Chapter XII. 27-36
1. After the Lord Jesus Christ, in the words of yesterday's lesson, had exhorted His servants to follow Him, and had predicted His own passion in this way, that unless a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit; and also had stirred up those who wished to follow Him to the kingdom of heaven, to hate their life in this world if their thought was to keep it unto life eternal,--He again toned down His own feelings to our infirmity and says, where our lesson to-day commenced, "Now is my soul [1050] troubled." Whence, Lord, was Thy soul troubled? He had, indeed, said a little before, "He that hateth his life [soul] in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." Dost thou then love thy life in this world, and is thy soul troubled as the hour approacheth when thou shalt leave this world? Who would dare affirm this of the soul [life] of the Lord? We rather it was whom He transferred unto Himself; He took us into His own person as our Head, and assumed the feelings of His members; and so it was not by any others He was troubled, but, as was said of Him when He raised Lazarus, "He was troubled in Himself." [1051] For it behoved the one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, just as He has lifted us up to the heights of heaven, to descend with us also into the lowest depths of suffering.
2. I hear Him saying a little before, "The hour cometh that the Son of man should be glorified: if a corn of wheat die, it bringeth forth much fruit." I hear this also, "He that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." Nor am I permitted merely to admire, but commanded to imitate, and so, by the words that follow, "If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be," I am all on fire to despise the world, and in my sight the whole of this life, however lengthened, becomes only a vapor; in comparison with my love for eternal things, all that is temporal has lost its value with me. And now, again, it is my Lord Himself, who by such words has suddenly transported me from the weakness that was mine to the strength that was His, that I hear saying, "Now is my soul troubled." What does it mean? How biddest Thou my soul follow Thee if I behold Thine own troubled? How shall I endure what is felt to be heavy by strength so great? What is the kind of foundation I can seek if the Rock is giving way? But methinks I hear in my own thoughts the Lord giving me an answer, saying, Thou shalt follow me the better, because it is to aid thy power of endurance that I thus interpose. Thou hast heard, as addressed to thyself, the voice of my fortitude; hear in me the voice of thy infirmity: I supply strength for thy running, and I check not thy hastening, but I transfer to myself thy causes for trembling, and I pave the way for thy marching along. O Lord our Mediator, God above us, man for us, I own Thy mercy! For because Thou, who art so great, art troubled through the good will of Thy love, Thou preservest, by the richness of Thy comfort, the many in Thy body who are troubled by the continual experience of their own weakness, from perishing utterly in their despair.
3. In a word, let the man who would follow learn the road by which he must travel. Perhaps an hour of terrible trial has come, and the choice is set before thee either to do iniquity or endure suffering; the weak soul is troubled, on whose behalf the invincible soul [of Jesus] was voluntarily troubled; set then the will of God before thine own. For notice what is immediately subjoined by thy Creator and thy Master, by Him who made thee, and became Himself for thy teaching that which He made; for He who made man was made man, but He remained still the unchangeable God, and transplanted manhood into a better condition. Listen, then, to what He adds to the words, "Now is my soul troubled." "And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name." He has taught thee here what to think of, what to say, on whom to call, in whom to hope, and whose will, as sure and divine, to prefer to thine own, which is human and weak. Imagine Him not, therefore, as losing aught of His own exalted position in wishing thee to rise up out of the depths of thy ruin. For He thought it meet also to be tempted by the devil, by whom otherwise He would never have been tempted, just as, had He not been willing, He would never have suffered; and the answers He gave to the devil are such as thou also oughtest to use in times of temptation. [1052] And He, indeed, was tempted, but not endangered, that He might show thee, when in danger through temptation, how to answer the tempter, so as not to be carried away by the temptation, but to escape its danger. But when He here said, "Now is my soul troubled;" and also when He says, "My soul is sorrowful, even unto death;" and "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me;" He assumed the infirmity of man, to teach him, when thereby saddened and troubled, to say what follows: "Nevertheless, Father, not as I will, but as Thou wilt." [1053] For thus it is that man is turned from the human to the divine, when the will of God is preferred to his own. But to what do the words "Glorify Thy name" refer, but to His own passion and resurrection? For what else can it mean, but that the Father should thus glorify the Son, who in like manner glorifieth His own name in the similar sufferings of His servants? Hence it is recorded of Peter, that for this cause He said concerning him, "Another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not," because He intended to signify "by what death he should glorify God." [1054] Therefore in him, too, did God glorify His name, because thus also does He glorify Christ in His members.
