George H.C., and A.Q. Morton. The Structure of the Fourth Gospel. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1961.

Maier G. Johannes-Evangelium . BKNT 6. Neuhausen-Stuttgart: Hänssler, 1984.

Marsh, John. The Gospel of St. John . Westminster Pelican Commentaries. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968.

Martyn, J. Louis. History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel . New York: Harper & Row, 1968.

. The Gospel of John in Christian History: Essays for Interpreters . New York: Paulist, 1979.

McGarvey, J.W., and P.Y. Pendleton. The Fourfold Gospel or a Harmony of the Four Gospels . Cincinnati: Standard, 1914.

Michaels, J.R. John . San Francisco: Harper, 1984.

Moloney, Francis J. The Gospel of John. Sacra Pagina. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998.

Montefiore, C.G., and H. Loewe. A Rabbinic Anthology. New York: Schocken Books, 1974.

Morris, Leon. The Gospel according to St. John . The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971.

. Reflections on the Gospel of John . 4 volumes. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986.

. Studies in the Fourth Gospel . Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1969.

Murray, John O.F. Jesus according to St. John . London: Longmans, 1936.

Nicol, W. Semeia in the Fourth Gospel . Leiden: Brill, 1972.

Nolloth, Charles F. The Fourth Evangelist: His Place in the Development of Religious Thought. London: J. Murray, 1925.

O'Neill, J.C. Who Did Jesus Think He Was? Leiden: Brill, 1995.

Odeberg, Hugo. The Fourth Gospel: Interpreted in Its Relation to Contemporaneous Religious Currents in Palestine and the Hellenistic-Oriental World . Amsterdam: B.R. Grüner, 1968.

Pack, Frank. The Gospel according to John . Living Word Commentaries. Austin: Sweet, 1975.

Palmer, Earl F. The Intimate Gospel . Waco: Word, 1978.

Plummer, Alfred. The Gospel according to St. John. Cambridge Greek Testament. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1890.

Rainsford, Marcus. Our Lord Prays: Thoughts on John XVII . London: 1873; reprint Chicago: Moody, 1950.

Redlich, Edwin B. An Introduction to the Fourth Gospel . London: Longmans, 1939.

Ridderbos, Herman N. The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997.

Rigg, William Harrison. The Fourth Gospel and Its Message for Today . London: Lutterworth, 1952.

Robinson, John A.T. The Priority of John . London: SCM Press, 1985.

Sanday, William. The Authorship and Historical Character of the Fourth Gospel . London: Macmillan, 1872.

. The Criticism of the Fourth Gospel . New York: Scribner, 1905.

Sanders, J.N. The Fourth Gospel in the Early Church . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1943.

Sanders, J.N., and B.A. Mastin. The Gospel according to St. John . Black's New Testament Commentaries. London: A.& C. Black, 1968.

Schlatter, Adolf. Der Evangelist Johannes . Stuttgart: Calwer, 1948.

Schnackenburg, Rudolf. The Gospel according to St John . 3 volumes. Translated by Cecily Hastings, et al. New York: Crossroad, 1982.

Sidebottom, E.M. The Christ of the Fourth Gospel . London: SPCK, 1961.

Sloyan, Gerard S. John . Interpretation Commentary Series. Atlanta: John Knox, 1988.

Smith, D. Moody. The Composition and Order of the Fourth Gospel . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1965.

. John . Proclamation Commentaries. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976.

Smith, D. Moody, C. Clifton Black, and R. Alan Culpepper, eds. Exploring the Gospel of John: In Honor of D. Moody Smith . Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1996.

Smith, Jonathan R. The Teaching of the Gospel of John . New York: Revell, 1903.

Stevens, George B. The Johannine Theology: A Study of the Doctrinal Contents of the Gospel and Epistles of the Apostle John . New York: Scribner, 1894.

Strachan, Robert H. The Fourth Evangelist: Dramatist or Historian? London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1925.

. The Fourth Gospel: Its Significance and Environment . 3rd Revised Edition. London, S.C.M. Press, 1941.

Tasker, Randolph V.G. The Gospel according to St. John . Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. London: Tyndale, 1960.

Temple, William. Readings in St. John's Gospel . 2 volumes. London: Macmillan, 1939-40; one volume edition, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1955.

Tenney, Merrill C. "The Gospel of John." In The Expositor's Bible Commentary , 93-203. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981.

. John: the Gospel of Belief . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans (1948), 1954.

