AN
ILLUSTRATED COMMENTARY
ON
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO
ST. JOHN.
FOR FAMILY USE AND REFERENCE, AND FOR THE GREAT BODY
OF CHRISTIAN WORKERS OF ALL DENOMINATIONS.
BY LYMAN ABBOTT, D.D.,
AUTHOR OF A SERIES OF COMMENTARIES ON THE NEW TESTAMENT.
A. S. BARNES & COMPANY,
NEW YORK, CHICAGO, AND NEW ORLEANS.
1879.
_BY THE EDITOR OF THIS WORK._
A POPULAR COMMENTARY
ON THE
NEW TESTAMENT;
WITH MAPS, ILLUSTRATIONS, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE NEW
TESTAMENT, A CONDENSED LIFE OF CHRIST AND A TABULAR HARMONY OF
THE GOSPELS, CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE AND GAZETTEER.
_IN TWO SIZES._
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_Copyright, 1879, by A. S. Barnes & Co._
TO
JACOB ABBOTT,
WHOSE WRITINGS HAVE INTERPRETED THE GOSPEL TO
INNUMERABLE READERS;
WHOSE LIFE HAS EVEN MORE ILLUSTRIOUSLY MANIFESTED ITS SPIRIT
TO ALL WHO HAVE KNOWN HIM;
AND WHO, BOTH BY EXAMPLE AND PRECEPT, HAS TAUGHT
HIS CHILDREN TO VALUE THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST ABOVE ALL FORMS,
AND CHRIST HIMSELF ABOVE ALL CREEDS,
THIS EXPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL
IS AFFECTIONATELY AND REVERENTLY DEDICATED BY
HIS SON.
PREFACE
TO ALL THE VOLUMES OF THIS SERIES OF COMMENTARIES.
The object of this Commentary is to aid in their Christian work those
who are endeavoring to promote the knowledge of the principles which
Jesus Christ came to propound and establish--clergymen, Christian
parents, Sunday-School teachers, Bible-women, lay-preachers. Intended
for Christian workers, it aims to give the results rather than the
processes of scholarship, the conclusions rather than the controversies
of scholars; intended for laymen as well as for clergymen, it
accompanies the English version of the New Testament, in all references
to the original Greek gives the English equivalent, and translates all
quotations from the French, German, Latin and Greek authors.
The introduction to Volume I contains a statement of those principles
of interpretation which appear to me to be essential to the correct
understanding of the Word of God. This Commentary is the result of a
conscientious endeavor to apply those principles to the elucidation of
the New Testament.
It is founded on a careful examination of the latest and best
text; such variations as are of practical or doctrinal importance
are indicated in the notes. It is founded on the original Greek;
wherever that is inadequately rendered in our English version, a new
translation is afforded by the notes. The general purpose of the
writer or speaker, and the general scope of the incident or teaching,
is indicated in a Preliminary Note to the passage, or in an analysis,
a paraphrase, or a general summary at the close. Special topics are
treated in preliminary or supplementary notes. The results of recent
researches in Biblical archæology have been embodied, so as to make
the Commentary serve in part the purpose of a Bible Dictionary. A free
use is made of illustrations, from antiques, photographs, original
drawings, and other trustworthy sources. They are never employed for
mere ornament, but always to aid in depicting the life of Palestine,
which remains in many respects substantially unchanged by the lapse of
time. Since the Commentary is prepared, not for devotional reading,
but for practical workers, little space has been devoted to hortatory
remarks or practical or spiritual reflections. But I have uniformly
sought to interpret the letter by the spirit, and to suggest rather
than to supply moral and spiritual reflections, a paragraph of
hints is affixed to each section or topic, embodying what appears
to me to be the essential religious lessons of the incident or the
teaching; sometimes a note is appended elucidating them more fully. The
best thoughts of the best thinkers, both exegetical and homiletical,
are freely quoted, especially such as are not likely to be accessible
to most American readers; in all such cases the thought is credited to
the author. Parallel and contrasted passages of Scripture are brought
together in the notes; in addition, full Scripture references are
appended to the text. These are taken substantially from Bagster’s
large edition of the English version of the Polyglot Bible, but they
have been carefully examined and verified in preparing for the press,
and some modifications have been made. For the convenience of that
large class of Christian workers who are limited in their means, I have
endeavored to make this Commentary, as far as practicable, a complete
apparatus for the study of the New Testament. When finished it will be
fully furnished with maps;--there are four in this volume; a Gazetteer
gives a condensed account of all the principal places in Palestine,
mentioned in our Lord’s life; and an introduction traces the history
of the New Testament from the days of Christ to the present, giving
some account of the evidence and nature of inspiration, the growth of
the canon, the character and history of the manuscripts, the English
version, the nature of the Gospels and their relation to each other,
a brief life of Christ, and a complete tabular harmony of the four
Gospels.
The want of all who use the Bible in Christian work is the same. The
_wish_ is often for a demonstration that the Scripture sustains the
reader’s peculiar theological tenets, but the _want_ is always for
a clearer and better knowledge of Scripture teaching, whether it
sanctions or overturns previous opinions. I am not conscious that this
work is written in the interest of any theological or ecclesiastical
system. In those cases in which the best scholars are disagreed in
their interpretation, the different views and the reasons which lead
me to my own conclusions have been given, I trust, in no controversial
spirit. For the sole object of this work is to ascertain and make
clear the meaning of the Word of God, irrespective of systems, whether
ecclesiastical or doctrinal.
No work is more delightful than that which throws us into fellowship
with great minds; of all work the most delightful is that which brings
us into association with the mind of God. This is the fellowship to
which the student of the Bible aspires. I can have for those who use
this work no higher hope than that they may find in its employment some
of the happiness which I have found in its preparation, and that it
may serve them as it has served me, as a guide to the Word of God, and
through that Word to a better acquaintance with God himself.
CORNWALL-ON-HUDSON, _May_, 1875. LYMAN ABBOTT.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
THE GOSPEL OF JOHN.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 3
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES--
ON THE INTRODUCTION TO JOHN’S GOSPEL 13
THE INCARNATION 21
THE LAMB OF GOD 24
CHRIST’S EXAMPLE IN THE USE OF WINE 32
CHRIST AS A CONVERSATIONALIST 58
CHRIST’S DISCOURSE ON THE BREAD OF LIFE 83
THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY 105
THE PARABLE OF THE SHEEPFOLD 125
THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS 135, 145
THE ANOINTING OF JESUS 150
THE LORD’S SUPPER 162
CHRIST’S LAST DISCOURSE WITH HIS DISCIPLES 171
THE PARABLE OF THE VINE 185
CHRIST’S INTERCESSORY PRAYER 201
THE CHARACTER OF PONTIUS PILATE 221
THE CHARACTER OF JOHN’S GOSPEL 240
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Most of the engravings in this volume have been drawn and engraved
expressly for this work; some from original sketches by Mr. A. L.
Rawson, others from careful study from the best accessible authorities,
by Mr. R. F. Zogbaum.
PAGE
CANA OF GALILEE 29
AN ORIENTAL WEDDING 29
WATER-POTS AND EWERS 31
SUBSTRUCTURES OF THE TEMPLE 34
PLAN AND SECTION OF THE TEMPLE 36
THE EXPULSION OF THE TRADERS 36
EASTERN MONEY-CHANGER 37
A MODERN JEWISH RABBI 41
TRADITIONAL SITE OF ENON 48
JACOB’S WELL 52
JESUS AT THE WELL 54
SAMARITAN REMAINS IN GERIZIM 60
CHURCH OVER THE POOL OF BETHESDA 63
BETHSAIDA 77
TIBERIAS 85
BOOTH ON THE HOUSETOP 96
OFFICERS OF THE CHIEF PRIEST 104
THE MOUNT OF OLIVES 107
THE WOMAN AND HER ACCUSERS 108
AN EASTERN SHEEPFOLD 126
FELL AT HIS FEET 142
RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS 146
BETHANY 151
ANOINTING OF THE FEET 152
ANCIENT MONEY-BAG 153
WASHING OF FEET 163
DIPPING THE SOP 168
TORCHES 212
ANCIENT FIRE UTENSILS 214
DENIALS OF PETER 215
JESUS BEFORE PILATE 217
ROMAN JUDGMENT-SEAT 221
HE GIRT HIS FISHER’S COAT UNTO HIM 235
ANCIENT BREAD 236
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN.
INTRODUCTION.
From the beginning of the third century to near the close of the
seventeenth, the Fourth Gospel was by a common and substantially a
unanimous consent attributed to the Apostle John. This authorship was
then questioned, at first by an English critic by the name of Evanson.
The discussion was soon transferred to Germany, where it waxed warm,
and whence it was again transferred to England and this country.[1] It
may now be regarded as the most hotly contested question in biblical
criticism. The controversy has been intensified by prejudices and
feeling on both sides. It is indeed impossible to discuss it with cool
indifference, as a mere matter of curious literary interest. If this
Gospel was written by the Apostle John, we have the testimony of an
undoubted eye-witness--not his conclusions but his account of facts
in respect to which he could not well be deceived--certainly not,
unless we are prepared to believe that Jesus was himself a deliberate
deceiver; testimony of an eye-witness whose honesty not even the
most resolute skepticism would or could well call in question. This
testimony would establish beyond question such facts as the miraculous
feeding of the five thousand, the healing of the man born blind, the
resurrection of Lazarus, and the death and resurrection of Jesus
himself. In other words, it would establish beyond the possibility of
reasonable question, the truth of historical Christianity. Accordingly,
Renan, who to a certain extent accepts the authenticity of the Fourth
Gospel, is compelled to maintain that the pretended resurrection of
Lazarus was a pious fraud to which Jesus lent himself because it was
necessary to the success of his mission, and because his growing
religious enthusiasm justified to his conscience this means, for the
sake of the end to be accomplished by it. Moreover, we have in this
Gospel a report of words of Jesus, which leave to us no alternative
but to accept him as in a peculiar sense the Son of God, or to regard
him either as a religious impostor or a religious enthusiast. The
synoptics leave some opportunity for discussion as to the place which
Jesus assumed to fill. The Fourth Gospel does not. Thus the question
of the authorship of this Gospel is not merely a question in literary
criticism, but even more one respecting the nature of Christianity.
Accordingly we find, on the one hand, the advocates of its apostolic
authorship more or less resting their belief upon the inherent beauty
of the book, and the opponents more or less declaring the true ground
of their opposition to it, viz., that it presents what they call a
mythological view of Jesus, and a dogmatic view of his teachings; in
other words, that it presents Jesus distinctively as the incarnate
Son of God, and represents the central truth in his teaching to have
been the necessity of faith in him. Both these aspects of truth
are indeed presented in the other Gospels, but not with the same
clearness, nor with the same prominence, as in the Fourth Gospel.
Hence the latter is assailed with peculiar vigor by the opponents of
evangelical Christianity, and is, for the same reason, maintained with
equal vigor by evangelical believers. It does not come within the
province of this work to enter into the details of this controversy.
To give the arguments, pro and con, would require a treatise, and for
a consideration of them the reader is of necessity referred to the
various works which have been written on this subject. The student
will find the most vigorous assault on the authenticity of the Fourth
Gospel in the second volume of “Supernatural Religion,” which, however,
must be read with considerable allowance for a scholarship evidently
warped by determined prejudices, and which is certainly one-sided, if
not absolutely false in many particulars. Among the many defences of
the authenticity of the Gospel, I have found nothing more comprehensive
or satisfactory than that contained in the first volume of Godet’s
Commentary on John. With this, however, may be advantageously compared
Luthardt’s “St. John, the Author of the Fourth Gospel,” Prof. Fisher’s
“Supernatural Origin of Christianity,” and the introductions to the
commentaries, especially those of Luthardt, Lange, Alford, Meyer and
Tholuck. Here I propose merely to set before the reader briefly a
compact statement of the more important facts in the case, confining
myself mainly to those that are undisputed--facts which led the world
for fifteen centuries to attribute the Fourth Gospel to John without
a doubt, and which on a more careful examination have led the great
majority of scholars to adhere to that conclusion.
=The Apostle John.= The Apostle John was probably a native, certainly a
resident, of Galilee. His mother, Salome,[2] early became a follower of
Jesus. She was probably one of the women of Galilee who accompanied him
on his missionary tours, and ministered to him of their substance.[3]
She was with him on his last journey to Jerusalem, and during the
passion week, and was one of those women who were last at the cross
and first at the sepulchre.[4] Like the other followers of Jesus, she
anticipated the establishment of a temporal kingdom, was ambitious for
her sons James and John, and made an application for special favors
for them when the kingdom should be established. From a comparison of
Matt. 27:56 with John 19:25, it would appear that she was own sister
to the Virgin Mary, in which case John was own cousin to Jesus. This
opinion is not accepted by all critics, but I believe it to be the
correct one. See note on John 19:25. John’s father, Zebedee, was a
well-to-do fisherman on the shores of the sea of Galilee. Of him we
know very little. He was sufficiently prosperous to own several boats
and to hire men to work for him. Tradition makes him of noble birth;
and this tradition is perhaps confirmed by the fact that John had some
acquaintance with the high-priest.
John has been characterized by those critics who wish to make out that
his character is inconsistent with the idea of his authorship of the
Fourth Gospel, as ignorant and unlettered, on the authority of Acts
4:13, and as a vehement and bigoted Jew on the authority of Galatians,
chap. II, and of the peculiar Hebraic tone of the Book of Revelation.
Both characterizations are quite gratuitous assumptions. In connection
with every Jewish synagogue was a parochial school, in which the
pupils were taught reading, writing, and the rudiments of such natural
sciences as were then in existence. The Jewish children of the common
people were far better educated than those of Greece or Rome. There is
every reason to believe that John received this common education of the
age and community in which he lived, and there is absolutely no reason
whatever to suppose the contrary. It was only by the Pharisees that
John was considered as ignorant and unlettered, and they affixed the
same stigma upon Jesus himself.[5] To the Pharisees the only learning
worth the name was learning in the traditional lore of the church. Of
this the Galilean fisherman was ignorant. In the eyes of a Pharisee
of Jerusalem, Plato himself would have been ignorant and unlearned.
As little reason is there to believe that John was a vehement and
bigoted Jew. There is not the slightest evidence that John was among
the Judaizing Christians to whom Paul so frequently refers, and whom
throughout his life he combated. With one exception, Judas Iscariot,
all the twelve were taken from Galilee. This province of Palestine
was innocent of that formalism and narrowness which characterized the
southern province of Judea. The people had lived in amicable relations
with their heathen neighbors, and had intermarried with them ever
since the days of the treaty of amity between Solomon and the King of
Tyre.[6] The line of commerce between Damascus and the Mediterranean
lay directly across this province. Mineral springs of real or fancied
value near the southern coast of the Sea of Gennesaret made it the
summer resort of the wealthy Romans of the entire land. Thus history
and location, commerce and social relations, combined to make the
inhabitants of Galilee indifferent to the rigid formalism of the
Judeans, and comparatively free from their narrow race and religious
prejudices. Indeed, the two assertions that John was ignorant and
unlearned, and at the same time a narrow and bigoted Jew, contradict
each other. Jewish bigotry and reverence for the traditional lore of
the Jewish church always went together.
