It is only another way of calling Jesus the * Christ ' to call Him the ' King of Israel.' This Nathanael does when Jesus manifested to him His super- 'King' human knowledge of his heart, ex- claiming: " Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God, Thou art the King of Israel" (i'*^) — where the order of the titles used is perhaps due to the primary impression being that of the possession of supernatural powers, from which the Messianic office is inferred. It is as * King,' too, that Jesus was acclaimed as He made His triumphal entrance into Jerusalem : " Ho- sanna: Blessed Is He that cometh In the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel" (i2^^ cf. 6^^) — In which acclamation the evangelist sees the fulfillment of the prophecy of Zech 9^ of the coming of the King of Zion riding on the ass (12^^). At His trial, again, Pilate demanded of Him whether He was the ' King of the Jews,' using the natural heathen phraseology (18^^), and received a reply which, while accepting the ascription, was directed to undeceive Pilate with respect to the character of His Kingship : It Is not of this world (18^'^). In that understanding of It (18^^) Jesus has no hesitation In claiming the title (18^^). The subse- quent ascription of this title to Him was mockery and part of His humiliation (18^^ I93,[i2],i4,i5,i5,i9,2i)^ but at the same time part of the testimony that He lived and died as the Messianic King.
We should not pass finally away from the passages
in which Jesus Is called ' Christ ' and ' King ' without
noting somewhat more particularly the
of Tides ^ accumulation of Messianic designations
In such passages as 20^\ where the
evangelist says he has written in order to create faith
190 The Designatiojis of Our Lord
in Jesus as " the Christ, the Son of God," and i^^, where Nathanael declares Him " the Son of God, the King of Israel," and especially at ii-^ where Martha declares her faith in Him as " the Christ, the Son of God, Him that cometh into the world." The use of the term ' Son of God ' in these passages as a general synonym of ' Christ,' but yet not necessarily a synonym of no higher suggestion, we reserve for later discussion. The designation ' He that cometh,' more fully defined here by the addition of " into the world," we have al- ready met with in Matthew (11^) and Luke (7^^'^°). A clause in Jno 6^^ " This is of a truth the prophet that cometh into the world," may suggest that the epi- thet was associated in the popular mind with the Mes- sianic interpretation of Deuteronomy 18^^"^^: and we have seen that our Lord associated it with the great passage in Isa 61^ ^^^•. In itself, however, it appears to conceive the Messiah fundamentally simply as the promised one (cf. 4"^), and to emphasize with refer- ence to Him chiefly that He is to come into the world upon a mission. As such it is supported even more copiously in John than in the other evangelists by a perv^asive self-testimony of Jesus laying stress on His ' coming ' or His ' having been sent,' which keeps His work sharply before us as the performance of a task which had been committed to Him and constitutes John's Gospel above all the rest the Gospel of the Mission. In the repeated assertions made by our Lord that He " came " into the world, obviously with im- plications of voluntariness of action (cf.
Jesus' -[9], 11, [15], [27], [00] ^[19] .[25,25] -43 ^14 -[27], [31]
Mission ^ ?
^39 jqIo j2[13],[15] j^22 j gs"^) , some are
explicit as to the point whence He came, which is de-
The Designations in John 191
fined as heaven (3^^'^^), or the Person from whom He came, who Is named as God {f-^--^- S^^i^-^^ J528 j^s) .
while others declare plainly the object of His coming, which Is not to judge but to save the world (12^^'^'^). The correlation of the coming from the Father and being sent by the Father Is express In passages like 17^, and the sending Is most copiously testified to, some- times in the use of the simple verb TrifjtTTco (4^^ ^23,24,30,37
^38,39,44 «16,18,2S,33 016,18,26,29 q4 j 24'*'^5,49 ,^20 j . 24 j -21 j ^5
20"^) and sometimes rather in the use of the more specific aTTOffTeUco, which emphasizes the specialness of the mission, and is most commonly cast in the aorlst tense with a reference to the actual fact of the mission (3^^'^*
^38 529,57 ^29 §42 jo36 j j42 j ^3,8,18,21.23,25) ^ thoUgh SOmC-