Turner, George A., and Julius R. Mantey. The Gospel according to John . The Evangelical Commentary on the Bible. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964.

Wead, David. The Literary Devices in John's Gospel . Basel: Komm. Friedrich Reinhardt, 1970.

Weber, Gerard P. and Robert Miller. Breaking Open the Gospel of John . Cincinnati: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1995.

Westcott, Brooke F. The Gospel according to St .John . London: John Murray, 1882.

. The Gospel according to St. John; the Greek Text with Introduction and Notes . 2 volumes. London: John Murray, 1908. Reprinted in 1 volume, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980.

Wiles, Maurice F. The Spiritual Gospel: The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel in the Early Church. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960.

Witherington, Ben, III. John's Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1995.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

ABBREVIATIONS

BAGD A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament by Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, and Danker

BDB A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament by Brown, Driver and Briggs

BDF A Greek Grammar of the New Testament by Blass, Debrunner and Funk

BJRL Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

DNT Dictionary of the New Testament

HTR Harvard Theological Review

ICC International Critical Commentary

IDB Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible

JAMA Journal of the American Medical Association

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature

JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

KJV King James Version

LSJ Greek-English Lexicon by Liddell, Scott and Jones

NASB New American Standard Bible

LXX Septuagint

NIV New International Version

NLT New Living Translation

NovT Novum Testamentum

NRSV New Revised Standard Version

NT New Testament

OT Old Testament

TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament by Kittel and Friedrich

ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

College: John (Outline)

OUTLINE

A good outline is more than half the battle in one's understanding and remembering the contents of any book. There is more than one way to break up and organize the materials in the Gospel according to John. Most students have observed two large divisions in its structure: (1) chapters 1-12 and (2) chapters 13-21. These larger units include a prologue (1:1-18) and an epilogue (chapter 21). Perhaps the easiest way to organize the materials of the book for commentary purposes might be to number the larger units of thought in the book (over fifty such units) and comment successively on these from the beginning of the book to the end. One may endeavor, however, to organize the materials of the Fourth Gospel in some kind of elaborate outline, structured under the two large divisions noted above. We follow this latter procedure below:

I. JESUS MANIFESTS HIMSELF TO THE WORLD - 1:1-12:50

A. The Prologue - 1:1-18

1. The Logos before Time - 1:1-4

a. His Relationship to Deity - 1:1-2

b. His Relationship to the World - 1:3-4

2. The Logos Manifested in History - 1:5-18

a. John the Baptist's Initial Testimony to the Logos - 1:5-13

b. The Logos in Flesh - 1:14-18

B. The Testimony of John the Baptist and of Jesus' First Disciples - 1:19-51

1. The Testimony of John the Baptist - 1:19-34

a. The Testimony of John to the Jewish Leaders - 1:19-28

b. The Testimony of John to the Jewish People - 1:29-34

2. Jesus' Calling and the Testifying of His First Disciples - 1:35-51

a. John the Baptist's Disciples Follow Jesus - 1:35-42

b. Jesus' Calling of Philip and Nathanael - 1:43-51

C. Jesus' First Signs - 2:1-25

1. Jesus Changes Water into Wine - 2:1-12

2. Jesus Cleanses the Temple - 2:13-22

3. Summary of Response to Jesus - 2:23-25

D. Jesus and Nicodemus - 3:1-36

1. The New Birth - 3:1-10

2. The Son of Man - 3:11-21

3. The Further Testimony of John the Baptist - 3:22-30

4. The Son's Testimony - 3:31-36

E. Jesus and the Samaritans - 4:1-42

1. Introduction - 4:1-4

2. Jesus and the Woman of Samaria - 4:5-30

a. The Setting - 4:5-6

b. Jesus' Request for Water - 4:7-9

c. Living Water - 4:10-15

d. The Woman Revealed - 4:16-19

e. Jesus Reveals Himself - 4:20-26

f. Reactions to Jesus - 4:27-30

3. Jesus and the Samaritans - 4:31-42

a. Jesus and the Testifying of His disciples - 4:31-38

b. Firsthand and Secondhand Testimony - 4:39-42

F. Jesus' Healing of the Nobleman's Son, the Second Sign at Cana - 4:43-54

1. Introduction - 4:43-45

2. The Healing of the Nobleman's Son - 4:46-54

G. Jesus and the Major Jewish Festivals - 5:1-12:50

1. A Feast, the Sabbath, and Jesus' Healing at the Pool in Jerusalem - 5:1-47

a. The Healing on the Sabbath - 5:1-9a

b. Violations of the Sabbath and the Healed Man's Defense - 5:9b-15

c. Violations of the Sabbath and Jesus' Defense - 5:16-18

d. Jesus' Discourse on the Sabbath and His Work - 5:19-29

e. Jesus' Defense and the Four Witnesses - 5:30-47

2. The Passover and Jesus' Explanation of the Exodus - 6:1-71

a. The Background - 6:1-4

b. Jesus' Feeding of the Five Thousand - 6:5-13

c. Jesus, Not That Kind of King - 6:14-15

d. Jesus' Walking on the Sea of Galilee - 6:16-21

e. The Crowds' Search for Jesus - 6:22-25

f. Two Discourses on the Bread of Life - 6:26-34, 35-40

g. Conflict Concerning Bread from Heaven and Flesh and Blood - 6:41-59

h. Rejection and Acceptance of Jesus - 6:60-71

3. Jesus at Tabernacles - 7:1-52

a. Introduction: Question If Jesus Would Go to This Feast - 7:1-13

b. Jesus' Discourses Spoken during the Feast - 7:14-36

c. Jesus' Discourses Spoken on the Last Day of the Feast and the Audience's Response to it - 7:37-52

d. Textual Parenthesis: The Woman Taken in Adultery - 7:53-8:11

4. The Light of Tabernacles and Jesus' Great Confrontation with the Jews - 8:12-59

a. Jesus Discourse at the Temple Treasury: Jesus the Light of the World and the Authority of His Testimony to Himself - 8:12-20

b. Jesus' Attack on the Jews Who Disbelieved and the Origin of His Testimony and the Problem of Who He Is - 8:21-30