The important facts in the history of John, so far as known, are few
and soon told. John the Baptist was second cousin of Jesus, and John
the Apostle was probably, as we have seen, his own cousin. The two
Johns were, therefore, probably acquainted. At all events, when the
Baptist began preaching the gospel of repentance for the remission of
sins, the Apostle was among his disciples; and when the Baptist pointed
out Jesus as the one whom God had indicated to him as the promised
Messiah, John was among the first to leave the old teacher to follow
the new one. This was, however, a temporary following only. We next
meet him fishing with his father at the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus
finds him and his brother, and calls them to become permanent followers
of him. This summons, without hesitation or delay, they obey. From this
time onward John is the constant companion of Jesus. With Peter and
James he belongs to an inner circle of friends: the three are selected
to be the sole witnesses of the resurrection of Jairus’s daughter;
they alone go up into the Mount of Transfiguration, and witness his
glory there; they alone accompany him to the Garden of Gethsemane, and
are invited to be the sharers of his sorrow there; when the arrest
takes place, and all the disciples forsake their Master and flee, John
and Peter turn back and follow him to the scene of his trial, and the
former, with a courage for which few critics give him credit, goes
without concealment, as a disciple, openly, into the house of Caiaphas,
follows the Master to the trial before Pilate, and when the sentence
of crucifixion is pronounced, accompanies the procession to the place
of execution, to remain by the cross till all is over. When the news
of the resurrection is brought to the disciples, he and Peter are the
first to reach the sepulchre. In the subsequent history of the Church,
as recorded in the book of Acts, he does not take a prominent part. To
him was committed the care of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and probably
this sacred charge prevented him from quitting Palestine while she
lived.[7]
For the subsequent history of John we are dependent on tradition. This
is, however, in his case, less uncertain than in many other cases. As
Christianity spread over the heathen world, Jerusalem ceased to be the
centre of Christian operations; but, while the Roman Empire continued
pagan and persecuting, Rome could not take the place of Jerusalem,
as subsequently it did. Hence, for the first century, Asia Minor was
the great field of missionary work, and Ephesus, which was the scene
of Paul’s greatest triumphs and most successful labors,[8] became
the centre of the Christian church. Here John became settled in his
later life. From this point he seems to have exercised an apostolic
supervision over the churches of all Asia Minor. The few traditional
stories of his old age accord with what the Gospels indicate of his
character. When he could no longer preach, it is said that he was
accustomed to be carried into the church, and to repeat from the pulpit
as the sum and substance of Christian doctrine, “Little children, love
one another!” He was banished to the island of Patmos, where, according
to the book of Revelation, he witnessed the vision therein recorded. He
subsequently returned to Ephesus, where it is probable he died at an
extremely advanced age--not much, if any, less than a hundred years old.
=The character of John= has been strangely misconceived. He is with
reason identified with the unnamed “disciple whom Jesus loved,” and
who at the Last Supper rested his head on Jesus’ bosom; the Epistles
attributed to him breathe a spirit of love; the Gospel attributed to
him is of all the Gospels the most spiritual in its tone. From these
premises, the character of John has been constructed; it has been
supposed that he was by nature peculiarly tender, gentle, loving,
and spiritually-minded; that his was a woman’s character. He is so
portrayed in art, and to some extent in literature; and the special
friendship which Christ has been supposed to have entertained for him
is attributed to a character by nature peculiarly loveable.
There are, however, other considerations which any such view totally
ignores. James and John were by Jesus called Boanerges, “the sons of
thunder;” it was John who prohibited a strange disciple from casting
out devils in Jesus’ name, because he followed not the Twelve; it was
John who desired to call down fire from Heaven upon the Samaritan
village which refused to entertain his Master; it was James and John
who, with their mother, applied secretly to Jesus for the highest
offices for themselves in his anticipated kingdom; it was John who
followed Jesus into the courtyard of the high-priest, when all the
other disciples forsook him and fled; John who stood with the Galilean
women near the cross at the time of the crucifixion; John who with
Peter defied the edict of the Sanhedrim after the death of Jesus,
prohibiting them from teaching or speaking in his name.[9] These
are not the acts of one whose nature was characteristically timid,
gentle, or spiritually-minded. By nature John was ardent, courageous,
impetuous, and not more broad-minded or spiritually-minded than his
co-disciples. Indications of these traits are not wanting, as we shall
presently see, in the Gospel and the Epistles which bear his name.
But he was of all the Twelve the most receptive. When Christ foretold
his passion, Peter remonstrated with him. When Jesus spoke of the
heavenly mansions and of his departure to prepare a place therein for
his disciples, Thomas expressed his doubt and his perplexity by the
question, “We know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the
way?” When Jesus pointed to himself as the manifestation of the Father,
Philip, dissatisfied, asked for a direct revelation of the Father. When
Jesus promised to his disciples a spiritual manifestation of himself,
Judas (not Iscariot), after the manner of modern theology, desired to
have that manifestation explained to him before he could accept the
truth. When Jesus rebuked Judas Iscariot for complaining of Mary’s
act in anointing her Lord, Judas was angered.[10] But we look in vain
in the Gospels for any instance in which John expressed any rebuke of
Christ, or any opposition to him, or any doubt of his teaching, or
demanded any other evidence of its truth than the simple word of his
Lord. Of all the disciples the most receptive, he was the one whose
character underwent the greatest and most radical change. The John that
we know is the John transformed by the renewing influence of the spirit
of Christ; he is the John that is a new creature in Christ Jesus.
He was, I believe, the beloved disciple, because he was the one in
whom the love of Christ had the freest course and wrought the fullest
and the largest results. This simple fact must be borne in mind in
considering the question of the internal evidences for and against the
Johannine authorship of the Gospel.
=The external evidence.= Those who expect to find a demonstration
of the Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel in the external
evidences, will be disappointed. The literature of the first three
centuries does not afford a demonstration of authorship of any ancient
book. But the authorship of John’s Gospel I believe to be as well
established, on a fair consideration of all the evidence, external and
internal, as that of any work of the same era.
It is not questioned by any one that at the beginning of the third
century the Fourth Gospel was in general use in the churches, and
universally recognized as written by the Apostle John. Eusebius,
Origen, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, are among those who bear
testimony to this fact. The Fourth Gospel is recognized as John’s
composition in the canon of Muratori, A. D. 175; and by Irenæus, who
died about 202, and who was a pupil of Polycarp, himself a pupil of
John. References to sayings of Jesus reported only by John are also
found in the writings of Tatian, A. D. 170, Justin Martyr, A. D.
120-160, and the various Gnostic writers of the second century. These
references do not conclusively prove the Johannine authorship of the
Fourth Gospel, for these earliest writers are not accustomed to give
the names of authors from whom they quote; but they do conclusively
prove that as early as the first part of the second century, sayings of
Christ, found only in the Fourth Gospel, were attributed by the Church
to Jesus. The best report of these quotations which I have seen is to
be found in the second volume of “Supernatural Religion,” and they
are there the more effective because the author in vain endeavors to
break their force, by what most readers will consider an ingenious but
ineffective special pleading. Let the reader compare these quotations
with the parallel passages in the Fourth Gospel; he will not doubt that
the later writers borrowed from the earlier one. The only alternative
is the irrational hypothesis that both borrowed from the same source
and one generally recognized in the primitive Church; in other words,
that there was a Gospel containing the same matter that is now found
in the Fourth Gospel, but that it has so entirely disappeared that no
tradition even of its existence has survived, and that in its place a
forgery has been palmed off upon the Church so successfully, that in
the beginning of the third century it was universally accepted as the
original work of the Apostle whose name it has ever since borne.
Space does not allow me to give in detail these quotations, which are
numerous; it would be still more out of the province of this
introduction to enter into the arguments by which the rationalistic
writers endeavor to reconcile these quotations with their hypotheses.
I can but briefly indicate a few of them, referring the student to the
larger works for the examination in detail of the parallelism between
these early ecclesiastical writers and the Fourth Gospel. Justin
Martyr thus refers to the testimony of John the Baptist: “I am not the
Christ ... for he cometh who is stronger than I, whose shoes I am not
meet to bear” (comp. John 1:19-27). He cites Christ as saying, “Unless
ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven,” and
adds the comment, “Now that it is impossible for those who have been
born to go into the matrices of the mother is evident to all” (comp.
John 3:3-5). Tatian refers to the sayings, “The darkness comprehends
not the light” (comp. John 1:5), and “All things were by him, and
without him was not anything made” (comp. John 1:5, 3). Hegessippus
(A. D. 125) refers to “that which is spoken in the Gospels, ‘That was
the true light which lighteth every man who cometh into the world’”
(comp. John 1:9). In the writings of the Naaseni and Peratæ, Gnostic
sects of the beginning of the second century, we have several
unmistakable references to sayings that are peculiar to the Fourth
Gospel. “I am the door,” (comp. John 10:7); “As Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son be lifted up,” (comp.
John 3:14); “If thou hadst known who it is that asketh thee, thou
wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water,
springing up,” (comp. John 4:10); “The Saviour hath said, ‘That which
is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit,’” (comp. John 3:6); “Except ye eat my flesh and drink my
blood, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven,” (comp. John 6:53).
These are by no means all the citations from the writers of the first
two centuries which appear to have been taken from the Fourth Gospel,
but they will suffice to give the reader an idea of the nature of the
evidence which is regarded by most Christian writers, and by some
rationalistic critics--Matthew Arnold, for example--as establishing
the fact that the Fourth Gospel was in existence and recognized as an
authority in the Church in the beginning of the second century. If
this is the fact, it is reasonably certain that it was the work of the
Apostle John, since if it had been written by any one else as early as
that date, that is, during the lifetime of some of the contemporaries
of John, the forgery would certainly have been detected.
=The internal evidence.= The facts indicated above are not questioned
by any critic. But though from the beginning of the third century
to the close of the eighteenth, the Fourth Gospel was unanimously
attributed to the Apostle John, it is maintained by those critics who
deny the Johannine authorship that a fair consideration of the external
evidence now extant, leaves it uncertain whether the unanimous opinion
of the Church in the first century was correct, and that the internal
evidence, _i. e._, the character of the Gospel itself, when contrasted
(1) with the other Gospels, (2) with the known character of John, (3)
with the other writings attributed to him, makes it certain that he was
not the author.
Unquestionably the Fourth Gospel presents very different matter and a
very different aspect of Christ’s life and character from that
presented by the other three Gospels. The three Gospels give an
impression almost exclusively Galilean; the Fourth Gospel narrates
almost exclusively a ministry in Judea; the three Gospels indicate one
which might have been completed in a single year; the fourth indicates
three years as the duration of Christ’s ministry; the three Gospels
report chiefly Christ’s ethical discourses; the fourth reports chiefly
his doctrinal discourses; love to men’s neighbor is the predominate
theme in the three Gospels; faith in a divine Saviour is the
predominate theme in the fourth; the three Gospels portray the work of
Jesus Christ; the fourth portrays his person and character; the three
Gospels repeat the same incidents and instructions in slightly
different language; the fourth repeats scarcely anything found in the
other three; and when, as in its account of the feeding of the five
thousand, it does repeat, the manifest object of the repetition is to
introduce a report of a discourse of Jesus omitted in the other
narratives.
It is also true that there is a marked difference between the style of
John’s Gospel and the Book of Revelations. This difference is so
considerable that it is vigorously maintained that the same author
could not have written both books. “The difference,” says Lucke,
“between the language, way of expression and mode of thought and
doctrine of the Apocalypse and the rest of the Johannine writings is
so comprehensive and intense, so individual and even so radical; the
affinity and agreement on the contrary either so general, or in detail
so fragmentary and uncertain, that the Apostle John, if he really is
the author of the Gospel and of the Epistles--which we here
advance--cannot have composed the Apocalypse either before or after
the Gospel and the Epistles.” This difference is of two kinds, a
difference both of style and of spirit. The language of the Apocalypse
is comparatively harsh and Hebraic, that of the Gospel a comparatively
fine and flowing Greek. The author of the Apocalypse, it is claimed,
is an intense Jew, whose imagery is borrowed from the Hebrew
Scriptures, and whose object is the exaltation of the Jewish people;
who narrates the outpoured punishment of God on the enemies of God’s
chosen people, and whose celestial capital of the kingdom without end
is the new Jerusalem. The author of the Fourth Gospel, it is claimed,
could not have been a Jew or of Jewish extraction; he makes no attempt
to conceal his enmity of the Jews; he stigmatizes them as the enemies
of Christ, and as the children of the devil;[11] and he writes of them
and of their customs as no Jew would or could have written of the
customs of his own people.[12]
It is not my purpose here to enter upon a discussion of these
objections. It must suffice to say that they are founded on a false
conception of the character of John and a false assumption that what
John was when he first met Jesus by the banks of the Jordan, that he
was after a life-time spent as a disciple, learning of him and
undergoing that transformation of character which has been the
peculiar and glorious fruitage of Christ’s husbandry. Instead of
entering into such a discussion, I shall ask the reader to consider
briefly what are some of the more notable characteristics of the
Fourth Gospel, and what would be the conclusion as to its authorship
from an independent and original examination of its pages.
Imagine then that we have just discovered this ancient manuscript,
a manuscript which unquestionably dates from the beginning of the
third century, probably from a still earlier period, and which we
have abundant evidence was then unanimously attributed to the Apostle
John. We enter upon its examination that we may form for ourselves a
judgment who its real author probably was. In this examination there
are three characteristics which force themselves upon our attention
as predominant: (1) the claims which it presents; (2) its literary
character; (3) the indications which it affords as to the personality
of its author.
=1. Its claims.= It assumes to be written by an eye-witness. In his
introduction the writer says distinctly of the subject of his
biography: “We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of
the Father.” In the Epistle attributed to him, he reiterates this
statement even more explicitly. “That which was from the beginning,
which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have
looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life ... that
which we have seen and heard declare we unto you.” In his account of
the crucifixion he emphasizes the fact that he is an eye-witness of
the events described. “He that saw it bare record and the record is
true; and he knoweth that he saith true that ye might believe.” And
yet again in the closing chapter, generally regarded as written
subsequent to the rest of the volume, and as supplementary to it, the
writer is identified with the unnamed beloved disciple. “This is the
disciple who testified of these things and wrote these things, and we
know that his testimony is true.”[13]
In reading the book we constantly come upon indications that the work
is by an eye-witness or by one who writes in order to give that
impression. No one of the Evangelist’s narratives more abounds with
graphic touches, slight but significant, such as indicate the vivid
remembrance of one who was not only an eye and ear witness, but also
one who treasures up in a remarkably retentive memory incidents which
mere tradition would not have preserved. John the Baptist “looks upon
Jesus,” and points him out to his disciples, by his peculiar gaze;
Jesus “turns” and sees them follow; wearied with the journey he sits
“thus on the well;” there is “much grass” where he feeds the five
thousand; when Mary anointed Jesus the “house was filled with the odor
of the ointment;” when Judas went out to complete the betrayal “it was
night;” the night “was cold,” and Peter stands with the servant of the
high-priest warming himself at a fire of coals in the court-yard.[14]
These may serve as illustrations. Examples the reader will find in
great abundance, and references to them in the notes. Of all the
Gospels, the Fourth Gospel is the one which reports most fully the
private conferences between Jesus and the Twelve, and the only one
which reports his “asides” and his personal feelings in explanation of
his public acts.[15] These features in the narrative do not prove that
it was written by an eye-witness, but they indicate that it was
written either by an eye-witness, or by one who desired to produce
that impression; either by one of the Twelve or by a deliberate and
skilful forger.
=2. Its literary character.= The differences between this Gospel and
the other three which I have already very briefly described, are
very considerable. They have led different minds to very different
conclusions respecting the authorship of the Fourth Gospel. It is,
however, safe to say that they are just such as might be expected if
the Fourth Gospel was written after the other three, and by some one
familiar with them, or at least with the traditions embodied in them.
This Gospel presents precisely the aspect which would be presented by
a book written for the purpose of supplementing the accounts already
possessed by the primitive churches, and of portraying an aspect of
character not adequately portrayed by the earlier writers. It presents,
too, exactly that aspect which would be presented by a narrative
written after the rapid growth of the Church, and its prophetic
incursions into heathenism had given the writer a better conception
than his co-disciples possessed of the spiritual character of the new
religion. Matthew, Mark, and Luke might perhaps have believed that
the privileges of Christianity were to be confined to Jews and Jewish
proselytes. Though many of Christ’s words which they report indicate
a broader scope, it is by no means clear that they comprehended them.
But no one can doubt that the author of John’s Gospel, when he wrote,
believed that the atonement of Jesus Christ was for all humanity, his
religion for all classes, races, and conditions of mankind. It is the
Fourth Gospel which tells us that He was the true Light which lighteth
_every man_ which cometh into the world, that God so loved the _world_
that he gave his only beloved Son that whosoever believeth in him
should have everlasting life, and that _whosoever_ comes to him he will
in no wise cast out; it is the Fourth Gospel which reports Christ’s
interview with the woman of Samaria and his subsequent preaching to the
Samaritans, which brings out more clearly than either of the others
the grounds of Christ’s practical abrogation of the Pharisaic law of
the Sabbath, which dwells more than any other Gospel on the spiritual
aspects of his kingdom and the divine nature of the king.[16] All this
we might expect from one writing after more than half a century of
Catholic Christianity had interpreted the nature, mission, and words of
Christ to his church.
