Text -- John 14:15-31 (NET)

Teaching on the Holy Spirit

14:15 “If you love me, you will obey my commandments. 14:16 Then I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever– 14:17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it does not see him or know him. But you know him, because he resides with you and will be in you. 14:18 “I will not abandon you as orphans, I will come to you. 14:19 In a little while the world will not see me any longer, but you will see me; because I live, you will live too. 14:20 You will know at that time that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you. 14:21 The person who has my commandments and obeys them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal myself to him.” 14:22 “Lord,” Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “what has happened that you are going to reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” 14:23 Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and take up residence with him. 14:24 The person who does not love me does not obey my words. And the word you hear is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me. 14:25 “I have spoken these things while staying with you. 14:26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and will cause you to remember everything I said to you. 14:27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; I do not give it to you as the world does. Do not let your hearts be distressed or lacking in courage. 14:28 You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I am. 14:29 I have told you now before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe. 14:30 I will not speak with you much longer, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me, 14:31 but I am doing just what the Father commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Get up, let us go from here.”

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Robertson: Joh 14:15

If ye love me ( ean agapāte me ).

Third-class condition "if ye keep on loving (present active subjunctive, same contract form as indicative) me."Cf. Joh 14:23.

Robertson: Joh 14:15

Ye will keep ( tērēsete ).

Future active of tēreō , not aorist imperative tērēsate (keep) as some MSS. have. For this phrase see also Joh 8:51; Joh 14:23, Joh 14:24; Joh 15:20; 1Jo 2:5. Continued love prevents disobedience.

Robertson: Joh 14:16

And I will pray the Father ( kagō erōtēsō ton patera ).

Erōtaō for prayer, not question (the old use), also in Joh 16:23 (prayer to Jesus in same sense as aiteō ), Joh 14:26 (by Jesus as here); Joh 17:9 (by Jesus), "make request of."

Robertson: Joh 14:16

Another Comforter ( allon paraklēton ).

Another of like kind (allon , not heteron ), besides Jesus who becomes our Paraclete, Helper, Advocate, with the Father (1Jo 2:1, Cf. Rom 8:26.). This old word (Demosthenes), from parakaleō , was used for legal assistant, pleader, advocate, one who pleads another’ s cause (Josephus, Philo, in illiterate papyrus), in N.T. only in John’ s writings, though the idea of it is in Rom 8:26-34. Cf. Deissmann, Light, etc . , p. 336. So the Christian has Christ as his Paraclete with the Father, the Holy Spirit as the Father’ s Paraclete with us (Joh 14:16, Joh 14:26; Joh 15:26; Joh 16:7; 1Jo 2:1).

Robertson: Joh 14:16

For ever ( eis ton aiōna ).

This the purpose (hina ) in view and thus Jesus is to be with his people here forever (Mat 28:20). See Joh 4:14 for the idiom.

Robertson: Joh 14:17

The Spirit of truth ( to pneuma tēs alētheias ).

Same phrase in Joh 15:27; Joh 16:13; 1Jo 4:6, "a most exquisite title"(Bengel). The Holy Spirit is marked by it (genitive case), gives it, defends it (cf. Joh 1:17), in contrast to the spirit of error (1Jo 4:6).

Robertson: Joh 14:17

Whom ( ho ).

Grammatical neuter gender (ho ) agreeing with pneuma (grammatical), but rightly rendered in English by "whom"and note masculine ekeinos (Joh 14:26). He is a person, not a mere influence.

Robertson: Joh 14:17

Cannot receive ( ou dunatai labein ).

Left to itself the sinful world is helpless (1Co 2:14; Rom 8:7.), almost Paul’ s very language on this point. The world lacks spiritual insight (ou theōrei ) and spiritual knowledge (oude ginōskei ). It failed to recognize Jesus (Joh 1:10) and likewise the Holy Spirit.

Robertson: Joh 14:17

Ye know him ( humeis ginōskete auto ).

Emphatic position of humeis (ye) in contrast with the world (Joh 15:19), because they have seen Jesus the Revealer of the Father (Joh 14:9).

Robertson: Joh 14:17

Abides ( menei ).

Timeless present tense.

Robertson: Joh 14:17

With you ( par' humin ).

"By your side,""at home with you,"not merely "with you"(meth' humōn ) "in the midst of you."

Robertson: Joh 14:17

In you ( en humin ).

In your hearts. So note meta (Joh 14:16), para ,en .

Robertson: Joh 14:18

I will not leave ( ouk aphēsō ).

Future active of aphiēmi , to send away, to leave behind.

Robertson: Joh 14:18

Desolate ( orphanous ).

Old word (orphos , Latin orbus ), bereft of parents, and of parents bereft of children. Common in papyri of orphan children. In Joh 13:33 Jesus called the disciples teknia (little children), and so naturally the word means "orphans"here, but the meaning may be "helpless"(without the other Paraclete, the Holy Spirit). The only other N.T. example is in Jam 1:27 where it means "fatherless."

Robertson: Joh 14:18

I come ( erchomai ).

Futuristic present as in Joh 14:3.

Robertson: Joh 14:19

But ye behold me ( humeis de theōreite me ).

Emphatic position of humeis (ye) in contrast to the blind, unseeing world. Cf. Joh 13:33; Joh 16:10, Joh 16:16.

Robertson: Joh 14:19

Because I live, ye shall live also ( hoti egō zō kai humeis zēsete ).

This is our blessed guarantee of immortal, eternal life, the continued living of Jesus. He is the surety of a better covenant (Heb 7:22), the Risen Christ Jesus. He had said it before (Joh 6:57).

Robertson: Joh 14:20

In that day ( en ekeinēi tēi hēmerāi ).

The New Dispensation of the Holy Spirit, beginning with Christ’ s Resurrection and the Coming of the Holy Spirit at pentecost.

Robertson: Joh 14:20

Shall know ( gnōsesthe ).

Future middle of ginōskō . Chapter 1 to chapter 3 of Acts bear eloquent witness to these words.

Robertson: Joh 14:21

He it is that loveth me ( ekeinos estin ho agapōn me ).

Emphatic demonstrative pronoun ekeinos : "that is the one who loves me."

Robertson: Joh 14:21

And will manifest myself unto him ( kai emphanisō autōi emauton ).

Future active of emphanizō , old verb from emphanēs (Act 10:40; Rom 10:20). The Unseen and Risen Christ will be a real and spiritual Presence to the obedient and loving believer.

Robertson: Joh 14:22

Not Iscariot ( ouch ho Iskariōtēs ).

Judas Iscariot had gone (Joh 13:30), but John is anxious to make it clear that this Judas (common name, two apostles also named James) was not the infamous traitor. He is also called Thaddaeus or Lebbaeus (Mar 3:17; Mat 10:3) and the brother (or son) of James (Luk 6:16; Act 1:13). This is the fourth interruption of the talk of Jesus (by Peter, Joh 13:36; by Thomas, Joh 14:5; by Philip, Joh 14:8; by Judas, Joh 14:22).

Robertson: Joh 14:22

And not to the world ( kai ouchi tōi kosmōi ).

Judas caught at the word emphanizō in Joh 14:21 as perhaps a Messianic theophany visible to all the world as at the judgment (Joh 5:27.). He seems to suspect a change of plan on the part of Jesus (ti gegonen hoti = how has it happened that).

Robertson: Joh 14:23

If a man love me ( ean tis agapāi me ).

Condition of third class with ean and present active subjunctive, "if one keep on loving me."That is key to the spiritual manifestation (emphanizō ).

Robertson: Joh 14:23

We will come ( eleusometha ).

Future middle of erchomai and first person plural (the Father and I), not at the judgment, but here and now.

Robertson: Joh 14:23

And make our abode with him ( kai monēn par' autōi poiēsometha ).

See Joh 14:2 for the word monē (dwelling, abiding place). If the Holy Spirit "abides"(menei , Joh 14:17) in you, that heart becomes a temple (naos ) of the Holy Spirit (1Co 3:16.), and so a fit dwelling place for the Father and the Son, a glorious and uplifting reality.

Robertson: Joh 14:24

He that loveth me not ( ho mē agapōn me ).

Present active articular participle of agapaō with negative mē , "the one who keeps on not loving me."

Robertson: Joh 14:24

Is not mine, but the Father’ s ( ouk estin emos ,alla tou patros ).

Predicative possessive pronoun emos and the predicate genitive of possession patros .

Robertson: Joh 14:25

Have I spoken ( lelalēka ).

Perfect active indicative of laleō , for permanent keeping (tēreō Joh 14:23).

Robertson: Joh 14:25

While yet abiding with you ( par' humin menōn ).

Present active participle, no "yet"(eti ) in the Greek, "while remaining beside (par' ) you"before departing for the coming of the other Paraclete.

Robertson: Joh 14:26

Whom ( ho ).

Grammatical neuter, but "whom"is correct translation. The Father will send the Holy Spirit (Joh 14:16; Luk 24:49; Act 2:33), but so will the Son (Joh 15:26; Joh 16:7) as Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit upon the disciples (Joh 20:22). There is no contradiction in this relation of the Persons in the Trinity (the Procession of the Holy Spirit). Here the Holy Spirit (full title as in Mar 3:29; Mat 12:32; Luk 12:10) is identified with the Paraclete.

Robertson: Joh 14:26

He ( ekeinos ).

Emphatic demonstrative pronoun and masculine like paraklētos .

Robertson: Joh 14:26

Shall teach you all things ( humas didaxei panta ).

The Holy Spirit knows "the deep things of God"(1Co 2:10) and he is our Teacher in the Dispensation of the Holy Spirit of both new truth (Joh 14:25) and old.

Robertson: Joh 14:26

Bring to your remembrance ( hupomnēsei humas ).

Future active indicative of hupomimnēskō , old verb to remind, to recall, here only in this Gospel (cf. 3Jo 1:10; 2Ti 2:14) and with two accusatives (person and thing). After pentecost the disciples will be able better to recall and to understand what Jesus had said (how dull they had been at times) and to be open to new revelations from God (cf. Peter at Joppa and Caesarea).

Robertson: Joh 14:27

My peace ( eirēnēn tēn emēn ).

This is Christ’ s bequest to the disciples before he goes, the shalom of the orient for greeting and parting, used by Jesus in his appearances after the resurrection (Joh 20:19, Joh 20:21, Joh 20:26) as in 2Jo 1:3; 3Jo 1:14, but here and in Joh 16:33 in the sense of spiritual peace such as only Christ can give and which his Incarnation offers to men (Luk 2:14).

Robertson: Joh 14:27

Neither let it be fearful ( medē deiliatō ).

Added to the prohibition in Joh 14:1, only N.T. example of deiliaō (rare word in Aristotle, in a papyrus of one condemned to death), common in lxx, like palpitating of the heart (from deilos ).

Robertson: Joh 14:28

I go away, and I come ( hupagō kai erchomai )

, both futuristic presents (Joh 7:33; Joh 14:3, Joh 14:18).

Robertson: Joh 14:28

If ye loved me ( ei ēgapāte me ).

Second-class condition with the imperfect active of agapaō referring to present time, implying that the disciples are not loving Jesus as they should.

Robertson: Joh 14:28

Ye would have rejoiced ( echarēte an ).

Second aorist passive indicative of chairō with an , conclusion of second-class condition referring to past time, "Ye would already have rejoiced before this"at Christ’ s going to the Father (Joh 14:12).

Robertson: Joh 14:28

Greater than I ( meizōn mou ).

Ablative case mou after the comparative meizōn (from positive megas ). The filial relation makes this necessary. Not a distinction in nature or essence (cf. Joh 10:30), but in rank in the Trinity. No Arianism or Unitarianism here. The very explanation here is proof of the deity of the Son (Dods).

Robertson: Joh 14:30

The prince of the world ( ho tou kosmou archōn ).

Satan as in Joh 12:31 which see.

Robertson: Joh 14:31

But that the world may know ( all' hina gnōi ho kosmos ).

Purpose clause with hina and the second aorist active subjunctive of ginōskō . Elliptical construction (cf. Joh 9:3; Joh 13:18; Joh 15:25). "But I surrendered myself to death,"etc., before hina .

Robertson: Joh 14:31

Arise, let us go hence ( egeiresthe ,agōmen enteuthen ).

Imperative present middle of egeirō and the volitive (hortatory) subjunctive agōmen (the word used in Joh 11:7, Joh 11:16) of going to meet death. Apparently the group arose and walked out into the night and the rest of the talk (chs. 15 and 16) and prayer (ch. 17) was in the shadows on the way to Gethsemane.

Vincent: Joh 14:15

Keep ( τηρήσατε )

The best tests read τηρήσετε , ye will keep . Lay up in your hearts and preserve by careful watching. See on reserved , 1Pe 1:4.

Vincent: Joh 14:15

My commandments ( τὰς ἐντολὰς τὰς ἐμὰς )

Literally, the commandments which are mine . See on Joh 10:27.

Vincent: Joh 14:16

I will pray ( ἐρωτήσω )

See on Joh 11:22.

Vincent: Joh 14:16

Comforter ( παράκλητον )

Only in John's Gospel and First Epistle (Joh 14:16, Joh 14:26; Joh 15:26; Joh 16:7; 1Jo 2:13. From παρά , to the side of , and καλέω , to summon . Hence, originally, one who is called to another's side to aid him , as an advocate in a court of justice. The later, Hellenistic use of παρακαλεῖν and παράκλησις , to denote the act of consoling and consolation , gave rise to the rendering Comforter , which is given in every instance in the Gospel, but is changed to advocate in 1Jo 2:1, agreeably to its uniform signification in classical Greek. The argument in favor of this rendering throughout is conclusive. It is urged that the rendering Comforter is justified by the fact that, in its original sense, it means more than a mere consoler , being derived from the Latin confortare , to strengthen , and that the Comforter is therefore one who strengthens the cause and the courage of his client at the bar: but, as Bishop Lightfoot observes, the history of this interpretation shows that it is not reached by this process, but grew out of a grammatical error, and that therefore this account can only be accepted as an apology after the fact, and not as an explanation of the fact. The Holy Spirit is, therefore, by the word παράκλητος , of which Paraclete is a transcription, represented as our Advocate or Counsel , " who suggests true reasonings to our minds, and true courses of action for our lives, who convicts our adversary, the world, of wrong, and pleads our cause before God our Father." It is to be noted that Jesus as well as the Holy Spirit is represented as Paraclete. The Holy Spirit is to be another Paraclete, and this falls in with the statement in the First Epistle, " we have an advocate with God, even Jesus Christ ." Compare Rom 8:26. See on Luk 6:24. Note also that the word another is ἄλλον , and not ἕτερον , which means different . The advocate who is to be sent is not different from Christ, but another similar to Himself. See on Mat 6:24.

Vincent: Joh 14:16

With you ( μεθ ' ὑμῶν )

Notice the three prepositions used in this verse to describe the Spirit's relation to the believer. With you (μετά ), in fellowship; by you (παρά ), in His personal presence; in you (ἐν ), as an indwelling personal energy, at the springs of the life.

Vincent: Joh 14:17

The Spirit of Truth

" A most exquisite title," says Bengel. The Spirit, who has the truth, reveals it, by knowledge in the understanding; confers it by practical proof and taste in the will; testifies of it to others also through those to whom He has revealed it; and defends that truth, of which Joh 1:17 speaks, grace and truth .... The truth makes all our virtues true. Otherwise there is a kind of false knowledge, false faith, false hope, false love; but there is no such thing as false truth."

Vincent: Joh 14:17

The world

See on Joh 1:9.

Vincent: Joh 14:17

Shall be in you

Some editors read, ἐστίν , is in you.

Vincent: Joh 14:18

Leave ( ἀφήσω )

See on Joh 4:3.

Vincent: Joh 14:18

Comfortless ( ὀρφανούς )

Literally, bereft or orphans . Only here and Jam 1:27, where it is rendered fatherless . Compare my little children (Joh 13:33). " He hath not left us without a rule (Joh 13:34); nor without an example (Joh 13:15); nor without a motive (Joh 14:15); nor without a strength (Joh 15:5); nor without a warning (Joh 15:2, Joh 15:6); nor without a Comforter (Joh 14:18); nor without a reward (Joh 14:2) (James Ford, " The Gospel of St. John Illustrated" ).

Vincent: Joh 14:18

I will come ( ἔρχομαι )

Present tense, I come . See on Joh 14:3.

Vincent: Joh 14:19

Ye shall live also ( καὶ ὑμεῖς ζήσεσθε )

This may also be rendered, and ye shall live , explaining the former statement, ye behold me . So Rev., in margin. This is better. John is not arguing for the dependence of their life on Christ's, but for fellowship with Christ as the ground of spiritual vision.

Vincent: Joh 14:21

Hath

" Who has in memory and keeps in life" (Augustine).

Vincent: Joh 14:21

Will manifest ( ἐμφανίσω )

Properly, of manifestation to the sight , as distinguished from δηλόω , to make evident to the mind (1Co 3:13; Col 1:8, etc.). A clear, conspicuous manifestation is indicated. Compare ye see me (Joh 14:19). " It conveys more than the disclosing of an undiscovered presence (ἀποκαλύπτω ), or the manifesting of a hidden one (φανερόω )" (Westcott).

Vincent: Joh 14:22

Judas

See on Thaddaeus , Mar 3:18.

Vincent: Joh 14:22

Not Iscariot

The Rev. improves the translation by placing these words immediately after Judas . " He distinguishes the godly Judas, not by his own surname, but by the negation of the other's; marking at the same time the traitor as present again after his negotiation with the adversaries, but as having no sympathy with such a question" (Bengel).

Vincent: Joh 14:22

How is it ( τί γέγ ονεν )

Literally, what has come to pass . Implying that Judas thought that some change had taken place in Jesus' plans. He had assumed that Jesus would, as the Messiah, reveal Himself publicly.

Vincent: Joh 14:23

My word ( λόγον μου )

The entire gospel message, as distinguished from its separate parts or commandments.

Vincent: Joh 14:23

We will come

Compare Joh 10:30; Rev 3:20.

Vincent: Joh 14:23

Abode ( μονὴν )

See on Joh 14:2. Compare 1Jo 2:24; 1Jo 5:15.

Vincent: Joh 14:24

My sayings ( λόγους )

Rev., words . Compare word , Joh 14:23. The constituent parts of the one word .

Vincent: Joh 14:25

Being yet present ( μένων )

Rev., stronger and more literally, while yet abiding .

Vincent: Joh 14:26

In my name

See on Joh 14:13.

Vincent: Joh 14:26

He ( ἐκεῖνος )

Setting the Advocate distinctly and sharply before the hearers. The pronoun is used in John's First Epistle, distinctively of our Lord. See 1Jo 2:6; 1Jo 3:3, 1Jo 3:5, 1Jo 3:7, 1Jo 3:16; 1Jo 4:17.

Vincent: Joh 14:26

I have said ( εἶπον )

The aorist tense, I said .

Vincent: Joh 14:27

Peace

" These are last words, as of one who is about to go away and says 'good-night' or gives his blessing" (Luther). Peace! was the ordinary oriental greeting at parting. Compare Joh 20:21.

Vincent: Joh 14:27

My peace I give

Compare 1Jo 3:1. " It is of his own that one gives " (Godet).

Vincent: Joh 14:27

Let it be afraid ( δειλιάτω )

Only here in the New Testament. Properly it signifies cowardly fear. Rev., fearful . The kindred adjective δειλός fearful , is used by Matthew of the disciples in the storm (Mat 8:26), and in Revelation of those who deny the faith through fear of persecution (Rev 21:8). The kindred noun, δειλία , occurs only in 2Ti 1:7, " God hath not given us the spirit of fear ," contrasted with the spirit of power, love, and a sound mind.

Vincent: Joh 14:28

I said

Omit, and read, ye would have rejoiced because I go unto the Father .

Vincent: Joh 14:30

Hereafter I will not talk ( οὐκ ἔπι λαλήσω )

Rev., more correctly, I will no more speak .

Vincent: Joh 14:30

The prince of this world

The best texts read, " of the world."

Vincent: Joh 14:30

Hath nothing in me

No right nor power over Christ which sin in Him could give. The Greek order is, in me he hath nothing .

Vincent: Joh 14:31

But that the world may know, etc.

The connection in this verse is much disputed. Some explain, Arise , let us go hence , that the world may know that I love the Father , and that even as the Father commanded me so I do . Others, So I do , that the world may know - and even as the Father , etc. Others, again, take the opening phrase as elliptical, supplying either, he cometh , i.e., Satan, in order that the world may know - and that as the Father, etc.; or, I surrender myself to suffering and death that the world may know, etc. In this case, Arise , etc., will form, as in A.V. and Rev., an independent sentence. I incline to adopt this. The phrase ἀλλ ' ἵνα , but in order that , with an ellipsis, is common in John. See Joh 1:8, Joh 1:31; Joh 9:3; Joh 13:18; Joh 15:25; 1Jo 2:19.

Wesley: Joh 14:15

Immediately after faith he exhorts to love and good works.

Wesley: Joh 14:16

Joh 14:21, shows the connection between this and the preceding verses.

Wesley: Joh 14:16

The Greek word signifies also an advocate, instructer, or encourager.

Wesley: Joh 14:16

For Christ himself was one.

Wesley: Joh 14:16

With you, and your followers in faith, to the end of the world.

Wesley: Joh 14:17

Who has, reveals, testifies, and defends the truth as it is in Jesus.

Wesley: Joh 14:17

All who do not love or fear God, cannot receive, because it seeth him not - Having no spiritual senses, no internal eye to discern him; nor consequently knoweth him.

Wesley: Joh 14:17

As a constant guest. Your bodies and souls shall be temples of the Holy Ghost dwelling in you.

Wesley: Joh 14:18

A word that is elegantly applied to those who have lost any dear friend.

Wesley: Joh 14:18

What was certainly and speedily to be, our Lord speaks of as if it were already.

Wesley: Joh 14:19

That is, ye shall certainly see me. Because I live, ye shall live also - Because I am the living One in my Divine nature, and shall rise again in my human nature, and live for ever in heaven: therefore ye shall live the life of faith and love on earth, and hereafter the life of glory.

Wesley: Joh 14:20

When ye see me after my resurrection; but more eminently at the day of pentecost.

Wesley: Joh 14:21

Written in his heart.

Wesley: Joh 14:21

More abundantly.

Wesley: Joh 14:23

Because ye love and obey me, and they do not, therefore I will reveal myself to you, and not to them.

Wesley: Joh 14:23

The more any man loves and obeys, the more God will love him. And we will come to him, and make our abode with him - Which implies such a large manifestation of the Divine presence and love, that the former in justification is as nothing in comparison of it.

Wesley: Joh 14:26

For my sake, in my room, and as my agent.

Wesley: Joh 14:26

Necessary for you to know. Here is a clear promise to the apostles, and their successors in the faith, that the Holy Ghost will teach them all that truth which is needful for their salvation.

Wesley: Joh 14:27

Peace in general; peace with God and with your own consciences.

Wesley: Joh 14:27

In particular; that peace which I enjoy, and which I create, I give - At this instant.

Wesley: Joh 14:27

Unsatisfying unsettled, transient; but filling the soul with constant, even tranquillity. Lord, evermore give us this peace! How serenely may we pass through the most turbulent scenes of life, when all is quiet and harmonious within! Thou hast made peace through the blood of thy cross. May we give all diligence to preserve the inestimable gift inviolate, till it issue in everlasting peace!

Wesley: Joh 14:28

As he was man. As God, neither is greater nor less than the other.

Wesley: Joh 14:29

Of my going and return.

Wesley: Joh 14:30

To make his grand assault.

Wesley: Joh 14:30

No right, no claim, or power. There is no guilt in me, to give him power over me; no corruption to take part with his temptation.

Wesley: Joh 14:31

But I suffer him thus to assault me, Because it is the Father's commission to me, Joh 10:18. To convince the world of my love to the Father, in being obedient unto death, Phi 2:8. Arise, let us go hence - Into the city, to the passover. All that has been related from Joh 12:31, was done and said on Thursday, without the city. But what follows in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth chapters, was said in the city, on the very evening of the passover just before he went over the brook Kedron.

JFB: Joh 14:15-17

This connection seems designed to teach that the proper temple for the indwelling Spirit of Jesus is a heart filled with that love to Him which lives actively for Him, and so this was the fitting preparation for the promised gift.

JFB: Joh 14:15-17

A word used only by John; in his Gospel with reference to the Holy Spirit, in his First Epistle (1Jo 2:1), with reference to Christ Himself. Its proper sense is an "advocate," "patron," "helper." In this sense it is plainly meant of Christ (1Jo 2:1), and in this sense it comprehends all the comfort as well as aid of the Spirit's work. The Spirit is here promised as One who would supply Christ's own place in His absence.

JFB: Joh 14:15-17

Never go away, as Jesus was going to do in the body.

JFB: Joh 14:17

(See 1Co 2:14).

JFB: Joh 14:17

Though the proper fulness of both these was yet future, our Lord, by using both the present and the future, seems plainly to say that they already had the germ of this great blessing.

JFB: Joh 14:18-20

In a bereaved and desolate condition; or (as in Margin) "orphans."

JFB: Joh 14:18-20

"I come" or "am coming" to you; that is, plainly by the Spirit, since it was to make His departure to be no bereavement.

JFB: Joh 14:19

Beholdeth.

JFB: Joh 14:19

Behold.

JFB: Joh 14:19

His bodily presence, being all the sight of Him which "the world" ever had, or was capable of, it "beheld Him no more" after His departure to the Father; but by the coming of the Spirit, the presence of Christ was not only continued to His spiritually enlightened disciples, but rendered far more efficacious and blissful than His bodily presence had been before the Spirit's coming.

JFB: Joh 14:19

Not "shall live," only when raised from the dead; for it is His unextinguishable, divine life of which He speaks, in view of which His death and resurrection were but as shadows passing over the sun's glorious disk. (Compare Luk 24:5; Rev 1:18, "the Living One"). And this grand saying Jesus uttered with death immediately in view. What a brightness does this throw over the next clause, "ye shall live also!" "Knowest thou not," said LUTHER to the King of Terrors, "that thou didst devour the Lord Christ, but wert obliged to give Him back, and wert devoured of Him? So thou must leave me undevoured because I abide in Him, and live and suffer for His name's sake. Men may hunt me out of the world--that I care not for--but I shall not on that account abide in death. I shall live with my Lord Christ, since I know and believe that He liveth!" (quoted in STIER).

JFB: Joh 14:20

Of the Spirit's coming.

JFB: Joh 14:20

(See on Joh 17:22-23).

JFB: Joh 14:21

(See on Joh 14:15).

JFB: Joh 14:21

Mark the sharp line of distinction here, not only between the Divine Persons but the actings of love in Each respectively, towards true disciples.

JFB: Joh 14:22

Beautiful parenthesis this! The traitor being no longer present, we needed not to be told that this question came not from him. But it is as if the Evangelist had said, "A very different Judas from the traitor, and a very different question from any that he would have put. Indeed [as one in STIER says], we never read of Iscariot that he entered in any way into his Master's words, or ever put a question even of rash curiosity (though it may be he did, but that nothing from him was deemed fit for immortality in the Gospels but his name and treason)."

JFB: Joh 14:22

A most natural and proper question, founded on Joh 14:19, though interpreters speak against it as Jewish.

JFB: Joh 14:23

Astonishing statement! In the Father's "coming" He "refers to the revelation of Him as a Father to the soul, which does not take place till the Spirit comes into the heart, teaching it to cry, Abba, Father" [OLSHAUSEN]. The "abode" means a permanent, eternal stay! (Compare Lev 26:11-12; Eze 37:26-27; 2Co 6:16; and contrast Jer 14:8).

JFB: Joh 14:25-26

(See on Joh 14:15; Joh 14:17). As the Son came in the Father's name, so the Father shall send the Spirit in My name, says Jesus, that is, with like divine power and authority to reproduce in their souls what Christ taught them, "bringing to living consciousness what lay like slumbering germs in their minds" [OLSHAUSEN]. On this rests the credibility and ultimate divine authority of THE GOSPEL HISTORY. The whole of what is here said of THE SPIRIT is decisive of His divine personality. "He who can regard all the personal expressions, applied to the Spirit in these three chapters ('teaching,' 'reminding,' 'testifying,' 'coming,' 'convincing,' 'guiding,' 'speaking,' 'hearing,' 'prophesying,' 'taking') as being no other than a long drawn-out figure, deserves not to be recognized even as an interpreter of intelligible words, much less an expositor of Holy Scripture" [STIER].

JFB: Joh 14:27

If Joh 14:25-26 sounded like a note of preparation for drawing the discourse to a close, this would sound like a farewell. But oh, how different from ordinary adieus! It is a parting word, but of richest import, the customary "peace" of a parting friend sublimed and transfigured. As "the Prince of Peace" (Isa 9:6) He brought it into flesh, carried it about in His Own Person ("My peace") died to make it ours, left it as the heritage of His disciples upon earth, implants and maintains it by His Spirit in their hearts. Many a legacy is "left" that is never "given" to the legatee, many a gift destined that never reaches its proper object. But Christ is the Executor of His own Testament; the peace He "leaves" He "gives"; Thus all is secure.

JFB: Joh 14:27

In contrast with the world, He gives sincerely, substantially, eternally.

JFB: Joh 14:28

These words, which Arians and Socinians perpetually quote as triumphant evidence against the proper Divinity of Christ, really yield no intelligible sense on their principles. Were a holy man on his deathbed, beholding his friends in tears at the prospect of losing him, to say, "Ye ought rather to joy than weep for me, and would if ye really loved me, "the speech would be quite natural. But if they should ask him, why joy at his departure was more suitable than sorrow, would they not start back with astonishment, if not horror, were he to reply, "Because my Father is greater than I?" Does not this strange speech from Christ's lips, then, presuppose such teaching on His part as would make it extremely difficult for them to think He could gain anything by departing to the Father, and make it necessary for Him to say expressly that there was a sense in which He could do so? Thus, this startling explanation seems plainly intended to correct such misapprehensions as might arise from the emphatic and reiterated teaching of His proper equality with the Father--as if so Exalted a Person were incapable of any accession by transition from this dismal scene to a cloudless heaven and the very bosom of the Father--and by assuring them that this was not the case, to make them forget their own sorrow in His approaching joy.

JFB: Joh 14:30-31

"I have a little more to say, but My work hastens apace, and the approach of the adversary will cut it short."

JFB: Joh 14:30-31

(See on Joh 12:31).

JFB: Joh 14:30-31

With hostile intent, for a last grand attack, having failed in His first formidable assault (Luk 4:1-13) from which he "departed [only] for a season" (Joh 14:13).

JFB: Joh 14:30-31

Nothing of His own--nothing to fasten on. Glorious saying! The truth of it is, that which makes the Person and Work of Christ the life of the world (Heb 9:14; 1Jo 3:5; 2Co 5:21).

JFB: Joh 14:31

The sense must be completed thus: "But to the Prince of the world, though he has nothing in Me, I shall yield Myself up even unto death, that the world may know that I love and obey the Father, whose commandment it is that I give My life a ransom for many."

JFB: Joh 14:31

Did they then, at this stage of the discourse, leave the supper room, as some able interpreters conclude? If so, we think our Evangelist would have mentioned it: see Joh 18:1, which seems clearly to intimate that they then only left the upper room. But what do the words mean if not this? We think it was the dictate of that saying of earlier date, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!"--a spontaneous and irrepressible expression of the deep eagerness of His spirit to get into the conflict, and that if, as is likely, it was responded to somewhat too literally by the guests who hung on His lips, in the way of a movement to depart, a wave of His hand, would be enough to show that He had yet more to say ere they broke up; and that disciple, whose pen was dipped in a love to his Master which made their movements of small consequence save when essential to the illustration of His words, would record this little outburst of the Lamb hastening to the slaughter, in the very midst of His lofty discourse; while the effect of it, if any, upon His hearers, as of no consequence, would naturally enough be passed over.

Clarke: Joh 14:15

If ye love me, keep my commandments - Do not be afflicted at the thought of my being separated from you: the most solid proof ye can give of your attachment to and affection for me is to keep my commandments. This I shall receive as a greater proof of your affection than your tears.

Clarke: Joh 14:16

I will pray the Father - After having made an atonement for the sin of the world, I will become the Mediator between God and man; and through my mediation and intercession shall all the blessings of grace and glory be acquired

Clarke: Joh 14:16

Another Comforter - The word παρακλητος signifies not only a comforter, but also an advocate, a defender of a cause, a counsellor, patron, mediator. Christ is thus termed, 1Jo 2:1, where the common translation renders the word advocate. Christ is thus called, because he is represented as transacting the concerns of our souls with God; and for this cause, he tells us, he goes unto the Father, Joh 14:12. The Holy Spirit is thus called, because he transacts the cause of God and Christ with us, explains to us the nature and importance of the great atonement, shows the necessity of it, counsels us to receive it, instructs us how to lay hold on it, vindicates our claim to it, and makes intercessions in us with unutterable groanings. As Christ acted with his disciples while he sojourned with them, so the Holy Ghost acts with those who believe in his name

Clarke: Joh 14:16

For ever - As the death and atonement of Christ will be necessary to man till the conclusion of the world, so the office of the Holy Spirit must be continued among men till the end of time: therefore says Christ, he shall continue with you for ever, teaching, comforting, advising, defending, and interceding for you and for all my followers to the end of time.

Clarke: Joh 14:17

The Spirit of truth - The Spirit, or Holy Ghost, whose essential office is to manifest, vindicate, and apply the truth. The Gospel of Christ may be thus called, because it exposes falsity, removes error, and teaches the knowledge of the true God - shows the way to him, saves from vanity and illusive hopes, and establishes solid happiness in the souls of those who believe

Clarke: Joh 14:17

The world cannot receive - By the world, St. John means those who are influenced only by the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, and the pride of life, 1Jo 2:16. Now these cannot receive the Spirit of the truth, because they see him not, have no spiritual discernment, attend to nothing but the dictates of their corrupt passions and affections, and will admit of no influence but what can be an object of their senses. Hence all the deign and irreligion in the world. God, in the operation of his hands, and in the influences of his Spirit, is found every where except in the perverted passions of men. In these alone do men of corrupt minds seek him; here only he is not to be found, and therefore they become infidels and atheists

Clarke: Joh 14:17

But ye know him - Ye have already received a measure of the truth, and ye believe in this Spirit. Probably our Lord refers to the knowledge which they should afterwards attain: in this sense the passage has been understood by the Vulgate, Nonnus, and two copies of the Itala, which read, Ye Shall know him

Clarke: Joh 14:17

For he dwelleth with you - Or, as the Ethiopic, Vulgate, Nonnus, and six copies of the Itala read, he shall dwell with you, (see above); and this, it is very evident, is the meaning of the evangelist, who not unfrequently uses the present for the future tense. It is certain the Holy Spirit was not yet given to the disciples so as to dwell in them; this St. John himself assures us, Joh 7:39. And it is evidently of that Spirit and its influences, which was not given till the day of pentecost, that our Lord here speaks.

Clarke: Joh 14:18

I will not leave you comfortless - Literally, orphans. The original word ορφανος, is by some derived from ορφνος, obscure, dark, because, says Mintert, an orphan (one deprived of father and mother) is little esteemed, neglected, and is obliged to wander about in obscurity and darkness. Others derive it from the Hebrew חרף charaph , to strip or make bare, despoil, because such a child is destitute of comfort, direction, and support, and is a prey to misery and disease, to sin and to death

The disciples of a particular teacher among the Hebrews called him father; his scholars were called his children, and, on his death, were considered as orphans. Christ calls his disciples children, beloved children, Joh 13:33; and, now that he is about to be removed from them by death, he assures them that they shall not be left fatherless, or without a teacher; for in a little time he should come again, (rise from the dead), and, after his ascension, they should be made partakers of that Spirit which would be their comforter, advocate, teacher, and guide for ever.

Clarke: Joh 14:19

Because I live - As surely as I shall rise from the dead, so shall ye. My resurrection shall be the proof and pledge of yours. And because I live a life of intercession for you at the right hand of God, ye shall live a life of grace and peace here, and a life of glory hereafter.

Clarke: Joh 14:20

That I am in my Father - After my resurrection, ye shall be more fully convinced of this important truth, that I and the Father are One; for I will live in you by the energy of my Spirit, and ye shall live in me by faith, love, and obedience.

Clarke: Joh 14:21

He it is that loveth me - See on Joh 14:15 (note)

Clarke: Joh 14:21

And will manifest myself to him - All my faithful disciples shall see me after my resurrection; and I will manifest my power and goodness to all those who believe in and obey me, even to the end of the world.

Clarke: Joh 14:22

Judas - The same as Thaddeus and Lebbeus, the brother of James, and author of what is called the epistle of Jude

Clarke: Joh 14:22

How is it - Or, how can it be - τι γεγονεν, what is to happen? - on what account is it? Judas, who was probably thinking that the kingdom of Christ should extend over all the earth, wonders how this can be, and yet Christ manifest himself only to his disciples and not to the world, Joh 14:19. To this our Lord, in a more express manner than he had done before answers: -

Clarke: Joh 14:23

If a man - Not only my present disciples, but all those who shall believe on me through their word, or that of their successors

Clarke: Joh 14:23

Love me - Receive me as his Savior, and get the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost

Clarke: Joh 14:23

He will keep my words - Observe all my sayings, and have his affections and conduct regulated by my Spirit and doctrine

Clarke: Joh 14:23

My Father will love him - Call him his child; support, defend, and preserve him as such

Clarke: Joh 14:23

And we will come unto him - God the Father, through his Son, will continue to pour out his choicest blessings upon his head and upon his heart

Clarke: Joh 14:23

And make our abode with him - Will make his heart our temple, where God, the Father, Son, and Spirit, shall rest, receive homage, and dwell to eternity. Thus will I manifest myself to the believing, loving, obedient disciple, and not to the world, who will not receive the Spirit of the truth.

Clarke: Joh 14:24

He that loveth me not, etc. - Hence we learn that the man who is not obedient to the testimonies of Christ does not love him; and the Spirit of this truth has said, He who loves not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed, 1Co 16:22.

Clarke: Joh 14:26

He shall teach you all things - If in the things which I have already spoken to you, there appear to you any obscurity, the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, Counsellor, and Instructer, will take away all your doubts, free you from all embarrassment, and give you a perfect understanding in all things: and this Spirit ye shall shortly receive

Clarke: Joh 14:26

And bring all things to your remembrance - Here Christ promises them that inspiration of the Holy Spirit which enabled them not only to give a true history of his life and death, but also gave them the most perfect recollection of all the words which he had spoken to them, so that they have been able to transmit to posterity the identical words which Jesus uttered in his sermons, and in his different discourses with them, the Jews, and others.

Clarke: Joh 14:27

Peace I leave with you - The Jewish form of salutation and benediction. A wish of peace among them is thus to be understood: May you prosper in body and soul, and enjoy every earthly and heavenly good! For the meaning of this word, see Mat 5:9

Clarke: Joh 14:27

My peace I give unto you - Such tranquillity of soul, such uninterrupted happiness of mind, such everlasting friendship with God as I enjoy, may ye all enjoy! And such blessedness I bequeath unto you: it is my last, my best, my dying legacy

Clarke: Joh 14:27

Not as the world giveth - Not as the Jews, in empty wishes: not as the people of the world, in empty compliments. Their salutations and benedictions are generally matters of custom and polite ceremony, given without desire or design; but I mean what I say; what I wish you, that I will give you. To his followers Jesus gives peace, procures it, preserves it, and establishes it. He is the author, prince, promoter, and keeper of peace

Clarke: Joh 14:27

Neither let it be afraid - Μηδε δειλιατω, Let not your heart shrink back through fear of any approaching evil. This is the proper meaning of the word. In a few hours ye will be most powerfully assaulted; but stand firm: - the evil will only fall upon me; and this evil will result in your comfort and salvation, and in the redemption of a lost world.

Clarke: Joh 14:28

I go away - To the Father by my death

Clarke: Joh 14:28

And come again unto you - By my resurrection

Clarke: Joh 14:28

Ye would rejoice - Because, as the Messiah, I am going to receive a kingdom, and power, and glory, for ever. Therefore as my friends ye should rejoice in my elevation, though for a while it may put you to the pain of being separated from me: besides, I am going that I may send you the Holy Spirit, which shall fill you with the fullness of God: on your own account, therefore, ye should have rejoiced and not mourned

Clarke: Joh 14:28

My Father is greater than I - In Joh 14:24, Christ tells his disciples that the Father had sent him: i.e. in his quality of Messiah, he was sent by the Father to instruct, and to save mankind. Now, as the sender is greater than the sent, Joh 13:16, so in this sense is the Father greater than the Son; and in this sense was the passage understood by Origen, Jerome, Novatian, and Vigilius, who read the text thus: The Father, ὁ πεμψας, who sent me, is greater than I. It certainly requires very little argument, and no sophistry, to reconcile this saying with the most orthodox notion of the Godhead of Christ; as he is repeatedly speaking of his Divine and of his human nature. Of the former he says, I and the Father are one, Joh 10:30; and of the latter he states, with the same truth, The Father is greater than I.

Clarke: Joh 14:29

I have told you before it come to pass - Lest my death should be a stumbling-block to you, I have spoken of it beforehand, and showed you the necessity of it, that when it happens ye may believe, that as I could predict it so clearly, and so circumstantially, so all the good which I have promised shall be the result may be confidently expected by you; and that your sorrow, if not entirely removed, may at least be much mitigated.

Clarke: Joh 14:30

The prince of this world - Τουτου, of this, is omitted by ABDEGHKLMS, Mt. BH, one hundred others; both the Syriac, later Persic, all the Arabic, and several of the primitive fathers. I rather think the omission of the pronoun makes the sense more general; for, had he said This world, the words might have been restrained to the Jewish state, or to the Roman government. But who is the person called here the prince of the world

1.    Mr. Wakefield thinks that Christ speaks here of himself, as he does in Joh 12:31, (see the note there), and translates this verse and the following thus: For the ruler of this world is coming; and I have nothing now to do, but to convince the world that I love the Father, and do as he commanded me. On which he observes that our Lord speaks of what he shall be, when he comes again, and not of what he then was: compare Joh 14:18; Joh 16:16; Joh 17:2; Mat 28:18; Phi 2:9. And how often does he speak of himself, as the Son of man, in the third person! See his vindication of this translation in the third vol. of his New Testament

2.    Others think that our Lord refers to the Roman government, the ruler of the world, who, by its deputy, Pilate, was going to judge him, but who should find nothing ( εὑρησει ουδεν, which is the reading found in some excellent MSS. and versions, and is followed by almost all the primitive fathers), as a just cause of death in him - nothing in the whole of his conduct which was in the least reprehensible; and this indeed Pilate witnessed in the most solemn manner. See Joh 18:38; Joh 19:4, Joh 19:12; see also Luk 23:4, etc., and Mat 27:24

3.    But the most general opinion is that Satan is meant, who is called the prince of the power of the air, Eph 2:2; and who is supposed to be the same that is called the god of this world, 2Co 4:4; and who at his last and most desperate trial, the agony in the garden, should be convinced that there was nothing of his nature in Christ, nothing that would coincide with his solicitations, and that he should find himself completely foiled in all his attacks, and plainly foresee the impending ruin of his kingdom. It is very difficult to ascertain the real meaning here: of the different opinions proposed above, the reader must take that which he deems the most likely.

Clarke: Joh 14:31

Arise, let us go hence - Calmet supposes that Christ, having rendered thanks to God, and sung the usual hymn, Mat 26:30; Mar 14:26; rose from the table, left the city, and went towards the garden of Olives, or garden of Gethsemane, on the road to which, a part of the following discourse was delivered. It was now about midnight, and the moon was almost full, it being the 14th day of her age, about the time in which the Jewish passover was to be slain

The reader should carefully note the conduct of our Lord. He goes to die as a Sacrifice, out of love to mankind, in obedience to the Divine will, and with unshaken courage. All our actions should be formed on this plan. They should have the love of God and man for their principle and motive; his glory for their end; and his will for their rule. He who lives and acts thus shall live for ever. Amen.

Calvin: Joh 14:15

15.If you love me The love with which the disciples loved Christ was true and sincere, and yet there was some superstition mixed with it, as is frequently the case with ourselves; for it was very foolish in them to wish to keep him in the world. To correct this fault, he bids them direct their love to another end; and that is, to employ themselves in keeping the commandments which he had given them. This is undoubtedly a useful doctrine, for of those who think that they love Christ, there are very few who honor him as they ought to do; but, on the contrary, after having performed small and trivial services, they give themselves no farther concern. The true love of Christ, on the other hand, is regulated by the observation of his doctrine as the only rule. But we are likewise reminded how sinful our affections are, since even the love which we bear to Christ is not without fault, if it be not directed to a pure obedience.

Calvin: Joh 14:16

16.And I will pray to the Father This was given as a remedy for soothing the grief which they might feel on account of Christ’s absence; but at the same time, Christ promises that he will give them strength to keep his commandments; For otherwise the exhortation would have had little effect. He therefore loses no time in informing them that, though he be absent from them in body, yet he will never allow them to remain destitute of assistance; for he will be present with them by his Spirit.

Here he calls the Spirit the gift of the Father, but a gift which he will obtain by his prayers; in another passage he promises that he will give the Spirit. If I depart, says he, I will send, Him to you, (Joh 16:7.) Both statements are true and correct; for in so far as Christ is our Mediator and Intercessor, he obtains from the Father the grace of the Spirit, but in so far as he is God, he bestows that grace from himself. The meaning of this passage therefore is: “I was given to you by the Father to be a Comforter, but only for a time; now, having discharged my office, I will pray to him to give another Comforter, who will not be for a short time, but will remain always with you.”

And he will, give you another Comforter The word Comforter is here applied both to Christ and to the Spirit, and justly; for it is an office which belongs equally to both of them, to comfort and exhort us, and to guard us by their protection. Christ was the Protector of his disciples, so long as he dwelt in the world: and afterwards he committed them to the protection and guardianship of the Spirit. It may be asked, are we not still under the protection of Christ? The answer is easy. Christ is a continual Protector, but not in a visible way. So long as he dwelt in the world, he openly manifested himself as their Protector; but now he guards us by his Spirit.

He calls the Spirit another Comforter, on account of the difference between the blessings which we obtain from both. The peculiar office of Christ was, to appease the wrath of God by atoning for the sins of the world, to redeem men from death, to procure righteousness and life; and the peculiar office of the Spirit is, to make us partakers not only of Christ himself, but of all his blessings. And yet there would be no impropriety in inferring from this passage a distinction of Persons; for there must be some peculiarity in which the Spirit differs from the Son so as to be another than the Son.

Calvin: Joh 14:17

17.The Spirit of truth Christ bestows on the Spirit another title, namely, that he is the Master or Teacher of truth. ⁶⁸ Hence it follows, that until we have been inwardly instructed by him, the understandings of all of us are seized with vanity and falsehood.

Whom the world cannot receive This contrast shows the peculiar excellence of that grace which God bestows on none but his elect; for he means that it is no ordinary gift of which the world is deprived. In this sense, too, Isaiah says, “ For, the darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the people, but the Lord shall arise on thee, O Jerusalem!” ⁶⁹ For the mercy of God towards the Church deserves so much the higher praise, when he exalts the Church, by a distinguished privilege, above the whole world. And yet Christ exhorts the disciples, that they must not be puffed up, as the world is wont to be, by carnal views, and thus drive away from themselves the grace of the Spirit. All that Scripture tells us about the Holy Spirit is regarded by earthly men as a dream; because, trusting to their own reason, they despise heavenly illumination. Now, though this pride abounds everywhere, which extinguishes, so far as lies in our power, the light of the Holy Spirit; yet, conscious of our own poverty, we ought to know, that whatever belongs to sound understanding proceeds from no other source. Yet Christ’s words show that nothing which relates to the Holy Spirit can be learned by human reason, but that He is known only by the experience of faith.

The world, he says, cannot receive the Spirit, because it knoweth him not; but you know him, because he dwelleth with you. It is the Spirit alone therefore, who, by dwelling in us, makes himself to be known by us, for otherwise, he is unknown and incomprehensible.

Calvin: Joh 14:18

18.I will not have you orphans This passage shows what men are, and what they can do, when they have been deprived of the protection of the Spirit. They are orphans, exposed to every kind of fraud and injustice, incapable of governing themselves, and, in short, unable of themselves to do any thing. The only remedy for so great a defect is, if Christ govern us by his Spirit, which he promises that he will do. First then, the disciples are reminded of their weakness, that, distrusting themselves, they may rely on nothing else than the protection of Christ; and, secondly, having promised a remedy, he gives them good encouragement; for he declares that he will never leave them When he says, I will come to you, he shows in what manner he dwells in his people, and in what manner he fills all things. It is, by the power of his Spirit; and hence it is evident, that the grace of the Spirit is a striking proof of his Divinity.

Calvin: Joh 14:19

19.Yet a little while He continues the commendation of special grace, which ought to have been sufficient for alleviating, and even for removing the grief of the disciples. “When I shall have withdrawn,” says he, “from the view of the world: still I shall be present with you.” That we may enjoy this secret beholding of Christ, we must not judge of his presence or his absence according to carnal perception, but we must earnestly employ the eyes of faith for contemplating his power. Thus believers always have Christ present by his Spirit, and behold him, though they be distant from him in body.

Because I live This statement may be explained in two ways. Either it may be viewed as a confirmation of the former clause, because I live, and you shall live; or, it may be read separately, because I live, you also shall live; and then the meaning will be, that believers will live, because Christ liveth I willingly embrace the former opinion, and yet we may draw from it the other doctrine, that the life of Christ is the cause of our life. He begins by pointing out the cause of the difference, why he shall be seen by his disciples, and not by the world It isn’t because Christ cannot be seen but according to the spiritual life, of which the world is deprived. The world seeth not Christ; this is not wonderful, for the death of blindness is the cause; but as soon as any man begins to live by the Spirit, he is immediately endued with eyes to see Christ. Now, the reason of this is, that our life is closely connected with the life of Christ, and proceeds from it as from its source; for we are dead in ourselves, and the life with which we flatter ourselves is a very bad death. Accordingly, when the question is, how we are to obtain life, our eyes must be directed to Christ, and his life must be conveyed to us by faith, that our consciences may be fully convinced, that, so long as Christ lives, we are free from all danger of destruction; for it is an undoubted truth, that his life would be nothing, when his members were dead.

Calvin: Joh 14:20

20.At that day Some refer this to the day of Pentecost; but it rather denotes the uninterrupted course, as it were, of a single day, from the time when Christ exerted the power of his Spirit till the last resurrection. From that time they began to know, but it was a sort of feeble beginning, because the Spirit had not yet wrought so powerfully in them. For the object of these words is, to show that we cannot, by indolent speculation, know what is the sacred and mystical union between us and him, and again, between him and the Father; but that the only way of knowing it is, when he diffuses his life in us by the secret efficacy of the Spirit; and this is the trial of faith, which I lately mentioned.

As to the manner in which this passage was formerly abused by the Aryans, to prove that Christ is God only by participation and by grace, it is easy to refute their sophistry. For Christ does not speak merely of his eternal essence, but of that Divine power which was manifested in him. As the Father has laid up in the Son all fullness of blessings, so, on the other hand, the Son has conveyed himself entirely into us. He is said to be in us, because he plainly shows, by the efficacy of his Spirit, that he is the Author and the cause of our life.

Calvin: Joh 14:21

21.He who hath my commandments. He again repeats the former statement, that the undoubted proof of our love to him lies in our keeping his commandments; and the reason why he so frequently reminds the disciples of this is, that they may not turn aside from this object; for there is nothing to which we are more prone than to slide into a carnal affection, so as to love something else than Christ under the name of Christ. Such is also the import of that saying of Paul,

Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet henceforth we know him no longer in this manner. Let us therefore be a new creature,
(2Co 5:16.)

To have his commandments means to be properly instructed in them; and to keep his commandments is to conform ourselves and our life to their rule.

And he that loveth me will be loved by my Father Christ speaks as if men loved God before he loved them; which is absurd, for,

when we were enemies, he reconciled us to him,
(Rom 5:10;)

and the words of John are well known,

Not that we first loved him, but he first loved us,
(1Jo 4:10.)

But there is no debate here about cause or effect; and therefore there is no ground for the inference, that the love with which we love Christ comes in order before the love which God has toward us; for Christ meant only, that all who love him will be happy, because they will also be loved by him and by the Father; not that God then begins to love them, but because they have a testimony of his love to them, as a Father, engraven on their hearts. To the same purpose is the clause which immediately follows: —

And I will manifest myself to him Knowledge undoubtedly goes before love; but Christ’s meaning was, I will grant to those who purely observe my doctrine, that they shall make progress from day to day in faith; “that is, “I will cause them to approach more nearly and more familiarly to me. ” Hence infer, that the fruit of piety is progress in the knowledge of Christ; for he who promises that he will give himself to him who has it rejects hypocrites, and causes all to make progress in faith who, cordially embracing the doctrine of the Gospel, bring themselves entirely into obedience to it. And this is the reason why many fall back, and why we scarcely see one in ten proceed in the right course; for the greater part do not deserve that he should manifest himself to them It ought also to be observed, that a more abundant knowledge of Christ is here represented as an extraordinary reward of our love to Christ; and hence it follows that it is an invaluable treasure.

Calvin: Joh 14:22

22.Judas ( not Iscariot) saith to him. It is not without reason that he asks why Christ does not cause his light to be imparted ⁷¹ to more than a few persons; since he is the Sun of Righteousness, (Mal 4:2) by whom the whole world ought to be enlightened; and, therefore, it is unreasonable that he should enlighten but a few, and not shed his light everywhere without distinction. Christ’s reply does not solve the whole question; for it makes no mention of the first cause, why Christ ‘ manifested himself to a few,’ conceals himself from the greater part of men; for certainly he finds all men at first alike, that is, entirely alienated from him; and, therefore, he cannot choose any person who loves him, but he chooses from among his enemies those whose hearts he bends to the love of him. But he did not intend, at present, to take any notice of that distinction, which was far from the object he had in view. His design was, to exhort his disciples to the earnest study of godliness, that they might make greater progress in faith; and, therefore, he is satisfied with distinguishing them from the world by this mark, that they keep the doctrine of the Gospel.

Now, this mark comes after the commencement of faith, for it is the effect of their calling. In other passages, Christ had reminded the disciples of their being called by free grace, and he will afterwards bring it to their recollection. At present, he only enjoins them to observe his doctrine, and to maintain godliness. By these words, Christ shows in what manner the Gospel is properly obeyed. It is, when our services and outward actions proceed from the love of Christ; for in vain do the arms, and the feet, and the whole body toil, if the love of God does not reign in the heart, to govern the outward members. Now, since it is certain that we keep the commandments of Christ only in so far as we love him, it follows that a perfect love of him can nowhere be found in the world, because there is no man who keeps his commandments perfectly; yet God is pleased with the obedience of those who sincerely aim at this end.

Calvin: Joh 14:23

23.And my Father will love him We have already explained that the love of God to us is not placed in the second rank, as if it came after our piety as the cause of that love, but that believers may be fully convinced that the obedience which they render to the Gospel is pleasing to God, and that they may continually expect from him fresh additions of gifts.

And we will come to him who loveth me; that is, he will feel that the grace of God dwelleth in him, and will every day receive additions to the gifts of God. He therefore speaks, not of that eternal love with which he loved us, before we were born, and even before the world was created, but since the time when he seals it on our hearts by making us partakers of his adoption. Nor does he even mean the first illumination, but those degrees of faith by which believers must continually advance, according to that saying,

Whosoever hath it shall be given to him, (Mat 13:12.)

The Papists; therefore are wrong in inferring from this passage that there are two kinds of love with which we love God. They falsely maintain that we naturally love God, before he regenerates us by his Spirit, and even that by this preparation we merit the grace of regeneration; as if Scripture did not everywhere teach, and as if experience also did not loudly proclaim, that we are altogether alienated from God, and that we are infected and filled with hatred of him, until he change our hearts. We must therefore keep in view the design of Christ, that he and the Father will come, to confirm believers, in uninterrupted confidence in his grace.

Calvin: Joh 14:24

24.He who loveth, me but keepeth not my words As believers are mixed with unbelievers in the world, and as they must be agitated by various storms, as in a troubled sea, Christ again confirms them by this admonition, that they may not be drawn away by bad examples. As if he had said, “Do not look upon the world so as to depend on it; for there will always be some who despise me and my doctrine; but as for you, preserve constantly to the end the grace which you have once received.” Yet he likewise intimates that the world is justly punished for its ingratitude, when it perishes in its blindness, since, by despising true righteousness, it manifests a wicked hatred towards Christ.

And the word which you hear That the disciples may not be discouraged or waver on account of the obstinacy of the world, he again procures credit to his doctrine, by testifying that it is from God, and that it was not contrived by men on the earth. And, indeed, the strength of our faith consists in our knowing that God is our leader, and that we are founded on nothing else than his eternal truth. Whatever then may be the rage and madness of the world, let us follow the doctrine of Christ, which rises far above heaven and earth. When he says that the word is not his, he accommodates himself to the disciples; as if he had said that it is not human, because he teaches faithfully what has been enjoined on him by the Father. Yet we know that, in so far as he is the eternal Wisdom of God, he is the only fountain of all doctrine, and that all the prophets who have been from the beginning spoke by his Spirit.

Calvin: Joh 14:25

25.These things I have spoken to you He adds this, that they may not despair, though they may have profited less than they ought to have done; for at that time he scattered a seed of doctrine, which lay hidden, and, as it were, suffocated in the disciples. He therefore exhorts them to entertain good hopes, until fruit be yielded by the doctrine which might now appear to be useless. In short, he testifies that in the doctrine which they had heard they have abundant ground of consolation, and that they ought not to seek it anywhere else. And if they do not immediately see it, he bids them be of good courage, until the Holy Spirit, who is the inward Teacher, speak the same thing in their hearts. This admonition is highly useful to all; for, if we do not immediately understand what Christ teaches, we begin to grow weary, and grudge to bestow unprofitable labor on what is obscure. But we must bring an eager desire to receive instruction; we must lend our ears and give attention, if we desire to make due proficiency in the school of God; and especially we need patience, until the Holy Spirit enable us to understand what we thought that we had often read or heard to no purpose. That the desire of learning may not be weakened in us, or that we may not fall into despair, when we do not immediately perceive the meaning of Christ speaking to us, let us know that this is spoken to us all.

The Holy Spirit will bring to your remembrance all things that I have said to you It is indeed a punishment threatened by Isaiah against unbelievers, that the Word of God shall be to them as a book that is sealed, (Isa 29:11) but in this manner, also, the Lord frequently humbles his people. We ought, therefore, to wait patiently and mildly for the time of revelation, and must not, on that account, reject the word. When Christ testifies that it is the peculiar office of the Holy Spirit to teach the apostles what they had already learned from his mouth, it follows that the outward preaching will be vain and useless, if it be not accompanied by the teaching of the Spirit. God has therefore two ways of teaching; for, first, he sounds in our ears by the mouth of men; and, secondly, he addresses us inwardly by his Spirit; and he does this either at the same moment, or at different times, as he thinks fit.

But observe what are all these things which he promises that the Spirit will teach. He will suggest, he says, or bring to your remembrance, all that I have said. Hence it follows, that he will not be a builder of new revelations. By this single word we may refute all the inventions which Satan has brought into the Church from the beginning, under the pretense of the Spirit. Mahomet and the Pope agree in holding this as a principle of their religion, that Scripture does not contain a perfection of doctrine, but that something loftier has been revealed by the Spirit. From the same point the Anabaptists and Libertines, in our own time, have drawn their absurd notions. But the spirit that introduces any doctrine or invention apart from the Gospel is a deceiving spirit, and not the Spirit of Christ. What is meant by the Spirit being sent by the Father in the name of Christ, I have already explained.

Calvin: Joh 14:27

27.Peace I leave with you By the word peace he means prosperity, which men are wont to wish for each other when they meet or part; for such is the import of the word peace in the Hebrew language. He therefore alludes to the ordinary custom of his nation; as if he had said, I give you my Farewell But he immediately adds, that this peace is of far greater value than that which is usually to be found among men, who generally have the word peace but coldly in their mouth, by way of ceremony, or, if they sincerely wish peace for any one, yet cannot actually bestow it. But Christ reminds them that his peace does not consist in an empty and unavailing wish, but is accompanied by the effect. In short, he says that he goes away from them in body, but that his peace remains with the disciples; that is, that they will be always happy through his blessing.

Let not your heart be troubled He again corrects the alarm which the disciples had felt on account of his departure. It is no ground for alarm, he tells them; for they want only his bodily presence, but will enjoy his actual presence through the Spirit. Let us learn to be always satisfied with this kind of presence, and let us not give a loose reign to the flesh, which always binds God by its outward inventions.

Calvin: Joh 14:28

28.If you loved me you would rejoice The disciples unquestionably loved Christ, but not as they ought to have done; for some carnal affection was mixed with their love, so that they could not endure to be separated from him; but if they had loved him spiritually, there was nothing which they would have had more deeply at heart, than his return to the Father.

For the Father is greater than I This passage has been tortured in various ways. The Aryans, in order to prove that Christ is some sort of inferior God, argued that he is less than the Father The orthodox Fathers, to remove all ground for such a calumny, said that this must have referred to his human nature; but as the Aryans wickedly abused this testimony, so the reply given by the Fathers to their objection was neither correct nor appropriate; for Christ does not now speak either of his human nature, or of his eternal Divinity, but, accommodating himself to our weakness, places himself between God and us; and, indeed, as it has not been granted to us to reach the height of God, Christ descended to us, that he might raise us to it. You ought to have rejoiced, he says, because I return to the Father; for this is the ultimate object at which you ought to aim. By these words he does not show in what respect he differs in himself from the Father, but why he descended to us; and that was that he might unite us to God; for until we have reached that point, we are, as it were, in the middle of the course. We too imagine to ourselves but a half-Christ, and a mutilated Christ, if he do not lead us to God.

There is a similar passage in the writings of Paul, where he says that Christ

will deliver up the Kingdom to God his Father, that God may be all in all,
(1Co 15:24.)

Christ certainly reigns, not only in human nature, but as he is God manifested in the flesh. In what manner, therefore, will he lay aside the kingdom? It is, because the Divinity which is now beheld in Christ’s face alone, will then be openly visible in him. The only point of difference is, that Paul there describes the highest perfection of the Divine brightness, the rays of which began to shine from the time when Christ ascended to heaven. To make the matter more clear, we must use still greater plainness of speech. Christ does not here make a comparison between the Divinity of the Father and his own, nor between his own human nature and the Divine essence of the Father, but rather between his present state and the heavenly glory, to which he would soon afterwards be received; as if he had said, “You wish to detain me in the world, but it is better that I should ascend to heaven.” Let us therefore learn to behold Christ humbled in the flesh, so that he may conduct us to the fountain of a blessed immortality; for he was not appointed to be our guide, merely to raise us to the sphere of the moon or of the sun, but to make us one with God the Father.

Calvin: Joh 14:29

29.And I have told you now It was proper that the disciples should be frequently admonished on this point; for it was a secret far exceeding all human capacity. He testifies that he foretells what shall happen, that, when it has happened, they may believe; for it was a useful confirmation of their faith when they brought to recollection the predictions of Christ, and saw accomplished before their eyes what they had formerly heard from his mouth. Yet it appears to be a sort of concession, as if Christ had said, “Because you are not yet capable of comprehending so deep a mystery, I bear with you till the event has happened, which will serve as an interpreter to explain this doctrine.” Although for a time he seemed to speak to the deaf, yet it afterwards appeared that his words were not scattered in vain, or, as we may say, in the air, but that it was a seed thrown into the earth. Now, as Christ speaks here about his word and the accomplishment of events, so his death, and resurrection, and ascension to heaven, are combined with doctrine, that they may produce faith in us.

Calvin: Joh 14:30

30.Henceforth I will not talk much with you By this word he intended to fix the attention of the disciples on himself, and to impress his doctrine more deeply on their minds; for abundance generally takes away the appetite, and we desire more eagerly what we have not in our possession, and delight more in the enjoyment of that which is speedily to be taken from us. In order, therefore, to make them more desirous of hearing his doctrines, he threatens that he will very soon go away. Although Christ does not cease to teach us during the whole course of our life, yet this statement may be applied to our use; for, since the course of our life is short, we ought to embrace the present opportunity.

For the prince of this world cometh He might have said, in direct language, that he would soon die, and that the hour of his death was at hand; but he makes use of a circumlocution, to fortify their minds beforehand, lest, terrified by a kind of death so hideous and detestable, they should faint; for to believe in him crucified, what is it but to seek life in hell? First, he says that his power will be given to Satan; and next he adds, That he will go away, not because he is compelled to do so, but in order to obey the Father.

