Jesus had spoken to the disciples about the New Covenant as a Love Feast, using for it the word agape which also describes the highest of the virtues-the love which he had shown in a thousand ways during his ministry and which he was to exemplify supremely in his sacrifice. In the next part of his discourse his thought moved rapidly and frequently from one meaning of agape to the other, and there was constant close relation of these ideas to a comparable meal of fellowship with which the Old Covenant had been inaugurated at Sinai (Ex.24 :11).

“If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments.” At Sinai, the people heard the words of the Book of the Covenant and declared: “All that the Lord hath spoken will we do, and be obedient” (Ex.24 :7). With a repetition which could never be over-emphatic, the book of Deuteronomy sought to establish in the mind of every Israelite that the love of God and faithful observance of His commandments are inseparable (5 :10; 7 :9; 11 :1,22; 13 :3,4; 19:9; 30:16).

Now with an authority which would be blasphemous if he were not the Son of God, Jesus laid a like duty on his disciples. His words state very simply a principle of the highest value to all who belong to him. The secret of Christian obedience is the love of Christ. When a man really loves his Lord, obedience (or, the next best thing, earnest repentance after failure) is a relatively easy matter. With the love of Christ as the source and spring of his whole way of life, there is no longer any need for strongminded resolutions to forsake evil. Instead, intense wrestling of the soul gives place to a relaxed confidence in a beloved Lord who now readily commands allegiance. If a man really loves Christ, he does keep his commandments. So learning to love him becomes the highest duty. Directed to anyone but Jesus this is invariably difficult, for to know well any of one’s fellows is to know well the mass of faults and weaknesses which belong to him. But the more a man can learn about Christ the more he must come to love him-this peerless, altogether lovely Son of God. So here is the best of all reasons for ceaseless devoted study of the gospels.

The converse of this fundamental proposition is also true, alas! If a man does not follow a way of life ordered by the principles of Christ’s teaching, by that fact he declares how little he loves his Lord, no matter how pious his pretensions.

There can be little doubt that Jesus spoke this simple truth with primary reference to the “new commandment” which he had just given to his disciples, that they observe the Love Feast, the Agape. And experience has ever shown the truth of his words. No man who loves his Lord will neglect attendance at the Lord’s Table.

Israel and the New Israel

Still drawing out the parallel with the Old Covenant, Jesus now spoke his first promise of the Holy Spirit. At Sinai there had been a corresponding promise: “Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee unto the place which I have prepared. (“I go to prepare a place for you”). Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him. But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak (“keep my commandments”) then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries” (Ex. 23:20-22). In another respect also God’s Holy Spirit was made a Helper to His people -when He “took of the spirit that was upon Moses, and gave it to the seventy elders”, so that “when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, but they did so no more” (Num. 11:25RV), “Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them,” commemorated Nehemiah and his Levites (Neh. 9:20). And in Isaiah’s reminiscence of these experiences “the angel of his presence” and “his holy Spirit” are either closely associated or are actually equated (63:9-11).

The expression “another Comforter” clearly implies that the Holy Spirit was not the only Helper from God. The explanation is in 1 John2:l: “If any man sin, we have an Advocate (same word) with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” And in a somewhat enigmatic passage in Romans 8 Paul sets the Holy Spirit’s guidance and intercession alongside that of Christ himself (v.26,27).

The Comforter

There is a lot of argument amongst the commentators and language experts as to the precise meaning intended by the word Jesus used. By fairly general agreement “Comforter” is not really the right idea. “Advocate”, in the legal sense—that is, counsel for the defence-has classical support but seems to belong to another world from these passages in John’s gospel. Probably the rather general word: “Helper” comes as near as any to what was intended.

It is easy enough to understand many of the allusions to the Holy Spirit here and in the later Paraclete passages (14:26; 15:26; 16:13) as having reference to the remarkable powers with which members of the early church were endowed after Pentecost, but here the phrase: “that he may abide with you for ever” presents double difficulty. The Holy Spirit appears to be spoken of as a separate person (cp.v.26; 15:26; 16 :13; the orthodox dogma of the personality of the Holy Spirit has no other Biblical support apart from the pronouns in these places). Also, the abiding character of the Spirit’s indwelling contrasts strangely with Paul’s prophecy that the Spirit’s gifts would be withdrawn (1 Cor. 13:8).

He—the Spirit

One explanation of the first difficulty would be that the pronoun “He” refers to the Father who sends the Spirit in response to the plea of His Son. But this runs into difficulties in verse 17 and also in 16 :13. More probably the masculine pronoun has to be used because the antecendent Greek word for “Comforter” is itself masculine. In this case either “he” or “it” would be a valid translation into English. Or, once again, there is allusion to the angel who cared for natural Israel in their wilderness journey.

“Forever”

The duration of Holy Spirit endowment presents a much more tricky question. In this sequence of “Comforter” promises in John’s gospel, certain details seem to require restriction to the leaders of the first century ecclesia (e.g. 14:26: “he shall bring all things to your remembrance”); Paul was confident that the Spirit’s gifts were only temporary; indeed those gifts could be transmitted to others by none but the Twelve (Ms 8 :14-19), so the second generation was bound to see their gradual disappearance; and all the available historical evidence from early Christian writers supports this conclusion.

Nevertheless here Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would “abide with you for ever” (v.16). There are three ways of coping with this problem.

One is to take the phrase very literally: “unto the age,” as though meaning to the end of the Mosiac dispensation when the temple was destroyed in A.D.70. This is an uneasy solution since, with hardly an exception in the New Testament, “for ever” means just that, and not forty years.

Much more fitting is the suggestion which emphasizes the happy opinion in the early church that the Holy Spirit gifts were to be enjoyed as a foretaste of yet greater blessing: “the powers of the world to come” (Heb.6 :5), “the earnest of our inheritance” (Eph.4 :30). From this point of view, “abide with you for ever” could mean “abide with you now, and ultimately for ever in my kingdom.”

The third alternative regards the charismatic powers of the Spirit as an interim phase of ecclesial development which has not necessarily meant complete inactivity of the Holy Spirit since the first century ended. Otherwise there are, it is pointed out, a big number of familiar New Testament texts which have either to be written off as no longer valid or else have to be given a somewhat indirect meaning with reference to the inspiration of Holy Scripture as the believer’s only resource and guide in modern times. The subject is large and complex and, alas, often nebulous in its modern treatment.

There are evident weaknesses about all of these interpretations. Then, what of this?:

A different approach

The New Testament has plenty of clear indications of a first century expectation of an early return of the Lord. These are all inspired Scriptures, and therefore were correct when they were spoken or written. So also here.

In this discourse by Jesus there is the same expectation that the kingdom would be manifest within a human lifetime. In that case the Lord’s promise that the Comforter will “abide with you for ever” was literally true when spoken. There would never be a time after Pentecost when the Holy Spirit (as experienced in the first century) was not with and in the believers. (The same explanation helps with Acts 2 :39; 1 Cor.13 :10; Lk.11:13).

But these inspired expectations were not fulfilled. For explanation why, see “Revelation” (H.A.W),p.259ff.

Help needed

Jesus foresaw the tremendous tensions which the preaching of the gospel would set up, especially in Jewry, after his ascension. So he promised the Holy Spirit as a guide in times of difficulty, as a mainstay of truth against the contentions of error: “The world (the Jewish world) cannot receive him, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him.” That word “seeth” had reference, doubtless, to the remarkable works of the Holy Spirit in Jesus himself and in the early church. The unbelieving nation saw the miracles, but was blind to the truth which they so graciously and powerfully proclaimed. In this sense, but not in this sense only, the Holy Spirit was to continue the Lord’s own witness. More especially, its guidance would empower frail untutored men to add their inspired witness concerning all aspects of truth which the life of the eccclesia or the preaching of the gospel might need. Remarkably enough, in the earliest days its direction was specially needed to testify against Jewish unbelief in Jesus as the Son of God, but before the apostle John passed off the scene its witness was needed also to confound the opposite “spirit of error” which taught, with increasing success, that “Jesus Christ is not come in the flesh” (1 Jn.4:1-6).

“Ye know him,” Jesus continued, “for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” The tenses here are difficult. Perhaps Jesus meant: ‘By contrast with my adversaries you are readily recognizing the Holy Spirit in my words and actions as I continue to abide with you; the same divine power shall be in you.’

Orphans

In Israel the Firstborn received a double portion of the inheritance in order that, if any younger brother found himself in hard straits— an “orphan’—the Firstborn’s duty of helping such with food and drink could be fulfilled.

It was to this that Jesus now referred: “I will not leave you orphans (13 :33): I come to you.” For them absence need not mean deprivation. “Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more: but ye see me.” Clearly this “no more” was not to be taken absolutely. The world will assuredly see Jesus again. The Jewish world, which he had specially in mind, will one day “look on me they pierced, and shall mourn for him as one mourneth for an only son, a Firstborn” (Zech.12:10).

The Agape

It was a different vision of their Lord (from that of Zech. 12 :10) which he promised to them, his disciples: “But ye behold me: because I live, ye shall live also.” His expansion of this thought (v.21,23) shows that he spoke of their spiritual contemplation of him in the Agape, which was to celebrate not only his death, but also his living power. “Ye shall live also,” having already “passed from death unto life.” (1 Jn. 3:14 -another allusion to the Agape. How could they think of themselves as orphans, bereft of food and comfort, when he had bequeathed to them such a token of continuing blessing?