Let us add that a forger would not have suffered his narrative to stand
in such a marked contrast with the previous and recognized narratives
already in the possession of the churches. He would have commingled the
ethical with the doctrinal, the human with the divine. He would have
repeated in a modified form some of the incidents and teachings already
reported by the other Evangelists, that he might thus give a color of
authenticity to his narrative. The very contrast between the Fourth
Gospel and the other three, on which skeptic writers rely to prove
its untrustworthiness, is an indication that it cannot be the work of
fraud. If that aspect of Christ’s character and teachings reported by
John’s Gospel was not recognized by the primitive church as true, or if
the author was not himself known in the age in which the narrative was
produced, and so known that his simple name was a sufficient guarantee
of the accuracy of his narrative, an account so dissimilar from those
already in the possession of the churches would have received little
credit and no general, certainly no universal, acceptance.
=3. Indications of authorship.= A further examination of this Gospel
gives a definite impression respecting the character of the author.
He is evidently thoroughly familiar with Jewish manners and customs.
He knows whereof he writes. He has lived in the country and mingled
with the people. His knowledge is not that of a student of books, nor
that of a mere casual traveler. But he writes for those who are not
familiar with Palestine or its social life. He inserts parenthetical
explications of Jewish customs. He explains to his Gentile readers the
use of the firkins of water at the wedding-feast “for purifying after
the manner of the Jews;” the wrapping of the body of Jesus, as the
manner of the “Jews is to bury;” the refusal of the Pharisees to enter
Pilate’s hall “lest they should be defiled.” The feast of Tabernacles
is the Jews’ feast of Tabernacles, the Passover is the Jews’ Passover,
and the Preparation for it is the Preparation of the Jews.[17] These
references are so incidental as to indicate a writer thoroughly
familiar with Jewish life; yet they are so marked as to indicate
equally clearly a writer whose readers were not Jews but Gentiles.
The indications are not less clear that the writer, whoever he may
have been, was not himself a sharer in Jewish prejudices. Jew he may
have been; an intolerant Jew he certainly was not. He is familiar with
the Pharisees and with the Pharisaic law, but he has no sympathy with
the one and no admiration for the other. We can hardly be mistaken in
thinking that his native prejudices are adverse rather than favorable
to the inhabitants of Judea. More than any of the other Evangelists
his language respecting them indicates his aversion to them. He is the
Evangelist who reports the mobs in Jerusalem against Jesus, and the
secret counsels for his assassination, and the deliberate judgment of
Caiaphas that it is better for the rulers to kill the Galilean Rabbi
than to hazard their own offices, and the persistent persecution of
Jesus; he it is who with delicate sarcasm stigmatizes Caiaphas as
high-priest for “that same year;” the very language which he employs in
describing the religious festivals of Judea as “feasts of the Jews,”
indicates an author not in sympathy with the religious formalism
of Judea; the very phraseology with which he characterizes the
reluctance of the Jews to enter into Pilate’s judgment-hall, indicates
a writer having little sympathy for the formalism which was never a
characteristic of the Galilean Jews, and always was a characteristic of
the more intense and bigoted Jews of the Syrian province of Judea.[18]
Nor can we be mistaken in surmising that the author was, by nature and
temperament, ardent, impulsive, vehement. The intensity of his nature
has been tamed by age, experience or grace, or the three combined;
but the indications of his native character crop out in occasional
utterances. The records of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are absolutely
colorless. They are without epithets. Their simple and artless
narrative is left to produce its own impression. This is less true of
the Fourth Gospel than of the other three. The intense indignation
which the writer feels against Judas Iscariot, he is at no pains to
conceal. He it is who reports Jesus as declaring early in his ministry,
One of you is a devil; he it is who characterizes Judas Iscariot
as a thief; he who twice declares that Satan entered into Judas
Iscariot.[19] These are the most notable exhibitions of his feelings;
but one can hardly read through the entire narrative without realizing
in its tone and spirit the evidence that the author was a man of
intense and passionate earnestness, kept under marvelous self-restraint.
Finally, it is clear that the author is a man of some native capacity
for culture and of large education. He is familiar with the Greek
language and with the Greco-Oriental philosophy. He writes with a pure
and flowing style. His introduction could have been penned only by
one who had become habituated to those forms of philosophic thought
which some cities of Greece, and notably Ephesus, had imported from
Alexandria and the further East. It could only have been written for
readers who were familiar with that philosophy and could best be
approached by employing its phraseology.
We find then in the direct claims and the incidental allusions of the
Fourth Gospel indications that it was written by an eye and ear
witness, who was with Jesus from the commencement to the close of his
ministry; in the broad differences between the Fourth Gospel and the
other three gospels, indications that it was written after the others
and by one who was familiar with them or with the traditions embodied
in them, and who wrote to supplement their accounts; in the general
catholic and spiritual atmosphere of the book, indications that it was
written after history had begun to interpret the words and work of
Christ, and to make clearer his transcendent and incomparable
character; and in the style and phraseology of the book, indications
that it was written by one who was familiar with Jewish customs but
not sharing Jewish prejudices, who possessed an ardent nature which
had been brought under the power of a strong self-control, and who to
a native capacity for culture added that familiarity with Greek
literature and philosophy which only long residence in a thoroughly
Greek society could impart.
Now, so far as our limited knowledge enables us to judge, John’s life
and character remarkably correspond with these indications of the
Gospel which was so long unanimously attributed to his pen. His
parents were well-to-do Galileans, and he probably received a fair
education in his childhood; his early education as a Galilean would
have given him familiarity with Jewish customs, and yet would
prejudice him against rather than in favor of the inhabitants of
Judea; his later and prolonged residence in Ephesus, of all Greek
cities the most Oriental, would have made him familiar with the best
Greek culture, and with the mystic philosophy of the Greco-Oriental
school; that he possessed a vehement nature is evident from his
original title of Son of Thunder; his receptive disposition and his
intense love for Jesus might have been expected to tame that nature,
without eradicating from his writings all indications of its
existence; of all the disciples the most courageous and the most
sympathetically intimate with the subject of his biography, he was of
them all the one to adhere to Jesus in his dangerous ministry in
Jerusalem, and the one therefore to record what all the others have
omitted; he was also the one to interpret Christ’s actions by his own
suggestion of Christ’s unuttered thoughts; writing after the other
Gospels had been written and were already being widely circulated, his
omission of events and teachings which they had recorded is not only
explicable, but natural and to be anticipated; finally, writing after
the destruction of Jerusalem, after the dispersion of the Jews had
begun, after the descent of the Holy Spirit had interpreted the
mystical promises of another Comforter, after churches had been
organized as far west as Rome in which Gentile and Jew met on equal
terms, after, in a word, the history of the church had interpreted the
prophecies and instructions of its Lord, it would have been strange
indeed if he had not given a deeper, truer, and more catholic
exposition of Christ’s Gospel than could have been written during the
first half-century in Palestine, by those whose comprehension of
Christ’s, teaching had not been broadened by residence in a foreign
land and an observation of Christ’s redeeming work in a pagan
community.
=Other hypotheses.= The conclusion to which a consideration of the
external and internal evidence brings the candid student is confirmed
by a consideration of the alternative hypotheses presented to him.
These are many in form; for it is a significant fact that while those
who believe in the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel are entirely
agreed in respect to its authorship, and the time and place of its
composition, those who disbelieve in its authenticity are not agreed
among themselves respecting either. But in general their various
opinions may be reduced to two classes.
The first is that the Fourth Gospel is the work of a Gentile Christian
writing in the third century. Confessedly this Gospel purports to be
written by an eye and ear witness. Confessedly it was unanimously
attributed to the Apostle John in the third century. Confessedly it is
without a peer in literature, ancient or modern, sacred or secular,
Christian or pagan, in the purity of its doctrine, the moral elevation
of its style, and the spirituality of its atmosphere. This hypothesis
asks us to believe that it is the work of a deliberate ecclesiastical
forger, with so little conscience that he neither hesitated to assume
the pen of an Apostle nor to attribute to Jesus fictitious discourses
and imaginary miracles, yet with so much conscience that he would not
put an Apostle’s name to his composition, but left its authorship to
be inferred by a self-deluded public; written too by a forger who was
so skillful that he deceived the whole contemporaneous church, all
sects and sections, Jewish and Gentile, Greek, Roman, and African,
orthodox and heretic, and yet who was such a bungler that the gross
discrepancies of his account, contrasted with that of the other three
evangelists, make his fraud palpable to the ecclesiastical and literary
critics of the nineteenth century. This hypothesis demands so great
an exercise of credulity that sober critics of even the rationalistic
school are generally abandoning it, or have already done so. This
opinion may be already characterized as a thing of the past.
The other hypothesis is more plausible and captivating. This is that
the Fourth Gospel was written by an amanuensis or a disciple of the
Apostle John, that its essential facts were derived from him, that it
was written in his old age, that his recollection was already growing
dim and his reports of the words of Jesus are unconsciously modified
by his philosophy and experience, and that these reports are still
further modified by the free pen of the amanuensis or the disciple who
perfected the written record; and it is urged that this hypothesis
explains both verbal peculiarities and the title given to it from
early ages, viz., not the Gospel of John, but the Gospel according to
John.[20]
In support of this opinion there is quoted an ancient legend found in
the canon of Muratori (A. D. 175), which runs as follows: “The fourth
of the Gospels is by the disciple John. He was being pressed by his
disciples and (fellow) bishops, and he said, ‘Fast with me this day,
and for three days; and whatsoever shall have been revealed to each one
of us, let us relate it to the rest.’ In the same night it was revealed
to the Apostle Andrew that John should write the whole in his name,
and that all the rest should revise it.” It must suffice to say of
this opinion that in its most pronounced form it is wholly unsustained
by evidence. It is ingenious, but not substantial. Doubtless the
reports of Christ’s disciples are not verbatim. Doubtless we have
in many instances the sentiments of Christ embodied in the words of
John. Possibly some glosses and explanations added originally by an
amanuensis or scribe may have become incorporated in the narrative.[21]
But that the book is in no sense a composite production, that it is the
work of one not of many minds, that we have essentially the portrayal
of the life and character of Jesus by a single author, is evident on
even a casual perusal, and still more on a careful analysis of the work.
=Discourses of Jesus.= The Gospel of John abounds with reports of the
discourses of Jesus; it is more a report of his discourses (λόγια) than
of his works (ἔργα); the miracles reported are generally only a text
for a discourse which follows. The student, passing from the Sermon on
the Mount in Matthew, or the parables in Perea, in Luke, to the sermon
on the Bread of life at Capernaum (John, ch. 6), or on the Good
Shepherd, at Jerusalem (John, ch. 10), feels the difference between
them, a difference chiefly in the phraseology employed, sometimes in
the phases of truth taught, but never amounting to a contradiction in
the essential teaching. The same doctrine respecting the authority of
Christ is conveyed by Matt. 11:27, and John 5:19-30; the same truth as
to the nature and necessity of a new and divine life in the soul is
expressed in Mark 4:26-29, and in John 6:50-58; similar parallels in
essential truth may be found in the synoptics to all that is taught in
the Fourth Gospel; but the form of expression is strikingly different.
Thus, in the study of the Fourth Gospel, the question is constantly
pressed upon the student, how far the reports of Christ’s addresses by
John are to be regarded as reported in the words of Christ.
In answer to this we have, on the one hand, Christ’s promise reported
by John: “The Comforter ... shall bring all things to your remembrance
whatsoever I have said unto you” (ch. 14:26); on the other, we have
reason to believe that the reports are not verbatim. (_a_) This would
require a supernatural exercise of memory nowhere claimed by the
Evangelists, and therefore not to be claimed by the church for them.
(_b_) In some instances, _e. g._, the case of the conversation with
Nicodemus and the woman at the well, it is certain that John could not
have been present, and must have derived his information either from
Jesus or from the other party to the conference. (_c_) The language in
which the discourse is reported is analogous not only in words, but
also in the forms of expression to that of the narrator; the likeness
is so marked that in several instances the critics are not fully
agreed how much is to be regarded as the discourse of Jesus, and how
much as the accompanying comment of John. (_d_) The thought is
sometimes, and the language is often, obscure. And though this
obscurity is increased by mistranslations, and by the division into
verses, which hides from the reader the true unity of the discourse,
nevertheless it exists in the Greek original. Such obscurity does not
exist in the reports of Christ’s discourses in the other Gospels.
(_e_) The largest public discourse as reported would not have required
over eight minutes in delivery. I believe then that in the Fourth
Gospel we have the substantial thoughts of Christ, reproduced
generally in the words and with the phraseology of John, whose mind,
under the divine inspiration, preserves the essential truth
unimpaired, but represents it, not as a mechanical repeater of words,
but as a disciple who freely reproduces the ideas of his Master, but
largely in language of his own.
=Object and character.= We are not left to surmise the object of the
author of the Fourth Gospel. He himself tells us what it was: “These
are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God, and that, believing, ye might have life through his name.”[22]
According to John’s Gospel, true religion consists not in obedience
to an external law, but in a new life in the soul, by which it is
transformed, and the soul, its habits and character, are brought
into conformity with the law of God, that is, the law of love. This
new and divine life is implanted supernaturally from above; it is fed
perpetually by the influence of the divine Spirit; it emancipates the
soul from all bondage to sin and the law; for it preparation is made by
the life and death of the Lord; in it God is manifested in a peculiar
manner to the soul and abides with it, an indwelling Comforter. This
life comes through a vital faith in Jesus as in a peculiar sense the
Son of God, in whose life the believer finds his ideal of true life,
by whose death he is redeemed from death, by whose spiritual power he
is raised a new creature in Christ Jesus, by whose abiding presence he
is guided, guarded, strengthened, fed. Those incidents and discourses
in the life of Christ which illustrate and enforce this aspect of
Christian truth and experience are those which John gives us in his
Gospel. The other Gospels represent the duties of the disciples, John
their privileges; the other Gospels bid them what they ought to do,
John points them to what they can become; the other Gospels represent
Christ chiefly as a Saviour coming to seek and to save that which is
lost, John as a Friend abiding with his own; in the other Gospels he is
a Shepherd in the wilderness, in John the Shepherd in the fold; in the
other Gospels the Son is either still in the far country or but just
returning to his Father’s home, in John he has returned and is abiding
in his Father’s love. In the other Gospels, therefore, Jesus is chiefly
represented as a divine teacher, in John as a recognized Saviour; in
the other Gospels as the Son of man, in John as the Son of God; in the
other Gospels we have seen him as he appears to the wanderer, in John
as he is interpreted by the heart of the saved; in the other Gospels
the bridegroom is coming for his bride and is still the Unknown;
in John he has taken her to himself, and her love at least dimly
recognizes in him the One among ten thousand and altogether lovely.
These aspects of truth may be easily discerned in even a brief survey
of the Fourth Gospel.
John opens his narrative by an introduction, in which he borrows the
mystical language of Oriental philosophy to characterize Jesus, whom
he describes as the Life, the Light, the Word; he reports John the
Baptist, not as the preacher of the baptism of repentance, but as a
prophet of the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world
(ch. 1); in his account of the conversation with Nicodemus (ch. 3),
he points out the origin of the spiritual life which Christ imparts to
the believer, “Ye must be born from above;” in his report of the
conversation with the Samaritan woman, and of the discourse at
Capernaum (chaps. 4, 6), he indicates the means by which that life is
sustained, by appropriating faith in Christ; and in his record of the
intermediate discourse at Jerusalem (ch. 5), the basis for that faith
in Christ’s own portrayal of himself as the Son and manifestation of
God the Father; in his report of the discourses in the Temple, he sets
forth in a different form the same truths. (ch. 7), declares the
emancipation from bondage which faith in the Son achieves for the
soul, contrasts it with the life of bondage unto sin (ch. 8), and
describes the safety and security of the disciples, a security
purchased by the death of their Lord (ch. 10); he narrates the
resurrection of Lazarus, therein portraying Jesus as the resurrection
and the life (ch. 11); he reports those words of Jesus at the Last
Supper, the full meaning of which no Christian experience has ever yet
fully sounded, in which is promised to the believing disciple a
spiritual manifestation of God to the soul, an abiding life of God in
the soul, and a joyful realization of all spiritual fullness in God by
the soul (chaps. 14, 15, 16); he records the only reported
intercessory prayer of the Lord for his disciples (ch. 17), the burden
of which is, “As thou Father art in me and I in you, that they also
may be one in us;” in the account of the Passion he alone gives the
short dialogue between Jesus and Pilate, in which the Lord declares
himself a king and his kingdom one of everlasting truth; and in his
account of the resurrection (ch. 20), he tells the story of Thomas’s
unbelief and of Christ’s warm commendation of “those who have not seen
and yet have believed.” Life through faith--this is the burden of
John’s Evangel; Jesus Christ the Life-giver, the disciple of Jesus
Christ the recipient of a new life--this is the good news which
constitutes the Fourth Gospel.