The devil is called the prince of this world, not because he has a kingdom separated from God, (as the Manicheans imagined,) but because, by God’s permission, he exercises his tyranny over the world. Whenever, therefore, we hear this designation applied to the devil, let us be ashamed of our miserable condition; for, whatever may be the pride of men, they are the slaves of the devil, till they are regenerated by the Spirit of Christ; for under the term world is here included the whole human race. There is but one Deliverer who frees and rescues us from this dreadful slavery. Now, since this punishment was inflicted on account of the sin of the first man, and since it daily grows worse on account of new sins, let us learn to hate both ourselves and our sins. While we are held captives under the dominion of Satan, still this slavery does not free us from blame, for it is voluntary. It ought also to be observed, that what is done by wicked men is here ascribed to the devil; for, since they are impelled by Satan, all that they do is justly reckoned his work.

And hath nothing in me ⁷⁴ It is in consequence of the sin of Adam that Satan holds the dominion of death, and, therefore, he could not touch Christ, who is pure from all the pollution of sin, if he had not voluntarily subjected himself. And yet I think that these words have a wider meaning than that in which they are usually explained; for the ordinary interpretation is, “Satan hath found nothing in Christ, for there is nothing in him that deserves death, because he is pure from every stain of sin.” But, in my opinion, Christ asserts here not only his own purity, but likewise his Divine power, which was not subject to death; for it was proper to assure the disciples that he did not yield through weakness, lest they should think less highly of his power. But in this general statement the former is also included, that, in enduring death, he was not compelled by Satan. Hence we infer, that he was substituted in our room, when he submitted to death.

Calvin: Joh 14:31

31.But that the world may know Some think that these words should be read as closely connected with the words, Arise, let us go hence, so as to make the sense complete. Others read the former part of the verse separately, and suppose that it breaks off abruptly. As it makes no great difference in regard to the meaning, I leave it to the reader to give a preference to either of these views. What chiefly deserves our attention is, that the decree of God is here placed in the highest rank; that we may not suppose that Christ was dragged to death by the violence of Satan, in such a manner that anything happened contrary to the purpose of God. It was God who appointed his Son to be the Propitiation, and who determined that the sins of the world should be expiated by his death. In order to accomplish this, he permitted Satan, for a short time, to treat him with scorn; as if he had gained a victory over him. Christ, therefore, does not resist Satan, in order that he may obey the decree of his Father, and may thus offer his obedience as the ransom of our righteousness.

Arise, let us go hence Some think that Christ, after he said these things, changed his place, and that what follows was spoken by him on the road; but as John afterwards adds, that Christ went away with his disciples beyond the brook Kedron, ⁷⁵ it appears more probable that Christ intended to exhort the disciples to render the same obedience to God, of which they beheld in him so illustrious an example, and not that he led them away at that moment.

Defender: Joh 14:16

The "Comforter" (Greek parakletos, meaning "called alongside") is the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Triune Godhead. Although He is mentioned in many ways in the Old Testament (first of all, as the Energizer of the physical creation (Gen 1:2) and also in the earlier chapters of the four gospels), this is the first explicit promise that He would be coming to be with the believer, taking the place of the Son who would be returning to the Father. Having taken a human body, the Son cannot be omnipresent, but the Spirit is omnipresent, and, thus, Christ can continue to be with each believer though His Holy Spirit."

Defender: Joh 14:17

The "Spirit of truth" inspired the Holy Scriptures (1Pe 1:11; 2Pe 1:21); therefore they are altogether true and righteous (Psa 19:9).

Defender: Joh 14:17

The Holy Spirit frequently guided and energized the people of God in ancient times, but, with the death and resurrection of Christ, the way was open for Him to indwell every believer permanently (1Co 6:19; Rom 8:9)."

Defender: Joh 14:19

The future bodily resurrection of each believer is thus assured by Christ's own bodily resurrection from the dead."

Defender: Joh 14:23

The measure of our love for Christ is whether we keep (guard and obey) His Word and keep His commandments (Joh 14:15, Joh 14:21-24; 1Jo 2:5, 1Jo 2:17; 1Jo 4:17-20).

Defender: Joh 14:23

"Abode" is the same word as "mansion" in Joh 14:2, and these are the only two occurrences of the word in the New Testament. Even though each redeemed person will have his own "mansion" in the New Jerusalem, the indwelling presence of the triune God (even now a reality through the Holy Spirit) will continue dwelling in the same "abode" with us throughout eternity (1Th 4:17)."

Defender: Joh 14:26

John wrote his Gospel, and the detailed discourses of Jesus recorded therein, approximately fifty years after the events occurred, yet he was able to recall and reproduce them all by the supernatural inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The same would have been true for the other New Testament writers. Therefore, we can be confident, in view of this promise as well as the many assurances of inspiration of the Old Testament (2Ti 3:16; 2Pe 2:21), that our entire Bible is altogether true and trustworthy."

TSK: Joh 14:15

Joh 14:21-24, Joh 8:42, Joh 15:10-14, Joh 21:15-17; Mat 10:37, Mat 25:34-40; 1Co 16:22; 2Co 5:14, 2Co 5:15, 2Co 8:8, 2Co 8:9; Gal 5:6; Eph 3:16-18, Eph 6:24; Phi 1:20-23, Phi 3:7-11; 1Pe 1:8; 1Jo 2:3-5, 1Jo 4:19, 1Jo 4:20, 1Jo 5:2, 1Jo 5:3

TSK: Joh 14:16

I will : Joh 14:14, Joh 16:26, Joh 16:27, Joh 17:9-11, Joh 17:15, Joh 17:20; Rom 8:34; Heb 7:25; 1Jo 2:1

another : Joh 14:18, Joh 14:26, Joh 15:26, Joh 16:7-15; Act 9:31, Act 13:52; Rom 5:5, Rom 8:15, Rom 8:16, Rom 8:26, Rom 8:27, Rom 14:17; Rom 15:13; Gal 5:22; Phi 2:1

abide : Joh 4:14, Joh 16:22; Mat 28:20; Eph 1:13, Eph 1:14; Col 3:3, Col 3:4; 2Th 2:16

TSK: Joh 14:17

the Spirit : Joh 15:26, Joh 16:13; 1Jo 2:27, 1Jo 4:6

whom : Pro 14:10; 1Co 2:14; Rev 2:17

but : Joh 14:16, Joh 14:23; Isa 57:15, Isa 59:21; Eze 36:27; Rom 8:9, Rom 8:11, Rom 8:13, Rom 8:14; 1Co 3:16, 1Co 6:19; 2Co 6:16; Eph 2:22, Eph 3:17; 2Ti 1:14; 1Jo 2:27, 1Jo 3:24, 1Jo 4:12, 1Jo 4:13

shall : Mat 10:20; Rom 8:10; 1Co 14:15; 2Co 13:5; Gal 4:6; Col 1:27; 1Jo 4:4

TSK: Joh 14:18

will not : Joh 14:16, Joh 14:27, Joh 16:33; Psa 23:4; Isa 43:1, Isa 51:12, Isa 66:11-13; 2Co 1:2-6; 2Th 2:16; Heb 2:18

comfortless : or, orphans, Lam 5:3; Hos 14:3

will come : Joh 14:3, Joh 14:28; Psa 101:2; Hos 6:3; Mat 18:20, Mat 28:20

TSK: Joh 14:19

a little : Joh 7:33, Joh 8:21, Joh 12:35, Joh 13:33, Joh 16:16, Joh 16:22

because : Joh 14:6, Joh 6:56-58, Joh 11:25; Rom 5:10, Rom 8:34; 1Co 15:20,1Co 15:45; 2Co 4:10-12; Col 3:3, Col 3:4; Heb 7:25; 1Jo 1:1-3

TSK: Joh 14:20

ye shall : Joh 14:10, Joh 10:38, Joh 17:7, Joh 17:11, Joh 17:21-23, Joh 17:26; 2Co 5:19; Col 1:19, Col 2:9

ye in : Joh 6:56, Joh 15:5-7; Rom 8:1, Rom 16:7; 1Co 1:30; 2Co 5:17, 2Co 12:2, 2Co 13:5; Gal 2:20; Eph 2:10; Col 1:27; 1Jo 4:12

TSK: Joh 14:21

that hath : Joh 14:15, Joh 14:23, Joh 14:24, Joh 15:14; Gen 26:3-5; Deu 10:12, Deu 10:13, Deu 11:13, Deu 30:6-8; Psa 119:4-6; Jer 31:31, Jer 31:33, Jer 31:34; Eze 36:25-27; Luk 11:28; 2Co 5:14, 2Co 5:15; Jam 2:23, Jam 2:24; 1Jo 2:5, 1Jo 3:18-24, 1Jo 5:3; 2Jo 1:6; Rev 22:14

that loveth : Joh 14:23, Joh 15:9, Joh 15:10, Joh 16:27, Joh 17:23; Psa 35:27; Isa 62:2-5; Zep 3:17; 2Th 2:16; 1Jo 3:1

and will : Joh 14:18, Joh 14:22, Joh 14:23, Joh 16:14; Act 18:9-11, Act 22:18; 2Co 3:18, 2Co 4:6, 2Co 12:8; 2Ti 4:17, 2Ti 4:18, 2Ti 4:22; 1Jo 1:1-3; Rev 2:17, Rev 3:20

TSK: Joh 14:22

Judas : Mat 10:3, Lebbaeus, Thaddaeus, Mar 3:18, Thaddaeus, Luk 6:16; Act 1:13; Jud 1:1

how : Joh 3:4, Joh 3:9, Joh 4:11, Joh 6:52, Joh 6:60, Joh 16:17, Joh 16:18

TSK: Joh 14:23

If : Joh 14:15, Joh 14:21

make : Joh 14:17, Joh 5:17-19, Joh 6:56, Joh 10:30; Gen 1:26, Gen 11:7; Psa 90:1, Psa 91:1; Isa 57:15; Rom 8:9-11; 1Jo 2:24, 1Jo 4:4, 1Jo 4:15, 1Jo 4:16; Rev 3:20,Rev 3:21, Rev 7:15-17, Rev 21:22, Rev 22:3

TSK: Joh 14:24

that : Joh 14:15, Joh 14:21-23; Mat 19:21, Mat 25:41-46; 2Co 8:8, 2Co 8:9; 1Jo 3:16-20

and : Joh 14:10, Joh 3:34, Joh 5:19, Joh 5:38, Joh 7:16, Joh 7:28, Joh 8:26, Joh 8:28, Joh 8:38, Joh 8:42, Joh 12:44-50

TSK: Joh 14:25

have : Joh 14:29, Joh 13:19, Joh 15:11, Joh 16:1-4, Joh 16:12, Joh 17:6-8

TSK: Joh 14:26

the Comforter : Joh 14:16

Holy Ghost : Joh 7:39, Joh 20:22; Psa 51:11; Isa 63:10; Mat 1:18, Mat 1:20, Mat 3:11, Mat 28:19; Mar 12:36; Mar 13:11; Luk 1:15, Luk 1:35, Luk 1:41, Luk 1:67, Luk 2:25, Luk 3:22, Luk 11:13; Act 1:2, Act 1:8, Act 2:4, Act 5:3; Act 7:51, Act 7:55, Act 13:2, Act 13:4, Act 15:8, Act 15:28, Act 16:6, Act 20:28, Act 28:25; Rom 5:5, Rom 14:17; Rom 15:13, Rom 15:16; 1Co 2:13, 1Co 6:19, 1Co 12:3; 2Co 6:6, 2Co 13:14; Eph 1:13, Eph 4:30; 1Th 1:5, 1Th 1:6, 1Th 4:8; 2Ti 1:14; Tit 3:5; Heb 2:4, Heb 3:7, Heb 9:8, Heb 10:15; 1Pe 1:12; 2Pe 1:21; 1Jo 5:7; Jud 1:20

whom : Joh 14:16, Joh 15:26, Joh 16:7; Luk 24:49; Act 1:4

he : Joh 6:45, Joh 16:13, Joh 16:14; Psa 25:8, Psa 25:9, Psa 25:12-14; Isa 54:13; Jer 31:33, Jer 31:34; 1Co 2:10-13; Eph 1:17; 1Jo 2:20,1Jo 2:27; Rev 2:11

bring : Joh 2:22, Joh 12:16; Act 11:16, Act 20:35

TSK: Joh 14:27

Peace I leave : Joh 16:33, Joh 20:19, Joh 20:21, Joh 20:26; Num 6:26; Psa 29:11, Psa 72:2, Psa 72:7, Psa 85:10; Isa 9:6; Isa 32:15-17, Isa 54:7-10,Isa 54:13, Isa 55:12, Isa 57:19; Zec 6:13; Luk 1:79, Luk 2:14, Luk 10:5; Act 10:36; Rom 1:7, Rom 5:1, Rom 5:10, Rom 8:6, Rom 15:13; 1Co 1:3; 2Co 5:18-21; Gal 1:3; Gal 5:22, Gal 6:16; Eph 2:14-17; Phi 4:7; Col 1:2, Col 1:20, Col 3:15; 2Th 1:2, 2Th 3:16; Heb 7:2, Heb 13:20; Rev 1:4

not : Job 34:29; Psa 28:3; Lam 3:17; Dan 4:1, Dan 6:25

Let not : Joh 14:1

afraid : Psa 11:1, Psa 27:1, Psa 56:3, Psa 56:11, Psa 91:5, Psa 112:7; Pro 3:25; Isa 12:2, Isa 41:10,Isa 41:14; Jer 1:8; Eze 2:6; Mat 10:26; Luk 12:4; Act 18:9; 2Ti 1:7; Rev 2:10, Rev 21:8

TSK: Joh 14:28

heard : Joh 14:3, Joh 14:18, Joh 16:16-22

If : Joh 16:7; Psa 47:5-7, Psa 68:18, Psa 68:9; Luk 24:51-53; 1Pe 1:8

I go : Joh 14:12, Joh 16:16, Joh 20:17

Father : Joh 5:18, Joh 10:30,Joh 10:38, Joh 13:16, Joh 20:21; Isa 42:1, Isa 49:5-7, Isa 53:11; Mat 12:18; 1Co 11:3, 1Co 15:24-28; Phi 2:6-11; Heb 1:2, Heb 1:3, Heb 2:9-15, Heb 3:1-4; Rev 1:11, Rev 1:17; Rev 1:18

TSK: Joh 14:29

Joh 13:19, 16:4-30,Joh 16:31; Mat 24:24, Mat 24:25

TSK: Joh 14:30

I : Joh 16:12; Luk 24:44-49; Act 1:3

the : Joh 12:31, Joh 16:11; Luk 22:53; 2Co 4:4; Eph 2:2, Eph 6:12; Col 1:13; 1Jo 4:4; 1Jo 5:19 *Gr: Rev 12:9, Rev 20:2, Rev 20:3, Rev 20:7, Rev 20:8

and : Luk 1:35; 2Co 5:21; Heb 4:15, Heb 7:26; 1Pe 1:19, 1Pe 2:22; 1Jo 3:5-8

TSK: Joh 14:31

that the : Joh 4:34, Joh 10:18, Joh 12:27, Joh 15:9, Joh 18:11; Psa 40:8; Mat 26:39; Phi 2:8; Heb 5:7, Heb 5:8, Heb 10:5-9, Heb 12:2, Heb 12:3

Arise : Joh 18:1-4; Mat 26:46; Luk 12:50

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Joh 14:15

If ye love me - Do not show your love by grief at my departure merely; or by profession, but by obedience.

Keep my commandments - This is the only proper evidence of love to Jesus, for mere profession is no proof of love; but that love for him which leads us to do all his will, to love each other, to deny ourselves, to take up our cross, and to follow him through evil report and through good report, is true attachment. The evidence which we have that a child loves its parents is when that child is willing, without hesitation, gainsaying, or complaining, to do all that the parent requires him to do. So the disciples of Christ are required to show that they are attached to him supremely by yielding to all his requirements, and by patiently doing his will in the face of ridicule and opposition, 1Jo 5:2-3.

Barnes: Joh 14:16

I will pray the Father - This refers to his intercession after his death and ascension to heaven, for this prayer was to be connected with their keeping his commandments. In what way he makes intercession in heaven for his people we do not know. The fact, however, is clearly made known, Rom 8:34; Heb 4:14-15; Heb 7:25. It is as the result of his intercession in heaven that we obtain all our blessings, and it is through him that our prayers are to be presented and made efficacious before God.

Another Comforter - Jesus had been to them a counsellor, a guide, a friend, while he was with them. He had instructed them, had borne with their prejudices and ignorance, and had administered consolation to them in the times of despondency. But he was about to leave them now to go alone into an unfriendly world. The other Comforter was to be given as a compensation for his absence, or to perform the offices toward them which he would have done if he had remained personally with them. And from this we may learn, in part, what is the office of the Spirit. It is to furnish to all Christians the instruction and consolation which would be given by the personal presence of Jesus, Joh 16:14. To the apostles it was particularly to inspire them with the knowledge of all truth, Joh 14:26; Joh 15:26. Besides this, he came to convince men of sin. See the notes at Joh 16:8-11. It was proper that such an agent should be sent into the world:

1.    Because it was a part of the plan that Jesus should ascend to heaven after his death.

2.    Unless some heavenly agent should be sent to carry forward the work of salvation, man would reject it and perish.

3.    Jesus could not be personally and bodily present in all places with the vast multitudes who should believe on him. The Holy Spirit is omnipresent, and can reach them all. See the notes at Joh 16:7.

4.    It was manifestly a part of the plan of redemption that each of the persons of the Trinity should perform his appropriate work the Father in sending his Son, the Son in making atonement and interceding, and the Spirit in applying the work to the hearts of men.

The word translated "Comforter"is used in the New Testament five times. In four instances it is applied to the Holy Spirit - Joh 14:16, Joh 14:26; Joh 15:26; Joh 16:7. In the other instance it is applied to the Lord Jesus - 1Jo 2:1; "We have an advocate (Paraclete - Comforter) with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."It is used, therefore, only by John. The verb from which it is taken has many significations. Its proper meaning is to call one to us Act 27:20; then to call one to aid us, as an advocate in a court; then to exhort or entreat, to pray or implore, as an advocate does, and to comfort or console, by suggesting reasons or arguments for consolation. The word "comforter"is frequently used by Greek writers to denote an advocate in a court; one who intercedes; a monitor, a teacher, an assistant, a helper. It is somewhat difficult, therefore, to fix the precise meaning of the word. It may be translated either advocate, monitor, teacher, or helper. What the office of the Holy Spirit in this respect is, is to be learned from what we are elsewhere told he does. We learn particularly from the accounts that our Saviour gives of his work that that office was:

1.\caps1     t\caps0 o comfort the disciples; to be with them in his absence and to supply his place; and this is properly expressed by the word Comforter.

2.\caps1     t\caps0 o teach them, or remind them of truth; and this might be expressed by the word monitor or teacher, Joh 14:26; Joh 15:26-27.

3.\caps1     t\caps0 o aid them in their work; to advocate their cause, or to assist them in advocating the cause of religion in the world, and in bringing sinners to repentance; and this may be expressed by the word advocate, Joh 16:7-13. It was also by the Spirit that they were enabled to stand before kings and magistrates, and boldly to speak in the name of Jesus, Mat 10:20. These seem to comprise all the meanings of the word in the New Testament, but no single word in our language expresses fully the sense of the original.

That he may abide with you for ever - Not that he should remain with you for a few years, as I have done, and then leave you, but be with you in all places to the close of your life. He shall be your constant guide and attendant.

Barnes: Joh 14:17

The Spirit of truth - He is thus called here because he would teach them the truth, or would guide them into all truth, Joh 16:13. He would keep them from all error, and teach them the truth, which, either by writing or preaching, they were to communicate to others.

The world - The term world is often used to denote all who are entirely under the influence of the things of this world - pride, ambition, and pleasure; all who are not Christians, and especially all who are addicted to gross vices and pursuits, 1Co 1:21; 1Co 11:32; Joh 12:31; 2Co 4:4.

Cannot receive - Cannot admit as a Teacher or Comforter, or cannot receive in his offices of enlightening and purifying. The reason why they could not do this is immediately added.

Because it seeth him not - The men of the world are under the influence of the senses. They walk by sight, and not by faith. Hence, what they cannot perceive by their senses, what does not gratify their sight, or taste, or feeling, makes no impression on them. As they cannot see the operations of the Spirit Joh 3:8, they judge that all that is said of his influence is delusive, and hence, they cannot receive him. They have an erroneous mode of judging of what is for the welfare of man.

Neither knoweth him - To know, in the Scriptures, often means more than the act of the mind in simply understanding a thing. It denotes every act or emotion of the mind that is requisite in receiving the proper impression of a truth. Hence, it often includes the idea of "approbation,"of "love,"of "cordial feeling,"Psa 1:6; Psa 37:18; Psa 138:6; Nah 1:7; 2Ti 2:19. In this place it means the approbation of the heart; and as the people of the world do not approve of or desire the aid of the Spirit, so it is said they cannot receive him. They have no love for him, and they reject him. Men often consider his work in the conversion of sinners and in revivals as delusion. They love the world so much that they cannot understand his work or embrace him.

He dwelleth in you - The Spirit dwells in Christians by his sacred influences. There is no personal union, no physical indwelling, for God is essentially present in one place as much as in another; but he works in us repentance, peace, joy, meekness, etc. He teaches us, guides us, and comforts us. See the notes at Gal 5:22-24. Thus, he is said to dwell in us when we are made pure, peaceable, holy, humble; when we become like him, and cherish his sacred influences. The word "dwelleth"means to remain with them. Jesus was to be taken away, but the Spirit would remain. It is also implied that they would know his presence, and have assurance that they were under his guidance. This was true of the apostles as inspired men, and it is true of all Christians that by ascertaining that they have the "graces of the Spirit"- joy, peace, long-suffering, etc. they know that they are the children of God, 1Jo 3:24; 1Jo 5:10.

Barnes: Joh 14:18

Comfortless - Greek, "orphans."Jesus here addresses them as children, Joh 13:33. He says that he would show them the kindness of a parent, and, though he was going away, he would provide for their future welfare. And even while he was absent, yet they would sustain to him still the relation of children. Though he was to die, yet he would live again; though absent in body, yet he would be present with them by his Spirit; though he was to go away to heaven, yet he would return again to them. See Joh 14:3.

Barnes: Joh 14:19

A little while - This was the day before his death.

Seeth me no more - No more until the day of judgment. The men of the world would not see him visibly, and they had not the eye of faith to discern him.

But ye see me - Ye shall continue to see me by faith, even when the world cannot. You will continue to see me by the eye of faith as still your gracious Saviour and Friend.

Because I live - Though the Saviour was about to die, yet was he also about to be raised from the dead. He was to continue to live, and though absent from them, yet he would feel the same interest in their welfare as when he was with them on earth. This expression does not refer "particularly"to his "resurrection,"but his "continuing to live."He had a nature which could not die. As Mediator also he would be raised and continue to live: and he would have both power and inclination to give them also life, to defend them, and bring them with him.

Ye shall live also - This doubtless refers to their future life. And we learn from this:

1.    That the life of the Christian depends on that of Christ. They are united; and if they were separated, the Christian could neither enjoy spiritual life here nor eternal joy hereafter.

2.    The fact that Jesus lives is a pledge that all who believe in him shall he saved. He has power over all our spiritual foes, and he can deliver us from the hands of our enemies, and from all temptations and trials.

Barnes: Joh 14:20

At that day - In the time when my life shall be fully manifested to you, and you shall receive the assurance that I live. This refers to the time after his resurrection, and to the manifestations which in various ways he would make that he was alive.

That I am in my "Father ... - That we are most intimately and indissolubly united. See the notes at Joh 10:38.

Ye in me - That there is a union between us which can never be severed. See the notes at Joh 15:1-7.

Barnes: Joh 14:21

He that hath ... - This intimate union is further manifested by these facts:

1.    That true love to Jesus will produce obedience. See Joh 14:15.

2.    That those who love him will be loved of the Father, showing that there is a union between the Father and the Son.

3.    That Jesus also will love them, evincing still the same union. Religion is love. The love of one holy being or object is the love of all. The kingdom of God is one. His people, though called by different names, are one. They are united to each other and to God, and the bond which unites the whole kingdom in one is love.

Will manifest myself to him - To manifest is to show, to make appear, to place before the eyes so that an object may be seen. This means that Jesus would so show himself to his followers that they should see and know that he was their Saviour. In what way this is done, see Joh 14:23.

Barnes: Joh 14:22

Judas saith unto him - This was the same as Lebbeus or Thaddeus. See Mat 10:3. He was the brother of James, and the author of the Epistle of Jude.

How is it ... - Probably Judas thought that he spake only of his resurrection, and he did not readily see how it could be that he could show himself to them, and not be seen also by others.

Barnes: Joh 14:23

Will keep my words - See Joh 14:15.

We will come to him - We will come to him with the manifestation of pardon, peace of conscience, and joy in the Holy Spirit. It means that God will manifest himself to the soul as a Father and Friend; that Jesus will manifest himself as a Saviour; that is, that there will be shed abroad in the heart just views and proper feelings toward God and Christ. The Christian will rejoice in the perfections of God and of Christ, and will delight to contemplate the glories of a present Saviour. The condition of a sinner is represented as one who has gone astray from God, and from whom God has withdrawn, Psa 58:3; Pro 28:10; Eze 14:11. He is alienated from God, Eph 2:12; Isa 1:4; Eph 4:18; Col 1:21. Religion is represented as God returning to the soul, and manifesting himself as reconciled through Jesus Christ, 2Co 5:18; Col 1:21.

Make our abode - This is a figurative expression implying that God and Christ would manifest themselves in no temporary way, but that it would be the privilege of Christians to enjoy their presence continually. They would take up their residence in the heart as their dwelling-place, as a temple fit for their abode. See 1Co 3:16; "Ye are the temple of God;"1Co 6:19; "Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost;"2Co 6:16; "Ye are the temple of the living God."This does not mean that there is any personal union between Christians and God - that there is any special indwelling of the essence of God in us for God is essentially present in all places in the same way; but it is a figurative mode of speaking, denoting that the Christian is under the influence of God; that he rejoices in his presence, and that he has the views, the feelings, the joys which God produces in a redeemed soul, and with which he is pleased.

Barnes: Joh 14:24

The word which ye hear is not mine - See the notes at Joh 5:19; Joh 7:16.

Barnes: Joh 14:25

Have I spoken - For your consolation and guidance. But, though he had said so many things to console them, yet the Spirit would be given also as their Comforter and Guide.

Barnes: Joh 14:26

Will send in my name - On my account. To perfect my work. To execute it as I would in applying it to the hearts of men. See Joh 14:13.

Shall teach you all things - All things which it was needful for them to understand in the apostolic office, and particularly those things which they were not prepared then to hear or could not then understand. See Joh 16:12. Compare the notes at Mat 10:19-20. This was a full promise that they would be inspired, and that in organizing the church, and in recording the truths necessary for its edification, they would be under the infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Bring all things to your remembrance - This probably refers to two things:

1. He would seasonably remind them of the sayings of Jesus, which they might otherwise have forgotten. In the organization of the church, and in composing the sacred history, he would preside over their memories, and recall such truths and doctrines as were necessary either for their comfort or the edification of his people. Amid the multitude of things which Jesus spake during a ministry of more than three years, it was to be expected that many things which he had uttered, that would be important for the edification of the church, would be forgotten. We see, hence, the nature of their inspiration. The Holy Spirit made use of their memories, and doubtless of all their natural faculties. He so presided over their memories as to recall what they had forgotten, and then it was recorded as a thing which they distinctly remembered, in the same way as we remember a thing which would have been forgotten had not some friend recalled it to our recollection.

2. The Holy Spirit would teach them the meaning of those things which the Saviour had spoken. Thus they did not understand that he ought to be put to death until after his resurrection, though he had repeatedly told them of it, Luk 24:21, Luk 24:25-26. So they did not until then understand that the gospel was to be preached to the Gentiles, though this was also declared before. Compare Mat 4:15-16; Mat 12:21, with Act 10:44-48.

Barnes: Joh 14:27

Peace I leave with you - This was a common form of benediction among the Jews. See the notes at Mat 10:13. It is the invocation of the blessings of peace and happiness. In this place it was, however, much more than a mere form or an empty wish. It came from Him who had power to make peace and to confer it on all, Eph 2:15. It refers here particularly to the consolations which he gave to his disciples in view of his approaching death. He had exhorted them not to be troubled Joh 14:1, and he had stated reasons why they should not be. He explained to them why he was about to leave them; he promised them that he would return; he assured them that the Holy Spirit would come to comfort, teach, and guide them. By all these truths and promises he provided for their peace in the time of his approaching departure. But the expression refers also, doubtless. to the peace which is given to all who love the Saviour. They are by nature enmity against God, Rom 8:7. Their minds are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose waters east up mire and dirt, Isa 57:20. They were at war with conscience, with the law and perfections of God, and with all the truths of religion. Their state after conversion is described as a state of peace. They are reconciled to God; they acquiesce in all his claims; and they have a joy which the world knows not in the word, the promises, the law, and the perfections of God, in the plan of salvation, and in the hopes of eternal life. See Rom 1:7; Rom 5:1; Rom 8:6; Rom 14:7; Gal 5:22; Eph 2:17; Eph 6:15; Phi 4:7; Col 3:15.

My peace - Such as I only can impart. The special peace which my religion is fitted to impart.

Not as the world -

1.    Not as the objects which men commonly pursue - pleasure, fame, wealth. They leave care, anxiety, remorse. They do not meet the desires of the immortal mind, and they are incapable of affording that peace which the soul needs.

2.    Not as the men of the world give. They salute you with empty and flattering words, but their professed friendship is often reigned and has no sincerity. You cannot be sure that they are sincere, but I am.

3.    Not as systems of philosophy and false religion give. They profess to give peace, but it is not real. It does not still the voice of conscience; it does not take away sin; it does not reconcile the soul to God.

4.    My peace is such as meets all the wants of the soul, silences the alarms of conscience, is fixed and sure amid all external changes, and will abide in the hour of death and forever. How desirable, in a world of anxiety and care, to possess this peace! and how should all who have it not, seek that which the world can neither give nor take away!

Neither let it be afraid - Of any pain, persecutions, or trials. You have a Friend who will never leave you; a peace that shall always attend you. See Joh 14:1.

Barnes: Joh 14:28

Ye have heard ... - Joh 14:2-3.

If ye loved me - The expression is not to be construed as if they had then no love to him, for they evidently had; but they had also low views of him as the Messiah; they had many Jewish prejudices, and they were slow to believe his plain and positive declarations. This is the slight and tender reproof of a friend, meaning manifestly if you had proper love for me; if you had the highest views of my character and work; if you would lay aside your Jewish prejudices, and put entire, implicit confidence in what I say.

Ye would rejoice - Instead of grieving, you would rejoice in the completion of the plan which requires me to return to heaven, that greater blessings may descend on you by the influences of the Holy Spirit.

Unto the Father - To heaven; to the immediate presence of God, from whom all the blessings of redemption are to descend.

For my Father is greater than I - The object of Jesus here is not to compare his nature with that of the Father, but his condition. Ye would rejoice that I am to leave this state of suffering and humiliation, and resume that glory which I had with the Father before the world was. You ought to rejoice at my exaltation to bliss and glory with the Father (Professor Stuart). The object of this expression is to console the disciples in view of his absence. This he does by saying that if he goes away, the Holy Spirit will descend, and great success will attend the preaching of the gospel, Joh 16:7-10. In the plan of salvation the Father is represented as giving the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the various blessings of the gospel. As the Appointer, the Giver, the Originator, he may be represented as in office superior to the Son and the Holy Spirit. The discourse has no reference, manifestly, to the nature of Christ, and cannot therefore be adduced to prove that he is not divine. Its whole connection demands that we interpret it as relating solely to the imparting of the blessings connected with redemption, in which the Son is represented all along as having been sent or given, and in this respect as sustaining a relation subordinate to the Father.

Barnes: Joh 14:29

Before it come to pass - Before my death, resurrection, and ascension.

Ye might believe - You might be confirmed or strengthened in faith by the evidence which I gave that I came from God - the power of foretelling future events.

Barnes: Joh 14:30

Will not talk much - The time of my death draws near. It occurred the next day.

The prince of this world - See the notes at Joh 12:31.

Cometh - Satan is represented as approaching him to try him in his sufferings, and it is commonly supposed that no small part of the pain endured in the garden of Gethsemane was from some dreadful conflict with the great enemy of man. See Luk 22:53; "This is your hour and the power of darkness."Compare Luk 4:13.

Hath nothing in me - There is in me no principle or feeling that accords with his, and nothing, therefore, by which he can prevail. Temptation has only power because there are some principles in us which accord with the designs of the tempter, and which may be excited by presenting corresponding objects until our virtue be overcome. Where there is no such propensity, temptation has no power. As the principles of Jesus were wholly on the side of virtue, the meaning here may be that, though he had the natural appetites of man, his virtue was so supreme that Satan "had nothing in him"which could constitute any danger that he would be led into sin, and that there was no fear of the result of the conflict before him.

Barnes: Joh 14:31

That the world may know that I love the Father - That it might not be alleged that his virtue had not been subjected to trial. It was subjected. He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin, Heb 4:15. He passed through the severest forms of temptation, that it might be seen and known that his holiness was proof to all trial, and that human nature might be so pure as to resist all forms of temptation. This will be the case with all the saints in heaven, and it was the case with Jesus on earth.

Even so I do - In all things he obeyed; and he showed that, in the face of calamities, persecutions, and temptations, he was still disposed to obey his Father. This he did that the world might know that he loved the Father. So should we bear trials and resist temptation; and so, through. persecution and calamity, should we show that we are actuated by the love of God. "Arise, let us go hence."It has been commonly supposed that Jesus and the apostles now rose from the paschal supper and went to the Mount of Olives, and that the remainder of the discourse in John 15; 16, together with the prayer in John 17, was delivered while on the way to the garden of Gethsemane; but some have supposed that they merely rose from the table, and that the discourse was finished before they left the room. The former is the more correct opinion. It was now probably toward midnight, and the moon was at the full, and the scene was one, therefore, of great interest and tenderness. Jesus, with a little band, was himself about to die, and he went forth in the stillness of the night, counselling his little company in regard to their duties and dangers, and invoking the protection and blessing of God his Father to attend, to sanctify, and guide them in the arduous labors, the toils, and the persecutions they were yet to endure, John 17.

Poole: Joh 14:15

Do not show your love to me in mourning, and being troubled for my going from you; but show it by your obedience to what I have commanded you. True love must not evaporate in compliment, but discover itself in a strict observance of the commandments of God.

Poole: Joh 14:16

This verse containeth a new argument by which our Saviour relieveth his disciples under their affliction for the want of his bodily presence; that is, the mission of the Holy Spirit,

another Comforter as our translation reads it. For this he saith that he

will pray the Father not that himself had no concern in the mission of the blessed Spirit; for himself telleth us, Joh 16:7 , that he would send him; only for the attestation,

1. Of his human nature;

2. Of himself, as our Mediator; and:

3. Of his Father’ s concern, as well as his own, in sending the Holy Spirit; he here saith, I will pray the Father, and he shall send you another Comforter.

That term

another signifieth the personal distinction of the Third from the First and Second Person in the blessed Trinity. And the name here given to the blessed Spirit, Paraklhton , (which we too narrowly translate comforter ), is a term exceedingly proper to signify all the operations of the blessed Spirit in and upon the souls of his people. The same word, 1Jo 2:1 , where it is applied to Christ, (as here it is to the Spirit), is there much better translated Advocate; and it is most probable that our translators here translate it

Comforter because he is here promised to the disciples troubled, as fitted to their present distress. The verb from whence the word derives, signifies not to comfort only, but to exhort, and to be an advocate for another. Now it belongs to the office of an advocate to suggest to his client what may be for his advantage; which is also the office of the blessed Spirit: if he seeth his client in an error, to reprove and to convince him; which is also the work of the Spirit, Joh 16:8 : if he seeth him weak and discouraged, to uphold, strengthen, and encourage him; this is also the Spirit’ s work, Eph 3:16 : if he seeth him running into an error, to restrain him; if he findeth him dull and heavy, to quicken him; if he seeth him ready to be run down, to defend him; if he hath any thing to do in the court, to prepare and dram it up for him, and, as occasion serveth, to speak for him. All these things (as might be largely showed) fall within the office of an advocate, and under the comprehensive term here used. And (saith our Saviour) he shall

abide with you for ever: I shall be with you but for a while, but he shall abide with you to eternity (as some observe this word is constantly used by this evangelist). So that the promise of the Spirit is not to be restrained only to the apostles and their successors in the ministry, or to be understood only of those extraordinary gifts bestowed on the apostles and first ministers of the gospel; but to be extended further, both with reference to persons and influences: and without doubt the influences of the Spirit, both as to gifts and graces, both upon ministers and more private Christians, are much more plentiful since the sending of the Holy Ghost, after Christ’ s ascension, in the days of Pentecost, than ever they were before: not as to particular persons; a David, a Solomon, or some particular persons, might have greater measures than any or the most have since had; but as to the generality of ministers and Christians. Doubtless, since the pouring out of the Spirit in the days of Pentecost, there have been greater measures of the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit given out, and will be to the end of the world, than ever was in any age before Christ’ s ascension; which is no more than what was prophesied, Isa 44:3 Joe 2:28 , applied to the days of Pentecost, Act 2:17 , but not to be limited to that time or age, either for gifts or gracious habits: for as the extraordinary gifts and powers held in some degree after the apostles’ age, (if we may give any credit to ecclesiastical history), so both in those ages, and ever since, as to the generality both of ministers and Christians, (that is, such as are mentioned Joh 14:15 , that love Christ, and keep his commandments), there have been fuller measures of gifts, of more constant, standing use for the church, such as those of knowledge and utterance, &c., and also of inward graces, than ever before was.

Poole: Joh 14:17

He here explains himself, and tells them, that by that other Comforter, mentioned Joh 14:16 , he meant the Spirit; whom he here calls the Spirit of truth, either because he is a Spirit that declareth and revealeth the truth, as in 1Jo 5:6 , or because he teacheth us truth, 1Jo 2:27 , he guides us into all truth, Joh 16:13 ; or in opposition to the lying spirit of the devil, 1Ki 22:22 . Most probably the Holy Spirit is here called

the Spirit of truth because of the efficiency be hath as to it. It is he who hath revealed all the truth contained in the Scriptures to the world. Holy men wrote as they were inspired by him, Act 1:16 2Pe 1:21 . It is he that more particularly and specially revealeth truth to the particular soul, 1Co 2:12 ; hence persons enlightened, are said to be made partakers of the Holy Ghost, Heb 6:4 . He leadeth his people into truth, Joh 16:13 ; he sealeth and confirmeth truth to the soul: hence we read of the demonstration of the Spirit, 1Co 2:4 . This Spirit of truth, the world, that is, men of carnal hearts, that are of the world, and in whom worldly lusts predominate, 1Jo 2:16 Joh 17:9 ; this world, through natural impotency, 1Co 2:14 , through wisdom, 1Co 1:21 , through lusts and passions, cannot receive, that is, be made partakers of; because it neither seeth him, who is not to be seen with mortal eyes, nor knoweth him affectionately and experimentally; he being not to be known by men whose hearts are carnal and full of lusts:

but ye know him believingly, experimentally, affectionately, savingly; for he dwelleth in you by a mystical union, Rom 8:11 1Co 6:17 ; and he shall abide with you, by his dwelling in you, and influences upon you.

Poole: Joh 14:18

Comfortless the word in the Greek is, orphans, persons without father and mother, who for the most part are the most comfortless persons; therefore it is translated comfortless: Christ hath a care, not only of the people’ s salvation and life, but also of their comforts while they are here; he will not leave his people without proportionable comfort for their distresses.

I will come to you in the Greek it is, I do come to you, to denote the certainty and the suddenness of his coming; which is either to be understood of his resurrection, which was (as we know) after the absence of three days; or, which is more probable, (for after his resurrection he stayed with them but a few days), in and by his blessed Spirit, (for the Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ), who was to come, and to abide with them for ever. Though it may also have a reference to his coming again to judge both the quick and the dead, to receive them to himself, that (as he said before) they might always be where he was; but the two former senses are understood as more specially relating to their present distresses, upon account of his bodily absence from them.

Poole: Joh 14:19

The world seeth me now only with fleshly eyes; it will be but a little while, and the men of the world shall be able to see me no more; I shall be crucified, and laid in the grave; and though I shall rise again, yet I shall not be seen of them: (we read of no appearances of him after his resurrection, but to his disciples):

but ye see me or shall see me; so they did often after his resurrection with their bodily eyes; or it may be understood of a spiritual sight by the eye of faith, or of a sight of experience; as seeing often in Scripture signifieth enjoying.

Because I live , that is, I shall live by my resurrection from the dead, and by my glorious ascension into heaven, you also shall live the life of grace here; and though your bodies must die, because of sin, yet your souls shall upon the death of your bodies live; and in the resurrection, both your souls and bodies shall live, and together be glorified with the: all this grace and mercy shall flow out to you from me as Mediator, and because I live.

Poole: Joh 14:20

Some understand our Saviour here speaking of the day of his resurrection; others interpret it of the days of Pentecost, when there should be such an effusion of the blessed Spirit: but the following words discover, that it is best interpreted of the day of judgment, and the general resurrection: for they speak of two great mysteries, which the disciples should understand in that day which is here spoken of; to wit, the personal union of Christ with his Father, and the mystical union of believers with Christ: as to both which, though the apostles and believers knew much more after Christ’ s resurrection, and the pouring forth of the Spirit in the days of Pentecost, than they knew before those times; yet it is a very imperfect knowledge they ever had, or yet have, of those mysterious unions; but in the resurrection we shall understand these things clearly.

Poole: Joh 14:21

He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: our Lord here doth repeat what he had before said, Joh 14:15 , declaring that there is no infallible indication of our love to Christ, but obedience, which is here expressed under two notions.

1. Having Christ’ s commandments and keeping them: they must both concur to make a true indication of our love to Christ. It is possible that men may have Christ’ s commandments in their ears, in their notion, in their mouths, and yet not keep them; they may hear them, they may know and remember them, they may talk of them, yet they may not keep them; for keeping them denotes universal, diligent and industrious, steady and constant obedience to them; and this alone will speak our love to Christ.

2. And if any man thus declareth his love to Christ, Christ declareth, that both he and his Father will take a pleasure and delight in him to do him good; and he shall not live only under the real benefits of his love to him, but under the sensible manifestations of it. Here is no mention of the Spirit’ s coming with the Father and the Son, because the Son dwelleth in us by the Spirit.

Poole: Joh 14:22

Jude the brother of James, Jud 1:1 , the son of Alphaeus; not Judas the son of Simon, who, from the city whence he was, was called Iscariot, and was the traitor; asks our Saviour, how it was, or wherefore it was, that he would manifest himself to them, and not to the world? This question either proceeded out of ignorance, not aright understanding of what manifestation of himself Christ here spake; or out of a pious desire that all might be made partakers of the same grace with them; or out of the apostle’ s modest opinion of himself and his brethren; as if he had said, Lord, what are we that thou shouldest speak of any more special manifestation of thy love to us, than to the rest of the world? Or out of a deep admiration of God’ s unsearchable judgments in leaving some of the world, while he made choice of others to dignify with such special distinguishing favours, hiding those things from the wise and prudent which he revealed to babes.

Poole: Joh 14:23

If any man love Christ, he will keep Christ’ s words; that is, he will study and endeavour to keep the commandments of Christ; for if nothing evidenced a true love to Christ but a perfect obedience to his will, none could comfort himself from his obedience, or conclude his love to Christ from it; but he that loveth Christ, will make it his business to be obedient to him in those things first he hath commanded, and are within his power.

And my Father will love him and my Father will manifest his love to him in further dispensations of his grace; for it cannot be understood of God’ s eternal love, nor yet of his love in justification and regeneration; for till the man or woman be justified and regenerated, he will never study and endeavour obedience to the will of God. This love of God is the cause, not the effect of our obedience; but love in this verse must be expounded by manifesting in the former verse; and this is certain, that the manifestations of Divine love to our souls depend upon our walking with God. This is also meant by God the Father and Christ’ s coming to those that love him, and keep his commandments; viz. a coming in the sweet influences of Divine grace, suited to the soul’ s various necessities: nay, our Lord promises, not only his and his Father’ s coming to, but their making an abode with such as love him, and keep his commandments. Here the abiding of the First and Second Person in the Trinity with believers; the abiding of the Third Person with them is also promised, Joh 14:16 ; which all make that presence of God with them, so often promised to them in holy writ. Thus our Saviour answereth one part of what Judas said, How is it that thou wilt manifest thyself to us? Because, saith our Saviour, you love me, and keep my words: for though no love, no works of ours, foreseen or seen, be the cause of eternal love, or the first grace; yet it is so much a cause of further grace, especially in the sensible manifestations of it, that no soul must expect it that doth not love Christ, and keep his words. He also further gives them a reason, as to the second thing he asked, why he did not manifest himself to the world?

Poole: Joh 14:24

Because they did not love him, nor keep his sayings, their sin was aggravated; because the words which he spake were not his will only, but the will of his Father who had sent him into the world, to reveal his will to the sons of men.

Poole: Joh 14:25

That is, as to his bodily presence: For more than three years I have been fulfilling a ministry amongst you, and have spoken many things to you.

Poole: Joh 14:26

The word is the same which was so translated before; (see the import of it, Joh 14:16,17 ) he is there called the

Comforter and the Spirit of truth; here, the Holy Spirit. The Father here is said to send in the name, that is, with the authority and upon the mediation, of the Lord Jesus Christ: and two pieces of the Spirit’ s work, besides comforting, are here expressed.

He shall teach you all things he shall more fully explain to you all things. Three of the apostles themselves had already in this chapter discovered great degrees of ignorance as to the doctrine of the Trinity, Christ’ s union or oneness with his Father, &c. You shall not be left (saith our Saviour) in this ignorance; for when the Holy Spirit shall come, he shall more fully and perfectly instruct you in all things, in which I have already instructed you, and which are necessary for you to know in order to your eternal happiness.

And bring all things to your remembrance; whatsoever I have said unto you and shall bring to your remembrance the things I have taught you, so as you shall more fully and clearly understand them; and though you may have forgotten them, yet they shall by the Holy Spirit be revived in your memories; so as they shall not be like water spilt on the ground, which cannot again be gathered up, but like seed sown in the earth; which, though it may at present rot, and die under the clods, or at least not spring up, yet it shall spring up, and bring forth desired fruit. It is one great work of the Holy Spirit, to bring the revelations of holy writ to our remembrance, and withal to clear to us the sense of them, and confirm our faith in them, and chiefly quicken us to practise what is our duty: but it is to be observed, that the Spirit doth not make revelations of new notions; it only brings to our remembrance what Christ hath said, and further revealeth what was before in the word revealed, though possibly particular persons were ignorant of such revelations of the word: so things may be new, and newly revealed to us, which in themselves are not so. There are no new truths, but particular persons may have new discoveries of old truth, which they had before misapprehensions of.

Poole: Joh 14:27

Peace be with you, or to you, was the Jewish common salutation, 1Sa 25:6 ; under that general name they comprehended all manner of good: with this good wish they both saluted their friends when they met them, and took their farewell of them when they left them. Christ, being now about to take his leave for a time of his disciples, wishes them

peace nay, he doth not only wish it to them, but he

leaves it to them; he giveth it them as a legacy; and that in another kind of peace, and in another manner, than was common. He therefore calls it his peace revealed in the gospel, Eph 6:15 ; purchased with his blood, Rom 5:1 ; brought to the soul by his Spirit, by which we are sealed to the day of redemption. Christ’ s peace is either union or reconciliation with God, or the copy of it, which is a quiet of conscience, and assurance of his love; or a union with men by brotherly love, so often commended and pressed by Christ. Nor doth Christ give this peace as the men of the world give peace; who often wish peace earnestly, never considering what it is they say; often falsely, formally wishing peace, when they are about to strike those to whom they wish it under the fifth rib; and when they are most serious, wish it, but cannot give it. Christ leaves it to his disciples for a legacy, giveth it to them as a gift; if they want it, it is their own fault: therefore, as in the first verse, so here again he saith,

Let not your heart be troubled and adds,

neither let it be afraid Fear is one of those passions which most usually and potently doth disturb the hearts and minds of men; but there was no reason it should have this ill influence on Christ’ s disciples, because he had left them peace for his legacy, and the gifts of God are without repentance; and, if God be for us, (saith the apostle, Rom 8:31 ), who, or what, can be against us?

Poole: Joh 14:28

Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you they had heard our Saviour saying so, Joh 14:3 . It is of the nature of true love, to rejoice in the good of the object beloved, as much as in its own, nay, before its own.

Saith our Saviour,

if ye loved me that is, as ye ought to love me, (for our Lord had before owned that they did love him, giving it as a reason why he rather revealed himself and manifested himself to them, than to the world, Joh 14:23 ), you would not have been so unreasonably disturbed at my telling you that I shall leave you; because I not only told you that I would come again to you, but because I told you that I was going to my Father, Joh 14:2 ; from whom though I was never separated, as I am God over all blessed for ever, yet my human nature was yet never glorified with him; so that I shall be there much happier than here; being highly exalted, and having a name given me above every name, Phi 2:9 .

For my Father is greater than I not greater in essence, (as the Arians and Socinians would have it), he had many times before asserted the contrary; but greater,

1. Either as to the order amongst the Divine Persons; because the Father begat, the Son is begotten; the Father is he from whom the Son proceeded by eternal generation: in which sense, divers of the ancients, amongst whom Athanasius, Cyril, and Augustine, and some modern interpreters, understand it. Or:

2. As Mediator sent from the Father, so he is greater than I. Or:

3. In respect of my present state, while I am here in the form of a servant; and in my state of humiliation:

which seemeth to be the best interpretation, if we consider the words before, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father; for the true reason of that joy must have been, because Christ in his glorious state of exaltation would be much more happy than he had been in his state of humiliation, while he was exposed to the scoffs, reproaches, and injuries of men, the temptations of Satan, &c.

Poole: Joh 14:29

Evils that surprise us are always the most heavy, and load our spirits. Saith our Saviour, Before these things come to pass, I have given you notice of them, that, when you see them come to pass, you might not be overwhelmed with sorrow and trouble, to the hinderance of your faith in me; but understanding that I have told you the truth before the thing come to pass, you may be assured that I am not mere man, but truly God; and receive and embrace me, and rest upon me as your Saviour.

Poole: Joh 14:30

I shall not have much time hereafter to reveal my mind to you, my suffering is very near; the devil, who is

the prince of this world, See Poole on " Joh 12:31" , See Poole on "Joh 16:11" and See Poole on "Eph 6:12" he cometh by the evil angels, or rather by vile and wicked men, as his instruments, Judas and the soldiers. He doth not say wherefore he came, but it is easily understood. And he hath nothing in me that he can justly fault, and take advantage against me, for he findeth no guilt in me to give him any advantage against me; I shall die as an innocent person, and be cut off, but not for myself, (as it was prophesied of the Messiah, Dan 9:26 ), but (as it is there, Joh 14:24 ), to finish transgression, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness.

Poole: Joh 14:31

I die not for my own sin; but being found in fashion as a man, I humbled myself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, , as Phi 2:8to let the world know, that I love the Father, and am obedient to him, doing even so as he hath commanded me.

Arise, let us go hence arise from supper, (after which they were wont sometimes to lengthen out discourse), the supper in Bethany, as some think; but to me it seems more probable (as I said before) to be the passover supper, and the Lord’ s supper which immediately followed that; and let us go hence, out of the guest chamber, where the passover was to be administered. So as it is most probable, that the discourses in the two next chapters were as they went along in the way to Mount Olivet. In this discourse our Saviour hath most applied himself to relieve his disciples upon their disturbance for their want of our Saviour’ s bodily presence.

Lightfoot: Joh 14:16

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;   

[He shall give you another Comforter.] I. Amongst all the names and titles given to the Messiah in the Jewish writers, that of Menahem; or the Comforter; hath chiefly obtained; and the days of the Messiah amongst them are styled the days of 'consolation.' The names of Messiah are reckoned up, viz. Shiloh, Jinnon, Chaninah, Menahem. And in Jerusalem Berac. we are told how the Messiah had been born in Bethlehem under the name of Menahem.   

Luk 2:25; "Waiting for the consolation of Israel." Targumist upon Jer 31:6; "Those that desire or long for the years of consolation to come." This they were wont to swear by, viz. the desire they had of seeing this consolation. So let me see the consolation.   

Now, therefore, bring these words of our Saviour to what hath been said: q.d. "You expect, with the rest of this nation, the consolation in the Messiah and in his presence. Well; I must depart, and withdraw my presence from you; but I will send you in my stead 'another Comforter.' "   

II. The minds of the disciples at present were greatly distressed and troubled, so that the promise of a Comforter seems more suitable than that of an Advocate; to their present state and circumstances.

Lightfoot: Joh 14:17

Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.   

[The Spirit of truth.] Let us but observe how the whole world at this time lay in falsehood and error: the Gentiles under a spirit of delusion; the Jews under the cheat and imposture of traditions: and then the reason of this title of the Spirit of truth will appear; as also how seasonable and necessary a thing it was that such a Spirit should be sent into the world.

Lightfoot: Joh 14:26

But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.   

[He shall teach you all things.] So Joh 16:13; "He shall lead you into all truth." Here it might be very fitly inquired, whether any ever, besides the apostles themselves, were "taught all things," or "led into all truth." It is no question but that every believer is led into all truth necessary for himself and his own happiness; but it was the apostles' lot only to be led into all truth necessary both for themselves and the whole church.

Lightfoot: Joh 14:30

Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.   

[The prince of this world cometh.] Seeing this kind of phrase, the prince of this world; was, in the common acceptation of the Jewish nation, expressive of the devil ruling among the Gentiles, it may very well be understood so in these words; because the very moment of time was almost come about, wherein Christ and the devil were to enter the lists for the dominion and government, which of those two should have the rule over the Gentiles.

Lightfoot: Joh 14:31

But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.   

[Arise, let us go hence.] These words plainly set out the time and place wherein our Saviour had the discourse which is contained in this fourteenth chapter. The place was Bethany; the time, the very day of the Passover, when they were now about to walk to Jerusalem.   

Those things which Christ had discoursed in John_13 were said two nights before the Passover; and that at Bethany, where Christ supped at the house of 'Simon the leper.' He abode there the day following, and the night after; and now, when the feast day was come, and it was time for them to be making towards Jerusalem to the Passover, he saith, Arise, let us go hence. What he did or said the day before the Passover, while he stayed at Bethany, the evangelist makes no mention. He only relates what was said in his last farewell before the paschal supper, and upon his departure from Bethany. All that we have recorded in John_15; John_16; and John_17; was discoursed to them after the paschal supper, and after that he had instituted the holy eucharist.

PBC: Joh 14:19

See PB: Ro 8:30

Haydock: Joh 14:15

Instead of afflicting yourselves at our separation, and my going to the Father, you ought, if you truly love me, to testify your affection, by a faithful observance of my commandments. Behold, this is the best proof you can give me of your attachment: better far than any exterior sign of grief and tenderness. (St. John Chrysostom)

Haydock: Joh 14:16

Paraclete. This is a comforter: or also an advocate: inasmuch as by inspiring prayer, he prays, as it were, in us, and pleads for us. ---

For ever. Hence it is evident, that this spirit of truth was not only promised to the persons of the apostles, but also to their successors, through all generations. (Challoner) ---

I have not changed the word Paraclete, which signifies, both and advocate and a comforter. He shall remain with you, and in you, for ever. What greater happiness, what greater security for the faithful, than to have this divine promise, the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of truth, remaining with the Church for ever, to protect her, and preserve her from all errors and heresies? (Witham) ---

If the Holy Ghost had been promised only to the apostles, their successors could not have challenged the promise. But the promises and privileges were not merely personal, but attached to their office perpetually. Hence, the Holy Ghost, in every age and clime, perpetually watches over the Catholic Church, and preserves her from both open and secret attacks of her enemies.

Haydock: Joh 14:19

The world seeth me no more, after my death; but you shall see me, conversing with you for forty days, after my resurrection. (Witham)

Haydock: Joh 14:20

In that day, when I am risen again, or when the Holy Ghost is come, you shall know that I am in the Father, and how, and in what manner: as also, how I am in you, and you in me. Our Saviour Christ, on several occasions, speaks of different ways of being united, or of being one; as first, of being one in nature and substance, and by such an union, as agrees only with the divine persons, who are one in all things. 2ndly, Persons may be one, or united in affection and love, which also, as to its most perfect manner, agrees only with the three divine persons; but a similitude, and an imitation of this union of love, is found among creatures, both when they love God, and when for God's sake, they love one another: yet these unions are as different as God, and his creatures. The Arians and Socinians lay hold on these expressions, and of the words, (chap. xvii. ver. 21.) when Christ prays, that his disciples may be one, as he and his Father are one, which words imply no more than a similitude, and an imitation of that union of love (with which the three divine persons love one another) though at an infinite distance. If the old or new Arians examined, with a sincere desire of finding the truth (which they ought to seek from many passages in the New Testament, as well as from the sense and tradition of the Church, guided by the promised Spirit of Truth) they might certainly find how different is the union of nature and substance of the eternal Son with his eternal Father, and of that union of the three divine persons, when they are said to be one, from that inferior and lesser union of love and affection, by which either God loves his adoptive children, his faithful servants, or they love one another: they would easily discover, that many things are said of the unity and union of the divine persons, which could not be true, unless they were one and the same God, coeternal and consubstantial, which by no means can be said of God and his creatures, nor of the union of affection only, by which the creatures love one another. (Witham)

Haydock: Joh 14:21

Now that Christ in this place speaks only of this imperfect union of affection, appears by the following words: he that keepeth my commandments, loveth me: and he that loveth me, shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him, by a recompense of glory in the next life. (Witham)

Haydock: Joh 14:22-25

Lord, how is it? Literally, what is done, or, what will be done, that thou art about to manifest thyself to us, and not to the world? This apostle imagined, that the Messias would make manifest his glory of a temporal kingdom, not to them only, but to all the world. But Christ, by his answer, lets him know, that he spoke only of a manifestation of his love to those that loved him. If any man love me, my Father will love him, and we will come to him, that is, the three divine persons, will come to his soul, in a special manner, so as to bless him with an infusion of graces, and make our abode in his soul. (Witham)

Haydock: Joh 14:26

The Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, as proceeding also from me: and therefore Christ saith, in the next chapter, (ver. 26) that he himself will send him from the Father. He will teach you all things, &c. He will give you a more perfect knowledge of all those truths, which I have taught you. (Witham) ---

Teach you all things. Here the Holy Ghost is promised to the apostles, and their successors, particularly, in order to teach them all truth, and to preserve them from error. (Challoner) ---

The Scripture, in different places, remarks, that the apostles did not understand the accomplishment of prophecies, as soon as they were fulfilled. (Luke xxiv. 27.) They could not draw the comparison between the actions of our Saviour, and the figures of the old law: but no sooner had the Holy Ghost descended upon them, than they explained the Scriptures, their hearts and eyes being opened and enlightened by the light of the Holy Spirit. (Calmet) ---

See chap. xvi. ver. 12. and 13.

Haydock: Joh 14:28

The Father is greater than I. [3] According to the common exposition, Christ here speaks of himself, as made man, which interpretation is drawn from the circumstances of the text, Christ being at that time, going to suffer, and die, and shortly after to rise again, and ascend into heaven, all which agree with him, as man, and according to his human nature. But the Arians can take no advantage from these words, (though with divers of the ancient Fathers, we should allow them to be spoken of Christ, as the Son of God:) the Father may be said in some manner to be greater than the Son, if we consider the order of the divine processions, that is, that the Father is the first person, and proceeds from no other; whereas the Son proceeds from the Father. If any one, says St. John Chrysostom, will contend, that the Father is greater, inasmuch as he is the cause, from which the Son proceedeth, we will bear with him, and this way of speaking: provided he grant that the Son is not of a different substance, or nature. St. Athanasius allows the same, and takes notice, that though the Father is said to be greater, yet he is not said to be better, nor more excellent, than the Son; because they are one and the same in substance, nature, and other perfections. (Witham) ---

The enemies of the divinity of Christ here triumph, and think they have the confession of Christ himself, that he is less than the Father. But if they would distinguish the two natures of Christ, their arguments would all fall to the ground. Jesus Christ, as man, and a creature, is inferior to his Father, the Creator; but, as God, he is, in every respect, equal to him. (St. Basil, St. Augustine, &c.) ---

Others, likewise, answer it thus: Following the confused opinion of the world, and even of the apostles themselves, who as yet only considered Christ as a prophet, and as a man, eminent in virtue and sanctity, he was less than the Father. (St. John Chrysostom; Leont.; Theophylactus; Euthymius) ---

And likewise the title of Father, (as we generally use the word) is greater, and much more honourable, that that of Son; and in this respect, Christ is inferior to his Father. (St. Athanasius; St. Hilary; St. Epiphanius; St. Gregory of Nazianzus; and St. Cyril) ---But this appellation, though really true, does not destroy the equality of the persons, because Christ has declared, in numerous other places, that he is equal to the Father; that he is in the Father; and that he and the Father are one. The apostles ought to have rejoiced that Christ was going to the Father, who was superior to him, considering him in his human nature; because, then, would the Son shew forth his honour and glory to be equal to the Father's, in heaven. This would have been a mark of a pure, solid, and disinterested love, which ought to have inspired the apostles, if they truly loved their divine Master. (Calmet) ---

Protestants assume to themselves the liberty of making the Bible only, the exclusive rule of faith, yet refuse this privilege to others. Thus Luther insisted, that his catechism should be taught, and followed. Calvin burnt Servetus for explaining his faith, by his own interpretation of the Bible, particularly of these words, the Father is greater than I. The Church of England compels every clergyman to swear to the Thirty-nine Articles, and has inflicted the severest penalties on such as interpreted the Bible according to the principles of Socinus; and on Catholics, who understand the words of Jesus Christ, This is my body: this is my blood, in the literal and obvious sense of the words. As long as each individual is at liberty to expound Scripture by the private spirit, it is a great injustice to compel any one, by penal laws, to yield his judgment to any authority, that is not less fallible than his own.

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Pater major me est, Greek: o pater meizon mou estin. St. John Chrysostom, hom. Greek: oe . p. 443. Nov. Ed. Si quis vero dixerit majorem esse Patrem, ut filii principium, non huic contradicemus, Greek: kath o aitios tou uiou, oude touto anteroumen. See St. Athanasius, Orat. 1. Cont. Arianos, p. 362. Ed. Ben. non dixit, Pater præstantior est me, Greek: kreiton mon esti, ne quis eum alium a Patris natura, esse suspicaretur, sed major dixit, non quidem magnitudine quadam, aut tempore, sed quia ex ipso Patre gignitur, &c. See St. Augustine, tract. 78. p. 699. propter forman servi, dicit, Pater major me est, &c.

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Haydock: Joh 14:31

As the Father hath given me commandment, so I do. ---

He again speaks of himself, as man. Arise, let us go hence. Yet by chap. xviii. ver. 1. Christ still continued the like instructions, either in the same place, or in the way to Gethsemani. (Witham)

Gill: Joh 14:15

If ye love me,.... Not that Christ doubted of the love of his disciples to him; but he argues from it to their observance of his precepts, seeing ye do love me; as all do who are born again, who have had any spiritual sight of him, of his glory, suitableness, and fulness; who believe in him, and have received from him; who have had his love shed abroad in their hearts, having enjoyed communion with him, and know the relation he stands in to them; these love him above all others, and all of him, and that belong to him, unfeignedly, and in the sincerity of their souls, as did the disciples; and since they professed to love, and did love him, as they ought to do, he exhorts them, saying,

keep my commandments: Christ is Lord over his people, as he is the Creator and Redeemer of them, and as he is an head and husband to them, and as such he has a right to issue out his commands, and enjoin a regard unto them; and these are peculiarly "his", as distinct from, though not in opposition to, or to the exclusion of, his Father's commands; such as the new commandment of loving one another, and the ordinances of baptism, and the Lord's supper, which are to be observed and kept as Christ has ordered them, constantly, in faith, and with a view to his glory.

