do die and go, you may continue believing, and not have your
faitli shaken."
30. — [Hereafter. ..not talk much with you.] This must mean that our Lord would not talk much more before His crucifixion. The time was short, and the betrayal and suffering drew nigh. It does not refer to the time after our Lord's resurrection, and the forty days before His ascension.
[For...prince...cometh...not7dng in me.] This means that Sa- tan was drawing nigh for his last final assault on our Lord ; and that he would find nothing to lay hold on, and no weak point.
It is very striking to observe that our Lord does not say "Ju- das, the Romans, the Pharisees are coming." It is only the devil. He, as at the fall, is at the bottom of all. Others are only his tools. |
We should note how the devil is called " the prince of this world," He rules and reigns in the hearts of the vast majority of mankind. The whole world " lieth in the wicked one." Of the extent and intensity of Satan's infiuence on earth, even now we have probably very little idea.
Wlien it says that he " cometh," we must not suppose that it means "cometh for the first time." All through our Lord's earthly ministry He was tempted and assailed and opposed by Satan. It must mean, " He is coming with special violence and bitter wrath to make his last attack on Me both in Geth- semane and on Calvary." There are evidently degrees at dif- ferent seasons in the intensity and virulence of Satan's at- tacks.
When it says " hath nothing in Me," it must mean that our Lord's heart and life were equally without spot of sin. He knew and felt that He the second Adam, had nothing about Him that Satan could lay hold on. No one but Christ our Head could say that. The holiest saint could never say it I
Sanderson observes, " a cunning searcher had pried narrowly into every corner of His life ; and if there had been anything amiss, would have been sure to have spied it, and proclaimed it. But he could find nothing."
31. — [But that the world...so I do.] This is a somewhat dark and obscure passage. The meaning is probably something of this kind : " 1 do all I am doing now, and go to the cross volunta- rily, though innocent, that the world may have full proof that I love the Father who sent Me to die, and am willing to go through everything which He has commanded Me to go through. Innocent as I am, and without one spot of sin that Satan can lay to my charge, 1 willingly go forward to the cross, to show how I love the Father's will, and am determined to do it by dying for sinners."