The Prologue commences the sublime details by declaring that the incarnate and only-be- gotten was full of grace and truth. He had been ' in the bosom of the Father,' and declared that which no other had seen. He said, ' the Father loveth me, because I am laying down my life — not as if that were to be the final end, as so many seem resolved to have it, but — that I maj- take it again' (10"). The revelation of the principle of sacrificial love in the eternal heart of God, as the motive of the heavenly giving, sendin", and equipping of the Son, receives its triumpliant expression in the human life, which adequately revealed the eternal. A large portion of the Gospel is interfused with this thought. In the conversation with Nicodemus the keynote was the eternal self-sacrificing love of God, of which He had become the expression (V"-). To the Samaritans He made it clear that He was leeking the salvation of men, ' of the world '
(431 43)^ Ijj, ti,g sacrifice of Himself. The discoune* of ch. C indicate the fountain of self-abnegating love, by which He was giving life to the world. The excited scenes of chs. 7 and 8 combine sternest condemnation of sin with love to sinners Chs. 9. 10. 11 are the apotheosis of love and sacri- fice. Ch. 12 is the record of the response of love to Himself, the fragrance of which has filled ' the whole world.' The evangelist himself sliows in 13'*- how he had personally felt the pulsation of divine love in the breast of Jesus, and how the Lord loveil His own unto the uttermost. Every jiaragraph of the ' Discourse ' and ' Prayer ' is a fresh variation of the great revelation ; and the scenes of the arrest, the magnanimous self- surrender, intensify the teaching. The record of His relations with His mother, with the other Marys, with the beloved disciple, with Thomas and Simon, give a perfectly unique revelation of the fundamental essence of Deity, and the forecast of the fulfilment of the high-priestly prayer, ' tliat the love wherewith thou lovest me may be in them, and I in them.'
We have further to state the significance assigned in the J ohannine writings to the death of the great Sacrifice.
In the first Epistle the author regards the blood of Christ as the propitiation for the sin of the world, and as that which cleanses from all sin, and that God 'laid down his life for us.' In the Apoc. in various ways and many degrees of intensity the saved are the purchase of the blood of a high-priestly sacrifice, are souls redeemed by ' the blood of the Lamb which was slain ' ; while a right to the final privileges of the saved, acce.ss to the Tree of Life, is secured by washing the robes (RV).
St. Paul had laid the greatest emphasis on the expiation of sin, the redemption, the propitiation for sin, tlie ransom, and the rigliteousness of men through faith in the blood of CTirist.
The bjTioptists, by the record of the institu- tion of the Lord's Supper, refer to the lips of Jesus Himself the sublime declaration that His blood was being 'shed for the remission of sin.' Mark refers to our Lord the weighty saying, that He had come to give His life a ransom for many [olvtI t?o\\C)v).
The Avay in which St. John handles thii momentous teaching differs from these familiar re- presentations, but is not incompatible with them. Reuss (Thiol. Ckrit.), Beyschlag, and others em- phasize the contrast, and try to exclude from the Fourth Gospel all reference to or implication of the expiatory worth of the death of Christ. We admit, of course, that the glorious dignity of the incarnate Son of God has ci vered even the humiliation of His death with a mantle of lustre. The 'lifting up of the Son of Man' (12'-), and the bursting of abundant fruit from the dying of the com of wheat, give a character to the awful tragedy somewhat different from that of the Synoptists. Weiss, against the whole of the Tiibingen school, rightly emphasizes those elemenl,a where the same truth appears in altered form, e.g. where John the Baptist (1-') indicates the Lord Jesus in His essential character and function as fulfillini; the oracle of Is 53. The chief signifi- cance of tnis is, that the whole passage is fre- quently quoted by NT writers and s]>eakers as descriptive of the very heart of the work of Christ. By the use thus made of it by Peter, Philip, John, Matthew, Clemens Komanus, it becomes a chapter of NT doctrine, and the quota- tions of portions practically cover the whole oracle. Now with these citations John the Baptist's words, 'Behold the Lamb of God,' must be placed. Continual anticipations of Calvary and the Cross
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»ccur. In the record of the first cleansing of the temple, in the prolon^jation of 'the hour,' and in the arrest of murderous hands in act to strike, the whole of the Saviour's holy life becomes a continuous sacrifice. The double • eference by the evangelist to the prophecy of Caiaphas is specially charged with the same idea (II-""'- 18").
In the discourse at Capernaum (G"), the eating His llesh and drinking II is blood, in other words the moral surrender to His violent death, is life. The moral assimilation of the stupendous fact of the divine-human person of the Lord, eating of the flesh, and the acceiitance of the sacrilice of that nivsterious life of His for the life of the world, ' drinking his blood,' utterly transcends a purely and simi)ly human consciousness. Dej'schlag here wonders at Weiss, but does not reply to him or to thousands who have come to the same conclusion before him. A full interpretation which does not emasculate the reference by our Lord Himself to the 'brazen serpent' (3"), leaves the sacrificial meaning of the conquest of sin and death by the Son of Man still glittering with meaning, and calling with undiminished force for faith, love, and obedience.