Gill: Joh 14:16

And I will pray the Father,...., Here Christ speaks as Mediator, and promises his disciples, that he would intercede for them with the Father; which is designed as an encouragement to them to ask for what they want, in his name, and to comfort their hearts, which were troubled at the news of his departure from them;

and he shall give you another Comforter. This is no inconsiderable proof of a trinity of persons in the Godhead; here is the Father prayed unto, the Son in human nature praying, and the Holy Ghost the Comforter prayed for; who is the gift of the Father, through the prevalent mediation of the Son, and is another "Comforter"; distinct from the Messiah, to whom reference is here had! One of the names of the Messiah, with the Jews, is מנחם ^u, "a Comforter"; such an one Jesus had been to his disciples; and now he was about to leave them, and for their support under their sorrows, he promises to use his interest with his Father, that he would give them another Comforter, meaning the Spirit, who performs this his work and office, by taking of the things of Christ, and showing them to his people; by shedding abroad the love of the Father, and of the Son, into their hearts; by opening and applying the precious promises of the Gospel to them; by being a spirit of adoption in them; and by abiding with them as the seal, earnest, and pledge of their future glory; and with this view Christ promises to pray for him,

that he may abide with you for ever: not a few years only, as I have done, but as long as you live; and with all those that shall succeed you in the work of the ministry, and with the church, and all true believers unto the end of the world: this is a proof of the saints' final perseverance. When we consider these words, in connection with the preceding exhortation, to keep the commands of Christ, and as an encouragement so to do, it brings to mind a saying of R. Eliezer ben Jacob ^w;

"he that does one commandment gets for himself פרקליט אחד, ενα παρακλητον, the very word here used, "one advocate", or "comforter"; and he that transgresses one command, gets for himself one accuser.''

But though the word signifies both an advocate and a comforter, the latter seems to be the meaning of it here, as being more suited to the disconsolate condition of the disciples.

Gill: Joh 14:17

Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive,.... These words explain who is meant by the Comforter, "even the Spirit of truth"; the true Spirit of God, the dictator of the Scriptures of truth, who leads men into the truths of the Gospel, confirms them in them, and gives boldness and freedom to own, and confess them before men:

whom the world cannot receive; the men of the world, who are as they came into the world, carnal and natural men, can neither receive the Spirit nor the things of the Spirit, the truths and doctrines of the Gospel; they can neither receive them into their understandings, nor into their affections; and indeed, because they cannot understand them, therefore they do not love them, but despise and hate them:

because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; the world, and the men of it, can neither see him with their bodily eyes, because he is a "spirit"; nor know him with their understandings, because he is the "Spirit of truth", which they are ignorant of, for want of a spiritual discerning.

But ye know him; as a spirit of illumination, regeneration, and conversion:

for he dwelleth with you; he is an inhabitant in your hearts, he has taken up his residence in you as his temples:

and shall be in you; as a Comforter, when I am gone from you; and as a spirit of truth to guide you into all truth, to stand by you, and assist you in preaching it, and to enable you to bear a faithful and glorious testimony for it.

Gill: Joh 14:18

I will not leave you comfortless,.... Gr. "orphans", or "fatherless". Christ stands in the relation of a Father to his people, and they are his children, his spiritual seed and offspring; and so the disciples might fear, that as Christ was going from them, they should be left as children without a father, in a very desolate and comfortless, condition: to support them against these fears, Christ promises that he would not leave them thus, at least not long:

I will come to you; in a very short time, as he did; for on the third day he rose again from the dead, and appeared to them, which filled them with great joy. So among the Jews, disciples, and the world too, are represented as fatherless, when their doctors and wise men are removed by death. Says R. Aba, ^x and so sometimes others, concerning R. Simeon ben Jochai,

"woe to the world when thou shall go out of it, woe to the generation that shall be in the world when thou shall remove from them, וישתארון יתמין, "and they shall be left fatherless by thee".''

And in another place ^y;

"afterwards R. Akiba went out and cried, and his eyes flowed with water, and he said, woe Rabbi, woe Rabbi, for the world is left, יתום, "fatherless by thee".''

Gill: Joh 14:19

Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more,.... The men of the world now see me with their bodily eyes, which is all the sight they have of me; and this they will be deprived of in a very little time; they will see me no more until the time that I shall come in the clouds of heaven to judge the world; and then every eye shall see me:

but ye see me; ye see me now, and shall see me after my resurrection, as they did; for then he appeared alive and conversed with them for forty days; and when he ascended into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God, they saw him by faith crowned with glory and honour; and will see him as he is when he comes a second time to take them to himself in glory.

Because I live, ye shall believe also: Christ lives as God, as man, and as Mediator: as God, he lives the same life his Father does, partaking of the same nature, and possessing the same perfections; so he lived from everlasting, and will live to everlasting; as man, he lived first a private, and then a public life, attended with meanness, reproaches, sorrows, and sufferings; a life which was filled up with acts of devotion and piety to God, and with doing good to the bodies and souls of men; he lived in all obedience to the law of God, and at last endured the penalty of that law, in the room and stead of his people; when his life was taken away for a while, and then taken up by him again; and now, as man, he lives, and lives for evermore. As Mediator, he has his life from the Father, which is dependent upon him, by whom he was set up in an office capacity from everlasting; and as such will live to everlasting, to see the travail of his soul, the fruit of his sufferings, to make intercession for his people, and to rule until all enemies are made his footstool. And his people "live also", which is to be understood, not of the preservation of his disciples from dying with him, when he died; for then it should rather have been said, "because I die, ye shall live": nor of the continuance of their natural life in this world; for the saints are not to live always here; nor do they desire it, nor is it proper they should; death is for their advantage; it is a blessing to them. Though these words may be understood of a corporeal life, which they shall live after the resurrection; for though they die, they shall live again, and never die more; they shall not only live and reign with Christ a thousand years, but to all eternity. They also live a spiritual life now; a life of grace and holiness from Christ; a life of faith on him, and sometimes of communion with him, and desire to live to his honour and glory; and shall hereafter live an eternal life of perfection and pleasure, with Father, Son, and Spirit, for evermore. Now between these two lives, the life of Christ, and his people, there is a close connection; the one is dependent on the other, and secured by the other: "because I live, ye shall live also"; the spiritual life of a believer is from Christ, and is maintained by him; the same which is in the head, is in the members; yea, it is not so much they that live, as Christ that lives in them, and therefore their life can never be lost; it is bound up in the bundle of life with Christ, and is hid safe and secure with him in God, and so out of the reach both of men and devils. The corporeal life of the saints after death, in the resurrection morn, springs from, and is secured by the life of Christ: his resurrection from the dead is the pattern and pledge of theirs; he undertook to raise them from the dead, and will do it; as sure as his dead body is raised and lives, so sure shall theirs; their bodies, as well as their souls, are united to Christ; and by virtue of this union, which death does not, and cannot dissolve, they shall be raised and live again. They are in Christ whilst they are dead; and because they are "the dead in Christ", they shall "rise first". Their eternal life is in the hands of Christ, and when he, who is the true God, and their eternal life, shall appear, they shall appear with him in glory.

Gill: Joh 14:20

At that day ye shall know,.... The things they should know, or the objects of knowledge are,

that I am in my Father; in his bosom, in union with him, partaker of the same nature, perfections, and glory with him, and equal to him:

and you in me: that they were in union with him as the branches in the vine, and as the members are in the head, and how they were loved in him, chosen in him, righteous in him, risen with him, and made to sit together in heavenly places in him:

and I in you; formed in their hearts, living in them, dwelling in them, as in his temples, and filling them with grace and glory. The knowledge of these things promised, designs a more clear and distinct knowledge of them; something of them was known already, but not so perfectly as should be hereafter; and this does not suppose that these unions between the Father and Christ, and between Christ and his people, shall then begin to be; for as the union between the Father and the Son is as eternal as themselves; so the union between Christ and his people, as he is the head and representative of them, is as early as his investiture with the office of a Mediator, and his suretyship engagements for them, which were from eternity; and are the ground, and foundation of his being in them, and they in him in the effectual calling; nor does it suggest that they shall begin to be known; only that they shall be known in a more perfect manner: the time when this will be, is "at that day": meaning either when he should "live" in the body again, be raised from the dead, when he should he declared to be the Son of God with power, when it would appear, that he had the same power with the Father, by raising himself from the dead, and when he would rise as a public head representing them, for their justification, and they should see themselves justified and discharged in him; or the day of "Pentecost", when "the Spirit of truth", he promises to pray for, should come to them in an extraordinary manner, and lead them into the knowledge of these things; or the last day, the resurrection morn, when, by virtue of union to Christ, the saints shall rise and "live" with him for ever, and shall have a perfect knowledge of these several unions; see Joh 17:21.

Gill: Joh 14:21

He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them,.... He that has not merely the external revelation of them in the Bible; but has them written on his heart, by the finger of the Spirit of God, and keeps them under the influence of grace and strength received from him:

he it is that loveth me: others may talk of loving Christ, but this is the man that truly does love him; for his observance of Christ's commands is a proof and evidence that he loves him not in word only, but in deed and in truth: and to encourage souls to love and obedience, Christ adds,

he that loveth me, shall be loved of my Father; not that love to is the cause, condition, or motive of the Father's love to his people; nor does his love to them begin when they begin to love Christ; but this expression denotes some further and greater manifestation of the Father's love to such persons, and shows how grateful to the Father are love and obedience to the Son:

and I will love him; which must be understood in the same manner; Christ does not begin to love his people when they begin to love, and obey him; their love and obedience to him, spring from his love to them; which love of his towards them was from everlasting: but this phrase signs a clearer discovery of his love to them, which passeth knowledge; and some fresh mark and token of his affection for them; and which is explained in the next clause:

and will manifest myself to him; not in a visible way, or in a corporeal form, as he did to his disciples after his resurrection; but in a spiritual manner, as when he makes himself known to his people in ordinances, and favours them with communion with him, and they see his beauty, his fulness, his grace and righteousness, his power, and his glory.

Gill: Joh 14:22

Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot,.... This was Judas Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus, the same with Jude the apostle, the author of the epistle which bears his name; and is said to be "not Iscariot", to distinguish him from the betrayer. The question put by him, Lord,

how is it, τι γεγονεν, which answers to מאי דא, or מאי האי, or מהו, with the Talmudists, "what is this thou sayest"; what is the meaning of it? how can it be? or what is the reason of it,

that thou wilt manifest thyself to us, and not unto the world? arises either from ignorance of what Christ was speaking, imagining he meant a spectre, or some apparition of himself after his death, which should be visible to his disciples, and not to others; and how this could be, he wanted to know; or from that national prejudice which Judas and the rest of the apostles had given into, of a temporal kingdom of the Messiah, the glory of which should be visible to all the world; and therefore he wonders that he should talk of the manifestation of himself, only to some, or from an honest hearty desire that the glory of Christ might not be confined to a few only; but that the whole world might see it, and be filled with it: or rather from his modesty, and the sense he had of his own unworthiness, and of the rest of the apostles, to have such a peculiar manifestation of Christ to them, when they were no more deserving of it than others: the question is put by him with admiration and astonishment; and as not being able to give, or think of any other reason of such a procedure, but the amazing grace of Christ, his free favour and sovereign will and pleasure.

Gill: Joh 14:23

Jesus answered and said unto him,.... This answer is returned, and these words are spoken, for the further confirmation and explanation of what was before said:

if a man love me, he will keep my words; by his "words" are meant not his doctrines, but his ordinances; the same with his commandments, Joh 14:21, which he has said, ordered, and commanded to be observed, and which are observed by such who truly love him, and that from a principle of love to him, and with a view to his glory: and for the encouragement of such persons as before, he says,

and my Father will love him: which is to be understood not of the love of the Father, as in his own heart, which is not taken up in time, but was in him from all eternity; nor of the first discovery of it to his people, but of greater manifestations of it to them, and a quicker sense of it in their hearts, and also of some other effects of it, to be enjoyed by them in an higher manner; such as larger measures of grace, more communion with him here, and eternal honour and glory hereafter:

and we will come unto him: I who am now going away, and my Father to whom I am going, and the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, I have promised to pray for: hence a proof of a plurality of persons in the Godhead, of a trinity of persons, of there being neither more nor fewer than three; since neither more nor less can be collected from the context; and of their distinct personality, or it could not be said with any propriety, "we" each of us "will come unto him"; not locally and visibly, but spiritually, by affording our gracious and comfortable presence, the continuance of which is promised next:

and make our abode with him; which denotes habitation; for the saints are the dwelling places or temples of the living God, Father, Son, and Spirit; and the constancy and perpetuity of their residence in them, not as a wayfaring man, but always, though this may not be always discerned by believers; and is a wonderful instance of the grace and condescension of God to dwell on earth with sinful men; and a far greater one it is, than if the most mighty potentate on earth should take up his abode in a poor despicable cottage with the meanest of his subjects.

Gill: Joh 14:24

He that loveth me not, keepeth not my sayings,.... These words may have respect both to external professors of religion, who being destitute of true love to Christ, though they outwardly observe his ordinances and commands; yet inasmuch as this does not spring from a principle of love to him, and is done only to be seen of men, or to obtain life for themselves, may be said, not to keep his words or commands, because they do not keep them aright; and to the profane world, who, as they have no affection to Christ, pay no regard to any orders or ordinances of his: and they may be considered as having in them a reason or argument, justifying the conduct of Christ, in manifesting himself to his disciples, and not unto the world; as the following words give a reason why the Father takes so much notice of, comes and makes his abode with such as keep the words of Christ:

and, or "for"

the word which you hear, is not mine, but the Father's which sent me: that is, it is not only mine, but my Father's also: it is not mine as man; it is not a scheme of things of my own devising; it is not from earth, but from heaven; my Father has a concern in it, and therefore regards such who hear, receive, and keep it: and this is said by him partly to engage a greater regard and attention to his word, his truths, and ordinances, by his disciples; and to expose and aggravate the sin of those who despised and rejected them; since it was not barely casting contempt on him, but on his Father likewise.

Gill: Joh 14:25

These things have I spoken unto you,.... Concerning his Father, and his Father's house, and the way to both; concerning his being in the father, and the Father in him; concerning keeping his commandments, and the advantages and benefits following upon it:

being, says he,

yet present with you; which is a strong intimation that in a little time he should not be present with them; and that whilst he was present with them, he was desirous of saying such things to them in a brief compendious manner, as they were able to bear; which might be of future use and instruction to them.

Gill: Joh 14:26

But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost,.... Before spoken of, Joh 14:16, for whom Christ promised to pray the Father that he might be given to them. The word used there, as here, signifies an "advocate", and is so rendered, 1Jo 2:1, a patron, one that pleads and defends, the cause of another, before kings and princes; so the Jewish writers ^z use the word פרקליט, the same with παρακλητος, here, and give this as the sense of it: and which agrees well enough with the work and office of the Spirit of God, who has promised to the apostles to speak in them and for them, when they should be brought before kings and governors for Christ's sake; and would so thoroughly plead his cause and theirs, as to convince the world of sin, righteousness and judgment; and who acts the part of an intercessor, or advocate, for private believers, in prayer to the King of kings: but inasmuch as it also signifies a "comforter", and this being agreeably to the present condition of the apostles, as before observed; it may be most proper to retain that sense of it here, who is explained to be the Holy Ghost; which is a more clear and explicit account of him than before, and very distinctly points out the third person in the Trinity, who is in his nature holy, equally with the Father and Son, and the author of holiness in all the saints:

whom the Father will send in my name. The mission of the Spirit is here ascribed to the Father, but not to the exclusion of the Son, who is also said to send him, Joh 15:26, which was not so proper to be mentioned here, because he speaks of his being sent, "in his name"; that is, at his request, through his mediation and intercession, in his room and stead, acting, the same part, and bearing the same flame of an advocate or comforter, and for the glory and honour of his name: which act of sending does not suppose any local motion, which cannot agree with an infinite and immense spirit; nor inferiority in him to the other two persons, since he who is sent by Christ, and in his name, is also the sender of Christ; but it denotes the joint consent and agreement of Father, Son, and Spirit, in this affair:

he shall teach you all things: this is the proper work and business of the Spirit, to teach, interpret, and explain all things which Christ had said to them; to make them more plain and easy to their understandings; to instruct them in all things necessary to salvation, and to be known by them, that they might teach them others:

and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said to you; which through inattention, or want of understanding in them, had slipped their minds, and were forgotten by them. This accounts for it, how the evangelists some years after the death of Christ; at different times and places, and without consulting each other, could commit to writing the life, actions, sayings, and sermons of Christ, with all the minute circumstances attending them.

Gill: Joh 14:27

Peace I leave with you,.... Christ being about to die and leave his disciples, makes his last will and testament, and as the best legacy he could leave them, bequeaths peace unto them;

my peace I give unto you: he left the Gospel of peace with them, to be preached by them to all the world; which is a declaration and publication of peace made by his blood; is a means of reconciling the minds of men to God and Christ, to the truths, ordinances, and people of Christ; of relieving and giving peace to distressed minds; and which shows the way to eternal peace: and as Christ had kept his disciples in peace one with another, so he left them in peace; and left orders with them to maintain it one among another: but what seems chiefly designed here, is peace with God, which Christ is the sole author of; he was appointed in the council and covenant of peace to effect it; he became incarnate with that view, and did procure it by his sufferings and death; and as it was published by angels, when he came into the world, he left it, and gave it to his disciples when he was going out of it: or else that peace of conscience is meant, which follows upon the former, which arises from the sprinklings of the blood of Christ, and from a comfortable view, by faith, of an interest in his justifying righteousness, and is enjoyed in a way of believing, and commonly in the use of ordinances "leaving" it supposes that Christ was about to leave his disciples, but would not leave them comfortless; he leaves a Comforter with them, and bequeaths peace unto them as his last legacy: "giving" it, shows that it is not to be acquired by any thing that man can do, but is a pure free grace gift of Christ; and which being given as his legacy, is irrevocable; for the allusion is to the making of a will or testament when persons are about to die: though some have thought it refers to the custom of wishing peace, health, and prosperity, among the Jews; but Christ does not say "peace be to you"; which was the more usual form of salutation among them, and which was used by them when they met, and not at parting; especially we have no instance of such a form as here used, by dying persons taking their leaves of their relations and friends. It must indeed be owned that the phrase, "to give peace", is with them the same as to salute, or wish health and prosperity. Take two or three of their rules as instances of it;

"whoever knows his friend, that he is used ליתן לו שלום ^a, "to give him peace"; he shall prevent him with peace (i.e. salute him first), as it is said, "seek peace and pursue it"; but if he "gives" it to him, and he does not return it, he shall be called a robber.''

Again,

"^b a man may not go into the house of a stranger, on his feast day, ליתן לו שלום, "to give peace unto him" (or salute him); if he finds him in the street, he may give it to him with a low voice, and his head hanging down;''

once ^c more,

"a man לא יתן שלום, "not give peace to", or salute his master, nor return peace to him in the way that they give it to friends, and they return it to one another.''

Likewise it must be owned, that when they saluted persons of distinction, such as princes, nobles, and doctors, they repeated the word "peace" ^d, though never to any strangers; however, certain it is, that it was another sort of peace which Christ left, and gave to his disciples, than what the Jews were wont to give, or wish to one another;

not as the world giveth, give I you. The peace Christ gives is true, solid, and substantial; the peace the world, the men, and things of it give, is a false one; and whilst they cry, "peace, peace, sudden destruction is at hand": the peace of the world is at best but an external one, but the peace Christ is the giver of, is internal; the peace the world affords is a very transient, unstable, and short lived one, but the peace of Christ is lasting and durable; the peace of the world will not support under the troubles of it, but the peace which Christ gives, cheerfully carries his people through all the difficulties and exercises of this life: and as these differ in kind, so likewise in the manner of giving, and in the persons to whom they are given; the world gives peace in words only, Christ in deed; the world gives feignedly, Christ heartily; the world gives it for its own advantage, Christ for his people's sake; the world gives its peace to the men of it, to the ungodly, none to the godly, whom it hates; Christ gives his; not to the wicked, for there is no peace to them, but to the saints, the excellent in the earth. Wherefore says Christ,

let not your heart be troubled; at my departure from you, since I leave such a peace with you:

neither let it be afraid: at the dangers you may be exposed unto, and the trouble you may be exercised with; for in the midst of them all, "in me ye shall have peace", Joh 16:33.

Gill: Joh 14:28

Ye have heard how I said unto you,.... Christ had not only told his disciples that he should depart from them in a little time, but also that he should return again to them, and comfort them with his presence, and receive them to himself, to be with him in his Father's house for ever: and this he again suggests,

I go away, and come again unto you; so that they had not so much reason to be troubled and afraid, as they were: had he only said to them that he should go away, without giving any hint of his coming again, they might well have been uneasy; what made the friends of the Apostle Paul so sorrowful at his departure, was most of all, because he had signified to them they should see his face no more; but Christ assured his disciples that in a little time they should see him again, to their unspeakable joy and comfort:

if ye loved me, adds he,

ye would rejoice; not but that the disciples did truly love Christ, and their concern for the loss of his bodily presence is a proof of it; nor was their love unknown to him, nor does he call it in question, only corrects it, or rather uses means to increase it, to draw it forth aright, that it might move and run in a proper channel; they loved him, and therefore were unwilling to part with him, but this was not a pure expression of love to him, it showed too much a regard to themselves, than to the object loved; whereas had they considered things aright, since it was to his greater advantage to remove, they should rather have discovered a willingness to it, and have rejoiced at it; this would have shown pure love and unbiased affection to him: two reasons our Lord gives why they should have rejoiced at his departure; one is,

because, says he,

I said, I go unto the Father; who was not only his, but their Father also; at whose right hand he was to sit, an honour which no mere creature ever had; where he was to be glorified and exalted above all created beings; and besides, his glorification would secure and bring on theirs; as sure as he lived in glory, so sure should they; yea, they should immediately sit down in heavenly places in him, as their head and representative, and therefore had good reason to rejoice at his going away: the other is,

for my Father is greater than I: not with respect to the divine nature, which is common to them both, and in which they are both one; and the Son is equal to the Father, having the self-same essence, perfections, and glory: nor with respect to personality, the Son is equally a divine person, as the Father is, though the one is usually called the first, the other the second person; yet this priority is not of nature, which is the same in both; nor of time, for the one did not exist before the other; nor of causality, for the Father is not the cause of the Son's existence; nor of dignity, for the one has not any excellency which is wanting in the other; but of order and manner of operation: these words are to be understood, either with regard to the human nature, in which he was going to the Father, this was prepared for him by the Father, and strengthened and supported by him, and in which he was made a little lower than the angels, and consequently must be in it inferior to his Father; or with regard to his office as Mediator, in which he was the Father's servant, was set up and sent forth by him, acted under him, and in obedience to him, and was now returning to give an account of his work and service; or rather with regard to his present state, which was a state of humiliation: he was attended with many griefs and sorrows, and exposed to many enemies, and about to undergo an accursed death; whereas his Father was in the most perfect happiness and glory, and so in this sense "greater". That is, more blessed and glorious than he; for this is not a comparison of natures, or of persons, but of states and conditions: now he was going to the Father to partake of the same happiness and glory with him, to be glorified with himself, with the same glory he had with him before the foundation of the world; wherefore on this account, his disciples ought to have rejoiced, and not have mourned.

Gill: Joh 14:29

And now I have told you before it came to pass,.... This is a strong proof of his true and proper deity, for none but the omniscient God can tell of things before they come to pass; this is peculiar to him, and distinguishes him from the gods of the Gentiles; see Isa 41:22;

that when it is come to pass, ye might believe: that is, that when he was removed from them, and gone to his Father, they might then believe that he was truly God, the Son of God, the promised Messiah; and that he was then in glory, and at the right hand of God.

Gill: Joh 14:30

Hereafter I will not talk much with you,.... Meaning before his death; for after his resurrection he talked much with them, about the things pertaining to the kingdom of God; being seen of them and conversing with them, for the space of forty days; not much, he says, chiefly what is delivered in the two next chapters: the design of this was, to observe to them that his time of departure was near at hand, and to quicken their attention to what he did say to them; since they could not expect to hear him long, or much more from him; he would be otherwise engaged;

for the prince of this world cometh: by "the prince of this world", is meant the devil; why he is so called; see Gill on Joh 12:31; the reason why Christ chooses to use this circumlocution, rather than to say Satan or the devil cometh, is partly to point out what a powerful adversary he had, and was about to engage with, and partly to observe to his disciples, what they must expect from the world, even hatred and persecution; since Satan was the prince of it, and had such powerful influence over the minds of the men of it. When it is said that he cometh, it is to be understood of his coming to Christ, though it is not expressed, and that with an intent agreeably to his character, as a thief, to kill and to destroy; and not of his coming merely by Judas, into whom he had already entered, and had put it into his heart to betray him; and by the armed soldiers, who would accompany him to apprehend him; and by the chief priests, rulers, and people of the Jews, who with united voices would cry, Crucify him, Crucify him; nor only invisibly by his angels, his principalities and powers, he was now employing in different ways, to bring about his purposes; but of his coming himself personally, and visibly: as he visibly appeared to Christ in the wilderness, tempting him, where he left him for a season; so this season or opportunity being come, he takes it, and visibly appears to him in the garden, where a sharp agony and combat was between them; what success he had in this conflict, is next mentioned;

and hath nothing in me; or as some copies read it, "shall find nothing in me"; or as others, "hath nothing to find in me"; Christ had no sin in him, which can be said of none but him. The Jews say ^e, that Samuel, by whom they mean the devil, when he wrestled with Jacob, שלא מצא בו עון, "could not find any iniquity in him", he had committed; but this is only true of Jacob's antitype: for though his emissaries sought diligently for it, they could find none in him; though he had sin upon him, he had none in him; the sins of his people were imputed to him, but he had no sin inherent in him; hence, though he the Messiah was "cut off", according to Dan 9:26, "but not for himself"; which by the Septuagint is rendered και κριμα ουκ εστιν εν αυτω, "but there is no judgment" or "condemnation in him", i.e. no cause of condemnation; which agrees with what is here said: though the accuser of men sought to have something against him, to accuse him of, he could find none; some pretences indeed were made, and charges brought, but could not be made good, insomuch that the judge himself said, "I find in him no fault at all", Joh 18:38, so that the devil had no power over him, no rightful power, nor any but what he had by permission, nor indeed did he prevail over him; for though according to the first prophecy of the Messiah, Satan bruised the heel of Christ; yet Christ bruised his head, destroyed him and his works, spoiled him, and his principalities and powers; whence it appears that the death of Christ was not owing to any sin of his own, for he had none, nor could any be found in him; nor to the superior power of the devil over him; he submitted to death, not through the power of Satan over him, and complied with all the circumstances leading to it, not out of fear of him, but in love to his Father, and obedience to his command; as is clear from the following verse.

Gill: Joh 14:31

But that the world may know,.... Not the wicked and unbelieving world, but the world of God's elect, such as are brought to believe in Christ:

that I love the Father; Christ must needs love the Father, as being of the same nature and essence with him, and as standing in the relation of a son to him; he loved all that the Father loves, and approved of all his purposes, counsels, and determinations, concerning himself and the salvation of his people; and therefore he voluntarily laid down his life for them:

and as the Father gave me commandment, so I do: as a son is obedient to a father, so was Christ in all things obedient to the commands of his heavenly Father, in preaching the Gospel, obeying the law, and suffering death; all which he did and suffered, as the Father gave commandment to him, as man and Mediator: and that it might fully appear how much he loved his Father, and agreed with him in all his designs of grace; how much his will was resigned to his, and what respect he paid to whatever he said or ordered; he said to his disciples,

arise, let us go hence: not from the passover, or the supper, for the passover was not as yet, and the Lord's supper was not instituted; nor in order to go to Mount Olivet, or to the garden, where Judas and his armed men would be to meet him, and lay hold on him, as is generally thought; but from Bethany, where he and his disciples now were, in order to go to Jerusalem and keep the passover, institute the supper, and then surrender himself into the hands of his enemies, and die for the sins of his people; for between this and the sermon in the following chapters, was the Lord's supper celebrated; when Christ having mentioned the fruit of the vine, he should drink new with his disciples in his Father's kingdom, he very pertinently enters upon the discourse concerning the vine and branches, with which the next chapter begins: the phrase is Jewish; so R. Jose and R. Chiyah say to one another as they sat, קום וניהך, "arise, and let us go hence" ^f.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Joh 14:15

¹ tn Or “will keep.”

² sn Jesus’ statement If you love me, you will obey my commandments provides the transition between the promises of answered prayer which Jesus makes to his disciples in vv. 13-14 and the promise of the Holy Spirit which is introduced in v. 16. Obedience is the proof of genuine love.

NET Notes: Joh 14:16

¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “Then” to reflect the implied sequence in the discourse.

² tn Or “Helper” or “Counselor”; Grk “Paraclete,” from the Greek word παράκλητος (paraklhto"). Finding an appropriate English translation for παράκλητος is a very difficult task. No single English word has exactly the same range of meaning as the Greek word. “Comforter,” used by some of the older English versions, appears to be as old as Wycliffe. But today it suggests a quilt or a sympathetic mourner at a funeral. “Counselor” is adequate, but too broad, in contexts like “marriage counselor” or “camp counselor.” “Helper” or “Assistant” could also be used, but could suggest a subordinate rank. “Advocate,” the word chosen for this translation, has more forensic overtones than the Greek word does, although in John 16:5-11 a forensic context is certainly present. Because an “advocate” is someone who “advocates” or supports a position or viewpoint and since this is what the Paraclete will do for the preaching of the disciples, it was selected in spite of the drawbacks.

NET Notes: Joh 14:17

¹ tn Or “cannot receive.”

² tn Or “he remains.”

³ tc Some early and important witnesses (Ì^66* B D* W 1 565 it) have ἐστιν (estin, “he is”) instead of ἔσται (estai, “he will be”) here, while other weighty witnesses ({Ì^66c,75vid א A D¹ L Θ Ψ Ë¹³ 33^vid Ï as well as several versions and fathers}), read the future tense. When one considers transcriptional evidence, ἐστιν is the more difficult reading and better explains the rise of the future tense reading, but it must be noted that both Ì⁶⁶ and D were corrected from the present tense to the future. If ἐστιν were the original reading, one would expect a few manuscripts to be corrected to read the present when they originally read the future, but that is not the case. When one considers what the author would have written, the future is on much stronger ground. The immediate context (both in 14:16 and in the chapter as a whole) points to the future, and the theology of the book regards the advent of the Spirit as a decidedly future event (see, e.g., 7:39 and 16:7). The present tense could have arisen from an error of sight on the part of some scribes or more likely from an error of thought as scribes reflected upon the present role of the Spirit. Although a decision is difficult, the future tense is most likely authentic. For further discussion on this textual problem, see James M. Hamilton, Jr., “He Is with You and He Will Be in You” (Ph.D. diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2003), 213-20.

NET Notes: Joh 14:18

¹ tn Or “leave.”

² tn The entire phrase “abandon you as orphans” could be understood as an idiom meaning, “leave you helpless.”

³ sn I will come to you. Jesus had spoken in 14:3 of going away and coming again to his disciples. There the reference was both to the parousia (the second coming of Christ) and to the postresurrection appearances of Jesus to the disciples. Here the postresurrection appearances are primarily in view, since Jesus speaks of the disciples “seeing” him after the world can “see” him no longer in the following verse. But many commentators have taken v. 18 as a reference to the coming of the Spirit, since this has been the topic of the preceding verses. Still, vv. 19-20 appear to contain references to Jesus’ appearances to the disciples after his resurrection. It may well be that another Johannine double meaning is found here, so that Jesus ‘returns’ to his disciples in one sense in his appearances to them after his resurrection, but in another sense he ‘returns’ in the person of the Holy Spirit to indwell them.

NET Notes: Joh 14:19

¹ tn Grk “Yet a little while, and.”

NET Notes: Joh 14:20

¹ tn Grk “will know in that day.”

sn At that time could be a reference to the parousia (second coming of Christ). But the statement in 14:19, that the world will not see Jesus, does not fit. It is better to take this as the postresurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples (which has the advantage of taking in a little while in v. 19 literally).

NET Notes: Joh 14:21

¹ tn Or “keeps.”

² tn Grk “obeys them, that one is the one who loves me.”

³ tn Grk “And the one.” Here the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated to improve the English style.

⁴ tn Or “will disclose.”

NET Notes: Joh 14:22

¹ tn Grk “(not Iscariot).” The proper noun (Judas) has been repeated for clarity and smoothness in English style.

sn This is a parenthetical comment by the author.

² tn Grk “said to him.”

³ tn Or “disclose.”

sn The disciples still expected at this point that Jesus, as Messiah, was going to reveal his identity as such to the world (cf. 7:4).

NET Notes: Joh 14:23

¹ tn Grk “answered and said to him.”

² tn Or “will keep.”

³ tn Grk “we will come to him and will make our dwelling place with him.” The context here is individual rather than corporate indwelling, so the masculine singular pronoun has been retained throughout v. 23. It is important to note, however, that the pronoun is used generically here and refers equally to men, women, and children.

NET Notes: Joh 14:24

¹ tn Or “does not keep.”

² tn Or “the message.”

NET Notes: Joh 14:25

¹ tn Or “while remaining” or “while residing.”

NET Notes: Joh 14:26

¹ tn Or “Helper” or “Counselor”; Grk “Paraclete,” from the Greek word παράκλητος (paraklhto"). See the note on the word “Advocate” in v. 16 for a discussion of how this word is translated.

² tn Grk “that one will teach you.” The words “that one” have been omitted from the translation since they are redundant in English.

³ tn Grk “all things.”

⁴ tn Grk “all things.”

NET Notes: Joh 14:27

¹ sn Peace I leave with you. In spite of appearances, this verse does not introduce a new subject (peace). Jesus will use the phrase as a greeting to his disciples after his resurrection (20:19, 21, 26). It is here a reflection of the Hebrew shalom as a farewell. But Jesus says he leaves peace with his disciples. This should probably be understood ultimately in terms of the indwelling of the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, who has been the topic of the preceding verses. It is his presence, after Jesus has left the disciples and finally returned to the Father, which will remain with them and comfort them.

² tn The pronoun “it” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied. Direct objects in Greek were often omitted when clear from the context.

³ tn Grk “not as the world gives do I give to you.”

⁴ tn Or “distressed or fearful and cowardly.”

NET Notes: Joh 14:28

¹ tn Or “You have heard that I said to you.”

² tn Or “you would rejoice.”

³ sn Jesus’ statement the Father is greater than I am has caused much christological and trinitarian debate. Although the Arians appealed to this text to justify their subordinationist Christology, it seems evident that by the fact Jesus compares himself to the Father, his divine nature is taken for granted. There have been two orthodox interpretations: (1) The Son is eternally generated while the Father is not: Origen, Tertullian, Athanasius, Hilary, etc. (2) As man the incarnate Son was less than the Father: Cyril of Alexandria, Ambrose, Augustine. In the context of the Fourth Gospel the second explanation seems more plausible. But why should the disciples have rejoiced? Because Jesus was on the way to the Father who would glorify him (cf. 17:4-5); his departure now signifies that the work the Father has given him is completed (cf. 19:30). Now Jesus will be glorified with that glory that he had with the Father before the world was (cf. 17:5). This should be a cause of rejoicing to the disciples because when Jesus is glorified he will glorify his disciples as well (17:22).

NET Notes: Joh 14:29

¹ sn Jesus tells the disciples that he has told them all these things before they happen, so that when they do happen the disciples may believe. This does not mean they had not believed prior to this time; over and over the author has affirmed that they have (cf. 2:11). But when they see these things happen, their level of trust in Jesus will increase and their concept of who he is will expand. The confession of Thomas in 20:28 is representative of this increased understanding of who Jesus is. Cf. John 13:19.

NET Notes: Joh 14:30

¹ tn Grk “I will no longer speak many things with you.”

² sn The ruler of this world is a reference to Satan.

³ tn Grk “in me he has nothing.”

NET Notes: Joh 14:31

¹ tn Or “may learn.”

² tn Grk “But so that the world may know that I love the Father, and just as the Father commanded me, thus I do.” The order of the clauses has been rearranged in the translation to conform to contemporary English style.

³ sn Some have understood Jesus’ statement Get up, let us go from here to mean that at this point Jesus and the disciples got up and left the room where the meal was served and began the journey to the garden of Gethsemane. If so, the rest of the Farewell Discourse took place en route. Others have pointed to this statement as one of the “seams” in the discourse, indicating that the author used preexisting sources. Both explanations are possible, but not really necessary. Jesus could simply have stood up at this point (the disciples may or may not have stood with him) to finish the discourse before finally departing (in 18:1). In any case it may be argued that Jesus refers not to a literal departure at this point, but to preparing to meet the enemy who is on the way already in the person of Judas and the soldiers with him.

Geneva Bible: Joh 14:15

^{( 6 )} If ye love me, keep my commandments.

^{( 6 )} He loves Christ rightly who obeys his commandment: and because obedience to Christ is accompanied with an infinite type and amount of miseries, although he is absent in body, yet he comforts his own with the present power of the Holy Spirit, whom the world despises, because it does not know him.

Geneva Bible: Joh 14:17

[Even] the ^{( g )} Spirit of truth; whom the ^{( h )} world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

^{( g )} The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of truth by reason of that which he does, because he inspires the truth into us, because he has the truth in himself.

^{( h )} Worldly men.

Geneva Bible: Joh 14:20

At that day ye shall know that I [am] ^{( i )} in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

^{( i )} The Son is in the Father in such a way that he is of one selfsame substance with the Father, but he is in his disciples in a different way, as an aider and helper of them.

Geneva Bible: Joh 14:21

He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will ^{( k )} manifest myself to him.

^{( k )} I will show myself to him, and be known by him, as if he saw me with his eyes: but this showing of himself is not bodily, but spiritual, yet so plain that no other showing could be more evident.

Geneva Bible: Joh 14:22

^{( 7 )} Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?

^{( 7 )} We must not ask why the gospel is revealed to some rather than to others, but we must rather take heed that we embrace Christ who is offered unto us, and that we truly love him, that is to say, that we give ourselves wholly to obeying him.

Geneva Bible: Joh 14:25

^{( 8 )} These things have I spoken unto you, being [yet] present with you.

^{( 8 )} It is the duty and responsibility of the Holy Spirit to imprint in the minds of the elect, in their times and seasons, that which Christ once said.

Geneva Bible: Joh 14:27

^{( 9 )} Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

^{( 9 )} All true comfort and peace comes to us by Christ alone.

Geneva Bible: Joh 14:28

^{( 10 )} Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come [again] unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is ^{( l )} greater than I.

^{( 10 )} We should in no way be sorry for the departing of Christ from us according to the flesh, but rather we should rejoice in it, seeing that all the blessing of the body depends upon the glorifying of the head.

^{( l )} This is spoken in that Christ is mediator, for in this regard the Father is greater than he, in as much as the person to whom request is made is greater than he that makes the request.

Geneva Bible: Joh 14:30

^{( 11 )} Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath ^{( m )} nothing in me.

^{( 11 )} Christ goes to death not unwillingly, but willingly, not that he is yielding to the devil, but rather that he is obeying his Father's decree.

^{( m )} As one would say, "Satan will eventually set upon me with all the might he can, but he has no power over me, neither will he find any such thing in me as he thinks he will."

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Joh 14:1-31

1 Christ comforts his disciples with the hope of heaven;

5 professes himself the way, the truth, and the life, and one with the Father;

13 assures their prayers to be effectual;

15 requires obedience;

16 promises the Comforter;

27 and leaves his peace with them.

Combined Bible: Joh 14:12-20

of the Gospel of John   

CHAPTER 49   

Christ Comforting His Disciples (Continued)   

John 14:12-20   

Below is an Analysis of the passage which is to be before us:—   

1. Christ’ s cause furthered by His return to the Father, verse 12.  

2. Praying in the name of Christ, verses 13, 14.  

3. Love evidenced by obedience, verse 15.  

4. The coming of the Comforter, verses 16, 17.  

5. Christians not left orphans, verse 18.  

6. Our life secured by Christ’ s, verse 19.  

7. Knowledge of Divine life in believers, verse 20.  

At first reading there does not appear to be much direct connection between the several verses of our present passage. This second section of John 14 seems to lack a central unity. Yet, as we read it more attentively, we notice that both John 14:13 and John 14:16 open with the word "And," which at once makes us suspect that our first hasty impression needs correcting. The fact is that the more closely this Paschal Discourse of Christ be studied, the more shall we perceive the close connection which one part of it sustains to another, and many important lessons will be learned by noting the relation which verse has to verse.  

The first verse of our passage opens with the remarkable promise that the apostles of Christ should do even greater works than their Master had done. Then, in the next two verses reference is made to prayer, and the fact that these are prefaced with the word "And" at once indicates that there is an intimate relation between the doing of these works and the supplicating of God. This is the more striking if we recall the central thing in the former section. The opening verse of John 14 is a call to faith in Christ, and the closing verse (11) repeats it. Following the word upon prayer, the Lord next said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15). Here we seem to lose the thread again, for apparently a new subject is most abruptly introduced. But only seemingly so, for, in truth, it is just here that we discover the progress of thought. The faith and the praying (the two essential pre-requisites for the doing of the "greater works") have their root in an already existing love, which is now to be evidenced by pleasing its Object. What comes next? The promise of "another Comforter." Surely this is most suggestive. It was only by the coming of the Holy Spirit that the apostles’ faith in Christ was established, that power was communicated for the performing of mighty works, and that their love was purified and deepened. Thus we have a most striking example of the importance and value of studying closely the connection of a passage and noting the relation of one verse to another.  

Having remarked upon the relation between the verses of our present passage, let a brief word be said upon the connection which exists between it as a whole and the first section of John 14. The Lord began by saying, "Let not your heart be troubled." All that followed was the assigning of various reasons why the apostles should not be so excessively perturbed at the prospect of His approaching departure. He began, by setting before them three chief grounds of comfort: He was going to the Father’ s House of many mansions. He was going there to prepare a place for them. When His preparations were complete, He would come for them in person to conduct them to Heaven, so that His place might be theirs forever. Then He had been interrupted by the question of Thomas and the request of Philip, and in response He had stated with great plainness the truth concerning both His person and His mission. Now, in the section before us, the Lord brings forward further reasons why the sorrowing disciples should not let their hearts be troubled. These additional grounds of consolation will come before us in the course of our exposition.  

Though the Lord continues in this second section of His Discourse what He began in the first, yet there is a striking advance to be noted. At the beginning of John 14, Christ had referred to what the apostles should have known, namely, that the Son on earth had perfectly declared the Father, and this ought to have been the means of their apprehending whither He was going. This they knew (John 14:4), however dull they might be in perceiving the consequences. But now the Lord discloses to them that which they could not understand till the Holy Spirit was given. It was by the descent of the Comforter that they would be guided into all truth. It was by the Holy Spirit that Christ would come to them (John 14:18). And it was by the Spirit they would know that Christ was in the Father, and they in Him and He in them. The Lord did not say that they ought to have understood, even then, these things: the apprehension of them would not be until the day of Pentecost.  

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also" (John 14:12). The "works" of which Christ here spake were His miraculous works, the same as those mentioned in the two preceding verses, works to which He appealed as proofs of His Divine person and mission. The one to whom Christ promised this was "He that believeth on me." Some have understood this to refer to all the genuine followers of Christ. But this is manifestly wrong, for there is no Christian on earth today who can do the miracles which Christ did— cleanse the leper, give sight to the blind, raise the dead. To meet this difficulty it has been replied, This is due to a deficiency in the Christian’ s faith. But, this is simply a begging of the question. Our Lord did not say, "He that believeth on me may do the works that I do, but shall do!" But of whom, then, was Christ speaking?  

We submit that "He that believeth on me," like the expression "them that believe" in Mark 16:17, of whom it was said certain miraculous signs should follow them, refers to a particular class of persons, and that these expressions must be modified by their reference and setting. In each case the promise was limited to those whom our Lord was addressing. "The only safe way of interpreting the whole of this Discourse, and many other passages in the Gospels, is to remember that it was addressed to the apostles— that everything in it has a direct reference to them— that much that is said of them, and to them, may be said of, and to, all Christian ministers, all Christian men— but that much that is said of them and to them, cannot be truly said either of the one or the other of these classes, and that the propriety of applying what is applicable to them, must be grounded on some other foundation than its being found in this Discourse.  

"It is plain from the New Testament that there was a faith which was specially connected with miraculous powers. This faith was that Christ is possessed of omnipotence, and that He intends, through my instrumentality, to manifest His omnipotence in the performance of a miracle. But, this faith, like all faith, must rest on a Divine revelation made to the individual; where this is not the case, there can be no faith— there may be fancy, there may be presumption, but there can be no faith. Such a revelation Christ made to the apostles and to the seventy disciples, when He said ‘ Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means hurt you’ (Luke 10:19). No man, to whom such a revelation has not been made, can work such miracles, and it would seem that even in the case of those to whom such a revelation was made, a firm belief of the revelation and reliance on the power and faithfulness of Him who made it, was necessary to the miracles being effectively produced in any particular instance.  

"Keeping these undoubted facts in view, there is little difficulty in interpreting Christ’ s words here. The disciples had derived great advantage of various kinds from the exercise of their Master’ s power to work miracles. They were quite aware that if He should leave them, not only would they be deprived of the advantage of His superior powers, but that their own, which were entirely dependent on Him, would be withdrawn also. Now our Lord assures them in the most emphatic manner, by a repetition of the formula of affirmation, ‘ Verily, verily, I say unto you,’ that His miraculous power was to continue to be exercised through them as a medium, and that, to its being exercised henceforth, as hitherto, faith in Him, on their part, would be at once necessary and effectual. Such a statement was obviously calculated to reassure their shaken minds, and comfort their sorrowing hearts. And we find the declaration was filled to the letter. They, believing on Him, did the works which He did. We find them, like Him, instantaneously healing the sick, casting out demons, and raising the dead" (Dr. John Brown). Hebrews 2:4 records the fulfillment of Christ’ s promise: "God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit."  

"And greater than these shall he do" (John 14:12). It is important to note that the word "works" in the second clause is not found in the original. We do not think Christ was now referring to miracles in the technical sense of that term, but to something else which, in magnitude and importance, would exceed t, he miracle done by Himself and the apostles. "Greater things would be better. What these greater things were it is not difficult to determine. The preaching of a risen and exalted Savior, the proclaiming of the Gospel to "every creature," the turning of souls from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to the service of the living God, the causing of heathen to demolish with their own hands the temples of idolatry, the building of that temple of living stones of which Christ is both the foundation and the chief-corner, and which far surpassed the temple at Jerusalem— these things were far greater than any interferences with the course of nature’ s laws. Thus did the Father honor His Son, owning the perfect work which He had done, by the greater wonders which the Holy Spirit effected through the disciples.  

"Because I go unto my Father" (John 14:12). It is important to note how that in this "because" the Lord Jesus has Himself given us a partial explanation here of how His promise would be made good, though it is largely lost by placing a full stop at the end of John 14:12. If we read straight on through John 14:13 the Savior’ s explanation is the more apparent: "Greater things than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father, And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do." Christ would henceforth give to their prayers power from on high, so that what they did, He would do in and through them. Thus, in His "seed" was the pleasure of the Lord to prosper (Isa. 53:10). If the full stop be insisted on and its force rigidly pressed, John 14:12 would then teach that, the disciples must now continue to work in the place of their Lord the still greater things, because He Himself was no longer there. But this is obviously wrong. He left them, it is true; but He also returned to indwell them (John 14:18), and in this way came the harvest of His own seed-sowing. "And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labor’ " (4:37, 38). Link John 14:13 with John 14:12 and all is plain and simple: thus connected we are taught that the greater things done by the apostles were, in reality, done by Christ Himself! As Mark 16:20 tells us, "And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them." But what He did was in answer to their believing prayers!  

"And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son" (John 14:13). The connection of this with the whole context is very precious. Let it be kept steadily in mind that Christ was here comforting His disciples, who were troubled at the prospect of His leaving them, and that He was calling them to an increased confidence in Himself. In the previous verse He had just assured them that His cause would not suffer by His return to the Father, for even greater things should be done through and by them as a testimony of His glory. Now He reminds them that His corporeal absence would only unite these apostles to Him more intimately and more effectually in a spiritual way. True, He would be in Heaven, and they on earth, but prayer could remove all sense of distance, prayer could bring them into His very presence at any time, yea, prayer was all-essential if they were to do these "greater" things. And had he not already given them a perfect example? Had He not shown them that there was an intimate connection between the great works which He had done and the prayers which He had offered to the Father? Had they not heard Him repeatedly "ask" the Father (see John 6:11; 11:41; 12:28, etc.)? Then let them do likewise. He was interpreting His own words at the beginning of this Discourse: "Believe also in me." Faith in His person was now to be manifested by prayer in His name!  

"If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it" (John 14:14). Very blessed is this. The disciples were invited to count upon a power that could not fail, if sought aright. Christ was no mere man whose departure must necessarily bring to an end what He was wont to do upon earth. Though absent, He would manifest His Deity by granting their petitions: whatsoever they asked He would do. All power in Heaven is His. The Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son (John 5:22) and in the exercise of this power He gives His own whatsoever they need.  

"If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it." What is meant by asking in the name of Christ? Certainly it is much more than the mere putting of His name at the end of our prayers, or simply saying, "Hear me for Jesus’ sake." First, it means that we pray in His person, that is, as standing in His place, as fully identified with Him, asking by virtue of our very union with Himself. When we truly ask in the name of Christ, He is the real petitioner. Second, it means, therefore, that we plead before God the merits of His blessed Son. When men use another’ s name as the authority of their approach or the ground of their appeal, the one of whom the request is made looks beyond him who presented the petition to the one for whose sake he grants the request. So, in all reverence we may say, when we truly ask in the name of Christ, the Father looks past us, and sees the Son as the real suppliant. Third, it means that we pray only for that which is according to His perfections and what will be for His glory. When we do anything in another’ s name, it is for him we do it. When we take possession of a property in the name of some society, it is not for any private advantage, but for the society’ s good. When an officer collects taxes in the name of the government, it is not in order to fill his own pockets. Yet how constantly do we overlook this principle as an obvious condition of acceptable prayer! To pray in Christ’ s name is to seek what He seeks, to promote what He has at heart!  

"If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it." From what has been said above it will be seen that Christ was very far from handing His disciples a ‘ blank check’ (as some have expressed it), leaving them to fill it in and assuring them that God would honor it because it bore His Son’ s signature. Equally so is it a carnal delusion to suppose that a Christian has only to work himself up to an expectation to suppose that God will hear his prayer, in order to obtain what he asks for. To apply to God for any thing in the name of Christ, the petition must be in keeping with what Christ is. We can only rightly ask God for that which will magnify His Son. To ask in the name of Christ is, therefore, to set aside our own will, and bow to the perfect will of God. If only we realized this more, what a check it would be on our ofttimes rash and illconsidered requests! How many of our prayers would never be offered did we but pause to inquire, Can I present this in that Name which is above every name?  

Not what I wish, but what I want,  

O let Thy grace supply;  

The good unasked, in mercy grant,  

The ill, though asked, deny.  

— Cowper.  

"If ye love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15). There seems to be a most abrupt change of subject here, and many have been puzzled in finding the connection. Let us first go back to the opening verse of our chapter. The apostles were troubled at heart at the prospect of their Master’ s departure, and this evidenced, unmistakably, their deep affection for Him. Here, with tender faithfulness, He directs their affection. Your love for Me is to be manifested not by inconsolable regrets, but by a glad and prompt compliance with My commandments. So much is clear; but what of the link with the more immediate context? In seeking the answer to this, let us ask, "What is the leading subject of the context?" This, as we have seen, is a call to faith in an ascended Christ: in the previous verse, a faith evidenced by praying in His name. Now He says, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." Surely then the answer is plain: love is the spring of true faith and the goal of real prayer. "If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it" He had just said, and this that the Father might be glorified in the Son. For what, then, shall we ask? is the natural inquiry which is now suggested? Here then is our Lord’ s response: an increase of/ore (in myself and in all who are Christ’ s) which will evidence itself by doing His will. Unless this be the first and foremost desire of our hearts, all other petitions will remain unanswered. "And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight" (1 John 3:22).  

"All sentimental talking and singing about love are vain. Unless, by grace, we show a truthful obedience, the profession of affection is worse than affectation. There is more hypocrisy than we suppose. Love is practical, or it is not love at all" (Mr. P. W. Heward).  

"If ye love me, keep my commandments." How this verse rebukes the increasing Antinomianism of our day! In some circles one cannot use the word "commandments" without being frowned upon as a "legalist." Multitudes are now being taught that Law is the enemy of Grace, and that the God of Sinai is a stern and forbidding Deity, laying upon His creatures a yoke grievous to be borne. Terrible travesty of the. truth is this. The One who wrote upon the tables of stone is none other than the One who died on Calvary’ s Cross; and He who here says "If ye love me, Keep My Commandments" also said at Sinai that He would show mercy unto thousands of them "that love me and Keep My Commandments"! It is indeed striking to note that this tender Savior, who was here comforting His sorrowing disciples, also maintained His Divine majesty and insisted upon the recognition of His Divine authority. Mark how His Deity appears here: "Keep my commandments": we never read of Moses or any of the prophets speaking of their commandments!  

"If ye love me, keep my commandments." What are Christ’ s commandments? We will let another answer: "The whole revelation of the Divine will, respecting what I am to believe and feel and do and suffer, contained in the Holy Scriptures is the law of Christ. Both volumes of Christ are the work of the Spirit of Christ. His first and great commandment is: ‘ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and soul, and strength’ ; and the second great commandment is like unto the first: ‘ Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ The commandments of Christ include whatever is good and whatever God hath required of us" (Dr. John Brown) That the One who brought Israel out of Egypt, led them across the wilderness, and gave them the Law, was Christ Himself, is clear from 1 Corinthians 10:9: "Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents" (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:4).  

"Obedience to the commandments of Christ is the test of love to Him, and there will be no difficulty in applying the test, if there be only an honest desire to have the question fairly settled; for there are certain qualities of obedience, which are to be found in every lover of Christ, and which are never found in any one else, and it is to these we must attend, if we would know what is our character. Every lover of Christ keeps His commandments implicitly: that is, he does what he does because Christ bids him. The doing what Christ commands may be agreeable to my inclinations or conducive to my interest; and if it is on these grounds I do it, I serve myself, not the Lord Jesus Christ. What Christ commands may be commanded by those whose authority I acknowledge and whose favor I wish to secure; if I do it on these grounds, I keep man’ s commandments, not Christ’ s. I keep Christ’ s commandments only when I do what He bids me because He bids me. If I love Christ, I shall keep His commandments impartially. If I do anything because Christ commands me to do it, I shall do whatever He commands. I shall not ‘ pick and choose.’ If I love Christ, I shall keep His commandments cheerfully. I shall esteem it a privilege to obey His law. The thought that they are the commandments of Him whom I love, because of His excellency and kindness, makes me love His law, for it must be excellent because it is His, and it must be fitted to promote my happiness for the same reason. If I love Christ I shall keep His commandments perseveringly. If I really love Him I can never cease to love Him, and if I never cease to love Him, I shall never cease to obey Him" (Condensed from Dr. John Brown).  

"And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever" (John 14:16). Note that this verse begins with "And." In the previous one the Lord had been speaking of the disciples’ love for Him, marked by an obedient walk. Here He reveals His love for them, evidenced by His asking for One who should shed abroad the love of God in their hearts (Rom. 5:5) and thus empower them to keep His commandments! Until now Christ had been their Comforter, but He was going to leave them; therefore does He ask the Father that another Comforter should be given to them. Here, again, we behold the Savior loving them "unto the end"! There is also a blessed link of connection between this verse and verses 13, 14. There the Lord had taught them to "ask in His name," and in Luke 11:13, He had told them that the Father would give the Holy Spirit if they "asked for him." But here Christ is before them: His prayer precedes theirs— He would "ask" the Father for the Comforter to be sent unto them.  

There has been a great deal of learned jargon written on the precise meaning of the Greek word here rendered "Comforter." Personally, we believe that no better term can be found, providing the original meaning of our English word be kept in mind. Comforter means more than Consoler. It is derived from two Latin words, corn "along side of" and fortis "strong." A comforter is one who stands alongside of one in need, to strengthen. The reference here is, of course, to the Holy Spirit, and the fact that He is termed "another Comforter" signifies that He was to fill the place of Christ, doing for His disciples all that He had done for them while He was with them on earth, only that the Holy Spirit would minister from within as Christ had from without. The Holy Spirit would comfort, or strengthen in a variety of respects: consolation when they were cast down, grace when they were weak or timid, guidance when they were perplexed, etc. The fact that the Lord here called the Holy Spirit "another Comforter" also proves Him to be a person, and a Divine person. It is striking to observe that in this verse we have mentioned each of the three Persons of the blessed Trinity: "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter"! One other thought suggested by the "another Comforter." The believer has two Comforters, Helpers or Strengtheners: the Holy Spirit on earth, and Christ in Heaven, for the same Greek word here rendered "Comforter" is translated "Advocate" in 1 John 2:l,— an "advocate" is one who aids, pleads the cause of his client. Christ "maketh intercession" for us on High (Heb. 7:25), the Holy Spirit within us (Rom. 8:26)! And this other "Comforter," be it noted, was to abide with them not just so long as they grieved Him not, but "for ever." Thus is the eternal preservation of every believer Divinely assured.  

"Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him" (John 14:17). The Lord had just promised the apostles "another Comforter," that is, One like unto Himself and in addition to Himself. Here He warns them against expecting a visible Person. The One who should come is "the Spirit." Two thoughts are suggested by the title here given Him: "the Spirit of truth," or more literally, "the Spirit of the truth." The "truth" is used both of the incarnate and the written Word. Christ had said to the disciples, "I am the way, the truth, and the life"; a little later He would say to the Father, in their hearing, "Thy Word is truth" (John 17:17). The Spirit, then, is the Spirit of Christ, because sent by Him (John 16:7), and because He is here to glorify Christ (John 16:14). The Spirit is also the Spirit of the written Word, because He moved men to write it (2 Pet. 1:21), and because He now interprets it (John 16:13). Hitherto Christ had been their Teacher; henceforth the Holy Spirit should take His place (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit works not independently of the written Word, but through and by means of it.  

"Whom the world cannot receive." Very solemn is this. It is not "will not," but cap, not receive. Unable to receive the Spirit "the world" demonstrates its real character— opposed to the Father (1 John 2:16). The whole world lieth in the wicked one (1 John 5:19), and he is a liar from the beginning: how then could the world receive "the Spirit of truth"? Our Lord adds another reason, "because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him." But what did the Lord mean? How can the invisible Spirit be seen? 1 Corinthians 2:14 tells us: "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." It is spiritual "seeing" which is in view, as in John 6:40. And why cannot those who are of the "world" see Him? Because they have never been born again: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." And why should the Lord have made this statement here? Surely for the comfort of the disciples. "Another Comforter" had been promised them; One who should abide with them for ever;, even the Spirit of Truth. What glorious conquests might they now expect to make for Christ! Ah! the Lord warns them of what would really take place: "the world" would not, could not, receive Him.  

"But ye know him: for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you" (John 14:17). "But" points a contrast: indicating at once that the work of the Spirit would be to separate the people of Christ from the world. "He dwelleth with you": He did, even then, for Christ was full of the Spirit (Luke 4:1; John 3:34). "And shall be in you" was future. The Lord Jesus here promised that the Third Person of the Holy Trinity should take up His abode within believers, making their bodies His temple. Marvellous grace was this. But, on what ground does the Holy Spirit enter and indwell the Christian? Not because of any personal fitness which He discovers there, for the old evil nature still remains in the believer. How, then, is it possible for the Holy Spirit to dwell where sin is still present? It is of the first moment that we obtain the correct answer to this, for multitudes are confused thereon: yet there is no excuse for this; the teaching of Scripture is abundantly clear. Jehovah of old, dwelt in the midst of Israel, even when they were stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart. He did so on the ground of atoning blood (see Leviticus 16:16). In like manner, the Holy Spirit indwells the believer now, as the witness to the excellency and sufficiency of that one offering of Christ’ s which has "perfected for ever them that are set apart" (Heb. 10:14). Strikingly was this foreshadowed in the types. The "oil" (emblem of the Holy Spirit) was placed upon the blood— see Leviticus 8:24, 30; Leviticus 14:14, 17, etc.  

"I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you" (John 14:18). ‘ The marginal rendering here is to be preferred: "I will not leave you orphans." It looks back to John 13:33 where the Lord had addressed them as "little children". They were not to be like sheep without a shepherd, helpless believers in a hostile world, without a defender, forsaken orphans incapable of providing for themselves, left to the mercy of strangers. "I will come to you": how precious is this! Before we go to His place to be with Him (John 14:2, 3), He comes to be with us! But what is meant by "I will come to you"? We believe that these words are to be understood in their widest latitude. He came to them corporeally, immediately after His resurrection. He came to them in spirit after His ascension. He will come to them in glory at His second advent. The present application of this promise to believers finds its fulfillment in the gift of the Holy Spirit indwelling us individually, present in the midst of the assembly collectively. And yet we must not limit the coming of Christ to His children to the presence of the Holy Spirit. The mystery of the Holy Trinity is altogether beyond the grasp of our finite minds. Yet the New Testament makes it clear that in the unity of the Godhead, the advent of the Holy Spirit was also Christ coming, invisibly, to be really present with His own. "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20). "Christ liveth in me," said the apostle Paul (Gal. 2:20). "Christ among you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27). How unspeakably blessed is this! Friends, relatives, yea, professing Christians may turn against us, but He has promised, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee" (Heb. 13:5).  

"Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more" (John 14:19). The last time "the world" saw the Lord of glory was as He hung upon the Cross of shame. After His resurrection He appeared unto none but His own. "The world seeth me no more" is not an accurate translation, nor is it true. "The world" shall see Him again. "Yet a little while and the world me no longer sees" is what the original says, "Every eye shall see him" (Rev. 1:7). When? When He is seated upon the Great White Throne to judge the wicked. Then shall they be punished with "everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power" (2 Thess. 1:9).  

"But ye see me" (John 14:19). They saw Him then, while He was speaking to them. They saw Him, again and again, after He had risen from the dead. They saw Him, as He went up to Heaven, till a cloud received Him out of their sight. They saw Him, by faith, after He had taken His seat at the right hand of God, for it is written, "We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor" (Heb. 2:9). They see Him now, for they are present with the Lord. They shall see Him at His second coming: "When he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). They shall see Him for ever and ever throughout the Perfect Day: for it is written, "And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads" (Rev. 22:4).  

"Because I live, ye shall live also" (John 14:19). "Your spiritual life now, and your eternal life hereafter, are both secured by My life. I live, have life in Myself, can never die, can never have My life destroyed by My enemies, and shall live on to all eternity. Therefore: ye shall live also— your life is secured forever, and can never be destroyed; you have everlasting life now, and shall have everlasting glory hereafter" (Bishop Ryle). The blessed truth here expressed by Christ is developed at length in the Epistles: there the Holy Spirit shows us, believers are so absolutely one with Christ that they partake with Him of that holy happy life into which, in the complete enjoyment of it, Christ entered, when He rose again and sat down on the Father’ s Throne.  

"At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you" (John 14:20). The first reference in "that day" is to Pentecost, when Christ came, spiritually, to His disciples; came not merely to visit, but to abide with and in them. Then were they brought into the consciousness of their oneness of life with Him. The ultimate reference, no doubt, is to the Day of His glorious manifestation: then shall we know even as we are known.  

The following questions are on the closing section of John 14:—   

1. How does Christ "manifest" Himself to us, verse 21?  

2. What is the difference between "commandments" in verse 21 and "words" in verse 23?  

3. What is the double "peace" of verse 27?  

4. How is the Father "greater" than Christ, verse 28?  

5. "Believe" what, verse 29?  

6. What is the meaning of verse 30?  

7. What is the spiritual significance of the last clause in verse 31?  

  

Combined Bible: Joh 14:21-31

of the Gospel of John   

CHAPTER 50   

Christ Comforting His Disciples (Concluded)   

John 14:21-31   

The following is an Analysis of the closing section of John 14:  

1. Christ manifested to the believer, verse 21.  

2. The quandary of Judas, verse 22.  

3. Christ’ s explanation, verses 23-25.  

4. The ministry of the Spirit, verse 26.  

5. The gift of Christ’ s peace, verse 27.  

6. The failure in the disciples’ love, verses 28-29.  

7. The coming conflict, verses 30-31.  

That the central design of Christ in the first main section of this Paschal Discourse was to comfort His sorrowing disciples, and that this section does not close until we reach the end of John 14 is clear from verse 27: "Let not your heart be troubled." The Lord here repeats what He had said in the first verse, and then adds, "neither let it be afraid." That the first section of the Discourse does terminate at the close of the chapter, is obvious from its final words: "Arise, let us go hence."  

Many and varied were the grounds of comfort which the Lord had laid before the apostles. First, He assured them that He was going to the Father’ s House. Second, that He would make provision for their coming there. Third, that when the necessary preparations were completed, He would come and conduct them thither. Fourth, that He had opened the way for them, had made them acquainted with the way, and would give them the energy necessary to go along that way. Fifth, that He would not withdraw from them the miraculous powers which He had conferred upon them, but would enable them to do still greater things. Sixth, that whatever they needed for the discharge of the work to which He had called them, on asking in His name, they should assuredly obtain. Seventh, that a Divine Person should be sent to supply His place, acting as their instructor, guide, protector and consoler. Eighth, that they should not be "left orphans," but He would return to them in possession of an endless life, of which they should be partakers. Ninth, that in a soon-coming day they should apprehend the oneness of life, shared by the Father and the Son and the sons.  

