The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 51

moy ho.ve bocn the moro prominent of the two in the request made by Salome, and on other occasions in which we see a repressed passion, at times, storming forth from the two brethren. But John himself is described (Mark ix. 38, etc.; Luke ix. 49, etc.) as eay'.ng to our Lord, as though in sympathy with the solemn and tender words which Jesus hnd just uttered," Master, we so.w a certain one co.sting out dremons in thy Name; nnd we forbnde him, becnuse he followeth not [thee] with us." The fact may have been put with n desire for instruction, with a possible, nay, even probable, suspicion, that the conrse taken was open to reproof, e.nd we hear that he received the memorable reply, "Forbid him not; for he who is not e.gainst us is on our side." "No one who will exercise power or work a miracle (66va.µw) in my Ne.me, will be able shortly [straight- way] to spce.k evil of me." 'l'he proceeding was simply the obverse of the pas,;iouate love John felt for his Me.stP.r-a manifestation which was not altogether absent from his heart and life, even in his latest days. If the Second and Third Ei.;istles of John e.re rightly attributed to him (2 Epist, 10; 3 Epist. 9-11), then the same kind of burning indignation manifests itself against those who are disloyal to the Spirit and truth of Christ. In the case of Diotrephes, we see that the aged apostle's wrath flames out against the very thing for which he had received, so many years before, the rebuke of his Lord; but there is the tone of the Son of Thunder in the remonstrance. Anotherreme.rkable illustration of the name which our Lord bestowed upon John is given in Luke ix. 541 55, whore the two brothers are roused into indignation by the re[u.,al of the Samaritans to receive his Master. "Master," say James and John, "wiliest than that we call fire to descend from heaven to consume them? And Je3us rebuked them." The interesting addition to the text of Luke found in a few manusclipts, and supposed tc; be quoted from some traditional source, is on the authority of all the principal uncials and some sixty cursives, omitted by the modern editors. Here, again, Jame8 is mentioned first, and, so fe.r as we know, was the sp~aker, and the two brethren are made to feel the weight of their Lord's displeasure. Yet even here there is nothing incompatible with the stormy burst of thunder which is e.ttributed by tradition to the apostle of love in his treatment of Cerinthus. If John were the veritable recorder of the ministry of Christ among the hated Samaritans (eh. iv.), it is easy to imagine the sudden ril;e of wrath which linked his soul with the Elijah-ministry of his first teacher, and that the enthusiastic attachment of soul to his Master's cause should have outrun discretion, when he became the wilness of the tribal hatred of the Samaritans. Nothing can be Ze.ss true, even judging from the Fourth Gospel itself and the First Epistle, than the popular representation of the apostle's character, which attributes to him a spurious and effeminate softness, or e. love which had no power to condemn in severe and burning and even thunderous word that disloyalty and lack of appreciation of his Lord with which he was confronted. So abundantly does the Fourth Gospel set itself to unfold the love of God in Christ Jesus and his work, that our eyes are dazzled by the light, and e.rc not sufficiently alive to the dark shadows and terrible denunciations with which the Gospel positively &bounds. In no portion of the New Testament is so formidable a representation made of the wrath of God against sin, or so severe a con- demnation of the hatred of the world against Christ and his Church (Stanley Leatbes, • Witness of St. John to Christ,' lcct. v.). The contrast btweeen light aUL! darkness is one of the themes of the prologue. ln the language (eh. iii. 18, 19) of our Lord to Nicodemus, the awful juclgment devolving upon unbelief is set forth; and (eh. iii. 36) either John the Baptist, or the apostle as one of his earliest disciple~, descrihes "the wrath of God abicling" on the unbeliever. Only in the Fourth Gospel (v. 29) clo ,re rc:i.d of II the resurrection of condemnation;" e.nd we find the traitor characterized as "11 devil" (eh. vi. 70). It is the Fourth Gospel which reports Christ's own words. "Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, ye cann0t come" (eh. vii 34) ; and which represents our Lord saying, " Ye are from bencn I h ; I am from ahove " (eh. viii. 23); "If ye believe not that I nm he, ye shall die iu your sins" (eh. viii. 24); "Ye are of your father the devil" (eh. viii. 44); "For judgment 1 nm come into this wol'ld," elc. (eh. ix. 39). The remarkable passage of the writer's own comment (eh. xii, 37-43), in !angue.ge of flaming forc~fulness, denounces the unbelief of the people. Even in the valedictory discourse there is most terrible denunciation of the causeles~ hatred of the world (eh. xv. 26; xvi. 1-3), and the intercessL•ry prayer records thu awful description of the traitor as" the son of renlition" (eh. XIi 1• l'.!).  !viii INTRODUCTION TO