The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 130

thinge, ~a~t_, pr~sen~, ancl to come (eh. xiv. 26; xvi. ~3). The method of light-giving is the exh1b1t1on m himself of II perfect exPrnplar, which, though he is the Logos-made- flcah, nnd they 11re flesh, nevertheless they are bound to imitate. This is the high teaching of eh. xiii. 12-17; xv. 12 (see 1 John iv.17; ii. 6; iii. 3, 16). It is also the theme of many passages in the Epistles of Paul and Peter (Phil. ii. 5; 1 Pet. ii. 21 • iv. 1). 'l'o realize this lofty idea.I of life and light in hnme.n experience might seeO:: and would be impractical 1md impossible, ap~rt from the allied and co-opera.ting Huugea- tion that his life is actually given to the new humanity, and that he came by rue Spirit to generate a new life in lhe barren stock of Adam's race. (b) The sacrificial death. In the manifestation of the love of God to man there is a breadth and specinlty of teaching which cannot be overlooked. The method of the loVf of the God-Man to man received one high and far-reaching development, and was accompanied by one stupendous consequence, which was a. necessity, a.n order, an ill'To/1.,J of the Father, which the author of the Fourth Gospel not only does not conceal but con- spicuously enforces. The death of the God-Man ill to him the indispensable preliminary of the full and even the unrestrained communication of life, and the exercise of bis life-giving powers. Reuss labours bard to exclude from the teaching of the Fourth Gospel all rererence to the sacrificial or expiatory value of the death of Christ, and the Tiibingen school of criticism insists much on the contrast between the synoptic and Pauline doctrine of the death of our Lord, and that of the Fourth Gospel. It is obvious that his death is not explicitly spoken of in this Gospel as a. humiliation, but a glorilication. Thus the corn of wheat becomes, by dying, the source of much fruit. The "lifting up of the Son of man" (eh. iii. 14; xii. 32) is somewhat ambiguous, though the evangelist and the Jews understood Jesus to speak under this term of his death and departure from the world. The glorious issues of the death of Christ so filled the mind of the apostle that the repulsive and humiliating features bad themselves become effulgent with new glory, and he who had seen "the Lamb slain" in the midst of the throne may have not felt the shudder and recoil at the premonitory hints of the necessity, quality, and meaning of his death. Nay, more, we a.re ready to admit that the imperial majesty of the sublime Sufferer overpowers the features of shame and curse which were irrevocably blended with it. The death-scene in his case is a. victory over death. His very corpse propels at once a life-stream for the healing and cleansing of the world.. John is silent concerning the death-struggle in Gethsemane and on the cross, as well s.s the institntion of the Supper of the Lord, and does not cite the special saying, "This is my blood shed for many for the remission of sins." The question a.rises-Does the Fourth Gospel ignore the pia.cular and propitiatory aspects of the death of Christ? Weiss (in his ' Biblical Theology of New Testament' (Eng. trans.), vol. ii. pp. 358, etc.) has well replied to Schenkel, Fromann, Reuss, Baur, who have in different degrees affirmed this position. Let the following points be remembered. He refers (eh. L 29) to the language of the Baptist as having been the first and inducing cause of his own adhesion to the Lotd.. The Lamb of God (see notes, eh. i. 29) is the image of the great vicarious sacrifice portrayed in Isa. !iii. 7, the victim wounded for the sins of others and smitten for the transgression of God's people, who bears their iniquities and carries their sorrows, by whose stripes they a.re healed. The sins to be ta.ken away, cleansed by blood, are in the Epistle (1 John i. 7) sins that have been committed and leave their guilt and stain and curse on the conscience until they are cancelled; and in ii. 2 and iv. 10 the Lord Jesus is the 'l/\a11µ.&s, the" Propitiation for the sins of the whole world.n His death, therefore, in Johannine thought, was anticipated and explained by the presentation of the blood of the sin offering before the Lord. If all that John believed the Baptist to mean was that the Son of man would purify the conscience by the presentation of a higher standard of obedience, why did he not say, "Behold the Prophet or Servant of God, who by his life and preaching will purify the sons of sin, that they might offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness"? However, from first to last the Fourth Gospel is written under the shadow of the cross, which, when the author wrote, had become irradiated with the crown of glory, and was illumining and saving the world. Continual anticipations of Calvary occur. Jn the first cleansing of the temple Jesus cried, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." The animosity that he aroused in some created an omen JOHN, I axlvl TNTRODUOTTON TO