c. Truth, Sin, Freedom, and the Children of Abraham - 8:31-59

5. Healing of the Man Born Blind - 9:1-41

a. The Setting - 9:1-5

b. The Healing - 9:6-7

c. Interrogations of the Man - 9:8-34

(1) Questions Posed by the Neighbors and Friends - 9:8-12

(2) Preliminary Quizzing by Some Pharisees - 9:13-17

(3) The Man's Parents Questioned by the Jews - 9:18-23

(4) The Man Questioned a Second Time by the Jews, and Excommunicated - 9:24-34

d. Who Sees and Who Is Blind? Jesus' Answer - 9:35-41

6. The Feast of Dedication and the Shepherd Analogy - 10:1-42

a. Jesus, the Sheepgate, and the Shepherd - 10:1-21

(1) Figures from Shepherd Life - 10:1-6

(2) Explaining the Figure - 10:7-18

(a) Jesus is the Sheepgate - 10:7-10

(b) Jesus is the Good (or Model) Shepherd - 10:11-18

(3) Response to Jesus' Explanation: Rejection of Jesus by the Jews - 10:19-21

b. Jesus at the Feast of Dedication - 10:22-39

(1) Jesus the Messiah - 10:22-31

(a) Setting and Questions: "Is Jesus the Messiah?" - 10:22-24

(b) Jesus' Reply - 10:25-30

(c) Reaction: Attempt to Stone Jesus - 10:31

(2) Jesus the Son of God - 10:32-39

(a) The Question: Is Jesus Making Himself Equal with God - 10:32-33

(b) Jesus' Response - 10:34-38

(c) Reaction: Attempt to Arrest Jesus - 10:39

c. Jesus in Retrogression and Progression Simultaneously - 10:40-42

7. Lazarus and the Passover Plot - 11:1-57

a. Lazarus - 11:1-44

(1) Setting - 11:1-6

(2) Jesus' Discussion with the Disciples - 11:7-16

(3) Jesus and Martha: Jesus the Resurrection and the Life - 11:17-27

(4) Jesus and Mary and the Grieved - 11:28-37

(5) Jesus' Raising of Lazarus - 11:38-44

b. The Passover Plot to Kill Jesus - 11:45-53

c. Retreat of Jesus - 11:54-57

8. Preparation for Passover and Death - 12:1-50

a. Mary's Anointing of Jesus - 12:1-11

b. Jesus' Triumphal Entry - 12:12-19

c. Gentiles Prompt Jesus' Announcement of His Hour - 12:20-36

d. The Tragedy of Unbelief, Past and Present - 12:37-43

e. The Call to Faith Still Stands - 12:44-50

II. JESUS' MANIFESTATION OF HIMSELF IN HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTION - 13:1-21:25

A. Jesus' Manifestation of Himself to His Disciples in His Farewell Discourses - 13:1-17:26

1. At the Last Supper - 13:1-38

a. Jesus' Washing of His Disciples' Feet - 13:1-17

b. Jesus' Prediction of Judas' Betrayal - 13:18-30

c. Jesus' Prediction of Peter's Denial; The New Commandment (13:34) - 13:31-38

2. Promises of Jesus - 14:1-31

a. Promises of an Abode where Jesus Is Going - 14:1-4

b. Jesus the Way to the Father - 14:5-12

c. Doing Greater Works than Jesus; Asking in Jesus' Name - 14:13-14

d. Jesus' Departure and the Spirit's Coming - 14:15-31

3. More Commands and Promises of Jesus - 15:1-27

a. Jesus, the Vine; the Disciples, the Branches; The New Commandment Given (15:13) - 15:1-17

b. Hatred from the World - 15:18-25

c. The Spirit's Mission Like That of the Disciples: to Bear Witness to Jesus - 15:26-27

4. Still More Promises and Commands - 16:1-33

a. The Works of Disbelief - 16:1-4

b. The Works of the Spirit - 16:5-15

c. Joy Greater than Trouble - 16:16-33

5. Jesus' Prayer - 17:1-26

a. For His Glorification - 17:1-5

b. For His Disciples - 17:6-19

c. For Those Who Will Believe - 17:20-26

(1) For Unity - 17:20-23

(2) For Seeing Jesus' Glory - 17:24-26

B. Jesus' Trial and Crucifixion - 18:1-19:42

1. Jesus' Arrest - 18:1-11

2. Jesus' Trial before Annas - 18:12-14

3. Peter's First Denial of Jesus - 18:15-18

4. Jesus Interrogated before Annas - 18:19-24

5. Peter's Second and Third Denials of Jesus - 18:25-27

6. Jesus' Trial before Pilate - 18:28-19:16

a. Pilate Doubtful of the Prosecution - 18:28-32

b. Pilate Examines Jesus - 18:33-38a

c. Barabbas - 18:38b-40

d. The Flogging of Jesus and Delivering Over of Him to the Jews by Pilate - 19:1-16

7. The Crucifixion of Jesus - 19:17-30

8. Piercing Jesus' Side - 19:31-37

9. Jesus' Burial - 19:38-42

C. The Resurrection of Jesus - 20:1-21:25

1. Peter and John at the Empty Tomb - 20:1-9

2. Jesus' Appearance to Mary - 20:10-18

3. Jesus' Appearance to the Disciples with Thomas Absent - 20:19-23

4. Jesus' Appearance to his Disciples with Thomas Present - 20:24-29

5. The Purpose of this Gospel - 20:30-31

6. Jesus' Appearance to Seven Disciples and the Great Haul of Fish - 21:1-14

7. Jesus' Admonition to Peter about Peter - 21:15-19

8. Jesus' Admonition to Peter about John - 21:20-23

9. Testimony to the Truthfulness of the Contents of the Fourth Gospel - 21:24

10. The Selective Nature of the Contents of the Fourth Gospel - 21:25

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

Lapide: John (Book Introduction)

NOTICE TO THE READER.

Gospel of John Intro

——o——

AS it has been found impossible to compress the Translation of the Commentary upon S. John's Gospel into one volume, it is now given in two, of which this is the first. The second volume comprises the remainder of the Gospel, and the Commentary of À Lapide upon S. John's Epistles.

It is with great pleasure I present this portion of this great Commentary to the English reader. Admirable as Cornelius à Lapide almost invariably is in his exposition of Holy Scripture, on the Gospel of S. John he seems to me to surpass himself. Beginning from the Incarnation of the Divine Word, nothing can be more masterly, nothing more magnificent, than the way in which he shows that the whole sacramental system of the Catholic Church of Christ is the necessary consequence and complement, as well as the extension of the Incarnation, Divinely planned and ordained for the eternal salvation of the whole human race. Granted the truth of the Incarnation as an objective fact, dealing with realities both in the spiritual and immaterial universe, and also in the material and physical universe, in this world of time and sense, as we call it, I do not see how it is possible to dispute our author's conclusions, taken as a whole.