4. "Then came there a voice from heaven, [saying], I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." "I have both glorified it," before I created the world, "and I will glorify it again," when He shall rise from the dead and ascend into heaven. It may also be otherwise understood. "I have both glorified it,"--when He was born of the Virgin, when He exercised miraculous powers; when the Magi, guided by a star in the heavens, bowed in adoration before Him; when He was recognized by saints filled with the Holy Spirit; when He was openly proclaimed by the descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove, and pointed out by the voice that sounded from heaven; when He was transfigured on the mount; when He wrought many miracles, cured and cleansed multitudes, fed so vast a number with a very few loaves, commanded the winds and the waves, and raised the dead;--"and I will glorify it again;" when He shall rise from the dead; when death shall have no longer dominion over Him; and when He shall be exalted over the heavens as God, and His glory over all the earth.
5. "The people therefore that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to Him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes." He thereby showed that the voice made no intimation to Him of what He already knew, but to those who needed the information. And just as that voice was uttered by God, not on His account, but on that of others, so His soul was troubled, not on His own account, but voluntarily for the sake of others.
6. Look at what follows: "Now," He says, "is the judgment of the world." What, then, are we to expect at the end of time? But the judgment that is looked for in the end will be the judging of the living and the dead, the awarding of eternal rewards and punishment. Of what sort, then, is the judgment now? I have already, in former lessons, as far as I could, put you in mind, beloved, that there is a judgment spoken of, not of condemnation, but of discrimination; [1055] as it is written, "Judge me, O God, and plead [discern, discriminate] my cause against an unholy nation." [1056] And many are the judgments of God; as it is said in the psalm, "Thy judgments are a great deep." [1057] And the apostle also says, "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments!" [1058] To such judgments does that spoken of here by the Lord also belong, "Now is the judgment of this world;" while that judgment in the end is reserved, when the living and the dead shall at last be judged. The devil, therefore, had possession of the human race, and held them by the written bond of their sins as criminals amenable to punishment; he ruled in the hearts of unbelievers, and, deceiving and enslaving them, seduced them to forsake the Creator and give worship to the creature; but by faith in Christ, which was confirmed by His death and resurrection, and, by His blood, which was shed for the remission of sins, thousands of believers are delivered from the dominion of the devil, are united to the body of Christ, and under this great head are made by His one Spirit to spring up into new life as His faithful members. This it was that He called the judgment, this righteous separation, this expulsion of the devil from His own redeemed.
7. Attend, in short, to His own words. For just as if we had been inquiring what He meant by saying, "Now is the judgment of the world," He proceeded to explain it when He says, "Now shall the prince of this world be cast out." What we have thus heard was the kind of judgment He meant. Not that one, therefore, which is yet to come in the end, when the living and dead shall be judged, some of them set apart on His right hand, and the others on His left; but that judgment by which "the prince of this world shall be cast out." In what sense, then, was he within, and whither did He mean that he was to be cast out? Was it this: That he was in the world. and was cast forth beyond its boundaries? For had He been speaking of that judgment which is yet to come in the end, some one's thoughts might have turned to that eternal fire into which the devil is to be cast with his angels, and all who belong to him;--that is, not naturally, but through moral delinquency; not because he created or begat them, but because he persuaded and kept hold of them: some one, therefore, might have thought that that eternal fire was outside the world, and that this was the meaning of the words, "he shall be cast out." But as He says, "Now is the judgment of this world," and in explanation of His meaning, adds, "Now shall the prince of this world be cast out," we are thereby to understand what is now being done, and not what is to be, so long afterwards, at the last day. The Lord, therefore, foretold what He knew, that after His own passion and glorification, many nations throughout the whole world, in whose hearts the devil was an inmate, would become believers, and the devil, when thus renounced by faith, is cast out.
8. But some one says, Was he then not cast out of the hearts of the patriarchs and prophets, and the righteous of olden time? Certainly he was. How, then, is it said, "Now he shall be cast out"? How else can we think of it, but that what was then done in the case of a very few individuals, was now foretold as speedily to take place in many and mighty nations? Just as also that other saying, "For the Spirit was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified," [1059] may suggest a similar inquiry, and find a similar solution. For it was not without the Holy Spirit that the prophets predicted the events of the future; nor was it so that the aged Simeon and the widowed Anna knew by the Holy Spirit the infant Lord; [1060] and that Zacharias and Elisabeth uttered by the Holy Spirit so many predictions concerning Him, when He was not yet born, but only conceived. [1061] But "the Spirit was not yet given;" that is, with that abundance of spiritual grace which enabled those assembled together to speak in every language, [1062] and thus announce beforehand in the language of every nation the Church of the future: and so by this spiritual grace it was that nations were gathered into congregations, sins were pardoned far and wide, and thousands of thousands were reconciled unto God.