=When and where and for whom written.= A very ancient testimony, that
of Irenæus, repeated by Jerome and later writers, fixes the place of
publication at Ephesus. This accords with the character of the Gospel
itself. The Oriental phraseology employed in the first chapter
especially, but also in less degree in other portions of the Gospel,
indicates that it was written in a city where Oriental philosophy had
a strong hold; and of all Greek cities Ephesus was the most Oriental.
Moreover, an ancient and apparently trustworthy tradition makes this
city the home of John in his later years. The time of its composition
is uncertain. Irenæus states that it was the latest written of the
four Gospels. The character of the Gospel, as we have seen, confirms
this tradition. The book bears marks of being written in old age; it
is apparently the production of a ripened Christian experience. Alford
fixes the date as between A. D. 70 and A. D. 85; Macdonald, A. D. 85
or 86; Godet, between A. D. 80 and 90; Tholuck, not far from A. D.
100.
[1] For same account in detail of these discussions, see
Godet’s Commentary on St. John’s Gospel, Intro., Chap.
II.
[2] Comp. Matt. 27:56 with Mark 15:40.
[3] Luke 8:3.
[4] Matt. 20:20, 21; Mark 15:40; 16:1.
[5] John 7:15, 48.
[6] 1 Kings 9:10, 11. See Abbott’s Dict. of Rel. Knowledge,
art. _Galilee._
[7] See John 1:35-37, notes; Matt. 4:21; 10:2; 17:1; 20:20;
26:37; Mark 5:37; John 13:23; 14:26, 27; 20:1-8; Acts
3:1, etc.; 8:14-25; Gal. 2:9.
[8] Acts, ch. 19; ch. 20:17-38.
[9] Mark 3:17; Luke 9:49-56; Matt. 20:20; John 18:15; 19:26;
Acts 4:19, 20.
[10] Matt. 16:22; John 14:5, 8, 22; John 12:4, with Matt. 26:14.
[11] John 5:16, 18; 7:13, 19; 8:40, 44, 59; 9:22, 28; 18:31, etc.
[12] See John 2:6, 13; 5:1; 6:4; 7:2; 8:17; 10:34; 15:25;
19:40, 42.
[13] John 1:14; 19:35; 21:24; 1 John 1:1-3.
[14] John 1:36, 38; 4:6; 6:10; 12:3; 13:30; 18:18.
[15] John 12:27, 28; 13:3; chaps. 14-16.
[16] John 1:19; 3:16; 6:37; chaps. 4, 5, 10, 14, 15.
[17] John 2:6; 5:1; 6:4; 7:2; 18:28; 19:40.
[18] See John 7:1, 19, 25, 32; 8:6, 59; 9:22; 10:31; 11:49.
[19] John 6:70, 71; 11:6; 13:2, 27.
[20] The student will find this hypothesis urged with great
literary ingenuity by Matthew Arnold, in “God and the
Bible.”
[21] See John 5:4, and note there.
[22] John 20:31. This declaration makes it unnecessary to
discuss the various theories which have been proposed,
such as that it was written to supplement the other
Gospels and supply their defects, or to refute certain
Gnostic heresies, or to commend Christianity to the
disciples of Oriental philosophy and the like. These may,
or may not, have been subordinate aims of the writer:
the main design he clearly indicates, and it is the
design here indicated which affords the key to the true
interpretation of the Gospel as a whole.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN.
1:1-18. THE CHRISTOLOGY OF JOHN.--THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST.--THE
CREATIVE POWER OF CHRIST.--THE REGENERATING WORK OF CHRIST.--THE
ILLUMINATION GIVEN BY CHRIST.--THE DIVINE MANIFESTATION IN CHRIST.--THE
WORD; THE LIGHT; THE LIFE; THE TABERNACLE; THE ONLY-BEGOTTEN
SON.--CONTRASTED WITH JOHN THE BAPTIST; WITH MOSES.--THE GIFTS HE
CONFERS; THE WELCOME HE RECEIVES.
PRELIMINARY NOTE.--The ordinary English reader will find no difficulty
in comprehending the truths which John expresses in this introduction
to his Gospel, viz., the pre-existence, divine attributes, and divine
nature of that Jesus, the Messiah, of whom his book is written. John
identifies him with the Word, which was with God from eternity, and
with the Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
But it is not so clear why he should use the peculiar and somewhat
mysterious language here employed; for the full understanding of this,
some historical explanation is necessary. My object in this note is to
afford very briefly this historical explanation, as a basis for more
detailed consideration of particular words and phrases in the notes.
From the earliest ages the ablest minds have been perplexed by the
problem how to reconcile faith in an all-wise, all-powerful, and
all-benevolent Creator, with the fact of a creation full of sin and
suffering. One of the ablest thinkers of modern times (John Stuart
Mill) has declared the problem insoluble, and from the facts of
creation has deduced the conclusion that the Creator is neither
all-wise, all-powerful, nor all-good; to use his own words respecting
the Creator, “his wisdom is possibly, his power certainly limited,
and his goodness, though real, is not likely to have been the only
motive which actuated him in the work of creation.”--(_Three Essays in
Religion._) Oriental philosophy, pondering this problem, proposed for
its solution an hypothesis which to a Western mind seems singularly
puerile and fantastic, and yet which, in slightly different forms,
gained, at one period in the world’s history, an acceptance quite as
widespread as any form of philosophy or theology of to-day. This
hypothesis, however modified in form, was in essence this, that the
evil in the world came not from the Creator, but from some other and
inferior Being. In the Persian religion there were two deities, a good
and an evil god, Ormuzd and Ahriman, struggling with each other for
the supremacy. In the Chaldean philosophy Light was the soul of the
universe and the Original First Cause; in the lower realms, far below
the space filled with pure and unapproachable light, were darkness,
night, and all forth-springing evils, which either the Supreme Light
regarded it beneath his dignity to contend with, or which were
indestructible and could only be confined within narrow limits, not
destroyed. In the Hindoo philosophy, the Great First Cause, the
beatific Brahm, lived in perpetual repose, in a supreme and serene
indifference to all things. From him, by emanations, proceeded lesser
deities, and from these, by a process more or less remote, a corrupt
creation. At the beginning of the Christian era, Alexandria, founded
by and named in honor of Alexander the Great, was one of the
intellectual centres of the world. Here was gathered a library of over
700,000 volumes; here congregated Oriental dreamers, Greek philosophers,
and Jewish religionists. Here, in the third century before Christ, was
translated into the Greek language the Old Testament Scriptures. Here
about 20 B. C., was born Philo, a Jew, of a priestly family, a
philosopher and _litterateur_, and a voluminous writer. He was not an
original thinker; his works are therefore all the more valuable as a
reflection of the current mystical philosophy of his age and school.
This dreamy philosophy it is difficult to translate into modern forms
of thought. So far as this can be done, it may be said to have
involved the following statements: God is simply the absolute,
unchangeable Existence, incomprehensible, inconceivable, yet ever to
be the object of our thoughts and meditations. He could not come
directly into contact with matter without losing something of his
ineffable excellence. Hence he gave forth certain divine powers or
influences, “incorporeal potencies,” which surround God as the members
of a court surround an earthly monarch. The highest of these is the
divine Logos or Word of God. Through this Word the world was created,
and to the influence of the inferior potencies the evils of the world
must be attributed. Again, borrowing the imagery of the Chaldeans,
Philo conceives of God as the pure and absolute Light, the original
source of effulgence, the Logos or Word as the nearest circle of light
proceeding from it, and each separate power as a separate ray, fading
more and more away into darkness, as it becomes removed from the
original source and centre. From this philosophy was later developed
that peculiar and incomprehensible form of thought known as
Gnosticism. This Gnostic philosophy, which reached its climax in the
second century after Christ, undertook to describe in detail all the
emanations from the original inconceivable deity; Reason, the Word,
practical Wisdom, theoretical Wisdom, Power, Light, Life, were all
lesser deities. The God of the Jews was one of these lower deities;
Jesus Christ was a higher deity--the Reason according to some, the
Word according to others, who came to deliver the world from its
subjection to the inferior deity, and who entered the body of Jesus at
his baptism, and departed from it just before his crucifixion. Whether
John was acquainted with the writings of Philo we do not know; but he
was certainly familiar with this Gnostic philosophy. It had already
begun to enter into and corrupt the Christian church during the
lifetime of Paul, whose writings contain frequent references to
different phases of it (e. g., Col. 2:18; 1 Tim. 4:1-4; 2 Tim.
2:16-18); Ephesus, a city of luxury, effeminacy and superstition
(Acts, ch. 19, notes), was a centre of this philosophy; in Paul’s
address to the elders of the church at Ephesus (Acts 20:29, 30), and
in his letter to Timothy, first bishop of that church (subs. to 2
Tim.), he especially warns against it (2 Tim. 2:16-18; 3:8, 9); and
Ephesus was John’s residence, and probably the city in which he wrote
his Gospel. (See Introduction.)
John, then, employs the language of this mystical philosophy, in order
more effectually to refute its errors. He finds a certain substratum
of truth, viz., that there is one God and one Mediator between God and
man, underlying this superstructure of error; he begins his Gospel
by occupying this ground, and by his phraseology brings himself into
sympathy with his Gnostic readers; then, from this common ground he
leads them on to the truth respecting the incarnation. It is true,
he says to them, that there is a Word of God, but this Word was from
the beginning with God, and is indeed God himself, who is not
incommunicable, but a self-manifesting God. It is true that there is a
Life and a Light; but the Life is God himself, not an inferior and
subordinate deity; and the Light is not remote and unapproachable, but
lighteth every man that cometh into the world. For this Mediator is
not an emanation from God, but God himself, the true Light shining in
the darkness (verse 5), the true Life by whom we can not only commune
with Christ, but become the very children of God (verses 12, 13). And
he has come and tabernacled among men in the flesh, in the earthly
life of Jesus of Nazareth.
It only remains to add that there is to be found in the Old Testament
(see notes below) a Scriptural basis for John’s use of the language
here, particularly his phrase “the Word of God,” and that there is not
the least ground for the claims of some rationalistic scholars that
John derived his doctrine here from Philo, or from the Alexandrian or
Gnostic schools. On the contrary, his doctrine and theirs are radically
inconsistent. Philo holds that matter is inherently defiling, that God
cannot come into contact with matter, even to fashion it in creation,
without defilement; John, that God “was made flesh and dwelt among us,”
and yet so far from being defiled thereby, manifested his glory, “the
glory of the only-begotten of the Father.”
CHAPTER I.
1 In[23] the beginning was the Word,[24] and the Word was
with[25] God, and the Word was[26] God.
[23] Prov. 8:22, 31; Col. 1:16, 17; 1 John 1:1.
[24] Rev. 19:13.
[25] ch. 17:5.
[26] Phil. 2:6; Heb. 1:8-13; 1 John 5:7.
=1. In the beginning.= John begins the Gospel where Moses began the
Law. The employment of and the reference to the language of the
first verse of the first chapter of Genesis is unmistakable. In that
beginning in which God created the heavens and the earth was the Word,
and the Word was with God and was God and was the One through whom
the act of creation was consummated. So in Prov., chap. 8, Wisdom
personified is represented as with God in the creation and from the
beginning (see especially verses 23-29). For parallel passages
teaching the pre-existence of Christ, see John 8:58; 17:5; Phil. 2:5,
6; 1 John 1:1. In Rev. 3:14 he is described as “the beginning of the
creation of God,” but this does not necessarily imply that he was a
created Being. See notes there.--=Was the Word.= There are several
Greek words meaning _word_; (1 and 2) ῥῆμα and ἔπος, word in the
grammatical sense, _i. e._, that which is spoken; (3) μῦθος, word in
the rhetorical sense, that which is delivered by words, the subject
expressed; (4) ὄνομα, word in a technical sense, strictly a _name_,
and only because words are names or appellations; (5) λόγος, word in
the philosophical sense, the outward form by which the inward thought
is expressed. The latter term is employed here. As the thoughts or
experiences of the soul are completely hidden from us till they are
uttered, so God is the Unknown and the Unknowable, save as he utters
himself, discloses his nature to us, which he does chiefly if not
solely through him who is for that reason called the Word, _i. e._,
the utterance of God. The metaphor which underlies this phraseology
is in part interpreted by the saying of Wordsworth that language is
the incarnation of ideas. (2) In the Old Testament we have a partial
employment of the same symbolism. In Moses’ account of the creation,
God is represented as calling the various powers of nature into
being by a _word_. “God said Light be! Light was!” (Gen. 1:3, see
also 6, 9, 11, etc.) In the later Hebrew poetry this symbol is
made more prominent in the distinct declaration that “by the word of
the Lord were the heavens made.” (Ps. 33:6; comp. 107:20; Isaiah
55:10, 11; see also Heb. 11:3.) The same symbol, in a slightly
different form, reappears in Prov., chap. 8, which is connected
with that employed here by the language of certain of the apocryphal
books, _e. g._, “I (Wisdom) came out of the mouth of the Most High
and covered the earth as a cloud” (Ecclesiasticus 24:3). “She
(Wisdom) is the breath of the power of God” (Wisdom of Solomon
1:25). (3) The same symbolism was employed as we have seen (Prel. Note
above) in the mystical philosophy of Alexandria and of later
Gnosticism, with which John was familiar, and of which, Ephesus,
his city, was a centre, to represent an eon or emanation for the
deity. That the Word here does not mean the Bible or the Gospel is
evident both from the connection, since it cannot be said that the
Bible became flesh (ver. 14), and also from John’s usage, who never
employs the phrase Word of God to designate the Bible, but usually
the term Scriptures or writings (John 2:22; 5:39; 7:38, 42; 19:24,
28, 36, 37, etc.). Moreover he does employ this phraseology elsewhere
to designate Jesus Christ (1 John 1:1; Rev. 19:13). It cannot mean
_the Speaking One_ nor _the Promised One_. Though both these meanings
have been attributed to it, it is not grammatically capable of either
interpretation. There is classical authority for rendering it _Reason_
or _Order_, and this meaning it still retains in words ending with
_ology_, such as _ge-ology_ (ge-logos), the order, _i. e._, science of
the earth; _path-ology_ (pathos-logos), the order, _i. e._, science of
disease. But it is never used with this signification by John, and is
never but once so used in the N. T. (1 Peter 3:15), if even there the
translation is strictly accurate, which is doubtful. Seeking, then, to
understand John as he would have been understood by his contemporaries,
I think it clear that he declares, not that Reason or Wisdom was in
the beginning with God, nor Speech, nor the Promised Messiah, but _the
Word_, _i. e._, _the One by and through whom he was chiefly to be
manifested to the world_, as one soul is to another by utterance.--=And
the Word was with God and the Word was God.= Grammatically the last
clause of the sentence may be read, _and God was the Word_. But the
obvious connection calls for the rendering of our English version, and
it is the rendering adopted by the best scholars. There is a difference
in the language of the first and last clause of this sentence in the
original which is significant, but difficult, if not impossible, to
render in the English. In the first clause, “_the Word was with God_,”
the article accompanies the word God; in the second clause, “_the
Word was God_,” it is wanting. We should measurably reflect the
meaning by reading the passage, “the Word was with God and the Word was
divine;” or “the Word was with the Father and the Word was God.”