“In that day (the day of their meeting together to remember their Lord) ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” What more eloquent means of reassurance concerning these profound Shekinah truths than the simple remembrance of Christ in Bread and Wine as he had just appointed? “He that hath my commandments (13 :34), and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me (the Agape): and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” In all this there was implied comparison and contrast with the experience of the elders of Israel who, through the sacrifice offered by Moses, were given the privilege of beholding the Glory of the Lord and of eating peace-offerings in His Presence (Ex.24 :1-11). But high honour though this was, they could only worship “afar off.” How different the close fellowship with both Father and Son made possible for these humble disciples who were now being taught to appreciate their high status in the heavenly family!

In doing so, Jesus carefully chose a different word to describe this “manifesting” of himself to them from that so frequently employed to describe an open and unmistakable personal appearance (as in 7 :4; 17:6; 21 :1,14).

Judas, probably the youngest of the apostles, fastened on this implied difference. Like the rest, and especially the other Judas (note the parenthesis in this verse), he was eager to see his Master openly proclaimed to the nation as the Messiah of Israel. What other kind ol “manifestation” could Jesus mean? He feared that his leader might be abandoning his Messianic intentions altogether.

Jesus explained carefully the more immediate relevance of his words regarding the Breaking of Bread: “If any man love me (the Agape), he will keep my word (“do this in remembrance of me”): and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him (at the Love Feast), and make our abode with him (in the new spiritual temple, where there are many abiding places; v.2; Ex.25 :8). He that loveth me not (by neglecting the Breaking of Bread) keepeth not my words (and my Father will not love him, and we will not come and make our abode with him; v.23); and this word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me (compare God’s word to Moses: “I will be with thy mouth, and will teach what thou shalt say;” Ex.4 :12). “I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethen, like unto thee, and I will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him;” (Dt. 18 :18).

Passages such as this are more than sufficient to allay misgivings regarding the notorious “omissions” in John’s gospel. Many a devout reader has been more than a little puzzled, and even distressed, that so many of the highly important features of the Lord’s ministry, detailed by the synoptic writers, should apparently go unmentioned in the fourth gospel. Yet it may be said with fair confidence that most of the supposed omissions are actually included by John, but in his own characteristic fashion. In this particular place the blessing and power of the Breaking of Bread is beautifully expounded for the reader through the Lord’s own commentary, and with a fullness which the other gospels do not attempt.

Notes: Jn. 14:15-24

There is a strange paradox about the development of Christ’s discourse to the twelve in John 14. After repeated emphasis on their dose fellowship with both the Father and the Son (v. 18-23 especially), he was at pains to prepare their minds for separation. “These things have I spoken, being yet present with you.” The time when he would be taken away was drawing near, and there were many things he had tried to teach them which they would forget. And many which they remembered they would understand only imperfectly. The disciples themselves knew this well enough. So it was a great comfort to them to be assured that the gift of the Holy Spirit, “whom the Father will send in my name (to further my work), he shall teach you all things (Mt. 23:8), and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”

This was a tremendous promise. The new commandment: “Do this in remembrance of me,” properly and dutifully observed, would involve their remembering all that the Lord had said and done among them-and not only the remembering but the understanding also. With so many blatant examples in their recent experience of downright lack of comprehension of Christ, how could they hope to keep him in memory as they ought? Luke’s gospel especially tells with unequivocal bluntness of their lack of insight: “They understood not this saying, and it was hid from them that they perceived it not: and they feared to ask him of that saying” (9 :45). And again: “They understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken” (18:34).

Lack of Insight

But, by contrast, there are several examples of blindness giving place to sight: “When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered (and understood) that he had said this unto them” (Jn.2 :22). “And they remembered his words” (Lk.24:8), now making sense of them. “These things understood not his disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him” (Jn.12 :16). “What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter, Thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards” (Jn. 13:7,36). Peter could not follow physically then, because he was unable to “follow” Jesus in his spiritual grasp of what it all meant. “These things have I told you, that when the time shall come ye may remember” (Jn.16 :4). At the tomb of Jesus there was mystification in Peter’s mind because “as yet they knew not (i.e. they understood not) the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead” (Jn.20:9).

Within a few weeks what a change was to come over these men! The company of their risen Lord during the forty days, and the endowment of the spirit’s wisdom and power at Pentecost, transformed them into veritable geniuses of Bible exposition. Ignorant and unlearned men bequeathed to later generations matchless compressions of forceful reasoning and perceptive interpretation.

High priest’s blessing

Nor was the guiding and comforting Holy spirit to be the Lord’s only bequest to his faithful at the time of his going away: “Peace I leave with you, my Peace I give unto you.” This was more than a conventional farewell! Shalom!

Jesus had encouraged them to consider him as sacrifice and High Priest, consecrated and consecrating in God’s new spiritual House. After the offering of the daily sacrifice, and most especially after the great sin-offering on the Day of Atonement, it was normal for the priest to convey God’s blessing to the assembled worshippers: “The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace” (Num.6 :24-27). This was no formality, but the imparting of a very real blessing: “and I will bless them,” said the Lord to Moses. It meant the forgiveness of sins (See Study 194) and reconciliation (“Peace”) with their God.

Now, in reality and not in type, Jesus gave his high-priestly blessing to the disciples before the sacrifice was offered and before he went away into the divine Presence with the evidence of the sacrifice. “Not as the world-the Jewish world, and its high priest—giveth (Peace), give I unto you.” It was a further indication that his offering of himself was timeless in its quality and effects. True faith in Christ (like that of Abraham; Jn.8:56) need not wait for Golgotha in order to know the “Peace” of Christ.

Afraid-why?

Wherefore, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” Fear of what? That their Master was to be taken from them, seems to be the obvious answer. But it may be that his talk of a new temple, with a new sacrifice, new ordinances and a new high priest suddenly appalled them with the utterly revolutionary thought that they were now to turn their backs on the temple in Jerusalem and on the men who exercised authority there. If, indeed, this was not their greatest fear at this moment, it was to become so before very long.

“I said to you, I go away, and come again unto you,” Jesus reminded them. He had said this when speaking of the new “Father’s house” and of his own role in it (14 :2,3). Now he repeated that assurance: “If ye loved me, ye would have rejoiced, because I said, I go unto the Father.” The past tenses here might suggest that he was taking their minds back to the Breaking of Bread which they had scarcely understood? Had they done so, they would have found much greater joy of fellowship at that table, out of deeper appreciation of the redeeming truth it symbolized.

Going to the Father

Jesus, their Master, was the Son of God and for their sakes was about to go away to the Father’s presence, even as Moses had gone up into the mount to learn God’s will for His people. But Jesus was greater than Moses-everything in this latest discourse had proclaimed that fact-and the Father to whom he would approach on their behalf was greater than he, and was able and for the sake of His beloved Son was willing to pour out limitless blessings on those who honour the Son as they honour the Father.

“My Father is greater than I”

From the earliest days of apostasy that simple truth: “My Father is greater than I,” has been a thorn in the sides of Trinitarians. To this day the best they can do with it is to coin a strange dichotomy that sometimes the gospels speak of Jesus as God and sometimes as man. Thus Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln: “My Father is greater than I am, in the nature that goes to Him. But I am equal to Him in that Nature which is now and ever with Him”!! Very lucid! Would Jesus be at pains to say: ‘My Father is greater than my mortal nature’? Was he in the habit of speaking such platitudes?

The real purpose of this declaration by Jesus was to emphasize that even though the Father is so much greater than the Son, the latter has qualities which enable him to approach into and abide in the Father’s presence, in a way which was never possible for Moses, no matter how great his other privileges.

All these things Jesus sought to inculcate, so that the disciples would weather the coming storm and ultimately find all the more confidence in their Lord simply because he had foretold everything. “Who hath declared from the beginning, that we may know? and beforetime, that we may say, He is righteous?” (Is.41 :26). If such power vindicated Almighty God, what should they not similarly learn concerning Jesus?

The prince of this world

There was little more that he could tell them. The hour-glass was fast running out: “The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.” In this context of temple, priesthood, and I ministered sacrifice, there is much to be said for the suggestion (Study 169) that “the prince of this world” is the high priest of the Jewish order, now about to use every villainous device he was capable of to rid the country of Jesus of Nazareth. But- “he hath nothing in me.”

The conclusion of this discourse is a strange unfinished sentence. The interpreter is compelled to assume an ellipsis or a parenthesis, probably the latter, thus: “But that the (Jewish) world may know that I love the Father, arise, let us to hence-and as the Father gave me commandment (to lay down my life) even so I do.” Alternatively, assuming an ellipsis: “But (the prince of this world comes) that the world may know that I love the Father …” Either way, one central truth shines out: The world learns his love of the Father. It is the only thing that the world does learn from Jesus!

Notes: Jn. 14:25-31

In that solemn moment when he had given the disciples wine to drink in his name, Jesus had spoken words the remembering of which needed no aid from the promised Paraclete; every syllable was etched in their memory for life: “This is my blood of the New Covenant… I will not henceforth drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

Whilst they were still in the upper room, or perhaps as they were making their way to Gethsemane, the Lord took their minds once again to that vivid symbolism and its further implications: “I am the True Vine, and my Father is the husbandman.” But there was no Israelite who was not fully aware that his nation, the chosen of heaven, was God’s vine. All knew, and took pride in, the splendid word-picture in Psalm 80-Israel as God’s vine, brought out of Egypt, and planted and nurtured in a land of good soil and sunny hillsides (v.8-11).