In the passage which is to be before us we find the Lord adding to these grounds of comfort. Tenth, He would manifest Himself to those who kept His commandments. Eleventh, those who kept His Word should be loved by the Father. Twelfth, the Holy Spirit would bring back to their remembrance all things Christ had said unto them. Thirteenth, Peace He left with them. Fourteenth, His own peace He bequeathed unto them. No wonder that He said, "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid"!  

"He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him" (John 14:21). In this instance we shall depart from our customary method of expounding the different clauses of a verse in the order in which they occur; instead, we shall treat this verse more or less topically. That in it which is of such vital importance is the final clause, where the Savior promised to manifest Himself to the obedient believer. Now there is nothing the real Christian desires so much as a personal manifestation of the Lord Jesus. In comparison with this all other blessings are quite secondary. In order to simplify, let us ask and attempt to answer three questions: How does the Savior now "manifest" Himself? What are the effects of such manifestation? What are the conditions which I have to meet?  

In what way does the Lord Jesus now manifest Himself? It is hardly necessary to say, not corporeally. No longer is the Word, made flesh, tabernacling among men. No more does He say, as He said to Thomas, "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side" (John 20:27). No longer may He be seen by our physical eyes (1 John 1:1). Nor is the promise of Christ which we are now considering made good through visions. We recall the vision which Jacob had at Bethel, when a ladder was set upon earth, whose top reached unto heaven, upon which the angels of God ascended and descended. We think of that wondrous vision given to Isaiah, when he saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, before which the seraphim cried, "holy, holy, holy." No, it is not in visions or in dreams that the Lord promises to come to His people. What then? It is a spiritual revelation of Himself to the soul! It is a vivid realization of the Savior’ s being and nearness, in a deep and abiding sense of His favor and love. "By the power of the Spirit, He makes His Word so luminous, that as we read it, He Himself seems to draw near. The whole biography of Jesus becomes in this way a precious reality. We see His form. We hear His words." It is through the written Word that the incarnate Word "manifests" Himself to the heart!  

And what are the effects upon the soul of such a manifestation of Christ. First and foremost, He Himself is made a blessed and glorious reality to us. The one who has been granted such an experience can say with Job, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye (the eye of the heart) seeth thee" (Job 42:5). Such a one now discerns the surpassing beauty and glory of His person and exclaims, "Thou art fairer than the children of men." Again: such a manifestation of Christ to the soul assures us of His favor. Now we hear Him saying (through the Scriptures) "As the Father hath loved me, so I have loved you." And now I can respond, "My beloved is mine, and I am his." Another consequence of this manifestation of Christ is "comfort and support in trials, especially in those trials, which, on account of their Personal nature, are beyond the reach of human sympathy and love— the trials of desertion and loneliness, from which Jesus Himself suffered so keenly; heart trials, domestic trials, secret griefs, too sacred to be breathed in the ears of men— all these trials in which nothing can sustain us but the sympathy which His own presence gives." Just as the Son of God appeared to the three faithful Hebrews in the fiery furnace, so does He now come to those in the place of trial and anguish. So too in the last great trial, should we be called upon to pass through it ere the Savior comes. Then to earthly friends we can turn no longer. But we may say with the Psalmist, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me."  

Now, let us inquire, What are the terms on which the Savior thus draws near? Surely every Christian reader is most anxious to secure the key to an experience so elevating, so blessed. Listen now to the Savior’ s words, "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." The faith by which we are saved does not destroy the necessity for an obedient walk. "Faith is the root of which obedience is the beautiful flower and fruit. And it is only when faith has issued in obedience, in an obedience which stumbles not at sacrifices, and halts not when the way is rough and dark; in an obedience that cheerfully bears the cross and shame— it is only then that this highest promise of the Gospel is fulfilled... When love for the Savior shall lead us to keep His holy Word— lead us to an immediate, unreserved, unhesitating obedience— lead us to say, in the spirit of entire self-surrender and sacrifice, ‘ Thy will, not mine, be done,’ then, farewell to doubt and darkness, to loneliness and sorrow! Then shall we mourn no more an absent Lord. Then shall we walk as seeing Him who is invisible, triumphant over every fear, victorious over every foe." [1]   

This manifestation of Christ is made only to the one who really loves Him, and the proof of love to Him is not by emotional displays but by submission to His will. There is a vast difference between sentiment and practical reality. The Lord will give no direct and special revelation of Himself to those who are in the path of disobedience. "He that hath my commandments,’’ means, hath them at heart. "And keepeth them," that is the real test. We hear, but do we heed? We know, but are we doing His will? "My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth" (1 John 3:18)!  

"And he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father." There are three different senses in which Christians may be considered as objects of the loving favor of the Father and of the Son: as persons elected in sovereign grace to eternal life; as persons actually united to Christ by believing: and as persons transformed by the sanctifying work of the Spirit. It is in this last sense that Christ here speaks. Just as the Father is said to love the Son because of His obedience (John 10:17, 18), so is He said to love the believer for the same reason. It is the love of complacency, as distinguished from the love of compassion. The Father was well pleased with His incarnate Son, and He is well pleased with us when we honor and glorify His Son by obeying His commandments.  

"Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?" (John 14:22). This question had in view the Lord’ s words when He had just said, "The world seeth me no more" (John 14:19), and that He would "manifest" Himself to him who kept His commandments. This conflicted sharply with the Jewish ideas of the Messiah and His kingdom. As yet Judas had failed to perceive that the truth of God must sever between those who receive it and those who reject it, and that therefore His kingdom was "not of this world" (John 18:36). And why was it that Judas understood this not? 1 Corinthians 2:10, 11 tells us— the Spirit had not yet been given.  

"Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot." "There is something very affecting in this brief parenthesis; the short, sad sentence which our Evangelist throws in—‘ Judas, not Iscariot.’ The one is not for a moment to be confounded with the other; the true apostle with the traitor. How widely different may men be who yet bear the same name! How many have but the name in common!" (Dr. John Brown.) The Judas who asked this question was the brother of James, the son of Alphaeus, see Luke 6:16.  

"Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?" How many there are to-day who, by means of legislation and social amelioration, wish to press on the world those teachings of Christ which are only for His own! Judas did not go quite so far as the unbelieving brethren of Christ according to the flesh— "Go show thyself to the world" (John 7:4); but he was sorely puzzled at this breach between the world and them. Dull indeed was Judas, for the Lord had just said, "Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him" (John 14:17). But equally dull, most of the time, are all of us.  

"Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him" (John 14:23). "If Judas had known what the world is, and what every human heart is by nature, instead of being puzzled at the Lord’ s withdrawal from the world, he would have wondered how Jesus could reveal Himself to any man" (Stier). The Lord here repeats that God has fellowship only with those whose hearts welcome Him, who love Him, and whose love is manifested by submission to His Word. Then He loves in return. The Old Testament taught precisely the same thing. "I love them that love me" (Prov. 8:17). "If a man love me he will keep my word." Let not renewed souls torture themselves by attempting to define too nicely the extent of their "keeping." Let those who are tempted to do so meditate upon John 17:6— "I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy Word." Mark it well that this was said by the Savior in full view of all the infirmities and failures of the disciples, and said prior to the day of Pentecost!  

To "keep" God’ s commandments is to obey them, and the primary, the fundamental thing in obedience, is the desire of the heart, and it is on the heart that God ever looks. Two things are true of every Christian: deep down in his heart there is an intense, steady longing and yearning to please God, to do His will, to walk in full accord with His Word. This yearning may be stronger in some than in others, and in each of us it is stronger at some times than at others; nevertheless, it is there! But in the second place, no real Christian fully realizes this desire. Every genuine Christian has to say with the apostle Paul, "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may lay hold of that for which I am laid hold of by Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:12).  

Now we believe that it is this heart-obedience, this inward longing to be fully conformed to His will, this burning desire of the renewed soul, of which Christ here speaks. "If a man love me, he will keep my word." Every true believer loves Christ; therefore every true believer "keeps" His Word, keeps it in the sense thus defined. Let it be repeated, God looks at the heart; whereas we are constantly occupied with the outward appearance. As we scrutinize our deeds, if we are honest, we have to acknowledge that we have "kept his word" very imperfectly; yea, it seems to us, that we are not entitled to say that we have "kept" it at all. But the Lord looks behind the deeds, and knows the longings within us. The case of Peter in John 21 is a pertinent illustration. When Christ asked him a third time, "Lovest thou me?" His disciple answered, "Lord, thou knowest all things; THOU knowest that I love thee" (John 21:17). My disgraceful actions contradicted my love; my fellow-disciples have good reason to doubt it, but Thou who searchest the heart knowest better. In one sense it is an intensely solemn and searching thing to remember that nothing can be hidden from Him before whom all things are open and naked; but in another sense it is most blessed and comforting to realize that He can see in my heart what I cannot often discover in my ways, and what my fellow-believers cannot— a real love for Him, a genuine longing to please and glorify Him.  

Let not the conclusion be drawn that we are here lapsing into Antinomian laxity, or making it a matter of no moment what our outward lives are like. To borrow words which treat of another subject, "As there was a readiness to will so there should be a performance also" (2 Cor. 8:11). Though the apostle acknowledged that he had not "already attained," yet he continued to "follow after." Where there is love for Christ, there cannot but be bitter sorrow (as with Peter) when we know that we have grieved Him. And more; there will be a sincere confession of our sins, and confession will be followed by earnest supplication for grace to enable us to do what He has bidden. Nevertheless, it is blessed to know that He who is the Truth declares, positively and without qualification, "If a man love me, he will keep my word;" and in the light of John 17:6, this must mean: first and absolutely, in the desire of his heart; secondly and relatively, in his walk.  

It is to be noted that the Lord here makes a change of terms from what He had said in John 14:21; a slight change, but an important one. There He had said, "He that hath my commandments, keepeth them;" here, "If a man love me, he will keep my word"— in the Greek the singular number is used. "This is a beautiful difference, and of great practical value, being bound up with the measure of our attentiveness of heart. Where obedience lies comparatively on the surface, and self-will or worldliness is not judged, a ‘ commandment’ is always necessary to enforce it. People ask, ‘ Must I do this? Is there any harm in that?’ To such the Lord’ s will is solely a question of commandment. Now there are commandments, the expression of His authority, and they are not grievous. But, besides, where the heart loves Him deeply, His ‘ word’ will give enough expression of His will. Even in nature a parent’ s look will do it. As we well know, an obedient child catches the mother’ s desire before the mother has uttered a word. So, whatever might be the word of Jesus, it would be heeded, and thus the heart and life be formed in obedience" (Mr. W. Kelly).  

"True also it is that something of both characters of love, as Christ affirms them, will be found in all true Christians over-borne by so much contrary influence that, like Peter in the high priest’ s palace, only He who knoweth all things can detect the true disciple beneath the false. There is the false within us all, as well as the true, Alas, in many, so often uppermost. The results cannot fail to follow: the blessing of which the Lord speaks attaches to that with which He here connects it. We find it in proportion as we answer to the character.  

"Looked at in this way, there is no difficulty in seeing the deeper nature of a love that keeps Christ’ s ‘ word’ , as compared with that which keeps ‘ commandments’ only. Not to keep a positive command is simple, rank rebellion, nothing less. His ‘ word’ is wider, while it addresses itself with less positiveness of authority to the one whose heart and conscience is less prompt to the appeal of love" (Numerical Bible). I do not "command" a friend: my mind is made known to him by my words, and he acts accordingly. One word has greater weight with him than a hundred commands have on one at a distance? A servant receives my commands and obeys them, but he knows not my heart; but my friend walks with me in the intelligence of my deepest thoughts. Ah! is this so with us? Are we really walking with Him who calls us not servants, but friends— see John 15:15!  

"And my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." Just as there is a marked advance from His "commandments" in John 14:21 to His "word" in John 14:23, so there is in the blessings respectively attached to the keeping of the one and the other. In the former He promises to manifest Himself to the heart, in the latter He speaks of both the Father and Himself coming to make Their abode with such a soul. "Abiding" speaks of fellowship all through John’ s writings. Not only is our fellowship with the Father and His Son (1 John 1:3), but to the one who truly heeds the Word, They will come and have fellowship with him. This is the reward of loving obedience. The "result will be to manifest the competency of Scripture for the ‘ man of God’ to whom alone it is pledged as competent, able to furnish throughly unto all good works.’ Who is the man of God, but he who is out and out for God, and who else can expect to be furnished in this way, but he who is honestly intentioned to use his knowledge as before Him who gave it? The very passage which we are quoting here reminds us of where the profit is to be found: ‘ All Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.’ If we do not mean to accept the reproof and the correction, where is the use of talking about the rest?" (Numerical Bible).  

"He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings" (John 14:24). Here was the final word to Judas: the line between "the world" and "his own" is clearly drawn by the "whoso loveth me, whoso loveth me not." Not to love the Loveliest is because of hatred. There is no other alternative. Of old Jehovah had declared that He would visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hated Him, but that He would show mercy unto thousands of them that loved Him and kept His commandments (Ex. 20:6). What seems to be indifference is really enmity. All who are not with Christ are against Him (Luke 11:23).  

"He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings." Observe the change. In the previous verse the one who loves Christ keeps His Word; here the one who loves Him not, His sayings or words. Why this variation? Because unbelief does not combine in their unity the individual sayings, but dismisses them as they are isolated. The true believer hears in all God’ s words one Word— Him, the unbeliever heeds not! An unbeliever may observe some of Christ’ s words as a matter of policy and prudence, because they commend themselves to his reason; but others, which to him are distasteful, which appear impracticable or severe, he esteems not. If he loved Christ he would value His Word as a whole; but he does not; therefore he keeps not His words.  

"And the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’ s which sent me" (John 14:24). Thus the Lord concludes this point by magnifying the Word. Here, we say again, was the final answer to the question, "How is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?" Does the world believe on Me? Does it love Me? Does it keep My commandments? How, then, can I manifest Myself to it? "Thus did the Lord dispose of the three main stumbling blocks which hindered these disciples: the offense of Thomas, who would know all with his natural understanding; the offense of Philip, who was eager for visible manifestations to the outward senses; the offense of Judas, who would too readily receive the whole world into the kingdom of God" (Lange).  

"These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you" (John 14:25). In the light of the verse which immediately follows we understand this to mean: I said what I have in view of My near departure. Because I am yet with you, these things make little impression upon your hearts, but when the Holy Spirit has come you will be able to enter the better into their meaning and blessedness.  

"But the comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things" (John 14:26). This is one of many verses which contains clear proof of the Divine personality of the Holy Spirit. A mere abstract influence could not teach. Moreover, "he shall teach you," being a masculine pronoun, could not be applied to any but a real person. The Comforter would be sent by the Father, but in the name of Christ. The significance of this can best be ascertained by a reference to John 5:43: just as the Savior had come in the Father’ s name, so the Holy Spirit would be sent in the Son’ s name: that is to say, in His stead, for His interests, with His authority. Just as the Son had made known the Father, so the Spirit would take of the things of Christ and show them to His people. Just as the Son had glorified the Father, so the Spirit would glorify Christ. Just as, hitherto, the Savior had supplied all the needs of His own, henceforth the Comforter should fully provide for them.  

"He shall teach you all things." Here is another instance where the words of Scripture are not to be taken in their absolute sense. If the apostles were to be taught all things without any qualification, they would be omniscient. Nor did Christ mean that the Holy Spirit would teach them all that it was possible for finite creatures to know: He would not make known to them the secrets of futurity, or the occult workings of nature. Rather would He teach them all that it was necessary for them to know for their spiritual well-being, and this, particularly, in connection with what Christ had taught them, either fully or in germ form. He would make clear to them that which, as yet, was mysterious in their Master’ s sayings.  

"He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" (John 14:26). Two striking examples of that are recorded in this very Gospel. In John 2:22 we are told, "When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them." Again, in John 12:16 we read, "These things understood not his disciples at the first; but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him." No doubt this promise of Christ applies in a general way to all real Christians. Hundreds of times has the writer prayed to God, just before entering the pulpit, that He would be pleased to strengthen his memory and enable him to recall the exact words of Scripture as he quoted them; and graciously has He answered us. We would confidently urge our fellow-believers to plead this verse before God on sleepless nights, or when on a bed of sickness, as well as before going to teach a Sunday School class, asking Him to bring back to your remembrance the comforting promises of His Word; or, when tempted, that His precepts might flash upon you.  

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you" (John 14:27). Without being dogmatic, we believe that there is a double "peace" spoken of here: a peace left and a peace given. In the New Testament "peace" is spoken of in a twofold sense: as signifying reconciliation, contrasted from alienation: and a state of tranquillity as contrasted from a state of tumult. The one is objective, the other subjective. The former is referred to in Romans 5:1: "Being justified by faith we have peace with God." His holy wrath against us and our vile opposition against Him are ended forever. The latter is mentioned in Philippians 4:7: "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." The one who fully unbosoms himself before the throne of grace enjoys rest within. The one then is judicial, the other, experiential. "Peace I leave with you" would be the result of the Atonement. "My peace I give unto you," would be enjoyed through the indwelling Spirit. The one was for the conscience; the other for the heart.  

"My peace I give unto you." This was the personal peace which He had enjoyed here on earth. He was never ruffled by circumstances, and never resisted the will of the Father. He was ever in a state of most perfect amity with God. The peace He here promised His disciples was the peace which filled His own heart, as the result of His unbroken communion with the Father. "For us it is restlessness of will which disturbs this— the strife with His will which this means, and the dissatisfaction of soul which follows every gain that may seem to make in that direction. Doing only His will, there can be no proper doubt as to the issue" (Numerical Bible).  

"Not as the world giveth, give I unto you" (John 14:27). The peace which the worldling has is shallow, unstable, unsatisfying, false. It talks much about peace, but knows little of the thing itself. We have peace-societies, peace-programmes, a peace-palace, and a League of Nations to promote peace; yet all the great powers are armed to the teeth! "When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them" (1 Thess. 5:3). The world’ s peace is a chimera: it fails under trial. When the world gives, it is to the ungodly, not to the godly, whom they hate. When the world gives, it gives away, and has no longer. But Christ gives by bringing us into what is eternally His own. When Christ gives He gives forever, and never takes away.  

"Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid" (John 14:27). Here the Lord concludes that section of His discourse which had been devoted to the comforting of His sorrowing disciples. Abundant had been the consolation He had proffered them. Their hearts ought now to have been at perfect peace, their minds being stayed upon God. And yet while this verse terminated the first section of the address, it is closely connected with the verses which follow where the Lord proceeded to make application of what He had been saying.  

"Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come unto you. If ye love me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I" (John 14:28). Connecting this verse with the one immediately preceding, the force of our Lord’ s words is this: If you only believed what I have been saying to you, your cares and fears would vanish, and joy would take the place of sorrow. But what did the Lord mean by "If ye loved me?" Was He not instructing and directing their love, in order to purify it? He knew that they loved Him, and what He had said in John 14:15, 21, 23, assumed it. But their love was not yet sufficiently dis-interested: they were occupied too much with the thought of their own bereavement, instead of the heavenly joy into which the Redeemer was about to enter. If they had loved Him with a pure love, they would have been happy at His exaltation and forgotten themselves.  

"My Father is greater than I." This is the favourite verse with Unitarians, who deny the absolute Deity of Christ and His perfect equality with the Father— a truth which is clearly taught in many scriptures. Those who use these words of our Lord in support of their blasphemous heresy, wrest them from their context, ignoring altogether the connection in which they are found. The Savior had just told the apostles that they ought to rejoice because He was going to the Father, and then advances this reason, "For my Father is greater than I." Let this be kept definitely before us and all difficulty vanishes. The Father’ s being greater than Christ was the reason assigned why the disciples should rejoice at their Master’ s going to the Father. This at once fixes the meaning of the disputed "greater," and shows us the sense in which it was here used. The contrast which the Savior drew between the Father and Himself was not concerning nature, but official character and position.  

Christ was not speaking of Himself in His essential Being. The One who thought it not robbery to be "equal with God" had taken the servant form, and not only so, had been made in the likeness of men. In both these senses, namely, in His official status (as Mediator) and in His assumption of human nature, He was inferior to the Father. Throughout this discourse and in the Prayer which follows in chapter 17, the Lord Jesus is represented as the Father’ s Servant, from whom He had received a commission, and to whom He was to render an account; for whose glory He acted, and under whose authority He spake. But there is another sense, more pertinent, in which the Son was inferior to the Father. In becoming incarnate and tabernacling among men, He had greatly humiliated Himself, by choosing to descend into shame and suffering in their acutest forms. He was now the Son of man that had not where to lay His head. He who was rich had for our sakes become poor. He was the Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. In view of this, Christ was now contrasting His situation with that of the Father in the heavenly Sanctuary. The Father was seated upon the throne of highest majesty; the brightness of His glory was uneclipsed; He was surrounded by hosts of holy beings, who worshipped Him with uninterrupted praise. Far different was it with His incarnate Son— despised and rejected of men, surrounded by implacable enemies, soon to be nailed to a criminal’ s cross. In this sense, too, He was inferior to the Father. Now in going to the Father, the Son would enjoy a vast improvement of situation. It would be a gain unspeakable. The contrast then was between His present state of humiliation and His coming state of exaltation to the Father! Therefore, those who really loved Him should have rejoiced at the tidings that He would go to the Father, because the Father was greater than He— greater both in official status and in surrounding circumstances. It was Christ owning His place as Servant, and magnifying the One who had sent Him.  

"And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe" (John 14:29). "The question naturally occurs, Believe what? That question is answered by referring to the parallel statement in reference to the treachery of Judas: ‘ Now I tell you, that when it is come to pass, ye might believe that I am’ (John 13:19)— that I am the Messiah, the Divinely appointed, qualified, promised, accredited Savior: and of course, that all that I have taught you is indubitably true; and all I have promised is absolutely certain. The disciples did believe this, but their faith was feeble; it required confirmation. It was to be exposed to severe trials, and needed support: and the declaration by Him of these events before they took place was of all things the best fitted for giving their faith that required confirmation and support" (Dr. John Brown).  

"Hereafter I will not talk much with you" (John 14:30). In a very short time He would be cut off from them, while He undertook His greatest work of all. In reminding them that it would be impossible for Him to say much more to them, He hinted at the deep importance of them pondering over and over what He had just said, and what He was on the point of saying to them. This was to be His last address in His humbled state, and during the next few hours they would sorely need the sustaining and comforting power of these precious promises if they were not to faint.  

"For the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me" (John 14:30). The awful enmity of the Serpent was now to be fully vented upon the woman’ s Seed: he was to be allowed to bruise the Savior’ s heel. All that this meant we are incapable of entering into. It would seem that Satan began his assault in the Garden, and ceased not till he had moved Pilate to seal the sepulcher and place a guard about it. The words "and hath nothing in me" refer to His inherent holiness. As the sinless One there was nothing within to which the Devil could appeal. How completely different is it with us! Throw a lighted match into a barrel of gunpowder, and there is a fearful explosion; cast it into a barrel of water and it is quenched!  

"For the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." This too was said for the consolation of the apostles: the Savior would assure them beforehand that the issue of the approaching conflict was not left in any doubt. There was no weak point in Him for Satan to find; therefore He must come forth more than Conqueror. Satan could find something in Noah, Abraham, David, Peter. but Christ was the Lamb "without blemish."  

"But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence" (John 14:31). Most blessed is this. The last words of this sentence look back to the end of the previous verse. The prince of this world cometh— but, nevertheless, I suffer him to come against Me, and I go to meet Him. Christ’ s love to the Father was thus evidenced by His willingness to allow the dragon to lay hold upon Him. He went forth to meet Satan because He had received "commandment" from the Father to do so. It is remarkable that this is the only time that Christ ever spoke of His love to the Father; it was now that He was to give the supreme proof of it. How this rebukes those who are ever talking and singing of their love for the Lord! In the words "Arise, let us go hence," the Lord must have got up from the supper-table, and apparently was followed by His apostles into the outer room, where they remained until they left for Gethsemane, cf. John 18:1.  

The following questions are to help the student on the first section of John 15:—   

1. What is meant by "the true vine," verse 1?  

2. In what sense is the Father the husbandman, verse 1?  

3. What is meant by "He taketh away," verse 2?  

4. What is meant by "purgeth," verse 2?  

5. What is meant by "abide in Me," verse 4?  

6. What is meant by the last clause of verse 5?  

7. Who is in view in verse 6?  

ENDNOTES:   

[1] The above questions are from an article by the late Mr. Inglis, in "Waymarks in the Wilderness."  

  

Maclaren: Joh 14:1-31

John's Doubts Of Jesus, And Jesus' Praise Of John

Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples, 3. And said unto Him, Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another? 4. Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: 5. The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. 6. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me. 7. And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to see! A reed shaken with the wind? 8. But what went ye out for to see! A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. 9. But what went ye out for to see? A prophet! yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. 10. For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send My messenger before Thy face, which shall prepare Thy way before Thee. 11. Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: not withstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12. And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. 13. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. 14. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come. 15. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.'--Matt. 11:2-15.

THIS text falls into two parts: the first, from Matt. 11:2-6 inclusive, giving us the faltering faith of the great witness, and Christ's gentle treatment of the waverer; the second, from Matt. 11:7 to the end, giving the witness of Christ to John, exuberant in recognition, notwithstanding his momentary hesitation.

I. The Message Of John Sent.

We do not believe that this message of John's was sent for the sake of strengthening his disciples' faith in Jesus as Messiah, nor that it was merely meant as a hint to Jesus to declare Himself. The question is John's. The answer is sent to him: it is he who is to ponder the things which the messengers saw, and to answer his own question thereby. The note which the evangelist prefixes to his account gives the key to the incident. John was in prison,' in that gloomy fortress of Machaerus which Herod had rebuilt at once for a sinful pleasure-house,' and for an impregnable refuge, among the savage cliffs of Moab. The halls of luxurious vice and the walls of defence are gone; but the dungeons are there still, with the holes in the masonry into which the bars were fixed to which the prisoners --John, perhaps, one of them--were chained. No wonder that in the foul atmosphere of a dark dungeon the spirit which had been so undaunted in the free air of the desert began to flag; nor that even he who had seen the fluttering dove descend on Christ's head, and had pointed to Him as the Lamb of God, felt that' all his mind was clouded with a doubt.' It would have been wiser if commentators, instead of trying to save John's credit at the cost of straining the narrative, had recognised the psychological truth of the plain story of his wavering conviction, and had learned its lessons of self-distrust. There is only one Man with whom it was always high-water; all others have ebbs and flows in their religious life, and variations in their grasp of truth.

The narrative further gives the motive for John's embassy, in the report which had reached him of the works of Christ.' We need only recall John's earlier testimony to understand how these works would not seem to him to fill up the role which he had anticipated for Messiah. Where is the axe that was to be laid at the root of the trees, or the fan that was to winnow out the chaff? Where is the fiery spirit which he had foretold? This gentle Healer is not the theocratic judge of his warning prophecies. He is tending and nurturing, rather than felling, the barren trees. A nimbus of merciful deeds, not of flashing wrath to come,' surrounds His head. So John began to wonder if, after all, he had been premature in his recognition. Perhaps this Jesus was but a precursor, as he himself was, of the Messiah. Evidently he continues firm in the conviction of Christ's being sent from God, and is ready to accept His answer as conclusive; but, as evidently, he is puzzled by the contrariety between Jesus' deeds and his own expectations. He asks, Art Thou He that cometh'--a well-known name for Messiah--or are we to expect another?' where it should be noted that the word for another' means not merely a second, but a different kind of, person, who should present the aspects of the Messiah as revealed in prophecy, and as embodied in John's own preaching, which Jesus had left unfulfilled.

We may well take to heart the lesson of the fluctuations possible to the firmest faith, and pray to be enabled to hold fast that we have. We may learn, too, the danger to right conceptions of Christ, of separating the two elements of mercy and judgment in His character and work. John was right in believing that the Christ must come to judge. A Christ without the fan in His hand is a maimed Christ. John was wrong in stumbling at the gentleness, just as many to-day, who go to the opposite extreme, are wrong in stumbling at the judicial side of His work. Both halves are needed to make the full-orbed character. We have not to look for a different' Christ, but we have to look for Him, coming the second time, the same Jesus, but now with His axe in His pierced hands, to hew down trees which He has patiently tended. Let John's profound sense of the need for a judicial aspect in the Christ who is to meet the prophecies written in men's hearts, as well as in Scripture, teach us how one-sided and superficial are representations of His work which suppress or slur over His future coming to judgment.

Our Lord does not answer Yes' or No.' To do so might have stilled, but would not have removed, John's misconception. A more thorough cure is needed. So Christ attacks it in its roots by referring him back for answer to the very deeds which had excited his doubt. In doing so, He points to, or indeed, we may say, quotes, two prophetic passages (Isa. 35:5-6; 61:1) which give the prophetic notes' of Messiah. It is as if He had said, Have you forgotten that the very prophets whose words have fed your hopes, and now seem to minister to your doubts, have said this and this about the Messiah?' Further, there is deep wisdom in sending John back again to think over the very deeds at which he was stumbling. It is not Christ's work which is wanting in conformity to the divine idea; it is John's conceptions of that idea that need enlarging. What he wants is not so much to be told that Jesus is the Christ, as to grow up to a truer, because more comprehensive, notion of what the Christ is to be. A wide principle is taught us here. The very points in Christ's work which may occasion difficulty, will, when we stand at the right point of view, become evidences of His claims. What were stumbling-blocks become stepping-stones. Arguments against become proofs of, the truth when we look at them with clearer eyes, and from the proper angle.

Further, we are taught here, that what Christ does is the best answer to the question as to who He is. Still He is doing these works among us. Darkened eyes are flooded with light by His touch, and see a new world, because they gaze with faith on Him. Lame limbs are endowed with strength, and can run in the way of His commandments, and walk with unfainting perseverance the thorniest paths of duty and self-sacrifice. Lepers are cleansed from the rotting leprosy of sin, and their flesh comes again, as the flesh of a little child.' Deaf ears hear the voice of the Son of God, and the dead who hear live. Good news is preached to all the poor in spirit, and whosoever knows himself to be in need of all things may claim all things as his own in Christ. He who through the ages has been working such works, and works them still, needs not to speak anything' to confirm His claims, neither is there salvation in any other.' We look for no second Christ; but we look for that same Jesus to come the second time to be the Judge of the world of which He is the Saviour.

The benediction on him who finds none occasion of stumbling in Christ, is at once a beatitude and a warning. It rebukes in the gentlest fashion John's temper, which found difficulty in even the perfect personality of Jesus, and made that which should have been the sure foundation' of his spirit a stone of stumbling. Our Lord's consciousness of absolute perfection of moral character, and of absolute perfectness in His office and work, is distinct in the words. He knows that' there is none occasion of stumbling in Him,' and that whoever finds any, brings it or makes it. He knows and warns us that all blessedness lies for us in recognising Him for what He is--God's sure foundation of our hopes, our peace, our thoughts, our Hoes. He knows that all woe and loss are involved in stumbling on this stone, against which whosoever falls is broken, and by which, when it begins to move, and falls on a man, he is ground to powder, like the dust of the threshing-floor. What tremendous arrogance of assertion! Who is he who can venture on such words without blasphemy against God, and universal ridicule from men.

II. The Witness Of Christ To John.

Praise from Jesus is praise indeed; and it is poured out hero with no stinted hand on the languishing prisoner whose doubts had just been brought to Him. Such an eulogium at such a time is a wonderful instance of loving forbearance with a true-hearted follower's weakness, and of a desire which, in a man, we should call magnanimous, to shield John's character from depreciation on account of his message. The world praises a man to his face, and speaks of his faults behind his back. Christ does the opposite. Not till the messengers were departing does He begin to speak concerning John.' He lays bare the secret of the Baptist's power, and allocates his place as greatest in one epoch and as less than the least in another, with an authority more than human, and on principles which set Himself high above all comparison with men, whether the greatest or the least. The King places His subjects, and Himself sits enthroned above them all.

First, Christ praises John's great personal character in the dramatic and vivid questions which begin this section. He recalls the scenes of popular enthusiasm when all Israel streamed out to the desert preacher. A small man could not have made such an upheaval. What drew the crowds? Just what will always draw them; the qualities without which either possessed in reality or in popular estimation, no man can be a power religiously. The first essential is heroic firmness. It was not reeds swaying in the wind by Jordan's banks, nor a poor feeble man like these, that the people flocked to listen to. His emblem was not the reed, but an iron pillar.' His whole career had been marked by decisiveness, constancy, courage. Nothing can be done worth doing in the world without a wholesome obstinacy and imperturbability, which keep a man true to his convictions and his task, whatever winds blow in his teeth. The multitudes will not flock to listen to a teacher who does not speak with the accent of conviction, nor will truths feebly grasped touch the lips with fire. The first requisite for a religious teacher is that he shall be sure of his message and of himself. Athanasius has to stand against the world' before the world accepts his teaching. Though there were as many devils in Worms as there are tiles on the house-tops, go I will,' said Luther. That is the temper for God's instruments.

The next requisite, which John also had, is manifest indifference to material ease. Silken courtiers do not haunt the desert. Kings' houses, and not either the wilderness or kings' dungeons, are the sunny spots where they spread their plumage. If the gaunt ascetic, with his girdle of camel's hair and his coarse fare, had been a self-indulgent sybarite, his voice would never have shaken a nation. The least breath of suspicion that a preacher is such a man ends his power, and ought to end it; for self-indulgence and the love of fleshly comforts eat the heart out of goodness, and make the eyes too heavy to see visions. John was the same man then as they had known him to be; therefore it was no impatience of the hardships of his prison that had inspired his doubts.

Our Lord next speaks of John's great office. He was a prophet. The dim recognition that God spoke in His fiery words had drawn the crowds, weary of teachers in whose endless jangle and jargon of casuistry was no inspiration. The voice of a man who gets his message at first-hand from God has a ring in it which even dull ears detect as something genuine. Alas for the bewildering babble of echoes and the paucity of voices to-day!

So far Jesus had been appealing to His hearers' knowledge; He now goes on to add higher truth concerning John. He declares that he is more than a prophet, because he is His messenger before His face; that is, immediately preceding Himself. We cannot stay to comment on the remarkable variation between the original form of the quotation from Malachi and Christ's version of it, which, in its substitution of thee' for me,' bears so forcibly ca the divinity of Christ; but we may mark the principle on which John's superiority to the whole prophetic order is based. It is that nearness to Jesus makes greatness. The closer the relation to Him, the higher the honour. In that long procession the King comes last; and of them that go before, crying, Hosanna to Him that cometh,' the order of precedence is that the first are last, and that the highest is he who walks in front of the Sovereign.

Next, we have the limitations of the forerunner and his relative inferiority to the least in the kingdom of heaven. Another standard of greatness is here from that of the world, Which smiles at the contrast between the uncultured preacher of repentance and the mighty thinkers, poets, legislators, kingdom-makers, whom it enrols among the great. In Christ's eyes greatness is nearness to Him, and understanding of Him and His work. Neither natural faculty nor worth is in question, but simply relation to the Kingdom and the King. He who had only to preach of Him who should come after him, and had but a partial apprehension of Christ and His work, stood on a lower level than the least who has to look to a Christ who has come, and has opened the gates of the kingdom to the humblest believer. The truths which were hid from ages, and were but visible as in morning twilight to John, are sunlit to us. The scholars in our Sunday-schools know familiarly more than prophets and kings ever knew. We hold the grey barbarian lower than the Christian child'; and not merely he, but the wisest of the prophets, and the forerunner himself. The history of the world is parted into two by the coming of Jesus Christ, as every dictionary of dates tells, and the least of the greater is greater than the greatest of the less. What a place, then, does Christ claim! Our relation to Him determines greatness. To recognise Him is to be in the Kingdom of Heaven. Union to Him brings us to fulfil the ideal of human nature; and this is life, to know and trust Him, the King.

Our Lord adds a brief characterisation of the effect of John's ministry. It was of mingled good and evil, and there is a tone of sadness perceptible in the ambiguous words. John had aroused great popular excitement, and had stirred multitudes to seek to enter the Kingdom. So far was good. But had all the crowds understood what sort of kingdom it was? Had they not too often dragged down the lofty conception to their own vulgar level, and, with their dream of an outward sovereignty, thought to gain it for their own by violence instead of meekness, by arms and worldly force rather than by submission? The earnestness was good, but Christ's sad insight saw how much strange fire had mingled in the blaze, as if some earth-born smoky flame should seek to blend with the pure sunlight. Such seems the most natural interpretation of the words, but they are ambiguous, and may possibly mean by the violent' those who had been roused to genuine earnestness by the clarion voice which rang in the ears of that slumbering generation.

Then follows the explanation of this new interest in the kingdom. All the prophets and the law prophesied until John.' The whole period till his coming was one of preparation, and it all converged on the epoch of the forerunner. The eagerness to flock into the Kingdom which characterised his time would have been impossible in the earlier days. He closes that order of things, standing, as it were, on the isthmus between prophecy and fulfilment, belonging properly to neither, but having affinities with both, and being the transition from the one to the other. Then our Lord closes His words concerning John with the distinct statement, which He expects His hearers to have difficulty in receiving, probably from the contradiction to it which John's present condition seemed to give, that in him was fulfilled Malachi's prophecy of the sending of Elijah the prophet before, day of the Lord.' The fiery Tishbite, gaunt and grim ascetic and solitary, who bearded Ahab, and flamed across a corrupt age with a stern message of repentance or destruction, was repeated in the lonely ascetic who had his Ahab in Herod, and his Jezebel in Herodias, and like his prototype, knew no fear, but flashed out the lightnings of his words on every sin. The two men were brothers, and their voices answer each other across the centuries. Christ crowns His witness to John while thus quoting the last swan-song of ancient prophecy, and thereby at once sets John on a pinnacle of greatness, and advances a claim concerning Himself all the more weighty, because He leaves it to be inferred. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear'--this eulogium on the forerunner needs to he reflected on ere all its bearings are seen. If John was Elias, the day of the Lord was at hand, and the Sun of Righteousness' was already above the horizon. Jesus' witness concerning John ends in witness concerning Himself.

The Friend Of Publicans And Sinners

The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.'--Matt. 1:19.

JESUS very seldom took notice of His enemies' slanders. When He was reviled He reviled not again.' If ever He did, it was for the sake of those whom it harmed to distort His beauty. Thus, here He speaks, without the slightest trace of irritation, of the capricious inconsistency of condemning Himself and John on precisely opposite grounds. John will not suit them because he neither eats nor drinks. Well, one would think that Jesus would be hailed since He does both. But He pleases them just as little. What was at the root of this contrary working dislike?

It was the dislike for the truths they both preached, the rejection of the wisdom of which they were the messengers. When men do not like the message. nothing that the messengers do, or are, is right. Never mind consistency, but object to this form of Christian teaching that it is too harsh, and to that, that it is too soft; to this man that he is always thundering condemnation, to that, that he is always preaching mercy; to one, that he has too much to say about duty, to another, that he dwells too much on grace; to this presentation of the gospel, that it is too learned and doctrinal, to that, that it is too sentimental and emotional, and so on, and so on. The generation of children who neither like piping nor lamenting, lives still.

But my purpose now is not to dwell on the Conduct with which our Lord is dealing, but on this caricature of Him which His own lips repeat without a sign of anger. It is the only calumny of antagonists reported by Himself. We owe our knowledge of its currency to this saying. Like other words of His enemies, this saying is a distorted refraction of His glory. The facts it embodies are facts; the conclusions, it draws are false. If Jesus had not come eating and drinking, He could not have been called gluttonous and a winebibber. If He had not drawn publicans and sinners to Him in a conspicuous manner and degree, He could not have been called their friend. The charge, like all others, is a tribute. Let us try to see what was the blessed truth that it caricatured. We may take the two points separately, for though closely connected they are distinct, and cover different ground.

I. His Enemies' Witness To Christ's Participation In Common Life.

(a) That participation witnesses to His true manhood. Significant use of Son of Man' in context.

Because He is so, He must pass into all human circumstances.

Looked at in the light of incarnation, the simple fact that He shared our common lot in all things assumes proportions of majestic condescension.

Extend to all physical necessities, and to simple material pleasures.

What a witness this hostile criticism is to Christ's genial identification of Himself with homely feasters!

(b) It sets forth the highest type of manhood.

John could be ascetic, but the Pattern Man could not. The true perfecting of humanity is not the extirpation, but the control, of the flesh by the spirit. And in accordance with this thought, we may see in the eating and drinking Christ, the pattern for the religious life. Asceticism is not the noblest form of sanctity. There is nothing more striking in Old Testament than the way in which its heroes and saints mingle in all ordinary duties. They are warriors, statesmen, shepherds, they buy, they sell. Asceticism came later, along with formalisms of other sorts. When devotion cools, it is crusted with superstition and external marks of godliness. Propriety in posturing in worship, casuistry in the interpretation of law, and abstinence from common enjoyments, came in Pharisaic times. And into such a world Jesus came, eating and drinking.

But His bearing in these matters is example for us. They were rigidly kept in subordination. They were all done in communion with God.

So He has hallowed all by taking part in them.

Christ should be present in all our material enjoyments. If you cannot think that He is with you, if you cannot conceive of His being there, that is no place for you. If you cannot feel that He approves, that is no fit enjoyment for you.

The tendency of this day is to take a wider view of the liberty allowed to Christians in regard to partaking in material enjoyment, and I dare say that many of you who have thought that I spoke well in insisting on all things belonging to the Christian, will think that I am dropping back into the old narrow groove in my next remark, that all such thoughts need guarding.

One has heard the example of Christ invoked to justify unchristian laxity and excess. Therefore I wish to say that the liberty permitted to Christians in these matters is to be limited within the limits within which Christ's was confined.

The excessive use of innocent things is not justified by His example, nor is the use of things innocent in themselves, which are mixed up with harmful things.

Christ's example does not warrant the importance attached to luxury, the waste on mere eating and drinking. It is sometimes quoted as against total abstinence. It has no bearing on the question. But if He gave up heaven for His brethren, I think that they who give up an indulgence for the sake of theirs are in the line of His action. I venture to think that if Jesus Christ lived in England to-day, He would be a total abstinence fanatic.

If thy hand offend thee, cut it off.' Asceticism is not the highest, but it is sometimes necessary. If my indulgence in innocent things hurts me, or if my abstinence from them would help others, or increase my power for good, or if innocent things are intertwisted with things not innocent, then it is vain to try to shelter under Christ's example, and the only right course for His disciple is to abridge his liberty. He came eating and drinking, therefore His followers may use all innocent earthly blessings and bodily pleasures, subject to this one law: Whether ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God,' and to this solemn warning: He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.'

II. His Enemies' Witness To Jesus As The Friend Of The Outcasts.

The fact was that He drew them to Himself and evidently was glad to have them round Him. The inference natural to low natures was noscitur a sociis, and that the bond between Him and them was common evil tendencies and ways. His censors could not conceive of any one's seeking the outcasts from pity and for their good.

(a) Christ's consorting with these was the revelation of His love to them.

It meant no complicity with, nor minimising of, sinfulness.

His sternness is as conspicuous as His love.

He warned, rebuked, tried to win back.

The highest purity is not repellent to sinners.

So in Jesus is the combination of tenderest love and intense moral earnestness.

How difficult for anything but actual sight of such a life to have painted it! Where did the evangelists get such an embodiment of two attitudes so unlike each other, and which we so seldom see united in fact? I venture to think that the combination in perfect harmony and proportion of these, is a strong presumption in favour of the historical truth of the Christ of the gospels.

But remember that if we take His own statement (He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father'), we are to see in this kindly consorting with sinners not only the love of a perfectly pure manhood, but a revelation of the heart of God. And that adds wonderfulness and awe to the fact. This man to whom sinners were drawn by strange attraction, in whom they found the highest purity and yet softest tenderness, therein revealed God.

(b) It witnesses to His boundless hope.

No outcasts were hopeless in His view. To man's eyes there are hopeless classes, but He sees deeper. Perhaps a spark lies hid.' There are dormant possibilities in all souls.

None are so hard as that they cannot be melted by the high temperature of love, just as there are no metals that cannot be volatilised if exposed to intense heat.

Carry the most thick-ribbed ice into the sun and it will thaw.

So the Christian view of mankind is much more hopeful than that of mere educationists or moralists.

None of them paint human nature so black as it does, but none of them have such boundless confidence in the possibility of making it lustrously white.

Urge, then, that none are beyond the power of Christ's gospel. His divine Spirit can change any man. There are no incurables in the judgment of the great Physician.

(c) It witnesses to the truth that gross sin does not shut out from Him so much as does self-complacent ignorance of our own need.

They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.' Where should the physician be but at the sick man's bedside?

The one impassable barrier between us and Christ is fancying that we are not sinners and do not need Him.

This boundless hopefulness and seeking after the outcasts is the unique glory of Christianity. What has been the mainspring of all movements for their elevation? What broke the chains of slavery? What has sent men to the ends of the earth for the elevation of savage races? What is the motive power in the benevolent works of this day? Is it philosophical altruism or is it Christian faith? No doubt, there are some sporadic movements among people who do not accept the gospel. At present, I do not ask how far these are due to the underground influence of Christianity filtering to men who stand apart from it. But I gravely doubt whether you will ever get any large, continuous, self-sacrificing efforts for the outcasts, unless they are the direct result of the spirit of Christ moving on men who owe their own deliverance to Him. We have not yet seen agnostic missionary societies or the like.

This spirit must mark all living Christianity. If ever churches forget their obligations to the publicans and sinners, they will cease to grow. It will be a sign that they have lost their hold of Christ. They will soon die, and no mourners will attend their funerals. It is a good sign to-day that all Christian churches are waking up to feel more their obligations to the outcasts. Only, we must take heed that we go to them as Christ did, making no compromise with sin, speaking no false flatteries, and bent on one thing, their emancipation from the evil which is slaying them.

Let us all take the blessed thought for ourselves, that Jesus Christ is our friend because He is the friend of sinners, and we are sinners. Degrees of sinfulness Vary, but the fact is invariable. The universality of sinfulness makes the universality of Christ's love the more wonderful and blessed. If He did not love sinners, there would be none for Him to love. We may be His enemies, or may neglect all His beseechings; but He is still our friend, wishing us well, and desiring to bless us. But He cannot give us His deepest friendship unless we are willing to recognise our sin. We must come to Him on the footing of transgressors if we are to come to Him at all.

He will deliver us from our sins.

Appeal to give hearts to Him.

How has He shown His friendship? Greater love hath no man than this,' that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.'

To be friends of Christ is the highest honour and blessing.

Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you.'

He was called the friend of God.' Abraham's name in Mohammedan lands is still El Khalil, the companion or friend. That is our highest title. Christ's friends will not continue sinners.

Maclaren: Joh 14:1-31

Elijah Come Again

There was, in the days of Herod the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth. 6. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. 7. And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren; and they both were now well stricken in years. 8. And it came to pass, that, while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course, 9. According to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. 10. And the whole multitude of the people were praying without at the time of incense. 11. And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. 12. And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. 13. But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt, call his name John. 14. And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth. 15. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb. 16. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. 17. And he shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.'--Luke 1:5-17.

THE difference between the style of Luke's preface (Luke 1:1-4) and the subsequent chapters relating to the Nativity suggests that these are drawn from some Hebrew source. They are saturated with Old Testament phraseology and constructions, and are evidently translated by Luke. It is impossible to say whence they came, but no one is more likely to have been their original narrator than Mary herself. Elisabeth or Zacharias must have communicated the facts in this chapter, for there is no indication that those contained in this passage, at all events, were known to any but these two.

If we were considering a fictitious story, we should note the artistic skill which prepared for the appearance of the hero by the introduction first of his satellite; but the order of the narrative is due, not to artistic skill, but to the divinely ordered sequence of events. It was fitting that John's office as Forerunner should begin even before his birth. So the story of his entrance into the world prepares for that of the birth which hallows all births.

I. We Have First A Beautiful Outline Picture Of The Quiet Home In The Hill Country.

The husband and wife were both of priestly descent, and in their modest lives, away among the hills, were lovely types of Old Testament godliness. That they are pronounced blameless' militates against no doctrine of universal sinfulness. It is not to be taken as dogma at all, but as the expression of God's merciful estimate of His servants' characters. These two simple saints lived, as all married believers should do, yoked together in the sweet exercise of godliness, and helping each other to all high and noble things. Hideous corruption of wedlock reigned round them. Such profanations of it as were shown later by Herod and Herodias, Agrippa and Bernice, were but too common; but in that quiet nook these two dwelt as heirs together of the grace of life,' and their prayers were not hindered.

The most of the priests who appear in the Gospels are heartless formalists, if not worse; yet not only Annas and Caiaphas and their spiritual kindred ministered at the altar, but there were some in whose hearts the ancient fire burned. In times of religious declension, the few who still are true are mostly in obscure corners, and live quiet lives, like springs of fresh water rising in the midst of a salt ocean. John thus sprang from parents in whom the old system had done all that it could do. In his origin, as in himself, he represented the consummate flower of Judaism, and discharged its highest office in pointing to the coming One.

This blameless' pair had a crook in their lot. Childlessness was then an especial sorrow, and many a prayer had gone up from both that their solitary home might be gladdened by children's patter and prattle. But their disappointed hope had not made them sour, nor turned their hearts from God. If they prayed about it, they would not murmur at it, and they were not thereby hindered from walking in all God's commandments and ordinances blameless.' Let us learn that unfulfilled wishes are not to clog our devotion, nor to silence our prayers, nor to slacken our running the race set before us.

II. We Are Carried Away From The Home Among The Hills To The Crowded Temple Courts.

The devout priest has come up to the city, leaving his aged wife in solitude, for his turn of service has arrived. Details of the arrangements of the sacerdotal courses' need not detain us. We need only note that the office of burning incense was regarded as an honour, was determined by lot, and took place at the morning and evening sacrifice. So Zacharias, with his censer in his hand, went to the altar which stood in front of the veil, flanked on the right hand by the table of shewbread, and on the left by the great lamp-stand. The place, his occupation, the murmur of many praying voices without, would all tend to raise his thoughts to God; and the curling incense, as it ascended, would truly symbolise the going up of his heart in aspiration, desire, and trust. Such a man could not do his work heartlessly or formally.

Mark the manner of the angel's appearance. He was not seen as in the act of coming, but was suddenly made visible standing by the altar, as if he had been stationed there before; and what had happened was not that he came, but that Zacharias's eyes were opened. So, when Elisha's servant was terrified at the sight of the besiegers, the prophet prayed that his eyes might be opened, and when they were, he saw what had been there before, the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire.' Not the Temple courts only, but all places are full of divine messengers, and we should see them if our vision was purged. But such considerations are not to weaken the supernatural element in the appearance of this angel with his message. He was sent, whatever that may mean in regard to beings whose relation to place must be different from ours. He had an utterance of God's will to impart.

It has often been objected to these chapters that they are full of angelic appearances, which modern thought deems suspicious. But surely if the birth of Jesus was what we hold it to have been, the coming into human life of the Incarnate Son of God, it is not legend that angel wings gleam in their whiteness all through the story, and angel voices adore the Lord of men as well as angels, and angel eyes gaze on His cradle, and learn new lessons there.

III. We Have Next The Angel's Message.

The devoutest heart is conscious of shrinking dread when brought face to face with celestial brightness that has overflowed into our darkness. So Fear not' is the first word on the messenger's lips, and one can fancy the accent of sweetness and the calm of heart which followed. It has often been thought that Zacharias had been praying for offspring while he was burning incense; but the narrative does not say so, and besides the fact that he had ceased to hope for children (as is shown by his incredulity), surely it casts a slur on his religious character to suppose that personal wishes were uppermost at so sacred a moment. Prayers that he had long ago put aside as finally refused, now started to life again. God delays often, but He does not forget. Blessings may come to-day as the result of old prayers which have almost passed from our memory and our hope.

Observe how brief is the announcement of the child's birth, important as that was to the father's heart, and how the prophecy lingers on the child's future work, which is important for the world. His name, character, and work in general are first spoken, and then his specific office as the Forerunner is delineated at the close. The name is significant. John' means The Lord is gracious.' It was an omen, a condensed prophecy, the fulfilment of which stretched beyond its bearer to Him as whose precursor alone was John a token of God's grace.

His character (Luke 1:15) puts first great in the sight of the Lord.' Then there are some whom God recognises as great, small as we all are before Him. And His estimate of greatness is not the world's estimate. How Herod or Pilate or Caesar, or philosophers at Athens, or rabbis in Jerusalem would have scoffed if they had been pointed to the gaunt ascetic pouring out words which they would have thought wild, to a crowd of Jews, and been told that that was the greatest man in the world (except One)! The elements of greatness in the estimate of God which is truth, are devotion to His service, burning convictions, intense moral earnestness, superiority to sensuous delights, clear recognition of Jesus, and humble self-abnegation before Him. These are not the elements recognised in the world's Pantheon. Let us take God's standard.

John was to be a Nazarite, living not for the senses, but the soul, as all God's great ones have to be. The form may vary, but the substance of the vow of abstinence remains for all Christians. To put the heel on the animal within, and keep it well chained up, is indispensable, if we are ever to know the buoyant inspiration which comes from a sacreder source than the fumes of the wine-cup. Like John, we must flee the one if we would have the other, and be filled with the Holy Ghost.'

The consequence of his character is seen in his work, as described generally in Luke 1:16. Only such a man can effect such a change, in a time of religious decay, as to turn many to God. It needs a strong arm to check the downward movement and to reverse it. No one who is himself entangled in sense, and but partially filled with God's Spirit, will wield great influence for good. It takes a Hercules to stop the chariot racing down hill, and God's Herculeses are all made on one pattern, in so far that they scorn delights, and empty themselves of self and sense that they may be filled with the Spirit.

John's specific office is described in Luke 1:17, with allusion to the closing prophecy of Malachi. That prophecy had kindled an expectation that Elijah, in person, would precede Messias. John was like a reincarnation of the stern prophet. He came in a similar epoch. His characteristic, like Elijah's, was power,' not gentleness. If the earlier prophet had to beard Ahab and Jezebel, the second Elijah had Herod and Herodias. Both haunted the desert, both pealed out thunders of rebuke. Both shook the nation, and stirred conscience. No two figures in Scripture are truer brethren in spirit than Elijah the Tishbite and John the Baptist.

His great work is to go before the Messiah, and to prepare Israel for its King. Observe that the name of the coming One is not mentioned in Luke 1:17. Him' is enough. Zacharias knew who He' was. But observe, too, that the same mysterious person is distinctly called The Lord,' which in this connection, and having regard to the original prophecy in Malachi, can only be the divine name. So, in some fashion not yet made plain, Messiah's advent was to be the Lord's coming to His people, and John was the Forerunner, in some sense, of Jehovah Himself.

But the way in which Israel was to be prepared is further specified in the middle clauses of the verse, which are also based on Malachi's words. The interpretation of to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children' is very doubtful; but the best explanation seems to be that the phrase means to bring back to the descendants of the ancient fathers of the nation the ancestral faith and obedience. They are to be truly Abraham's seed, because they do the works and cherish the faith of Abraham. The words imply the same truth which John after wards launched as a keen-edged dart, Think not to say, We have Abraham to our father.' Descent after the flesh should lead to kindred in spirit. If it does not, it is nought.

To turn' the disobedient to the wisdom of the just' is practically the same change, only regarded from another point of view. John was sent to effect repentance, that change of mind and heart by which the disobedient to the commands of God should be brought to possess and exercise the moral and religious discernment which dwells only in the spirits of the righteous. Disobedience is folly. True wisdom cannot be divorced from rectitude. Real rectitude cannot live apart from obedience to God.

Such was God's intention in sending John. How sadly the real effects of his mission contrast with its design! So completely can men thwart God, as Jesus said in reference to John's mission, The Pharisees and lawyers frustrated the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him.' Let us take heed lest we bring to nothing, so far as we are concerned, His gracious purpose of redemption in Christ!

Maclaren: Joh 14:15

Love And Obedience

If ye love Me, keep My commandments.'--John 14:15.

As we have seen in former sermons, the keyword of the preceding context is Believe!' and that word passes now into Love.' The order here is the order of experience. There is first the believing gaze upon the Christ as He is revealed--the image of the invisible God. That kindles love, and prompts to obedience.

There is another very beautiful and subtle link of connection between these words and the preceding. Our Lord has just been saying, Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do.' Is the parallel wholly accidental or fanciful between the Lord who does as the servant asks and the servant who is to do as the Lord commands? On both sides there is love delighting to be set in motion by a message from the other side. On the one part there is love supreme which commands and delights to be asked, on the other part there is love dependent, which asks and delights to be commanded; and though the gulf between the two is great, and the difference between Christ's law and our petitions is infinite, yet there is an analogy.

I pause on these words, though they are introduced here only as the basis of the great promise which follows, because they open out into such wide fields. They contain the all-sufficient law of Christian conduct. They contain the one motive adequate to bring that law into realisation. They disclose the very roots of Christian morality, and part of the secret of Christ's unique power and influence amongst men. They come with a message of encouragement to all souls despairing of being able to do that which they would, and of freedom to all men burdened with a crowd of minute and external regulations. If ye love Me, keep My commandments'--there are three points to be dwelt upon here--namely, the all-sufficient ideal or guide of life, the all-powerful motive which Christ brings to bear, and the all-subduing gaze of faith by which that motive is brought into action.

I. We Have Here The All-Sufficient Ideal Or Guide For Life.

Jesus Christ is not speaking merely to that little handful of men in the upper chamber, but to all generations and to all lands, to the end of time and round the world. The authoritative tone which He assumes here is very noteworthy. He speaks as Jehovah spoke from Sinai, and quotes the very words of the old law when He speaks of keeping My commandments.' There are distinctly involved in this quite incidental utterance of Christ's two startling things--one the assumption of His right to impose His will upon every human being, and the other His assumption that His will contains the all-sufficient directory for human conduct.

What, then, are His commandments! Those which He spoke are plain and simple; and people who wish to pick holes in the greatness of Christ's work in the world tell us that you can match almost all His precepts up and down amongst moralists and philosophers, and they crow very loud if, scratching amongst Rabbinical dust-heaps, they find something that looks like anything that He once said. Be it so! What does that matter? Christ's commandments' are Christ Himself. This is the originality and uniqueness of Christ as a moral Teacher, that He says, not Do this, that, and the other thing,' but Copy Me.'

Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.' His commandments are Himself; and the sum of them all is this--a character perfectly self-oblivious, and wholly penetrated and saturated with joyful, filial submission to the Father, and uttermost and entire giving Himself away to His brethren. That is Christ's commandment which He bids us keep, and His law is to be found in His life.

And then, if that be so, what a change passes on the aspect of law, when we take Christ as being our living embodiment of it I Everything that was hard, repellent, far-off, cold, vanishes. We have no longer tables of stone,' but fleshy tables of the heart ; and the Law stands before us, a Being to be loved, to be clung to, to be trusted, and whom it is blessedness to know and perfection to resemble. The rails upon which the train travels may be rigid, but they mean safety, and they carry men smoothly into otherwise inaccessible lands. So the life of Jesus Christ brought to us is the firm and plain track along which we are to travel; and all that was difficult and hard in the cold thought of duty becomes changed into the attraction of a living Pattern and Example. This living and breathing and loving commandment is all-sufficient for every detail and complexity of human life. It is so "by the confession of believers and of unbelievers, by the joyful confession of the one, and by the frank acknowledgment of many of the others. Listen to one of them. Whatever else may be taken away from us by rational criticism, Christ is still left, a unique Figure, not more unlike all His predecessors than all His followers, Religion cannot be said to have made a bad choice in selecting this Man as the ideal Representative and Guide of humanity; nor even now would it be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete than to endeavour so to live that Christ would approve our life.'

It is enough for conduct, it is enough for character, it is enough in all perplexities of conflicting duties, that we listen to and obey the voice that says, Keep My commandments.'

II. Now Note, Secondly, The All-Powerful Motive.

Probably my text is best understood as the Revised Version understands it, which reads, If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments,' making it an assurance and not an injunction. Christ speaks with the calm confidence that love to Him will have power enough to sway the life. His utterance here is not the addition of another commandment to the list, but rather the pointing out of how they may all be kept.

The principle that underlies these words, then, is this, that love is the foundation of obedience, and obedience is the sure outcome and result of love. That is true in regard to those lower forms of love, which may teach us something of the operation of the higher. We all know that love which is real, and not simply passion and selfishness with a mask on, delights most chiefly in knowing and conforming to the will of the beloved, and that there is nothing sweeter than to be commanded by the dear voice and to obey for dear love's sake. And you have only to take that which is the experience of every true heart, in a thousand sweet ways in daily life, and to lift it into the higher region, and to transfer it to the bond that unites us with Jesus Christ, to see that He has invoked no illusory, but an omnipotent power when He has rested the whole force of His transforming and sanctifying energy upon this one principle, If ye love Me, the Lawgiver, ye will keep the commandments of My Law.'

That is exactly what distinguishes and lifts the morality of the Gospel above all other systems. The worst man in the world knows a great deal more of his duty than the best man does. It is not for want of knowledge that men go to the devil, but it is for want of power or will to live their knowledge. And what morality fails to do, with its clearest utterances of human duty, Christ comes and does. The one law is like the useless proclamations posted up in some rebellious district, where there is no army to back them, and the king's authority from whom they come is flouted. The other law gets itself obeyed. Such is the difference between the powerless morality of the world and the commandment of Jesus Christ. Here is the road plain and straight. What matters that, if there is no force to draw the cart along it? There might as well be no road at all. Here stand all your looms, polished and in perfect order, but there is no steam in the boilers; and so there is no motion, and nothing is woven. What we want is not law, but power, and what the Gospel gives us, and stands alone in giving us, is not merely the knowledge of the will of God, and the clear revelation of what we ought to be, but the power to become it.

Love does that, and love alone. That strong force brought into action in our hearts will drive out from thence all rivals, all false and low things. The true way to cleanse the Augean stables, as the old myth has it, was to turn the river into them. It would have been endless work to wheel out the filth in wheelbarrows loaded by spades: turn the stream in, and it will sweep away all the foulness. When the Ark comes into the Temple, Dagon lies, a mutilated stump, upon the threshold. When Christ comes into my heart, then all the obscene and twilight-loving shapes that lurked there, and defiled it, will vanish like ghosts at cock-crowing before His calm and pure Presence. He, and He alone, entering my heart by the portals of my love, will coerce my evil and stimulate my good. And if I love Him, I shall keep His commandments.

Now, brethren, here is a plain test and a double-barrelled one, which tries both our love and our obedience with a sharp touchstone. If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments.' That implies, first, that there is no love worth calling so which does not keep the commandment. All the emotional and the mystic, and the so-called higher parts of Christian experience, have to be content to submit to this plain test--do they help us to live as Christ would have us, and that because He would have us? Love to Him that does not keep His commandments is either spurious or dangerously feeble. The true sign of its presence in the heart and the noblest of its operations is not to be found in high-pitched expressions of fervid emotion, nor even in the sacred joys of solitary communion, but in its making us, while in the rough struggle of daily life, and surrounded by trivial tasks, live near Him, and by Him, and for Him, and like Him. If I live so, I love Him; if not, not. Not that I mean to say that in regard to each individual action of a Christian man's life there must be the conscious presence of reference to the supreme love, but that each individual action of the life ought to come from a character of which that reference to the supreme love is the very formative principle and foundation.

The colouring matter put in at the fountain will dye every drop of the stream; and they whose inmost hearts are tinged and tinctured with the sweet love of Jesus Christ, from their hearts will go forth issues of life all coloured and moulded thereby. Test your Christian love by your practical obedience.

And, on the other hand, there is no obedience worth calling so which is not the child of love; and all the multitude of right things which Christians do without that motive are made short work of by that consideration. Obedience which is formal, mechanical, matter-of-course, without the presence in it of a loving submission of the will; obedience which is reluctant, calculated, forced upon us by dread, imitated from others--all that is nothing; and Jesus Christ does not count it as obedience at all. This is a sieve with very small meshes, and there will be a great deal of rubbish left in it after the shaking. If ye love Me, keep My commandments.' The keeping of My commandments' which has not love to Me' underlying it is no keeping at all.