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
=2. The same was in the beginning with God.= John recurs to his first
statement and reiterates it, not merely for the sake of emphasis,
but also to mark a real distinction between the Word and the unknown
Father. For he labors to express two conflicting and even apparently
contradictory ideas, the identity of the Word with God and the
individuality of the Word, as distinct from the infinite and invisible
deity. This contradiction subsequent theology has endeavored in vain
to eliminate by drawing distinctions between essence and substance,
person and being, etc., in such phraseologies as three in substance and
one in essence, or three persons in one God. This _philosophy_ of the
Trinity is extra-Scriptural, framed to harmonize teachings respecting
the divine nature, which are best harmonized by the frank confession
that the knowledge of the divine nature is too wonderful for us, we
cannot attain unto it (Ps. 139:6; Job 11:7). So Chalmers, “The
Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. God is one. If
you ask me to reconcile the four (propositions), I answer, I cannot.
We require no one to reconcile the personality of each with the unity
of God.” So Calvin, “I could wish them (the extra-Scriptural phrases,
person, hypostasis, etc.) to be buried in oblivion, provided this truth
were universally received, that the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit
are the one God; and that nevertheless the Son is not the Father, nor
the Spirit the Son, but that they are distinguished from each other by
some peculiar properties.”
3 All[27] things were made by him; and without him was not
anything made that was made.
[27] Ps. 33:6; Eph. 3:9.
=3. All things were made by him.= To interpret this language “All
things” as meaning simply the moral creation, is to distort plain
language in order to conform it to preconceived ideas, a fault in
exegesis of which no school of theology is entirely innocent. The
reference to Genesis, ch. 1, is unmistakable. The declaration is
parallel to and interpreted by such passages as Col. 1:16; 1 Cor. 8:6;
Heb. 1:2. The Greek student will observe, however, and the English
student should know, that the language here implies that the Word
was the _instrument_ by which God created the “all things,” not the
_original source of creative power_. There are two Greek prepositions
translated in English “_by_,” one (ἐκ) signifying the source or origin
from which anything proceeds, or the power by which it is produced;
the other (διά) signifying the means or instrument through which it is
produced. One indicates the original, the other the proximate cause.
The preposition here used is the latter, and the exact meaning of the
sentence will be imparted by the rendering All things were made _by
means of him_ or _through him_. With this interpretation corresponds
the general teaching of the New Testament, which represents Christ,
both in his earthly life and in his heavenly administration, as always
the executor of his Father’s will. This is in some sense especially
prominent in John’s Gospel (see for example John 5:22, 23, 27; 6:37,
44, 57; 8:28, 42; 10:29; 14:10; 17:18, 24); but it is equally clearly
taught elsewhere (Luke 2:49; 1 Cor. 15:27, 28; Phil. 2:9; Col. 1:19;
comp. Mark 10:40, note and references there).--=And without him was
not anything made that was made.= Simply an emphatic and exhaustive
reiteration, such as is not infrequent in fervid writing. For analogous
rhetorical repetition in John see verse 20; 1 John 2:4, 27. Some
manuscripts and some few scholars put a period at the close of the
first clause of the sentence, and connect the last clause with the
following verse, so that the passage reads: _And without him was not
anything made. And what originated in him was life._ But while this
reading is grammatically possible, it is generally repudiated by the
best scholars, who accept the punctuation and rendering of our English
version as correct.
4 In him[28] was life; and the life was the light[29] of
men.
[28] ch. 5:26; 1 John 5:11.
[29] ch. 8:12.
=4. In him was life.= There is probably a reference here again to the
language of Gnostic philosophy (See Prel. Note), which supposed
other eons or emanations from God, besides the Word, prominent among
which was Light and Life. Here, as throughout this introduction, John
employs the language of the Gnostics to correct their errors. The
general and practical teaching for us of the declaration is that Christ
is the source of both physical or external life (Col. 1:17), and
of intellectual and spiritual life (ch. 10:10). It is admirably
interpreted by Kaulbach’s famous cartoon of the Reformation, in which
Luther with the open Bible in his hand is represented as the centre
of the intellectual and moral awakening which characterized that
century. Observe, since Christ is Life and Light, that any religion
which dwarfs man, represses their life, belittles them, and any which
shuts them up in darkness and denies them intellectual freedom
and progress in any direction, is so far anti-Christ. The cause of
Christ has nothing to fear from any intellectual life or any light of
scientific discovery.--=And the life was the light of men.= Not merely
_shall be_, not merely _is_, but _was_. The intimation is that all the
light of Old Testament prophecy and instruction, if not all that dim
religious light which has illuminated even heathen nations, through
special instructors such as Buddha, Confucius and Socrates, came
through the Word, _i. e._, through the Mediator by whom the invisible
God reveals himself to man, of which revelation the incarnation
(ver. 14) is only a part, though a most important part. Compare
with the language here 1 John 1:5.
5 And the light shineth in[30] darkness; and the darkness
comprehended[31] it not.
[30] ch. 3:19.
[31] 1 Cor. 2:14.
=5. And the light shineth in the darkness.= _Shines_, not merely
appears; a real illumination is indicated; _shines_, not shone; a
present and continuous illumination is indicated; _the_ darkness, not
merely darkness; as, before God said “Let there be light,” the earth
is reported as enveloped in darkness (Gen. 1:2), so, before and
apart from this spiritual illumination, through the Light of the world,
the nations of the earth were in gross darkness. Comp. Isaiah 42:6,
7; Matt. 4:16, note; Ephes. 5:7, 8; John 12:46.--=And the darkness
comprehended it not.= This has been universally true in the world’s
history; the dim light of conscience has never been apprehended, taken
hold of by heathen nations. The light afforded by special and signal
moral geniuses has never been comprehended aright by the people, as
witness the deterioration of Buddhism and Confucianism; the teachings
of the Jewish prophets were not comprehended; they shone in darkness
which was not dispelled by their instructors; and the clearer light
of Christ has never, even in the best ages, been more than very
imperfectly apprehended, even in the church. Here the primary reference
is certainly to the constant closing of their eyes by the Jews to the
light of the Old Testament teachings, concerning the spirit of true
religion, the nature of the kingdom of God, and the character and
appearance of the promised Messiah. For the reason why the darkness
does not comprehend the light, see chap. 3:19; comp. Matt. 13:15, note.
6 There was a man[32] sent from God, whose name _was_ John.
7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the
Light, that all _men_ through him might believe.
[32] Luke 3:2, 3.
=6, 7. There was a man sent from God.= From a characterization of the
light, John passes to a description of the incarnation and its object,
and to a discrimination between the incarnate Light and the prophet
who foretold its coming. From the Greek word here rendered _sent_
(ἀποστέλλω, _apostello_) comes our word _apostle_. The apostle is a
man sent from God; Christ is the word or utterance, or manifestation
of God. Comp. Heb. 1:1-3.--=John.= The Baptist.--=The same came for a
witness.= As one who enters the witness-stand to testify what he
knows, so John the Baptist came to declare what had been revealed to
him concerning the coming Messiah. Comp. John 5:32-35.--=To bear
witness of the Light.= Simply a repetition and amplification of the
previous clause of the sentence. He was not a mere preacher of the
law, nor of the duty of repentance, though this is the phase of his
ministry most prominent in the reports of Matt. (3:1-12), and Luke
(3:1-18). He was a forerunner of the great King, sent to bear witness
of his approach. And this phase of his ministry, though indicated in
the other Gospels (Matt. 3:11; 11:9, Mark 1:7, 8; Luke 3:16, 17), is
most clearly brought out in John (verses 23, 29-36).--=That all
through him might believe.= That is, through John might believe in the
Light. The other construction, through the Light might believe, _i.
e._, in God, is forced and unnatural, even if grammatically
admissible. The true office of the Christian ministry is so to bear
witness to the Light which the preacher _knows_ by his own experience
(Rom. 7:14; 8:28; 2 Tim. 1:12), that men may believe in and accept
that Light (2 Cor. 4:5; Col. 1:28.)
8 He[33] was not that Light, but _was sent_ to bear witness
of that Light.
9 _That_ was the true Light,[34] which lighteth every man
that cometh into the world.
[33] Acts 19:4.
[34] Isa. 49:6.
=8, 9.= An early Gnostic sect (second century) believed that John was
the Messiah. The primary reference here appears to be to this error,
which, in common with other Gnostic errors (see Prel. Note),
John aims to correct in this introduction to his Gospel. Compare, with
the declaration here, Christ’s characterization of John, “He was a
burning and a shining light” (ch. 5:35). The Greek scholar will
observe that the English word “_light_” represents different Greek
words in the two passages. Here the word is one signifying original
light (φῶς), there rather a borrowed or reflected light (λύχνοσ),
though the latter word is once applied to Christ (Rev. 21:23).
We are to be in a true sense the former kind of light (φῶς, Matt.
5:14), because Christ _in us_ is our light, and by his indwelling
we are made partakers of his nature (2 Pet. 1:4), and men seeing
this light glorify, not us, but Him who shines in and through
us.--=The true Light was that which lighteth every man that cometh into
the world.= There is some difficulty about the construction of this
sentence; this appears to me to be the best. For other constructions,
see Alford and Meyer. On the meaning of the declaration observe,
(1) That John’s use of the word _true_ here is interpreted by his
use of the same word in other and analogous passages, _e. g._, “true
worshippers” (John 4:23); “true bread” (ch. 6:32); “true vine” (ch.
15:1). The light, the bread, the vine of earth are regarded only as
symbols of the spiritual truths which they parabolically represent.
Christ is the original pattern, or source of light; all prophets and
teachers are only reflections from him; all material light is a symbol
or parable of his illuminating grace. (2) The phrase, “_lighteth every
man that cometh into the world_,” is not to be taken as an hyperbole.
The latter clause is added, not merely, as Meyer, “as a solemn
redundance,” “an epic fullness of words,” but to emphasize and make
clear the declaration, and to show that “every man” means not merely
(_a_) the Jews, nor (_b_) those who accept Christ as their light, nor
(_c_) the Christian nations, but literally _all men_. The _every_
(πᾶς) here is thus distinguished from the _all_ (πᾶς) of verse 7
above. Christ is the universal light; all intellectual and political
as well as moral illumination has come through him; and this, not only
in Christendom, but also in heathendom. Such light as struggles
through the thick darkness, in a partial disclosure of divine truth
afforded by a Buddha or a Confucius, or dimly recognized by a
Cornelius, comes from Him who, in larger or smaller measure, lighteth
_every_ man that cometh into the world. By this declaration we are to
interpret such passages as Matt. 8:11; Acts 10:35; Rev. 5:9; whoever
accepts even this imperfect and dim light, mistakenly called the light
of Nature, in so far accepts Christ.
10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him,
and[35] the world knew him not.
[35] verse 5.
11 He[36] came unto his own, and his own received him
not.
[36] Acts 3:26; 13:46.
=10, 11.= Notice the rhetorical climax in these verses; he _was in_
the world; he _came_ unto his own; the world _knew_ him not; his
own _received_ him not. The _world_ is here humanity in general,
Jew and Gentile, both of whom united in Christ’s crucifixion; the
Jew, represented in the high-priest who deliberately rejected him
(John 11:47-50), the Gentile, represented in Pilate and the
soldiers, who simply did not know him. _His own_ are the Jewish
people, Jehovah’s peculiar possession (Exod. 19:5; Deut. 7:6;
Psalm 135:4; Isaiah 31:9), to whom he first came and by whom he
was rejected before he was preached to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46;
Rom. 1:16). It was only the world of _men_ that knew him not;
nature knew and obeyed him whenever he commanded her obedience, as
in the turning of water into wine, the stilling of the tempest, etc.
The verbs in this sentence are in the imperfect tense, and the
reference is to the incarnation of Christ and his earthly life. Observe
that the Jewish nation which rejected the Messiah is rejected by God
(Matt. 8:12), and that the disciples of Christ are not to know
the world which knew not their Lord and Master (1 John 2:15-17).
12 But as many[37] as received him, to them gave he power
to become the sons of God, _even_ to them[38] that believe
on his name:
[37] Isa. 56:4, 5; Rom. 8:14, 15; 1 John 3:1.
[38] Gal. 3:26.
=12. But as many as received him.= Not merely, as Alford, “recognized
him as that which he was--the Word of God and Light of men,” but
_received him_ as the Word to be implicitly obeyed (ch. 14:21;
15:10, 15), and the Light in which to walk (1 John 1:6).--=To
them gave he power= (ἐξουσίαν). Not _capability_, nor _privilege_,
nor _claim_, but _power and right_; the original word combines the two
ideas. He confers the _power_ to become the sons of God, and confers
the _right_ to claim that privilege. Ryle is certainly correct in
saying that this verse “does not mean that Christ confers on those who
receive him a spiritual and moral strength, by which they convert
themselves, change their own hearts, and make themselves God’s
children.” He is as certainly wrong in saying, with Calvin and the
marginal reading, that the original Greek word means “right or
privilege.” The reader will best get its meaning by comparing John’s
use of it in other passages, in no one of which could it be rendered
either “right” or “privilege.” See ch. 5:27; 10:18; 17:2; 19:10, 11.
Comp. Matt. 28:18, note. The plain implication here is that the
_power_ to become a son of God is not natural and inherent, but
acquired, and is the especial gift of God. See Phil. 2:12, 13; Titus
3:4, 5.--=To become the sons of God.= Sons and therefore (1) partakers
of the divine nature (Ephes. 4:13; Heb. 12:10; 2 Pet. 1:4); (2)
entitled to and walking in freedom as children, not in bondage as
servants (ch. 15:15; Gal. 4:1-7); (3) heirs of God and joint-heirs
with Christ, his only-begotten Son (Rom. 8:16, 17). But the full
conception of the meaning of this sonship we cannot know, till in the
other world we see the Father as he is (1 John 3:1, 2).--=Even to them
that have faith in his name.= His name is _Jesus_, _i. e._, Saviour,
given to him because he saves his people from their sins (Matt. 1:21).
To have faith in that name is to have faith in him as a personal
Saviour from sin. Observe, then, that this verse comprises the whole
Gospel in a sentence. It declares (1) the object of the Gospel: that
we who are by nature the children of disobedience and of wrath (Ephes.
2:2, 3) may become the sons of God; (2) the source to which we are to
look for this prerogative of sonship: _power_ conferred by God; (3)
the means by which we are to attain it: personal faith in a personal
Saviour from sin. Observe too that John follows his description of the
rejection of Christ, not by threatening punishment to them, but by
depicting the infinite gain of those that accept Christ.
13 Which were born,[39] not of blood, nor of the will of
the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
[39] James 1:18.
=13. Not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of
man, but of God.= That is, not by inheritance (Luke 3:8); nor by
resolution (Rom. 8:5-8); nor by human teaching (1 Cor. 3:6, 7); but by
the direct personal influence and contact of the Spirit of God on the
heart (Titus 3:5, 6). Thus, John emphasizes the declaration of the
preceding verse, that _God gives the power to become the sons of God_,
by declaring that Christian character is not the product of either
good parentage, a strong will, or a good education, but directly of a
divine recreative act. (Gal. 6:15.) The Greek student will observe
that the preposition used is _of_ (ἐκ), not _through_ (διά); the
writer is speaking of the _origin_ or _source_ of Christian character,
not of the _instruments_ by which it is developed. Good parentage,
will power, and education, are all _means_ for the development of
divine sonship; the original cause, without which a true son of God is
never produced, is the creative act of God himself.
14 And the Word[40] was made flesh, and dwelt among us,
(and[41] we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only
begotten of the Father,) full[42] of grace and truth.
[40] Luke 1:35; 1 Tim. 3:16.
[41] 2 Pet. 1:17; 1 John 1:1, 2.
[42] Ps. 45:2; Col. 2:3, 9.
=14. And the Word.= The self-manifesting God, as described in the first
verse.--=Became flesh.= Not _a man_ (ἄνθρωπος) nor _a body_ (σῶμα),
but _flesh_ (σάρξ). The word is one whose signification would probably
be best rendered to the English reader by the phrase _human nature_.