The Old Testament Vine

The figure was expanded by Isaiah as he sang the Song of the Beloved and his vineyard (5 :1-7). Fruitful soil, every protection, devoted and patient attention-yet all it produced was “wild grapes”. Alas, there was nothing else for it-if the vine must go wild, then let it, give it some “excuse” for its perverse unfruitfulness, let the fence go to pieces, give this vineyard over to the trampling of wild beasts, steer the blessing of heaven’s rain clouds to some more deserving country, bake the soil hard under a sky of brass, and give the entire place over to briars and thorns. This is the fate of “the men of Judah, God’s pleasant plant.” And the men of Judah read their Scripture, understood its plain message, shook their heads about the waywardness of their fathers—and blithely went about their own special brand of apostasy.

Jeremiah took up the threnody: “I planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed; how then art thou turned info the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?” (2 :21).

There is no such plaintive expostulation in Ezekiel’s variation on this theme. He is all biting satire and burning censure: This vine of Israel-what good is it to anyone? No one would dream of making it into furniture. It is useless even for such a simple purpose as making tools of any sort, or a peg to hang up a water jar, useless as a staff to aid one’s walking, almost useless as fuel, it burns so badly. Good for one thing only, to produce wine to make glad the heart of man. Yet Israel gave no pleasure to its Owner. So, away with it!

Jesus had condensed these withering prophetic reprobations into his own parable of the labourers in the vineyard—the husbandmen punished, and the vineyard let out to others.

Now, a new Vine, a new Covenant, a new Israel, receiving all the sedulous care and attention which had formerly been lavished on “the vine out of Egypt.” “My Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away.” The allusion to Judas going out into the night seems obvious enough. But such a conclusion is not certain. The Greek word certainly means “take away;” but in many places it also carries the idea of “lift up, take up.” So there is no sure ground here for the drastic action of excommunication which some would take with those of fainting faith or waning zeal. In any case, even if the words mean excision this is for the husbandman to apply his skill to-“and my Father is the husbandman.”

All branches, fruitful or otherwise, receive His assiduous attention: “Every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” No need to say “in me” this time, for this is obvious.

“He taketh away”

Since “bear fruit” seems to refer to converts, “lift up” rather than “takeaway” is probably the correct reading (Mt.12 :12).

Mistakenly, the word “purgeth” has often been taken to signify pruning. The word means “cleanseth” (cp. Heb.10 :2-same word). Here it alludes to the common practice of scrubbing the vine stems with soap and water in order to rid them of a damaging fungus. Thus Jeremiah with reference to the “strange vine” of Israel: “Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me” (2:22).

Jesus had already applied this process to his disciples, and would continue to do so: “Now ye are clean (13 :10) because of the word which I have spoken unto you.” He was surely alluding to an instruction in the Law of Moses that newly-planted “trees for food” were to be reckoned as “uncircumcised” and the fruit not to be eaten during the first three years. “But in the fourth year all the fruit thereof shall be holy to praise the Lord withal” (Lev.19 :23,24). Their three years of discipleship were now more than expired. Soon there would be fruit in plenty-“holy to praise the Lord withal”-but only through the vigorous life of Christ in them: “Abide ye in me, and I (will abide) in you (cp.v.7; contrast 5 :38). As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.” Failure to learn this lesson has meant tragedy for many. “Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me” (Mt. 11:5). In times of spiritual stress, the very worst thing a man can do is to loosen his connection with the ecclesia which makes him a branch of the True Vine. Yet, not infrequently, this is the first reaction to a bad situation.

Jesus did not say: “I am the stem,” but: “I am the vine”, the entire living organic unit, of which his disciples are the branches. “He that abideth in me, so that I also abide in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for apart from me ye can do nothing.” That final word can hardly receive too much emphasis. Salt which loses its saltness is “fit for nothing” (Mt.5 :13).” A man can receive nothing, except it be given him of the Father” (Jn.3 :27). Paul’s description of unregenerate or back-sliding human nature is very blunt: “without strength . . . ungodly . .. sinners . . . enemies;” but the obverse of the picture is given by a five-fold “much more”: “justified … reconciled … the grace of God… abundance of grace, the gift of righteousness.. grace abounding unto eternal life” (Rom.5 :6-10,15,17,20,21)-all these are assured when a man is truly a part of the True Vine.

“Cast forth”

Jesus developed the contrast yet further. “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as the (fruitless) branch, and is caused to wither (the verb is Gk. passive).

Here is a truth which is not to be ignored. If a man would have spiritual health, he must remain as an integral part of the Christ Vine. So he must make his own personal decision accordingly.

Alas, it is every bit as important for the ecclesia to recognize this truth also. What tragedies there have been because of coo! severance made of individuals almost desperately eager for continued fellowship, yet this has been disallowed. How many hitherto fruitful branches have been “made to wither” by drastic unsought cutting off! Preservation of unity with the main stock is always to be sought at almost any cost, for nothing is more important, more fundamental. “There is one Body.”

The outcome of severance, Jesus went on, is that “(men) gather them, and cast them into the fire,, and they are burned.” The text has no subject for the verb “gather”. AV has supplied the general term “men”, and there is some support for this in the Isaiah parable (27:11). Alternatively, one may read an even less definite: “they gather them” with possible reference to angels in the Day of Judgment.

The context—”he is cast forth” from the Vine-suggests the former of these ideas (as AV). In which case Jesus is warning against being over-ready to exclude from fellowship because of the greatly intensified danger that “men”, worldly men, will gather those cut off and ensure their destruction with worldliness. How often, and how readily, this happens! And what a responsibility then on those who do the casting forth!

On the other hand, faithful abiding in Christ brings matchless privileges: “Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” Of course, the words are not to be taken without any qualification, as though the Lord were presenting his disciple with a blank cheque on the Bank of Heaven, somewhat after the fashion of Grimm’s fairy offering the young hero fulfilment of three wishes.

The same apparently absolute promise comes in five other places, yet in each instance the context provides an implied qualifying clause of some kind: “ye shall ask what ye will” for the benefit of others under your spiritual care or guidance, usually those to whom the gospel is being preached (14 :12-14-see Study 198 and 15 :16; in 1 Jn.3 :22 and 5 :14 it is the forgiveness of sins, as the context makes clear).

So also here: “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit (v.16: that ye should go forth and bring forth fruit); so shall ye become my disciples.” If this is the Lord’s definition of a disciple, then here is a touchstone for testing the quality of one’s faith. The man who truly has Christ as Lord will not be restrained from talking about him. There will be an irrepressible urge to share out the love of Christ, “that they might be trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord (the True Vine), that he might be glorified” (ls.61 :3)-glorified in his Servant the New Israel (49:3).

“Abide in my love”

And since the essential bond of the Covenant between preacher and learner, between Master and disciple, is necessarily the Breaking of Bread, just instituted, Jesus went on to re-affirm (vv.9-14) the supreme value of this memorial rite, the Love Feast: “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments* ye shall abide in

my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love” (cp. Dt.9:7). What man, except Jesus, could say such a thing as this without complete loss of character? But in his mouth the words are unselfconsciously and obviously true, this matchless, faultless Son of God!

“These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be fulfilled.” In the New Testament by far the most common use of this word “joy” is to describe the joy of fellowship, which is essentially the highest joy of human experience. And since “fulfilled’ nearly always suggests the fulfilment of a promise or prophecy, it seems likely that Jesus was alluding to his words at the supper table: “I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

He continued to commend the Love Feast unto them, as the focus of all their worship, devotion and fellowship: “This is my commandment, that ye love one another, just as (Gk. kathos] I have loved you. This past tense is altogether out of place until the “Love Feast” context is recognized. Then it presents no difficulty. And the next verse could hardly be more appropriate: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” He meant, of course, his own impending self- sacrifice on behalf of his disciples, as his next words plainly imply: “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” Taken absolutely, and without any qualifications, this definition excludes every man who ever lived, and Christ died in vain. But when read with specific reference to the Agape, which is and must always be the hall-mark of the follower of Christ, there is no difficulty.

Friends

Eating of the Passover, or of the sacrifices of the Lord, was forbidden to strangers, but could include those who were “servants bought for money” (Ex.12 :44,45; Lev.22 :10). The language seems to imply that a slave could be compelled to be circumcised and thus formally qualified for partaking of the feast. But not so with this new Passover. No special qualification of birth or race or social positon, but only the more real bond of a genuine love for Christ, decides a man’s right to share in this high blessing: “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant (slave) knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends.” At this new Passover no one is under any legal compulsion or constraint. He may come or go, as he pleases-and as Judas did. Instead there is a greater, more effectual, constraint-that of being a friend of the One who provides the meal and the deliverance which it symbolizes.

“Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” God had said regarding His impending judgement of iniquitous Sodom. So the Friend of God (Jas.2 :23) was admitted to the counsels of heaven. But now, regarding imputed righteousness (not long-tolerated wickedness) and the sharing of a greater deliverance, friends of Jesus have at least equal privileges: “I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known to you.” To some extent this was a declaration of intention, for only a few minutes later the Lord was constrained to add: “I have yet many things to say unto you, but we cannot bear them now.” These omissions were made good, no doubt, during the next Forty Days or by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as the Twelve grew to the responsibilities of early church leadership.

It is difficult to be sure whether the ensuing words carry on the allusion to Abraham, or go back to the True Vine. Perhaps both. “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and appointed you, that ye should go forth (as childless Abraham was called out of Ur?) and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit may abide; that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name (as Abraham sought the fulfilment of his hopes in the birth of a seed), he may give it you.”

Essentially, these words have to do with the propagation of the good news concerning Christ. This was to be apostles’ great task. The influence of their message on the lives of men needing succour from sin was to mean a luscious fruitfulness on the Vine of God. But they could never hope to achieve much of this in their own strength: “Whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he will give it you.” Without the wisdom and power of the Spirit of truth, their word — and his—must fall to the ground.

