The satisfaction, too, which they expressed, at the expected result of such a manifestation, could not but be pleasino- to their Lord and Master : " Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us." It must not be forgotten here, that the Lord Jesus had been speaking to them of his expected departure, an event which they could not but contemplate with extreme pains. Yet, in the very prospect of such an overwhelming loss Philip says, " Shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us ;" that is, there is no bereavement which we shall not readily submit to] if only this extraordinary token of the Divine favour may be conferred upon us.
In this view, I cannot but consider the request as expressing a piety like that of David, when he said, " Many say, Who will shew us any good? Lord, lift thou the light of thy coun- tenance upon us." That is the good, the only good, that my soul desires. But]
In some respects it was faulty — [Our blessed Lord had often represented the Father as speaking in him, and working by him, and as, in reality, one with him. Indeed, so plainly had he spoken on this subject, that his enemies had repeatedly taken up stones to stone him for blasphemy. They understood him to be affecting an equality with God, yea, and an identity with God: andlhey were filled with indignation against him on account of it, as an usurpation of the Divine prerogative11." And well they might be indignant, if he was not really God : for, after they had brought the accusation against him, he demanded, in yet stronger terms, their acquiescence in his claims, and their acknowledgment of him under his true and proper character. He told them plainly, that God required all men to " honour the Son, even as they honoured the Father ;" that the works which he performed bore ample testimony to him as equal with the Father, because they were wrought, not, like the miracles of others, by a power derived from above, but by a power inherent in himself1.
Now, of this the Apostles ought to have been aware : they should not have suffered things of such infinite importance to escape from their memory, or to pass without more minute inquiry into their true meaning : and least of all should they, when informed by their Divine Master in plain terms, " Hence- forth ye know the Father, and have seen him," have questioned the truth of his assertion.
Inasmuch, therefore, as their reply argued a blameable ignorance and inadvertence, it may justly be considered as deserving of reproof.]
s ver. 2. with chap. xvi. 5, 6. h John v. 17, 18. and x. 30, 33. 1 John v. 19, 23, 36. and x. 36—38.