Though occasionally used in the N. T. of the literal and material flesh
(Acts 2:31), it almost always indicates man in his corporeal or
earthly nature, sometimes signifying the predominance of that over the
higher or spiritual nature, sometimes simply signifying this aspect of
his nature, without any indication of its corrupt tendencies. Here,
then, the declaration is that the Word became human nature; _how_ is
not indicated. The language gives no sanction to either of the two
principal theories of the incarnation; the first, that Christ _took
on_ human nature as something superadded to the divine, so carrying
through life a double nature, both divine and human; the second, that
he simply entered a human body and became subject to the limitations
which it imposed on him. _How the divine became human_ we must learn
elsewhere in the N. T., if the N. T. reveals it at all; but the
declaration here is explicit that the divine Word became human.--=And
tabernacled among us.= _Pitched his tent with us._ As God in the
wilderness dwelt for a time in the transitory tabernacle, so the Word
dwelt in the flesh, which is elsewhere in the N. T. compared to a
tabernacle (2 Cor. 5:1, 4; 2 Pet. 1:13, 14). As God dwelt subsequently
in the permanent Temple at Jerusalem, so the Word makes its permanent
abode in the soul of the believer, which is the _Temple_, not the
Tabernacle of God (ch. 15:6, 7; 2 Cor. 6:16; Rev. 21:3). That the
reference here is to the incarnation, not to the spiritual presence of
Christ with the believer, is evident from the fact that the verb
(ἐσκίνωσεν) is in the historical tense. John says he _tabernacled_,
not he _tabernacles_, among us.--=And we beheld his glory, the glory
as of the only begotten from the Father.= We are made sons of God; but
Christ alone is the _only begotten Son_. For the meaning of this
phrase, see Luke 7:12; 8:42; 9:38. John uses it only of Jesus Christ.
The Greek student should observe the use of the preposition _from_
(παρά). It designates the source from which anything is derived, and
here indicates that in a peculiar sense Christ is from the Father,
directly and immediately; we are from him only through Christ. Comp.
ch. 7:29. In a peculiar sense the Apostles beheld Christ’s glory (ch.
2:11; Matt. 17:1-4; 2 Pet. 1:16; 1 John 1:1). But in Christ’s life and
character, and in their influence on the world, we are all beholders
of the true divine glory, manifested in him (Heb. 1:3); and his
earthly life is the brightness and glory of heaven (Rev. 21:23; 5:9,
10). The language, _as of the only begotten_, distinguishes the glory
of Christ from that of all previous revealers of the divine will and
nature. Since many of the prophets too were glorified, as Moses,
Elijah, and Elisha, the one encircled by the fiery chariot, the other
taken up by it; and after them Daniel and the three children, and the
many others who showed forth wonders; and angels who have appeared
among men, and partly disclosed to beholders the flashing light of
their proper nature; and since not angels only, but even the cherubim
were seen by the prophet in great glory and the seraphim also; the
Evangelist, leading us away from all these, and removing our thoughts
from created things, and from the brightness of our fellow-servants,
sets us at the very summit of good. For, “not of prophets,” says he,
“nor angel, nor archangel, nor of the higher powers, nor of any other
created nature, if other there be, but of the Master himself, the King
himself, the true only begotten Son himself, of the very Lord of all,
did we _behold the glory_.”--(_Chrysostom._)--=Full of grace and
truth.= There is some doubt whether this is said of the _glory_
beheld, or of the _only begotten Son_ whose glory was beheld. The
question is not very important; the latter construction is
grammatically preferable. Thus rendered, the clause “And we beheld,
etc.,” is parenthetical, John’s statement being: “The Word tabernacled
among us, full of grace and truth.” Observe (1) that the _grace_ here
answers to the _Life_ in verse 4, and the _truth_ to the _Light_ in
verse 9. Because of his grace Christ is Life to all who accept him;
because of his truth he is Light to all who follow him; (2) that the
declaration here is explained by, and is possibly partially derived
from Exodus 33:18, 19, where Moses asks to see God’s glory, and is
promised a disclosure of the divine _goodness_; in the goodness of God
in Christ Jesus we behold the divine glory; (3) that the Christian is
to be, like his Master, full of grace _and_ truth, and that to be at
once perfectly truthful and also gracious is one of the most difficult
practical problems of the Christian life (Rom. 12:9). It seems to me
clear that John has in mind throughout this verse the manifestation of
the glory of God, through the Shechinah, in the Tabernacle, and
subsequently in the Temple (Exod. 40:34, 35; 1 Kings 8:10; see Matt.
17:5, note). As the Shechinah made luminous and glorious these earthly
dwelling-places, so the Word, by his indwelling, made glorious the
flesh.
15 John[43] bare witness of him, and cried, saying,
This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is
preferred before me: for he was before me.
[43] Matt. 3:11, etc.
=15. John is testifying concerning him.= John the Baptist was long
since dead when these words were written; but his testimony was
not dead; it was an ever-living testimony. The verb is therefore
put in the present tense, not, as in our English version, in the
past.--=And he cried, saying,= It is the echo of this cry which still
resounds and witnesses to Jesus Christ. The language used implies a
public testimony, and one borne with confidence and joy. On seeing
the Christ of whom he had prophesied, John the Baptist _cries out_,
“This is he of whom I spoke.” For illustration of John’s prophetic
utterances concerning the Messiah, previous to the baptism of Jesus,
see Matt. 3:11, 12; Mark 1:7, 8.--=He that cometh after me.= Christ
did not begin his public ministry till the imprisonment of John the
Baptist (Mark 1:14). Thus as a public teacher he came after John the
Baptist.--=Came forth before me.= Not, _was before me_ (γίγνομαι has
not the force of εἰμί), for then the sentence would be tautological--
that Jesus _was_ before John is in the next clause given as the
_reason_ for the statement in this, that he came forth before him; nor
can the meaning be _was preferred before me_, in the sense of esteemed
above me, for the mere fact of Christ’s pre-existence would be no
reason for esteeming him more highly than John--the devil _existed_
before John the Baptist; nor, _was preferred before me_, in the sense
of, was exalted in rank above me, though some excellent scholars, _e.
g._, Alford, Olshausen, De Wette, so interpret it; but, as I have
rendered it above, _came forth_, or, _was set before me_. The
reference is to the previous manifestations of the Word, in the
partial revelations of God in the O. T. All the disclosures of the
divine nature in the O. T. were made through the Word or utterance of
God, through whom alone he speaks to the human race. See ver. 4, note,
and ch. 8:56-58. John then says “He who is coming after me is the One
who has already come forth before me; for he existed before me.”
Christ’s pre-existence would not explain the preference, either in the
divine love or in rank, but it does in part explain precedence in
appearance or manifestation. So Hengstenberg, “My successor is my
predecessor.”
16 And of his fulness[44] have all we received, and grace
for grace.
[44] ch. 3:34.
=16. And of his fullness have we all received.= The _fullness_ is
that of the divine nature, of which we are made partakers through
faith in Christ (Col. 1:19; 2:9, 10; Ephes. 3:19). The _all_
are those who receive him and thus become the sons of God (verse
12). This and the two following verses are the addition of the
Evangelist, not the continuance of John the Baptist’s discourse;
this is evident both from their style, which better accords with
that of the Evangelist, and because the _fullness_ of Christ’s
nature was not received by John the Baptist and his disciples, for
it was not disclosed till after the Baptist’s death. Observe, (1)
How inexhaustible the fountain. From Christ’s fullness all spiritual
life is supplied. Chrysostom compares Christ to a fire from which ten
thousand lamps are kindled, but which burns as brightly thereafter
as before. “The sea is diminished if you take a drop from it, though
the diminution be imperceptible; but how much soever a man draw from
the divine Fountain, it continues undiminished.” (2) How free the
supply; we have _all_ received. “None went empty away.”--(_Meyer._)
(3) The nature of Christian experience. It is not a mere trust in
a crucified Saviour for pardon for the past; it is also a personal
and continuous receiving of divine life from the fullness of a
living Saviour.--=And grace for grace.= Of this expression there are
two interpretations. The ancient expositors understood it to
mean, For the lesser grace of the O. T. we have received the greater
grace of the N. T. So Chrysostom: “There was a righteousness and
there is a righteousness (Rom. 1:17); there was a glory and there is a
glory (2 Cor. 3:11); there was a law and there is a law (Rom. 8:2);
there was a service and there is a service (Rom. 9:4; 12:11); there
was a covenant and there is a covenant (Jer. 31:31, 32); there was a
sanctification and there is a sanctification; there was a baptism and
there is a baptism; there was a sacrifice and there is a sacrifice;
there was a temple and there is a temple; there was a circumcision and
there is a circumcision; and so too there was a grace and there is a
grace.” The modern commentators, Alford, Meyer, Lange, etc.,
understand it to mean, “For each new accessory of grace we receive a
still larger gift. Each grace, though, when given large enough, is, as
it were, overwhelmed by the accumulation and fullness of that which
follows.”--(_Bengel._) “Grace for grace, grace _in the place_ of
that which preceded--therefore grace uninterrupted, unceasingly
renewed.”--(_Winer._) The spiritual signification of the passage is
substantially the same on either interpretation. We have nothing to
give in exchange for the divine grace; our only virtue is to receive.
It is given to us in exchange for the grace already imparted. “Unto
every one that hath shall be given;” but what he already hath is God’s
gift, which bestows both the good and the purchase money, each new
gift superseding the old, as the N. T. gift of grace and truth through
Jesus Christ superseded the lesser gift of law through Moses. With
this accords the teaching of both O. T. and N. T. See, for example,
Deut. 7:7; Ps. 6:4; 23:3; 25:7; 31:16; 79:9; 115:1; Isaiah 55:1;
Ephes. 2:4; 1 John 4:8, 10.
17 For the law was given by Moses, _but_ grace[45] and
truth came by Jesus Christ.
[45] Ps. 85:10; Rom. 5:21.
=17. For the law was given by Moses.= _Through_ (διὰ) Moses as the
instrument or mediator of the old covenant.--=Grace and truth came by
Jesus Christ.= _Through_ (διὰ) Jesus Christ as the mediator of the new
covenant. The _grace_ is the favor of God (see below), the _truth_ is
the clear revelation of the divine character and will, seen only dimly
under the old covenant. (2 Cor. 3:13, 14.) Observe the contrast
between Christ and Moses (comp. Heb. 3:5, 6); and between the
gifts brought by the two. The law _was given_, a completed thing, once
for all; _grace and truth_ came and continually come, grace for grace,
out of the inexhaustible fullness of the giver.
ON THE MEANING OF THE WORD “GRACE.” The word here translated _grace_
(χάρις) is also variously translated in the N. T. _acceptable_,
_benefit_, _favor_, _gift_, _joy_, _liberality_, _pleasure_, _thanks_,
and _thankworthy_. This fact will of itself sufficiently indicate that
the word possesses various shades of meaning. They are all, however,
etymologically derived from the same root idea. The noun is derived
from a verb meaning to rejoice, and primarily signifies that which
gives joy to another. With the Greeks, beauty was one of the chief
joys; hence the first meaning of the word--grace of external form,
manner, or language, a meaning which it but rarely bears in the N. T.
(see Luke 4:22; Col. 4:6). Thence it derived a deeper meaning, viz.,
beauty in character, and this, according to the N. T. teaching, is
good-will, the disposition to do a kindness to another, to make
another rejoice; hence the word is used to signify that quality in God
which leads him to confer freely happiness on men, either on special
individuals (Luke 2:40; 1 Cor. 3:10), or on the whole human race (Rom.
3:24; Ephes. 1:6; Tit. 2:11). Thence it was employed to designate the
kindness actually flowing from and conferred by this disposition,
hence an alms, and in the N. T. the spiritual gifts conferred by the
divine love on the soul (1 Cor. 16:3; 2 Cor. 8:4; 1 Cor. 15:10; 2 Cor.
6:1; 2 Pet. 3:18); in which sense it is employed in the apostolic
benediction (1 Cor. 1:3; 2 Cor. 1:2; Gal. 1:3, etc.). Finally it was
used to designate the feeling awakened by favors shown, the reflection
in the human heart of the divine grace imparted, and hence gratitude
and even its expression in thanks (Luke 6:32-34; 17:9; 1 Tim. 1:12; 2
Tim. 1:3). Underlying its meaning in all these uses is the radical
idea that the gift is conferred freely and finds its only motive in
the bounty and love of the giver, an idea which finds expression in
the Latin word _gratis_ (for nothing), now thoroughly Anglicized, a
word which comes from the same root as grace (_gratia_). By the
doctrine of grace, then, as it is variously expounded in the N. T., is
meant that our own spiritual life is the free gift of God, bestowed on
us without merit or desert on our part, purely from the love and
good-will of God. Our _graces_ are God’s _free gifts_. John here marks
the contrast between the law which _requires_ obedience of man, and
grace and truth which _confers_ spiritual power on man. The one says,
Do this and live; the other says, Live, so that you can do this (Rom.
8:3). Nowhere in the N. T. is the doctrine of grace more clearly set
forth than in these 16th and 17th verses, which may be paraphrased
thus: From the divine fullness in Jesus Christ we have all received;
the only condition which God attaches to the free impartation of his
spiritual gifts is that we should have received willingly those
already proffered to us; by Moses it was revealed to us what God would
have us do and be; by Christ it is clearly disclosed to us what God
is, and there is freely imparted to us power to become, like him, sons
of God.
18 No man hath seen God[46] at any time; the[47] only
begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath
declared _him_.
[46] Ex. 33:20; 1 Tim. 6:16.
[47] 1 John 4:9.
=18. No one hath seen God at any time.= Not merely _no man_; no
_one_--man, angel, archangel. The phrase here, _seen God_, is
equivalent to the phrase _knowing God perfectly_, in Matt. 11:27
(see note there). We know him but in part, shall see him only when we
awake in his likeness (Ps. 17:15); Christ sees him because he is one
with him.--=The only begotten Son.= Some manuscripts have here, _The
only begotten God_, and this reading is adopted by Tregelles, but
rejected by Alford, Meyer, and Tischendorf. For examination of the
authorities on both sides, see Alford (sixth edition) and Lange,
critical note by Dr. Schaff. The external authorities are not
conclusive; internal authority strongly favors the ordinary reading.
The only begotten God is a phrase occurring nowhere else in the N. T.,
and is unnatural if not unmeaning. The change of a single letter in
the early copies would account for the corruption of the text (Ψ to
Θ).--=Which is in the bosom of the Father.= A metaphorical expression,
indicating the closeness of intimacy, and drawn more probably from the
relation of a child with its parents, than from the not infrequent
reclining of one on the bosom of his friend, at meal-time (John
13:25).--=He hath declared him.= Comp. ch. 6:46; 14:6, 9, 10; 1 Tim.
3:16; Heb. 1:3. These and other kindred passages indicate clearly
_how_ Christ declares the Father, viz., not merely by what he teaches
concerning the divine nature, but yet more by his personal
manifestation of the divine nature in his own life and character. This
verse thus interprets the word _truth_ in the preceding verse, as the
word grace has already been interpreted by verses 11 and 12. Christ is
the _truth_ of God, because he reveals the divine nature; he is the
_grace_ of God because he imparts the divine nature to such as trust
in him.
NOTE ON THE INCARNATION. A correct apprehension of the character and
place in history of Jesus Christ is essential to a correct
apprehension of Christianity. Our conception of the system will depend
upon our conception of the Founder. The other Evangelists give simply
the story of his life, leaving the readers to draw their own
deductions respecting him. John, writing at a later date, and in
a more philosophical atmosphere, begins his Gospel with a
characterization of the One the story of whose earthly life he is
about to narrate. It is evident on even a cursory examination of this
preface that John believed and intended to teach, (1) That Christ
existed prior to his earthly birth. He was the Light that lighteth
every man that cometh into the world; was before John the Baptist,
whom in his earthly history and mission he succeeded; and he was in
the beginning with God (vers. 1, 4, 15). (2) That he possessed a
superhuman character. He is carefully distinguished from and placed
above John the Baptist, the last of the prophets and more than a
prophet (Matt. 11:9), and from Moses the lawgiver and politically the
founder of the Jewish nation; and he is emphatically declared not only
to have been with God in the beginning, but to have partaken of the
divine nature (vers. 1, 6-8, 17). (3) This superhuman character is
further illustrated by what is declared of his office or work. He is
the Creator, the Light and Life of men, the regenerating power through
whom men are brought into divine sonship, the daily support of the
spiritual life of the children of God, the disclosure of the divine
nature to men (vers. 3, 4, 12, 13, 16, 18). (4) This truth is
incidentally, but all the more effectively, enforced by John’s
peculiar language in describing Christ’s earthly state: he
“tabernacled among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the
only begotten from the Father” (ver. 14). (5) Finally, it is
illustrated in the various titles conferred upon him throughout this
chapter, which are ten in number: the Word; the Light; the Life; the
only begotten of the Father; Jesus Christ, _i. e._, the Saviour, the
Messiah; the only begotten Son; the Lamb of God; the Son of God;
Master; the Son of Man. It is not the province of the commentator to
construct a systematic theology. But it is certain that these elements
must enter into any conception of Jesus Christ which is founded on and
accords with the N. T. There is probably no other single passage of
equal length in the N. T. which contains so much respecting the
character and office of Jesus Christ as this preface to John’s Gospel;
with it, however, should be examined Paul’s Christology (e. g., Phil.
