The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 132

mode of human existence, like and yet unlike the humanity which had secured the nffccUon and Impressed itself on the memories of his disciples. He reveals in his own Poreon some of the most impressive differentire of the eternal life. One with his former life, bearing the marks upon him of his awful death, "th,i Lamb as it had been slain," he nevertheless wields the power of the Supreme. He is ascending to where he was before, so that his disciples may thenceforth-by faith and independently of si"ht- " touch" him. He reveals himself and this higher mode of Being to the fervent love of the Magdalene, to the meditation and intuitions of the disciples, even to the honest and devout doubt of Thomas. He imparts the Divine Spirit and the heavenly commis- sion ; he takes command and superintendence of his Church; he rules the destinies of individuals; he bide them wait evermore for his coming again. These historical details of the death and Resurrection are incompatible with the mere phantasmal or docetic life of the Logos-manifestation in humanity. The evangelist was not inventing a romance, but professes to give the facts which, if men believe, they will know that Jesus ie the Chri~t, the Son of the living God; and believing, they may and will have life in hie Nome (eh. x.x., xxi.). (a) The Paraclete. The most complete manifestation of the love of God in Christ i ■ the royal bestowment of the Holy Spirit, "the other Paraclete," upon those· who would receive him. "The Father will send him in my Name;" "I will send him to you from the Father;" "He will teach ; " "He will show you things to come;" "He will lead you [make a way for you] into all the truth ; " "He will bear witness of the truth ; " "He will take of the things that are mine, and show them unto you." St. John knew that the promise had been redeemed, and exclaimed, "Ye have an unction of the Holy One, and know all things." This coming of the Comforter would not be other than the coming of himself. The spiritual presence of which they would be inwardly conscious would prove to be a. veritable return and indwelling of himself in their nature and in the world, even unto the end of the age. (4) '.l'he METHOD OIi' A.PPBOPBIATING the salvation, which is light and life and love. (a) Faith in his Name. The Fourth Gospel is as explicit as either of the other records of the life of Christ, or a.s is the teaching of St. Paul and St. Peter, in the primary place assigned to faith. In the prologue (eh. i. 12), those that believe on his Name (equiva- lent to "receive" the Logos) receive (ifau1rl11) "power to become sons of God." Belief in his Sonship or in his mission is the great link between himself and his earliest dis- ciples, and it is the seed or germ within them of still greater and nobler communicatioD.i of himself. Mora.I and mental surrender to his will is the test of discipleship (eh. i. 39, 41, 45, 60). The glory of his creative power, manifested as love, becomes the life of his disciples when they "believed on him" (eh. ii. 11). When they made the full discovery of the fact that his body (destroyed and raised again) was the true temple of the living God," they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus spake" (eh. it 22). Jesus told Nicodemus that "whosoever believed in him might have eternal life." This is] repealled in great variety of form in eh. ill. 15-18 ; John the Baptist repeats it (eh. iii. 36). The truth taught the woman of Sa.maria wa.s of a. more elemen- tary character, yet she wa.s enjoined to receive and "drink the living water," to make hel' own the offered blessing of life and truth. The Samaritans know and balierJe that be is " the Christ, the Saviour of the world." In both her ca.se and that of her fellow- citizens, the "sign " that convinced them of this life-giving truth wa.s the perception of his superhuman knowledge and his penetration of the secrets of a.11 hearts. "He told me all things that I ever did : is not this the Christ?" To induce faith in himself was the purport of other "signs and wonders," though they ought not to have been necessary (eh. iv. 48; of. eh. v. 36; x. 37, 38). The belief on him that aent him is the condition of eternal life, and transition from veritable death to life (eh. v. 24). The physical RCt of "coming" to him., surrendering human will to his Divine-human will, is often the synonym of faith, and is clearly identified with it (eh. vL 36). This faith is the work assigned to men, "the work of God" (oh. vi. 29); and this faith will lea.d to a life that is the pledge of anastasis a.t the last day (eh. vi. 40). The eating and drinking of his flesh and blood, again, are strong phrases for this moral accepta.nce of his incarnate love and also of the significance of his sacrifice. The Divine drawing may be a necessity, is a preliminary, in every case; but he himself is the great