We have already drawn attention to ch. 10, where our Lord, by sacrificing Himself as the Good Shepherd for the Hock, does not relinquish
His saving work. Indeed He renews, by resuming His life. His power to deliver men as a shepherd of the sheep, and then His arms become idcntilied
with the everlasting arras, and His hands with the almighty hands of the Father. If the Jews had taken the Tiibingen view, surely they would not have lifted stones to stone their Saviour-shepherd for His presumption and blasphemj-.
The whole tone of the final discourse (14. 15. 16) U that Christ's very method of departure from this world, amid the exultation of the world and the lamentation of His disciples, unveils the nature of His heavenly work, and the fact that His way of returning to the Father (viz. death and resurrec- tion) is the ground on which He calls Himself their ' way,' and says that no man cometh unto the Father but by Him. The entire method by which, in this Gospel, he conveyed the fact of the resur- rection to different classes of mankind is charged with the highest order of revelation, for He bare in His risen form the signs of His fearful agony and shame, and yet wielded all authority in heaven and earth.
(a) The method of appropriating the great sal- vation. Faith is as e.xjilicitly pressed in the Fourth Gospel as by the Synoptists and St. Paul. Believing in His name is the condition of beioiiiini; ' sons of God.' In great variety of connexion, faith is made the foundation and condition of eternal life (:!'»■", cf. " and 5-*). Coming to Him is the physical analogue of mental and moral surrender to Him (6"). This is the part of man in the synthesis, the condition which God demands. He whom God hath sent is indeed the power by which the Father draws men to Himself (0", cf. 12*-' 14'). Belief in His name was it.-^elf conilitioned bv moral willingness to do the Fiitlier'a will, and was it-self the iriilispen.sable antecedent of receiving the Holy Spirit (T^**).
(Ij) The following of .lesus. All progress in the divine life is a prolongation of the act of faith. The abiding of Christ in the soul, and of the soul in Christ (the chief theme of ch. 15), are essential to any conception of the eflicacy of faith, and ein(iliiusize the mutual relations ol the human and divine will, the growth and continu- ance both of grace and faith. ' Following .lesus' and 'abiding in him' are frequently iilentilied with such organic union as to ensure final [Mirtici-
: pation with Him in eternal life and glory. He who sows and they who reap rejoice together (4"); 'He that ealeth me shall live by me (G") ; ' He that receiveth whomsoever I shall send receiveth me'; 'He that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me ' ; ' 1 am in my Father, and j'e in me, and I in you'; 'My Father will love you, and we will come and make our abode with you.' Union will be life-giving ; and thou>;h separation between the Lord and His disciples is an obvious matter of fact, yet in the power of the spiritual presence after His ascension His disciple may be enabled to ' touch him ' (20"). The ' peace,' the 'joy,' the 'love,' the 'glory' will pass from the central heart of Jesus to 'whosoever wills' or ' comes ' (14-'' 15" 16-"- IT--'- -«).
D. The Johnnnine Esrhatolorjy. — The teaching of the Fourth Gospel dillers from the rest of NT in its bearing on the future life and eternal judg- ment.
If, however, the truths in the parables are stripped of their imaginative clothing, and the great arguments and implications of St. Paul deprived of their metaphor, and the nucleus of the ajiocalyptic visions laid bare, it is probable that we shall find nothing more than, nay, not so much as, -we find in the Fourth Gospel. The latter has no festival rejoicing, no exclusion of the guest who does not wear the wedding garment, no scene of final judgment and everlasting life and punishment ; yet there is jtulnment ever ripening in tlie ' loving of darkness, and there is freedom from condemnation and even from death in any form ; and these are shown to be essentially equivalent to the moral rupture with God on the one side, or to ethical harmony with the highest concept of God as 'Light' and 'Love' on the other. The future, like the past, is lost in an eternal now. In 5^- •* the resurrection, the final consummation, are doubtless involved, but in 15' the process w-hich burns up the fruitless prunings w-ould seem to be eternal. The blinding of the foolish heart, the abiding of the divine w-rath upon the disobedient, the judgment that is always being enacted and evolved, the terror of d> in<^ in sins, the judgment that is inevitable and just (8"), and the crisis, the ex- pulsion of the world and its prince, all bring the reader into more vivid realization of the objective fact of judgment than do the parables of the Rich Man, the Marriage, the Talents, or the final unveiling of the great white throne. The momentous events of Heb. history had thrown a lurid light on the prophetic meta- phors of the popular discourse ; but as the apostle ponders and reports the principle of the eternal judgment upon men and nations and on the entire world, we get closer to the heart and mind of Jesus than by any other medium of com- munication.