2:5-11), and that of the unknown author of the Epistle to the Hebrews
(Heb., chaps. 1, 2).
* * * * *
Ch. 1:19-51. INTRODUCTION OF CHRIST TO THE WORLD. BY JOHN THE BAPTIST
(vers. 19-37); BY HIMSELF (vers. 38-51). CHRIST THE SIN-BEARER OF THE
WORLD.--THE POWER OF CHRIST; THE ABIDING OF GOD’S SPIRIT ON HIM.--
CHRIST OUR PATTERN IN FISHING FOR MEN.--THE VALUE OF PERSONAL AND
PRIVATE WORK.--THE POWER OF PREJUDICE IN GOOD MEN.--THE BEST ANSWER TO
SKEPTICISM, “COME AND SEE.”--CHRIST REVEALS HIMSELF WHEN HE REVEALS US
TO OURSELVES.--CHRIST’S FIRST COMING A PROPHECY AND FORETASTE OF HIS
SECOND COMING.
The historical portion of the Fourth Gospel begins here. The interview
between the deputation from the Sanhedrim and John the Baptist here
described probably took place after the baptism of Jesus, and during
the temptation, of which latter event this Gospel makes no mention.
With the account of the Baptist’s ministry given here the reader
should compare Matt., chap. 3, and Luke, chap. 3.
19 And this[48] is the record of John, when the Jews sent
priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art
thou?
[48] Luke 3:15, etc.
20 And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am
not the Christ.
=19, 20. And this is the witness of John.= The writer goes back and
gives a detailed history of John’s first explicit testimony to the
Messiah, connecting it with his previous reference to that testimony in
verse 15.--=When the Jews sent priests and Levites.= In John’s Gospel,
the term Jews generally signifies, not the residents of Palestine,
but those of Judea, and sometimes the official heads of the people.
This appears to be the meaning here. It is clear from verse 22 that
this was an official deputation, probably sent by the Sanhedrim. The
Baptist’s preaching had produced a profound sensation throughout
that part of Palestine; great crowds flocked to his ministry; he
was universally regarded as a prophet, and by some as perhaps the
Messiah; some of the Pharisees themselves came to his baptism, though
his severe denunciation of their formalism, and their own opposition
to such a personal reform as his preaching demanded, made them, as
a class, bitterly opposed to him (Matt. 3:5, 7; 21:25, 26; Luke
3:15). It was therefore natural and fit that the Sanhedrim should
send to inquire officially respecting his ministry. There is nothing
to indicate whether this inquiry was conducted in a hostile spirit or
otherwise.--=Who art thou?= Observe, throughout this interview, the
difference in the spirit of the inquirers and of John. They persist in
demanding to know _who_ he is; he replies only by pointing out _what_
he does. “They ever ask about his _person_; he ever refers them to his
_office_. He is no one--a _voice_ merely; it is the work of God, the
testimony to Christ, which is everything. So the formalist ever in the
church asks, _Who_ is he? while the witness for Christ only exalts,
only cares for Christ’s work.”--(_Alford._)--=And he publicly
acknowledged, and denied not.= We know from Luke 3:15 that some
thought he _might_ be the Messiah; and later, a Gnostic sect
maintained that he was the Messiah. This testimony, amplifying the
brief reference to it in verses 7, 8, is probably inserted in part to
refute this error.
21 And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he
saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No.
=21. Art thou Elijah? And he saith, I am not.= Mal. 4:5 declares that
Elijah should precede the Messiah. John the Baptist’s character, and
even his appearance (comp. Matt. 3:4 with 2 Kings 1:8), resembled that
of Elijah. Christ distinctly declares that John the Baptist is the
Elijah foretold by the prophet and expected by the people (Matt.
17:12, 13; comp. Luke 1:17). Here John says he is not. The true
explanation is, not that the people were expecting a literal
resurrection of Elijah from the dead, and John denied that he
fulfilled that expectation, but that, like many another great but
humble messenger of God, he did not comprehend his own character and
mission and relation to ancient prophecy. He was more than he
knew.--=Art thou that prophet?= From Deut., 8:15 the Jews expected a
prophet to precede the Messiah (John 6:14; 7:40). Not till later was
this prophecy correctly interpreted by the Apostles as referring to
Christ himself (Acts 3:22; 7:37).
22 Then said they unto him, Who art thou? that we may give
an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?
23 He[49] said, I _am_ the voice of one crying in the
wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the
prophet[50] Esaias.
[49] ch. 3:28; Matt. 3:3; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4.
[50] Isa. 40:3.
=22, 23.= See Matt. 3:3 and Mark 1:3, and notes. It is evident that the
characterization of John the Baptist there and the application to him
of the prophecy of Isaiah 40:3 was derived from John himself.
24 And they which were sent were of the Pharisees.
25 And they asked him, and said unto him, Why baptizeth
thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither
that prophet?
26 John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: but
there standeth one[51] among you, whom ye know not;
[51] Mal. 3:1.
27 He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me,
whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose.
=24-27. And they which were sent were of the Pharisees.= The Pharisees
were scrupulous ceremonialists, and ablutions were an important part of
their ceremonial. See Matt. 15:1-7; Mark 7:2-5, notes. To them John’s
employment of baptism appeared irregular and unauthorized if he were
not invested with some special divine authority.--=John answered
them.= This answer is only indirectly responsive to their
interrogatory. He passes at once from his own authority, which he
disdains to defend, to testify to the Messiah, whose forerunner he is.
The synoptical Evangelists (Matt. 3:11, 12, note; Mark 1:7, 8; Luke
3:16, 17) report more fully John’s characterization of his own baptism
and its contrast with that which the Messiah would inaugurate; one in
water, the other in fire and the Holy Ghost; one a symbol, the other
the thing symbolized; one a prophecy, the other its fulfillment.--=There
standeth one among you whom ye know not.= That is, do not recognize as
what he really is, the Messiah. It is not necessarily implied that
Jesus Christ was present at this interview, and verse 29 implies that
he was not. The language simply points to one apparently of the common
people and unknown.--=Who cometh after me, whose shoe-latchet I am
unworthy to unloose.= This is the true reading; the words _is
preferred before me_ have been added by some copyist from verse 15. On
the significance of the expression, see notes on Matt. 3:11 and Luke
3:16. The latchet of the shoe is the leather thong with which the
sandal was bound on to the foot or the shoe was laced. For
illustration, see Mark 6:7-13, Vol. 1, p. 362.
28 These things were done in Bethabara[52] beyond Jordan,
where John was baptizing.
[52] Judges 7:24.
=28. Bethabara.= The best reading here is Bethany; the common reading,
Bethabara, is derived from Origen, who found such a place about
opposite Jericho. The Bethany intended is certainly not the well-known
town of that name on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, for this
one was beyond Jordan. The site is unknown; it has been fixed by Origen
as far south as Jericho; by Stanley, 30 miles north of Jericho, near
Succoth; by Lightfoot, north of the Sea of Galilee. We can only say
that it was probably at one of the fords of the Jordan, in the great
eastern line of travel, and certainly at some point between the sea
of Galilee and the neighborhood of Jericho. There are two traditional
sites, one Greek, the other Latin, and both historically worthless.
29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and
saith, Behold the Lamb[53] of God, which taketh[54] away
the sin of the world.
[53] Ex. 12:3; Isa. 53:7, 11; Rev. 5:6.
[54] Acts 13:39; 1 Pet. 2:24; Rev. 1:5.
=29. The next day.= Not merely, _some following day_, for the original
Greek word (ἐπαύριον) never has this meaning in the N. T. It has been
so rendered by some commentators here, in order to introduce the
Temptation between the testimony of the Baptist to the delegation from
Jerusalem and his testimony here uttered to his own disciples.--=He
seeth Jesus.= The word _John_ has been inserted by some copyists to
make the meaning clearer.--=Coming toward him.= Not, as in our English
version, _unto him_. The preposition employed (πρός) signifies simply
direction. Why he was coming toward him is not a matter for profitable
conjecture. Not, as some suppose, for baptism, for the temptation
followed the baptism, and the order of events in John’s narrative
follow each other so closely up to and after the marriage at Cana
(vers. 35, 43; ch. 2:1), that no time is afforded for the temptation,
which was forty days in duration, and which must have occurred prior
to the interview between the Baptist and the Jewish delegation.--=And
said.= Publicly, probably to his own disciples, perhaps to the
multitude. This first preaching of Christ produced no observable
effect. It was not till John repeated it on the following day (ver.
37) that any of his auditors followed Jesus.--=Behold the Lamb of
God.= Not _a_ lamb of God. The meaning cannot therefore be, Behold a
pure and innocent man; an interpretation which would probably never
have been conceived, but for the purpose of escaping the doctrine of
atonement for sin, which can be escaped only by rejecting both the Old
and the New Testaments in their entirety.--=Which taketh away.= This
exactly represents the significance of the original verb (αἴρω), which
means, not bears, or suffers, or releases from the penalty of, but
_takes away_. For its non-metaphorical use, see Matt. 13:12, _shall be
taken away_; 21:21, _be removed_; Luke 6:30, _that taketh away_ thy
goods; John 11:39, _take away_ the stone; 11:48, the Romans shall
_take away_ both our place, etc. It thus corresponds almost exactly
with the word (ἁφίηγι) ordinarily translated forgive. See Matt. 6:12,
note. Observe that the verb is in the present tense, _is taking away_.
The sacrifice has been offered once for all; but its effect is a
continuous one. Christ is ever engaged in lifting up and taking away
the sin of the world.--=The sin of the world.= Not _sins from the
world_, which would be a very different matter. The sin is represented
as _one burden_, which Christ _as a whole_ lifts up and carries away.
His redemption is not a limited redemption; it provides a finished
salvation for the entire human race. See ch. 16:22, note.
Very unnecessary difficulty has been made respecting the interpretation
of the Baptist’s simple metaphor here. The lamb was throughout the O.
T. times commonly used for sacrifice as a sin-offering (Lev. 4:32); in
cleansing the leper (Lev. 14:10); at the morning and evening sacrifice
(Exod. 29:38); at all the great feasts (Numb. 28:11; 29:2, 13, 37;
Lev. 23:19); and in large numbers on special occasions (1 Chron.
29:21; 2 Chron. 29:32; 35:7). The sacrifice of the paschal lamb at the
Passover connected the lamb as a sacrifice with the greatest feast day
of the nation, and with the national redemption from bondage and
deliverance from death (Exod. 12:21-27). The ceremony with the
scape-goat on the day of atonement, the only fast-day in the Jewish
calendar, interpreted clearly, and by an annual symbol, the meaning of
these sacrifices. On that day two kids of goats were chosen, closely
resembling each other; one was slain as a sin-offering; over the other
the high-priest confessed the sins of the people, “putting them on the
head of the goat,” who was then led away into the wilderness, “to bear
upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited” (Lev.
16:5-10, 20-22). Isaiah, with unmistakable reference to these typical
sacrifices, declared that the Messiah should bear the sins and sorrows
of the world as a lamb slaughtered (Isaiah 53:1-7); and the Baptist,
speaking to a people whose national education had led them to regard
the lamb as the type of sacrifice, through the shedding of whose blood
there was a redemption, a carrying away of sins, points to Jesus with
the declaration, Behold _the_ Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of
the world, that is, the true Sin-bearer, of whom all that went before
were but types and prophecies. _How_ he was to take away this load of
sin the Baptist does not say, and probably did not know. That he did
not realize that Christ was to be a true sacrifice for sin is
indicated by his subsequent perplexity and message to Jesus (Matt.
11:2-6, note). Observe the analogy and the contrast between the O. T.
and the N. T. Under the O. T. there were provided by the sinner lambs,
whose sacrifice took sin away from the individual or the nation, but
for the time only, and therefore the sacrifice needed to be
continually repeated; under the N. T. _one_ Lamb is provided, the Lamb
of God, _i. e._, proceeding from and _provided by God_, as intimated
by Abraham to Isaac (Gen. 22:8), whose sacrifice _once for all_ (Heb.
10:10-12) takes away the sin of the _whole world_ (1 John 2:2), and
therefore never needs to be repeated. It is worthy of note that the
word _lamb_ is never used in the N. T. except in reference to Jesus
Christ (John 1:29, 36; Acts 8:32; 1 Peter 1:19; Rev. 5:6, 8, 12,
etc.). The word _lambs_ in the plural form occurs twice, but both
times refer to the disciples of Christ (Luke 10:3; John 21:15).
30 This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which
is preferred before me: for he was before me.
31 And I knew him not: but that he should be made manifest
to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water.
=30, 31. After me cometh=, etc. See on verse 15.--=But that he should
be made manifest to Israel therefore am I come=, etc. The object of
the Baptist’s ministry was not then merely to preach repentance, but
to preach repentance _as a preparation for the coming of the kingdom
of God in the incarnation of the King_. And with this agrees his own
definition of his mission (verse 23) and the other Evangelists’
epitome of his ministry (Matt. 3:2). The true office of the
minister is always that Christ may be made manifest.
32 And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit
descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.
33 And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with
water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the
Spirit descending, and remaining[55] on him, the same is he
which baptizeth[56] with the Holy Ghost.
[55] chap. 3:34.
[56] Acts 1:5; 2:4.
34 And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.
=32-34. And John witnessed.= Evidently the Evangelist here speaks of
his witness at some period subsequent to the baptism, and therefore
subsequent to the temptation which immediately succeeded the
baptism.--=I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove.= That
is, in the form of a dove. The vision was seen only by Jesus and John.
On it see Matt. 3:16, note.--=And it abode upon him.= The Spirit of
God, not the dove, abode. That John in some way recognized the abiding
as a part of the sign of Christ’s Messiahship, is evident from the
next verse; how he recognized it is not indicated.--=I also knew him
not.= He connects himself with the people who knew him not (verse 26).
=I=, as well as you, knew him not, till this sign was vouchsafed me.
Why then did he at first object to baptizing Jesus, if he did not
recognize in him the Christ (Matt. 3:14). He was second cousin of
Jesus; knew him, probably, as a pure and holy man; perhaps knew the
facts respecting Jesus’ birth, which were certainly known to John’s
mother; may even have _suspected_ that he was the promised Messiah;
and at all events may have believed that he needed no baptism of
repentance. He did not, however, know him to be the Messiah, and did
not recognize him _as such_, till after the promised sign, and this
followed the baptism of Jesus.--=Saw and bare witness.= That is, at
that time. He refers the people to his witness-bearing at the time of
the baptism, a testimony which was still fresh in their memory.
35 Again the next day after John stood, and two of his
disciples:
36 And looking upon Jesus as he walketh, he saith, Behold
the Lamb of God!
37 And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed
Jesus.
