on a right knowledge of the Father as the great truth which He came into the world to reveal.
8. — [For 1 hane given... words. ..gavest Me.] In this sentence our Lord declares what He had done in teaching His disciples : He had given them the words, doctrines or truths, which the Fa- ther had given Him to proclaim to the world. The words which our Lord spoke, and the works which He did, were both alike given Him by the Father to speak and to do, in the eter- nal counsels of the Trinity about man's salvation.
For the peculiar use of the phrase, " words," to denote the truths or doctrines taught by our Lord, see John iii. 34 ; vi. 68 ; sii. 48 ; xiv. 10. Specially we should remark Peter's saying, " Thou hast the words of eternal life."
[They have received, etc., etc.] Our Lord here declares three remarkable things about His disciples. They had willingly received and embraced the truths He brought them from the Father. They had known and acknowledged that their Master came from God the Father. They believed and were persuad- ed that the Father sent Him to be the Messiah. And all this had taken place when the vast majority of their countrymen neither acknowledged nor believed anything of the kind.
We should carefully note the high character given to the disciples by our Lord. It seems wonderful, at first sight, when we remember their many defects in faith and knowledge, that our Lord should commend them for " knowing" and " believ- ing." Yet when we think of their immensely difficult position, and the opposition they had to meet, we shall see it was no light matter to believe at all. It is after all a very comforta- ble reflection that our Lord does not despise weak grace ; and that He honors reality and sincerity of faith, although it may be very small. Believers make a better appearance in heaven than they do upon earth.
The word rendered " surely " is literally " truly." It is trans- lated "surely" in Matt. xxvi. 73; Mark xiv. 70. The idea is, " They have known for a sure and undoubted truth."
Manton observes, " The faith of the Apostles was weak. They had but a confused view of Christ's Godhead and eternal gene- ration. They knew little of His death, were filled with the thought of a terrene kingdom and a pompous Messiah, and understood not His prediction of His death and passion. Though they knew Him to be the Redeemer and Saviour of the world, yet the manner of His death and passion they knew not. ' We trusted that it had been He that should have redeemed Israel.' Yet observe how Christ commendeth their weak faith I Certainly lie loveth to encourage poor sinners, when He praisetli their mean and weak beginnings."
Traill observes, " Christ tells all the good He can of His dia-