III. And So, Lastly, Notice The All-Subduing Gaze.

That is not included in my text, but it is necessary in order to complete the view of the forces to which Jesus Christ here entrusts the hallowing of life and the sanctifying of our nature; and we are led to refer to it by what I have already pointed out; the connection between the love' of my text and the believe' of the preceding verses. I can fancy a man saying, Keep His commandments? Woe is me! How am I to keep?' The answer is Love.' And I can fancy him saying Love?' Yes! And how am I to love? I cannot get up love at the word of command, or by any voluntary effort.' And the answer comes again, Believe!' Trust Christ, and you will love Him. Love Him and you will do His will. And then the question comes again, Believe what?' And the answer comes, Believe that He is the Son of God who died for you.'

Nothing else will kindle a man's love than the faithful contemplation and grasp of Christ in that character and aspect. Only the redeeming Christ affords a reasonable ground for our love to Him. Here is a dead man, dead for nineteen centuries, expecting you and me to have towards Him a vivid personal affection which will influence our conduct and our character. What right has He to expect that? There is only one reasonable ground upon which I may be called to love Jesus Christ, and that is that He died for me, and such a love towards such a Christ is the only thing which will wield power sufficient to guide, to coerce, to restrain, to constrain, and to sustain my weak, wayward, rebellious, and sluggish will. All other emotions of so-called admiration and worship and reverence and affection for Jesus Christ are apt to be tepid; but this one has power and warmth in it.

Here is a unique fact in the history of the world, that not only did He make this astounding claim upon all subsequent generations; but that all subsequent generations have responded to it, and that to-day there are millions of men who love Jesus Christ with a love warm, personal, deep, powerful--the spring of all their goodness and the Lord of their lives. Why do they? For one reason only. Because they believe that He died for them individually, and that He lives an ascended yet ever-present Helper and Lover of their souls.

My brethren, that conviction, and that conviction only, as I venture to affirm, has power to send a glow of love into the heart which will move all the limbs in swift and happy obedience. That conviction, and that conviction alone, will melt the thick-ribbed ice of our spirits and will make it flow down in sweet waters. The love that has looked upon the Cross will be the fulfilling of the law of Him that speaks from the Throne. When our faith has grasped Him, as enduring that cross for us, then our love will be awakened to hear and to do His commandments.

We love Him because He first loved us,' and such love will flower and fruit in obedience. I shall keep His commandments when I love Him. I shall love Him with a love that makes my will plastic and my life a glad service, when by faith I grasp Him as the Incarnate Lord, who loved me and gave Himself for me.'

Maclaren: Joh 14:16-17

The Comforter Given

And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of Truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.'--John 14:16-17.

THE and' at the beginning of these words shows us that they are continuous with and the consequence of what precedes. If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments, and I will pray … and He will send.' Such is the series; but we must also remember that, as we have seen in previous sermons, the obedience spoken of in the clause before my text is itself treated as a consequence of some preceding steps. The ladder that is fixed upon earth and has its summit in heaven has for its rungs, first and lowest, believe'; second, love'; third, obey.' And thus the context carries us from the very basis of the Christian life up into its highest reward, even the larger gift to an obedient spirit of that Great Spirit, who is the Comforter and the Teacher.

And there is another very striking link of connection between these words and the preceding. There are, if I may so say, two telephones across the abyss that separates the ascended Christ and us. One of them is contained in His words, If ye ask anything in My name I will do it'; the other is contained in these words, If ye keep My commandments I will ask.' Love on this side of the great cleft sets love on the other side of it in motion in a twofold fashion. If we ask, He does; if we do, He asks. His action is the answer to our prayers, and His prayers are the answer to our obedient action. So we have here these points--the praying Christ and the giving Father; the abiding Gift; the blind world and the recipient disciples.

I. Note, Then, First, The Praying Christ And The Giving Father.

I will ask and He will give' seems a strange drop from the lofty claims with which we have become familiar in the earlier verses of this chapter. Believe in God, believe also in Me'; He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father'; If ye shall ask anything in My name I will do it'; Keep My commandments.' All these distinctly express, or necessarily imply, divine nature, prerogatives, and authority. But here the voice that spake the perfect revelation of God, and gave utterance authoritatively to the perfect law of life, softens and lowers its tones in petition; and Jesus Christ joins the rank of the suppliants. Now common sense tells us that apparently diverse views lying so close together in one continuous stream of speech cannot have seemed to the utterer of them to be contradictory; and I venture to affirm that there is no explanation which does justice to these two sides of Christ's consciousness--the one all divine and authoritative and lofty, and the other all lowly and identifying Himself with petitioners and suppliants everywhere--except the old-fashioned and to-day discredited belief that He is God manifest in the flesh,' who prays in His Manhood and hears prayer in His Divinity. The bare humanistic view which emphasises such utterances as these of my text does not, for the life of it, know what to do with the other ones, and cannot manage to unite these two images into a stereoscopic solid. That is reserved for the faith which believes in the Manhood and in the Deity of our Lord and Saviour.

His intercession is the great hope of the Christian heart. His intercession is the great activity of His present exalted and glorious state. His intercession is no mere verbal utterance, nor the representation to the Father of an alien or a diverse will, but His intercession, mysterious as it is, and unfathomable to our poor, short lines and light plummets, must mean this at all events--His continual activity in presenting before the divine Father, as the motive and condition of His petition being granted, His own great work upon the Cross. The High Priest passes within the veil, bearing in His hand the offering which He has made, and by reason of that offering, and of His powerful presence before the mercy-seat, all the spiritual gifts which redeem and regenerate and sanctify humanity are for ever coming forth. I will pray, and He will give,' is but one way of saying, Seeing then, that we have a great High Priest over the House of God who is entered within the veil, let us draw near.'

But I would have you notice how, as is always the case in all utterances of Jesus Christ which express the lowest humiliation and completest identification of Himself with humanity, there is ever present some touch of obscured glory, some all but suppressed flash of brightness which will not be wholly concealed. Note two things in this great utterance; one, Christ's quiet assumption that all through the ages, and today, nineteen centuries after He died, He knows, at the moment of their being done, His servants' deeds. Keep my commandments, and, knowing that you keep them, I will then and there pray for you.' He claims in the lowly words an altogether supernatural, abnormal, divine cognisance of all the acts of men down the ages and across the gulf between earth and heaven.

And the other signature of divinity stamped on the prayer of Christ is His certitude of the answer. I will ask and He will give': He puts, as it were, the Father's act in pledge to us, and assures us, in a tone of certainty, which is not merely the assurance of faith, but the certitude of One who is one with the Father,' that His prayer brings ever its answer. Father! I will that they whom Thou hast given Me be with Me.' How strange! How far beyond the warrantable language of man! And how impossible for a fisherman of Bethsaida to imagine, if he had not heard, that strange blending of submission and of authority which speaks in such words!

Then, remember what I have already said, that, according to the teaching of this verse, taken in connection with its context, that which put in motion Christ's intercessory activity, as represented in my text, is the obedience of a Christian man. If you obey He will pray, and the Father will send. So the reward of imperfect obedience is the larger measure given to us of that divine Spirit by whose indwelling obedience becomes possible, and self-surrender a joy and a power. And that is not merely because of the natural operation by which any kind of conduct tends to repeat itself in more complete measure, nor is it merely a case of' to him that hath shall be given'; as a man's arm is strengthened by exercise, and any faculty becomes more assured, and swift, and at the command of its owner, by use. But there is a distinct supernatural impartation to every obedient heart of divine gifts which come straight through Jesus Christ to it. He Himself, in this immediate context, says, If I depart I will send Him unto you,' and the true conception is that in that Spirit's gift, which is a reality waiting as its crown and reward upon our poor stained obedience, the whole Godhead is present; the Father the Source, the Son the Channel, the Spirit the Gift.

II. And So, Secondly, Note What Our Text Tells Us Of That Abiding Gift.

He will send another Comforter,' that He may abide with you for ever, even the Spirit of Truth.' I suppose I may take it for granted that most of my audience know all that need be said as to the meaning of this word Comforter.' In our present modern English it has a very much narrower range of meaning than its etymology would give it, and than probably it had when it was first used in an English translation. Comforter' means a great deal more than consoler,' though we have narrowed it to that signification almost exclusively. It means not only one who administers sweet whispers of consolation in sorrow, but one who, in any circumstances, by his presence makes strong. And the original Greek word, of which it is the translation here, has a precisely analogous meaning; its original signification being that of one who is called to the aid of another,' primarily as an advocate in a court of law, but more widely as a helper in any form whatsoever. And that is the idea which is to be attached to the word here:--a Comforter who makes strong by His presence; the Paraclete, who is our Advocate, Helper, Guide, and Instructor. Need I dwell upon the great thoughts that spring from that metaphor; how we have to look for a Person, and not merely a vague influence; a divine Person who will be by our sides on condition of our faith, love, and obedience, to be our Strength in all weakness, our Peace in all trouble, our Wisdom in all darkness, our Guide in every perplexity, our Comforter and Cherisher, our Righteousness when sin is strong, the Victor over our temptations, and the Companion and Sweetener of our solitude? The metaphors with which Scripture represents this great personal Influence are full of instruction and beauty. He comes as the Fire,' which melts, which warms, which cleanses, which quickens. He comes as the rushing, mighty Wind,' which bears health upon its wings, and sometimes breathes softly as an infant's breath, and sometimes sweeps with irresistible power. He comes as the Oil,' gently flowing, lubricating, making every joint supple, nourishing. He comes as the Water of Life,' refreshing, vitalising, quickening all growth. He comes fluttering down as the Dove of God, the bird of peace that will brood upon our hearts. The predicates which Scripture attaches to that great Name are equally various, and are full of teaching as to the manner in which He is the Comforter and the Advocate. He is the Spirit of Holiness, the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Wisdom, the Spirit of Power, the Spirit of Love, the Spirit of a sound Mind, the Spirit of Sonship, the Spirit of Supplication, and of many great things besides. And this sweet, strong, all-sufficient Person is offered to each of us, and waits to enter our hearts.

And, says Christ, this Strengthener and Advocate is to replace Me and to carry on My work. He will send another Comforter.' Who was the other but the Master who was speaking? So all that that handful of men had found of sweetness and shelter and assured guidance, and stay for their weakness, and enlightenment for their darkness, and companionship for their solitude, and a breast on which to rest their heads, and love in which to bathe their hearts, all these this divine Spirit will bring to each of us if we will.

And further, our Lord tells us that this strong continuer of His presence will be a permanent Companion. He will abide with you for ever.' He was comforting the disciples who were trembling at the thought of His departure, and knowing that all the sweetness of these three short years had come to an end; and He says to them, and through them to all the ages to the end of time: Here is the abiding Guest, that nothing but your own sin will ever cast out from your hearts.'

And Christ tells us how this great Spirit will do His work. He is the Spirit of Truth,' not as if He brought new truth. To suppose that He does so, opens the door to all manner of fanaticism, but the truth, the revelation of which is all summed and finished in the person and work of Jesus Christ, is the weapon by which the divine Spirit works all His conquests, the staff on which He makes us lean and be strong. He is the Spirit by whom the truth passes into our personal possession, by no mere imperfect form of outward teaching which is always confused and insufficient, but by the inward teaching that deals with our hearts and our spirits.

But Christ speaks, too, of the blind world. There is a tone of deep sadness in His words. The thought of the immense multitude of men who were incapacitated to receive this Strengthener steals across and casts a momentary shadow upon even the brightness and greatness of His promise. The world cannot receive because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him.' The world' is the mass of man, considered as godless and separate from Him, and there is a bit of the world in us all; but there are men who are wholly under its influence and dominion. And these men, says Christ, are perfectly incapable of receiving the teaching of this divine Comforter. Of course there are other operations of that Great Spirit of which we shall have to hear as we go on further in this context, in which His work convicts the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.' But what our Lord is speaking of here is the work of that Spirit who comes in response to His prayer which rises in consequence of our obedience, and who, coming, brings with Him strength and purity and peace and wisdom; and that aspect of His operations a heart that is all full and seething with the world is unfit to receive. It cannot see Him. Embruted natures are altogether incapacitated for high thoughts, for the perception of natural beauty, for the appreciation of art; and worldly men, by the very same law, are incapable of receiving this divine Spirit. A savage stares at the sunshine and sees nothing but a glare. And worldly men--that is to say, men whose tastes, inclinations, desires, hopes, purposes, strivings, are all bound by this visible diurnal round--lack the organ that enables them to see that divine Spirit moving round about them. Whether you have put your eyes out by fleshly lusts, or, as many men in this generation have done, by intellectual self-sufficiency and conceit, if the world, in its grosser or in its most refined forms, is your master, you are stone blind to all the best realities of the universe, and you cannot see the things that are. If you look out upon the history of the Church, or upon the present condition of Christendom, and say, I see no divine Spirit working there'; well, then, the only thing that is to be said to you is, Go to an oculist; your sight is bad. Perhaps there is solid land, as some of us see it, where you see only mist.' This generation needs the preaching of a supernatural power at work beside us, and among us, and until we come to believe that, we do not understand the fullness of Christ's gift.

III. Then, Lastly, Note The Recipient Disciples.

Observe that the order of clauses is reversed in the last part of the text. The world cannot receive, because it does not know. The disciple knows, because he receives. Possession and knowledge reciprocally interchange places, and may be regarded as cause and effect of one another. That is to say, at bottom they are one and the same thing. Knowledge is possession, and possession is the only knowledge. These disciples knew Christ in a fashion. He had just been telling them that they did not know Him; but so far as they did dimly grasp Him, they saw the Spirit, in another form, indeed, than they would hereafter see--but still truly, though imperfectly. Beholding the Spirit, though through a glass darkly,' and cherishing their partial possession of Him, they will come to more, and steadfastly increase from the morning's twilight to the midday glory. So He says: He dwelleth with you' now, and' He shall be is you' hereafter. There is a better form of possession opening before them, which came at Pentecost, and has lasted ever since. From thenceforward we have a Spirit that not only stands by our sides and holds fellowship with us (for the two withs' of our text are two different words, expressing respectively proximity and communion), but who actually dwells in the central depths of our natures, and whom we thus possess more perfectly and blessedly than is possible to even the closest outward proximity, and the sweetest outward fellowship.

That possession of an abiding and indwelling Spirit is the gift of Christ to every Christian soul, and is to be found by us all upon the path so plainly marked out in our text and its connections--believe,' love,' obey.' Then the Dove of God will flutter down upon our heads and nestle in our hearts, and brooding over the solemn and solitary sea of our chaotic spirits, will bring up from it a new world glistening in fresh order and beauty, and' very good' in its Maker's eyes.

Maclaren: Joh 14:18-19

The Absent Present Christ

I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me: because I live, ye shall live also.' --John 14:18-19.

THE sweet and gracious comfortings with which Christ had been soothing the disciples' fears went very deep, but hitherto they had not gone deep enough. It was much that they should know the purpose of His going, whither He went, and that they had an interest in His departure. It was much that they should have before them the prospect of reunion; much that they should know that all through His absence He would be working in them, and that they should be assured that, absent, He would send them a great gift. But reunion, influence from afar, and gifts from the other side of the gulf were not all that their hearts needed. And so here our Lord gives yet more, in the paradoxes that, absent He will be present, unseen visible, and dying will be for them for ever, living and life-giving. These great thoughts go to the centre of their needs and of ours; and on them I now touch briefly.

There are then in the words I have read, though they be but a fragment of a closely-linked-together context, these three great thoughts: the absent Christ the present Christ; the unseen Christ the seen Christ; the Christ who dies the living and life-giving Christ. Let us look at these as they stand.

I. First, Then, The Absent Christ Is The Present Christ.

I will not leave you comfortless,' or, as the Revised Version has it, desolate--I come to you.' Now, most of us know, I suppose, that the literal meaning of the word rendered comfortless,' or desolate,' is orphans: But that is rather an unusual form in which to represent the relation between our Lord and His disciples, and so, possibly, our versions are accurate in giving the general idea of desolation rather than the specific idea conveyed directly by the word. But still it is to be remembered that this whole conversation begins with Little children ; and there seems to be no strong reason for suppressing the literal meaning of the word, if only it be remembered that it is employed not so much to define Christ's relation to his brethren as to describe the comfortless and helpless condition of that little group when left by Him. They would be like fatherless and motherless children in a cold world. And what is to hinder that? One thing only. I come to you.' Then, and only then, will you cease to be desolate and orphans. My presence will change everything and turn winter into glorious summer.'

Now, what is this coming'? It is to be observed that our Lord says, not I will,' as a future, but I come,' or' I am coming,' as an immediately impending, and, we may almost say, present, thing. There can be no reference in the word to that final coming to judgment which lies so far ahead; because, if there were, then there would follow from the text, that, until that period, all that love Him here upon earth are to wander about as orphans, desolate and forsaken; and that certainly can never be. So that we have to recognise here the promise of a coming which is contemporaneous with His absence, and which is, in fact, but the reverse side of His bodily absence.

It is true about Him that He departs from' His people in bodily form for a season, that they may receive Him' in a better form for ever.' This, then, is the heart and centre of the consolation here, that howsoever the external presence may be withdrawn, and the foolish senses' may have to speak of an absent Christ, we may rejoice in the certainty that He is with all those that love Him, and all the more with them because of the very withdrawal of the earthly manifestation which has served its purpose, and now is laid aside as an impediment rather than as a help to the full communion. We confound bodily with real. The bodily presence is at an end; the real presence lasts for ever.

I do not need to insist, I suppose, upon the manifest implication of absolute divinity which lies in such words as these. I come.' Being absent, I am present in all generations. I am present with every single heart.' That is equivalent to the Omnipresence of deity; that is equivalent to or implies the undying existence of the divine nature, and He that says, when He is leaving earth and withdrawing the sweetness of His visible form from the eyes of men, I come,' in the very act of going, and I am with you always, with all of you to the end of the ages,' can be no less than God, manifest in the flesh for a time, and present in the Spirit with His children for ever.

I cannot but think that the average Christian life of this day woefully fails in the simple, conscious realisation of this great truth, and that we are all far too little living in the calm, happy, strengthening assurance that we are never alone, but have Jesus Christ with each of us more closely, more truly, in a more available fashion, and with more omnipotence of influence, than they had who were nearest Him during the days that He lived upon earth.

Oh, brethren! if we really believed, not as an article of our creed which has become so familiar to us that it produces little impression upon us, but as a vital and ever-present conviction of our souls, that with us there was ever the real presence of the real Christ, how all burdens and cares would be lightened, how all perplexities would begin to smooth themselves out and be straightened, how all the force would be sucked out of temptations, and how sorrows and joys and all things would be changed in their aspect by that one conviction intensely realised and constantly with us! A present Christ is the Strength, the Righteousness, the Peace, the Joy, and as we shall see, in the most literal sense, the Life of every Christian soul.

Then, note, further, that this coming of our Lord is identified with that of His divine Spirit. He has been speaking of sending that other Comforter,' but though He be Another, He is yet so indissolubly united with Him who sends as that the coming of the Spirit is the coming of Jesus. He is no gift wafted to us as from the other side of a gulf, but by reason of the unity of the Godhead and the divinity of the sent Spirit, Jesus Christ and the Spirit whom He sends are inseparable though separate, and so indissolubly united that where the Spirit is, there is Christ, and where Christ is, there is the Spirit. These are amongst the deep things which the disciples were' not able to carry' at that stage of their development, and which waited for a further explanation. Enough for them and enough for us, to know that we have Christ in the Spirit and the Spirit in Christ; and to remember' that if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.'

We stand here on the margin of a shoreless and fathomless sea; and for my part I venture to think that the men who talk about the incredibilities and the contradictions of the orthodox faith would show themselves a little wiser if they were more conscious of the limitation of human faculty, and remembered that to pronounce upon contradictions in the doctrine of the divine Nature implies that the pronouncer stands above and goes round about the whole of that nature. So, for my part, abjuring omniscience and the comprehension of Deity, I accept the statement that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit come together and dwell in the heart.

Then, note, further, that this present Christ is the only Remedy for the orphanhood of the world. The words had a tender and pathetic reference to that little, bewildered group of followers, deprived of their Guide, their Teacher, and their Companion. He who had been as eyes to their weak vision, and Counsellor and Inspirer and everything for three blessed years, was going away to leave them unsheltered to the storm, and we can understand how forlorn and terrified they were, when they looked forward to fronting the things that must come to them, without His presence. Therefore He cheers them with the assurance that they will not be left without Him, but that, present still, just because He is absent, He will be all that He ever had been to them.

And the promise was fulfilled. How did that disspirited group of cowardly men ever pluck up courage to hold together at all after the Crucifixion? Why was it that they did not follow the example of John's disciples, and dissolve and disappear; and say, The game is up. It is no use holding together any longer'? The process of separation began on the very day of the Crucifixion. Only one thing could have stopped it, and that is the Resurrection and the presence with His Church of the risen Christ in His power and in all the fullness of His gifts. If it had not been that He came to them, they would have disappeared, and Christianity would have been one more of the abortive sects forgotten in Judaism. But, as it is, the whole of the New Testament after Pentecost is aflame with the consciousness of a present Christ, working amongst His people. And although it be true that, in one aspect, we are absent from the Lord when we are present with the body, in another aspect, and an infinitely higher one, it is true that the strength of the Christian life of Apostles and martyrs was this, the assurance that Christ Himself--no mere rhetorical metaphor for His influence or His example, or His memory lingering in their imaginations, but the veritable Christ Himself --was present with them, to strengthen and to bless.

That same conviction you and I must have, if the world is not to be a desert and a dreary place for us. In a very profound sense it is true that if you take away Jesus Christ, the elder Brother, who alone reveals to men the Father, we are all orphans, fatherless children, who look up into an empty heaven and see nothing there. It is only Christ who reveals to us the Father and makes our happy hearts feel that we are of His children. And in the wider sense of the word orphans,' is not life a desolation without Him? Hollow joys, fleeting blessednesses, roses whose thorns last long after the petals have dropped, real sorrows, shows and shams, bitternesses and disappointments--are not these our life, in so far as Christ has been driven out of it? Oh! there is only one thing that saves us from being as desolate, fatherless children, groping in the dark for the lost Father's hand, and dying for want of it, and that is that the Christ Himself shall come to us and be with us.

II. The Unseen Christ Is A Seen Christ.

It is clear that the period referred to in the second clause of our text is the same as that referred to in the first, that yet a little while' covers the whole space up to His Ascension; and that if there be any reference at all to the forty days of His earthly life, during which literally, the world saw Him no more,' but the Apostles saw Him,' that reference is only secondary. These transitory appearances are not of sufficient moment or duration to bear the weight of so great a promise as this. The vision, which is the consequence of the coming, has the same extension in time as the coming--that is to say, it is continuous and permanent. We must read here the great promise of a perpetual vision of the present Christ.

It is clear, too, that the word' see' is employed in these two clauses in two different senses. In the former it refers only to bodily sight, in the latter to spiritual perception. For a few short hours still, the ungodly mass of men were to have that outward vision which might have been so much to them, but which they had used so badly that they seeing saw not.' It was to cease, and they who loved Him would not miss it when it did; but the withdrawal which hid Him from sense and sense-bound souls would reveal Him more clearly to His friends. They, too, had but dimly seen Him while He stood by them; they would gaze on Him with truer insight when He was present though absent.

So this is what every Christian life may and should be--the continual sight of a continually-present Christ. It is His part to come. It is ours to see, to be conscious of Him who does come.

Faith is the sight of the soul, and it is far better than the sight of the senses. It is more direct. My eye does not touch what I look at. Gulfs of millions of miles may lie between me and it. But my faith is not only eye, but hand, and not only beholds, but grasps, and comes into contact with that to which it is directed. It is far more clear. Sense may deceive; faith, built upon His Word, cannot deceive. Its information is far more certain, far more valid. I have better reason for believing in Jesus Christ than I have for believing in the things that I touch and handle. So that there is no need for men to say, Oh, if we had only seen Him with our eyes!' You would very likely not have known Him if you had. There is no reason for thinking that the Church has retrograded in its privileges, because it has to love instead of beholding, and to believe instead of touching. That is advance, and we are better than they, inasmuch as the blessing of those' who have not seen, and yet have believed,' comes down upon our heads. The vision of Christ which is granted to the faithful soul is better and not worse, more and not less, other in kind indeed, but loftier in degree too, than that which was granted to the men who saw Him upon earth. Sense disturbs, faith alone beholds.

The world seeth Me no more.' Why? Because it is a world. Ye see Me.' Why? Because, and in the measure in which you have turned away your eyes from seeing vanity. If you want the eye of the soul to be opened, you must shut the eye of sense. And the more we turn away from looking at the dazzling lies with which time and the material universe befool and bewilder us, the more shall we see Him whom to see is to live for ever.

Oh, brethren! does that strong word see' in any measure express the vividness, the directness, the certainty of our realisation of our Master's presence? Is Jesus Christ as clear, as perceptible, as sure to us am the men round us are? Which are the shadows and which are the realities to us? The things which are seen, which the senses crown as real,' or the things which cannot be seen because they are so great, and tower above us, invisible in their eternity? Which world are our eyes most open to, the world where Christ is, or the world here? Our happy eyes may behold and our blessed hands may handle the Word of Life which was manifested to us. Let us beware that we turn not away from the one thing worthy to be looked at, to gaze upon a desolate and dreary world.

III. Lastly, The Present And Seen Christ Is Living And Life-Giving.

The last words of my text may be connected with the preceding, as the marginal rendering of the Revised Version shows. But it is probably better to take them as standing independently, and presenting another and co-ordinate element of the blessedness arising from the coming of the Christ. Because He comes, His life passes into the hearts of the men to whom He comes, and who gaze upon Him.

Time forbids me to dwell upon that majestic proclamation of His own absolute and divine life, from lips that were so soon to be paled with death. Mark the grand I live'--the timeless present tense, which expresses unbroken, underived, undying, and, as I believe, divine life. It is all but a quotation of the great Old Testament name Jehovah.' The depth and sweep of its meaning are given to us in this Apostle's Apocalypse, where Christ is called the living One,' who lived whilst He died, and having died' is alive for evermore.'

And this Christ, coming to all His friends, possessor of the fullness of life in Himself, and proclaiming His absolute possession of that life, even whilst He stands within arm's-length of Calvary, is Life-giver to all that love Him and trust Him.

We live because He lives. In all senses of the word life,' as I believe, the life of men is derived from the Christ who is the Agent of creation, the channel from whom life passes from the Godhead into the creatures, and who is also the one means by whom any of us can ever hope to live the better life which is the only true one, and consists in fellowship with God and union to Him.

We shall live as long as He lives, and His being is the pledge and the guarantee of the immortal being of all who love Him. Anything is possible, rather than that it should be credible that a soul, which has drawn spiritual life from Jesus Christ here upon earth, should ever be rent apart from Him by such a miserable and external trifle as the mere dissolution of the bodily frame. As long as Christ lives our life is secure. If the Head has life, the members cannot see corruption.' Take me not away in the midst of my days: Thy years are throughout all generations' was the prayer of a saint of old, deeply feeling the contrast of the worshipper's transiency and God's eternity, and dimly hoping that the contrast might be changed into likeness. The great promise of our text answers the prayer, and assures us that the worshipper is to live as long as does He whom He adores.

We shall live as He lives, nor ever cease the appropriation of His being until all His life we know, and all its fullness has expanded our natures--and that will be never. Therefore we shall not die.

Men's lives have been prolonged by the transfusion of blood from vigorous frames. Jesus Christ passes His own blood into our veins and makes us immortal. The Church chose for one of its ancient emblems of the Saviour the pelican, which fed its young, according to the fable, with blood from its own breast. So Christ vitalises us. He in us is our Life.

Brethren, without Jesus Christ we are orphans in a fatherless world. Without Him, our wearied and yet unsatisfied eyes have only trifles and trials and trash to look at. Without Him, we are dead whilst we live.'

He and He only can give us back a Father, and renew in us the spirit of sons. He and only He can satisfy our eyes with the sight which is purity and restfulness and joy. He and He only can breathe life into our death. Oh! let Him do it for you. He comes to us with all these gifts in His hands, for He comes to give us Himself, and in Himself, as in a box where sweets compacted lie,' are all that lonely hearts and wearied eyes and dead souls can ever need. All are yours if you are Christ's. All are yours if He is yours. And He is yours if by faith and love you make yourself His and Him your own.

Maclaren: Joh 14:20-21

The Gifts Of The Present Christ

At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you. He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.'--John 14:20-21.

WE have heard our Lord in the previous verse unveiling His deepest and strongest encouragements to His downcast followers. These were: His presence with them, their true sight of Him, and their participation in His life. The first part of our present text is closely connected with these, for it gives us their upshot and consequence. Because Christ's true disciple is conscious of Christ's presence, sees Him with the eyes of his spirit, and draws life from Him, therefore he will know by experience the deep truths of Christ's indwelling at once in the Father and in His servant, and of His servant's indwelling in Him. Our Lord had just previously been exhorting His disciples to believe that He was in the Father and the Father in Him; and had been gently wondering at the slowness of their faith. Now He tells them that, when He is gone, their spiritual stature will be so increased as that they shall know the thing which, with Him by their side, they found it so hard to believe.

The second part of our present text is the close of this whole section of our Lord's discourse, and in it He urges the requirement of practical obedience, as the sign and test of love, and as the condition of receiving these high and wonderful things of which He has been speaking. He has been unveiling spiritual blessings, which may seem recondite and up in the clouds, and which, as a matter of fact, have often been perverted into dreamy mysticisms of a most immoral and unpractical kind. And so He brings us sharp back again here to very plain truths, and would teach us that all these lofty and ineffable gifts of which He has been dimly speaking are to be reached only by the commonplace road of honest obedience and simple conformity to His commandments. In these last words of my text, He administers the antidote and the check to the possible abuses of the great things which He has been saying.

I. Note, Then, First, The Knowledge That Comes With The Christ Who Comes.

At that day' covers the whole period of which He has been speaking, between His withdrawal from the disciples and His final corporeal coming to judgment --that great day of which generations are but the moments. In it the men who love Him are to have His presence, His vision, His life, and because they have,' Ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you.' The principle that underlies these wonderful words is that Christian experience is the best teacher of fundamental Christian truth. Observe with what decision, and with what strange boldness, our Lord carries that principle into regions where we might suppose at first sight that it was altogether inapplicable. Ye shall know that I am in My Father.' How can such a thing as the relation between Christ and God ever be a matter of consciousness to us here upon earth? Must it not always be a truth that we must take on trust and believe because we have been told it, without having any verification in ourselves-? Not so; remember what has gone before. If a man has the consciousness of Christ's presence with Him, sees Him with the true inward eye, which is the only real organ of real vision, and is drawing from Him, moment by moment, His own high and immortal life, then is it not true that this man's experiences are of such a sort as to be utterly inexplicable, except on the ground that they come from a divine source? If I have these experiences I know that it is Jesus Christ who gives them, and I know that He could not give them, if He did not dwell in God and were not divine. These new influences, this revolution in my being, this healing, constraining, cleansing touch, these calming, gladdening, elevating powers, these new hopes, these reversed desires, loving all to which I was formerly indifferent, and growing dead to all that formerly appealed most strongly to me; all these things bear upon their very front the signature that they are wrought by a divine hand, and as sure as I am of my own Christian consciousness, so sure am I that all its experiences proclaim their Author, and that Christ who gives me them is in God. Ye shall know that I am in My Father.'

The New Testament, as I read it, is full at every point of the divinity of Jesus Christ; and many profound and learned arguments on that subject have been urged by theologians, and these are all well and needful in their places, but the true way to be sure of it is to have Him dwelling with us and working in us; and then what was an article of belief becomes an article of knowledge, and we know Him to be our Saviour and the Son of God.

In like manner, and yet more obviously, the other elements of this knowledge which Christ promises here may be shown to flow naturally and necessarily from Christian experiences. That ye are in Me, and I in you,'--if a Christian man carries the consciousness of Christ's presence, and has Him as a Sun in his darkness, and as a Life-source feeding his deadness with life, then he knows with a consciousness which is irrefragable that Jesus Christ is in him, for he feels His touch; and he knows that he is in Christ, for he is aware of the power that girdles him, and in which he has peace and righteousness and all.

So, dear brethren, let us learn what the Christian man's experience ought to be and to do for him. It should change the articles of our creed into elements of our consciousness. It should make all the fundamentals of the Gospel vitally and vividly true; and certified by what has passed within our own spirits. We should be able to say: We have the witness in ourselves.' And though there will remain much that is uncertain, much in Christian doctrine which is not capable of that clear and all-sufficing verification; much about which we must still depend on the mere teaching of others, or on our own study, the central facts which make the Gospel may all become, by this plain and short path, elements of our very consciousness which stand undeniable to us, whosoever denies them.

Such a direct way to knowledge is reasonable, is in full analogy with the manner by which we attain to the knowledge of everything except the mere external facts, the knowledge of which has arrogated to itself the exclusive name of science.' How do you know anything about love? You may read poems and tragedies to the end of time, and you will not understand it until you come under its spell for yourself; and then all the things that men said about it cease to be mere words, because you yourself have experienced the emotion.

He must be loved, ere that to youHe will seem worthy of your love,'

and the only way to be sure, with a vital certitude, of Christ, is to take Christ for your very own, and then He comes into your very being, and dwells there quickening, the Sun and the Life.

So, dear brethren, though such certitude arising from experience, which in its nature is the very highest, is not available for other people, the fact that so many millions of men allege that in varying degrees they possess this certitude is available for other people, and there is nothing to be said by the unbeliever to this, the attestation of the Christian consciousness to the truth of the truths which it has tried. Whether this man he a sinner or no, I know not.' You may jangle as much as you like about the questionable and controversial points that surround the Christian revelation. I do not care in the present connection what answer you give to them. Whether this man be a sinner or no, I know not. One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see.' And we may push the war into the enemy's quarters, and say: Why! herein is a marvellous thing, that you that know everything do not know whence this man is, and yet He has opened mine eyes. You want facts; there are some. You want verification; we have verified by experience, and we set to our seals that God is true.'

Oh but,' you say, this is not a fair account of the way in which Christian men and women generally feel about this matter.' Well, all that I can say about that is, so much the worse for the so-called Christian men and women. And if they are Christians, and do not know by this inward experience that Christ is divine and their Saviour, then there is only one of two reasons to be given for it; either their experience is so wretchedly superficial and fragmentary, so rudimentary as to be scarcely worth calling by the name; or, having the facts, they have failed to appreciate their significance, and to make their own by reflection the certitudes which are their own.

Brethren, it becomes every Christian man and woman to be able to say, Because I have Christ with me, and see Him, and derive my life from Him, I know that He is in the Father, and I in Him, and He in me.' And if you cannot say that, it is your own grasp of Him, or your meditation upon what you have got by your grasp, that is painfully and sinfully defective.

II. My Text Speaks Of The Obedience Which Is The Sign And Test Of Love.

The words here are substantially equivalent to former words in the chapter which we have already considered, where our Lord says: If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments.'

There is, however, a slight difference in the point of view in the two sayings; the former begins with the root and traces it upwards and outwards to its fruits, love blossoming into obedience. Our text reverses the process, and takes the thing by the other end; begins with the fruits and traces them downwards and inwards to the root. He that hath and keepeth My commandments, he it is that loveth Me.' The two sayings substantially mean the same thing; but in the one love is put first as the cause of obedience, and in the other obedience is put first, as the certain fruit and sure sign of love. The connection between these and the preceding words is, as I have already pointed out, that our Lord here brings all His lofty promises down to the sharp, practical requirement of obedience, as the only condition on which they can be fulfilled.

So note, and very briefly about this matter, how remarkably our ,Lord here declares the possession of His commandments to be a sign of love to Him. He that hath,' a word which is generally passed over in our reading--He that hath My commandments, He it is that loveth Me.' Of course there are two ways of having His commandments; there is having them in the Bible, and there is having them in the heart;-present before my eye, as a law that I ought to obey, or present within my will, as a power that shapes it. And the latter is the only kind of having' that Christ regards as real and valid. The rest is only preparatory and superficial. Love possesses the knowledge of the loved one's will. Is not that true? Do we not all know how strange is the power of divining desires that goes along with true affection, and how the power, not only of divining, but of treasuring, these desires is the test and the thermometer of our true love? Some of us, perhaps, keep laid away in sacred, secret places tattered, yellow, old bits of paper with the words of a dear one on them, that we would not part with. He that hath My commandments' laid up in lavender in the deepest recesses of his faithful heart, he it is that loveth Me.'

In like manner, our Lord says, the practical obedience to His commandments is the sure sign and test of love. I need not dwell upon that. There are two motives for keeping commandments--one because they are commanded, and one because we love Him that commands. The one is slavery, the other is liberty. The one is like the Arctic regions, cold and barren, the other is like tropical lands, full of warmth and sunshine, glorious and glad fertility.

The form of the sentence suggests how easy it is for people to delude themselves about their love to Jesus Christ. That emphatic he,' and the putting first of the character before its root is pointed out, are directed against false pretensions to love. The love that Christ stamps with His hall-mark, and passes as genuine, is no mere emotion, however passionate, however sweet; no mere sentiment, however pure, however deep. The tiniest little rivulet that drives a mill is better than a Niagara that rushes and foams and tumbles idly. And there is much so-called love to Jesus Christ that goes masquerading up and down the world, from which the paint is stripped by the sharp application of the words of my text. Character and conduct are the true demonstrations of Christian love, and it is only love so attested that He accepts.

III. The Gifts Of Divine Love.

Lastly, notice the further and sweeter gifts of divine love and manifestation which reward our love and obedience.

He that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.' Two things, then, He tells us, are the rich rewards and sparkling crowns with which He crowns our poor love to Him--the love of the Father and the love of the Christ, separate and yet united, and the further manifestation of Christ's sweetness to the waiting heart.

Note, as to the first, the extraordinary boldness of that majestic saying: If a man loves Me, My Father will love him.' God regards our love to Jesus Christ as the fulfilling of the law, as equivalent to our supreme love to Himself, as containing in it the germ of all that is pleasing in His sight. And so, upon our hearts, if we love Christ, there falls the benediction of the Father's love. Of course I need not remind you that our Lord here is not beginning at the very beginning of everything; for prior to all men's love to Christ is Christ's love to men, and ours to Him is but the reflection and the echo called forth by His to us. We love Him because He first loved us' digs a story deeper down in the building than the words of my text, which is speaking, not of the process by which a man comes to receive the love of God for the first time, but of the process by which a Christian man grows in his possession of it. That being understood, here is a great lesson. It is not all the same to God whether a man is a scoundrel or a saint. The divine love is over all its works, and embraces every variety of humanity, the most degraded, alien, hostile. But in this generation, as it seems to me, there is great need for preaching that whilst that is gloriously and blessedly true, the other thing is just as true, that to know the deepest depth and to taste the sweetest sweetness of the love of our Father God, there must be in our hearts love to Him whom He has sent, which manifests itself by our obedience. God's love is a moral love; and whilst the sunbeams play upon the ice and melt it sometimes, they flash back from, and rest most graciously and fully on, the rippling stream into which the ice has turned. God loves them that love Him not, but the depths of His heart and the secret, sacred favours of His grace can only be bestowed upon those who in some measure are conformed, and are growingly being conformed, to His likeness in Jesus Christ, and who love Him and obey Him.

And, in like manner, my text tells us that if we wish to know all that it is possible for us here, amidst the clouds, and shadows, and darknesses, to know of that dear Lord, the path to such knowledge is plain. Walk in the way of obedience, and Christ will meet you with the unveiling of more and more of His love. To live what we believe is the sure way to increase its amount. To be faithful to the little is the certain way to inherit the much. And Christ manifests Himself, in all deep and recondite sweetness, gentleness, constraining power, to the men who treasure the partial knowledge as yet possessed, in their loving hearts and obedient wills, and who make a conscience of translating all their knowledge into conduct, and of basing all their conduct on knowledge of Him. He gives us His whole self at the first, but we traverse the breadth of the gift by degrees. He puts Himself into our hands and into our hearts when we humbly trust Him and imperfectly try to love Him. But the flower is but a bud when we get it, and, as we hold it, it opens its petals to the light.

So, if any man wills to do His will, he shall know of the doctrine'; and if, touched by His divine love and infinite sacrifice for me, I cast my poor self upon Him, and try to love Him back again, and to keep His commandments because I love, then day by day I shall realise more and more of His strong, immortal, all-satisfying love, and see more and more deeply into that Saviour, whose infinite beauties remain unrevealed after all revelation, and to know more and more of whom shall be the Heaven of Heavens yonder, as it is the joy and life of the soul here.

Maclaren: Joh 14:22-24

Who Bring Christ

Judas saith unto Him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love Me he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him. He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My sayings: and the word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Fathers which sent Me.'--John 14:22-24.

THIS Judas held but a low place amongst the Apostles. In all the lists he is one of the last of the groups of fours, into which they are divided, and which were evidently arranged according to their spiritual nearness to the Master. His question is exactly that which a listener, with some dim, confused glimmer of Christ's meaning, might be expected to ask. He grasps at His last words about manifesting Himself to certain persons; he rightly feels that he and his brethren possess the qualification of love. He rightly understands that our Lord contemplates no public showing of Himself, and that disappoints him. It was only a day or two ago that Jesus seemed to them to have begun to do what they had always wanted Him to do, manifest Himself to the world. And now, as he thinks, something unknown to them must have happened in order to make Him change His course, and go back to the old plan of a secret communication. And so he says, Lord! what has come to pass to induce you to abandon and falter upon the course on which we entered, when you rode into Jerusalem with the shouting crowd?'

His question is no better in intelligence, though it is a great deal better in spirit, than the taunt of Christ's brethren, If Thou do these things, show Thyself to the world.' Judas, too, thought of the simple flashing of His Messianic glory, in some visible, vulgar form, before else blind eyes.

How sad and chilling such a question must have been to Jesus! Slow scholars we all are; and with what wonderful patience, without a word of pain, or of rebuke, He reiterates His lesson, here a little and there a little, and once more unfolds the conditions of His self-revelation, and the fullness of the blessings that He brings. He moulds His words so as to meet both the clauses of Judas's foolish question--To us, not to the world'; and quietly tells them the positive conditions and the negative disqualifications for His self-revelation. So my text deals with two things, the crown of loving obedience in the possession of a fuller Christ, and the impassable barrier to His manifestation which unloving disobedience makes. Or to put it into briefer words, we have in one of the verses --first, what brings Christ and what Christ brings; and, in the other, second, what keeps away Christ and all His gifts. Now let us look at these two things.

I. We Have What Brings Christ And What Christ Brings.

If a man love Me, He will keep My word' (not words,' as our Authorised Version has it), and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him.' Now notice how here, in the first part of this verse, our Lord subtly and significantly alters the form of the statement which He has already made. He had formerly said, If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments,' but now He casts it into a purely impersonal form, and says, If a man; anybody, not you' only, but anybody--If a man love Me, he,' anybody,' will keep My word.' And why the change? Why, I suppose, in order to strike full and square against that complacent assumption of Judas that it was to us and not to the world' that the showing was to take place. Our Lord, by the studiously impersonal form into which He casts the promise, proclaims its universality, and says this to His ignorant questioner,' Do not suppose that you Apostles have the monopoly. You may not even have a share in My self-manifestation. Anybody may have it. And there is no "world," as you suppose, to which I do not show Myself. Anybody may have the vision if he observes the conditions.'

Now I need not dwell at any length upon the earlier words of this text, because we have had to consider them in previous sermons on the former verses of this chapter. I need only remark that here, as there, our Lord brings out the thought that the very life-blood of love is the treasuring of the word of the beloved One; and that there is no joy comparable to the joy of the loving heart that yields itself to the Beloved's will. That is true about earth, and it makes the sweetest and selectest blessedness of our ordinary existence. And it is true about heaven, and it makes the liberty and the gladness of the bond that knits us to Him.

But I would like just to notice, before I come to the more immediate subject of my discourse, that remarkable expression,' He will keep My word: That is more than a commandment,' is it not? Christ's word' is wider than precept. It includes all His sayings, and it includes them all as in one vital unity and organic whole. We are not to go picking and choosing among them; they are one. And it includes this other thought, that every word of Christ, be it revelation of the deep things of God, or be it a promise of the great shower of blessings which, out of His full hand, He will drop upon our heads, enshrines within itself a commandment. He utters no revelations, simply that we may know. He utters no comforting words, simply that our sore hearts may be healed, but in all His utterances there is a practical bearing; and every word of His teaching, every word of His sweet, whispered assurances of love and favour to the waiting heart, has in it the imperativeness of His manifested will, and has a direct bearing upon duty. All His words are gathered into one word, and all the variety of His sayings is, in their unity, the law of our lives. So much by way of observation on the mere language of my text. And now let us look at what, as He says to us here, are the rewards and crown of loving obedience.

Christ will show Himself to the loving heart. That is true on the very lowest level. Every act of obedience to any moral truth is rewarded by additional insight. Every act of submission to His will cleanses ,the lenses of the telescope from some film that has gathered upon them, and so the stars look brighter and larger and nearer. All duty done opens out into a loftier conception of duty, and a clearer vision of Him. To him that hath shall be given.' As we climb the hill we get a wider view. Obedience is in all things the parent of insight.

But in reference to our relation to Him, we have to do not with truths only, but with a Person. How do we learn to know people? There is only one way--that is, by loving them. Sympathy is the parent of all true knowledge of one another. They tell us in the foolish old proverb that' love is blind.' No! There is not such a pair of clear eyes anywhere as the eyes of love; and if we want to see into a man, the first condition is that we feel kindly towards him. Sympathy is the parent of insight into persons, as Obedience is the parent of insight into duty.

But both of these illustrations are only imperfect preparations for the great truth here, which is that our loving obedience to the discerned will of Jesus Christ has not only an operation inwards upon us, but has an effect outwards upon Him. I am afraid that Christian people in this generation have but a very imperfect belief in the actual, supernatural, and, if you like to call it so, miraculous manifestation of Jesus Christ, His very Self, to men that love Him and cleave to Him. Do you believe as a simple revealed truth, plain as a sunbeam in such words as these, that Jesus Christ Himself will do something on you, and in you, and for you, if you love Him and trust Him; that His hand will be laid on your eyes as it was laid of old; that He will indeed, in no metaphor, but in reality, show Himself to you? I may be mistaken, but I think that too commonly it is the case, that even good Christian people have a far more vivid and realising and real faith in the past work of Christ on earth than in the present work of Christ in themselves. They think the one a plain truth, and the other something like a metaphor, whereas the New Testament teaches us, as plainly as it can teach us anything, that, far above all the natural operations of truth upon our understandings, hearts, and wills, there is an actual, supernatural, continuous communication of Christ to hearts that love Him, which leads day by day, if they be faithful, to a fuller knowledge, a sweeter love, a larger possession, of a fuller Christ. And it is this that He tells us of, to fire our ambition to attain, in such words as these.

Brethren, one piece Of honest, loving obedience is worth all the study and speculation of an unloving heart when the question is, How are we to see Christ?'

Again, Jesus shows Himself to the obedient heart in indissoluble union with the Father. Look at the majesty, and, except upon one hypothesis, the insane presumption, of such words as these: If a man love Me, My Father will love him'; as if identifying love to Christ with love to Himself. And look at that wondrous union, the consciousness of which speaks in We will come.' Think of a man saying that. It is blasphemous insanity; or else the speech of Him who is conscious of union with the Father, close and indissoluble and transcending all analogies. We will come,' together, hand-in-hand, if I may so say; or rather, His coming is the Father's coming. Just as in heaven so closely are they represented as united, that there is but one throne for God and the Lamb,' so on earth so closely are they represented as united, that there is but one coming of the Father in the Son.

And this is the only belief, as it seems to me, that will keep this generation from despair and moral suicide. The question for this generation is, Is it possible for men to know God? Science, both of material things and of inward experiences, is more and more unanimous in its proclamation; Behold! we know not anything'; and the only attitude to take before that great black vault above us is to say, We know nothing.' The world has learned half of a great verso of the Gospel: No man hath seen God at any time, nor can see Him.' If the world is not to go mad, if hearts are not to be tortured into despair, if morality and enthusiasm and poetry and everything higher and nobler than the knowledge of material phenomena and their sequences is not to perish from the earth, the world must learn the next half of the verse, and say, The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.' Christ shows Himself in indissoluble union with the Father.

Lastly about this matter, Christ shows Himself to obedient love by a true coming. We will come and make our mansion with him.' And that coming is a fact of a higher order, and not to be confounded either with the mere divine Omnipresence, by which God is everywhere, nor to be reduced to a figment of our own imaginations, or a strong way of promising increased perception on our part of Christ's fullness. That great central Sun, if I might use so violent a figure, draws nearer and nearer and nearer to the planets that move about it, and having once been far off on an almost infinitely distant horizon, approaches until planet and Sun unite.

Dear brethren, if we could only get to the attitude of simple acceptance of this as a literal truth, and believe that, in prose reality, Christ comes to every heart that loves Him, would not all the world be different to us?

That coming is a permanent residence: We will make our abode with him.' Very beautiful is it to notice that our Lord here employs that same sweet and significant word, with which He began this wonderful series of encouragements, when He said, In My Father's house are many mansions: Yonder they dwell for ever with God; here God in Christ for ever dwells with the loving heart. It is a permanent abode so long as the conditions are fulfilled, but only so long. If self-will, rising in the Christian heart from its torpor and apparent death, reasserts itself and shakes off Christ's yoke, Christ's presence vanishes. In the last hours of the Holy City there was heard by the trembling priests amidst the midnight darkness the motion of departing Deity, and a great voice said: Let us depart hence'; and to-morrow the shrine was empty, and the day after it was in flames. Brethren, if you would keep the Christ in whom is God, remember that He cannot be kept but by the act of loving obedience.

II. The Negative Side.

Now, in the next place, my text gives us the negative side, and shows us what keeps away Christ and all His blessings.

An unloving disobedience closes the eyes to the vision, and the heart against the entrance, of that dear Lord. Our Master lays down for us two principles, and leaves us to draw the conclusion for ourselves.

The first is, He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My sayings.' No love, no obedience. That is plainly true, because the heart of all the commandments is love, and where that is not, disobedience to their very spirit is. It is plainly true, because there is no power that will lead men to true obedience to Christ's yoke except the power of love. His commandments are too alien from our nature ever to be kept, unless by the might of love. It was only the rising sunbeam that could draw music from the stony lips of Memnon, as he gazed out across the desert, and it is only when Christ's love shines on our faces that we open our lips in praise, and move our hands in service. Those great rocking-stones down in Cornwall stand unmoved by any tempest, but a child's finger, laid on the right place, will set them vibrating. And so the heavy, hard, stony bulk of our hearts lies torpid and immovable, until He lays His loving finger upon them, and then they rock at His will. There is no keeping of Christ's commandments without love. That makes short work of a great deal that calls itself Christianity, does it not? Reluctant obedience is no obedience; self-interested obedience is no obedience; constrained obedience is no obedience; outward acts of service, if the heart be wanting, are rubbish and dung. Morality without religion is nought. The one thing that makes a good man is love to Jesus Christ; and where that is, there, and only there, is obedience.

Talk they of morals?O Thou Bleeding Lamb!The grand morality is love of Thee.'If a man love Me not, he will not keep My words.'

Then the second principle is, disobedience to Christ is disobedience to God. The Word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father's.' Christ's consciousness of union so speaks out here as that He is quite sure that all His words are God's words, and that all God's words are spoken by Him. Paul has to say, So speak I, not the Lord.' And you would not think a man a very sound or safe religious teacher who said to you, to begin with, Now, mind, everything that I say, God says.' There are no errors then, no deterioration of the treasure by the vessel in which it lies. The water does not taste of the vase in which it is carried. The personality of Jesus Christ is never, through all His utterances, so separated from God but that God speaks in Him; and, listening to His voice, we hear the absolute utterance of the uncreated and eternal Wisdom.

Therefore follows the conclusion, which our Lord does not state, but leaves us to supply. If it be true that the absence of love of Him is disobedience to Him, and if it be true that disobedience to Him is disobedience to God, then it plainly follows that what keeps away Christ and all His gifts, and God in Him, is unloving obedience. What brings Him is the obedience of love; what repels Him is alienation and rebellion. If the heart be full of confusion, of the world, of self, of unbridled inclinations, of careless indifference to His bleeding love, He can but listen at the gate and hear the household jar within.'

And so. dear friends, from all this there follow one or two points, which I touch very briefly. One is, that it is possible for men not to see Christ, though He stands there close before them. It is possible to grope at noonday as at midnight, to see only bracken green and cold grey stone' on the hillside, where another man sees the chariots of fire and the horses of fire. It is possible for you and, alas! it is the condition of some of my hearers--to look upon Christ and to turn away and say, I see no beauty in Him that I should desire Him,' whilst the man beside you, looking at the same facts and the same face, can see in Him the Chief among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely.'

Another thought is, that Christ's showing of Himself to men is in no sense arbitrary. It is you that determine what you shall see. You can hermetically seal your heart against Him, you can blind yourself to all His beauty. The door of your hearts is hinged to open from within, and if you do not open it, it remains shut, and Christ remains outside.

Another thought is, that you do not need to do anything to blind yourselves. Simple negation is fatal. If a man love not'; that is all. The absence of love is your ruin.

And the last thought is this, that my text does not begin at the beginning. Jesus Christ has been speaking about manifestations of Himself to the loving and obedient; but there are manifestations of Himself made that we may become loving and obedient. You can build a barrier over which these sweeter revelations, of which loyal love and docile submission are the conditions, cannot rise. But you cannot build a barrier over which the prior revelations to the unthankful and disobedient cannot rise. No mountains of sin and neglect and alienation can be piled so high but that the flood of pardoning grace will rise above their crests, and pour itself into your hearts. You ask, How can I get the love and obedience of which you have been singing the praises now? There is only one answer, brethren. We know that we love Him when we know that He loves us; and we know that He loves us when we see Him dying on His Cross. So here is the ladder, that is planted in the miry clay of the horrible pit, and fastens its golden hooks on His throne. The first round is, Behold the dying Christ and His love to me. The second is, Let that love melt my heart into sweet responsive love. The third is, Let my love mould my life into obedience. And then Christ, and God in Him, will come to me and show Himself to me; and give me a fuller knowledge and a deeper love, and make His dwelling with me. And then there is only one round still to reach, and that will land us by the Throne of .God, in the many mansions of the Father's house, where we shall make our abode with Him for evermore.

Maclaren: Joh 14:25-26

The Teacher Spirit

These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.'--John 14:25-26.

THIS wonderful outpouring of consolation and instruction with which our Lord sought to soothe the pain of parting is nearing its end. We have to conceive of a slight pause here, whilst He looks back upon what He has been saying and contrasts His teaching with that of the Comforter, whom He has once already, though in a different connection, promised to His followers. He speaks of His earthly residence with them as being an abiding,' distinctly therein referring to what He has just said, that the Father and He will, in the future, make their abode' with His disciples. He contrasts the outward and transitory presence which was now nearing its end, with the inward and continuous presence, which its end was to inaugurate.

And, in like manner, with, at first sight, startling humility, He contrasts these things,' the partial and to a large extent unintelligible utterances which He had given with His human lips, With the complete, universal teaching of that divine Spirit, who was to instruct in all things" pertaining to man's salvation. We have then, here, sketched in broad outline, the great truths concerning the ever present, inward Teacher of God's Church who is to come, now that the earthly manifestation of Christ, whom the twelve called their Teacher,' had reached a close. I think we may best gain the deep instruction Which lies in the words before us, if we look at three points of view which they bring into prominence: the Teacher, His lesson, and His scholars.

I. Now, As To The First, The Promised Teacher.

I need not repeat what I have said in former sermons as to the wide sweep of that word the Comforter,' beyond just reminding you that it means literally one who is called to the side of another, primarily for the purpose of being his representative in some legal process; and, more widely, for any purpose of help, encouragement, and strength. That being so, Comforter, in its modern sense of Consoler, is far too narrow for the full force of the word, which means much rather Comforter,' in its ancient and etymological sense of one who, in company with another, makes Him strong and brave.

But the point to which I desire to turn attention now is this, that this comforting and strengthening office of the divine Spirit is brought into immediate connection here with the conception of Him as a Teacher. That is to say, the best strength that God, by His Spirit, can give us is by our firm grasp and growing clearness of understanding of the truths which are wrapped up in Jesus Christ. All power for endurance, for service, is there, and when the Spirit of God teaches a man what God reveals in Christ, He therein and thereby most fully discharges His office of Strengthener,

Then note still further the other designation of this divine Teacher which is here given: "The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost: We might have expected, as indeed we find in another context in this great final discourse, the Spirit of Truth as appropriate in connection with the office of teaching. But is there not a profound lesson for us here in this, that, side by side with the thought of illumination, "there lies the thought of purity built upon consecration, which is the Scripture definition of holiness? That suggests that there is an indissoluble connection between the real knowledge of God's truth and practical holiness of life. That connection is of a double sort. There is no holiness without such knowledge, and there is no such knowledge without holiness.

There is no real knowledge of Christ and His truth without purity of heart. The man who has no music in his soul can never be brought to understand the deep harmonies of the great masters and magicians of sound, The man who has no eye for beauty can never be brought to bow his spirit before some of those embodiments of loveliness and sublimity which the painter's brush has cast upon the canvas. And the man who has no longings after purity, or has attained to any degree of moral conformity with the divine image, is not in possession of the sense which is needed in order that he should understand the ,deep things of God.'

The scholars in this school have to wash their hands before they go to school, and come there with clean hands and clean hearts. Foulness and the love of it are bars to all understanding of God's truth. And, on the other hand, the truest inducements, motives, and powers for purity are found in that great word which is all according to godliness,' and is meant much rather to make us good than to make us wise.

So, in this designation of the teaching Spirit as holy, there lie lessons for two classes of people. All fanatical professions of possessing divine illumination, which are not warranted and sealed by purity of life, are lies or self-delusion. And, on the other hand, cold blooded intellectualism will never force the locks of the palace of divine truth, but they that come there must have clean hands and a pure heart; and only those who have the love and the longing for goodness will be wise scholars in Christ's school. Your theology is nothing unless its distinct outcome is morality, and you must be prepared to accept the painful, the punitive, the purifying influences of that divine Spirit on your moral natures if you want to have His enlightening influences shining on the truth as it is in Jesus.' , If any man wills to do His will, he,' and only he, shall know of the doctrine.' Knowledge and holiness are as inseparable in divine things as light and heat.

And still further note that this great Teacher is sent by God' in Christ's name. That pregnant phrase, In My name,' cannot be represented by any one form of expression into which we may translate it, but covers a larger space. God in Christ's name sends the Spirit. That is to say, in some deep sense God acts as Christ's representative; just as Christ comes in the Father's name and acts as His representative. And, again, God sends in Christ's name; that is, the historical manifestation of Christ is the basis on which the sending of the Spirit is possible and rests. The revelation had to be complete before He who came to unfold the meaning of the revelation had material to work upon. The Spirit, which is sent in Christ's name, has, for the basis of His mission, and the means by which He acts, the recorded facts of Christ's life and death, these and none other.

And then note finally about this matter, the strong and unmistakable declaration here, that that divine Spirit is a person: He shall teach you all things.' They tell us that the doctrine of the Trinity is not in the New Testament. The word is not, but the thing is. In this verse we have the Father, the Son, and the Spirit brought into such close and indissoluble union as is only vindicated from the charge of blasphemy by the belief in the divinity of each. Just as the Apostolic benediction, The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit' necessarily involves the divinity of all who are thus invoked, so we stand here in the presence of a truth which pierces into the deeps of Deity. That divine Spirit is more than an influence. He shall teach,' and He can be grieved by evil and sin. I do not enlarge upon these thoughts. My purpose is mainly to bring them out clearly before you.

II. The Lesson Which This Promised Teacher Gives.

I pass in the second place to the consideration of the Lesson which this promised Teacher gives.

Mark the words, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.' Now as we have seen in the exposition of the words in My name,' the whole subject, matter of the divine Spirit's teaching is the life and work and death and person of Jesus Christ. He shall teach you all things' is wider than' He shall bring all things which I have said to you to your remembrance.' But whilst that is so, the clear implication of the words before us is that Christ is the lesson book, of which the divine Spirit is the Teacher. His weapon, to take another metaphor, with which He plies men's hearts and minds and wills, convincing the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, and leading those who are convinced into deeper knowledge and larger wisdom, is the recorded facts concerning the life and manifestation of Jesus Christ.

The significance of this lesson book, the history of our Lord, cannot be unfolded all at once. There is something altogether unique in the incorruption and germinant power of all His deeds and of all His words. This Carpenter of Nazareth has reached the heights which the greatest thinkers and poets of the past have never reached, or only in little snatches and fragments of their words. His words open out, generation after generation, into undreamed-of wisdom, and there are found to be hived in them stores of sweetness that were never suspected until the occasion came that drew them forth. The world and the Church received Christ, as it were, in the dark; and, as with some man receiving a precious gift as the morning was dawning, each fresh moment revealed, as the light grew, new beauties and new preciousness in the thing possessed. So Christ, in His infinite significance, fresh and new for all generations, was given at first, and ever since the Church and the world have been learning the-meaning of the gift which they received, Christ's words are inexhaustible, and the Spirit's teaching is to unveil more and more of the infinite significance that lies in the apparently least significant of them.

Now, then, note that if this be our Lord's meaning here, Jesus Christ plainly anticipated that, after His departure from earth, there should be a development of Christian doctrine. We are often taunted with the fact, which is exaggerated for the purpose of controversy, that a clear and full statement of the central truths which orthodox Christianity holds, is found rather in the Apostolic epistles than in the Master's words, and the shallow axiom is often quoted with great approbation: Jesus Christ is our Master, and not Paul." I do not grant that the germs: and the central truths of the Gospel are not to be found in Christ's words, but I admit that the full, articulate statement of them is to be found rather in the servant's letters, and I say that that is exactly what Jesus Christ told us to expect, that after He was gone, words that had been all obscure, and thoughts that had been only fragmentarily intelligible, would come to be seen clearly, and would be discerned for what they were. The earlier disciples had only a very partial grasp of Christ's nature. They knew next to nothing of the great doctrine of sacrifice; they knew nothing about His resurrection; they did not in the least understand that He was going back to heaven; they had but glimmering conceptions of the spirituality or universality of His Kingdom. Whilst they were listening to Him at that table they did not believe in the atonement; but they dimly believed in the divinity of Jesus Christ; they did not believe in His resurrection; they did not believe in His ascension; they did not believe that He was founding a spiritual kingdom, s kingdom that was to rule over all the world till the end of time. None of these truths were in their mind. They had all been in germ in His words. And after He was gone, there came over them a breath of the teaching Spirit, and the unintelligible flashed up into significance. The history of the Church is the proof of the truth of this promise, and if anybody says to me, Where is the fulfilment of the promise of a Spirit that will bring all things to your remembrance?' I say--here in this Book! These four Gospels, these Apostolic Epistles, show that the word which our Lord here speaks has been gloriously fulfilled. Christ anticipated a development of doctrine, and it casts no slur or suspicion on the truthfulness of the apostolic representation of the Christian truths, that they are only sparsely and fragmentarily to be found in the records of Christ's life.

Then there is another practical conclusion from the words before us, on which I touch for a moment, and that is, that if Jesus Christ and the deep understanding of Him be the true lesson of the divine, teaching Spirit, then real progress consists, not in getting beyond Christ, but in getting more fully into Him. We hear a great deal in these days about advanced thought and progressive Christianity. I hope I believe in the continuous advance of Christian thought as joyfully as any man, but my notion of it--and I humbly venture to say Christ's notion of it--is to get more and more into His heart, and to find within Him, and not away from Him,' all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.' We leave all other great men behind. All other teachers' words become feeble by age, as their persons become ghostly, wrapped in thickening folds of oblivion; but the progress of the Church consists in absorbing more and more of Christ, in understanding Him better, and becoming more and more moulded by His influence. The Spirit's teaching brings out the ever fresh significance of the ancient and perpetual revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

III. And Now, Lastly, Note The Scholars.

Primarily, of course, these are the Apostolic group; but the Apostles, in all these discourses, stand as the representatives of the Church, and not as separated from it. And whilst the teaching Spirit could bring to the remembrance' of those only who first heard them the words that He said unto them,' that Spirit's teaching function is not limited to those who listened to the Lord Jesus. The fire that was kindled on Pentecost has not died down into grey ashes, nor the river that then broke forth been sucked up by thirsty sands of successive generations, but the fire is still with us, and the river still flows near our lips, and we, too, may be taught by that divine Spirit. For this very Evangelist, in writing his Epistle, has at least two distinct references to, and almost verbal quotations of, this promise, when he says, addressing all his Asiatic brethren, Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and know all things.' And again, The unction which ye have of Him abideth with you, and ye need not that any man should teach you.'

So, then, Christian men and women, every believing soul has this divine Spirit for His Teacher, and the humblest of us may, if we will, learn of Him and be led by Him into profounder knowledge of that great Lord.

