tlmes in the perfect tense with a reference to the abid- ing effect of It (5^^ 20"^)." The effect of this whole body of passages is to throw over the whole of our Lord's self-testimony in this Gospel the most intense sense of His engagement upon a definite mission, for the performance of which He, sent by the Father In His love, has come forth from God, or, more locally expressed, from heaven. Into the world. They supply a most compelling mass of evidence, therefore, taken in the large, to His preexistence, and to His super- human dignity to which His earthly career stands re- lated as a humiliation to be accounted for only by its being also a mission of love (12^^'*^).
The fact of this mission is also, no doubt, implicated in the designation ' the Holy One of God ' (6^^) , which is elicited on one occasion as a confession from His followers; that Is to say, no doubt, the One whom the Father has set apart for a given work and consecrated
11 See the long and careful note of Westcott, John, p. 298.
192 The Designations of Our Lord
to its performance (6'^ 10^^). It would also be the Im- plication of the designation ' the Chosen One of God,' if that were the correct reading in i'^^, where the Bap- tist bears his witness really, however, to His divine Sonship, Another designation given to Him exclu- sively by the Baptist throws, however, a most illumi- nating light on the nature of His mission. " Behold," John is reported as crying, as he saw Jesus coming
towards him after His baptism, " Be- of God' ^o\d the Lamb of God which taketh
away the sin of the world " : and again on the next day, as he saw Him walking by, " Behold the Lamb of God" (i^^-sc^ 12 Th^t this was in inten- tion and effect a Messianic title is made clear from the sequel. Disciples of John, following Jesus on this sug- gestion, report to their friends that they have " found the Messiah (which is being interpreted, Christ)" (i^^). The source of the phrase is, of course, the fifty- third chapter of Isaiah, through which, however, a further reference is made to the whole sacrificial system, culminating in the Passover. By it the mission of Jesus is described as including an expiatory sacrifice of Himself for the salvation of the world: it, therefore, only gives point to and explains the modus of what is more generally declared by our Lord Himself in such
1- Jesus is called d-jLvoi^ 'Lamb,' Jno i29,36^ Acts %^-^ i P i^^ only in the N. T. The reference is to the suffering Messiah of Is 53. In Rev. apviov is used of Christ some 29 times: and though the term has changed, the ' Lamb ' is the same — the Lamb that had been slain and in whose blood is salvation. The apviov is always thus the slain lamb. Neither d;iv6g nor apviov occurs in N. T. of anyone else but Christ — except that the plural of apviov occurs in Jno 21^^ of Christ's followers. In Lk lo^ aprjv is used. On the use of the dimin- utive apviov of Jesus in Scripture, see A. B. Grosart, Expository Times, iii. 57.
The Designations in John 193
a passage as 12^^: "I came ... to save the world." The Messianic character of this saving work is thrown up in a clear light by the confession of the Samaritans who, having been invited to come and see whether Jesus were not the ' Christ' (4^^), when they heard Jesus concluded for themselves that He was " In- deed the Saviour of the world" (4^^).
Quite a series of designations, mostly figurative In
character, expressive of the same general conception, are
applied by our Lord to Himself. Thus
Figurative ^ jj Himself the 'Light of the
Designations ="
world ' ( 8^- (f 1 2^^'^^'^\ cf . 3i^'2o-i I i^'i«) ,
which is explained as the "light of life" (8^^), even as the evangelist himself had with the same reference to "life" called Him 'the Light of Men' ( i^-^-'^.s-^). The ultimate source of this designation Is no doubt to be found In such passages In the Old Testament as Is 9^'", which Is quoted and applied to Jesus by both Matthew (4^*^) and Luke (2^-). Similarly He calls Himself ' the Door ' by entering through which alone can sal- vation be had (10'^'®); the 'Bread of God' or 'of Life,' by eating which alone can life be obtained (6^^; 635,41,49 ^41) . .^he Good Shepherd' who gives His life for the sheep (I0^^'^^ cf. 10^'^^); and without figure definitely ' the Resurrection and the Life,' believing In whom the dead shall live and the living never die (11-^). Perhaps to the same general circle of ideas belongs the title 'Paraclete' (14^^) or 'Advocate,'^' which seems to Imply that our Lord conceives Himself under this designation as coming to the help of the
13 Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums, p. 215, connects the Paraclete ■with " Menachem " employed in the later Judaism as a Messianic title. That would imply that we should take ' Paraclete ' in the sense of ' Comforter.'
194 The Designations of Our Lord