Especially must they remember that the source and spring of all their activity and progress was in Christ. Only “in his name” could they seek the direction and blessing needed on all their endeavours. “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” This principle of divine action is fundamental. It is hard to believe, harder still to understand, nigh impossible. Yet it must never be forgotten, lest a man think there is any virtue in his “decision” (forsooth!) to belong to Christ. “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you”—the words epitomize divine grace and human helplesssness. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 Jn.4 :10).

The life of faith, and therefore of fruitfulness, in Christ depends on an adequate recognition of this amazing, unreasonable, and utterly incomprehensible principle (Mt. 25:34; Jn. 6:37, 39, 44, 65; 17:6; 12:39, 40; Acts 13:48; 18:10, 27; 16:14; 2:23, 39; 4:24-28; 1 Pet. l:2,20; Rom. 8:28-30; 9:10,11; Rev. 13:8; 1 Cor. l:26-28; 4:7; 3:5-7; Eph. l:4, 5, 9, 11 ;2 Th. 2:13).

Notes: Jn. 15:1-17

With dramatic suddenness Jesus now switched the theme of his discourse from love to hatred. It was needful to prepare the minds of the disciples not only for the intense shock of seeing their Lord crucified but also for the campaign of hostility and violence to be let loose against themselves, simply because they belonged to Christ and were continuing his work: “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.” Here, as in so many places in John’s gospel, kosmos signifies the Jewish world, the Judaist establishment. “The world cannot hate you.” Jesus said to his own brothers, because they saw nothing wrong with Judaism and were happy in its philosophy of justification by works; “but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that its works of righteousness are evil” (.In.7 :7). This, basically, was why the Jewish religious system turned against Jesus—because he re-defined true righteousness as loyalty to and faith in himself, the Son of God, and because he had little room for religious observances which make a man feel pleased with himself.

Judaist persecution

So with a telling repetition of this word “world” which he so completely reprobated (six times in two verses!), he sought to fortify his apostles against inevitable bitterness and rancour. Share the religious outlook of your contemporaries, and they will give you their esteem without stint, he told them. But this is not for you. I have taught you differently. The new outlook and the new way of life which I have shown you inevitably separates. The world will see to that. It will hate you simply because you acknowledge me as Lord.

“Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord.” He had said it to them less than an hour before, sitting at the meal table, after washing their feet to show them how their discipleship should go into action. But he had also said the same thing to them on another occasion when preparing their minds for the hostility and persecution which was bound to come: “It is enough (and more than enough!) for the disciple that he become as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Bealzebub, how much more them of his household!” (Mt.10 :24,25). Perhaps it is because he wished to recall this earlier warning about persecution that Jesus said: “Remember”.

His words had that faint flavour of irony which they so often carried. “If they observed my teaching (and you know that they would have none of it!) they will observe yours also.”

There was nothing for it but that the disciples brace themselves for coming trouble. Persecution was inevitable: “All these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.” And so it came to pass. The teaching and works of Jesus left that generation destitute of excuse:

“If I had not come and spoken unto them,

they had not had sin:

but now they have no cloke for their sin.

He that hateth me hateth my Father also.

If I had not done among them the works which none other man did,

they had not had sin.

but now (they have no cloke for their sin, for)

they have both seen and hated both me and my Father”.

Hated without a cause

This emphasis on the witness born by his miracles is specially characteristic of John’s gospel (3 :2; 5 :36; 7 :31; 9 :30-33; 10 :38; 14 :11). Their reception of his miracles should have been unhampered by any of the deep-rooted prejudice which now resisted his teaching. However they were impervious to every form of appeal made by him: “But (I spoke to them, and did these miracles) that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.”

There are four places in the Book of Psalms, to any of which Jesus might have been alluding (35 :19; 69 :4; 109 :3; 119 :161). Somewhat remarkably, the first three all have their roots in David’s bitter experience at the time of Absalom’s rebellion (see Study 187). Each of them makes mention also of the well-loved friend who turned traitor-Ahithophel, the prototype of Judas (35 :11-15; 69 :25-cp. Acts 1 :20; 109 :8). Two of these three psalms are specially appropriate to the earlier warning by Jesus: “If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you”-“They speak not peace, but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land” (35 :20); “Let not them that wait on thee … be ashamed for my sake: let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel… they persecute him whom thou hast smitten, and they count up the torments of those whom thou hast wounded” (69:6,26).

In the testing experiences of persecution the gift of the Holy Spirit was to prove a wonderful aid and solace, the Comforter in very truth. The Lord’s words here (v.26), taken with Acts 9 :31, are most appropriate to the conversion of the one who most intensely hated and persecuted.

Wisdom and Power

Jesus had promised: “I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist” (Lk.21 :15) – “for it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you” (Mt.10:20). The repeated impressive examples of Peter, Stephen and Paul in the Book of Acts show how literally true these promises of heavenly help were.

These men of God were keenly aware of a power and wisdom, far surpassing their own, being super-added to their own eager personal witness: “the Spirit of truth . . . shall testify of me: and ye also shall bear witness.” So Peter was able to say: “We are his witnesses of these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit, which God hath given to them that obey him” (Acts 5 :32), “It seemed good unto the Holy Spirit and to us . . .”, said James at the council in Jerusalem, with an authority which no one dreamed of questioning (Acts 15 :28). In a somewhat more subtle fashion, when on trial before Festus Paul declared: “I am not mad .. . but speak forth the words of truth and soberness” (Acts 26 :25); the expression he employed there means: “to speak as a divine oracle.” So he was not only inspired, but knew it.

Fanaticism

The Lord’s warning of persecution and promise of divine guidance were both given to save from stumbling these his followers who, left to themselves, would assuredly be overwhelmed spiritually as well as physically by the intellectual cleverness and unscrupulous power of their ruthless adversaries, and by undisciplined mass opposition also. No less than six times he spoke of “these things” which were to come upon them (15 :21; 16 :1,3,4,4,6; and note also 15:11,17).

Excommunication would be applied as a matter of course. It was a terrible weapon, for in its extremest form it involved not only religious but social ostracism-no man might buy or sell save he who had the mark of the synagogue. The blind beggar, healed of his blindness, boldly stood up to the bullying of the Jewish rulers, and paid for it by being “cast out” (Jn.9 :22,34). And men like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were long held back from openly declaring their allegiance to Jesus by the same threat publicly held over the head or any who came out on the side of the Galilean (12:42).

But worse would follow: “Whosoever killetth you will think that he doeth God service”-and here Jesus used the technical term for offering sacrifice or singing psalms to God in His temple. It was a saying of the rabbis: “Everyone who sheds the blood of the impious is as if he offered sacrifice.” Thus they were to be accounted as sheep for the slaughter (Rom.8 :36)! Saul of Tarsus was one of these fanatical persecutors. Years later he looked back on that phase of his life: “I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem: and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they (others besides Stephen) were put to death. I gave my voice against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them I persecuted them even unto strange cities” (i.e. other places besides Damascus)” (Acts 26:9-11).

Jesus could hardly have put his warnings more plainly. Now was the time for the fainthearted among them to say: “No, Lord, this is more than I can face.” Instead, Peter “spake the more vehemently, If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise”—and “likewise also said they all” (Mk.14 :31), brave, loyal, weak, bewildered men that they were.

Notes: Jn. 15:18-27

The soul of Jesus was clouded with the prospect of impending persecution and suffering. This chiefly because of his disciples. The world hating him, would assuredly hate them also. So he was much concerned to fortify them against the evil to come: “These things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember (and understand; 2:17, 22; 12 :16) that I told you of them” (13 :29; 14 :29 also). Forewarned and with yet greater confidence in their Lord as a true prophet when his words were so exactly fulfilled, they would brace their souls against the onset of antagonism and stiffen their loyalty to his cause.

He could have spelled out these ominous predictions for them in the early days of their discipleship. But what purpose could it achieve when they had Jesus constantly with them? But now he was to be taken from them. Then their understanding of his person and work were marvellously limited: now, for all their many misunderstandings, they knew and loved him better.

In a little while he would be snatched away from them, but because he had been at pains to explain to them beforehand (15 :18-25) there was no need for bewildered blunders such as Peter’s: “Lord, why cannot I follow thee now?” (13 :37). Even so, there was puzzlement enough, as their later cross-questioning of him was to show (16 :17-19). And, inevitably, a bleak sense of impending bereavement clouded their present enjoyment of his fellowship.

Yet, paradoxically, it was for their own good that he be taken from them. “It is expedient for you that I go away,” firstly, because it was so fore-ordained in the Word of God: “Thou hast ascended up on high”—this first, and then: “thou hast led captivity captive, thou hast received gifts for men . . . that the Lord God might dwell among them” (Ps.68 :18). Jesus now reiterated this: “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you.”

Then, too, they must learn the wholesome truth, however reluctant they might be to face it, that a man can only grow into mature discipleship away from Christ. For the basic Christian virtue is the faith which struggles and grows and flourishes without the present aid of theophany.

More than this, how could Jesus come to be the Lord of disciples everywhere if he were to be localised in one spot and restricted in his fellowship to one small group? Indeed, it was expedient that he go away.

The promised Comforter

But he left them a true promise (this is the idiomatic meaning behind his words: “I tell you the truth”)-the Holy Spirit would be their aid and guide and comfort in every spiritual need. To some extent the disciples would appreciate what he meant, for on an earlier occasion when he had sent them out preaching, away from his personal direction and support, they had found themselves mysteriously and wonderfully helped by the very powers which they had seen in him (Mt.10:1). And later, at a time of uncertain faith, when Jesus had gone into the mount of transfiguration, how unsure and helpless they had been without those powers, when they were faced by the double challenge of an epileptic boy and hostile argumentative Pharisees (Mk.9:16-18).

