The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 158

l!l-22, which might be ta.ken 88 an inspired the world, and even by those who have commentar)· on tbe whole p11.11eage). And boasted of st,md ing in the epeoinl lines of the awful Ptatement is still, with referenc-e hie grace, This suggestion cannot be fully tc> the majority of men, true, that "the expanded hero. Chryeostom in loco cnlle w0rl<l 1.-iioweth not. God. neither the Father, muoh 11ttention to the 11rgument oftho Epistle nor the Word, nor the Holy Ghost." to Romans (ii. 12; ix. 30, 32; x. 8, 12). Yet. ll.-It is not without interest that Vere. 12, 13. - Dut before the apostle the ideas contained in thesE1 verees did not advances to the central statement of the need a i,eoond century to evolve them ; they entire proem, he stops to show that, though were 0ll1'1'0nt in Paul's letters, a hundred the whole world, though mnn as an organ- years before the date a.ssigned by some to ized mass, though Israel as a favoured nnd thi~ Gospel. Hore the question arises-Has seleoted theocracy, have refused to know nnd no more direct approach been me.de to our confess his supreme claims, yet there be.a rar.e than that which is common to e'Very always been nn election of grace. All have man? Undoubtedlv the whole theocratic not perished in their unbelief. Some have dispen.sa.tion would be ignored if this were received him. The twelfth and thirteenth not the ca.se--aud consequently the evan- verses do, indeecl, in their full meaning, gelist continues the recital of the peculi- refer unmistakably to the entire ministry of e.rities and specialties of the approach of the the living Christ to the end of time; but Logos to the human understanding. He surely every word of it applies primarily oa.me unto his own possession ( ,ls ..-a lo,a). (though not exclusively) to the whole pre- Here all expositors agree to see the special vious pleadings of the Light and Life-to manifestation of the Logos to the house of the ministry of the pre-existing and eternal Israel. which is ea.lied in numerous passages Logos, and to the privileges and possibilities of the Old Tm,tament, God's own possession consequent thereupon. As many as received (Exod. xix. 5 ; Dent. vii. 6; Ps. cxxxv. 4; him. 1 This phra~e is subsequently explained Isa. xxxi. 9). And his own (people) reoeived a.s being identicnl with "believed in his him not ( 1ra.p•4/3oP; cf. rca.Tb..a./3,P of ver. 4, Name." The simple verb l},c,/30P is less and t-,,n., of ver. 10). Here, again, the most definite than are its compounds with rcd..-a. astonishing, direct and prominent illustra- and 1rapcJ, used in the previous verses (5, tion of such a statement is seen in the his- 11 ). The acceptance is a positive idea., is toric ministry of the Lord Jesus, in the broader, more manifold, less restricted e.s to terrible record of his rejection by his own manner of operation, than the ·negative re:. people, by his own disciplee, by the theo- jection which took sharp o.nd decisive form:. cratic chiefs, by the a.ssemblecl Sanhedrin, The construotion is irregular. We have a by the very populace to whom Pilate ap- nominativua penden, followed by a clause pealed to save him from mnrderollS fury. in the dative; as mnch as if he had writ- But the significance of the prologue is to ten. "There are, notwithstanding all the my mind miBSed, if the earlier agelong re- rejections, those who received him." To jection of the ministry, e.nd light of the these, the evangelist says, however many Logos, nay, the perpetual and awful treat- or few they may be, who believe in his ment which he continually receives from Na.me, he-the subject of the previous sen- "his own possession," be not perceived. tence-gave the authority and oapability of There we.a a Divine and specie.I sense in becoming ohildren of God. Believing in which the perpetual coming of the Logos to his Name is discriminated from believing the world wiu; emphasized by his gracious him. The construction occurs thirty-five self-manifestations to the people of Israel times in the Gospel, and three times in the The great Ne.me of Jehovah, the Angel of First Epistle-and the Name here especially the presence, the manifestations to Abraham, present to the writer is tho Logos, th full to Moses, to David, to Elijah, to Isaia.b, and revelation of the essence, cha.ra.oter, and ac- Ezekiel ; the Shechinah-gloriee, the whole tivity, of God. John, writing iu the close of ministry of grace to the honse of Isre.el, was his life, surveys a glorious compaTJ.y of indi- a perpetual coming to his own peculiar pos- viduals who, by realizing as true the sum of session ; bnt yet the sum tote.I of their his- all the perfections of the manifested Word, tory is i. continuous repudiation and lapse. by believing in his Name, have also recei\'ed They rejected the Lord, they fell in the as a gift the sen.6e of such u.iion to the Son wilderness, they were turned unto other of God that they become a.live to the fa.cl gods, they went u.-whoring a.ft.er their own the.t they too are the offspring of God. This inventions. They knew not that God had realization of the Divine fatherhood, which healed them. The great things of his Law had been so obscure before, is itself the were e.ccounted strange things to them 1 Tregelles introduced &v, after t>..a/3ov, (compare Stephen's apology for an elaborate exposition of tha thought). The same kind but it wea before he had 1100n a collation of of treatment has oontinually been given by Bor11e. CH. I, 1-ul.] 'l'HE GOSPEL ACCOP.DING TO ST. JOHN. 15