Oh! dear brethren, the belief in the actual presence with the Church of a Spirit that teaches all faithful members thereof, is far too much hesitatingly held by the common Christianity of this day. We ought to be the standing witnesses in the world of the reality of a supernatural influence, and how can we be, if we do not believe it ourselves, and never feel that we are under it?

But whilst a continuous inspiration from that selfsame Spirit is the prerogative of all believing souls, let us not forget that the early teaching is the standard by which all such must be tried. As to the first disciples the office of the divine Spirit was to bring before them the deep significance of their Master's life and words, so to us the office of the teaching Spirit is to bring to our minds the deep significance of the record by these earliest scholars of what they learned from Him. The authority of the New Testament over our faith is based upon these words, and Paul's warning applies especially to this generation, with its thoughts about a continuous inspiration and outgrowing of the New Testament teaching: If a man think himself to be spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.'

Now from all this take three counsels. Let this great promise fill us with shame. Look at Christendom. Does it not contradict such words as these? Disputatious sects, Christians scarcely agreed upon any one of the great central doctrines, seem a strange fulfilment. The present condition of Christendom does not prove that Jesus Christ did not send the Spirit, but it does prove that Christ's followers have been woefully remiss and negligent in their acceptance and use of the Spirit. What slow scholars we are! How little we have learnt! How we have let passion, prejudice, human voices, the babble of men's tongues, anybody and everybody, take the office of teaching us God's truth, instead of waiting before Him and letting His Spirit teach us! It is the shame of us Christians that, with such a Teacher, we, when for the time we ought to be teachers, have need that one teach us again which be the first principles of the oracles of Christ!'

Let it fill us with desire and with diligence. Let it fill us with calm hope. They tell us that Christianity is effete. Have we got all out of Jesus Christ that is in Him? Is the process that has been going on for all these centuries to stop now? No! Depend upon it that the new problems of this generation will find their solution where the old problems of past generations have found theirs, and the old commandment of the old Christ will be the new commandment of the new Christ.

Foolish men, both on the Christian and on the antiChristian side, stand and point to the western sky and say, The Sun is setting.' But there is a flush in the opposite horizon in an hour, as at midsummer; and that which sank in the west rises fresh and bright in the east for a new day. Jesus Christ is the Christ for all the ages and for every soul, and the world will only learn more and more of His inexhaustible fullness. So let us be ever quiet, patient, hopeful amidst the babble of tongues and the surges of controversy, assured that all change will but make more plain the inexhaustible significance of the infinite Christ, and that humble and obedient hearts will ever possess the promised Teacher, nor ever cry in vain, Teach me to do Thy will, for Thou art my God. Thy Spirit is good, lead me into the land of uprightness.'

Maclaren: Joh 14:27

Christ's Peace

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.'--John 14:27.

PEACE be unto you!' was, and is, the common Eastern salutation, both in meeting and in parting. It carries us back to a state of society in which every stranger might be an enemy. It is a confession of the deep unrest of the human heart. Christ was about closing His discourse, and the common word of leave-taking came naturally to His lips; just as when He first met His followers after the Resurrection, He soothed their fears by the calm and familiar greeting, Peace be unto you!' But common words deepen their force and meaning when He uses them. In Him all things become new,' and on His lips the conventional threadbare salutation changes into a tender and mysterious communication of a real gift. His words are deeds, and His wishes for His disciples fulfil themselves.

I. So We Have Here, First, The Greeting, Which Is A Gift.

Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you.' We have seen, in former discourses on this chapter, how prominently and repeatedly our Lord insists on the great truth of His dwelling with and in His disciples. He gives His peace because He gives Himself; and in the bestowal of His life He bestows, in so far as we possess the gift, the qualities and attributes of that life. His peace is inseparable from His presence. It comes with Him, like an atmosphere; it is never where He is not. It was His peace inasmuch as, in His own experience, He possessed it. His manhood was untroubled by perturbation or tumult, by passions or contending desires, and no outward things could break His calm. If we open our hearts by lowly faith, love, and aspiration for His entrance, we too may be at rest; for His peace, like all which He is and has, is His that it may be ours.

The first requisite for peace is consciousness of harmonious and loving relations between me and God. The deepest secret of Christ's peace was His unbroken consciousness of unbroken communion with the Father, in which His will submitted and the whole being of the man hung in filial dependence upon God. And the centre and foundation of all the peace-giving power of Jesus Christ is this, that in His death, by His one offering for sin for ever, He has swept away the occasion of antagonism, and so made peace between the twain, the Father in the heavens and the child, rebellious and prodigal, here below. Little as these disciples dreamed of it, the death impending, which was already beginning to cast its shadow over their souls, was the condition of securing to them and to us the true beginning of all real peace, the rectifying of our antagonistic relation to God, and the bringing Him and us into perfect concord.

My brother, no man can be at rest down to the very roots of His being, in the absence of the consciousness that he is at peace with God. There may be tumults of gladness, there may be much of stormy brightness in the life, but there cannot be the calm, still, impregnable, all-pervading, and central tranquillity that our souls hunger for, unless we know and feel that we are right with God, and that there is nothing between us and Him. And it is because Jesus Christ, dying on the Cross, has made it possible for you and me to feel this, that He is our peace, and that He can say, Peace I leave with you.'

Another requisite is that we must be at peace with ourselves. There must be no stinging conscience, there must be no unsatisfied desires, there must be no inner schism between inclination and duty, reason and will, passion and judgment. There must be the quiet of a harmonised nature which has one object, one aim, one love; which--to use a very vulgar phrase--has all its eggs in one basket,' and has no contradictions running through its inmost self. There is only one way to get that peace--cleaving to Jesus Christ and making Him our Lord, our righteousness, our aim, our all. Your consciences will sting, and that destroys peace; or if they do not sting, they will be torpid, and that destroys peace, for death is not peace. Unless we take Christ for our love, for the light of our minds, for the Sovereign Arbiter and Lord of our will, for the home of our desires, for the aim of our efforts, we shall never know what it is to be at rest. Unsatisfied and hungry we shall go through life, seeking what nothing short of an Infinite Humanity can ever give us, and that is a heart to lean our heads upon, an adequate object for all our faculties, and so a quiet satisfaction of all our desires. Wherefore do ye spend your money for that which is not bread?' A question that no man can answer without convicting himself of folly! There is One, and only One, who is enough for me, poor and weak and lowly and fleeting as I am, and as my earthly life is. Take that One for your Treasure, and you are rich indeed. The world without Christ is nought. Christ without the world is enough.

Nor is there any other way of healing the inner discord, schism, and contradiction of our anarchic nature, except in bringing it all into submission to His merciful rule. Look at that troubled kingdom that each of us carries about within himself, passion dragging this way, conscience that, a hundred desires all arrayed against one another, inclination here, duty there, till we are torn in pieces like a man drawn asunder by wild horses. And what is to be done with all that rebellious self, over which the poor soul rules as it may, and rules so poorly? Oh! there is an inner unrest, the necessary fate of every man who does not take Christ for his King. But when He enters the heart with His silken leash, the old fable comes true, and He binds the lions and the ravenous beasts there with its slender tie and leads them along, tamed, by the cord of love, and all harnessed to pull together in the chariot that He guides. There is only one way for a man to be at peace with himself through and through, and that is that he should put the guidance of his life into the hands of Jesus Christ, and let Him do with it as He will. There is one power, and only one, that can draw after it all the multitudinous heaped waters of the weltering ocean, and that is the quiet, silver moon in the heavens that pulls the tidal wave, into which melt and merge all currents and small breakers, and rolls it round the whole earth. And so Christ, shining down lambent, and gentle, but changeless, from the darkest of our skies, will draw, in one great surge of harmonised motion, all the else contradictory currents of our stormy souls. My peace I give unto you.'

Another element in true tranquillity, which again is supplied only by Jesus Christ, is peace with men. Whence come wars and fightings amongst you.?

From your lusts.' Or to translate the old-fashioned phraseology into modern English, the reason why men are in antagonism with one another is the central selfishness of each, and there is only one way by which men's relations can be thoroughly sweetened, and that is, by the divine love of Jesus Christ pouring into their hearts, and casting out the devil of selfishness, and so blending them all into one harmonious whole.

The one basis of true, happy relations between man and man, without which there is not the all-round tranquillity that we require, lies in the common relation of all, if it may be, but certainly in the individual relation of myself, to Him who is the Lover and the Friend of all. And in the measure in which the law of the Spirit of life which was in Jesus Christ is in me, in that measure do I find it possible to reproduce His gentleness, sympathy, compassion, insight into men's sorrows, patience with men's offences, and all which makes, in our relations to one another, the harmony and the happiness of humanity.

Another of the elements or aspects of peace is peace with the outer world. It is hard to kick against the pricks,' but if you do not kick against them, they will not prick you. We beat ourselves all bruised and bleeding against the bars of the prison-house in trying to escape from it, but if we do not beat ourselves against them, they will not hurt us. If we do not want to get out of prison, it does not matter though we are locked in. And so it is not external calamities, but the resistance of the will to these, that makes the disturbances of life. Submission is peace, and when a man with Christ in his heart can say what Christ said, Not My will, but Thine be done,' Oh! then, some faint beginnings, at least, of tranquillity come to the most agitated and buffeted; and even in the depths of our sorrow we may have a deeper depth of calm. If we have yielded ourselves to the Father's will, through that dear Son who has set the example and communicates the power of filial obedience, then all winds blow us to our haven, and all things work together for good,' and nothing that is at enmity with joy' can shake our settled peace. Storms may break upon the rocky shore of our islanded lives, but deep in the centre there will be a secluded, inland dell which heareth not the loud winds when they call,' and where no tempest can ever reach. Peace may be ours in the midst of warfare and of storms, for Christ with us reconciles us to God, harmonises us with ourselves, brings us into amity with men, and makes the world all good.

II. So, Secondly, Note Here The World's Gift, Which Is An Illusion.

Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.' Our Lord contrasts, as it seems to me, primarily the manner of the world's bestowment, and then passes insensibly into a contrast between the character of the world's gifts and His own. That phrase the world' may have a double sense. It may mean either mankind in general or the whole external and material frame of things. I think we may use both significations in elucidating the words before us.

Regarding it in the former of them, the thought is suggested--Christ gives; men can only wish. Peace be unto you' comes from many a lip, and is addressed to many an ear, unfulfilled. Christ says peace,' and His word is a conveyance. How little we can do for one another's tranquillity, how soon we come to the limits of human love and human help! How awful and impassable is the isolation in which each human soul lives! After all love and fellowship we dwell alone on our little island in the deep, separated by the salt, unplumbed, estranging sea,' and we can do little more than hoist signals of goodwill, and now and then for a moment stretch our hands across the echoing straits between.' But it is little after all that husband or wife can do for one another's central peace, little that the dearest friend can give. We have to depend upon ourselves and upon Christ for peace. That which the world wishes Christ gives.

And then, if we take the other signification of the world,' and the other application of the whole promise, we may say--Outward things can give a man no real peace. The world is for excitement; Christ alone has the secret of tranquillity. It is as if to a man in a fever a physician should come and say: I cannot give you anything to soothe you; here is a glass of brandy for you.' That would not help the fever, would it? The world comes to us and says: I cannot give you rest: here is a sharp excitement for you, more highly spiced and titillating for your tongue than the last one, which has turned fiat and stale.' That is about the best that it can do.

Oh! what a confession of unrest are the rush and recklessness, the fever and the fret of our modern life with its ever renewed and ever disappointed quest after good! You go about our streets and look men in the face, and you see how all manner of hungry desires and eager wishes have imprinted themselves there. And now and then--how seldom!--you come across a face out of which beams a deep and settled peace. How many of you are there who dare not be quiet because then you are most troubled? How many of you are there who dare not reflect because then you are wretched? How many of you are uncomfortable when alone, either because you are utterly vacuous, or because then you are surrounded by the ghosts of ugly thoughts that murder sleep and stuff every pillow with thorns? The world will bring you excitement; Christ, and Christ alone will bring you rest.

The peace that earth gives is a poor affair at best. It is shallow; a very thin plating over a depth of restlessness, like some skin of turf on a volcano, where a foot below the surface sulphurous fumes roll, and hellish turbulence seethes. That is the kind of rest that the world brings.

Oh! dear friends, there is nothing in this world that will fill and satisfy your hearts except only Jesus Christ. The world is for excitement; and Christ is the only real Giver of real peace.

III. Lastly, Note The Duty Of The Recipients Of That Peace Of Christ's:

Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.'

The words that introduced this great discourse return again at its close, somewhat enlarged and with a deepened soothing and tenderness. There are two things referred to as the source of restlessness, troubled agitation or disturbance of heart; and that mainly, I suppose, because of terror in the outlook towards a dim and unknown future. The disciples are warned to fight against these if they would keep the gift of peace.

That is to say, casting the exhortation into a more general expression, Christ's gift of peace does not dispense with the necessity for our own effort after tranquillity. There is much in the outer world that will disturb us to the very end, and there is much within ourselves that will surge up and seek to shake our repose and break our peace; and we have to coerce and keep down the temptations to anxiety, the temptations to undue agitation of desire, the temptations to tumults of sorrow, the temptations to cowardly fears of the unknown future. All these will continue, even though we have Christ's peace in our hearts, and it is for us to see to it that we treasure the peace, and in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let our requests be made known unto God,' that nothing may break the calm which we possess.

So, then, another thought arises from this final exhortation, and that is, that it is useless to tell a man, Do not be troubled, and do not be afraid,' unless he first has Christ's peace as his. Is that peace yours, my brother, because Jesus Christ is yours! If so, then there is no reason for your being troubled or dreading any future. If it is not, you are mad not to be troubled, and you are insane if you are not afraid. The word for you is, Be troubled, ye careless ones,' for there is reason for it, and be afraid of that which is certainly coming. The one thing that gives security and makes it possible to possess a calm heart is the possession of Jesus Christ by faith. Without Him it is a waste of breath to say to people, Do not be frightened,' and it is wicked counsel to say to men, Be at ease.' They ought to be terrified, and they ought to be troubled, and they will be some day, whether they think so or not.

But then the last thought from this exhortation is--and now I speak to Christian people--your imperfect possession of this peace is all your own fault.

Why, there are hundreds of professing Christian people who have some kind of faint, rudimentary faith, and there are many of them, I dare say, listening to me now, who have no assured possession of any of those elements, of which I have been speaking, as the constituent parts of Christ's peace You are not sure that you are right with God. You do not know what it is to possess satisfied desires. You do know what it is to have conflicting inclinations and impulses; you have envy and malice and hostility against men; and the world's storms and disasters do strike and disturb you. Why? Because you have not a firm grasp of Jesus Christ. I have set the Lord always at my right hand, therefore I shall not be moved'; there is the secret. Keep near Him, my brother; and then all things are fair, and your heart is at peace.

I remember once standing by the side of a little Highland loch on a calm autumn day, when all the winds were still, and every birch-tree stood unmoved, and every twig was reflected on the steadfast mirror, into the depths of which Heaven's own blue seemed to have found its way. That is what our hearts may be, if we let Christ put His guarding hand round them to keep the storms off, and have Him within us for our rest. But the man who does not trust Jesus is like the troubled sea which cannot rest,' but goes moaning round half the world, homeless and hungry, rolling and heaving, monotonous and yet changeful, salt and barren--the true emblem of every soul that has not listened to the merciful call, Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'

Maclaren: Joh 14:28-29

Joy And Faith, The Fruits Of Christ's Departure

Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for My Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe.'--John 14:28-29.

OUR Lord here casts a glance backward on the course of His previous words, and gathers together the substance and purpose of these. He brings out the intention of His warnings and the true effect of the departure, concerning which He had given them notice, as being twofold. In the first verse of my text His words about that going away, and the going away itself, are represented as the source of joy, which is an advance on the peace that He had just previously been promising. In the second of our verses these two things--His words, and the facts which they revealed--are represented as being the very ground and nourishment of faith.

So, then, we have these two thoughts to look at now, the departed Lord, the fountain of joy to all who love Him; the departed Lord, the ground and food of faith.

I. The Departure Of The Lord Is A Fountain Of Joy To Those Who Love Him.

In the first part of our text the going away of Jesus is contemplated in two aspects.

The first is that with which we have already become familiar in previous sermons on this chapter--viz., its bearing upon the disciples; and in that respect it is declared that Christ's going is Christ's coming.

But then we have a new aspect, one on which, in His sublime self-repression, He very seldom touches--viz, its bearing upon Himself; and in that aspect we are taught here to regard our Lord's going as ministering to His exaltation and joy, and therefore as being a source of joy to all His lovers.

So, then, we have these thoughts, Christ's going is Christ's coming, and Christ's going is Christ's exaltation, and for both reasons that departure ought to minister to His friends' gladness. Let us look at these three things for a little while.

First of all, there comes a renewed utterance of that great thought which runs through the whole chapter, that the departure of Jesus Christ is in reality the coming of Christ. The word again' is a supplement, and somewhat restricts and destroys the true flow of thought and meaning of the words. For if we read, as our Authorised Version does, I go away and come again unto you,' we are inevitably led to think of a coming, separated by a considerable distance of time from the departure, and for most of us that which is suggested is the final coming and return, in bodily form, of the Lord Jesus.

Now great and glorious as that hope is, it is too far away to be in itself a sufficient comfort to the mourning disciples, and too remote to be for us, if taken alone, a sufficient ground of joy and of rest. But if you strike out the intrusive word again,' and read the sentence as being what it is, a description of one continuous process, of which the parts are so closely connected as to be all but contemporaneous, you get the true idea. I go away, and I come to you.' There is no gap, the thing runs on without a break. There is no moment of absolute absence; there are not two motions, one from us and the other back again towards us, but all is one. The going' is the coming'; the solemn series of events which began on Calvary, and ended on Olivet, to the eye of sense were successive stages in the departure of Jesus Christ. But looked at with a deeper understanding of their true meaning, they are successive stages in His approach towards us. His death, His resurrection, His ascension, were not steps in the cessation of His presence, but they were simply steps in the transition from a lower to a higher kind of that presence. He changed the limitations and externalities of a mere bodily, local nearness for the realities of a spiritual presence. To the eye of sense, the going away' was the reality, and the coming' a metaphor. To the eye enlightened to see things as they are, the dropping away of the visible corporeal was but the inauguration of the higher and the more real. And we need to reverse our notions of what is real and what is figurative in Christ's presence, and to feel that that form of His presence which we may all have to-day is far more real than the form which ceased when the Shekinah cloud received Him out of their sight,' before we can penetrate to the depth of His words, or grasp the whole fullness of blessing and of consolation which lie in them here. In a very deep and real sense, He therefore departed from us for a season that we might receive Him for ever.'

The real presence of Jesus Christ to-day, and through the long ages with every waiting heart, is the very keynote to the solemn music of these chapters. And again I press upon you, and upon myself, the question, Do we believe it? Do we live in the faith of it? Does it fill the same place in the perspective of our Christian creed as it does in the revelation of the Scripture, or have we refined it and watered it down, until it comes to be little more than merely the continuous influence of the record of His past, just as any great and sovereign spirit that has influenced mankind may still' rule the nations from his urn'? Or do we take Him at His word, and believe that He meant what He said, in something far other than a violent figure for the continuance of His influence and of the inspiration drawn from Him, Lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world'? Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend up into heaven? that is, to bring Christ down from above, the Word,' the Incarnate Word, is nigh thee, in thy heart,' if thou lovest and trustest Him.

Then, again, the other aspect of our Lord's coming, which is emphasised here, is that in which it is regarded as affecting Himself. Christ's going is Christ's exaltation.

Now observe that, in the first clause of our verse, there is simply specified the fact of departure, without any reference to the whither'; because all that was wanted was to contrast the going and the coming. But, in the second clause, in which the emphasis rests not so much upon the fact of departure as upon the goal to which He went, we read: I go to the Father.' Hitherto we have been contemplating Christ's departure simply in its bearing upon us, but here, with exquisite tenderness, He unveils another aspect of it, and that in order that He may change His disciples' sadness into joy; and says to them, If ye were not so absorbed in yourselves, you would have a thought to spare about Me, and you would feel that you should be glad because I am about to be exalted.'

Very, very seldom does He open such a glimpse into His heart, and it is all the more tender and impressive when He does. What a hint of the continual self-sacrifice of the human life of Jesus Christ lies in this thought, that He bids His disciples rejoice with Him, because the time is getting nearer its end, and He goes back to the Father! And what shall we say of the nature of Him to whom it was martyrdom to live, and a supreme instance of self-sacrificing humiliation to be found in fashion as a man'?

He tells His followers here "that a reason for their joy in His departure is to be found in this fact, that He goes to the Father, who is greater than Himself.

Now mark, with regard to that remarkable utterance, that the whole course of thought in the context requires, as it seems to me, that we should suppose that for Christ to go to the Father' was to share in the Father's greatness. Why else should the disciples be bidden to rejoice in it? or why should He say anything at all about the greatness of the Father? If so, then this follows, that the greatness to which He here alludes is such as He enters by His ascension. Or, in other words, that the inferiority, of whatever nature it may be, to which He here alludes, falls away when He passes hence.

Now these words are often quoted triumphantly, as if they were dead against what I venture to call the orthodox and Scriptural doctrine of the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. And it may be worth while to remark that that doctrine accepts this saying as fully as it does Christ's other word, I and My Father are one.' I venture to think that it is the only construction of Scripture phraseology which does full justice to all the elements. But be that as it may, I wish to remind you that the creed which confesses the unity of the Godhead and the divinity of Jesus Christ is not to be overthrown by pelting this verse at it; for this verse is part of that creed, which as fully declares that the Father is greater than the Son, as it declares that the Son is One with the Father. You may be satisfied with it or no, but as a matter of simple honesty it must be recognised that the creed of the Catholic Church does combine both the elements of these representations.

Now we can only speak in this matter as Scripture guides us. The depths of Deity are far too deep to be Sounded by our plummets, and he is a bold man who ventures to say that he knows what is impossible in reference to the divine nature. He needs to have gone all round God, and down to the depths, and up to the heights of a bottomless and summitless infinitude, before he has a right to say that. But let me remind you that we can dimly see that the very names Father' and Son' do imply some sort of subordination, but that that subordination, inasmuch as it is in the timeless and inward relations of divinity, must be supposed to exist after the ascension, as it existed before the incarnation; and, therefore, any such mysterious difference is not that which is referred to here. What is referred to is what dropped away from the Man Jesus Christ, when He ascended up on high. As Luther has it, in his strong, simple way, in one of his sermons, Here He was a poor, sad, suffering Christ'; and that garb of lowliness falls from Him, like the mantle that fell from the prophet as he went up in the chariot of fire, when He passes behind the brightness of the Shekinah cloud that hides Him from our sight. That in which the Father was greater than He, in so far as our present purpose is concerned, was that which He left behind when He ascended, even the pain, the suffering, the sorrow, the restrictions, the humiliation, that made so much of the burden of His life. Therefore we, as His followers, have to rejoice in an ascended Christ, beneath whose feet are foes, and far away from whose human personality are all the ills that flesh is heir to. If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for My Father is greater than I.'

So then the third thought, in this first part of our subject, is that on both these grounds Christ's ascension and departure are a source of joy. The two aspects of His departure, as affecting Him and as affecting us, are inseparably welded together. There can be no presence with us, man by man, through all the ages, and in every land, unless He, whose presence it is, participates in the absolute glory of divinity. For to be with you and me and all our suffering brethren, through the centuries and over the world, involves something more than belongs to mere humanity. Therefore, the two sources of gladness are confluent--Christ's ascension as affecting us is inseparably woven in with Christ's ascension as affecting Himself.

Love will delight to dwell upon that thought of its exalted Lover. We may fairly apply the simplicity of human relationships and affections to the elucidation of what ought to be our affection to Him, our Lord. And surely if our dearest one were far away from us, in some lofty position, our hearts and our thoughts would ever be going thither, and we should live more there than here, where we are cribbed, cabined, and confined.' And if we love Jesus Christ with any depth of earnestness and fervour of affection, there will be no thought more sweet to us, and none which will more naturally flow into our hearts, whenever they are for a moment at leisure, than this, the thought of Him, our Brother and Forerunner, who has ascended up on high; and in the midst of the glory of the throne bears us in His heart, and uses His glory for our blessing. Love will spring to where the beloved is; and if we he Christians in any deep and real sense, our hearts will have risen with Christ, and we shall be sitting with Him at the right hand of God. My brother, measure your Christianity, and the reality of your love to Jesus Christ, by this--is it to you natural, and a joy, to turn to Him, and ever to make present to your mind the glories in which He loves and lives, and intercedes, and reigns, for you? If ye love Me, ye will rejoice, because I go unto the Father.'

II. And Now I Can Deal With The Second Verse Of Our Text Very Briefly.

For our purpose it is less important than the former one. In it we find our Lord setting forth, secondly, His departure and His announcement of His departure as the ground and food of faith.

He knew what a crash was coming, and with exquisite tenderness, gentleness, knowledge of their necessities, and suppression of all His own feelings and emotions, He gave Himself to prepare the disciples for the storm, that, forewarned, they might be forearmed, and that when it did burst upon them, it might not take them by surprise.

So He does still, about a great many other things, and tells us beforehand of what is sure to come to us, that when we are caught in the midst of the tempest we may not bate one jot of heart or hope.

Why should I complainOf want or distress,Temptation or pain?He told me no less.'

And when my sorrows come to me, I may say about them what He says about His departure--He has told us before, that when it comes we may believe.

But note how, in these final words of my text, Christ avows that the great aim of His utterances and of His departure is to evoke our faith. And what does He mean by faith? He means, first of all, a grasp of the historic facts--His death, His resurrection, His ascension. He means, next, the understanding of these as He Himself has explained them--a death of sacrifice, a resurrection of victory over death and the grave, and an ascension to rule and guide His Church and the world, and to send His divine Spirit into men's hearts if they will receive it. And He means, therefore, as the essence of the faith that He would produce in all our hearts--a reliance upon Himself as thus revealed, Sacrifice by His death, Victor by His resurrection, King and interceding Priest by His ascension, a reliance upon Himself as absolute as the facts are sure, as unfaltering as is His eternal sameness. The faith that grasps the Christ, dead, risen, ascended, as its all in all, for time and for eternity, is the faith which by all His work, and by all His words about His work, He desires to kindle in our hearts. Has He kindled it in yours?

Then there is a second thought--viz., that these facts, as interpreted by Himself, are the ground and the nourishment of our faith. How differently they looked when seen from the further side and when seen from the hither side! Anticipated and dimly anticipated, they were all doleful and -full of dismay; remembered and looked back upon, they were radiant and bright. The disciples felt, with shrinking hearts and fainting spirits, that their whole reliance upon Jesus Christ was on the point of being shattered, and that everything was going when He died. We trusted,' said two of them, with such a sad use of the past tense, we trusted that this had been He which should have redeemed Israel. But we do not trust it any more, nor do we expect Him to be Israel's Redeemer now.' But after the facts were all unveiled, there came back the memory of His words, and they said to one another, Did He not tell us that it was all to be so? How blind we were not to understand Him!'

And so the Cross, the grave, the skies,' are the foundations of our faith; and they who see Him dying, rising, ascended, henceforth will find it impossible to doubt. Feed your faith upon these great facts, and take Christ's own explanation of them, and your faith will be strong.

Again, we learn here that faith is the condition of the true presence of our absent Lord. Faith is that on our side which corresponds to His spiritual coming to us. Whosoever trusts Him possesses Him, and He is with and in every soul that, loving Him, relies upon Him, in a closeness so close and a presence so real that heaven itself does not bring the spirit of the believer and the Spirit of the Lord nearer one another, though it takes away the bodily film that sometimes seems to part their lives.

We, too, may and should be glad when we lift our eyes to that Throne where our Brother reigns. We too, may be glad that He is there, because His being there is the reason why He can be here; and we, too, may feed our faith upon Him, and so bring Him in very deed to dwell in our hearts. If we would have Christ within us, let us trust Him dying, rising, living in the heavens; and then we shall learn how, by all three apparent departures, He is drawing the closer to the souls that love and trust.

Maclaren: Joh 14:30-31

Christ Foreseeing His Passion

Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the Prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave Me commandment, even so I do. Arise, Let us go hence.'--John 14:30-31.

THE summons to departure which closes these verses shows that we have now reached the end of that sacred hour in the upper room. In obedience to the summons, we have to fancy the little group leaving its safe shelter, as sailors might put out from behind a breakwater into a stormy sea. They pass from its seclusion and peace into the joyous stir of the crowded streets, filled with feast-keeping multitudes, on whom the full paschal moon looked down, pure and calming. Somewhere between the upper chamber and the crossing of the brook Kedron, the divine words of the following chapters were spoken, but this discourse, closely connected as it is with them, reaches its fitting close in these penetrating, solemn words of outlook into the near future, so calm, so weighty, so resolute, so almost triumphant, with which Christ seeks finally to impart to His timorous friends some of His own peace and assurance of victory.

They lead us into a region seldom opened to our view, and never to be looked upon but with reverent awe. For they tell us what Christ thought about His sufferings, and how He felt as He went down to that cold, black river, in which He was to be baptized. Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place where thou standest is holy ground.'

So, reverently listening to the words, sacred because of the Speaker, the theme, and the circumstances, we note in them these things: His calm anticipation of the assailant, His unveiling of the secret and motive of His apparent defeat, and His resolute advance to the conflict. Let us look at these three points.

I. First, We Have Here Our Lord's Calm Anticipation Of The Assailant.

Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the Prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me.' One of the other Gospels tells us, in finishing its account of our Lord's temptation in the wilderness, that when Satan had ended all these temptations' he departed from Him for a season.' And now we have the second and the intenser form of that assault. The first was addressed to desires, and sought to stimulate ambition and ostentation and the animal appetites, and so, through the cravings of human nature, to shake the Master's fixed faith. The second used sharper and more fatal weapons, and appealed, not to desire of enjoyment, or ease, or good, but to the natural human shrinking from pain and suffering and shame and death. He that was impervious on the side of natural necessities and more subtle spiritual desires might yet be reached through terror. And so the second form of the assault, instead of tempting the traveller by the sunshine to cast aside his cloak, tempted him by storm and tempest to fling it aside; and the one, as the other, was doomed to failure.

Note how the Master, with that clear eye which saw to the depths as well as the heights, and before which men and things were but, as it were, transparent media through which unseen spiritual powers wrought, just as He discerns the Father's will as supreme and sovereign, sees here--beneath Judas's treachery, and Pharisees' and priests' envy, and the people's stolid indifference, and the Roman soldiers' impartial scorn--the workings of a personal source and centre of all. The Prince of this world,' who rules men and things when they are severed from God, cometh.' Christ's sensitive nature apprehends the approach of the evil thing, as some organisations can tell when a thunderstorm is about to burst. His divine Omniscience, working as it did, even within the limits of humanity, knows not only when the storm is about to burst upon Him, but knows who it is that has raised the tempest. And so He says, The Prince of this world cometh.'

But note, as yet more important, that tremendous and unique consciousness of absolute invulnerability against the assaults. He hath nothing in Me.' He is the Prince of the world,' but His dominion stops outside My breast. He has no rule or authority there. His writs do not run, nor is His dominion recognised, within that sacred realm.

Was there ever a man who could say that? Are there any of us, the purest and the noblest, who, standing single-handed in front of the antagonistic power of evil, and believing it to be consolidated and consecrated in a person, dare to profess that there is not a thing in us on which he can lay his black claw and say--That is mine?' Is there nothing inflammable within us which the fiery darts of the wicked' can kindle? Are there any of us who bar our doors so tightly as that we can say that none of his seductions will find their way therein, and that nothing there will respond to them? Christ sets Himself here against the whole embattled and embodied power of evil, and puts Himself in contrast to the universal human experience, when He calmly declares He hath nothing in Me.' It is an assertion of His absolute freedom from sinfulness, and it involves, as I take it, the other assertion--that as He is free from sin, so He is not subject to that consequence of sin, which is death, as we know it. Another part of Scripture speaks to us in strange language, which yet has in it a deep truth, of him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.' Men fall under the rightful dominion of the king of evil when they sin, and part of the proof of his dominion is the fact of physical death, with its present accompaniments. Thus, in His calm anticipation, Jesus stands waiting for the enemy's charge, knowing that all its forces will be broken against the serried ranks of His immaculate purity, and that He will come from the dreadful close unwounded all, and triumphant for evermore.

But do not let us suppose that because Christ, in His anticipation of suffering and death, knew Himself invulnerable, with not even a spot on His heel into which the arrow could go, therefore the conflict was an unreal or shadowy one. It was a true fight, and it was a real struggle that He was anticipating, thus calmly in these solemn words, as knowing Himself the Victor ere He entered on the dreadful field.

II. Our Lord's Unveiling Of The Motive And Aim Of His Apparent Defeat.

So note, secondly, in these words, our Lord's unveiling of the motive and aim of His apparent defeat.

But that the world might know that I love the Father, and, as the Father gave Me commandment, even so I do.' There may be some uncertainty about the exact grammatical relation of these clauses to one another, with which I need not trouble you, because it does not affect their substantial meaning. However we solve the mere grammatical questions, the fundamental significance of the whole remains unaffected, and it is this: that Christ's sufferings and death were, in one aspect, for the purpose chat the world might know His love to the Father, and, in another aspect, were obedience to the Father's commandment. And if we consider these two aspects, I think we shall get some thoughts worth considering as to the way in which the Master Himself looks upon these sufferings and that death.

The first point I note in this division of my discourse is, that Christ would have us regard His sufferings and His death as His own act. Note that remarkable phrase, thus I do.' A strange word to be used in such a connection, but full of profound meaning. We speak, and rightly, of the solemn events of these coming days as the passion of our Lord, but they were His action quite as much as His passion. He was no mere passive sufferer. In them all He acted, or, as He says here, we may look upon them all, not as things inflicted upon Him from without by any power, however it might seem to have the absolute control of His fate, but as things which He did Himself.

There is one Man who died, not of physical necessity, but because of free choice. There is one Man who chose to be born, and who chose to die; who, in His choosing to be born, chose humiliation, and who, in choosing to die, chose yet deeper humiliation. This sacrifice was a voluntary sacrifice, or, to speak more accurately, He was both Priest and Sacrifice, when through the Eternal Spirit He offered Himself without spot unto God.' The living Christ is the Lord of Life, and lives because He will; the dying Christ is the Lord of Death, and dies because He chose. He would have us learn that all His bitter sufferings, inflicted from without as they were, and traceable to a deeper source than merely human antagonism, were also self-inflicted and self-chosen, and further traceable to the Father's will in harmony with His own. Thus I do,' and thus He did when He died.

Then, further, our Lord would have us regard these sufferings and that death as being His crowning act of obedience to His Father's will. That is in accordance with the whole tone of His self-consciousness, especially as set before us in this precious Gospel of John, which traces up everything to the submission of the divine Son to the divine Father, a submission which is no mere external act, but results from, and is the expression of, the absolute unity of will and the perfect oneness of mutual love. And so, because He loved the Father, therefore He came to do the Father's will, and the crowning act of His obedience was this, that He was obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross.' It was a voluntary sacrifice, but that voluntariness was not self-will. It was a sacrifice in obedience to the Father's will, but that obedience was not reluctant. Christ was the embodiment of the divine purpose, formed before the ages and realised in time, when He bowed His head and yielded up the ghost. The highest proof of His filial obedience was the Cross. And to it He points us, if we would know what it is to love and obey the Father.

Now it is to be noticed that this motive of our Lord's death is not the usual one given in Scripture. And I can suppose the question being put, Why did not Jesus Christ say, in that supreme moment, that He went to the Cross because of His love to us rather than because of His love to the Father?' But I think the answer is not far to seek. There are several satisfactory ones which may be given. One is that this making prominent of His love to God rather than to us, as the motive for His death, is in accordance with that comparative reticence on the part of Jesus as to the atoning aspect of His death, which I have had frequent occasion to point out, and which does not carry in it the implication that that doctrine was a new thing in the Christian preaching after Pentecost. Another reason may be drawn from the whole strain and tone of this chapter, which, as I have already said, traces up everything to the loving relations of obedience between the Father and Son. And yet another reason may be given in that the very statement of Christ's love to God, and loving obedience to the Father's commandment as the motive of His death, includes in it necessarily the other thing--love to us. For what was the Father's commandment which Christ with all His heart accepted, and with His glad will obeyed unto death? It was that the Son should come as the Ransom for the world. The Son of man was sent,' not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a Ransom for many.' Or, as He Himself said, in one of His earliest discourses, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish.' And for what He gave that Son is clearly stated in the context itself of that passage, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.'

To speak of Christ's acceptance of the Father's commandment, then, is but another way of saying that Christ, in all the fullness of His self-surrender, entered into and took as His own the great, eternal divine purpose, that the world should be redeemed by His death upon the Cross. The heavenward side of His love to man is His love to the Father, God.

Now there is another aspect still in which our Lord would here have us regard His sufferings and death, and that is that they are of worldwide significance.

Think for a moment of the obscurity of the speaker, a Jewish peasant in an upper room, with a handful of poor men around Him, all of them ready to forsake Him, within a few hours of His ignominious death; and yet He says,' I am about to die, that the echo of it may reverberate through the whole world.' He puts Himself forth as of worldwide significance, and His death as adapted to move mankind, and as one day to be known all over the world. There is nothing in history to approach to the gigantic arrogance of Jesus Christ, and it is only explicable on the ground of His divinity.

This I do that the world may know.' And what did it matter to the world? Why should it be of any importance that the world should know? For one plain reason, because true knowledge of the true nature and motive of that death breaks the dominion of the Prince of this world, and sets men free from his tyranny. Emancipation, hope, victory, purity, the passing from the tyranny of the darkness into the blessed kingdom of the light--all depend on the world's knowing that Christ's death was His own voluntary act of submission to the infinite love and will of the Father, which will and love He made His own, and therefore died, the sacrifice for the world's sin.

The enemy was approaching. He was to be hoist with his own petard. He digged a pit; he digged it deep,' and into the pit which he had digged he himself fell. Oh, death! I will be thy plague' by entering into thy realm. Oh, grave! I will be thy destruction' by dwelling for a moment within thy dark portals and rending them irreparably as I pass from them. The Prince of this world was defeated when he seemed to triumph, and Christ's mighty words came true: Now shah the Prince of this world be cast out.' He would have the world know--with the knowledge which is of the heart as well as the head, which is life as well as understanding, which is possession and appropriation--the mystery, the meaning, the motive of His death, because the world thereby ceases to be a world, and becomes the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

III. Lastly, Notice Here The Resolute Advance To The Conflict.

Arise, let us go hence'--a word of swift alacrity. Evidently He rose to His feet whilst they lay round the table. He bids them rise with Him and follow Him on the path.

But there is more in the words than the mere close of a conversation, and a summons to change of place. They indicate a kind of divine impatience to be in the fight, and to have it over. The same emotion is plainly revealed in the whole of the latter days of our Lord's life. You remember how His disciples followed amazed, as He strode up the road from Jericho, hastening to His Cross. You remember His deliberate purpose to draw upon Himself public notice during that dangerous and explosive week before the Passover, as shown in the publicity of His entry into Jerusalem, His sharp rebukes of the rulers in the Temple, and in every other incident of those days. You remember His words to the betrayer: That thou doest, do quickly.' These latter hours of the Lord were strongly marked by the emotion to which He gave utterance in His earlier words: I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!' Perhaps that feeling indicated His human shrinking; for we all know how we sometimes are glad to precipitate an unwelcome thing, and how the more we dread it, the more we are anxious to get it over. But there is far more than that in it. There is the resolved determination to carry out the Father's purpose for the world's salvation, which was His own purpose, and was none the less His though He knew all the suffering which it involved.

Let us adore the steadfast will, which never faltered, though the natural human weakness was there too, and which, as impelled by some strong spring, kept persistently pressing towards the Cross that on it He might die, the world's Redeemer.

And do not let us forget that He summoned His lovers and disciples to follow Him on the road. Let us go hence.' It is ours to take up our cross daily and follow the Master, to do with persistent resolve our duty, whether it be welcome or unwelcome, and to see to it that we plant no faltering and reluctant foot in our Master's footsteps. For us, too, if we have learned to flee to the Cross for our redemption and salvation, the resolve of our Redeemer and the very passion of the Saviour itself become the pattern and law of our lives. We, too, have to cast ourselves into the fight, and to take up our cross,' that the world may know that we love the Father, and as the Father hath given us commandment.' And if we so live, then our death, too, in some humble measure, may be like His --the crowning act of obedience to the Father's will; in which we are neither passively nor resistingly dragged under by a force that we cannot effectually resist, but in which we go down willingly into the dark valley where death makes our sacrifice complete.'

THE END

St. John 15-21

Chaps. 15 to 21

MHCC: Joh 14:12-17

Whatever we ask in Christ's name, that shall be for our good, and suitable to our state, he shall give it to us. To ask in Christ's name, is to plead his merit and intercession, and to depend upon that plea. The gift of the Spirit is a fruit of Christ's mediation, bought by his merit, and received by his intercession. The word used here, signifies an advocate, counsellor, monitor, and comforter. He would abide with the disciples to the end of time; his gifts and graces would encourage their hearts. The expressions used here and elsewhere, plainly denote a person, and the office itself includes all the Divine perfections. The gift of the Holy Ghost is bestowed upon the disciples of Christ, and not on the world. This is the favour God bears to his chosen. As the source of holiness and happiness, the Holy Spirit will abide with every believer for ever.

MHCC: Joh 14:18-24

Christ promises that he would continue his care of his disciples. I will not leave you orphans, or fatherless, for though I leave you, yet I leave you this comfort, I will come to you. I will come speedily to you at my resurrection. I will come daily to you in my Spirit; in the tokens of his love, and visits of his grace. I will come certainly at the end of time. Those only that see Christ with an eye of faith, shall see him for ever: the world sees him no more till his second coming; but his disciples have communion with him in his absence. These mysteries will be fully known in heaven. It is a further act of grace, that they should know it, and have the comfort of it. Having Christ's commands, we must keep them. And having them in our heads, we must keep them in our hearts and lives. The surest evidence of our love to Christ is, obedience to the laws of Christ. There are spiritual tokens of Christ and his love given to all believers. Where sincere love to Christ is in the heart, there will be obedience. Love will be a commanding, constraining principle; and where love is, duty follows from a principle of gratitude. God will not only love obedient believers, but he will take pleasure in loving them, will rest in love to them. He will be with them as his home. These privileges are confined to those whose faith worketh by love, and whose love to Jesus leads them to keep his commandments. Such are partakers of the Holy Spirit's new-creating grace.

MHCC: Joh 14:25-27

Would we know these things for our good, we must pray for, and depend on the teaching of the Holy Ghost; thus the words of Jesus will be brought to our remembrance, and many difficulties be cleared up which are not plain to others. To all the saints, the Spirit of grace is given to be a remembrancer, and to him, by faith and prayer, we should commit the keeping of what we hear and know. Peace is put for all good, and Christ has left us all that is really and truly good, all the promised good; peace of mind from our justification before God. This Christ calls his peace, for he is himself our Peace. The peace of God widely differs from that of Pharisees or hypocrites, as is shown by its humbling and holy effects.

MHCC: Joh 14:28-31

Christ raises the expectations of his disciples to something beyond what they thought was their greatest happiness. His time was now short, he therefore spake largely to them. When we come to be sick, and to die, we may not be capable of talking much to those about us; such good counsel as we have to give, let us give while in health. Observe the prospect Christ had of an approaching conflict, not only with men, but with the powers of darkness. Satan has something in us to perplex us with, for we have all sinned; but when he would disturb Christ, he found nothing sinful to help him. The best evidence of our love to the Father is, our doing as he has commanded us. Let us rejoice in the Saviour's victories over Satan the prince of this world. Let us copy the example of his love and obedience.

Matthew Henry: Joh 14:15-17

Christ not only proposes such things to them as were the matter of their comfort, but here promises to send the Spirit, whose office it should be to be their Comforter, to impress these things upon them.

I. He premises to this a memento of duty (Joh 14:15): If you love me, keep my commandments. Keeping the commandments of Christ is here put for the practice of godliness in general, and for the faithful and diligent discharge of their office as apostles in particular. Now observe, 1. When Christ is comforting them, he bids them keep his commandments; for we must not expect comfort but in the way of duty. The same word ( parakaleō ) signifies both to exhort and to comfort. 2. When they were in care what they should do, now that their Master was leaving them, and what would become of them now, he bids them keep his commandments, and then nothing could come amiss to them. In difficult times our care concerning the events of the day should be swallowed up in a care concerning the duty of the day. 3. When they were showing their love to Christ by their grieving to think of his departure, and the sorrow which filled their hearts upon the foresight of that, he bids them, if they would show their love to him, do it, not by these weak and feminine passions, but by their conscientious care to perform their trust, and by a universal obedience to his commands; this is better than sacrifice, better than tears. Lovest thou me? Feed my lambs. 4. When Christ has given them precious promises, of the answer of their prayers and the coming of the Comforter, he lays down this as a limitation of the promises, "Provided you keep my commandments, from a principle of love to me."Christ will not be an advocate for any but those that will be ruled and advised by him as their counsel. Follow the conduct of the Spirit, and you shall have the comfort of the Spirit.

II. He promises this great and unspeakable blessing to them, Joh 14:16, Joh 14:17.

1. It is promised that they shall have another comforter. This is the great New Testament promise (Act 1:4), as that of the Messiah was of the Old Testament; a promise adapted to the present distress of the disciples, who were in sorrow, and needed a comforter. Observe here,

(1.) The blessing promised: allon paraklēton . The word is used only here in these discourses of Christ's, and 1Jo 2:1, where we translate it an advocate. The Rhemists, and Dr. Hammond, are for retaining the Greek word Paraclete ; we read, Act 9:31, of the paraklēsis tou hagiou pneumatos , the comfort of the Holy Ghost, including his whole office as a paraclete. [1.] You shall have another advocate. The office of the Spirit was to be Christ's advocate with them and others, to plead his cause, and take care of his concerns, on earth; to be vicarius Christi - Christ's Vicar, as one of the ancients call him; and to be their advocate with their opposers. When Christ was with them he spoke for them as there was occasion; but now that he is leaving them they shall not be run down, the Spirit of the Father shall speak in them, Mat 10:19, Mat 10:20. And the cause cannot miscarry that is pleaded by such an advocate. [2.] You shall have another master or teacher, another exhorter. While they had Christ with them he excited and exhorted them to their duty; but now that he is going he leaves one with them that shall do this as effectually, though silently. Jansenius thinks the most proper word to render it by is a patron, one that shall both instruct and protect you. [3.] Another comforter. Christ was expected as the consolation of Israel. One of the names of the Messiah among the Jews was Menahem - the Comforter. The Targum calls the days of the Messiah the years of consolation. Christ comforted his disciples when he was with them, and now that he was leaving them in their greatest need he promises them another.

(2.) The giver of this blessing: The Father shall give him, my Father and your Father; it includes both. The same that gave the Son to be our Saviour will give his Spirit to be our comforter, pursuant to the same design. The Son is said to send the Comforter (Joh 15:26), but the Father is the prime agent.

(3.) How this blessing is procured - by the intercession of the Lord Jesus: I will pray the Father. He said (Joh 14:14) I will do it; here he saith, I will pray for it, to show not only that he is both God and man, but that he is both king and priest. As priest he is ordained for men to make intercession, as king he is authorized by the Father to execute judgment. When Christ saith, I will pray the Father, it does not suppose that the Father is unwilling, or must be importuned to it, but only that the gift of the Spirit is a fruit of Christ's mediation, purchased by his merit, and taken out by his intercession.

(4.) The continuance of this blessing: That he may abide with you for ever. That is, [1.] " With you, as long as you live. You shall never know the want of a comforter, nor lament his departure, as you are now lamenting mine."Note, It should support us under the loss of those comforts which were designed us for a time that there are everlasting consolations provided for us. It was not expedient that Christ should be with them for ever, for they who were designed for public service, must not always live a college-life; they must disperse, and therefore a comforter that would be with them all, in all places alike, wheresoever dispersed and howsoever distressed, was alone fit to be with them for ever. [2.] "With your successors, when you are gone, to the end of time; your successors in Christianity, in the ministry."[3.] If we take for ever in its utmost extent, the promise will be accomplished in those consolations of God which will be the eternal joy of all the saints, pleasures for ever.

2. This comforter is the Spirit of truth, whom you know, Joh 14:16, Joh 14:17. They might think it impossible to have a comforter equivalent to him who is the Son of God: "Yea,"saith Christ, "you shall have the Spirit of God, who is equal in power and glory with the Son."

(1.) The comforter promised is the Spirit, one who should do his work in a spiritual way and manner, inwardly and invisibly, by working on men's spirits.

(2.) "He is the Spirit of truth. "He will be true to you, and to his undertaking for you, which he will perform to the utmost. He will teach you the truth, will enlighten your minds with the knowledge of it, will strengthen and confirm your belief of it, and will increase your love to it. The Gentiles by their idolatries, and the Jews by their traditions, were led into gross errors and mistakes; but the Spirit of truth shall not only lead you into all truth, but others by your ministry. Christ is the truth, and he is the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit that he was anointed with.

(3.) He is one whom the world cannot receive; but you know him. Therefore he abideth with you. [1.] The disciples of Christ are here distinguished from the world, for they are chosen and called out of the world that lies in wickedness; they are the children and heirs of another world, not of this. [2.] It is the misery of those that are invincibly devoted to the world that they cannot receive the Spirit of truth. The spirit of the world and of God are spoken of as directly contrary the one to the other (1Co 2:12); for where the spirit of the world has the ascendant, the Spirit of God is excluded. Even the princes of this world, though, as princes, they had advantages of knowledge, yet, as princes of this world, they laboured under invincible prejudices, so that they knew not the things of the Spirit of God, 1Co 2:8. [3.] Therefore men cannot receive the Spirit of truth because they see him not, neither know him. The comforts of the Spirit are foolishness to them, as much as ever the cross of Christ was, and the great things of the gospel, like those of the law, are counted as a strange thing. These are judgments far above out of their sight. Speak to the children of this world of the operations of the Spirit, and you are as a barbarian to them. [4.] The best knowledge of the Spirit of truth is that which is got by experience: You know him, for he dwelleth with you. Christ had dwelt with them, and by their acquaintance with him they could not but know the Spirit of truth. They had themselves been endued with the Spirit in some measure. What enabled them to leave all to follow Christ, and to continue with him in his temptations? What enabled them to preach the gospel, and work miracles, but the Spirit dwelling in them? The experiences of the saints are the explications of the promises; paradoxes to others are axioms to them. [5.] Those that have an experimental acquaintance with the Spirit have a comfortable assurance of his continuance: He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you, for the blessed Spirit doth not use to shift his lodging. Those that know him know how to value him, invite him and bid him welcome; and therefore he shall be in them, as the light in the air, as the sap in the tree, as the soul in the body. Their communion with him shall be intimate, and their union with him inseparable. [6.] The gift of the Holy Ghost is a peculiar gift, bestowed upon the disciples of Christ in a distinguishing way - them, and not the world; it is to them hidden manna, and the white stone. No comforts comparable to those which make no show, make no noise. This is the favour God bears to his chosen; it is the heritage of those that fear his name.

Matthew Henry: Joh 14:18-24

When friends are parting, it is a common request they make to each other, "Pray let us hear from you as often as you can:"this Christ engaged to his disciples, that out of sight they should not be out of mind.

I. He promises that he would continue his care of them (Joh 14:18): " I will not leave you orphans, or fatherless; for, though I leave you, yet I leave you this comfort, I will come to you. "His departure from them was that which grieved them; but it was not so bad as they apprehended, for it was neither total nor final. 1. Not total. "Though I leave you without my bodily presence, yet I do not leave you without comfort."Though children, and left little, yet they had received the adoption of sons, and his Father would be their Father, with whom those who otherwise would be fatherless find mercy. Note, The case of true believers, though sometimes it may be sorrowful, is never comfortless, because they are never orphans: for God is their Father, who is an everlasting Father. 2. Not final: I will come to you, erchomai - I do come; that is, (1.) "I will come speedily to you at my resurrection, I will not be long away, but will be with you again in a little time."He had often said, The third day I will rise again. (2.) "I will be coming daily to you in my Spirit;"in the tokens of his love, and visits of his grace, he is still coming. (3.) "I will come certainly at the end of time; surely I will come quickly to introduce you into the joy of your Lord."Note, The consideration of Christ's coming to us saves us from being comfortless in his removals from us; for, if he depart for a season, it is that we may receive him for ever. Let this moderate our grief, The Lord is at hand.

II. He promises that they should continue their acquaintance with him and interest in him (Joh 14:19, Joh 14:20): Yet a little while, and the world sees me no more, that is, Now I am no more in the world. After his death, the world saw him no more, for, though he rose to life, he never showed himself to all the people, Act 10:41. The malignant world thought they had seen enough of him, and cried, Away with him; crucify him; and so shall their doom be; they shall see him no more. Those only that see Christ with an eye of faith shall see him for ever. The world sees him no more till his second coming; but his disciples have communion with him in his absence.

1. You see me, and shall continue to see me, when the world sees me no more. They saw him with their bodily eyes after his resurrection, for he showed himself to them by many infallible proofs, Act 1:8. And then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord. They saw him with an eye of faith after his ascension, sitting at God's right hand, as Lord of all; saw that in him which the world saw not.

2. Because I live, you shall live also. That which grieved them was, that their Master was dying, and they counted upon nothing else but to die with him. No, saith Christ, (1.) I live; this the great God glories in, I live, saith the Lord, and Christ saith the same; not only, I shall live, as he saith of them, but, I do live; for he has life in himself, and lives for evermore. We are not comfortless, while we know that our Redeemer lives. (2.) Therefore you shall live also. Note, The life of Christians is bound up in the life of Christ; as sure and as long as he lives, those that by faith are united to him shall live also; they shall live spiritually, a divine life in communion with God. This life is hid with Christ; if the head and root live, the members and branches live also. They shall live eternally; their bodies shall rise in the virtue of Christ's resurrection; it will be well with them in the world to come. It cannot but be well with all that are his, Isa 26:19.

3. You shall have the assurance of this (Joh 14:20): At that day, when I am glorified, when the Spirit is poured out, you shall know more clearly and certainly than you do now that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. (1.) These glorious mysteries will be fully known in heaven; At that day, when I shall receive you to myself, you shall know perfectly that which now you see through a glass darkly. Now it appears not what we shall be, but then it will appear what we were. (2.) They were more fully known after the pouring out of the Spirit upon the apostles; at that day divine light should shine, and their eyes should see more clearly, their knowledge should greatly advance and increase then, would become more extensive and more distinct, and like the blind man's at the second touch of Christ's hand, who at first only saw men as trees walking. (3.) They are known by all that receive the Spirit of truth, to their abundant satisfaction, for in the knowledge of this is founded their fellowship with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. They know, [1.] That Christ is in the Father, is one with the Father, by their experience of what he has wrought for them and in them; they find what an admirable consent and harmony there is between Christianity and natural religion, that that is grafted into this, and so they know that Christ is in the Father. [2.] That Christ is in them; experienced Christians know by the Spirit that Christ abides in them, 1Jo 3:24. [3.] That they are in Christ, for the relation is mutual, and equally near on both sides, Christ in them and they in Christ, which speaks an intimate and inseparable union; in the virtue of which it is that because he lives they shall live also. Note, First, Union with Christ is the life of believers; and their relation to him, and to God through him, is their felicity. Secondly, The knowledge of this union is their unspeakable joy and satisfaction; they were now in Christ, and he in them, but he speaks of it as a further act of grace that they should know it, and have the comfort of it. An interest in Christ and the knowledge of it are sometimes separated.

III. He promises that he would love them, and manifest himself to them, Joh 14:21-24. Here observe,

1. Who they are whom Christ will look upon, and accept, as lovers of him; those that have his commandments, and keep them. By this Christ shows that the kind things he here said to his disciples were intended not for those only that were now his followers, but for all that should believe in him through their word. Here is, (1.) The duty of those who claim the dignity of being disciples. Having Christ's commandments, we must keep them; as Christians in name and profession we have Christ's commandments, we have them sounding in our ears, written before our eyes, we have the knowledge of them; but this is not enough; would we approve ourselves Christians indeed, we must keep them. Having them in our heads, we must keep them in our hearts and lives. (2.) The dignity of those that do the duty of disciples. They are looked upon by Christ to be such as love him. Not those that have the greatest wit and know how to talk for him, but those that keep his commandments. Note, The surest evidence of our love to Christ is obedience to the laws of Christ. Such is the love of a subject to his sovereign, a dutiful, respectful, obediential love, a conformity to his will, and satisfaction in his wisdom.

2. What returns he will make to them for their love; rich returns; there is no love lost upon Christ. (1.) They shall have the Father's love: He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father. We could not love God if he did not first, out of his good-will to us, give us his grace to love him; but there is a love of complacency promised to those that do love God, Pro 8:17. He loves them, and lets them know that he loves them, smiles upon them, and embraces them. God so loves the Son as to love all those that love him. (2.) They shall have Christ's love: And I will love him, as God-man, as Mediator. God will love him as a Father, and I will love him as a brother, an elder brother. The Creator will love him, and be the felicity of his being; the Redeemer will love him, and be the protector of his well-being. In the nature of God, nothing shines more brightly than this, that God is love. And in the undertaking of Christ nothing appears more glorious than this, that he loved us. Now both these loves are the crown and comfort, the grace and glory, which shall be to all those that love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Christ was now leaving his disciples, but promises to continue his love to them; for he not only retains a kindness for believers, though absent, but is doing them kindness while absent, for he bears them on his heart, and ever lives interceding for them. (3.) They shall have the comfort of that love: I will manifest myself to him. Some understand it of Christ's showing himself alive to his disciples after his resurrection; but, being promised to all that love him and keep his commandments, it must be construed so as to extend to them. There is a spiritual manifestation of Christ and his love made to all believers. When he enlightens their minds to know his love, and the dimensions of it (Eph 3:18, Eph 3:19), enlivens their graces, and draws them into exercise, and thus enlarges their comforts in himself - when he clears up the evidences of their interest in him, and gives them tokens of his love, experience of his tenderness, and earnests of his kingdom and glory, - then he manifests himself to them; and Christ is manifested to none but those to whom he is pleased to manifest himself.

3. What occurred upon Christ's making this promise.

(1.) One of the disciples expresses his wonder and surprise at it, Joh 14:22. Observe, [1.] Who it was that said this - Judas, not Iscariot. Judah, or Judas, was a famous name; the most famous tribe in Israel was that of Judah; two of Christ's disciples were of that name: one of them was the traitor, the other was the brother of James (Luk 6:16), one of those that were akin to Christ, Mat 13:55. He is called Lebbeus and Thaddeus, was the penman of the last of the epistles, which in our translation, for distinction's sake, we call the epistle of Jude. This was he that spoke here. Observe, First, There was a very good man, and a very bad man, called by the same name; for names commend us not to God, nor do they make men worse. Judas the apostle was never the worse, nor Judas the apostate ever the better, for being namesakes. But, Secondly, The evangelist carefully distinguishes between them; when he speaks of this pious Judas, he adds, not Iscariot. Take heed of mistaking; let us not confound the precious and the vile. [2.] What he said - Lord how is it? which intimates either, First, the weakness of his understanding. So some take it. He expected the temporal kingdom of the Messiah, that it should appear in external pomp and power, such as all the world would wonder after. "How, then,"thinks he, "should it be confined to us only?" ti gegonen - " what is the matter now, that thou wilt not show thyself openly as is expected, that the Gentiles may come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising? "Note, We create difficulties to ourselves by mistaking the nature of Christ's kingdom, as if it were of this world. Or, Secondly, as expressing the strength of his affections, and the humble and thankful sense he had of Christ's distinguishing favours to them: Lord, how is it? He is amazed at the condescensions of divine grace, as David, 2Sa 7:18. What is there in us to deserve so great a favour? Note, 1. Christ's manifesting himself to his disciples is done in a distinguishing way - to them, and not to the world that sits in darkness; to the base, and not to the mighty and noble; to babes, and not to the wise and prudent. Distinguishing favours are very obliging; considering who are passed by, and who are pitched upon. 2. It is justly marvellous in our eyes; for it is unaccountable, and must be resolved into free and sovereign grace. Even so, Father, because it seemed good unto thee.

(2.) Christ, in answer hereto, explains and confirms what he had said, Joh 14:23, Joh 14:24. He overlooks what infirmity there was in what Judas spoke, and goes on with his comforts.

[1.] He further explains the condition of the promise, which was loving him, and keeping his commandments. And, as to this, he shows what an inseparable connection there is between love and obedience; love is the root, obedience is the fruit. First, Where a sincere love to Christ is in the heart, there will be obedience: " If a man love me indeed, that love will be such a commanding constraining principle in him, that, no question, he will keep my words. "Where there is true love to Christ there is a value for his favour, a veneration for his authority, and an entire surrender of the whole man to his direction and government. Where love is, duty follows of course, is easy and natural, and flows from a principle of gratitude. Secondly, On the other hand, where there is no true love to Christ there will be no care to obey him: He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings, Joh 14:24. This comes in here as a discovery of those that do not love Christ; whatever they pretend, certainly those do not love him that believe not his truths, and obey not his laws, to whom Christ's sayings are but as idle tales, which he heeds not, or hard sayings, which he likes not. It is also a reason why Christ will not manifest himself to the world that doth not love him, because they put this affront upon him, not to keep his sayings; why should Christ be familiar with those that will be strange to him?

[2.] He further explains the promise (Joh 14:23): If a man thus love me, I will manifest myself to him. First, My Father will love him; this he had said before (Joh 14:21), and here repeats it for the confirming of our faith; because it is hard to imagine that the great god should make those the objects of his love that had made themselves vessels of his wrath. Jude wondered that Christ should manifest himself to them; but this answers it, "If my Father love you, why should not I be free with you?" Secondly, We will come unto him, and make our abode with him. This explains the meaning of Christ's manifesting himself to him, and magnifies the favour. 1. Not only, I will, but, We will, I and the Father, who, in this, are one. See Joh 14:9. The light and love of God are communicated to man in the light and love of the Redeemer, so that wherever Christ is formed the image of God is stamped. 2. Not only, " I will show myself to him at a distance,"but, " We will come to him, to be near him, to be with him,"such are the powerful influences of divine graces and comforts upon the souls of those that love Christ in sincerity. 3. Not only, "I will give him a transient view of me, or make him a short and running visit,"but, We will take up our abode with him which denotes complacency in him and constancy to him. God will not only love obedient believers, but he will take a pleasure in loving them, will rest in love to them, Zep 3:17. He will be with them as at his home.

[3.] He gives a good reason both to bind us to observe the condition and encourage us to depend upon the promise. The word which you hear is not mine, but his that sent me, Joh 14:24. To this purport he had often spoken (Joh 7:16; Joh 8:28; Joh 12:44), and here it comes in very pertinently. First, the stress of duty is laid upon the precept of Christ as our rule, and justly, for that word of Christ which we are to keep is the Father's word, and his will the Father's will. Secondly, The stress of our comfort is laid upon the promise of Christ. But forasmuch as, in dependence upon that promise, we must deny ourselves, and take up our cross, and quit all, it concerns us to enquire whether the security be sufficient for us to venture our all upon; and this satisfies us that it is, that the promise is not Christ's bare word, but the Father's which sent him, which therefore we may rely upon.

Matthew Henry: Joh 14:25-27

Two things Christ here comforts his disciples with: -

I. That they should be under the tuition of his Spirit, Joh 14:25, Joh 14:26, where we may observe,

1. The reflection Christ would have them make upon the instructions he had given them: These things have I spoken unto you (referring to all the good lessons he had taught them, since they entered themselves into his school), being yet present with you. This intimates, (1.) That what he had said he did not retract nor unsay, but ratify it, or stand to it. What he had spoken he had spoken, and would abide by it. (2.) That he had improved the opportunity of his bodily presence with them to the utmost: "As long as I have been yet present with them, you know I have lost no time."Note, When our teachers are about to be removed from us we should call to mind what they have spoken, being yet present with us.

2. The encouragement given them to expect another teacher, and that Christ would find out a way of speaking to them after his departure from them, Joh 14:26. He had told them before that the Father would give them this other comforter (Joh 14:16), and here he returns to speak of it again; for as the promise of the Messiah had been, so the promise of the Spirit now was, the consolation of Israel. Two things he here tells them further concerning the sending of the Holy Ghost: -

(1.) On whose account he should be sent: "The Father will send him in my name; that is, for my sake, at my special instance and request:"or, "as my agent and representative."He came in his Father's name, as his ambassador: the Spirit comes in his name, as resident in his absence, to carry on his undertaking, and to ripen things for his second coming. Hence he is called the Spirit of Christ, for he pleads his cause, and does his work.