But in the days to come, renewed and encouraged by the Pentecostal gift, these men were to show themselves worthy witnesses of their Lord. “He (the Holy Spirit) will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and .of judgment;” As in the earlier part of this discourse, the “world” here is certainly the Jewish world.

But why should the Holy Spirit be referred to by a personal pronoun? This could be because the Holy Spirit is God in action-the Father’s power vindicating His Son through the inspired witness of his disciples. Or, the pronoun “he” could be regarded as necessary to agree with the earlier word “Comforter” (parakletos is a masculine noun), and so right through this passage (especially in v.13). Yet another suggestion, on very different lines, will be offered later in this study.

A Power of Conviction

Jesus went on to expound his teaching about the Holy Spirit. First, there must be reproof of Jewry regarding its sin in rejecting himself-“because they believe not on me.” In all men this is the great sin-lack of faith in Christ. It is a sin which invalidates every other .virtue a man may have, no matter how many or how fine. And this sin-the rejection of Jesus—was to write off as worthless all the Jewish dedication to good works and godliness. The sin was specially grievous because of the sustained witness of Jesus himself and of his unique works.

From the earliest days the Holy Spirit in Peter hammered away at this unpalatable truth: “Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of Life… Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out…” (Acts 3 :14,15,19). “They were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (2:37). The apostle’s preaching had brought conviction not only of their own sin, but also of Christ’s righteousness, and of his unique power to intercede with God: “because I go to my Father” (v.10; 1 Jn.2 :1). The Holy Spirit in Peter once again: “Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear” (Acts 2 :24,32,33). This speech of Peter’s was beautifully complementary to the words of Jesus in its allusion to the promise of the Holy Spirit and to the vindication of Jesus through his ascension to God’s throne (“Because I go to my Father,” Jesus said). It was a claim which would have been bitterly contested and rancorously denounced if there had been any shred of evidence to encourage such a rejection.

A third equally momentous conviction was to be brought home to the Jews—that through Jesus the entire Mosaic system was coming to an end: “the prince of this (Jewish) world is judged.” As Jesus put it in this brief trenchant phrase, the “prince” or “ruler” of Jewry was the high priest whose office and functions made him the pivot and fulcrum of everything to do with the Law of Moses. With the death of Christ all this revered system became nugatory. Jesus, “blotting out the hand-writing of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross” (Col.2 :14). The apostles came to this intensely revolutionary idea very slowly and timidly.

Stephen and Paul were the most clear-sighted regarding it. Nor did they lack the courage to assert this truth: “And by him (Jesus) all that believe (both Jews and Gentiles) are justified from all things, from which ye (Jews) could not! be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13 :39), Without the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit’s wisdom how could these frail men have ever come to espouse, let alone advocate, such a radical doctrine?

Until their concept of Jesus had changed drastically, much that he would fain impart must remain unsaid: “Ye cannot bear them now.”

Always Jesus had adjusted the quality of his instruction to the capacity of the twelve to take in what he was saying: “he spake the word unto them, as they were able to hear it… when they were alone he expounded all things to his disciples” (Mk.4 :33,34). He fed them with milk, and not with meat, for hitherto they were not able to bear it (1 Cor.3:2).

Promise of the Apocalypse

However, during the Forty Days—and much later through the Apocalypse—he was to further their understanding very profoundly. In earlier discourse (Studies 172,199), Jesus had deliberately aimed to bring out the parallel (and the contrast) between himself and Moses. In that designed similitude the earlier counterpart of the first promise of the Spirit of truth was the Angel of God’s Presence guiding Israel in the wilderness. Now Jesus recurred to the same idea: “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth (concerning me): for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.” This last sentence is an explicit promise of the Book of Revelation—for what other showing of future things was given to the apostles?

The ensuing comment harmonizes admirably * with this: “All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” This is very close in idea to Revelation 1:1 “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John.” The two passages have exactly the same ingredients: The Father, Jesus, the angel (called also the Spirit), the Lord’s apostles, things to come shewn—in John the word “shew” (anangello) is chosen to suggest an ange!l The words may even mean that when the Apocalypse was given an inspired understanding of it or commentary was also available to the early church through the guidance of the Spirit of truth. And when it is realised that Revelation, in the primary fulfilment of Seals and Trumpets at least, is very largely concerned with the overthrow of Jerusalem and its Mosaic system, the context in John is also seen to harmonize remarkably closely, for-as just indicated-verses 8-11 are only meaningful when read with reference to the old order in Jerusalem which the Truth in Christ was to supersede.

Once again Jesus gave himself to the unpalatable duty of preparing the minds of his apostles for the disappointments and shocks they were soon to be subjected to: “A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go the Father.”

This was too enigmatic for them-as indeed it has been for later generations of disciples. The idea appears to be this:

‘There is coming a little while during which you will not see me (the time of my death and burial). Then there will be another little while (the forty days) during which you will see me. But it will be only a little while (compared with what you would wish) because then I ascend to the Father’.

With hindsight this reading is relatively easy, but it is easy to understand how the disciples, still unwilling to believe in the death of their lord and certainly without any concept of his resurrection and ascension, were mystified.

They were probably all the more puzzled because Jesus made a deliberate change in the word for “see”, the second time using a word which very frequently (and especially in John) signifies seeing a divine manifestation (e.g. 1:18; 5:37; 6:46_; 8:38; 20:18, 25, 29). If, as suggested here, Jesus was referring to the “little while” of his resurrection appearances, this is specially appropriate.

A parable of travail

The repetitious query of the disciples shows that they were bewildered rather than enlightened by this saying. So there is perhaps some excuse for uncertainty in the minds of disciples today.

Although the request for more light was not put to Jesus directly he knew well enough how much it was needed. So he sought to help them by means of a little parable: “A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.” The reference beforehand to his own resurrection is fairly obvious. At Pentecost Peter was to use the same figure (harking back to this?) when he spoke of God “loosing the birth-pangs of death” when Jesus was raised up (Acts 2:24).

This idea, of the resurrection of Jesus as the birth of the New Creation, can be traced in various Messianic Scriptures. He is “the firstborn of all the (new) creation . . . the first born from the dead” (Col. l :15,18). It is with reference to his resurrection that the Second Psalm has the Father saying: “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee” (Ps.2 :7 is quoted in Heb.5 :5 with reference to the priesthood of Christ, and in Heb.1 :5 with reference to his exaltation to divine glory).

Isaiah 66 is particularly interesting in this respect because of the sustained similarities with the language of John 16, so as almost to suggest that Jesus was speaking with this in mind: “Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word; your brethren that hated you, that cast out your name as evil… they shall be ashamed, but he shall appear to your joy… Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child … Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her… and when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice” (ls.66 :5,7,10,14). But it should be noted here that Jerusalem’s time of suffering was to come after the birth of the Man-Child. And this is how it happened, for Jerusalem’s travail, as distinct from the distress of the Lord’s disciples, came in retribution for the rejection of Christ.

The details of purification at child-birth, as laid down in the Law of Moses, chime in neatly with the figure Jesus used. After the birth of a male child, circumcision must be on the eighth day and the period of purification was to run to the fortieth (Lev. 12 :2-4). Apparently, the eighth day after his resurrection Jesus appeared to the disciples for the last time in Jerusalem, restoring faith in Thomas, the last of the twelve to be convinced, and his personal presence with them ended on the fortieth.

Help promised

“In that day (the time of his resurrection appearances) ye shall ask me nothing”-that is, nothing about this little parable, because the event was to make its meaning clear and obvious. The statement can hardly be taken absolutely, because during the forty days they certainly asked him plenty of questions, including especially: “Wilt thou at this time, restore again the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1 :6). The answer to that was: “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons . ..”

But with the blessing of the Holy spirit, “whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.” Clearly, this was not an absolute promise, free from all limitations. The words are to be taken in some restricted sense. But what? The immediate context suggests prayers to God for fuller understanding. But on the other two occasions when Jesus made the same promise (14 :13; 15 :16), he was fairly evidently referring to the disciples’ preaching after his ascension. Then perhaps here also is an extension of Messiah’s privilege to those who help with his work: “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the Gentiles for thine inheritance” (Ps.2 :8)-the words follow immediately after: “this day have I begotten thee” (the Lord’s own parable). This first century reference of the psalm is suggested by its apostolic use in Acts 4:25-28. “Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be fulfilled” seems to imply the fulfilment of a prophecy—Psalm 2, or perhaps Isaiah 66, just quoted.

Almost all through this discourse Jesus had spoken by figure of speech and Old Testament allusion, and the disciples groped uncertainly for his meaning. Yet how could he put it otherwise? A bald matter-of-fact declaration of what they were to experience in the next few days was more than their powers of comprehension could rise to and more than their spirits could endure. For the same reason Scripture uses metaphor and idiom to inform those sharing the Hope of Israel about the glories and joys of Messiah’s kingdom. How is it possible to describe the wonders of a sunset to a man who has never had sight? So, necessarily, Jesus was talking to his disciples now more for future benefit than present enlightenment.

In yet another way their spiritual education would be furthered: “The time cometh (in the forty days) when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of ff» Father.” The walk of the two disciples to Emmaus with their unrecognized risen Lord was a sample of this when a marvellous illumination flood-lit clouded intelligence. All those encounters with Jesus up to the day of ascension must have been crowded with exciting experiences comparable to that of the blind man at Siloam.