The translation of Vol. 1. is by myself as far as the end of the 6th chapter. From the 27th verse of 6th chapter to the end, I have translated practically without any abridgment or omission, and also with greater literalness than I sometimes do, on account of the surpassing importance of the doctrine treated of, and the controversies resulting from it. Chapters vii.-x. are by the Rev. James Bliss, Rector of Manningford Bruce. For the last chapter, the 11th, I am indebted to the Rev. S. J. Eales, M.A., D.C.L., lately Principal of S. Boniface's College, Warminster, and now Principal of the Grove College, Addlestone, Surrey.

In Volume II. the Translation of chap. xiii. is by a young scholar, Mr. Macpherson. The remainder of the Gospel is by my most kind friend, Mr. Bliss, and myself.

Of S. John's Epistles, the first three chapters of the First Epistle are by Mr. Bliss, the remaining two chapters, and the Second and Third Epistles, are by myself.

T. W. Mossman.

THE PREFACE

TO

S. JOHN'S GOSPEL

——o——

S. JOHN the Apostle, the son of Zebedee and Salome, wrote this Gospel in Asia in the Greek language, towards the end of his life, after his return from Patmos, where he wrote the Apocalypse.

His reasons for writing were two. The first was that he might confute the heretics Ebion and Cerinthus, who denied Christ's Divinity, and taught that He was a mere man. The second was to supply the omissions of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Hence S. John records at length what Christ did during the first year of His ministry, which the other three had for the most part passed over.

Listen to S. Jerome in his preface to S. Matthew. "Last was John, the Apostle and Evangelist, whom Jesus loved the best, who lay on the Lord's bosom, and drank of the purest streams of His doctrines. When he was in Asia, at a time when the seeds of the heresies of Cerinthus, Ebion and the rest, who denied that Christ had come in the flesh, those whom in his Epistle he calls Antichrists, and whom the Apostle Paul frequently refutes, he was constrained by well nigh all the bishops who were at that time in Asia, and by the deputies of many other Churches, to write of the deep things of the Divinity of our Saviour, and to 'break through,'^* as it were, to the Word of God by a kind of happy temerity. Whence also we are told in ecclesiastical history that when he was urged by the brethren to write, he agreed to do so, on condition that they should all fast, and pray to God in common. When the fast was ended, being filled with the power of revelation, he burst forth with the preface coming straight from above, In the beginning was the Word , and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. "

Others add that S. John's beginning to write was preceded by lightnings and thunderings, as though he had been another Moses, who thus received the Law of God (Exod. xix.)

Baronius shows that S. John wrote his Gospel in the year of Christ 99, or sixty-six years after the Ascension. This was the first year of the reign of Nerva, and the twenty-seventh after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.

As then Isaiah surpassed all the rest of the Prophets in sublimity, so did John the other Evangelists. Last in time, he is first in dignity and perfection. Thus in the first chapter of Ezekiel he is compared to an eagle flying above all other birds. Thus his dignity and special excellence, as well as his consequent obscurity, may be considered under three heads.

First, his matter and scope.  S. John alone of set purpose treats of the Divinity of Christ, of the origin, eternity, and generation of the Word, of the spiration of the Holy Spirit, of the unity of the Godhead, and of the Divine relations and attributes. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are concerned with the actions of Christ's humanity. This is why the Fathers derive almost all their arguments against the Arians, Nestorians, Eutychians and such like heretics from S. John.

The second is the order of time. We know that the Church, like the dawning of the day, advanced by the succession of time to the perfect day of the knowledge of the mysteries of the faith. Thus the sacred writers of the New Testament, the Apostles and Evangelists, write far more clearly concerning them than do Moses and the Prophets of the Old Testament. John was the last of all, and his Gospel was his last work. He composed it therefore as a sort of crown of all the sacred books.

The third is the author.  S. John alone was counted worthy to win the laurels of all saints. For he is in very deed a theologian, or rather the prince of theologians. The same is an apostle, a prophet and an evangelist. The same is a priest, a bishop, a high priest, a virgin, and a martyr. That S. John always remained a virgin is asserted by all the ancient writers, expressly by Tertullian ( Lib. de monogam .) and S. Jerome ( Lib. 1 contra. Jovin .). To him therefore as a virgin Christ from His cross commended His Virgin Mother. For "blessed are the clean in heart, for they shall see God," as the Truth Itself declares.

The Only Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, made known to this His most chaste and beloved friend, who reclined upon His breast, the hidden things and sacraments of the Divinity, which had been kept-secret from the foundation of the world. John hath declared the same to us, as a son of thunder, thundering and lightening the whole world with the Deity of the Word. As with a flaming thunderbolt "he hath given shine to the world;" and with the fire of love he hath inflamed it. Let that speech of Christ, His longest and His last, bear witness, which He made after supper (S. John xiii. &c.), which breathes of nothing but the ardour of Divine love.