Power by which, through the Son, the Father d1·aw11 men unto himself (eh. vi. 65; cf. eh. xii. 32; xiv. 61 notes); and  cxh-iii INTRODUCTION TO ~--- --------- "no man comC't.h unto the Father but by him." The climax of Peter'a exporlonce ie, '' We ba,·e believed, and have come t.o know that thou haat come oui from God" (oh. vi. 6S, 69). Most significant light ie thrown on the meaning of faith by the contr&9t between the open antagonism of "Jews," the misapprehension and" stumbling" of the Capor- ne.ites, and the worldly anticipations of the brethren of Jesus, who did not believe on him. There was a preliminary to full belief, and this was the purely intellectual con- viction that hie teaching (1>,5~) wa,s the eternal truth (AX~fl ..11) of God himself. How was this mental oertitude to be achieved? By a willingness to do the will of God ( eh. vii 17). Ignorance of the true nature of God and the real meaning of the 11&µ01, of the Al '")'p114>a-l, were the obstacles in the way of such recognition of his clnims as, when me.de, w~~d infallibly lead them to full moral surrender to his claims (eh. vii. 19, 28; v. 39; vm. 19). Belief in him was declared to be the necessary condition of receiving the Holy Spirit (eh. vii. 37-39), and to be the antecedent of "following" him and consequent "walking in the light" (eh. viii. 12). (b) FOLLOWING Jesus, with its CONSEQUENCES. Faith, however, from this point onwards, always d~mands this "following," such continuity of relationship, veritable ahiding in him, and it is accompanied by corresponding consequences. 'l'hus " faith " e.nd "abiding in him " and "in his word" would prove-- . _ (11) An emancipation from the bondage of sin. None but "the Son,n who is" the Truth," can set men free from this bondage (eh. viii. 31-37). (/3) It will lead to love. The opposite of love to him shows that in the deepest sense God is not the Father of such souls. The unloving have not been begotten anew; they have not come to him that they might have life (eh. viii. 42). Truth ought, by the nature of truth, to induce belief; if it does not, it shows that those t.o whom it is pre- sented are "not of God ; " for as he said to Pilato, "Every one that is of the ·truth heareth my voice" (eh. xviii. 3). The blind man (eh. ix. 35) is asked, "Dost thou believe on the Son of God ? " and the issue in this case is even more than " love ; ' .· it is- ' (.,,) Worship (eh. ix. 38 ; cf. eh. :xx. 28). ( ) Faith is the great assurance, pledge, and sign that a human soul is one of the sheep of his flock, that follow him, and that receive from him eternal life, who will therefore never perish (eh. x. 27-29). As the revelation advances, Christ declares that faith in him ought to be equivalent to faith in the fact that be is the Conqueror of death, the Resurrection and the Life (eh. :xi. 25). Faith in the Lord, notwithstanding his approaching death and burial, is strungly commended (eh. :xii. 7, 8), and the follow- ing of Jesus will involve a hating and a denial of self-life, and a willing relinquishing of it for his sa.k.e (eh. :xii. 25). And even this is not all. The Lord not only promises life, eternal life, a life independent of death, but a life with himself, a sharing with him' of the glory which was his before the world was (eh. xii. 26; :xiv.1-3; cf. eh. xvii. 24). ( •) In the sublime summary of the public ministry, in eh. xii. 44, etc., faith in a vision of himself is faith in a vision of the Father that sent him. Such faith means immunity from judgmcnt. The awful consequences of non-faith, of the rejection of his claims, aug- ments the solemnity of the prime condition. Throughou.t the valedict.ory discourse the key-note ol faith is perpetually heard associated with these and other consequences, until at its clooe, when his disciples reiterate their confession of faith, the Lord seems t.o say, "Now then I can go onward and to my Passion and my croSll with joy" (eh. xvi. 29- 33). The greatest and most impressive of his beatitudes was that which followed the e:u:IP.mation of Thomas, "Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed I" "These things, says the evangelist, "are written, that ye may believe that Jesus_ is the Cl.arist, the Son of God'; and that believing ye might have life." But the antecedents and consequences of faith scarcely express the fulneBB of that e.?propriation of salvation on which the Gospel insists. (() Union with Christ, on earth and in the Father's house, is one of the sublime theme~ of the Gospel throughout-union with him in his Person, his sacrifice, his vic- '°ry, his exaltation, his Divinity. 'l"he will of men lost in the will of God. "From b.isjulr.e.ss of grace and truth have we all reaived," said John, when he wrote his pro- logue, u and grace in place of," and as capacity for the reception of more " grace."  