(2.) On what errand he should be sent; two things he shall do: - [1.] He shall teach you all things, as a Spirit of wisdom and revelation Christ was a teacher to his disciples; if he leave them now that they have made so little proficiency, what will become of them? Why, the Spirit shall teach them, shall be their standing tutor. He shall teach them all things necessary for them either to learn themselves, or to teach others. For those that would teach the things of God must first themselves be taught of God; this is the Spirit's work. See Isa 59:21. [2.] He shall bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. Many a good lesson Christ had taught them, which they had forgotten, and which would be to seek when they had occasion for it. Many things they did not retain the remembrance of, because they did not rightly understand the meaning of them. The Spirit shall not teach them a new gospel, but bring to their minds that which they had been taught, by leading them into the understanding of it. The apostles were all of them to preach, and some of them to write, the things that Jesus did and taught, to transmit them to distant nations and future ages; now, if they had been left to themselves herein, some needful things might have been forgotten, others misrepresented, through the treachery of their memories; therefore the Spirit is promised to enable them truly to relate and record what Christ said unto them. And to all the saints the Spirit of grace is given to be a remembrancer, and to him by faith and prayer we should commit the keeping of what we hear and know.

II. That they should be under the influence of his peace (Joh 14:27): Peace I leave with you. When Christ was about to leave the world he made his will. His soul he committed to his Father; his body he bequeathed to Joseph, to be decently interred; his clothes fell to the soldiers; his mother he left to the care of John: but what should he leave to his poor disciples, that had left all for him? Silver and gold he had none; but he left them that which was infinitely better, his peace. " I leave you, but I leave my peace with you. I not only give you a title to it, but put you in possession of it."He did not part in anger, but in love; for this was his farewell, Peace I leave with you, as a dying father leaves portions to his children; and this is a worthy portion. Observe,

1. The legacy that is here bequeathed Peace, my peace. Peace is put for all good, and Christ has left us all needful good, all that is really and truly good, as all the purchased promised good. Peace is put for reconciliation and love; the peace bequeathed is peace with God, peace with one another; peace in our own bosoms seems to be especially meant; a tranquillity of mind arising from a sense of our justification before God. It is the counterpart of our pardons, and the composure of our minds. This Christ calls his peace, for he is himself our peace, Eph 2:14. It is the peace he purchased for us and preached to us, and on which the angels congratulated men at his birth, Luk 2:14.

2. To whom this legacy is bequeathed: "To you, my disciples and followers, that will be exposed to trouble, and have need of peace; to you that are the sons of peace, and are qualified to receive it."This legacy was left to them as the representatives of the church, to them and their successors, to them and all true Christians in all ages.

3. In what manner it is left: Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. That is, (1.) "I do not compliment you with Peace be unto you; no, it is not a mere formality, but a real blessing."(2.) "The peace I give is of such a nature that the smiles of the world cannot give it, nor the frowns of the world take it away."Or, (3.) "The gifts I give to you are not such as this world gives to its children and votaries, to whom it is kind."The world's gifts concern only the body and time; Christ's gifts enrich the soul for eternity: the world gives lying vanities, and that which will cheat us; Christ gives substantial blessings, which will never fail us: the world gives and takes; Christ gives a good part that shall never be taken away. (4.) The peace which Christ gives is infinitely more valuable than that which the world gives. The world's peace begins in ignorance, consists with sin, and ends in endless troubles; Christ's peace begins in grace, consists with no allowed sin, and ends at length in everlasting peace. As is the difference between a killing lethargy and a reviving refreshing sleep, such is the difference between Christ's peace and the world's.

4. What use they should make of it: Let not your heart be troubled, for any evils past or present, neither let it be afraid of any evil to come. Note, Those that are interested in the covenant of grace, and entitled to the peace which Christ gives, ought not to yield to overwhelming griefs and fears. This comes in here as the conclusion of the whole matter; he had said (Joh 14:1), Let not your heart be troubled, and here he repeats it as that for which he had now given sufficient reason.

Matthew Henry: Joh 14:28-31

Christ here gives his disciples another reason why their hearts should not be troubled for his going away; and that is, because his heart was not. And here he tells them what it was that enabled him to endure the cross and despise the shame, that they might look unto him, and run with patience. He comforted himself,

I. That, though he went away, he should come again: " You have heard how I have said, and now I say it again, I go away, and come again. "Note, What we have heard of the doctrine of Christ, especially concerning his second coming, we have need to be told again and again. When we are under the power of any transport of passion, grief, or fear, or care, we forget that Christ will come again. See Phi 4:5. Christ encouraged himself with this, in his sufferings and death, that he should come again, and the same should comfort us in our departure at death; we go away to come again; the leave we take of our friends at that parting is only a good night, not a final farewell. See 1Th 4:13, 1Th 4:14.

II. That he went to his Father: " If you loved me, as by your sorrow you say you do, you would rejoice instead of mourning, because, though I leave you, yet I said, I go unto the Father, not only mine, but yours, which will be my advancement and your advantage; for my Father is greater than I. "Observe here, 1. It is matter of joy to Christ's disciples that he is gone to the Father, to take possession for orphans, and make intercession for transgressors. His departure had a bright side as well as a dark side. Therefore he sent this message after his resurrection (Joh 20:17), I ascend to my Father and your Father, as most comfortable. 2. The reason of this is, because the Father is greater than he, which, if it be a proper proof of that for which it is alleged (as no doubt it is), must be understood thus, that his state with his Father would be much more excellent and glorious than his present state; his returning to his Father (so Dr. Hammond) would be the advancing of him to a much higher condition than that which he was now in. Or thus, His going to the Father himself, and bringing all his followers to him there, was the ultimate end of his undertaking, and therefore greater than the means. Thus Christ raises the thoughts and expectations of his disciples to something greater than that in which now they thought all their happiness bound up. The kingdom of the Father, wherein he shall be all in all, will be greater than the mediatorial kingdom. 3. The disciples of Christ should show that they love him by their rejoicing in the glories of his exaltation, rather than by lamenting the sorrows of his humiliation, and rejoicing that he is gone to his Father, where he would be, and where we shall be shortly with him. Many that love Christ, let their love run out in a wrong channel; they think if they love him they must be continually in pain because of him; whereas those that love him should dwell at ease in him, should rejoice in Christ Jesus.

III. That his going away, compared with the prophecies which went before of it, would be a means of confirming the faith of his disciples (Joh 14:29): " I have told you before it come to pass that I must die and rise again, and ascend to the Father, and send the Comforter, that, when it is come to pass, you might believe. "See this reason, Joh 13:19; Joh 16:4. Christ told his disciples of his death, though he knew it would both puzzle them and grieve them, because it would afterwards redound to the confirmation of their faith in two things: - 1. That he who foretold these things had a divine prescience, and knew beforehand what day would bring forth. When St. Paul was going to Jerusalem, he knew not the things that did abide him there, but Christ did. 2. That the things foretold were according to the divine purpose and designation, not sudden resolves, but the counterparts of an eternal counsel. Let them therefore not be troubled at that which would be for the confirmation of their faith, and so would redound to their real benefit; for the trial of our faith is very precious, though it cost us present heaviness, through manifold temptations, 1Pe 1:6.

IV. That he was sure of a victory over Satan, with whom he knew he was to have a struggle in his departure (Joh 14:30): " Henceforth I will not talk much with you, having not much to say, but what may be adjourned to the pouring out of the Spirit."He had a great deal of good talk with them after this (ch. 15 and 16), but, in comparison with what he had said, it was not much. His time was now short, and he therefore spoke largely to them now, because the opportunity would soon be over. Note, We should always endeavour to talk to the purpose, because perhaps we may not have time to talk much. We know not how soon our breath may be stopped, and therefore should be always breathing something that is good. When we come to be sick and die, perhaps we may not be capable of talking much to those about us; and therefore what good counsel we have to give them, let us give it while we are in health. One reason why he would not talk much with them was because he had now other work to apply himself to: The prince of this world comes. He called the devil the prince of this world, Joh 12:31. The disciples dreamed of their Master being the prince of this world, and they worldly princes under him. But Christ tells them that the prince of this world was his enemy, and so were the princes of this world, that were actuated and ruled by him, 1Co 2:8. But he has nothing in me. Observe here, 1. The prospect Christ had of an approaching conflict, not only with men, but with the powers of darkness. The devil had set upon him with his temptations (Mt. 4), had offered him the kingdoms of this world, if he would hold them as tributary to him, with an eye to which Christ calls him, in disdain, the prince of this world. Then the devil departed from him for a season; "But now,"says Christ, "I see him rallying again, preparing to make a furious onset, and so to gain by terrors that which he could not gain by allurements;"to frighten from his undertaking, when he could not entice from it. Note, The foresight of a temptation gives us great advantage in our resistance of it; for, being fore-warned, we should be fore-armed. While we are here, we may see Satan continually coming against us, and ought therefore to be always upon our guard. 2. The assurance he had of good success in the conflict: He hath nothing in me, ouk echei ouden - He hath nothing at all. (1.) There was no guilt in Christ to give authority to the prince of this world in his terrors. The devil is said to have the power of death (Heb 2:14); the Jews called him the angel of death, as an executioner. Now Christ having done no evil, Satan had no legal power against him, and therefore, though he prevailed to crucify him, he could not prevail to terrify him; though he hurried him to death, yet not to despair. When Satan comes to disquiet us, he has something in us to perplex us with, for we have all sinned; but, when he would disturb Christ, he found no occasion against him. (2.) There was no corruption in Christ, to give advantage to the prince of this world in his temptations. He could not crush his undertaking by drawing him to sin, because there was nothing sinful in him, nothing irregular for his temptations to fasten upon, no tinder for him to strike fire into; such was the spotless purity of his nature that he was above the possibility of sinning. The more Satan's interest in us is crushed and decays, the more comfortably may we expect sufferings and death.

V. That his departure was in compliance with, and obedience to, his Father. Satan could not force his life from him, and yet he would die: that the world may know that I love the Father, Joh 14:31. We may take this,

1. As confirming what he had often said, that his undertaking, as Mediator, was a demonstration to the world, (1.) Of his compliance with the Father; hereby it appeared that he loved the Father. As it was an evidence of his love to man that he died for his salvation, so it was of his love to God that he died for his glory and the accomplishing of his purposes. Let the world know that between the Father and the Son there is not love lost. As the Father loved the Son, and gave all things into his hands; so the Son loved the Father, and gave his spirit into his hand. (2.) Of his obedience to his Father: " As the Father gave me commandment, even so I did - did the thing commanded me in the manner commanded."Note, The best evidence of our love to the Father is our doing as he hath given us commandment. As Christ loved the Father, and obeyed him, even to the death, so we must love Christ, and obey him. Christ's eye to the Father's commandment, obliging him to suffer and die, bore him up with cheerfulness, and overcame the reluctancies of nature; this took off the offence of the cross, that what he did was by order from the Father. The command of God is sufficient to bear us out in that which is most disputed by others, and therefore should be sufficient to bear us up in that which is most difficult to ourselves: This is the will of him that made me, that sent me.

2. As concluding what he had now said; having brought it to this, here he leaves it: that the world may know that I love the Father. You shall see how cheerfully I can meet the appointed cross: " Arise, let us go hence to the garden;"so some; or, to Jerusalem. When we talk of troubles at a distance, it is easy to say, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest; but when it comes to the pinch, when an unavoidable cross lies in the way of duty, then to say, " Arise, let us go to meet it,"instead of going out of our way to miss it, this lets the world know that we love the Father. If this discourse was at the close of the passover-supper, it should seem that at these words he arose from the table, and retired into the drawing-room, where he might the more freely carry on the discourse with his disciples in the following chapters, and pray with them. Dr. Goodwin's remark upon this is, that Christ mentioning the great motive of his sufferings, his Father's commandment, was in all haste to go forth to suffer and die, was afraid of slipping the time of Judas's meeting him: Arise, says he, let us go hence but he looks upon the glass, as it were, sees it not quite out, and therefore sits down again, and preaches another sermon. Now, (1.) In these words he gives his disciples an encouragement to follow him. He does not say, I must go; but, Let us go. He calls them out to no hardships but what he himself goes before them in as their leader. They had promised they would not desert him: "Come,"says he, " let us go then; let us see how you will make the words good."(2.) He gives them an example, teaching them at all times, especially in suffering times, to sit loose to all things here below, and often to think and speak of leaving them. Though we sit easy, and in the midst of the delights of an agreeable conversation, yet we must not think of being here always: Arise, let us go hence. If it was at the close of the paschal and eucharistical supper, it teaches us that the solemnities of our communion with God are not to be constant in this world. When we sit down under Christ's shadow with delight, and say, It is good to be here; yet we must think of rising and going hence; going down from the mount.

Barclay: Joh 14:15-17

To John there is only one test of love and that is obedience. It was by his obedience that Jesus showed his love of God; and it is by our obedience that we must show our love of Jesus. C. K. Barrett says: "John never allowed love to devolve into a sentiment or emotion. Its expression is always moral and is revealed in obedience." We know all too well how there are those who protest their love in words but who, at the same time, bring pain and heartbreak to those whom they claim to love. There are children and young people who say that they love their parents, and who yet cause them grief and anxiety. There are husbands who say they love their wives and wives who say they love their husbands, and who yet, by their inconsiderateness and their irritability and their thoughtless unkindness bring pain the one to the other. To Jesus real love is not an easy thing. It is shown only in true obedience.

But Jesus does not leave us to struggle with the Christian life alone. He would send us another Helper. The Greek word is the word parakletos (3875) which is really untranslatable. The King James Version renders it Comforter, which, although hallowed by time and usage, is not a good translation. Moffatt translates it Helper. It is only when we examine this word parakletos (3875) in detail that we catch something of the riches of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It really means someone who is called in; but it is the reason why the person is called in which gives the word its distinctive associations. The Greeks used the word in a wide variety of ways. A parakletos (3875) might be a person called in to give witness in a law court in someone's favour; he might be an advocate called in to plead the cause of someone under a charge which would issue in serious penalty; he might be an expert called in to give advice in some difficult situation; he might be a person called in when, for example, a company of soldiers were depressed and dispirited to put new courage into their minds and hearts. Always a parakletos (3875) is someone called in to help in time of trouble or need. Comforter was once a perfectly good translation. It actually goes back to Wicliffe, the first person to use it. But in his day it meant much more than it means now. The word comes from the Latin fortis which means brave; and a comforter was someone who enabled some dispirited creature to be brave. Nowadays comfort has to do almost solely with sorrow; and a comforter is someone who sympathizes with us when we are sad. Beyond a doubt the Holy Spirit does that, but to limit his work to that function is sadly to belittle him. We often talk of being able to cope with things. That is precisely the work of the Holy Spirit. He takes away our inadequacies and enables us to cope with life. The Holy Spirit substitutes victorious for defeated living.

So what Jesus is saying is: "I am setting you a hard task, and I am sending you out on a very difficult engagement. But I am going to send you someone, the parakletos (3875), who will guide you as to what to do and enable you to do it."

Jesus went on to say that the world cannot recognize the Spirit. By the world is meant that section of men who live as if there was no God. The point of Jesus' saying is: we can see only what we are fitted to see. An astronomer will see far more in the sky than an ordinary man. A botanist will see far more in a hedgerow than someone who knows no botany. Someone who knows about art will see far more in a picture than someone who is quite ignorant of art. Someone who understands a little about music will get far more out of a symphony than someone who understands nothing. Always what we see and experience depends on what we bring to the sight and the experience. A person who has eliminated God never listens for him; and we cannot receive the Holy Spirit unless we wait in expectation and in prayer for him to come to us.

The Holy Spirit gate-crashes no man's heart; He waits to be received. So when we think of the wonderful things which the Holy Spirit can do, surely we will set apart some time amidst the bustle and the rush of life to wait in silence for his coming.

Barclay: Joh 14:18-24

By this time a sense of foreboding must have enveloped the disciples. Even they must now have seen that there was tragedy ahead. But Jesus says: "I will not leave you forlorn." The word he uses is orphanos (3737). It means without a father, but it was also used of disciples and students bereft of the presence and the teaching of a beloved master. Plato says that, when Socrates died, his disciples "thought that they would have to spend the rest of their lives forlorn as children bereft of a father, and they did not know what to do about it." But Jesus told his disciples that would not be the case with them. "I am coming back," he said.

He is talking of his Resurrection and his risen presence. They will see him because he will be alive; and because they will be alive. What he means is that they will be spiritually alive. At the moment they are bewildered and numbed with the sense of impending tragedy; but the day will come when their eyes will be opened, their minds will understand and their hearts will be kindled--and then they will really see him. That in fact is precisely what happened when Jesus rose from the dead. His rising changed despair to hope and it was then they realized beyond a doubt that he was the Son of God.

In this passage John is playing on certain ideas which are never far from his mind.

(i) First and foremost there is love. For John love is the basis of everything. God loves Jesus; Jesus loves God; God loves men; Jesus loves men; men love God through Jesus; men love each other; heaven and earth, man and God, man and man are all bound together by the bond of love.

(ii) Once again John stresses the necessity of obedience, the only proof of love. It was to those who loved him that Jesus appeared when he rose from the dead, not to the scribes and the Pharisees and the hostile Jews.

(iii) This obedient, trusting love leads to two things. First, it leads to ultimate safety. On the day of Christ's triumph those who have been his obedient lovers will be safe in a crashing world. Second, it leads to a fuller and fuller revelation. The revelation of God is a costly thing. There is always a moral basis for it; it is to the man who keeps his commandments that Christ reveals himself No evil man can ever receive the revelation of God. He can be used by God, but he can have no fellowship with him. It is only to the man who is looking for him that God reveals himself, and it is only to the man who, in spite of failure, is reaching up that God reaches down. Fellowship with God and the revelation of God are dependent on love; and love is dependent on obedience. The more we obey God, the more we understand him; and the man who walks in his way inevitably walks with him.

Barclay: Joh 14:25-31

This a passage close-packed with truth. In it Jesus speaks of five things.

(i) He speaks of his ally, the Holy Spirit, and says two basic things about him.

(a) The Holy Spirit will teach us all things. To the end of the day the Christian must be a learner, for to the end of the day the Holy Spirit will be leading him deeper and deeper into the truth of God. There is never any excuse in the Christian faith for the shut mind. The Christian who feels that he has nothing more to learn is the Christian who has not even begun to understand what the doctrine of the Holy Spirit means.

(b) The Holy Spirit will remind us of what Jesus has said. This means two things. 1. In matters of belief, the Holy Spirit is constantly bringing back to us the things Jesus said. We have an obligation to think, but all our conclusions must be tested against the words of Jesus. It is not so much the truth that we have to discover; he told us the truth. What we have to discover is the meaning of that truth. The Holy Spirit saves us from arrogance and error of thought. 2. The Holy Spirit will keep us right in matters of conduct. Nearly all of us have this sort of experience in life. We are tempted to do something wrong and are on the very brink of doing it, when back into our mind comes a saying of Jesus, the verse of a psalm, the picture of Jesus, words of someone we love and admire, teaching we received when very young. In the moment of danger these things flash unbidden into our minds. That is the work of the Holy Spirit.

(ii) He speaks of his gift, and his gift is peace. In the Bible the word for peace, shalowm (07965), never means simply the absence of trouble. It means everything which makes for our highest good. The peace which the world offers us is the peace of escape, the peace which comes from the avoidance of trouble and from refusing to face things. The peace which Jesus offers us is the peace of conquest. No experience of life can ever take it from us and no sorrow, no danger, no suffering can ever make it less. It is independent of outward circumstances.

(iii) He speaks of his destination. He is going back to his Father; and he says that if his disciples really loved him, they would be glad that it was so. He was being released from the limitations of this world; he was being restored to his glory. If we really grasped the truth of the Christian faith, we would always be glad when those whom we love go to be with God. That is not to say that we would not feel the sting of sorrow and the sharpness of loss; but even in our sorrow and our loneliness, we would be glad that after the troubles and the trials of earth those whom we loved have gone to something better. We would never grudge them their rest but would remember that they had entered, not into death, but into blessedness.

(iv) He speaks of his struggle. The Cross was the final battle of Jesus with the powers of evil. But he was not afraid of it, for he knew that evil had no ultimate power over him. He went to his death in the certainty, not of defeat, but of conquest.

(v) He speaks of his vindication. At the moment men saw in the Cross only his humiliation and his shame; but the time would come when they would see in it his obedience to God and his love to men. The very things which were the keynotes of Jesus' life found their highest expression in the Cross.

Constable: Joh 13:1--17:26

III. Jesus' private ministry chs. 13--17

The Synoptics integrate Jesus' ministry to the masses and His training of the Twelve, but John separated these two aspects of His ministry. There is obviously some overlapping in the fourth Gospel, but the present section contains ministry that Jesus directed almost exclusively to the Twelve. The Synoptics contain more of Jesus' teaching of the Twelve during His public ministry whereas John gave us more of His teaching in the upper room. This instruction was specifically to prepare the Twelve for leadership in the church. Jesus gave it after Israel's official and final rejection of Him resulted in the postponement of the messianic kingdom.

In the first major section of this Gospel Jesus customarily performed a miracle and then explained its significance. In this section He did the reverse. He explained the significance of His death and then went to the cross and arose from the dead.

Constable: Joh 13:31--17:1

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

Judas' departure opened the way for Jesus to prepare His true disciples for what lay ahead for them. This teaching was for committed disciples only. Some writers have noted that in the Old Testament as well as in ancient Near Eastern literature generally the farewell sayings of famous individuals receive much attention.⁴⁴⁶ This discourse preserves Jesus' last and most important instructions in the fourth Gospel. One significant difference is that in His "farewell discourse" Jesus promised to return again (14:1-3).

Constable: Joh 14:1-24

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

Peter's question was only the first of several that the disciples proceeded to ask Jesus. This shows their bewilderment and discouragement. They should have been comforting Him in view of what lay ahead of Him (12:27; 13:21), but instead Jesus graciously proceeded to comfort them by clarifying what lay ahead of them.

Constable: Joh 14:15-21

The promise of the Spirit 14:15-21

At the end of His answer to Peter's question (13:36), Jesus moved the conversation back to the general theme of preparation for His departure (v. 4). He did the same thing after answering Philip's question (v. 8). Obedience to the will of God is not only a condition for getting answers to prayer. It is also an evidence of love for God. Love for God is the controlling idea in the following verses (vv. 15-21).

14:15 This is Jesus' first reference in this Gospel to the believer's love for Himself. Typically Jesus first reached out in love to others and then expected love as a reasonable response (cf. 13:1; Rom. 12:1-2). The conditional sentence in the Greek text is "third class," which assumes neither a positive nor a negative response. Love for Jesus will motivate the believer to obey Him (cf. vv. 21, 23; 15:14; 1 John 5:3). In the context Jesus' commands are His total revelation viewed as components, not just His ethical injunctions (cf. 3:31-32; 12:47-49; 13:34-35; 17:6).

The greatness of our love for God is easy to test. It corresponds exactly to our conformity to all that He has revealed.

14:16 Love for Jesus would result in the disciples' obedience to His commands. It would also result in Jesus' requesting another (Gr. allon, another of the same kind) Helper to take His place in His absence from them (cf. v. 26; 15:26; 16:7; 1 John 2:1). The Greek word translated "Helper" or "Counselor" is parakletos.⁴⁶⁵ In secular contexts it often referred to a legal assistant, an advocate, or simply a helper (e.g., a witness or a representative in court).⁴⁶⁶ The verbal form of this word, parakaleo, literally means to call alongside and, therefore, to encourage or to strengthen.

Jesus spoke of the Trinity in the following relationships. The Son would request that the Father send the Spirit to take the Son's place as the believer's encourager and strengthener. It was hard for these Jewish believers who had grown up believing that there is but one God to grasp that Jesus was God. It must have been even more difficult for them to think of the Spirit of God as a person rather than as God's influence. Nevertheless New Testament revelation is clear that there are three Persons within the Godhead (e.g., 2 Cor. 13:14).

The Spirit of God had come on Old Testament believers temporarily to give them strength, but normally He did not remain with them (cf. Ps. 51:11). What Jesus spoke of here was an abiding relationship in which the Spirit remained with believers for the rest of their lives (cf. Rom. 8:9). This new relationship to the Holy Spirit is one of the distinctive differences between the church age and former dispensations. It is a blessing few Christians appreciate as we should.

14:17 Jesus now identified the Helper as the Spirit of truth (cf. 15:26; 16:13), that is the Spirit who would bear witness to and communicate the truth (cf. v. 6; 1:32-33; 3:5-8; 4:23-24; 6:63; 7:37-39).

"To be filled with the Spirit is the same as to be controlled by the Word. The Spirit of Truth uses the Word of truth to guide us into the will and the work of God."⁴⁶⁷

The unbelieving world cannot receive Him because it cannot see Him and knows nothing of Him. The disciples, on the other hand, knew Him because He empowered Jesus. He had been with them in this way as well as strengthening them occasionally as they needed help when they preached and performed miracles. However in the future, after Jesus returned to the Father, the Spirit would not just be with them but in them. This is another distinctive ministry of the Spirit in the present age. He indwells believers (Rom. 8:9; 1 Cor. 12:13). That ministry began on Pentecost when the church began (Acts 2:4; cf. Acts 1:5; 11:15).⁴⁶⁸ The Spirit does have a ministry to the world, but Jesus explained that later (16:7-11).

14:18-19 Jesus changed the figure from the disciples being without a Helper to their being without a parent. He would not leave them in this traditionally destitute and vulnerable position. He would come to them. Which coming did He have in mind here (cf. v. 3)?

In view of the context that describes the Spirit's coming (vv. 16-17, 25-26), we might conclude that His coming in the Spirit is in view (cf. v. 23). However the passage seems to present Jesus as offering the disciples His personal presence. He had described the coming of the Spirit, but what about His personal return to them? This question, which would have been in the disciples' minds, is what Jesus appears to have been addressing here. He seems to have been referring to a post-resurrection appearance to the disciples (21:1-14). Support for this view is Jesus' assurance that His resurrection would be a pledge of their resurrection. Physical resurrections seem to be in view.

14:20 Jesus post-resurrection appearances would convince the Eleven of His deity. He described this condition as mutual abiding with the Father (cf. vv. 10-11). Moreover these appearances would also convince them of their union with Jesus. They would do so by confirming Jesus' promises of their union with Him (vv. 13-14). Jesus expounded both abidings later (vv. 23-24; ch. 17).

Some interpreters take the day in view as referring to Pentecost.⁴⁶⁹ However because of the flow of the argument "that day" seems to refer to Easter rather than Pentecost.

14:21 Love for God makes the believer more obedient to God. Moreover obedience results in a more intimate relationship with God that God's love for the believer and His self-disclosure to the believer identify.

The believer's obedience does not make God love him or her more than He would otherwise. God's love for all people is essentially as great as it can be. However in the family relationship that Jesus was describing the believer's obedience allows God to express His love for him or her without restraint. When there is disobedience, God does not express His love as fully because He chooses to discipline the believer (cf. Heb. 12:4-13).

In the context (vv. 18-20), this was a promise that Jesus would disclose Himself to the Eleven after His resurrection and an encouragement for them to continue obeying Him and loving Him. However that disclosure was only typical of many others that would come to believers who obey and love Jesus, including the one that happened on Pentecost.

Some believers love Jesus more than other believers do. This results in some believers obeying Him more than others and enjoying a more intimate relationship and greater understanding of Him than others enjoy. The way to become a great lover of Jesus is by learning to appreciate the greatness of His love for us (cf. Matt. 18:21-35; 1 John 4:19).

Constable: Joh 14:22-24

The clarification of Jesus' self-disclosure 14:22-24

14:22 There were two members of the Twelve named Judas. The one who voiced this question was Judas the son or brother of James (Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13). He is probably the same man as Thaddaeus (cf. Matt. 10:2-4; Mark 3:16-19).

Judas' question reflects the disciples' understanding that as Messiah Jesus would manifest Himself publicly, which He had taught them (cf. Matt. 24:30). The disciples did not understand that Jesus would rise again bodily (20:9) much less that the Holy Spirit would come to indwell them. Therefore it is unlikely that Judas was asking Jesus to clarify the manner of His appearing. Judas wanted to know what Jesus meant when He said that He was not going to disclose Himself publicly but just privately to the Eleven. He and his fellow disciples failed to realized that Jesus would reveal Himself to them privately after His resurrection before He revealed Himself publicly at His second advent.

14:23 Jesus did not clear up Judas' misconception apparently because He wanted to stay on the subject of the importance of loving and obeying Him. He did not deny an eschatological return, but He restated what He had just said about His post-resurrection appearance to the Eleven. Jesus stressed the principle that loving obedience always results in intimate fellowship. He was speaking here about the relationship that believers could have following Pentecost. In the process He again stressed His union with the Father.

Jesus began this instruction by referring to abiding places (Gr. monai, plural) that He would prepare for His disciples in heaven (v. 2). He now revealed that He and His Father would make their home (Gr. monen, singular) in believing disciples on the earth first. These are the only two occurrences of this word in the New Testament. They bracket this section of Jesus' discourse and indicate its unity.

"Salvation means we are going to heaven, but submission means that heaven comes to us!

"This truth is illustrated in the experiences of Abraham and Lot, recorded in Genesis 18 and 19. When Jesus and the two angels visited Abraham's tent, they felt right at home. They even enjoyed a meal, and Jesus had a private talk with Abraham. But our Lord did not go to Sodom to visit Lot, because He did not feel at home there. Instead, He sent the two angels. . . .

"Charles Spurgeon said, Little faith will take your soul to heaven, but great faith will bring heaven to your soul.' Your heart can become a heaven on earth' as you commune with the Lord and worship Him."⁴⁷⁰

14:24 In conclusion, Jesus restated the ethical point He had made in verses 15 and 23a negatively. Lack of love for Jesus will result in lack of obedience to His teachings, which are the revelations of God the Father (cf. 12:49; 14:10).

In summary, Jesus revealed that He would depart from the Eleven shortly. He would do so to go and prepare a place for His believing disciples to dwell with Him eventually in heaven. He would prepare this place by going to the cross. Then He would return for them and take them to that place. However in the meantime He would dwell in them by His Spirit. He would also come to them before He departed for heaven.

Constable: Joh 14:25-31

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

Jesus realized that the Eleven did not fully understand what He had just revealed. He therefore encouraged them with a promise that they would understand His words later.

14:25-26 Jesus had made these revelations to His disciples while abiding with them, but when the Holy Spirit came to abide in them, the Spirit would enable them to understand them.

Jesus now identified the Helper whom He had promised earlier as the Holy Spirit (cf. vv. 16-17). He is the Spirit characterized by holiness as well as by truth (v. 17).

The Father would send the Holy Spirit in Jesus' name (i.e., as Jesus' emissary and with exactly the same attitude toward God's will that Jesus had). The Son had come as the Father's emissary, and now the Spirit was about to come as the Son's emissary.

The Spirit would teach them all things, which in the context refers to all things that were presently obscure, about which the various disciples kept raising questions (13:36; 14:5, 8, 22). He would do this partially by bringing to their memories things that Jesus had said that would become clear in the light of His "glorification" (cf. 2:19-22; 12:16; 20:9).

Notice that the particular ministry of the Spirit that is in view is teaching. The illumination that Jesus promised here was specifically to the Eleven and their contemporaries. It was a promise to those who had heard His teaching before the Cross but did not understand it until after the Resurrection. However this promise did not find complete fulfillment in the apostolic age. The Holy Spirit continues His teaching ministry today by enlightening disciples as they study Jesus' teachings. In this sense the Holy Spirit is the true teacher of every Christian, and human teachers serve a secondary role (cf. 1 John 2:27). The role of the Scriptures in the process is fundamental since they contain all that Jesus personally taught and approved.

14:27 The disciples' uneasiness at the prospect of Jesus leaving them without clarifying what they did not yet understand elicited this word of comfort from their Teacher.

"Peace" (Gr. eirene, Heb. shalom) was a customary word of greeting and farewell among the Jews. Jesus used it here as a farewell, but He used it as a greeting again after the Resurrection (20:19, 21, 26). Jesus probably meant that He was bequeathing peace to the Eleven as an inheritance that would secure their composure and dissolve their fears (cf. Phil. 4:7; Col. 3:15).

The world cannot give true peace. That can only come from the "Prince of Peace," a messianic title (Isa. 9:6-7). He is the only source of personal and social peace. The world cannot provide peace because it fails to correct the fundamental source for strife, namely the fallen nature of humankind. Jesus made peace possible by His work on the cross. He will establish universal peace when He comes to reign on earth as Messiah. He establishes it in the hearts and lives of those who believe on Him and submit to Him now through His representative, the indwelling Spirit (v. 26). Later in this discourse Jesus promised His love (15:9-10) and His joy (15:11) as well as His peace.

The peace Jesus spoke of was obviously not exemption from conflicts and trials. He Himself felt troubled by His impending crucifixion (12:27). Rather it is a settled confidence that comes from knowing that one is right with God (cf. Rom. 5:1). As the believer focuses on this reality, he or she can experience supernatural peace in the midst of trouble and fear, as Jesus did.

14:28 Jesus' impending departure still disturbed the Eleven. He explained that their fear was also a result of failure to love Him as they should. They should have rejoiced that even though His departure meant loss for them it meant glory and joy for Him. We experience a similar conflict of emotions when a believing friend dies. We mourn our loss, but we should rejoice more that our loved one is with the Lord.

It should be obvious by now that Jesus did not mean that He was less then God or an inferior god when He said that God was greater than He was.⁴⁷¹ Jesus was not speaking ontologically (i.e., dealing with essential being) since He had affirmed repeatedly that He and the Father were one ontologically (1:1-2; 10:30; 14:9; 20:28). Rather He was speaking of the Father's glory. Jesus had laid His heavenly glory aside in the Incarnation, but the Father had not done so and consequently enjoyed greater glory than the Son during Jesus' earthly ministry. However now Jesus was about to return to the Father and the greater glory that He would again share with the Father. This glorification should have caused the disciples to rejoice, but they sorrowed instead because they focused on themselves too much.

This interpretation of the Father's superiority does not negate the functional superiority of the Father over the Son within the Godhead. However, that distinction does not seem to be primary in the logic of this verse.

". . . the Son, being begotten of the Father, is inferior' to Him in the sense that He that is begotten is secondary to Him who begets (see i. 14)."⁴⁷²

14:29 Jesus' reason for saying what He did was not to cause the disciples embarrassment but to strengthen their faith. Their faith would grow stronger after the Resurrection and Ascension (cf. 13:19). The disciples would then view Jesus' teaching here as fulfilled prophecy.

John stressed the importance of believing throughout his Gospel (cf. 1:50; 3:12, 15; 4:21, 41; 5:24, 44, 46; 6:29, 35, 47, 64; 7:38; 8:24, 45; 9:35; 10:38; 11:25, 41; 12:37, 44; 13:19; 14:1, 11; 16:31; 17:20; 20:27). Jesus' statement here returns to that theme. Both Jesus and John wanted to build faith in disciples of Jesus.

14:30-31 Jesus would not speak much longer with the disciples because His passion was imminent. He did not mean that His present discourse was almost over. Satan, the being who under God's sovereign authority controlled the present course of events, was about to crucify Jesus (cf. 6:70; 13:21, 27). "He has nothing in Me" or "He has no hold on me" translates a Hebrew idiom and means Satan has no legal claim on me. Satan would have had a justifiable charge against Jesus if Jesus had sinned. Jesus' death was not an indication that Satan had a claim on Jesus but that Jesus loved His Father and was completely submissive to His will (Phil. 2:8).

Many commentators interpreted the final sentence in this verse as an indication that Jesus ended His discourse here and that He and the Eleven left the upper room immediately. They viewed the teaching and praying that we find in chapters 15-17 as happening somewhere in Jerusalem on the east side of the Kidron Valley before Jesus' arrest (cf. 18:1). However, it seems more probable to many interpreters, including myself, that this sentence did not signal a real change of location but only an anticipated change, in view of 18:1. Anyone who has entertained people in their home knows that it is very common for guests to say they are leaving and then stay quite a bit longer before really departing.

Why would John have recorded this remark if it did not indicate a real change of location? Perhaps he included it to show Jesus' great love for His followers that the following three chapters articulate.⁴⁷³ The time of departure from the upper room is not critical to a correct interpretation of Jesus' teaching.

College: Joh 14:1-31

JOHN 14

2. Promises of Jesus (14:1-31)

Chapters 14-16 continue the Farewell Discourses, but without the dramatic tension of chapter 13. Judas has now exited. Peter's outburst has been silenced. Jesus has revealed the central ethic of the Christian life, love for one another (13:34). Now the time is right for him to give the remaining disciples a " final briefing" before his own departure. These chapters contain some of the most wonderful truths of the Christian faith.

Promises of an Abode Where Jesus Is Going (14:1-4)

¹" Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God ^a ; trust also in me. ² In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. ⁴ You know the way to the place where I am going."

^a 1 Or You trust in God

14:1. The talk of traitorous betrayal in chapter 13 must have been alarming to the disciples. Jesus now reassures them, " Do not let your hearts be troubled ." The heart (kardiva, kardia ) is not the physical organ of blood pumping here. But it is not strictly the emotional center of a person either, as we often understand it. In Jesus' day the kardia /heart was seen as the center of human volition or will. When he says, " Do not let your hearts be troubled ," it would be something like a modern person saying, " Don't be wavering in your determination." This is why he follows this up with another command, " Believe in God and believe in me." This is a literal translation of John 14:1b, avoiding the somewhat weaker rendering of the NIV, " Trust in God; trust also in me." This is more than advice to trust God at a time of crisis. It is a perpetual command of Jesus for his disciples: Believe, Believe, Believe, and never stop Believing .

14:2-4. Jesus follows the command to believe with a promise for his disciples. His departure is for a reason: to make preparations for our eternity. The reader gains a unique glimpse of heaven. Jesus pictures heaven as the Father's house ; a house with many rooms . The Greek word translated " rooms" is a plural form of monhv (monç), meaning " dwelling place" or " personal room." This promise sets up the paradoxical use of monç in 14:23, where Jesus promises that he and the Father will have a " room" within the obedient disciple. In the future we will have our own rooms in God's " Big House." For now God willingly takes the small room of our hearts.

The final aspect of this promise is stated in extraordinary language. Jesus says the ultimate result is that where I am (egô eimi, see comments on 8:58), you also may be . In Greek it is clear that this is an intentional play upon the " I am" statement. Jesus hints that at his Second Coming believers will share in the " I am-ness" he presently enjoys. They will have unobstructed access to the glorious majesty of God the Father. In these words Jesus is beginning to paint the big picture for the disciples of God's grand plan for the redemption of humanity.

Jesus the Way to the Father (14:5-12)

⁵ Thomas said to him, " Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"

⁶ Jesus answered, " I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you really knew me, you would know ^a my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him."

⁸ Philip said, " Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us."

⁹ Jesus answered: " Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? ¹⁰ Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. ¹¹ Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. ¹² I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.

^a 7 Some early manuscripts If you really have known me you will know

14:5. Thomas has not understood the spiritual nature of Jesus' promises. He may have thought that the " Father's house" Jesus referred to was the temple in Jerusalem. Did Jesus have a secret short cut to the temple? Or, does Jesus have a covert escape route? Yet his question opens the way for another grand teaching of Jesus. Thomas asks, " Is it possible to know the way ?"

14:6. Thomas wants to know about a footpath. Jesus takes him far beyond the Jerusalem neighborhoods and side streets to give an eternal truth: " I am the way ." But this is only the first third of a triple " I am" statement: " I am the way and the truth and the life ." This is the sixth great " I am + identifier" statement in John. There is a sense in which these three are speaking of the same idea (" I am the true and living way" ), but if we reduce the claim too quickly, we lose some of the richness and impact of the statement. Each of these declarations deserves separate discussion.

I am the way . The Greek word for " way" is oJdo" ( hodos ). On the literal level hodos refers to a thoroughfare for travel, whether a road, path, or highway (e.g., Mark 4:4; Luke 10:31), and by extension could refer to the journey itself (e.g., Matt 10:10). On the metaphorical level, however, hodos was often used to refer to the " way of life;" the life choices one makes and lifestyle one adopts (e.g., Matt 7:13; 1 Cor 12:31; Jude 11). Jesus' use of hodos is metaphorical, but not in the sense of " way of life." He is making a claim very similar to his statement, " I am the door/gate" (see comments on 10:7-9). Jesus is declaring that there is a single road that leads to God, and that he is that road . He has not come to show a " better way to God." It is not a " better way" because there is no other way. There is no wiggle-room in the statement, No one comes to the Father except through me . When it comes to fellowship with the Father, Jesus is the only port of entry, the only pass through the mountains, the only bridge over the river. Despite the many religious claims of our day, there is no other way.

I am . . . the truth . The Greek term for truth is ajlhvqeia (alçtheia). The ancient concept of truth as expressed by this word was much the same as our modern concept. Truth is the opposite of falsehood. Truth is when a stated proposition matches up with factual reality. In the Greek philosophical tradition (a background for many of John's original readers), truth was to get to the nature of real being, the essence of an object. The opposite of this was that which merely " seemed" to be a certain way, only an appearance. Appearances might change, but truth does not.

The Jewish view of truth as found in the Old Testament is closely tied to the concept of " faithfulness." To say that a person is true is to say that he is faithful, reliable. In Genesis 42:16 we find the concept of reliable testimony equated with the concept of " telling the truth."

John contains a treasury of teachings on truth. Often truth is yoked with other important theological terms. In 1:14-18 John ties truth to grace resulting in the concept of " gracious truth." In this section truth is tied closely to the incarnation of Jesus. God's truth is displayed in human form in the person of Jesus. In 3:21 truth is presented as something we do , " living by the truth." " Doing truth" is the opposite of evil works and deeds. In 4:23-24 truth is hitched to another key Johannine word, spirit . Acceptable worship must be done in " spirit and truth." There is no room for falsehood in spiritual worship. One cannot lie to God and expect the lie to go undetected. The idea of lying to God is really preposterous and absurd, and amounts to self-delusion. In 8:32 truth is linked with freedom . Jesus' disciples may become free if they " know the truth." The implications of " knowing the truth" are expressed more fully here, in verse 6. To know the truth is to know a person, Jesus Christ. He is Truth personified. When we know the truth, we really understand who Jesus is; we believe it with all our hearts; we stake our lives upon it.

I am . . . the life . This claim has already been made in combination with " I am the resurrection" (see comments on 11:25-26). The Greek word for life used here is zwhv (zôç). It can refer to simple biological viability, that which is alive as opposed to that which is dead. John began his Gospel by claiming that Jesus, as the " Word," was the creator/originator of the zôç life of the universe (see comments on 1:3). But John has already shown that a primary objective of Jesus' mission is to bring life to humankind (5:39-40; 10:10). How can you bring " life" to something that is already alive?

This illustrates that there are two different kinds of " life" in mind in the book. There is biological life, a gift of God to the creatures of the universe. But there is a supernatural, eternal life that transcends the limitations of biological creatures. It is this life that Jesus has in mind in verse 6; he is the life .

The richness of this " I am" statement is astounding. Jesus is the Way. Jesus is the Truth. Jesus is the Life. But of these, the major teaching here is that Jesus is the only Way to the Father. Jesus is the true and living way to the Father . The exclusive claims of the Gospel and the problems they cause for some moderns have already been discussed (see comments under 10:7-9). The fact that Jesus represented the only way to the Father was central to the preaching and beliefs of the early church. The community of Jesus' disciples became known as " The Way" (see Acts 9:2; 19:9; 24:22). Paul taught that there is " one mediator" standing between God and humankind, " the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 2:5). John 14:6 is truly one of the primary Scriptures of the Christian faith. There is no more " long search" for God. The way to God has been revealed through the person of Jesus Christ.

14:7. This verse expands upon the Way/Truth/Life assertion of Jesus. What does it mean to have a " way" to the Father? It is not a long process of spiritual discipline. Rather, it is " knowing" the Father, an immediate relationship. But how can we " know" God? Isn't there a sense that God is unknowable since humankind's expulsion from the Garden, since direct two-way conversation was ruled out of bounds? The answer to this question is yes. We can never force access to the presence of God. We are in no position to make any relationship demands upon God. The only reason we can " know" God is because, as Carl F.H. Henry has taught repeatedly, God is a self-revealing God. We can know God because he has chosen to make himself known to us. And this self-revelation is perfectly and completely made in Jesus Christ (1:14; cf. Heb 1:1-2). That is why " knowing Jesus" is " knowing God."

14:8-12. The dialog continues as John uses the questions of the disciples to clarify the points that Jesus is making. If Jesus is the " Way" to the Father, Philip reasons that it should be simple enough for Jesus to show them the Father . The direct simplicity yet the audacity of this request is astonishing.

The word translated " show" is the Greek verb deivknumi ( deiknymi ), and here means " to demonstrate or show visually." In the book of John deiknymi is generally used in the sense of " showing or demonstrating something marvelous." Philip is asking Jesus to " give us a chance to see the Father," a seemingly innocent request with enormous implications. To " see God" was considered impossible and even dangerous by the Jews. Even Moses was only permitted to see God's backside under highly controlled circumstances, and not the full glory of God. To look upon the face of God would be deadly for any mortal being (Exod 33:20). John has reminded his readers very early on that " No one has ever seen God" (1:18).

Jesus' answer is, " the way to see the Father is to watch me." As Butler has noted, the seeing that the disciples may do is " spiritual comprehension and not sensory perception." There is no subdued radiance about Jesus at this time, no glowing in the dark on the way to the Garden of Gethsemane. He looks like any other human being. Jesus challenges Philip to consider the situation. After all the marvelous signs Jesus has done and Philip has witnessed (including the raising of Lazarus from the dead), Don't you believe ? (v. 10). Don't you believe that everything about Jesus is a revelation of the Father?

Jesus gives Philip and the disciples the ultimate justification for his claim, a reality that may be discerned only through spiritual eyes: " I am in the Father and . . . the Father is in me" (cf. 10:38). Such language of the " oneness of the Son in the Father" may sound like Eastern mysticism to us at first glance, but it is an important expression of theological truth in complete harmony with what Jesus has said throughout the Gospel of John. As Bruce explains, this " mutual indwelling" means, " to see the Son is to see the otherwise invisible God." The unity of the Father and Son is perfect, yet they are not identical. As the author of Hebrews has written, " The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being" (1:3).

Doing Greater Works Than Jesus, Asking in Jesus' Name (14:13-14)

¹³ And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. ¹⁴ You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

14:13-14. Jesus then gives his disciples a further benefit derived from his oneness with Father God. They will be able to make requests to God in Jesus' name, and the requests will be answered. The reader must be careful not to find here a vision of prayer akin to a genie in a lamp who must grant three wishes. This is not a blanket authorization for any of Jesus' disciples to use prayer for personal benefit and enrichment. There are some important qualifications to this promise.

First, sincere prayer requests must come " in Jesus' name." This does not mean that saying " in Jesus' name, Amen" at the end of a prayer is a magic formula. As Leon Morris has written, " It means that prayer is to be in accordance with all that the name stands for. It is prayer proceeding from faith in Christ, prayer that gives expression to a unity with all that Christ stands for, prayer which seeks to set forward Christ Himself." Second, the answer to such requests must serve to " bring glory to the Father ." Jesus promises involvement in the prayer requests of his disciples in order to continue his purposeful ministry of bringing glory to God. Third, we should be careful not to remove this promise from the context in which it is given. Jesus is speaking to his disciples/apostles. For every believer to appropriate this promise without qualification misses part of its purpose. Jesus promises that his disciples will be the vehicles for even greater things than he has done. This is certainly hyperbolic, but it does teach that signs and wonders would accompany the ministry of Jesus' disciples, a promise fulfilled in the book of Acts.

Having given these qualifications, however, a warning should be given for the extreme view that sees prayer as a powerless, almost futile exercise. Sometimes we become prayer-paralyzed to the point we are afraid to pray for anything unless we are sure that our request will be realized anyway. We overqualify our prayers and fail to pray the bold prayer of the believer. Yes, Jesus is speaking to his disciples in verse 13, but believers today may also find a powerful prayer life if they pray " in the name of Jesus."

Jesus' Departure and the Spirit's Coming (14:15-31)

¹⁵" If you love me, you will obey what I command. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever - ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be ^a in you. ¹⁸ I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. ¹⁹ Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. ²⁰ On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. ²¹ Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."

²² Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, " But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?"

²³ Jesus replied, " If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. ²⁴ He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

²⁵" All this I have spoken while still with you. ²⁶ But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. ²⁷ Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

²⁸" You heard me say, 'I am going away and I am coming back to you.' If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. ²⁹ I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. ³⁰ I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me, ³¹ but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.

" Come now; let us leave.

^a 17 Some early manuscripts and is

14:15-17. Jesus reminds his disciples that their relationship is built upon love and obedience. In this context what I command = the " new commandment," to " love one another" (13:34). We are truly his disciples if we " love one another" (13:35). In 14:16-17 Jesus gives a wondrous promise for his " true disciples" : the Holy Spirit. The presence of the Holy Spirit in the believer's life has already been hinted at in John. In 1:33 we are told that Jesus would be the one to " baptize" (immerse) with the Holy Spirit. In 3:5 Jesus informs Nicodemus that the New Birth involves the Holy Spirit. In 7:37-39 the Holy Spirit is presented as the one who satisfies our previously unquenchable spiritual thirst. The Farewell Discourses of chapters 13-17 contain five distinct Holy Spirit texts: 14:16-17, 26; 15:26-27; 16:7-11,13-15. One of the closing passages of John's Gospel is his account of the reception of the Holy Spirit by the disciples (20:22-23). This is tied to the forgiveness of sins, a sign of the presence and authority of Jesus continuing in the church.

In this section (vv. 16-17) Jesus teaches three primary things about the Holy Spirit. First, the Holy Spirit is our Eternal Advocate (v. 16). The Greek word translated Counselor in the NIV is paravklhto" (paraklçtos, from which we get the term " Paraclete" ). The common meaning of paraklçtos in the ancient world was " one who gives legal assistance." This is what the original reader of John would have thought of. Therefore, " Advocate" (NRSV) is an acceptable translation if understood in a legal sense. " Counselor" (NIV) is also a good translation if understood in a legal sense, as one attorney might address another. He is " counselor" in the sense of " the judge appointed legal counsel for the accused." " Helper" (NASB) is also a useful translation, but not in the sense of a subordinate/ assistant. A paraklçtos is a superior or equal helper. Elsewhere John uses this term of Jesus, our advocate who " speaks to the Father in our defense" (1 John 2:1). We pay lawyers to do what we cannot do ourselves, to guide us through the legal maze of the court system. The Holy Spirit does what we could not possibly do: intercedes for us before the throne of God. Our paraklçtos is our advocate, our heavenly lawyer interceding for us before a righteous God, who is a righteous Judge (see Rom 8:26-27).

Second, Jesus teaches us that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth (v. 17). It is in the issue of truth that the Holy Spirit may seem most unlike our stereotypes of modern lawyers. Truth is very important in John's Gospel, and it is usually identified with Jesus. In John there are three related concepts: Truth, Spirit, and Freedom. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:17-18, where God's Spirit is, there is freedom. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is transforming freedom. Our minds are unveiled. We see the truth. Truth is freeing, it is always freeing. Ultimate spiritual truth frees us from the unknown in our relationship to God. Ultimate spiritual freedom is knowing that you are in a right relationship with God, and this is a part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Third, Jesus promises his disciples that the Holy Sprit is in you (v. 17). It is important to understand that the Holy Spirit is never " gotten," the Holy Spirit is only " given." He can never be " taken," but only " received." Jesus tells his disciples that the world/ kosmos cannot accept the Spirit. The Spirit is Holy, and incompatible with the world. When believers receive the Holy Spirit, they begin a new and holy existence, and sometimes this cannot even be communicated with those on the outside. The presence of the Holy Spirit may be faked, or it may be quenched and hidden. But we should remember that at the end of the day, there is no such thing as a Christian without the presence of the Holy Spirit.

14:18-21. Jesus explains this new relationship in other terms. He has already taught of the Father being in him, and he being in the Father. Now he adds a new element. Jesus' followers may be said to be " in him" and he " in them." By extension, this also means his disciples are " in the Father," because that is the position of Jesus. This relationship is defined as being loved by the Father and by the Son. The love of the Son will be actualized in the revelation of the Son to the believer; he will show himself to the obedient believer.

14:22. This promise of the Son being " shown" has pricked the interest of one of the disciples. He is Judas not Iscariot . This is probably the " Thaddeus" of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark (Matt 10:3; Mark 3:18), who seems to be called " Judas the son of James" in Luke's lists (Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13). He poses an objection in the form of a question, " Why not reveal yourself to the whole world?" This is the same question/challenge that the brothers of Jesus gave to him before the Feast of Tabernacles (7:3-4).

14:23-31. Jesus' answer to Judas is rather complicated, but the most direct statements are the following. In verse 27 Jesus says, " I do not give to you as the world gives ." In other words, you cannot judge what I am doing by the usual standards of the world. What may seem a failure by worldly criteria is a victory in God's plans. Therefore, Judas should not expect Jesus to impress the world by gaudy fame and spectacle. In verse 31 Jesus tells his disciples that " The world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me ." Jesus' demonstration to the world will be a display of obedience motivated by love. Thus, he will be revealed to the world, but on the Father's required terms. As Paul has written,

And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

and became obedient to death -

even death on a cross!

Philippians 2:8

Jesus introduces another new element in the life of the believer in this section. He gives peace to the believing community. The Greek word for peace is eijrhvnh (eirçnç). Although this word had a rich background in Greek culture, John probably intends us to understand the Jewish/Hebrew sense of this word. The Hebrew equivalent for eirçnç is shalom . It means more than just a lack of active warfare, a truce between two armies. For the Jew " peace" was personal well-being characterized by having a right and blessed relationship with God. Paul can later say of Jesus, " he himself is our peace" (Eph 2:14). Jesus did not end all human wars, but he does make it possible to end the war between God and man. His death is our peace, our means of reconciliation with our Father. This knowledge of reconciliation allows the believer to not let his heart be troubled (see comments under v. 1) and to not be afraid .

Jesus ends this section by stressing the urgency of the hour. He tells them these things now because they must believe later (v. 29). It is as if he won't have any time to explain once the final events begin. The prince of this world is coming (v. 30). This is Satan, particularly as he controls Judas Iscariot. Jesus implies, " he's almost here" and when he gets here there will be no more opportunities to teach. He ends by telling them, " Come now, let us leave ." This may mean that chapters 15-17 are intended to be understood as words spoken on the way to the Garden of Gethsemane, but 18:1 gives the impression that they remain in the upper room through chapter 17. More likely verse 31 is preparing them for their final walk to Gethsemane, but Jesus still has a few more things to say.

Throughout this section Jesus states that his departure is not final; he will return (vv. 3,18,28). Although it is possible to understand these as simply references to the postresurrection appearances of Jesus, this seems to be too limited a view. Jesus is teaching that there will be a second appearance of the Son to humankind; he will come a second time.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

Lapide: Joh 14:1-23

1-31

CHAPTER 14

Let not your heart, &c. Christ saw that the minds of His disciples were troubled, i.e. anxious and sorrowful, because He had foretold them that His own departure and Passion, through the treachery of Judas, was at hand, as well as the scandal of Peter's threefold denial of Him. For they feared lest they also through dread of the Jews should betray Christ. For if Peter, who seemed as firm as a rock, was about to do so, would not the rest, who were weaker and more timid, do the same? Christ heals this their perturbation by the words, Ye believe in God, believe also in Me.

The Greek reads for ye believe, πιστεύετε, i.e. Believe ye in God, or, ye believe, &c. The meaning is, If ye believe in God, as I know ye do, believe also in Me, and consequently trust Me. For I am God. By this faith and confidence ye may overcome all your fears, and be made partakers of my promises. Cast all your cares and anxieties upon Me, your Lord and your God. For although I go away from you as to My bodily presence, yet in My spirit, in My care and guidance of you, I shall be always with you.

Listen to S. Chrysostom. He shows the power of His Divinity, setting out what they had in their minds. As if He said, "Ye fear the adversity which hangs over Me and you. Lay aside your fear. For faith in Me and the Father is mightier than those things which will come upon us. And nothing can prevail against it." And S. Augustine says, "Lest as men they should fear the death of Christ, and so be troubled, He consoles them, declaring that He is God. As though He said, Ye fear death for this form of a servant; let not your heart be troubled, the form of God will raise it up." Moreover Christ did this, as Ribera says, like husbandmen who attach a weakly vine to an elm, that it may from the elm receive strength to mount up and grow, even though wind and storms rage against it. Thus the Lord joins the apostles to Himself as a most strong wall, by faith: as it is said in Ps. 26, "The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom then shall I fear?" Let the Christian think that the same thing is said to himself by Christ when he is harassed by temptation, trouble, or fear. "Thou believest in God, believe also in thy Christ. He will be present with thee, and give thee strength. He will open out for thee a way of escape, and make thee conqueror."

In My Father's house. Christ had said that He was about to go to the Father, and that Peter would follow Him thither, but He had said nothing concerning the other disciples. They feared therefore that they should be shut out from the Father's house and from heaven. This fear Christ removes. "Fear not, for though it be that I do not take you with Me now to My Father's kingdom, yet I will cause you to follow Me in due time. Do not suppose that Peter only will follow Me thither, as if there were only room for Myself and Peter. I tell you there will not be wanting room for you likewise. For in My Father's house are many mansions. For heaven is a vast empyrean, and has innumerable mansions, sufficient to hold all men whatsoever." So SS. Augustine and Chrysostom.

Moreover, the expression many, intimates that there are in heaven various degrees and ranks of blessedness and glory. As it were said, To each saint shall be his own place in heaven, to each his own beatitude, his own glory, in accordance with the merit of each. So the Fathers against Jovinian, who thought that as all virtues are equal, so likewise would be all rewards in heaven.

Listen to St. Gregory (lib. 4, "Moral," ch. 31), "In the many mansions shall be a concordant diversity of requital. For so great shall be the might of the love which shall unite us in that house of peace, that whatsoever any one shall not receive in himself, he shall rejoice to have received it in another. Wherefore, although all did not labour equally in the vineyard, yet every one received a penny. And indeed with the Father there are many mansion, and yet the different labourers receive the same penny, because to all shall be the one blessed gladness, although not to all the same sublimity of life." The same S. Gregory says, that to a certain Stephen these many mansions were shown full of a marvellous light. Christ then by these words, and by this exhibition of the heavenly reward, animates the apostles, so that they should not dread the temptations and persecutions which were impending over them, but should rather court them, forasmuch as by their means they were about to obtain such rewards.

If it were not so, i.e., if it were otherwise, I would have told you. First, it is as though He said, "I would have told you that I was going away that I might go to prepare a place for you in heaven, unless there were already many mansions prepared there; but because they are already prepared, I said not to you, " I will go to prepare them."

2. Following the Greek and Syriac, which omit the word that before I go, Arias Montanus simply expounds as follows: "There are many mansions in My Father's house. If it were not so I would tell you plainly; nor would I deceive you with the vain hope that I am going to prepare a place for you." As though He said, "Since I so greatly love you, that I am going away from you for the sake of preparing a place for you, how should I suffer you to be deceived in so great a matter? To prepare a place is to come into possession of heaven, which until that time had been closed to man. When I ascend, the heavens shall be opened to you, according as it is said, 'Lift your gates, ye princes, and the King of glory, shall come in,' (Ps 24 Vulg.); and, 'He shall ascend preparing the way before them.'" (Mic. ii. Vulg.)

You will say, if mansions were already prepared for the apostles in heaven, why does Christ go to prepare a place for them? I answer, both are true. For, 1st, these mansions were prepared for the apostles and the rest of the elect from all eternity, by God's predestination, in the first intention, as it were. 2d, Christ went, nevertheless, to prepare them in act, as it were; namely, to bring the apostles into possession of them so to say. Moreover, Christ made plain the way to heaven, which before was shut, by His ascension. For He by His own blood and death upon the cross paid to God the price of those heavenly mansions, and by that price purchased them for us. Moreover, when Christ ascended, He sent the Holy Ghost from heaven, that He, by His peace, might render the apostles and the rest of the elect worthy of heaven.

So S. Augustine. "How," saith he, "does He prepare, if there are already many? They are not yet in existence if they are still to be prepared. But they do already exist by predestination. Otherwise, He would have said, I will go and prepare, i.e., I will predestinate. But it was because they were not prepared as a matter of actual existence that He said, If I go away and prepare, &c., He is preparing the mansions by preparing their destined inhabitants. For that is the house of God, of which the apostle says, 'The temple of God is holy, which temple are ye.' It is still being built, it is yet being prepared. He speaks of going away to prepare, because the just live by faith. For if thou seest there is no faith, the thing is hid that it may be believed, then is the place being prepared if there is a life of faith; being believed it is desired, that that which is longed for may be possessed. He goes away by becoming unseen. He comes by appearing. But unless He abide with us to rule us, that we may make progress in good living, we shall not have a place prepared for us where we can abide in continual gladness."

Ver. 3. — And if I go away, &c. If, i.e., when, I go away into heaven and there prepare a place for you and all your successors, that is, for all the elect, by giving them through the ages the Holy Ghost, and His grace by which He may prepare them for celestial glory; when, I say, this has been accomplished, then I will come again in the day of judgment, and receive you all to Myself, and crown you with a worthy reward in heaven.

And whither I go, ye know, &c.; i.e., Ye can, and ought easily know, because ye have often heard of Me that I am going to the Father in heaven, and that the road to heaven is My faith, doctrine, passion, and cross. The Apostles knew that Christ had said these things, but they did not yet understand them, which was the reason why they did not remember them. So S. Augustine, Maldonatus.

Ver. 5. — Thomas saith unto Him, &c. Since we know not whither Thou goest, how can we know the way? For he who knows not the goal to which a way leads, cannot be said to know the way to that goal. We indeed have heard Thee say that Thou art going to Thy Father's house, where there are many mansions, to prepare us a place. But where is this Father's house? Where are those many mansions? If this house is heaven, as we suppose it is, declare the matter to us more fully and explicitly. Explain to us concerning these mansions where and in what region they are. For the vastness of heaven, or rather of the many heavens, is infinite. Thus Thomas. "But Christ," as Cyril says, "gave no response to this overweening curiosity. For He does not explain the whole subject, but leaving that for a fitting season, He unfolds only what is necessary for the present time."

Jesus saith to him, &c. Briefly the genuine meaning is this. "Thou askest, 0 Thomas, two questions, viz., about My way and its terminus, whither I am going, and what road? I answer thus, 'I am the way which thou seekest, a way not deceitful, but true, a way which leads to true life, even to God the Father in heaven, where is My Father's house, in which are the many mansions I have spoken of.'" Wherefore He adds, by way of explanation, No one cometh to the Father but by Me. The Father, therefore, is the goal or terminus. I am the way to it. I am the way, i.e. I am the teacher, the guide, and the leader of the true way which leads straight to the eternal and beatific life. I am the way, because I point out and teach the true faith and the holy living, which is the true way to everlasting life. There is an allusion to Isa 30:20-21, "Thine eyes shall see thy teachers, and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left."

But because some ways are true and right, others false and erroneous, therefore is Christ called the way and the truth, i.e. the true and right way according to the words in Isa. xxxv. 8, "And this shall be to you the direct way, so that fools shall not err in it." (Vulg.) As though Christ said, both Jewish and Gentile philosophers have taught many things concerning blessedness and the virtues which as a road lead to blessedness, yet they have fallen into many errors, and so have led men not to life, but to the destruction of hell. For as they made blessedness—not true indeed, but false blessedness—to consist in riches, honours, and vain science, so they have gone themselves, and led others into no good, or true, but into a false way. But I teach true faith and unity and those other virtues by which you may arrive by a direct way at that true and eternal life which is with the Father, and therefore with Me. For I and the Father are one. For as the Father is beatific life, both formal and causative, because He communicates the same to us, and also objective life, because He is the author of the beatific vision, so likewise am I the very self-same life and truth. I therefore am He who points out to you the right road to heaven. I am He who as the Truth delivers you from every error of the mind. I am He who leads you to true life.

From hence it is plain that Christ is the way :— 1. Because by the merit of His Passion He has opened to us the way to heaven. 2. Because by His doctrine He shows us the same way. 3. Because He inspires us with faith-and grace and good works and merits, by which as by a path we walk to life eternal. 4. Because by this way of a holy life and by His Passion He has gone before us, treading it first Himself, that we might follow Him in the same, and imitating Him, arrive at the heaven whither He has gone.

This is the genuine meaning of this passage. But since this is a golden saying of Christ, let us listen to various comments and observations of the Fathers upon it.

1 S. Leo ( Serm. 2, de Resur.) says, "Christ is the way of holy conversation, the truth of Divine doctrine, the life of everlasting blessedness."