See more to the same effect in S. Cyril, S. Augustine, and S. Chrysostom ( Præm. in Joan .). Indeed, S. Chrysostom dares to say that S. John in his Gospel hath taught the angels the secrets of the Incarnate Word, such as before they knew not, and that therefore he is the Doctor of the cherubim and the seraphim. He proves this from the passage of S. Paul in Ephesians iii., "that there might be made known to the principalities and powers in heavenly places by the Church the multiform wisdom of God." "If," he says, "the principalities and powers, the cherubim and seraphim, have learned these things through the Church, it is very evident that the angels listen to him with the deepest attention. Not slight therefore is the honour which we gain in that the angels are our fellow-disciples in the things that they knew not.

CANONS THROWING LIGHT

upon the

INTERPRETATION OF S. JOHN'S GOSPEL.

——o——

JOHN has a style peculiar to himself, entirely different from that of the other Evangelists and sacred writers. For as an eagle at one time he raises himself above all, at another time he stoops down to the earth, as it were for his prey, that with the rusticity of his style he may capture the simple. At one time he is as wise as the cherubim, at another time he burns as do the seraphim. The reason is because John was most like Christ, and most dear to Him; and he in turn loved Christ supremely. Therefore at His Last Supper he reclined upon His breast. From this source, therefore, he sucked in, as it were, the mind, the wisdom, and the burning love of Christ. Wherefore, when thou readest and hearest John, think that thou readest and hearest Christ. For Christ hath transfused His own spirit and His own love into S. John.

2. Although John by the consent of all wrote his Gospel in Greek for Greeks, yet because he himself was a Hebrew, and from love of this primeval language, which was his native tongue, he abounds above the rest in Hebrew phrases and idioms. Hence to understand him we require a knowledge of two, or indeed of three languages—Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Thus he Hebraizes in his frequent use of and for like as ( sicut ) as Solomon does in Proverbs, where he compares like with like by means of the conjunction and .   And in such instances is a mark of similitude, and has the same meaning as like as ( sicut ). On the other hand, he Grecizes in his use of perchance ( forsitan ) for surely . In John viii. 19 the Greek particle άν expresses affirmation, not uncertainty. So also in viii. 43 ού δύνασθε, ye are not able, is put for ye are not willing. He likewise constantly duplicates the Hebrew Amen , when the other Evangelists only express it once. The reasons for this diversity are examined in chap. iii. 2.

3. John abounds more in the discourses and disputations of Christ with the Jews than in the things that were done by Him. Not that he relates all the discourses and disputations of Christ, but such as were of greater importance. Especially he gives a compendious account of those in which Christ proved that He was God as well as man.

4. In S. John Christ speaks sometimes as God, and sometimes as man. There is need therefore of a careful examination of contexts to distinguish one from the other.

5. When Christ says, as He often does in S. John, that He "does, or says nothing of Himself," or that "not He, but the Father, does, or says this, or that" there must be understood "originally" and "alone." As thus, "neither alone, nor as man perform I these things: nor yet as God am I the first originator of them; but it is God the Father, who together with His Divine essence communicates to Me omniscience and omnipotence, even the power of doing all things."

6. Although the Apostles and other saints wrought miracles, yet Christ in S. John's Gospel often proves that He is the Messiah and God by the miracles which were done by Him. This proof is a true and effectual one; first, because He Himself made direct use of it. For a miracle as the work of God, and the Voice of the prime Verity, is an infallible proof of that which it is brought forward to confirm. Second, because Christ wrought them by His own power and authority, which He could not have done unless He had been God of God. Thus then He did them that they might appear to proceed from Him as from God, the original source of miracles. For the saints do not work miracles by their own authority, but by the invocation of the name of God, or Christ. Let us add that the miracles which were done by Christ were foretold by Isaiah and the other prophets, that they might be indices and marks of the Messiah, as will appear in chap. xi. 4.

7. Matthew, Mark, and Luke record for the most part the acts of the last year, and the last but one of Christ's ministry, that is to say, what He did after the imprisonment of S. John the Baptist. But S. John's Gospel for the most part gives an account of the two preceding years. This consideration will solve many seeming discrepancies between S. John and the other Evangelists. So S. Augustine in his preface.