In days to come, when high responsibility in the ecclesia accentuated their sense of need for guidance, yet more help would be fully available: “At that day ye shall ask in my name: and do I not say unto you that I will pray the Father for you?”—this assurance should surely be read as a rhetorical question, giving an implied promise of intercession on their behalf in heaven (1 Jn.2 :1). And (Jesus further implied) my prayers for you will be heard for the added reason that “the Father himself loveth you (here is the Greek word for “affection”), because ye have loved me and have believed that I came out from the Father.” Those Greek perfect tenses emphasize more strongly than their English counterparts their continuing loyalty through the past into the present.

The order of the words here is noteworthy. Their personal affection for Christ came first, and afterwards by slow degrees their faith in him as the Redeemer and Messiah. Even now their understanding was at best fragmentary and unsure. Yet the Father accepted the partial character of their faith because of their loyalty to His Son.

Often enough since those early days the experience of the apostles has been repeated-that a man has come to know and love Christ before ever he has gained a sound understanding of his atoning work and royal destiny. But if indeed a man does truly love Christ, the rest is almost sure to follow in due course.

Jesus now attempted a summary of what he hoped the apostles would recognize and appreciate regarding him: “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again I leave the world, and go to the Father.”

First, then, his divine origin. In the early days they naturally thought of him as “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (1 :45), but, with all their privileges of closeness to him, to stay there would evince a blindness almost or quite matching that of the rulers. In his birth he “came forth from the Father” (cp. Lk.l :35), and with a unique God-sent mission he had “come (out of the obscurity of Nazareth) into the Jewish world.” Soon he was to leave all in order to be personally present with (pros) the Father.

The reaction of the disciples was rather extraordinary: “Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no parable. Now we are sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee.” This is strange, for the entire discourse of Jesus since they left the upper room had been taken up with illustration and type, Old Testament allusion and enigma. Then, by “speaking no parable/’did they mean that now at last it had dawned on them that their Jesus was God’s great Reality, the fulfilment of every typical foreshadowing portrayed in their Scriptures? But if so, one is left wondering what Jesus had just said to bring this sudden enlightenment.

Alternatively, and oppositely, their declaration is to be taken as their most blundering demonstration yet that “they so little understood him as not even to understand that they did not understand.” The gentle irony of their Master’s reply, and his evident concern for them in the trial of faith suddenly to come on them gives more credence to this view.

Scattered, yet Sustained

“Do ye now believe? (the Lord surely spoke in irony again). Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone”-a very different outcome from what their confident words might give promise of: “By this we believe that thou earnest forth from God.”

Like Peter’s violent assertions of unfaltering loyalty, this declaration of faith in Jesus had its backlash: “ye shall be scattered every man to nis own.” The allusion to Zechariah 13 :7 was appropriate: “Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.” Within a couple of hours, “all the disciples forsook him, and fled” (Mt.26 :57). Even after the discovery of the opened tomb, “the disciples went away again unto their own homes” (Jn.20 :10). The two leaving Jerusalem for Emmaus on the day of resurrection provide yet another illustration of this(Lk.24:13).

Notwithstanding his inevitable deep disappointment in the disciples, Jesus was able to speak, both for his own reassurance and theirs, of a spiritual fortifying against adversity which none could deprive him of: “I am not alone, because the Father is with me”. It was the seventh time within a short while that he had said this (13 :31; 16:33). At the crucifixion there were to be open signs of this sublime truth.

“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.” Even the aftermath of wretchedness, when they came to reflect remorsefully on how they had let him down, was not to rob them of ultimate satisfaction. “In the world (of Jewry) ye shall have tribulation”-he had already spoken to them at length about this (15 :19-21) and it was clearly foretold in the Zechariah prophecy he had alluded to (13 :9)-“but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” Since the agony of Gethesemane still lay before him the past tense here would be no small difficulty, but for the specialised restricted meaning which John’s gospel so often has for the word /cosmos. Although Jesus still had before him the final struggle against his own human weakness, the other victory against the external powers of evil-the men of the Sanhedrin—was already won. They had already proved it by their plot to get him crucified. “The victory of the Jews was, in fact, their defeat” (Hoskyns). The same bitter opposition to the apostles would be a continuing demonstration of an intensifying victory of Christ. So let the paradox of it teach them good courage!

Notes: Jn. l6:16-33

Apart from this remarkable example of the Lord Jesus in prayer, almost nothing is known of his fellowship with the Father. But how this unique chapter in the gospels makes good all other omissions!

The phrase: “he lifted up his eyes to heaven,” reads most naturally if this prayer were spoken out of doors, whilst Jesus and his disciples were on their way to Gethsemane. Perhaps en route there they spent a short while in the temple court. But such a supposition has to be reconciled with: “Your house is left unto you desolate” (Mt. 23:38).

It seems highly probable that John 17 gives the actual words spoken by Jesus. The later quotation of verse 12 (in 18 :9) strongly supports this: “that the saying might be fulfilled, which he spake. Of them which thou gavest me have I lost none.” The words are quoted verbatim.

The prayer falls into three sections. In the first the Lord prays briefly for himself and for fulfilment of God’s Purpose through himself. The rest of the prayer is for his disciples and then for those who are brought to faith in him through their labours. But essentially the prayer is on behalf of his apostles.

It is here that the outworking of the theme of John’s gospel comes to its climax: “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (1 :17). To read John 17without an awareness of its many points of contact with the work of Moses is to miss one of its main intentions. For convenience’ sake a list of these is tabulated here:

It is to be noted that appropriately, the allusions are mostly to the sublimest experiences of Moses—his vision of the glory of the Lord in Sinai, his ministering of the Law, and his intercession for the people in their sin.

There is marked contrast between the Lord lifting up his eyes to heaven in this prayer and the penitent publican in the parable who “would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven” as he sought forgiveness (Lk. 18 :13). It is a contrast not difficult to understand. But a short while later, in Gethsemane, when Jesus felt borne down by the burden of sin and its penalties now laid upon him, “he fell on his face and prayed” (Mt.26:39).

“Father, the hour is come.” It is the Lord’s characteristic way of referring to a time of outstanding action and vital development (Jn. 2:4; 4:21,23; 5:25,28; 7:30; 8:20; 12:23,37; 16:32; 19:27). The successful outcome of the Purpose of God now depended on the consecrated will of His only Son. So he prayed for help in the ordeal and victory in his tribulation.

The main point of his first petition comes out more clearly if it is rearranged: “Glorify thy Son, in order that, as thou hast given him authority over all flesh he might give to them whatsoever thou hast given him (that is, eternal life), even so may the Son glorify thee.” Far from pitying himself because of the burden of responsibility and suffering now laid upon him, Jesus was concerned mostly for a happy outcome to this divine work, that “for God’s pleasure” the New Creation might come into being (Rev.4:11).

It is difficult to believe that at this moment Jesus was not leaning once again (see Study 159) on the wonderful Messianic prophecy in Isaiah 49 : “Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified … Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength … a light to the Gentiles … my salvation unto the ends of the earth” (49 :3,5,6). There are passages in the rest of the New Testament which take up this theme with great power and inspiration (e.g. Eph.l :20,23; Ph.2 :7-11; Rev.5 :8-14).

Those with difficulties in personal prayer will note one thing here with re-assurance. Even though this fruitful result of the work and suffering of Christ was already foretold in prophecies which must be fulfilled, and had already been promised to Jesus personally—’I have glorified my Name and I will glorify it again” (Jn.12 :28)—Jesus prayed nevertheless for full achievement of the Father’s intention through himself. It is the old, old paradox of the infallibility of divine purpose and the frailty of human nature, even when that human nature is the Son of God. Inspired prophecy had also said: “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession” (Ps.2:8). So Jesus asked, and was to ask again, and was not refused.

“Authority over all flesh” is an unusual phrase. It emphasized a creation in desperate need of redemption. “All flesh”, as grass, had the glory of the lord revealed to it in Jesus. Yet through him eternal life was to come only to “those whom God had given him’—another mysterious paradox—or a different facet of the same. Some find satisfaction in evolving obscure explanations which are supposed to reconcile these seeming differences, at least to their own satisfaction. But it is probably more wholesome, and certainly more in tune with the life of faith to believe implicitly all these enunciations of variegated divine truth, whether they are seen to be reconciled or not.

Jesus defined the gift of eternal life. It is hardly the definition which would first come to the mind of a twentieth-century disciple whose sights are set on power over the nations, the rooting out of wickedness, and the enjoyment of comfort and ease in a springcleaned world. Instead: “that they might know thee the only true God, and him whom thou hast sent, even Jesus Christ.”

Here some try to insist, with over-scrupulosity, on the reading: “in order that they might know thee …” In that case, the main intent behind human redemption is that men be brought into fellowship with the Father and the Son. This is a not unworthy meaning of a sublime passage.

But in a number of places John’s gospel uses this Greek particle [hind] to indicate apposition rather than a purpose or consequence (e.g. 3 :16; 4:34; 13:1); so the meaning suggested by the common version is equally possible; and the word for “know” (= learn about, get to know, perceive) lends support to this. The idiom which speaks of “eternal life” as a part of present experience in Christ is not uncommon in this gospel (e.g. 3 :36; 5 :24; 6 :47,54; 10 :28; 1 Jn.5 :11,13). Learning to know the Father and the Son is the quintessence of life in Christ, a widening experience leading to a fulness of personal knowledge in the age to come. There is little justification for the rather woolly controversy which has now and then centred on this phrase: “eternal life”.