TIIE OOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. ,JOHN. cxlix -------------------------- (~) The ~ion of his own with hi~self, e!en in his eternal life and glory, is a key-note of bis teaching. Even the Samantaness 1s told that the gift of living water should be in a man a fountain of blessedness and refreshment. The irreat Sower of the harvcst- field, and those that reap, shall rejoice together (eh. iv. 37)." The union with himself is pre-eminently involved in the strong metaphor, "He that eateth me he shall Jive on account of me" ( eh. vi. 57). Still more so in the solemn word, " Verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I shall send receiveth me" (eh. xiii. 20) even thon"h he adds, "He that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me." "The Pa;aclete who"'m the world cannot receive, will a.bide with you, and will be in you" (eh. xiv. 17). In other words he adds, "Because I live, even ye shall live. And ye shall know that I am in my Father, and yo in me, and I in you" (eh. xiv. 19, 20). Love will prol'llote obedience; "And my Father will love you, and we will come, and make our abode with you" (eh. xiv. 23). The mutual indwelling of the vine and its branches explains the reciprocal relation-the branch abides in the vine by the connecting link of faith ; the vine abides in the branch, enabling it to bear fruit, by the flow and circulation of the life. As the stem and the branches form one vine, so he suggests that his own God-Manhood is incomplete without the living contact of those that believe in him with himself (eh. xv. 1-10). The intercessory prayer is charged with the same sublime hope, even though it involve separation from them. Separation, so far as visibility goes, will be compatible with the union which a head has with a body. They will still have his "peace," his "joy," his "love," his "glory " (eh. xiv. 27; xv. 11 ; xvL 22 ; xvii. 22, 26). 4. The Johannine teaching with reference to the future judgment and the future life. We are.bound to concede a greater contrast here with other and antecedent types of Cluistian doctrine. There are no parables of theocratic judgment, of final discrimina- tion between the wicked and the good (Matt. xiii.); DIJ casting out of the unresponsive guests into the outer darkness; no prophecy of the fall of the existing order of things ; of the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place; of the confusion of the theocracy and the saving of the remnant; nor any august picture of the final judgment when the Son of man comes in his glory, to separate the nations and decide the des- tinit>s of the world. 'l'he judgment (,cpl,m) of which Jesus speaks is "that men love darkness rather than light." The awful process is brought a.bout by the offer of love. "Now," says he, "is the "plau of this world, now is the prince of this world cast out" (eh. xii. 31). The blinding of the foolish heart, the a.biding of the wrath of God upon the disobedient, the perpetual discrimination ever going on and brought about by the forth-streaming of a Light which some neither apprehend nor walk in,-seems to take the place of the dread consummation when the Son of man should come in the glory of his Jt'athcr and of his holy angels. , Yet it must not be forgotten that, in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus does speak of "the resurrection at the last day," of "the resurrection of life," and of "the resurrection of judgment" (eh. v. 28, 29). He speaks (eh. xv. 6) of the burning up of the fruitless branches, pruned, cut off, from the living Vine; that those who refuse to believe in him will "die in their sins" (eh. viii. 21). Just as in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the unbeliever and those who do evil have Moses in whom they trust to judge them. "If I judge," says he, "my judgment is just" (eh. viii. 16). The world is to be convinced of judgment to come by the condemnation of the prince of the world ( eh. xvi. 11 ). We would not underrate the surprising contrast between the visions of judgment in Paul's Epistles, in Matthew's Gospel, ond the Apocalypse, and, on the other hand, the searching inward work of judgment which tho Fourtb Gospel describes as constantly going on in the inmost nature of souls. The whole history of Christ is represented in this Gospel as a discrimination between man ond man; a. constant sifting of the grain from the cha.ff; a perpetual separation between the sheep and the goats, between those who see and those who see not, between those who only profess to be and those who really a.re the true disciples. We must remember that, when these words were recorded, the terrible drama of the visible theocracy, the obliteration of Hebrew nationality, had been Iona consnmmaterl. Much that had beon predicted had been seen in awful fulgurous ful- fil~ent. John had himself described these scones in phrases drawn from the synoptic Gospels and from the earlier prophecies, and it would seem as though long meditation  ol lNTRODUOTION TO