8. There is frequently in S. John both great force as well as obscurity in the adverbs and conjunctions of causation, influence, connection, and so on, in such a manner that a single particle will often include and point out the entire meaning of a passage. Hence these particles must be most carefully examined and weighed, as I shall show in each place.

9. The particles that , wherefore , on account of which , and the like do not always signify the cause, or the end intended, but often only a consequence or result. This is especially the case if an event has been certainly foreseen, and therefore could not happen otherwise. This is plain from chap. xii. 38, 39, where it said, They believed not on Him , that the saying of Isaias might be fulfilled : and shortly afterwards, Wherefore they could not believe , because Isaias said again , He hath blinded their eyes. For the reason why the Jews would not believe in Christ was not the prediction of Isaiah foretelling that they would not believe ( non credituros ), but the hardness of heart and malice of the Jews, which as a sort of objective cause preceded Isaiah's prophecy. For Isaiah foretold that the Jews were not about to believe, because in truth they themselves through their own malice and obstinacy were not going to do so. So S. Chryostom and others.

10. By the Jews S. John sometimes means the rulers only, sometimes the people only. Thus he represents the Jews at one time as opposing, at another time as favouring Christ. For the people were His friends, the rulers were His adversaries.

11. By a He braism the present tense often signifies not an action issuing in a result, but a force, or power of nature, or the act (in the sense of will or intention, Trans .) of the agent, even in cases where the effect is opposed by the subject, or in some other way. Thus in i. 9 it is said that Christ by His advent gave light to the world. That means, so far as He was concerned. For many, like the Jews, refused to receive this light, as he immediately adds, and continued in the darkness of their unbelief.

12. The particles as if , so as , and the like, because they correspond to the Hebrew caph , do not always signify likeness, but the truth of a fact, or assertion. Thus in i. 14, we have seen His glory , as of the Only Begotten , means, "we have seen the glory of the Only Begotten to be truly such, and so great as became Him who was indeed the Only Begotten Son of God the Father." So S. Chrysostom and others.

13. John, following the Hebrew idiom, sometimes takes words of inceptive action to signify the beginning of something that is done; but sometimes to signify continuation, that a work is in progress; and sometimes, that a work has been perfected and accomplished. Thus we must not be surprised, if sometimes that which increases, or is being perfected, is spoken of as if it were just commencing, and vice versa. An example of inceptive action is to be found in xvi. 6, where Peter, resisting Christ desiring to wash his feet, says, Lord , dost Thou wash my feet ? Dost Thou wash ? that is, "Dost Thou wish, prepare, begin to wash?" There is an example of continued action in ii. 11 , where, after the miracle of the conversion of water into wine, it is added, And His disciples believed in Him : that is, they went on believing, they increased, and were confirmed in faith. For they had already before this believed in Christ, for if they had not believed in Him, they would not have followed Him as His disciples. There is an example of a perfected action in xi 15, where Christ, when about, at the close of His life, to raise up Lazarus, said, I am glad for your sakes , that ye may believe. That is, " that by means of this My last and greatest miracle ye may be altogether made perfect in your belief in Me." Again, in xx. 17, Jesus appearing after His resurrection to Mary Magdalene, who had fallen at His feet, said, Touch Me not . That is, "Do not delay, and waste time in touching My feet, but go quickly, and tell the Apostles, who are very sorrowful because of My death, that I have risen again."

14. John, after the Hebrew idiom, asserts and confirms over again what he had already asserted, by a denial of the contrary. This is especially the case when the subject matter is of importance, and is doubted about by many, so that it requires strong confirmation. Thus in i. 20 , when John the Baptist is asked by the Jews if he were the Christ, he confessed , and denied not , but confessed , I am not the Christ. And in i. 3, All things were made by Him , and without Him was not anything made that was made.

15. John delights in calling Christ the Life , and the Light , for reasons which I will give hereafter. He has several other similar and peculiar expressions. For instance, he often uses the word judgment for condemnation which takes place in judgement. In other places he uses judgment for the secret judgments and decrees of God, because they are just. Sins he calls darkness. The saints he calls sons of light. That which is true and just he calls the truth. In vi. 27, for procure food , or labour for food he has ε̉ζγάεσθα βζω̃σιν. In the 9th chap., when Jesus is asked by the Jews, Who art Thou? He answers, The Beginning, who also am speaking unto you.