2. S. Cyril saith, "Christ is our way by the actions of His life, the truth by a right faith, the life by the well-spring of sanctification." The meaning is, No one cometh to the Father, who is the true life and blessedness, except by love he walk in Me, who am the way; and by faith believe in Me, who am the truth; and by hope confide in Me, who am eternal life.

3. S. Bernard ( Serm. 2, de. Ascens.), "Let us follow Thee, 0 Lord, by Thee, to Thee: for Thou art the way, the truth, and the life—the way by example, the truth by promise, the life by reward." And the same S. Bernard ( Serm. 2, de. Cœna. Dom. ) says, "I am the way by which you must go; the truth, to which you must come; the life, in which you must abide."

4. S. Augustine says, "Christ is the way according to His humanity by which He comes to us, and returns to the Father. The same is the truth and the life according to His Divinity." Again he says ( Serm. 55, de. Verb. Dom.), "What road dost thou wish to go? I am the way. Whither wilt thou go? I am the truth. Where wilt thou abide? I am the life. Every man desires truth and life. Even the philosophers saw in some dim way that God was truth and life, but not all found the way. Therefore the Word of God who is with the Father is truth and life, by becoming man is made the way. Walk by this Man, and thou wilt arrive at God. It is better to limp in the way than to walk bravely outside of the way." The same S. Augustine ( Tract. 69) further says, "By the form of a servant the Lord came to us, and returned to Himself, taking back flesh from death unto life. By the flesh He came as God to man, the Truth to liars. For let God be true, but every man a liar."

5.  S. Hilary ( lib. 7, de Trin.) says, "He who is the way cannot lead us wrong. Nor does He who is the truth deceive by illusions. Nor does He who is the life leave us in the terror of death. If I am the way, ye need no other guide. If I am the truth, I cannot declare what is false. If the life, even though ye die, ye shall come to Me."

6.  S. Chrysostom says, "I am the way, because by Me ye shall come. I am the truth, because the things which I have spoken are beyond questioning. I am the life, because not even death itself can hinder you from coming to Me."

7.  S. Ambrose ( lib. de bono mort.), "Christ saith, I am the way, &c. Let us walk in this way, let us hold the truth, let us follow the life. It is the way which brings us, the truth which confirms us, the life which is given them that persevere." And again he saith, "We follow Thee, 0 Lord Jesus; but call us that we may follow, for no one ascends without Thee. Receive us as the way, confirm us as the truth, quicken us as the life."

Symbolically, Christ is the way of beginners, purifying them by a hatred of sin, and a detestation of their past life. The same is the truth of the more advanced, illuminating them by the examples of virtues, and the desire of a new and holy conversation. The same is the life of the perfect, uniting them to God by the affections of pure love. Hear S. Bernard, summing up many things. "I am the way of light and calm, truth that liveth without pain, life that is happy and pleasant. I am the way upon the cross, the truth in the pit itself, the life in the joy of resurrection. I am the way, in which there are neither thorns nor thistles. The truth, in which there is no sting of falsehood. The life, in which he that is dead lives again. I am the right way, the perfect truth, the life that shall never end. I am the way of reconciliation, the truth of recompense, the life of eternal blessedness. No man cometh to the Father but by Me, i.e., no man cometh to Me, the truth and the life, except by Me the way."

Tropologically, S. Basil remarks "that Christ is called the way, to denote that Christians ought daily to walk and proceed in the path of virtue, according to the words in the Psalms, 'They shall go from virtue to virtue' (Vulg.). For in truth this is the good way, knowing no devious wanderings; I mean our Lord Jesus Christ, who truly is good, who leads us to the Father. For no one, saith He, cometh to the Father but by Me. Such is the way of our return to God through His Son." Thus far S. Basil, who says that Christ is the way, not only by faith, but by the exercise of virtues.

Anagogically, S. Augustine ( de Sent. num. 268), "The Lord saith, I am the way, the truth, and the life, i.e. by Me you must walk, to Me you must come, in Me you must remain. For when we come to Him we arrive also at the Father, because by means of His equal He to whom He is equal is known. And the Holy Spirit binds and most closely unites us to Him, so that we may abide in the perfect and unchangeable Good for ever."

Hence S. Bernard, when he was dying, appeared to a certain absent friend saying that he was going upwards, "for the truth is above." For below in earth there is nothing but vanity and falsehood, as we are taught in Ecclesiastes. "Here," said S. Bernard, "there is no knowledge, no recognition of the truth; above is there plenitude of science, above is the true knowledge of the truth." And two of S. Benedict's monks had this vision of him when he was dying. They beheld a path stretching direct from his cell to heaven, eastwards. This path was spread with tapestry, and bright with innumerable lamps. A man of venerable aspect, and clad in glorious apparel, stood over the monks, and asked them, Whose was the path which they beheld? They replied that they knew not. Then he said, "This is the way by which Benedict, the beloved of the Lord, ascendeth to heaven" ( S. Greg. Dial. 1. 2 c. 37).

No one cometh, &c. Because I am the way to the Father, who is the goal and terminus. No one, i.e. of men; but Suarez adds, of angels also. For he thinks that all the angels have received all their graces and glory from Christ and His merits.

Ver. 7.— If ye had known Me, &c. Christ meets an objection. The disciples might have objected, "Thou, 0 Christ, declarest that Thou art the way, but the Father is the goal to which thou goest. But we do not know the Father, wherefore neither do we know the goal to which both Thou and we are going. Cause us therefore to know the Father. Again, if the Father is the goal, Thou the way, how sayest Thou, I am the way, the truth, and the life? That is both the way and the goal?" Christ answers that both are true. "For I," saith He, "have one essence with the Father, one and the same Godhead. Wherefore, if ye had known Me clearly and fully, ye would have known My Father also;" for the Apostles knew indeed and believed that Christ was the Son of God, but they did not as yet believe that He was consubstantial with the Father; but they did know this after they had received the Holy Ghost. Wherefore He adds,

And from henceforth ye shall know Him, and have seen Him. Ye shall know is the reading of the Vulgate, of S. Chrysostom, and S. Hilary. He means, Ye shall know the Father at Pentecost by the illumination of the Holy Ghost; yea, ye have already seen Him in Me, for he who seeth Me seeth My Father also, as Christ subjoins. The Greek, Syriac, and Arabic read γινώσκετε, ye know, in the present tense. "Even now ye know the Father, because ye have seen Him in Me working so many miracles. For although ye have not seen Him as He is in His Essence and Godhead, ye have seen Him veiled in My humanity, as with a cloud, by means of the signs and miracles, which, like thunderings and lightnings, come forth from It." So S. Cyril.

Ver. 8. — Philip saith unto Him, &c.—Philip did not understand Christ's answer; how, namely, he who knows Christ knows also the Father. He urges therefore Christ to show them the Father Himself. "Thou sayest that the Father is in Thee, as it were lies hid in Thee. Open Thyself, and shew Him to us."

And it sufficeth us. 1st. Says S. Chrysostom, we desire nothing else but to be shown the Father.

2d.  S. Cyril, It sufficeth us, viz., for blessedness, that we should be delivered from all trouble and sorrow; for since the Father is God He will bless us.

3d. It sufficeth us, for confounding the Jews, who deny that Thou art the Son of God.

4th. And more simply, as though it were said, "instead of all the reasons which Thou, 0 Christ, bringest together, to console us in our sorrow for Thy death, we ask one, that Thou wouldst show us the Father. This one will suffice us instead of all the rest."

Anagogically. Hear S. Augustine, "With that joy which shall fill us with His countenance nothing more will be required." This Philip well understood when he said, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. But he did not yet understand that he might say, Lord, show us Thyself, and it sufficeth us. But that he might understand this, he received the answer, Have I been so long time with you? &c.

Herein is that saying of S. Augustine true, "Thou sufficest for God, let God be sufficient for thee." For God is Saddai, i.e., sufficiency, abundance of all good things." Wherefore the Psalmist says, "We shall be satisfied when Thy glory shall appear" (Psa 16:15); and, "They shall be inebriated from the richness of Thy house, and Thou shalt give them drink from the torrent of Thy pleasure" (Psa 35:9); and, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever" (Ps l73:25-26).

The reason à priori is, because God made man after His own image and likeness, wherefore He gave him an infinite capacity, and infinite desires, such as cannot be satisfied with any finite goods. Therefore it is necessary that God alone, who is infinite Good, should fill and satisfy that capacity. As S. Augustine says ( lib. 1, Conf. c. 1), "0 Lord, thou hast made us for Thyself, and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee." And the same saith ( in Ps. lxii.), "Lovest thou riches? God Himself will be thy riches. Lovest thou a fountain of good? What is more excellent than wisdom? What more full of light? Whatever here can be loved, He who made all things shall be Thine instead of all things."

Ver. 9. — Jesus saith to him, Have I been so long time— three years and a half—conversing with you I have taught you who I am, and yet ye have not known Me? The Greek S. Chrysostom and S. Cyril make thou hast not known Me in the sing., that indeed I am not only man, but the Son of God; not diverse in essence and existence from Him, but consubstantial with God the Father. For therefore having seen Me, you still desire to see the Father, because you think that I have a nature wholly different from the Father. As though Philip said, I have seen Jesus the Son of God: it remains for me to see His Father, as being different from Him, as is the case with men. This was the root of Philip's mistake, which Christ removes by what follows.

Philip, he that seeth Me, seeth, &c. "Since I and the Father are plainly one and the same in the essence of Godhead—one, I say, not only in likeness, but one indivisibly, therefore he who sees Me in the Humanity which I have assumed, inasmuch as he sees Me, sees My Father also, for I and My Father are one." Where observe, in Christ the Humanity was seen per se, but the Godhead per accidens. For It was seen not as It is in Itself, but through the Humanity, even as the soul is seen by means of the body in which it moves and operates. Wherefore he who with his bodily eye (with regard to which principally Philip asked, and Christ answered) beheld this Man, namely Jesus, per se, beheld indirectly, and per accidens His Godhead, because this Man was truly God. I am speaking as regards the essence of the Godhead, which is common to the Father and the Son. For as regards Person, it was indeed the Person of the Son which assumed human nature, not the Person of the Father. Wherefore he who directly saw this Man (Christ), directly saw the Person of God the Son lying hid in the manhood, but not the Person of God the Father, except by concomitance, as I shall show in ver. 10. Wherefore he who sees or recognises the Godhead of the Son, recognises also the Godhead of the Father, because They are one and the same. So S. Augustine, Cyril, Chrysostom, Hilary, and other Fathers passim. From this passage they prove against the Arians, 1. That Jesus was really God, so that those who saw that Man likewise saw God. 2. That there was one Person of the Father, another of the Son, which the Sabellians denied. For diversity of Persons is denoted by the words Me and Father. 3. That the Son is Consubstantial with the Father. For unless They were Consubstantial, the Son might be seen without seeing the Father: and vice versa, the Father might be seen without beholding the Son, even as happens with men. "You err therefore, 0 Philip, when having seen Me, you desire to see the Father, as though you were about to see another God, and another Deity, when there is but one and the same. How then sayest thou, Show us the Father, when I have shown Him unto thee in Myself?"

This is the true sense in which Christ answers directly the question and meaning of Philip. But because Christ, taking occasion, as He is wont, from the question to rise and to carry His hearers with Him to a loftier height, this passage may, as to its second intention, be taken to apply to the perfect and proper cognition of the Father and the Son, whether by faith or by sight. As it were, He who seeth Me according to the Divinity, seeth also the Father. Because, although He is distinct from Me, yet am I in Him and He in Me by identity of nature. Wherefore He who sees, i.e., who believes, that I am the Son of God, also sees, i.e. believes, that God is my Father. And he who through the beatific vision intuitively beholds Me, intuitively beholds the Father also. So S. Cyril, Augustine, Chrysostom, Maldonatus, and others. Also Suarez, who shows from this passage that the Blessed who see the Divine Essence see also Three Persons in It.

Ver. 10.— Believe ye not that I am in the Father, &c. Observe 1. Here again the distinction of the Divine Persons is signified. Nor is any one properly said to be in himself, but in another. 2. The oneness of the Divine Nature is signified. For because the Father and the Son are, and exist in one and the same Divine Nature, therefore the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father. Christ proved this by the effect. For He had His doctrine and works from the Father, and common with the Father. Therefore He had the same common Nature with Him. Hence, 3. By this saying is consequently signified the perfect and intimate union and indwelling of one Divine person in the Other, and the converse. By which it comes to pass that the Father is in the Son and the Holy Ghost, the Son in the Father and the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost in the Father and the Son. Damascene ( 1. de Fid. c. 11) calls this, πεζιχώζησις, and from him the schoolmen call it circumincessio. Concerning which mystery S. Augustine treats ( l. 6, de Trin. c. ult.) and S. Hilary ( lib. 4, de Trin.) Each one of the Divine Persons is in each of the others, not only as regards Their Essence, but also as regards Their relation and proper Person, because all are most intimately conjoined and united with One Another. Whence it follows that he who fully knows and beholds one Divine Person- as, for example, the Son—as the Blessed see Him, not only sees the Godhead common to the Father and the Son, but sees also the very Person of the Father, both because the Person of the Father is most intimately related to the Person of the Son, and also because in that relationship is included the essential order. For it is the Father who of His Essence begetteth the Son. And this is what Christ here means when He saith, Believe ye not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?

The words which I speak, &c. They are not human but Divine words. They proceed not from My Humanity, but from My Divinity, which I have received of the Father. Wherefore whoso heareth Me speak, heareth not so much Me as God the Father speaking in Me and by Me. Observe, the Godhead common to the Father and the Son was the efficient cause of the Divine words which Christ uttered. Yet the thing signified by the words was often peculiar to the Person of the Son, not of the Father, as when He said, "I am the Son of God," "I have taken flesh," "The things which I say and do I have received of the Father." For these things He said concerning Himself, not the Father, as is plain. For not the Father was made man, but the Son. And yet the Father equally with the Son was the efficient cause as well of the Incarnation, as of the words uttered by the Word Incarnate. For the works of the Holy Trinity, ad extra, as theologians say, are undivided, and common to all the Three Divine Persons.

But the Father abiding in Me, &c. The Father, as the prime source not only of creatures, but of the other Divine Persons, that is, the Son and the Holy Ghost. For when the Father by begetting communicated His Divinity to the Son, He communicated also His omnipotence, virtue, and power of working. Wherefore, if not the Son but the Father Himself had assumed Humanity, He would have spoken and done the self-same things which the Son spoke and did. For the Father both spoke and wrought in the Son: and also there is one Godhead and omnipotence of the Father and the Son, which spoke and wrought all things through the Humanity which He assumed. Wherefore Christ left it to be gathered by the Apostles that when they saw and heard Him speaking they were to think that they saw and heard the Father. "From these My words and deeds," as Ribera paraphrases, "ye are able to understand how good My Father is, how kind, how much He loves you. From My miracles ye may know My omnipotence, and that I know all things, and have in Me all good. From whence ye understand that the Father likewise hath the same. And since these external things lead you to the knowledge of such great good things, what, think ye, will be yours when ye shall behold My and the Father's Essence without glass, or figure?"

Ver. 11, 12.— Believe ye not that I am in the Father? &c. For believe ye not? the Greek has πιστέυετέ μοι, Believe Me. But the meaning is the same, and one includes the other. Believe ye not that I am in the Father, &c. i.e., "Believe, because I assert this to you." "But if ye do not believe this simply on My assertion, at least believe on account of the works themselves, because the Father by working in Me and by Me so many and so great miracles, shows by those very works that He dwelleth in Me, and doeth by Me such mighty things."

Amen, Amen, I say unto you, whoso believer in Me, &c. Christ wishes to prove that He is in the Father, and the Father in Him. The force of the argument stands thus: he that believeth that the Father is in Me, by this faith, or by the power and virtue of this faith, shall do similar Divine works and miracles to those which I do; yea, he shall do greater than I do. Therefore that faith must needs be true, which believes that the Father is in Me, and worketh in Me. For the Father worketh by true faith, and by miraculous works affords to such an one testimony of the truth, but not to a false faith, for otherwise, He who is the prime Verity would be a witness and approver of a lie.

And greater works, &c. Not every believer, but some of them, such as the Apostles and apostolic men.

What were these greater works? 1. Origen ( Hom. 7, in Num.) thinks that such things are meant as feeble men overcoming the flesh, the world, and the devil. For, saith he, it is a greater thing that Christ should overcome in us, than that He should overcome in Himself.

2.  S. Chrysostom thinks that the greater works were such as that Peter should heal the sick by his shadow, which Christ did not do.

3. And better.  S. Augustine thinks that these greater works were the conversion of all the nations of the whole world by twelve Apostles. For Christ converted a far less number, or only about 500. Listen to S. Augustine, whose diffuse words I have contracted into a few: "What are those greater works? Are they perchance such as that Peter healed by his shadow? For it is a greater thing to be healed by one's shadow than by the fringe of one's garment. But when He said those things He was referring to the works of His words. When He said, The Father abiding in Me, He doeth the works, He called the words which He spoke works, the fruit of which was their faith. For when His disciples preached the Gospel, not merely a few in number like themselves, but nations believed. The rich man departed from the Lord sorrowful. Yet afterwards what that one man would not do, many did when He spake by His disciples. 'Then he speaks of a marvellous paradox.' I say that herein is something greater than to create the heavens and the earth. For these shall pass away, but the salvation and justification of the elect shall endure. There are also in heaven the angels who are the work of Christ. And although it be an equal display of power to create them and to justify the ungodly, yet is this latter a greater work of mercy. However, there is no need to understand all the works of Christ when He saith, greater works shall he do. For perchance He spoke of those which He was then doing. Now it is a less thing to preach the words of justice which He did for our sake than it is to justify the ungodly, and this He so works in us that we work also."

You will ask why Christ willed to do greater works by the Apostles than by Himself. I reply, 1. Because He wished the faith in Him to be gradually disseminated, and thus to grow, lest if it should grow up suddenly it should be supposed to be fancy, and He Himself a magician, or impostor. For that which grows by degrees, by degrees gains confidence, and is more durable.

2. That the modesty as well as the power of Jesus might be commended. That it might be seen that He was not only mighty in Himself to work, but that He was able to infuse the same powers of working in an equal, and even in a greater degree, into His Apostles. For the Apostles did not do these works by their own power, but by Christ's.

3. Because it behoved Christ first to suffer and to die, and by His death to merit those wonderful works, which. afterwards He wrought by His Apostles.

4. Because it behoved Christ first to rise and ascend into Heaven, and then to send the Holy Ghost, who should work such great miracles. This reason Christ adds, when He says, Because I go to the Father

Let prelates and superiors here learn from Christ to keep for themselves the lower and meaner offices, and to leave to their inferiors the greater and more honourable. They will do greater things by their subjects than by themselves. For what the subject doeth, the superior is considered to do through him.  S. Ignatius, the Founder of our Society, when he was made General, publicly catechised, whilst he left to his companions under him the honour of filling notable pulpits.

Because I go to the Father. When after death I have obtained the victory, and have triumphed over the world, the devil, and hell, I will ascend in glory to the Father's throne, and thenceforward I will, through you, show forth greater works than I did whilst I was yet struggling in this life. There is no reason why I should then veil my face in poverty and humility, as I have done when I willed to submit to My Passion for the redemption of mankind. That being accomplished, I shall go up to My Father, who wills that My Name shall be manifested and adored in all the world by the preaching of the Apostles. Wherefore He will work greater things by them than He wrought by Me in this life. So S. Cyril ( lib. ix. c. 41).

Ver. 13. — And whatsoever ye shall ask the Father, &c. Thus it is in the Latin, and in S. Chrysostom, Cyril, and others. But in the Greek, Arabic, and Syriac the word Father is omitted. These words have reference to what preceded, and greater works shall he do, &c. For after the faith, concerning which He said in the preceding verse, he that believeih in Me, He here subjoins a profession of faith, and the invocation of His Name, and the asking for those greater things. As though He said, "I indeed, 0 ye Apostles, am going away from you to the Father, but instead of My presence I leave and give you the invocation of My Name, that by means of It ye may ask and obtain those greater things. Wherefore Christ, says Cyril, here signifies that His own Divinity and authority is the same as the Father's. For it is the glory of the Son that by the invocation of Him the Father should give to the Apostles to do greater works than He wrought by the Son during His earthly life.

In My Name, i.e., by the invocation of My Name.

I will do it. I will cause that the Father will grant unto you. Yea, I in the Father and with the Father will do this thing, and will grant it to you, so that all the power, virtue, and glory of these greater works which ye will do shall be ascribed to Me, not to you. For when prayer is made to the Father, prayer is also made to the Son.

That the Father may be glorified in the Son. Christ out of modesty is wont to ascribe all His glory to the Father, as to the prime Fount and origin. Learn from hence that miracles must not be asked for except for God's glory, or when the glory of God requires them.

Ver. 14.— If ye shall ask anything in My Name, I will do it. What Christ in the last verse said of the Father He here says of Himself, that He may show that He is the same God with the Father, that He hears those who pray to Him, and that He doeth all things which the Father doeth. Whence S. Cyril asserts that Christ is here speaking of His Divinity. Some are of opinion that the same thing is spoken and confirmed which He had said in the verse preceding. Wherefore Chrysostom and Nonnus omit this verse. But it is found in the Arabic, Syriac, S. Augustine, S. Cyril, Theophylact, &c.

But Toletus and others, with better reason, think that something different is meant from the verse preceding. They think that the words of the former verse relate to the petition for the greater things : but that in this verse Christ says that He will hear particular prayers. He means that although He is going away to the Father, and will be absent in the body, yet He is always present and will hear their prayers, and help their necessities, so that whatsoever they ask in His name, i.e., through His merits, He will do for them. S. Augustine supposes an objection. S. Paul asked that the angel of Satan might depart from him, but received it not. But consider that it is said, In My Name, i.e., in Jesus! For whatever we ask contrary to our salvation, we do not ask in the name of the Saviour. For He would not be a Saviour to a man, if He did anything to hinder his salvation. The physician knows what is against his patient's health, and what is in favour of it: and therefore he does not comply with his wishes in what is against his recovery.

Ver. 15.— If ye love Me, &c. Christ here takes His farewell of His disciples, gives His last commands, which pertain to the exercise of the three chief theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity. Concerning faith He speaks in the 1st verse, Ye believe in God, &c. Concerning hope in the 3d, Whatsoever ye shall ask, &c. Now He speaks of charity, If you love Me, keep My commandments. And these three are united together. For faith begets hope, and hope begets charity. The meaning then is, If ye wish to obtain these My promises, and to gain what ye ask in My name, then love Me in return who love you, and persevere and grow in My love. If ye wish to please Me, and through Me obtain all that ye ask, keep My commandments. And if they do this, He promises them a great reward, saying,

Ver. 16. — And I will ask the Father, &c., i.e., If ye persevere in My love, and keep My commandments, I will obtain for you by My prayers the Holy Ghost, which the Father will pour upon you at Pentecost. And He will work through you even greater things than I have wrought.

And I will ask, as man. For Christ as man prays for us, says S. Augustine.

Another Comforter, i.e., another than Myself. From hence it is plain that Christ also was the Paraclete of the Apostles and the faithful. That is, He is—1. an Advocate, an Intercessor, according to those words of Paul, 'We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." 2. An Exhorter, an Inciter. 3. A Comforter, as the Syriac translates. All these meanings are included in the Greek παζάκλητος. But when Christ went away, He sent another Paraclete, even the Holy Ghost, who in these three things took Christ's place. For, 1. He is the Advocate of the faithful, "Who intercedes for us with groanings unutterable" (Rom 8:26). He likewise is our Exhorter and Consoler. To these two offices Christ here specially refers. As though He said, I, 0 ye disciples, have taught you until this present; I have called you, and comforted you, and you are very sad on account of My near departure. But lift up your minds and trust. For I will send you another Comforter in My place, who will teach, console, and protect you, not for a little while, but all through your life. The Holy Spirit then is this Paraclete, i.e., 1. An Exhorter, an Inciter, because He stirred up the Apostles to undertake noble works of virtue for the glory of God, that they should preach the Gospel throughout the whole world, not fearing tyrants or tortures, yea, being ambitious of the most dreadful deaths for Christ's sake. 2. A Consoler, because He would comfort and support them in adversities, distresses, doubts and temptations. For the Holy Spirit is as it were a burning and shining fire, which drives all darkness, fear, and torpor from the mind. As S. Bernard says ( Serm. 2, de. Pent.), "Those whom He fills, He makes to be fervent in spirit, and to have knowledge of the truth." And again, "The Paraclete gives the pledge of salvation, the light of knowledge; and the strength of life,—that what is impossible by nature should be made possible, yea easy, by grace."

He will give you, 0 ye Apostles, at the next Pentecost. From hence S. Jerome ( Quæs. 9, ad Hedib.) refutes the heresy of Montanus, whom Tertullian followed, who said that long after the Apostles the Holy Ghost first came down upon the heresiarch Montanus, A.D. 220, and therefore that Montanus was the Paraclete promised by Christ.

That He may abide with you for ever. From this promise of Christ it is that the Holy Ghost always abides in the Church, and assists the faithful, so as to be a Comforter in afflictions, and a stirrer-up to heroic works of virtue.  S. Augustine proposes the objection, "How shall we keep the commandments, that we may receive Him, when, unless we do possess Him, we cannot keep them?" He answers, "He who loveth hath the Holy Spirit, and by having Him deserves to have more of Him, that by having more of Him, he may love more."

The Spirit of Truth. Why is the Holy Ghost called the Spirit of Truth? First, S. Cyril answers, because He is the Spirit of the Son, proceeding by Spiration from the Son, whose special attributes are wisdom and truth, according to the words, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

2. Because the Holy Ghost has declared to the world that Jesus is God, and the Son of God, the Messiah and Saviour. For this was what Christ pressed home, saying, Philip, he that seeth Me, seeth the Father also. And I am in the Father, and the Father in Me. So S. Basil ( lib. 2, de Spirit Sanc. c. i8).

3. Euthymius says, He is called the Spirit of Truth, i.e., most true and excellent, as opposed to an angel, the soul, or wind, which are spirits in a sense.

4. Of truth, because He is worthy of credit, says S. Chrysostom.

5. Others say that the Spirit of Truth means that He is the Spirit of the New Testament. For to it was the Holy Ghost reserved, as the Spirit of liberty and love, whereas in the Old Testament He was the Spirit of bondage and fear.

6. And most plainly, the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Truth, because He is the Author of all truth, and the alone Teacher and Giver of pure and perfect truth. He teaches us all truths necessary for salvation, and delivers us from all errors. And so Christ explains this to us, saying in the 16th chapter, "When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He shall teach you all truth." So too in Isa 11:2, the same Spirit is called "the Spirit of wisdom and counsel," &c., because He inspires us with those virtues.

The Spirit of Truth therefore is opposed to the evil spirit of the world, which is false and deceitful. Wherefore Christ adds, whom the world cannot receive. Whence S. Augustine ( lib. de grat. Nov. Test.) says that the Holy Ghost is the soul of the Church. "The Holy Spirit is the love and bond of union of the Father and the Son. To Him pertains the Society by which we are made one. A man's body consists of many members, and one soul animates them all, causing the eye to see, and the ear to hear. So likewise the Holy Ghost contains and animates the members of the Body of Christ which is the Church."

Whom the world cannot receive, i.e. worldly and carnal men, who gape after earthly desires and vain riches. Such persons cannot receive the Holy Ghost, because He is altogether heavenly, spiritual, and Divine, who teaches us to despise all earthly things as vanity, and to love and embrace heavenly things as true and solid. For as the Apostle says ( Rom. viii.), "The prudence of the flesh is the enemy of God." ( Vulg.) Whence S. Basil says ( lib. de Spir. Sc.), "As in an unpolished mirror the images of things cannot be received nor discerned, so cannot a man receive the illumination of the Holy Ghost, unless he cast away sin and fleshly lusts,"

Because it seeth Him not, &c. Because it bath the eyes of the mind earthly, and blinded by the lusts of the flesh. Wherefore neither doth it know Him, i.e. practically, so as to love and desire Him.

But ye shall know Him, &c. Know, i.e., His power, efficiency, doctrine, holiness. For He by His presence in you shall exercise His Divine power and grace. By which it shall come to pass that ye shall know Him, love Him when known, and long that He may be known to others. It is as the taste of pepper when it is bruised, or as the hidden power of fire in wood, which bursts forth into a mighty conflagration.

Shall abide with you. The Vulg., with S. Augustine and Nonnus, reads μενεί in the fut. The Greek with a different accent has μένει, abides. With this agree the Syriac and Theophylact. Listen to S. Bernard ( Serm. 20, inter Parv.), "The Holy Ghost proceeds, breathes, inhabits, fills, glorifies. He is said to proceed in two ways, from whence, and whither. From whence? From the Father and the Son. Whither? To the creature. By proceeding He predestinates. By breathing He calls those whom He has predestinated. By inhabiting He justifies those whom He has called. By filling He heaps merits upon those whom He has justified. By glorifying He enriches with rewards those upon whom He has accumulated merits."

Ver. 18 . — I will not leave you orphans, &c. Forasmuch as Christ called His disciples sons, He now says to them, I will not leave you orphans, i.e., without a Father. Because, although I am going away from you to the Father, I will send you another Comforter in My stead. It is not that going away I will desert you, but that going away I will return, and will come unto you.

Christ did this—1. And especially, when after the resurrection He appeared to His apostles in bodily presence, and taught them, and made them glad. 2. He did it, when at Pentecost He visibly sent them the Holy Ghost in the appearance of tongues of fire. 3. He did it invisibly, by often spiritually visiting them from heaven, and communicating to them His heavenly gifts. 4. He will do it visibly in the day of judgment when He will make His Apostles assessors with Himself. All this Christ further explains in what follows.

Ver. 19 . — Yet a little while, &c. But a short period of life remains to Me, only a few hours, after which I shall die upon the cross, and be withdrawn from this world; but ye shall see Me, because the third day I shall rise from the dead, and show Myself to you. This is the literal meaning.

Tropologically, as the world shall not see Me with the eye of sense, so neither shall it see Me with the eye of the mind, because it will not believe in Me, nor recognise Me as the Messiah.

Anagogically. The world shall not see Me after the day of judgment gloriously reigning in heaven.

Because I live, ye shall live also. Ye shall see Me, because I shall rise from the dead, and live again. Ye also shall live that ye may behold Me living again, that ye may be able to preach My death and resurrection to the whole world. As Theophylact says, When ye shall see Me living again ye shall rejoice, and as though ye had been dead, ye shall live again at My appearing. As Jacob, when he heard that Joseph whom he supposed to be dead was alive, he awoke, as it were out of a deep sleep, and lived again. Christ speaks in the present tense, I live, because He would signify that He would immediately rise again from the dead. As S. Augustine says, "He spoke of Himself as living, in the present, of them as about to live in the future. For His Resurrection was presently to take place, but theirs was to be deferred to the end of the world."

Ver. 20.— In that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, &c. After I have risen again, and ascended into heaven, and sent you the Holy Ghost, ye shall by His illumination know these three things more clearly and certainly, viz., that I am in the Father, by the unity of the Divine Essence, that is to say, that I am true God. 2. That ye may be in Me through Love, through the special guardianship which I have over you. Cyril adds a deeper meaning, "That ye may be in Me through union of substance. For since I have assumed human flesh, I have united the whole nature of man, and as it were all men to Myself. 3. That I may be in you as inhabiting, illuminating, and directing you to all good, and to everlasting life in heaven by My grace. Wherefore, says the Interlinear, ye shall know that I am in the Father, as a ray of light in the sun, one with Him, and ye in Me as branches in the vine, and I in you, as the vine in a branch, causing (heavenly) sap, and the life of grace to flow into you. S. Hilary adds that Christ is in us in the way of food by Participation of the Eucharist.

He that hath My commandments, &c. As the Gloss says, not only you, 0 ye Apostles, but every one who loveth Me, and keepeth My commandments, shall live and know. Toletus understands this of the ordinary believers, who besides the Apostles in the time of Christ believed on Him, that these were here exhorted to persevere in His faith, love, and obedience. That in so doing they would in return be loved by Him and the Father, and that He would show Himself to them, when He rose again gloriously from the dead. This meaning is true, but too restricted. For Christ is speaking to all the faithful of every age. The meaning is, he that hath My commandments, i.e., he who keeps in his memory and affection the precepts which he has heard of Me, and keepeth them, i.e., fulfils them in deed; he who, as S. Augustine says, keeps them in his life and in his works, and perseveres in so doing, he it is who loveth Me, because he does what is pleasing to Me, what I love and desire to be done by him. A similar phrase occurs in chap. v. 38, Ye have not My word abiding in you. For as S. Gregory says, "The proof of love is the exhibition of work. The love of God is never lazy. If it exists, it worketh great things. But if there be refusal to work, love is not there."

But he that loveth Me, &c. Because My commandments are the commandments of the Father. Wherefore he who keepeth them, reverences and loves the Father, and does what is most pleasing to Him. Hence he draws His love upon him in return. Loving God the Father, he is beloved by Him. Love is the magnet of love. But here observe, we do not first love God, but God us, and so He inspires us with grace, by which we love Him in return. And if we accept this His love, and begin to love Him, He the more loves us, and pours greater grace and charity upon us.

And I will love him, not only as God, for so I will love him with the same love as the Father: but even as man I will proceed to love him, and to accumulate gifts and graces upon him. As S. Augustine says, "To this end I will love that I may manifest (Myself). Not indeed that He did not love then. He loved us to this end, that we should believe, then that we should see. Now we love by believing in what we shall see, then we shall love by seeing that which we have believed."

And will manifest Myself to him, by a deeper knowledge from day to day of My mysteries and gifts, not only speculative but practical and experimental knowledge, by which the saints taste and have experience of Christ how sweet He, the Lord, is: and therefore they burst forth in pious affections of gratitude, love, and praise, as S. Paul does in 1Cor 11, and elsewhere. But, above all, this shall take place in heaven.

Ver. 22.— Judas saith unto him, &c. This was Thaddæus, the brother of James the less, the author of the Epistle of Jude. Wherefore is it? The Vulg. has quid factum? which is a literal rendering of the Hebrew expression me haia, i.e., why was it? When Jesus said, The world seeth Me not, but ye see Me, He spoke of His death and His resurrection, by which He would appear again to His Apostles, but not to the worldly and unbelieving Jews. But Judas did not understand these words, and asked that they might be explained. He asks the reason, says S. Augustine, wherefore He will not manifest Himself to the world, but only to His own. The Lord answers him, Because these love, but the others do not love. Judas uses the word manifest, because Christ had just used the same expression, saying, I will manifest Myself to him. This word therefore dwelt in Judas' mind, though he is referring to previous words of Christ.

Ver. 23. — Jesus answered, &c. As if He said, "Do not suppose, 0 Judas, that I will appear to thee alone and thy fellow-Apostles after My resurrection, as if the fruit of My life and passion were restricted to you only and the few others, to whom I shall visibly appear. I shall appear, though invisibly, to all those who throughout the world shall receive My faith and doctrine by means of the preaching of thyself and the rest of the Apostles, and shall love and keep it."

And We will come to Him, I and My Father, and consequently the Holy Ghost. For where there is one Divine Person there are the other two. He means, Be it that after My resurrection I shall appear visibly to you alone, invisibly I shall come by My grace to all the faithful who believe in Me. And as I will come, so also My Father and the Holy Spirit will come to them. And we will dwell in their souls as in our house and temple.

Observe, God, who is everywhere, and therefore immovable, is said to come and abide, not by change of place, but by the fresh working which He effects in such and such a place. So He is here said to come to the faithful and the just by grace and a fresh operation, because He preserves them, and furthers them in justice, and He assists and co-operates with their own free will. For He prevents their understanding with His illumination, and their will by pious affections, by which He impels them to good works, even such as are arduous, and by His concurring grace He labours with them for this accomplishment.

Hear S. Augustine, "Love, which makes men to dwell with one mind in a house, separates the saints from the world. In that house the Father and the Son, who giveth the gift of love, make their dwelling-place. They come to us whilst we come to them. They come by assisting, enlightening, filling. We come by obeying, beholding, receiving."

Lastly, thus piously writes S. Bernard ( Serm. 3, de Advent.), "Blessed is he with whom Thou wilt make Thine abode, 0 Lord Jesu; blessed is he in whom Wisdom builds herself a house, hewing out her seven pillars; blessed is the soul which is the seat of wisdom. What is that soul? It is the soul of the just. Rightly so, for judgment and justice are the preparation of Thy seat. Who is there among you, brethren, who desires to prepare in his soul a seat for Christ? Lo! what are the silks, the tapestry, the cushions, which ought to be prepared? Justice and judgment, He says, are the preparation of Thy seat. Justice is the virtue which is His very own, and which He gives to each. Render thus to each of the three classes of thy superiors, thy equals, thy inferiors, what is due to each. Thus shalt thou worthily celebrate the coming of Christ, and prepare His seat in justice."

Tropologically, God the Holy Trinity comes to the three faculties of the soul, which He created after His own image, that He may inhabit them, renewing in them His image depraved by concupiscences. To the Father is appropriated memory, because He from fruitful memory conceiving all things, produced the Word, and begat the Son. To the Son is appropriated the understanding, because by the understanding He was begotten, as it were the word of the mind, the idea, image and pattern of all things. To the Holy Spirit is appropriated the will, because He Himself proceeds by the action of the will, i e., the love of the Father and the Son, as it were the love and bond of union of both. The Father therefore reforms the memory when He blots out of it the appearances of vanity, and brings into it the appearances of divine things, so that it should remember only God, His worship and His love. The Son reforms the understanding, so that it should think only of the things which pertain to salvation and holiness. The Holy Spirit reforms the will, so that it should love and desire the same. Wherefore a holy soul continually reflects that it is a temple of the Holy Trinity, as it is said in 2 Cor. vi., "Ye are the temple of the living God."

There were in the ancient Temple three vessels of service—the altar for burning incense, the candelabrum with its seven burning lamps, and the table of shewbread. There should be in like manner in a holy soul an altar of prayer, breathing out holy praises and pious desires to God. There ought to be a candelabrum brightly shining with the seven gifts of the holy Ghost. And there ought to be a table of beneficence and charity. Then will come to pass that which is written in the Apocalypse, (Rev 21:3), "Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself with them shall be their God." See S. Bernard ( Serm. 27, in Cant.) where he teaches that a holy soul is a heaven in which shine the su

Lapide: Joh 14:23-31

Ver. 23. — Jesus answered, &c. As if He said, "Do not suppose, 0 Judas, that I will appear to thee alone and thy fellow-Apostles after My resurrection, as if the fruit of My life and passion were restricted to you only and the few others, to whom I shall visibly appear. I shall appear, though invisibly, to all those who throughout the world shall receive My faith and doctrine by means of the preaching of thyself and the rest of the Apostles, and shall love and keep it."

And We will come to Him, I and My Father, and consequently the Holy Ghost. For where there is one Divine Person there are the other two. He means, Be it that after My resurrection I shall appear visibly to you alone, invisibly I shall come by My grace to all the faithful who believe in Me. And as I will come, so also My Father and the Holy Spirit will come to them. And we will dwell in their souls as in our house and temple.

Observe, God, who is everywhere, and therefore immovable, is said to come and abide, not by change of place, but by the fresh working which He effects in such and such a place. So He is here said to come to the faithful and the just by grace and a fresh operation, because He preserves them, and furthers them in justice, and He assists and co-operates with their own free will. For He prevents their understanding with His illumination, and their will by pious affections, by which He impels them to good works, even such as are arduous, and by His concurring grace He labours with them for this accomplishment.

Hear S. Augustine, "Love, which makes men to dwell with one mind in a house, separates the saints from the world. In that house the Father and the Son, who giveth the gift of love, make their dwelling-place. They come to us whilst we come to them. They come by assisting, enlightening, filling. We come by obeying, beholding, receiving."

Lastly, thus piously writes S. Bernard ( Serm. 3, de Advent.), "Blessed is he with whom Thou wilt make Thine abode, 0 Lord Jesu; blessed is he in whom Wisdom builds herself a house, hewing out her seven pillars; blessed is the soul which is the seat of wisdom. What is that soul? It is the soul of the just. Rightly so, for judgment and justice are the preparation of Thy seat. Who is there among you, brethren, who desires to prepare in his soul a seat for Christ? Lo! what are the silks, the tapestry, the cushions, which ought to be prepared? Justice and judgment, He says, are the preparation of Thy seat. Justice is the virtue which is His very own, and which He gives to each. Render thus to each of the three classes of thy superiors, thy equals, thy inferiors, what is due to each. Thus shalt thou worthily celebrate the coming of Christ, and prepare His seat in justice."

Tropologically, God the Holy Trinity comes to the three faculties of the soul, which He created after His own image, that He may inhabit them, renewing in them His image depraved by concupiscences. To the Father is appropriated memory, because He from fruitful memory conceiving all things, produced the Word, and begat the Son. To the Son is appropriated the understanding, because by the understanding He was begotten, as it were the word of the mind, the idea, image and pattern of all things. To the Holy Spirit is appropriated the will, because He Himself proceeds by the action of the will, i e., the love of the Father and the Son, as it were the love and bond of union of both. The Father therefore reforms the memory when He blots out of it the appearances of vanity, and brings into it the appearances of divine things, so that it should remember only God, His worship and His love. The Son reforms the understanding, so that it should think only of the things which pertain to salvation and holiness. The Holy Spirit reforms the will, so that it should love and desire the same. Wherefore a holy soul continually reflects that it is a temple of the Holy Trinity, as it is said in 2 Cor. vi., "Ye are the temple of the living God."

There were in the ancient Temple three vessels of service—the altar for burning incense, the candelabrum with its seven burning lamps, and the table of shewbread. There should be in like manner in a holy soul an altar of prayer, breathing out holy praises and pious desires to God. There ought to be a candelabrum brightly shining with the seven gifts of the holy Ghost. And there ought to be a table of beneficence and charity. Then will come to pass that which is written in the Apocalypse, (Rev 21:3), "Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself with them shall be their God." See S. Bernard ( Serm. 27, in Cant.) where he teaches that a holy soul is a heaven in which shine the sun of charity, the moon of continence, the stars of the other virtues.

Ver. 24.— He that loveth Me not, &c. The reason then why any one does not keep God's commandments is because he loveth not God.

And the word which ye have heard is not Mine, &c. Listen to S. Augustine, "He said that the word was not His, but the Father's, intending Himself to be understood, who is the Word, the Image and the Son of the Father. Rightly does He attribute to the Originator what the equal does, from whom the equal has that He is an equal."

Vers. 25, 26.— These things have I spoken unto you, remaining yet with you. But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send, &c. Thus should this passage be pointed with the Roman, Greek, Arabic, and Syriac Versions. Less appropriately S. Chrysostom connects the words, remaining with you with the Paraclete, as though it were meant, "I go away, but the Holy Ghost will remain with you in My place." But the words should be referred to Christ who went before. He means, "These things which thus far ye have heard from My mouth I have spoken unto you, and taught you, whilst I remained with you, but I know that, either through your own ignorance, or through the strangeness and sublimity of the things which I have spoken, many are not received or understood by you. I will cause therefore that the Father will send you the Holy Ghost, as a Paraclete, i.e. an Instructor and Comforter, who will bring back to your memory, and explain to you all these things which I have said unto you. By His illuminations ye will easily understand all things. He will comfort you when you are sad at My departure, and will strengthen you under the persecution of the Jews, or any other tribulations. That the Holy Ghost did this is seen by the earlier chapters of the Acts of the Apostles and elsewhere. As S. Chrysostom says, "He frequently speaks of the Comforter because of their sadness."

Whom the Father shall send in My name, i.e., says S. Cyril, through Me, because the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son. Wherefore the Father with the Son, or through the Son, as He breathes, so also He sends the Holy Ghost. 2d. In My name, i.e., for My sake, and because of My merits. 3d. In My name, i.e., for Me in My place, that He may finish My work which I have begun, and by the preaching of the Apostles may disseminate My faith, My doctrine, My Church throughout all nations.

He shall teach you all things, which pertain to my advent and Incarnation. All things which are necessary for the foundation, instruction, establishment of the Church. Listen to Didymus ( lib. de Spir. Sanc.)—"He shall teach the perfect in the faith of Christ spiritual and intellectual sacraments. But He shall teach by infusing invisibly the knowledge of Divine things into the soul." And Augustine—"The Son speaketh not without the Holy Ghost: neither doth the Holy Ghost teach without the Son, but the Trinity speaketh and teacheth all things. But unless separate mention were made of each Person, human weakness could not receive these things."

And shall suggest ( suggest, Vulg.) Greek, ύπομνήσει, i.e., shall bring back to memory. So Cyril, Augustine, &c. Wherefore from this passage S. Augustine takes notice that the external voice of an apostle or preacher does not suffice for the understanding or reception of the thing preached, but that this is the work of the Holy Ghost, who inwardly enlightens the mind to understand those things, and inclines the will to embrace them, and strengthens the memory to retain them. An orthodox doctor teaches this. Theophylact says, "The Holy Ghost taught all that Christ had not said to them, as not being able to bear it. Also He brought to mind what the Lord had said, but which they, through its obscurity or the dulness of their understanding, had been unable to remember."

Ver. 27.— Peace I leave you. My peace, &c. The Arabic translates My own peace. This is Christ's farewell. For the Hebrews, when they salute any one coming, or bid good-bye when departing, say, Peace be with you. Where under the word peace they wish every kind of good, prosperity, and happiness. It is as though Christ said, "Going away from you, I give to you, 0 ye Apostles and your successors, and as it were leave you, My benediction for an inheritance. By this I pray God to give you every good thing. And this I do not vainly or briefly, like the world, but truly, solidly, eternally. I do it not by adulatory words, as worldly people do, but really supplicating and bestowing grace and power, by which ye may securely attain to the eternal goods, and by your preaching, charity, and prayers may lead many others to the same blessed end." So Maldonatus.

Jansen and Toletus explain a little differently. They say, This peace is that of which S. Paul speaks in the 4th ch. of the Philippians, "The peace of God which surpasseth all sense keep your heart and understanding in Christ Jesus." Now this peace includes—1. Friendship with God. 2. Tranquillity of mind and calm in temptations and persecutions. 3. Mutual concord amongst ourselves. This makes men strong in every danger, and gives consolation in every trouble. This the Lord bequeaths us, not riches, nor temporal possessions. Far above all the wealth of this world peace stands pre-eminent.

Hear S. Augustine. "We cannot arrive at the Lord's inheritance, who wished us to observe His testament of peace—we cannot have concord with Christ if we quarrel with our fellow-Christians. Peace is serenity of mind, simplicity of heart, the bond of love, the concord of charity."

Symbolically, S. Augustine. "He leaves peace in this world, abiding in which peace we overcome the enemy. He will give peace in the world to come, when we shall reign without an enemy. He is our peace, both when we believe that He is, and when we shall see Him as He is. We must observe that when He saith I will give, He adds My peace, wishing us to understand that it is such peace as He hath Himself, in whom there is no fighting, because He hath no sin. But the peace which He leaves us is rather to be called ours, than His. It is such peace as is consistent with the state in which we still say, Forgive us our debts. There is peace among ourselves forasmuch as we trust and love one another. But it is not full peace, because we do not see the thoughts of one another's hearts."

Ver. 28.— Let not your heart be troubled, &c. Christ adds this because He saw that the Apostles were sad at His departure, and fainthearted on account of the hatred of the Jews, and the battles which were impending, says S. Chrysostom. Lest the wolf should attack the sheep when the Shepherd was absent, says S. Austin. Therefore He consoles them, and lifts them up, saying, "Be not troubled nor fearful because of My departure, as though ye were about to be sheep without a Shepherd. For I, as I have said, go away indeed to death, but I will rise again on the third day, and then I will come, i.e., I will return, to you."

If ye loved Me, &c. The apostles did love Christ, and therefore they were troubled at His going away. When therefore Christ says, If ye loved Me, He speaks after the manner of men. It is the way of consoling friends when they are sad at the departure of a friend. If you showed Me, 0 ye Apostles, what true and sincere love demands, ye would not grieve but rejoice at My departure, for My going away will be exceedingly profitable to Me, yea, and to you likewise. For I am going to the Father who is greater than I, i.e., I am going from consorting with men to God, from human misery and contempt to Divine felicity, exaltation, and glory. I am going to prepare a place for you, to which in due time I will bring you. So Cyril.

For My Father is greater than I. This was the great stronghold of the Arians, by which they sought to prove that the Son was not God, but the highest creature of God; but SS. Athanasius, Augustine, Basil, and the rest of the Fathers, admirably reply to them, that Christ is here speaking of Himself not as God, but as man. For as such He was less, not only than the Father, but even than the angels. And that Christ is speaking thus is plain from hence, that He gives the reason why He is going to the Father: because, He saith, My Father is greater than I. Now Christ goeth to the Father, in that, as man, He ascendeth into heaven. For as God He is alway in heaven with the Father. Wherefore S. Augustine saith, " He went, in that He was in one place: He remained, in that He was everywhere." That is, He went through His Humanity, He abode through His Divinity. Therefore His Father was greater than He in respect to His Humanity, not His Divinity. The meaning then is, Ye must rejoice, 0 ye Apostles, at My departure, because I go to the Father, and ascend into heaven to greater honour and dignity, that I may obtain from the Father, for Myself and for you, the rewards of My Passion, even a seat at the Father's right hand, and the empire of the universe, the adoration of all the angels, and the conversion of all nations to My faith and worship: and for you the Holy Ghost and all His gifts, armed with which ye shall conquer the whole world for Me and for yourselves, and bring it with you to celestial glory. For those things, which are far greater than what ye have as yet seen and received, I will ask and obtain when I go to the Father.

Some fathers, moreover, in order to give a complete answer to the Arians, answer more subtilly, but intricately, that the Father is greater than the Son not only as He is man, but also as He is God, because the name of Father seems among men to be more honourable than the name of Son. For a father is the beginning and cause of a son. The Father therefore is greater than the Son, not in magnitude, nor time, nor virtue, nor dignity, nor adoration, but in respect of a certain honour amongst men, i.e., in respect of origin, because the Father is the origin of the Son. So S. Athanasius ( Serm. cont. Arian ), S. Hilary ( lib. 9, de Trin.), &c. Although with reference to Divine things, filiation, from whence is derived the idea of sonship, is something as excellent and as honourable as is the idea of paternity in the Father. Indeed, as the Son hath from the Father that He is the Son, so in turn the Father hath from the Son that He is the Father. For the Father is He who hath the Son. Wherefore in this case, that passive origin which is in the Son is in itself as worthy and as honourable as that active origin which is in the Father. For it is as great to be Begotten God as it is to beget God. Therefore it is as great to be the Son as to be the Father. Lastly, each hath altogether in personality the same Divine Essence, the same majesty and omnipotence. Wherefore one cannot be greater than the other. "Greater," says S. Hilary, "is He who gives by the authority of a giver, but He is not less to whom it is given to be One (with the Giver)." Greater, i.e., in the estimation of men, not of God. Wherefore Maldonatus thinks that Hilary and some others have conceded too much to the Arians. And Damascene ( lib. 1, de Fid.) corrects them thus, "The Father is greater, not in nature, nor in dignity, but only in origin. ( See Suarez, lib. 2, de Trin. cap. 4.) And in my opinion this was the teaching of S. Hilary.

Moreover, the analogy of the Divine compared with human generation is so entirely different as to refute the Arians. For in things human the father is greater than his son. 1st. Because he is prior, and senior to the son. 2d. Because he is greater in stature and bulk, for a grown-up man generates a little infant. 3d. Because he produces a nature numerically different from himself, which he communicates to his son. Wherefore he is greater than that nature as being its author. 4th. Because of his own free will he begets a son. For it was possible to him not to have begotten. But in things Divine the manner is altogether different. For the Father is greater than the Son neither in age nor size: neither does He beget a Deity different from His Own, but communicates to the Son the same Deity which He Himself has. Neither does He beget of His own will, so to say, but of the natural fruitfulness of the Divine Nature He produces a Son the equal of Himself, nor can He produce another. Lastly, S. Cyril, in the Council of Ephesus, proves that the Father is greater than Christ in so far as Christ is man, but not in that He is God, after this manner:—"We acknowledge Him (the Son) to be in all respects as the Father, to be incapable either of turning, or of change, and to have need of nothing, a perfect Son, like unto the Father, and differing from Him only in this respect that the Father is unbegotten. For He is the perfect and express Image of the Father. And it is certain that the Image ought fully to include all those things in which the Pattern itself, which is greater, is perfectly expressed, even as the Lord Himself hath taught, saying, the Father is greater than I."

Ver. 29.— And now I have told you, &c. That is, and now I foretell to you My departure and death, My resurrection and return to you, not that ye should condole with Me, and look after your own safety, but that, when ye see those things fulfilled, ye may believe that I foreknew and foreordained them all, and therefore that I submitted to death, not of necessity, but of My own free-will, for your salvation and that of the world, and therefore that ye may believe that I am the Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour.

Ver. 30.— I will not henceforth talk much with you, &c. For this is not the time to speak much, but to conclude, for the prince of this world, to whom worldly men are subject, by sinning after their own will, cometh. That is, he cometh to take and kill Me. For Christ said this when Judas was approaching with the officers, who were sent by the chief priests to take Him.

But he hath nothing in Me, i.e., he cometh to take Me, but he hath no power over Me, because he will find nothing of sin in Me, nothing of that which caused Adam and his posterity to die. Wherefore he must unjustly bring death upon Me being innocent. And this I am ready to suffer, that by means of My unjust death I may despoil him of his power, and deliver men from his jurisdiction and tyranny. So Cyril and Chrysostom. The innocence therefore of Christ, and the death of that innocent One, hath delivered all of us, the guilty ones, from harm. And this was that supreme consolation of Christ, which He here brings home to the Apostles. Or, as Maldonatus puts it, "The devil cometh, to take and kill Me by means of the Jews, but in Me he hath nothing, i.e. he will not be able to overcome or destroy Me, as he hopes; for although I am about to die, I shall not do so through his power or strength, but of My own free choice, that I may fulfil My Father's will."

Ver. 31 . — But that the world may know, &c. That is, "I will die, not compelled by the devil's servants, the Jews, but freely, out of love and obedience to the Father. For He hath given Me commandment to undergo death for the redemption of men. Wherefore so I do, submitting myself to death." So SS. Chrysostom, Cyril, &c.

You may say, Christ received commandment from the Father to suffer, to die, and to do the things which He did. Therefore He could not will the contrary, neither was He free, for had He done otherwise He would have sinned. But Christ is impeccable by a twofold title,—1st, on account of His hypostatic union with the Word; 2d, on account of the light of glory, in that He seeth God. For Christ and the Blessed, because they clearly perceive that God is infinite Good, are so wholly ravished with His love that they cannot either love or will anything which is contrary or displeasing to Him. I reply: the hypostatic union with the Word made Christ impeccable in such manner that the office of the Word was to keep and preserve that humanity which was hypostatically united to Itself altogether sinless, lest the Word, or God, which upheld the humanity, should be said to sin. But the Word kept the humanity from sin, not by physically predetermining, so to say, the will of Christ, to obey the Father's commandment, but only by Its congruous grace, so continually preventing It, and sweetly directing and urging It, as It foreknew future conditional events, that Itself was (ever) consenting to this grace, and therefore was always freely subjecting Itself to the will of God, and never, even by venial offences, displeasing Him. Moreover, the light of glory constrained indeed Christ, forasmuch as He was blessed to subject Himself in beatific act to the will of God and the decree of death as perceived by this light to be His will. Yet it did not force Him, in so far as He was a wayfarer ( viator ). For as a wayfarer He had infused knowledge, as we have faith, according to which He was able freely to elicit acts of love and obedience, or not to elicit them, at His pleasure, as we of our free will are able to elicit similar acts. He therefore freely elicited that act by which, in obedience to the Father's commandment, He accepted the death of the cross, saying, "Lo! I come to do Thy will, 0 God" (Ps. 47.) Neither did the prior act determine ex necessitate the subsequent act, because they were altogether incommensurable, and of a different order. For the former is the act of one of the (already) Blessed, the latter act an act of one travelling to the country. See the Schoolmen.

Arise, &c. These words depend upon what went before, and are thus connected, "That the world may know that I love the father, and am obedient to His commandment to suffer death, arise, and let us go to the garden of Gethsemane where the Jews await Me to take and kill Me."

You will ask whether Christ actually rose from the table, and went out of the house towards Gethsemane, and in the way proceeded to utter the things which John records in the three following chapters: and that then, when they were ended, He passed over the brook Cedron, and entered the garden, where he was betrayed by Judas, and taken by the Jews, as John narrates, ch. xviii. 1, &c. Cyril and Augustine answer in the affirmative, and this is probable. Maldonatus and others, more probably, answer in the negative. They think that Christ did not go out of the house. They are of this opinion, 1st, Because John does not say so. 2d, Because Christ could not conveniently, with the apostles following Him, say all things in the way which are related in the three following chapters, so that they could hear and understand them. Christ saith therefore , Arise, because He did actually rise up from the table, and stood upon His feet, and bade the apostles do the same, that they might go away with Him to the mount of Olives. But, as dear friends are wont to do when they are saying farewell, and are hardly tearing themselves away from those they so tenderly love, so did Christ, as they were standing, resume a fresh and longer discourse, prolonging it until the 18th chapter. Then bringing it to a close, He went across the brook Cedron to the mount of Olives. For such is the wont of those who love when they are bidding their mutual good-byes. As Ovid says, when he is going away into exile ( lib. 1, Trist.):

Thrice did I turn my steps,

   And thrice the threshold gain:

To linger near with fond regret

   My footsteps were full fain.

Farewell, farewell, I cried:

   Words full of love I said:

Then, with a last fond kiss,

   For ever from it fled.

Tropologically: when any arduous duty is decreed by God, or ordained by our superiors, such as a dangerous journey, death, or martyrdom, let us generously and with alacrity offer ourselves to God as victims of charity and obedience, and freely meet the danger, saying with Christ, Arise, let us go hence. For he who breaks the first onset of fear, by boldly meeting it, has overcome half the difficulty, and will easily vanquish the remainder. Daily experience proves that "He has accomplished the half of a deed who has well begun."

Commentary -- Other

Critics Ask: Joh 14:16

JOHN 14:16 —Are Muslims right in referring this promise of the coming “helper” to Mohammed?

PROBLEM: Muslim scholars see in this reference of the promised “Helper” (Gk., parakl?tos ) a prediction of Mohammed, because the Quran (Surah 61:6) refers to Mohammed as “Ahmad” (periclytos ) which they take to be the correct rendering of “parakl?tos. ”

SOLUTION: There are absolutely no grounds for concluding the “Helper” (parakl?tos ) Jesus mentioned here is Mohammed. First of all, of the 5,366 Greek manuscripts of the NT, not a single manuscript contains the wordpericlytos (“praised one”), as the Muslims claim it should read. Second, Jesus clearly identifies the “Helper” as the Holy Spirit, not Mohammed. Jesus referred to “the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send” ( John 14:26 ). Third, the “Helper” was given to His disciples (“you,” v. 16 ), but Mohammed was not. Fourth, the “Helper” was to abide with them “forever” (v. 16 ), but Mohammed has been dead for 13 centuries! Fifth, Jesus said to the disciples, “You know Him [the Helper]” (v. 17 ), but they did not know Mohammed. He wasn’t even born for 6 more centuries. Sixth, Jesus told His apostles, the Helper will be “in you” (v. 17 ). In no sense was Mohammed “in” Jesus’ apostles. Seventh, our Lord affirmed the Helper would be sent “In My [Jesus’] name” ( John 14:26 ). But no Muslim believes Mohammed was sent by Jesus in His name. Eighth, the Helper Jesus would send would not “speak on His own authority” ( John 16:13 ), whereas Mohammed constantly testifies to himself in the Quran (cf. Surah 33:40). Ninth, the Helper would “glorify” Jesus ( John 16:14 ), but Mohammed claims to supersede Jesus, being a later prophet. Finally, Jesus asserted that the Helper would come in “not many days” ( Acts 1:5 ), whereas Mohammed did not come for 600 years.   

Critics Ask: Joh 14:28

JOHN 14:28 —Did Jesus think of Himself as less than God?

PROBLEM: Orthodox Christianity confesses Jesus is both fully man and fully God. Yet Jesus said in John 14:28 , “My Father is greater than I.” How can the Father be greater if Jesus is equal to God?

SOLUTION: The Father is greater than the Son by office, but not by nature, since both are God (see John 1:1 ; 8:58 ; 10:30 ). Just as an earthly father is equally human with, but holds a higher office than, his son, even so the Father and the Son in the Trinity are equal in essence, but different infunction. In like manner, we speak of the president of our country as being a greater man, not by virtue of his character, but by virtue of hisposition. Therefore, Jesus cannot ever be said to say that He considered Himself anything less than God by nature. The following summary helps to crystalize the differences:

JESUS IS EQUAL TO THE FATHER THE FATHER IS GREATER THAN JESUS   

In essence In function   

In nature In office   

In character In position   

Evidence: Joh 14:15

We show our love for God by our obedience . If we do not obey, we do not truly love Him ( Joh 14:23-24 ). There are many who call Him " Lord, Lord," but do not do what He says. Mat 7:21-23 tells us their fearful fate.

Evidence: Joh 14:21

Jesus’ unique words : Jesus promises that He and the Father will reveal themselves to all who love and obey Him. This is the ultimate challenge to any skeptic. See Joh 17:5 footnote.

QUESTIONS & OBJECTIONS

" I made a commitment, but nothing happened."

Some people don’t get past " square one" because they trust in their feelings rather than God. His promises are true, despite our feelings. If I make a promise to my wife, that promise is true whether she is feeling happy or sad. If she doubts my word, then she brings a slur to my integrity.

Anyone who genuinely repents and trusts in Christ will be saved. The Bible makes this promise: " He that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me: and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him" ( Joh 14:21 ). There’s the promise, and there’s the condition. Any person who loves and obeys Jesus will begin a supernatural relationship with Him and the Father. He said, " And this is life eternal, that they might know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent" ( Joh 17:3 ). That doesn’t mean you will hear voices or see visions. God will instead make you a new person from within. He will send His Spirit to live within you. You will have a new heart with new desires. You will suddenly become conscious of God and His creation. The Bible will open up to you and become a living Word, and you will have an inner witness that you are saved, that your name is written in heaven, and that death has lost its sting ( 1Jo 5:10-12 ).

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 14 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Joh 14:1, Christ comforts his disciples with the hope of heaven; Joh 14:5, professes himself the way, the truth, and the life, and one with the Father; Joh 14:13, assures their prayers to be effectual; Joh 14:15, requires obedience; Joh 14:16, promises the Comforter; Joh 14:27, and leaves his peace with them.

Poole: John 14 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 14

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 14 (Chapter Introduction)

(Joh 14:1-11) Christ comforts his disciples.

(Joh 14:12-17) He further comforts his disciples.

(Joh 14:18-31) He still further comforts his disciples.

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 14 (Chapter Introduction)

This chapter is a continuation of Christ's discourse with his disciples after supper. When he had convicted and discarded Judas, he set himself to comfort the rest, who were full of sorrow upon what he had said of leaving them, and a great many good words and comfortable words he here speaks to them. The discourse in interlocutory; as Peter in the foregoing chapter, so Thomas, and Philip, and Jude, in this interposed their thoughts upon what he said, according to the liberty he was pleased to allow them. Free conferences are as instructive as solemn speeches, and more so. The general scope of this chapter is in the first verse; it is designed to keep trouble from their hearts; now in order to this they must believe: and let them consider, I. Heaven as their everlasting rest (Joh 14:2, Joh 14:3). II. Christ himself as their way (Joh 14:4-11). III. The great power they shall be clothed with by the prevalency of their prayers (Joh 14:12-14). IV. The coming of another comforter (Joh 14:15-17). V. The fellowship and communion that should be between him and them after his departure (Joh 14:18-24). VI. The instructions which the Holy Ghost should give them (Joh 14:25, Joh 14:26). VII. The peace Christ bequeathed to them (Joh 14:27). VII. Christ's own cheerfulness in his departure (Joh 14:28-31). And this which he said to them is designed for the comfort of all his faithful followers.

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 14 (Chapter Introduction)

The Promise Of Glory (Joh_14:1-3)

The Promise Of Glory (Joh_14:1-3 Continued)

The Way, The Truth And The Life (Joh_14:4-6)

The Vision Of God (Joh_14:7-11)

The Vision Of God (Joh_14:7-11 Continued)

The Tremendous Promises (Joh_14:12-14)

The Promised Helper (Joh_14:15-17)

The Way To Fellowship And To Revelation (Joh_14:18-24)

The Bequests Of Christ (Joh_14:25-31)

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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_____. S.v., lithos, by Joachim Jeremias.

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_____. S.v. "Spikenard," by W. E. Shewell-Cooper.

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)

____________________

[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.