The expression: “the true God” somewhat remarkably makes contrast not with the false gods of men’s devising but with the limited and often typical revelation of Jehovah in Old Testament times. Through His Son men were able to know intimately, if they chose, an expression of God’s own personality and purpose. In the wondrous demonstration of this ineffable truth Jesus “glorified the Father on the earth.” In this sense he “finished the work given him to do.”

It has often been commented that verse 3 gives the first occurrence of the name “Jesus Christ”-apart from the heading of Matthew’s and Mark’s gospels. There is some doubt whether it was actually used by Jesus or whether, as the shape of the Greek sentence may suggest, it is a parenthesis inserted by John himself: “the only true God, and him whom thou didst send (even Jesus Christ).” Yet who would wish to say that this first use of the now familiar name is in any way out of place here? Because of its extended intercession for the disciples this is the Lord’s high-priestly prayer. The name Jesus Christ is an appropriate reminder that he was anointed not only to be King of Israel but also as “an high priest over the house of God” (Heb.10 :21).

It would be a mistake to conclude, because the Lord spoke of a “finished work”, that thenceforth there was nothing left for him to do. He had glorified the Father in countless gracious works (2 :11; 11 :4,40; 5 :36; 9 :4), he had taught with unflagging effort and earnestness the message of the kingdom and the responsibilities of its citizenship (7 :16,18; 4 :34). All this was now rounded off with the matchless appeal of the past few days. There still lay before him his self-denial and suffering, until at last he was to say, with head uplifted: “It is finished” (19 :30). His vital work as mediator still continues (16 :7,23; 14 :13,14; 15 :7,16). And even when he comes again there will be another great work to accomplish 1Cor.15:25,28.

It was surely for the benefit of his redeemed that the Lord now repeated his earlier petition (v.l): “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” Words such as these have been used as a sheet-anchor by Trinitarians and others who make the personal pre-existence of Jesus a dogma of high importance.

Once again, it is failure to recognize the idiom of the Bible, and especially of the Johannine writings, which has created the misconception. Jesus is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev.13 :8), he is “the root of David” (Rev.22 :16), he is the source of Abraham’s unquenchable joy (Jn.8 :58,56), because from the earliest days his great redeeming work was the very hinge and pivot of every development in the purpose of God. Long before the foundation of the Jewish kosmos, from the time of Abraham, when Sarah “received strength for the founding of seed” (Heb.ll :11), the intensifying teleology of creation converged on Christ. And to this minute nothing has meaning apart from him.

Notes: Jn. 17:1-5

After its first few sentences, all the rest of this prayer of Jesus centred on his disciples, so it may be taken as fairly certain that even the earlier petitions on his own behalf were really with them in mind, for it was only through himself that eternal life and the glory of the Father could come to them. He had been unremitting in his efforts to educate them in this truth: “I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.” That expression: “Thou gavest them me” comes six times in this prayer! (v.6twice,9,11,12,24).

The Name

The allusions to Moses come through clearly here (see Study 205). The “name” of the Lord declared to Moses (Ex.34 :6,7) was declared by him to the people, just as the glory of the Lord also was visible in him in a truly awe-inspiring fashion (34 :29-35). And as the men of Levi, unexpectedly loyal to their leader and reacting sharply from the sin of the golden calf, were assigned a perpetual loyalty to the sanctuary of the Lord (Dt.33 :8-10), so also now the disciples given to Jesus as his necessary helpers, had hung on in their loyalty to him against all, discouragements.

Jesus had both “manifested” the Name of God (v.6) and “declared” Him (v.26). The former word nearly always implies theophany, the latter means “made known” through his teaching. The “Name” he manifested was, of course, much more than the divine Covenant Name or other cognomen. As with Moses in the mount, the Name of the Lord now declared by Jesus was His character and attributes and purpose. “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth (the fulfilment of His promises), keeping mercy for thousands (very probably means “for a thousand generations”; Ex.20 :6RVm), forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (Ex.34 :6,7). It may be doubted whether at this time the apostles appreciated that their Jesus was to be the vehicle of such surpassing grace, but in due time the Spirit of truth illuminated their understanding very remarkably.

“They have known^”

Given to Jesus by the Father, they “kept” his word and became the staunch custodians of his teaching. Here again is yet another aspect of the inescapable paradox woven into so much of the teaching of John’s gospel. Given by the Father-this is election-but keeping their Master’s word is only by personal decision and act of will.

“Now they have come to know that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.” Throughout the past three years there had been plenty of occasions when their confidence in him had faltered, times enough when devotion had been clouded by mystification; yet they had held on, unable to define clearly the grounds of their conviction about him, but unwilling to let go.

It seems not unlikely that the past tenses used by the Lord in his prayer concerning his disciples were so used by anticipation of the greater consolidation of faith which came to them later on. The very words spoken by the Father to His Son (Dt.18 :16,18) were now spoken to them by Jesus, “and they received them’—at this time only in a limited sense; the “receiving” of the inner meaning of their Lord’s instruction would be theirs in due course. “They have known surely that I came forth from thee, and they believed that thou didst send me.” It may be doubted whether at this moment the apostles had grasped as a literal fact that Jesus was the Son of God, born of a virgin (8 :42). And the sense in which he was “sent” would naturally be interpreted by them in the light of his word about themselves: “As thou hast sent me unto the world, even so have I also sent them into the world” (v.18). But the full realisation of the person and work of Jesus would necessarily come to them after the resurrection, after Pentecost.

There is a marvellous exclusiveness about this petition of Jesus for his own: “I pray for them: I pray not for the world” (cp. Mt.10:32). Once again it was the Jewish world which he reprobated. He had come unto his own, and his own received him not (astonishing understatement!). And as long as Israel gave him only a stubborn rejection, “pray not for this people” was the mandate God laid upon him (Jer.11:14;cp. 1Jn.5:19).

So all his concern was centred on these humble inadequate men given him by his Father—’for they are thine: and all mine are thine, and thine are mine.” Once again the paradox shouts for resolution: if this be so emphatically true, why the need for this most intense insistent prayer? But the Book supplies no answer. To the unbeliever this is foolishness, to the man of God it is faith, and thus the Son of God is glorified in him.

How well Jesus knew the frailty of these to whom he was to commit so much. There might well be grounds for concern how they would fare without him: “I am no more in the world, but these are in the world (that hostile Jewish world of entrenched privilege, religious distortion, and consolidated prejudice). Holy Father (the one who prays thus is a High Priest entering into a Holy of Holies),… Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me.”

The unique mode of address used by Jesus here is a measure of the intensification of his emotion and earnestness. In such an environment as the disciples would find themselves, how could they hope to keep their heads above water without having “everlasting arms” to support them and without a wisdom far beyond their own?

The exact equivalent of this prayer (v. 11) is to be found in an impressive Messianic psalm: “Let not them that wait on thee, O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake; let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel” (69 :6). And another psalm which includes a moving passage about Judas (55:12-14)ends on this note: “Cast upon the Lord that which he has given thee, and he shall sustain thee” (55 :22). In his protracted intercession for those given him by the Father, Jesus expressed the spirit of this psalm perfectly.

The son of perdition

His own concern and vigilance for the twelve had been unremitting: “While I was with them, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept (NEB: kept them safe), and none of them perished, but the son of perdition.” The implications here are very striking. If the twelve were “given” to Jesus by the Father, it must mean that there was direct divine guidance in their selection, a guidance imparted in the course of a whole night spent in prayer about them (Lk.6:12).

Judas was one of those “given” by the Father, yet he became “a son of loss.” Then what did John mean by his earlier declaration that “Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him” (6:64)? Perhaps this should betaken to mean that Jesus knew (from the Old Testament) that the traitor must be one of the inner circle of his disciples.

The added phrase: “that the scripture might be fulfilled,” lends support to this. “Let his days be few, and let another take his office” (Ps.109 :8; and cp. Ps.55 :12-14; 41 :9; 35:12-14).

In this specific example of Judas the earlier paradox reasserts itself. “Given to Jesus by the Father” would seem to imply the inevitability of salvation, Nevertheless Judas perished. Indeed, Jesus spoke of him as already perished (the RV reading is correct), although still competent for the evil work of betrayal. Here once again is the Johannine idiom (learnt from Jesus?). “He that loveth not his Brother abideth in death” (1 Jn. 3:14).

The ground for this prayer on behalf of the disciples was now repeated: “And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world (he surely meant ‘concerning the world—the next few verses seem to demand this meaning), that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.” This repetition of the word “fulfilled” suggests allusion to another Scripture to be fulfilled, probably to Psalm 16 :11: “Thou wilt shew me the path of life; in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand (“I come to thee”) there are pleasures for evermore” (but see also Zeph. 3:17;ls.29:19;51:ll;66:5). Here immediately after a clear prophecy of his resurrection, is a dear prophecy of his ascension. It is to be recalled, also, that just before this prayer Jesus had been making his promise to send the Spirit of truth from the Father (16:7; 15:26; 14:26).

Concern for the disciples

The benefit of the disciples as the spring and source of this prayer had already been copiously emphasized in his earlier words to them. It is worthwhile to bring the passages together, in order to get the full effect of the Lord’s concern for his weak unsure followers:

“Now I tell you before it come, that when it (the betrayal) is come to pass ye may believe that I am he” (13:19).

“And now I have told you before it (the ascension) come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe” (14:29).

“These things (the warning of persecution, and the comfort of the Holy Spirit) have I spoken unto you that ye should not be offended” (16:1).

“But these things (the hostility of the rulers) have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you” (16:4).

“These things (about the new commandment) have I spoken unto you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be fulfilled” (15:11).

“These things (his and their relationship to the Father) have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace” (16:33).