16. John relates that Christ said previously certain things, the when and the where of His saying which He had not previously mentioned. For studying brevity, he considered it sufficient to relate them once. Thus in the 11th chap. he says that Martha said to her sister Mary, The Master is come, and calleth for thee. Yet he had not previously related that Christ bade Martha to call Magdalene; for his mentioning that Martha, by Christ's command, called her sister was sufficient to show that Christ had so commanded. In the same chapter Christ saith to Martha, Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldest believe, thou wouldest see the glory of God? Yet there is no previous account of Christ saying this. Also in vi. 36, Christ says, But I said unto you, that ye also have seen Me and believe not. Yet we nowhere recall that Christ previously so said.

17. The miracles of Christ which John alone records are as follows:- The conversion of water into wine, chap. ii. The first expulsion of the sellers from the Temple, in the same chapter. The healing of the sick child of the nobleman, iv. 47. The healing of the paralytic at the pool in the sheep-market, chap. v. Giving sight to the man born blind, chap. ix. Raising Lazarus from the dead, chap. xi. The falling of Judas and the servants to the earth, when they came to take Jesus, xviii. 6. The flow of blood and water from the side of Christ after He was dead, xix. 34. The multiplication of the fishes, xxi. 6.

COMMENTATORS

Very many persons have written commentaries upon the Gospel of S. John, and among them the principal Greek and Latin Fathers. Among the Greeks, after Origen, who composed thirty-two tomes, or books, upon this Gospel, were S. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, who has written a learned and very excellent commentary. He has written a didactic work, and is especially able and skilful in expounding the literal sense.  S. Cyril's commentary on S. John's Gospel consisted originally of twelve books. But of these the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth have perished. Their loss has been supplied, by Clictovæus, a doctor of Paris, whose work has been mistaken by many learned men for the original of S. Cyril.

A second commentator is S. Chrysostom, who seems to have been imbued with the very spirit of S. John himself. He wrote eighty seven homilies on this Gospel.

A third is Theophylact, and a fourth Euthymius. They, as is usual with them, follow S. Chrysostom. Theophylact is the more diffuse of the two.

A fifth commentator is Nonnus Panopolitanus, an Egyptian, and a very eloquent writer, who, as Suidas says, explained the virgin theologian, that is, John the Evangelist, in heroic verses. Although the commentary of Nonnus can properly only be called a paraphrase, nevertheless in many places he points out and illustrates the meaning of the Evangelist in pithy sentences.

Among the Latins the first and chief commentator is S. Augustine, who has written systematically upon the whole Gospel in one hundred and twenty-four tractates.

The second is Venerable Bede, who follows S. Augustine passim, and often word for word.

A third commentary is what is called the Gloss. Where observe that the Gloss is tripartite. The first is the Interlinear Gloss, so called because written between the lines of the sacred text. For that reason it is brief, but pithy, and treats many things in the Gospel learnedly and usefully. The second is the Marginal Gloss, because written on the margin of the text. To this is subjoined the Gloss of Nicolas Lyra. This Nicolas was called Lyra from a village in Normandy. He was a Jew by birth, and was converted to Christianity. He entered the Franciscan Order, and taught scholastic theology, A.D. 1320. He was a learned man, and skilled in Hebrew. He wrote his Gloss upon S. John and the other sacred writers, expounding them literally, and became so celebrated that it has passed into a proverb—

"If Lyra's hand had erst not swept his lyre,

  Our theologians had not danced in choir."

However, we must keep this in mind, that he is too credulous with regard to Jewish fables and puerilities, giving too much heed to writers of his own nation, to the Rabbin, and especially to R. Salomon, who is a great retailer of fables.

In later ages, and especially in our own day, many commentaries have been written upon this Gospel. Pre-eminent among them are Maldonatus, of the Society of Jesus, who is copious, acute, elegant, and learned: Cornelius Jansen, who is exact, solid, and to be depended upon: Frank Toletus, who displays a sound judgment, especially in the application of metaphors and similitudes. Sebastian Barradi has written a good literal commentary, mingling with it moral reflections. He is useful to preachers in affording materials for sermons, and showing how to treat them. Frank Ribera is brief, but as usual excellent and learned. Frank Lucas is entirely literal, but he uses the letter to draw the reader to pious affections.

Among the heretics, Martin Bucer, Wolfgang Musculus, Bullinger, Brentius, Calvin, and Beza have written upon S. John's Gospel. Of all these authors Augustinus Marloratus has made a catena, which I read through and refuted when I was in Belgium.

^* (Cf. Exod. xix. 21, Trans.) Return to the place.