The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 97

victory over his own feelings, but Rn appropriate historic close to the sublime inter- cession of eh. xvii. According to Keim, if this account be historic, the synoptists' nnrrntive is utterly "pulverized." Let two or three ren;arks be allowed their fair weight. It is the method of this evangeli~t to make frequent, nay perpetual, gaps in his narrative, bringing into apparent juxtaposition events which are separated not only by hours, but by dnys nnd months of thrilling interest. The hour and power of dark- ness did intervene between the intercession and the betrayal. When Jesus ea.me forth from the garden, the darkest hour WAS over. The "Thy will be done " had consecrated Gethsemane nnd humanity itself. The moment/or action had arrived, the bracing that comes from the arrival of the climaz had supervened. The angel had strengthened him. He had been heard for his godly fear (Heb. v. 7). Even the synoptists show that there was no shrinking, no bloody sweat now, but the forthcoming of miraculous energy to heal Malchus (Luke xxii. 51), a willingness to rebuke the rabble that had coma under protection of the Roman guard, and the utterance of words to Judas that drove him to despair. The contrast between John and tbe synoptists is not in the outward demeanour of Jesus, which all four evangelists desc1ibe in corresponding though not in identical phrase, but in the omission by John and the insertion by Matthew aa\i Luke of the great victory which the suffering Lord had won over the prince of this world. Just as the Fourth Gospel takes up the ministry of the Baptist at the point where the synoptists laid it down, and as the writer omits long and wonderful scenes from the trial before Caiaphas which would have sustained the general thesis of his own Gospel ~mitted because tht whole narrative had been abundantly illustrated in the current Gospels-so now he omits the awful record of the inner life of Jesus given by the synoptists, and simply records the manner of his capture and its sublime accompaniments. But the reason for the omission must be profoundly different from that attributed to the author by the school of Baur. The fourth evangelist does not ignore the sorrow and weakness of the Lord. His apprehension of desertion, his suffering from the hatred of the world, his bitter sense of the cruelty of the "son of perdition," are seen (eh. xvi. 2, 3, 32; xvii. 12; xv. 18, 22-24). In eh. xiv. 30 Christ admitted that the prince of this world "cometh," t.hough he added, "he bath nothing in me." In Christ's approach to the grave of Lazarus (eh. xi. 33--35) we have one of the most explicit revelations contained iu the entire Gospels of how the Lord took human sorrow and all the mystery of death upon himself, and broke ont into sighs, groans, and tears. But, more than all, the words of Jesus to the Greeks who sought to see him are a veritable anticipation of the agony of the garden (eh. xii. 23--33). His soul was" troubled." He was ready to cry, "Father, save me from this hour." The sense of his mission led him to cry," Father, glorify thy Name I" Moreover, the entire Gospel from end to end is written under the shadow of the cross. One of its chief note.!! is struck by the Baptist: "Behold the Lamb of God I" The first "sign" in Jerusalem was a prelude of the final tragedy. Every paragraph reveals the darkness in angry conflict with the light, while in ever-varying circumst1mces the Lord pro- claims that, however bard to flesh and blood, yet the law of his being was to finish the work which the Father had given him to do (eh. iv. 34; v. 30; vi. 38; viii. 29, 38; xvii. 4). 'l'he "agony" of the synoptic Gospels is spread in the Fourth Oospel over the entire evangel, from the wilderness of Judiea to the cross itself, just as the "Temp- tation" is obviously diffused throughout the mystery of his incarnation, and just as the Transfiguration aureole of the synoptists gleams through every cloud, from the giory he had with the Father before the world was, till he ascends in very deed to his Father and o'Jr Father, to bis God and our God. (e) The omission of the visible ascension of the glorified body of the Lord is a peculiarity which the Fourth Gospel shares with the First Gospel, and, unless the closing appendix to Mark's narrative be genuine, with the Second Gospel also. We owe this comforting and inspiring assurance to Luke and to Paul. If the identity of authorship of the Apo- calypse and Fourth Gospel may be assumed-a fact which, with all its primafacie diffi- culties, will, we believe, ultimately prevail-we sec that the apostle had given the Church abundant proof, from his own prophetic intuition and wondrous vision, that Jesus was seated on the right hand of God, and wore still the signs and proofs of his awful human and earthly experience. He saw him as King of kings, as a Lamb of God, appearing as though he had been slain, as one who "iiveth, and was dead, and is ali<re for evermore."  cviil INTRODUCTION TO