proclaimed, and a door of mercy set wide open to the cliief of sinners. " It is my meat," says our Lord, " to do that will, and to proclaim to every one with whom I speak that whosoever be- lieveth on the Son shall not perish." The view that it simply means, " my meat is to obey God's commandments and do what He has told me to do," appears to me to fall short of the full meaning of the expression. The leading idea seems to me to be specially God's will about proclaiming salvation by Christ. Com- pare John vi. 39, 40.
The " work of God," which it was Christ's meat to " finish," must mean that work of complete fulfilment of a Saviour's office which Christ came on earth to perform, and that obedience to God's law which He came to render. " It is my meat," says our Lord, '' to be daily doing that great work which I came into the world to do for man's eoul, to be daily preaching peace, and daily fulfilling all righteousness." Compare John xvii. 4.
The utter unlikeness between Christ and all ministers of the Gospel who perform their duties in a mere prefanctory way, and care more for the world, and its pleasures or gains, than for sav- ing souls, is strikingly brought out in this and the preceding verse. How many professing teachers of religion know nothing whatever of the spirit and habits of mind which our Lord here displays ! It can never be said of hunting, shooting, ball-going, card-playing, farming clergymen, that it is their meat and drink to do God's will and finish His work! With what face wdl they meet Christ in the day of judgment ?
Cyril says, on this verse, " We learn from hence how great is the love of God towards men. He caRs the conversion of lost people His meat."
35. — [Say not ye, &c.] This saying is interpreted in two different ways.
Some think, as Origen, Rupertus, Brentius, Beza, Jansenius, Cyril, Lightfoot, Lampe, Suicer, and many others, that our Lord really meant that there were four literal months to harvest, at the time when He spoke ; and that as the harvest began about May, He spoke in February. The sense would then be, " Ye say at this time of the year that it wiU be harvest in four months. I3ut I tell you there is a spiritual harvest already before you, if you will only lift up your eyes and see it."
Others think, as De Dieu, Maldonatus, Calovius, Whitby, Schottgen, Pearce, Tittman, Stier, Alford, Barnes, and Tholuck, that our Lord only meant that it was a proverbial saying among the Jews, — " four months between seed time and harvest," and that He did not mean the words to be literally taken. The sense would then be, '^Ye havt a common saying that it is four