4.— [I must work the works, etc.'] The connection between this verse and the preceding one seems to be in the word "works." It it as though our Lord said,— "Healing the blind man is one of the great « works ' which God has appointed for Me to do, and I must do it during the ' day,' or short period of My minis- try. This blindness was ordained by My Father to be a means of showing forth My divine power."
The expression " while it is day," and "the night cometh," must probably be interpreted with special reference to our Lord's ministry upon earth. While He was with His disciples speaking, teaching, and working miracles, it was comparatively " day." His little Church basked in the full sunlight of His Divine presence, and saw and learned countless wonderful things. When He ascended up on high it became comparatively "night." Just as in night " no man can work," so when Christ left the world the visible proof of His Divine mission, which the disciples had so long enjoyed and seen, could no longer be given. The proverbial saying, "No man can work in the night," would be verified.
These limits to the application of the figure must be carefully remembered. Of course our Lord did not mean that the Church, after His ascension, would not enjoy far more spiritual light than it did before He came ; nor yet that the disciples, after the day of Pentecost, would not see many truths far more clearly even than when Christ was with them. But the words "clay and night " here have a special reference to our Lord's bodily presence with His Church. As long as He was visibly'with them it was " day." When He left them it was "night." It is well to remark that St. Paul uses the same figures when com- paring time present with time to come, at the second advent. He says, " The night is far spent, and the day is at hand." (Rom, xiii. 12.) There the night is Christ's bodily absence, and the day Christ's bodily presence.
Melancthon points out what an example Christ supplies to Christians in this place. The hatred, opposition, and persecu- tion of the world, and the failures and infirmities of professing Christians, must not make us give way to despondency. Like our Master, we must work on.
Calvin observes : " From these words we may deduce the universal rule, that to every man the course of his life may be called his day."
Beza and others think that there is a primary prophecy here of the withdrawal of light and privilege from the Jews, which was in the mind of our Lord, as well as the general principle that to all men day is the time for work and not night.
5. — [As long as lam in the world, etc'] This verse seems to be a general broad assertion of our Lord's purpose in coming into the world, and His position while in it. "I came into the world to be its S in and spiritual Guide, and to deliver men from the