=35-37. Again the next day.= That is, the day following the apparent
public discourse, so briefly reported in the preceding verses
(29-34).--=And two of his disciples.= See on their names verse 40 and
note. As they were disciples of the Baptist it is to be presumed that
they had been baptized, but by John’s baptism which was unto
repentance and not in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. See
Acts 19:3-5.--=As he walked.= Or, as we should say, _As he was taking
a walk_. One of the numerous indications in the Gospels that Christ
was a lover of nature, and accustomed to meditate and study in
communion with nature.--=Saith, Behold the Lamb of God.= See on verse
29. Observe the practical value of line upon line. John’s private
message recalls and repeats his public testimony. See Phil. 3:1.--=And
the two disciples heard him speak.= He spoke possibly in soliloquy,
more probably to them. It is clear that it was not a public discourse
which is here reported. There is no ground for the hypothesis that the
two disciples had not heard the discourse of the previous day. Rather
the implication is that they had heard it, and these words uttered to
them in private by their teacher, enforced the public lesson, and led
them to seek further knowledge concerning the one who was pointed out
to them as the Messiah. Observe how this passage teaches the value of
personal work and personal influence. The first disciples are led to
seek Christ, not by the public discourse, but by the private words of
the Baptist; by private influence they bring Peter (41); by private
invitation Philip is added to the disciples (43); and by his personal
solicitation Nathanael is brought to Christ (45).--=And they followed
Jesus.= Not, in the religious sense of the words, became followers of
Jesus; not till later did they leave all to follow him (Luke, ch. 5).
The simplest is also the truest interpretation of these words. They
literally followed him; drawn partly by curiosity, partly, perhaps, by
a real spiritual desire for closer acquaintance with the one whom
their teacher designated as the Lamb of God.
38 Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith
unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, (which
is to say being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou?
39 He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw
where he dwelt, and abode with him that day: for it was
about the tenth hour.
=38, 39. Jesus * * * saith unto them, What seek ye?= Not because he
was ignorant of their purpose, for he knew what was in man (ch. 2:25;
comp. Mark 2:8, etc.); but because he would draw them out. In a
similar manner he opens conversation with the woman at the well (ch.
4:10, 16), with the disciples fishing at the sea of Galilee (ch.
21:5), and with the disciples on their way to Emmaus (Luke 24:17).
Christ _as a conversationalist_ is a study for the Christian. Observe
how he opens the way and leads on to familiar acquaintance,
first by his question, then by his invitation, finally by his
hospitality.--=Rabbi * * * Master.= Rather, _teacher_, or _doctor_.
Rabbi is a Hebrew word; _teacher_ (διδάσκαλος) is its Greek
equivalent. John, writing for the Gentile world, habitually translates
the Hebrew phrases into their Greek equivalents.--=Where dwellest
thou?= They are timid and dare not, or at least do not, express their
whole desire. Often in the spiritual reticence, so common to the first
experiences of the awakened soul, its real aspirations after truth are
concealed beneath an assumed curiosity respecting some indifferent
matter. Christ meets this non-pertinent if not impertinent curiosity
with an invitation which attaches the two inquirers to him for
life.--=Come and see.= Rather, _Come and ye shall see_. This is the
best reading, and is given by Alford, Meyer, Tischendorf, Tregelles,
etc. (ὄψεσθε not ἴδετε).--=And abode with him that day.= For the rest
of the day.--=For it was about the tenth hour.= Reckoning from 6 A.
M., according to Jewish fashion, this would make it 4 P. M. Observe,
as indicative of the Evangelist John’s character, and of the force of
the impression made on him from the outset by Christ, that he
remembered not only the day, _but the very hour_, of his first
interview with his subsequent Lord. This, too, is one of those minute
touches which would not be found in either a mythical tradition or an
ecclesiastical forgery.
40 One of the two which heard John _speak_, and followed
him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.
41 He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith
unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being
interpreted, the Christ.
42 And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him,
he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou[57] shalt be
called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.
[57] Matt. 16:18.
=40-42. One of the two * * * was Andrew.= It is the almost universal
belief of scholars that the other was John the Evangelist, an opinion
which rests on the following considerations: (1) John never mentions
himself in his Gospel; if he refers to himself at all it is never by
name (ch. 13:23; 18:15; 19:26; 20:3; 21:20). (2) The name of the other
disciple would have been mentioned if there had not been some special
reason for not mentioning it, and John’s habit of suppressing his own
name constitutes a sufficient reason; no other plausible reason has
been suggested. (3) The minute accuracy of detail in this narrative,
extending to the specification of the day and of the hour, justifies
the belief that it is the narrative of an eye and ear witness. On the
life and character of Andrew see note at close of Matt. ch. 10, Vol.
1.--=He first findeth his own brother.= Our English version is
ambiguous if not misleading. The meaning is not, Before going to
Jesus’ residence he found his own brother, but of the two he was the
first to find Simon. The implication is that both went in search of
him; all three, John, Andrew, and Simon were probably at the baptism
of John the Baptist, and were his disciples. There is no evidence to
sustain the hypothesis that John brought his brother James to Jesus at
this time, or even that James was with John at the Jordan.--=The
Messiah * * * the Christ.= One is a Hebrew, the other a Greek word.
The meaning is the Anointed One. On the spiritual meaning of the names
of Jesus, see note at close of Matt. ch. 1, Vol. I. Andrew’s
exclamation of delight on finding the Messiah, _eureka_ (εὐρήκαμεν,
_we have found_), is the same attributed to Archimedes on his
discovery of the adulteration of Hiero’s crown. He detected the
mixture of silver in a crown which Hiero had ordered to be made of
gold, and determined the proportions of the two metals by a method
suggested to him by the overflow of the water when he stepped into a
bath. When the thought struck him, he is said to have been so pleased
that, forgetting to put on his clothes, he ran home shouting _Eureka,
Eureka, I have found it, I have found it_. What is the grandest
discovery compared with that which the soul makes when it finds its
Messiah?--=Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation
Peter.= Cephas is Hebrew; Peter is Greek; both words mean a stone. On
the significance of this change of name, see Matt. 16:18, note. At the
interview there reported Christ refers to the name here given, and
confirms and interprets it; at least this is the view of the best
Evangelical scholars, Meyer, Alford, Lange, Schaff; and it is more
reasonable, on the whole, than the supposition that the Evangelist
John anticipates and reports the change of name out of its place. The
careful student will observe that here Christ’s language is that of
prophecy: Thou _shalt be_ called Peter; there it is the language of
fulfillment. Thou _art_ Peter. The apostle did not become Peter till
he made the inspired confession of Christ as the divine Messiah, which
is recorded in Matthew.
43 The day following. Jesus would go forth into Galilee,
and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me.
44 Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and
Peter.
45 Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have
found him, of whom Moses[58] in the law, and the prophets,
did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
[58] Luke 24:27, 44.
=43-45. The day following.= That is, the day following the bringing of
Peter to Jesus, which Meyer thinks occurred on the same day in which
Andrew and John accompanied Jesus to his home, but which it appears to
me, from verse 39, must have occurred on the following day; and this
is the view of the ancient and of many of the modern expositors. In
that case the order would be as follows: first day, John’s conference
with the delegation from Jerusalem (19-28); second day, John’s public
testimony to Jesus (29-34); third day, John’s private testimony to
Jesus (35-39); fourth day, Peter brought to Jesus (40-42); fifth day,
Nathanael brought to Jesus (43-51); seventh day, one day intervening,
the marriage at Cana in Galilee (ch. 2:1, etc.).--=Findeth Philip and
saith unto him, Follow me.= This is Christ’s first personal call of a
disciple to follow him. There is no evidence that Philip ever withdrew
from this personal following of Christ as did John and Peter and
Andrew; they did not permanently attach themselves to Jesus till his
subsequent call to them by the sea of Galilee (Luke 5:1-11). On
Philip’s life, see note at close of Matt. 10, Vol. I. He is not to be
confounded with Philip the deacon, mentioned in Acts 6:5; 8:5-12,
etc.--=Bethsaida.= There is no good ground for the hypothesis that
there were two towns of this name on or near the sea of Galilee. The
city was on the northern shore, near the entrance of the Jordan into
the sea. See Mark 6:45, note; and for illustration of site, John ch.
6.--=Philip findeth Nathanael.= Observe that the young disciple does
not wait, but as soon as he has found Christ begins to declare his
discovery to others. So with Andrew above (41), with the woman of
Samaria (ch. 4:28, 29), with Paul after his conversion (Acts 9:20).
Nathanael’s name occurs in the N. T. only here and in John 21:2. It is
not among the list of apostles furnished by Matt. 10:2-5; Mark
3:16-19; Luke 6:14-16; and Acts 1:13. But they all mention, in close
connection with Philip, a Bartholomew, which is not properly a name
but only a patronymic, its meaning being Son of Tholmai. These facts
have led most scholars to adopt, as a reasonable hypothesis, the
opinion that Nathanael and Bartholomew are different names for the
same person. The name Nathanael, like our Theodore, means _gift of
God_.--=We have found him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets,
did write.= The reference is unmistakably to the Messiah. For
references in the books of Moses to the promised Messiah, see Gen.
3:15 and 17:7, with Gal. 3:16, and Deut. 18:15-19.--=Jesus of
Nazareth, the son of Joseph.= This is the language, not of the
Evangelist, but of Philip. Unquestionably at that time Philip knew
nothing of the supposed birth of Jesus; to him Jesus was, as to the
Nazarenes subsequently (Matt. 13:54-56), simply the son of Joseph. The
supposed inconsistency of this language and the account of Christ’s
supernatural birth as given by Matthew, is therefore purely imaginary.
46 And Nathanael said unto him,[59] Can there any good
thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and
see.
[59] chap. 7:41.
=46. Out of Nazareth is it possible that anything good can come!=
There is a scornful emphasis on the word Nazareth not preserved in our
English version. That Nazareth was an unimportant and insignificant
town is indicated by the fact that it is neither mentioned in the O.
T. nor in Josephus; that the moral condition of its inhabitants was
below that of the rest of Galilee is indicated by the declaration of
Mark 6:5, 6, and by the mob which threatened the life of Christ at a
time when he was just growing into popularity elsewhere in Galilee
(Luke 4:28-30). No other definite reason is known for the evident
odium which attached to Nazareth even in the minds of Galileans. Comp.
Matt. 2:23, note. The question of Nathanael furnishes a striking
illustration of the spirit of prejudice in even good men. To Nathanael
it seems impossible that the promised Prophet can appear elsewhere
than in or near the city of the Great King.--=Come and see.= This is
the best answer to make to unbelief. Christ is his own best witness
(ch. 5:34). It is not merely true that “personal experience is the
best test of the truth of Christianity, which, like the sun in heaven,
can only be seen in its own light” (_Schaff_), but it is also true
that Christ is a greater miracle than any he ever wrought; and that
the supreme character of Christ carries in itself a moral conviction
to hearts which resist all arguments drawn from nature. Of this truth
John Stuart Mill, in his Three Essays on Religion, affords a striking
illustration. After considering all the arguments for the existence
and perfection of the Divine Being derived from nature, and declaring
that Natural Religion points to a Being “of great but limited power,”
“who desires and pays some regard to the happiness of his creatures,
but who seems to have other motives of action which he cares more
for,” he comes to the character of Christ, and not only pays a tribute
to it, eloquent and reverent, but adds his conviction that it would
not “even now be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better
translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete,
than to endeavor so to live that Christ would approve our life.”
Chrysostom notices the gentleness and candor of Philip’s reply; he
furnishes a model to all disputants in dealing with religious
prejudice. See 2 Tim. 2:24.
47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him,
Behold[60] an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!
[60] Ps. 32:2; Rom. 2:28, 29.
48 Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus
answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee,
when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw[61] thee.
[61] Ps. 139:1, 2.
49 Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou[62]
art the Son of God; thou art the King[63] of Israel.
[62] chap. 20:28, 29; Matt. 14:33.
[63] Matt. 21:5; 27:11.
=47-49. An Israelite indeed.= Because in faith and love a true child
of God. Comp. Luke 19:9; Romans 2:28, 29; Gal. 3:29; 6:15, 16. For O.
T. description of such an Israelite, see Psalm 15.--=In whom is no
guile.= Therefore, characteristically unlike the Pharisees, whose
pride it was that they were children of Abraham (Luke 3:8; John 8:33),
and who were full of hypocrisy (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16; 23:14-33).--=Whence
knowest thou me?= As Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:5, 6, notes), so Nathanael
is surprised by the Lord’s reading of his character and inward
experience.--=When thou wast under the fig-tree.= The whole course of
the narrative indicates in this response a supernatural sight, as in
the previous characterization of Nathanael a supernatural insight. If
Christ had merely chanced to see Nathanael without being seen by him,
this fact would afford, surely, no basis for Nathanael’s faith, or
Christ’s commendation of it. It seems also clear that something more
is implied than the mere fact that Christ saw Nathanael under a
fig-tree, since that would neither explain Christ’s commendation of
him as an Israelite without guile, nor Nathanael’s astonishment. Hence
the surmise of the commentators that he had retired there for purposes
of prayer, and that Christ had seen him there, like the Israel from
whom he descended (Gen. 32:24-23) wrestling with God, for the bestowal
of the long-promised blessing to his realm, in the gift of the
Messiah. It was probably this revelation of the secret of his soul
which caused Christ to characterize him as a true Israelite, and
Nathanael to recognize in the One who read his inmost life so
perfectly, the King of Israel.--=The Son of God * * * the King of
Israel.= The Messiah. See Ps. 2:7; Matt. 16:16; Luke 22:70;
John 1:34; 11:27. Observe that Christ recognizes and accepts this
characterization of himself at the outset of his ministry, a quite
sufficient refutation of the theory of Renan, that it was the
outgrowth of his followers’ later admiration, and tacitly accepted by
Christ at or near the close of his earthly life. That Nathanael fully
comprehended the meaning of his own confession is not, however,
probable.
50 Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto
thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? thou
shalt see greater things than these.
51 And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you.
Hereafter ye shall see heaven[64] open, and the angels[65]
of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.
[64] Ezek. 1:1.
[65] Gen. 28:12; Dan. 7:9, 10; Acts 1:10, 11.
=50, 51.= There is some difficulty respecting the proper
interpretation of Christ’s promise here. The word _hereafter_ is
rather _henceforth_; but it is omitted by the best critics, _e. g._,
Alford, Tischendorf, Lachmann. The figure is undoubtedly drawn from
the vision of Jacob (Israel) of the ladder between heaven and earth,
and the angels ascending and descending on it (Gen. 28:12). Some
suppose the reference to the angelic appearances to Christ, and the
divine signs given in attestation of his mission (ver. 32; Matt. 4:11;
Luke 2:13; 9:29-31; 22:43), but the earlier of these had already taken
place, and Nathanael was neither present at the temptation, at the
transfiguration, nor at the garden of Gethsemane. Chrysostom refers in
addition to the angelic appearances at the resurrection, but they by
no means furnish a literal fulfillment of the promise. Some interpret
it spiritually, of the manifest opening of the heavens and the
intercommunication between earth and heaven, through Jesus Christ. So
Maurice: “Faithful and true Israelite! the vision to thy progenitor
who first bore that name, shall be substantiated for thee, and for
those who trust in me in lonely hours, through clouds and darkness, as
thou hast done. The ladder set upon earth and reaching to heaven--the
ladder upon which the angels of God ascended and descended--is a
ladder for thee and for all. For the Son of man, who joins earth to
heaven, the seen to the unseen, God and man in one, He is with you;
through Him your spirits may arise to God; through Him God’s Spirit
shall come down upon you.” Similarly Luther, Calvin, Tholuck, Alford,
and others. But this interpretation is not wholly satisfactory, since
it converts Christ’s words into an allegory, and deprives them of all
literal meaning. According to this view the angels are but spiritual
blessings, the open heavens are not seen, and the angelic appearances
are not upon the Messiah, but through him to mankind. A third
interpretation connects Christ’s words here with his analogous
declarations in Matt. 25:31; 26:64, etc., and refers it to his Second
Coming. So Ryle: “When He comes the second time to take his great
power and reign, the words of this text shall be literally fulfilled.
His believing people shall see heaven open, and a constant
communication kept up between heaven and earth--the tabernacle of God
with men, and the angels visibly ministering to the King of Israel,
and King of all the earth.” I believe that these three views are
congruous and consistent, and are all embraced in the promise. Christ
opened the communication between earth and heaven; manifested that
fact by the angelic appearances which accompanied his coming, his
presence, and his departure; still manifests it, by the spiritual
blessings which he constantly confers in answer to the prayers of his
people; and will finally manifest it yet more gloriously when he comes
to take possession of his established kingdom, with his holy angels
with him. The past and present fulfillments of this prophecy are but
fragmentary and imperfect. The final and perfect fulfillment awaits us
in the future.
[Illustration: AN ORIENTAL WEDDING.
“_And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee_”]