For all the hardship which hung over him, Jesus could hardly have shown greater solicitude for his followers and less for himself than by the long and intense sequence of petitions which he offered for them: “I have given them thy word; and the world hated them (cause and effect? 15 :18,19), because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (why this immediate repetition?). The world referred to was, once again, the Mosaic system and the unspiritual men associated with it; and the evil he sought their deliverance from was the danger of their being sucked back into compliance with an entrenched self-interest which his sacrifice must bring to an end.

Sent into “the world”

This part of the prayer has a close affinity with the assurance spoken to Peter a short while before: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan (the Jewish adversary—the “world”) hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren” (Lk.22 :31,32).

If they were true followers, they could expect their own experience to match his own. “As thou didst send me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world” (v.18). This can hardly have reference to the earlier, rather brief, mission they had carried out some months before. It must be about the great work of preaching which they were to undertake after his ascension. But it is not easy to see why a past tense should be used here (cp. 4 :38), unless indeed this prayer was actually offered just before the ascension.

He prayed that their self-denying consecration to an evangelizing mission might match his own: “For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth . . . Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth” (v. 19,17).

This “truth”, as in so many places in the Old Testament, alluded to the mighty promises of God which centred in himself. Indeed, the key phrase here was a quotation of king David’s thankful response to the great Messianic promise made to him through Nathan: “Thy words are truth, and thou hast promised this goodness unto thy servant” (2 Sam.7 :28). In the days to come it would be a firm conviction of the immutability of that promise and of its sure fulfilment in Christ which would keep these frail men constant and courageous in their ministry—this, and heaven’s response to their Master’s prayer.

Thus they were launched on their mission— “sent into the world’—even as their Master had himself been “sent into the world” from the time of his baptism by John.

Notes: Jn. 17:6-19

The Lord’s intercession now widened in scope to include the whole family of believers: “Neither pray I for these alone (the apostles), but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.” There is plain implication here of a preaching mission for which, at present, his disciples were very ill-equipped. But he had already repeatedly assured them that all their inadequacy would be made good by the Spirit of truth. The present participle here (translated “shall believe,” in the AV) is somewhat unexpected: “those who are believing.” But at the time he spoke, his apostles were not active missionaries. Yet the next few verses have ever been read with reference to the whole community of believers, “that they may be one, even as we are.”

This is not the only example here of the unexpected in tenses—have finished (v.4), have kept (v.6), have known surely (v.8), I am glorified (v.10), I come (v.ll), perished (v.12), I come, I speak (v.13), hated (v.U), I sent (v.18), thou gavest, I have given (v.22), I am, hast given (v.24), have tribulation, have overcome {16 :33).

“^:*V The phenomenon, traceable also elsewhere in the Lord’s discourses in John, has been glossed over by students of this gospel. Has any coherent explanation of it ever been forthcoming?

That they may be one”

The existence of this verbal idiosyncracy has never hindered any devout reader of this prayer from a clear appreciation of the profound far-reaching character of its petition: “that they all may be one; as thou art in me, and I in thee, that they may be one in us.” This is the second of four times (v.11,21,22,23). The repetition is a measure of the high importance set by Jesus on the unity of true believers.

He had set the ideal before the disciples in the sharing of the Bread and the Wine—an ideal which an anxious apostle was one day to strive desperately to impart to partisan Corinthians: “seeing that there is one loaf, we—the many-are one body” (see RVm of 1 Cor.10 :17). “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ (1 Cor. 12:12). Yet there have been times enough when it would seem that the Lord prayed for his own in vain. Would it have been any better had that prayer been offered forty times instead of four?

The ideal became reality in the earliest days of the church: “The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul” (Acts 4 :32). But even then it did not last. Soon there was “a murmuring of the Grecian Jews against the Hebrews” (6 :1). And it was not long before “certain men . . . taught the brethren, except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved” (15 :1).

Nor has the Truth in Christ fared any better in the twentieth century. Depressed and discouraged, many a disciple has often wondered to what purpose the words were ever said—or read! : “that they may be one, even as we are one.” So there were prayers of Jesus (Mt.26 :39 and Ps. 35 :13 are others) which even divine omnipotence could not and cannot respond to!

What a powerful contrast there is here with the familiar words spoken in Eden: “Behold, the man is become as one of us—to know good and evil” (3 :22). That was a one-ness of the wrong sort—equality of a kind, without fellowship, a human will asserting its independence of its Maker. For his disciples Jesus sought a mending of this discord: “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one.” Several other phrases in this prayer seem to echo Genesis: “the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (v.5); “they have kept thy word” (v.6); “keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me” (v.11); “that thou shouldest keep them from the evil (one)” (v.15); “the glory which thou hast given me … before the foundation of the world” (v.24).

“Perfected into one” is a phrase which makes amends for all present disappointments, for it implies ultimate achievement of what, in this day of small things (and small people) seems to be hopelessly out of reach.

Somewhat unexpectedly, Jesus no less than four (five?) times made this supplication with the word ”one” in a neuter form—to match the word “spirit” (implied?) The oneness of his prayer is that so succinctly expressed by Paul: “One body, one Spirit . . . one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Eph.4 :4-6). However small the present signs of realisation, aspiration and striving towards this ideal of one-ness in Christ must never be let go. An easy-going compliance with anything less is an open confession that “the body, without the spirit, is dead.”

Consecration and Glory

The means of achievement indicated by Jesus is easily missed by the modern reader because of the idiom involved. The Hebrew phrase for the consecration of a priest (literally: to fill the hand; Ex.29 :29,33,35, and many other places) is translated in the LXX by the word “perfected” (as in Heb.7 :28 etc). So, very probably, Jesus now envisaged the consecration of his disciples as “a spiritual house, a holy priesthood” (1 Pet.2 :5)—hence: “for their sakes I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth” (v.19).

To this he added: “that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me before the foundation of the world.” This is surely not the only allusion in this prayer to the manifestation of the Shekinah Glory of God to Moses and to the Seventy in mount Sinai before the inauguration of the tabernacle and its system of worship—the “foundation of the (Mosaic) world” (Ex.24 :18,10; 33 :22; 34 :29). The same prototype perhaps helps to add meaning to the expression: “that they also be with me where I am.” But in the immediate reference to Jesus and his disciples, “where I am” more probably has reference to condition or status rather than location, as also in Revelation: “They are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple” (7:15).

The appeal of the Son to the throne in heaven on behalf of his own now moved to a perfervid climax: “O righteous Father, the world (of Israel, the covenant nation) hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared to them thy name.” This is not the same as “manifesting” the name of the Father to them (v.6). That referred to the exhibition of the Father’s character and purpose in His Son. This looks back to all the instruction he had imparted to the disciples, especially at the Last Supper and since. And it was said by one who had “known” the Father. What do dogmatic Trinitarians make of the idea of a Son “coequal” with the Fathers who had to “get to know” Him, “learn” about Him?—for that is what the Greek word implies (and so also in 10:15; Mt.11 :27).

“I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it.” The marvellous shock of Christ’s resurrection had the effect of prising open the minds of the apostles to the reception of a vast world of spiritual truth which they drank in thirstily during the exciting experience of the forty days (Lk.24 :45; Acts 1 :3). Two thousand years before, Jehovah had said: “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do? . . . For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord . . . that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him” (Gen. 18 ;17,19). Then how much more must the same be true regarding the Seed of Abraham: “The only begotton Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (Jn. 1 :18).And all this, “that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.” Here, in few words, is the awe-inspiring and hopelessly illogical paradox of redemption—that a righteous Father should bestow on sinners the love which He has for His only-begotten Son. It makes no sense. And yet the explanation is simple: “I in them.” That is both Why and How.

Notes: Jn. 17:20-26

On the way to Gethsemane, or perhaps after they had arrived there, Jesus made the last of several attempts to cushion the faith of his disciples to the tremendous jolt which was inevitable in the next few hours.

“All ye shall be offended (caused to stumble) because of me this night.”

Earlier in his ministry he had pronounced a dreadful curse on the man who would cause one of these “little ones” to stumble: “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Mt.18 :6,7). Yet now Jesus himself was to be the occasion of it. But really their own inadequate understanding of God’s purpose in him was the root cause, and Judas’s traitorous work the means.

The imperative of Old Testament prophecy

And all this was to be according to the prophets: “For it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.” All through his ministry Jesus had shown himself strongly aware of the fact that his work and experiences were bound to conform to what was already written concerning him in the Old Testament, but towards the end this emphasis intensified; and the same theme, properly appreciated by his biographers in later days, was continued with fulness of detail in their records of his death and resurrection.

Many a Scripture which is enigmatic and mysterious to the modern reader must have been luminous and crystal-clear to the discerning mind of the Son of God, thus providing for him both encouragement and acute discouragement as he learned the things that God had in store for the One who loved Him.

Here was a Scripture which specifically included his disciples also. It was written for them as well as for him. In quoting, Jesus deliberately changed the wording from “smite thou” (Hebrew), or “Smite ye” (Greek LXX),to “I will smite,” thus emphasizing the divine purpose in it all (compare Is.53 :6,10), “to do what thy counsel determined before to be done” (Acts 4:28).

Exact fulfilment

The details of Zechariah 13:7-9 need to be taken in conjunction with the earlier prophecy of chapter 11, in which the shepherd of God’s flock is made to cease from his work, the price of his labours being a mere thirty pieces of silver. Thus the bond of the covenant between God and His nation is broken, and the people are thenceforward committed to the authority of shepherds who are blind, worthless, or tyrannical.

Here, in chapter 13, the Shepherd who is God’s “fellow” and who is nevertheless smitten by the power of organized government (“Awake, O sword;” cp. Rom.13 :4) is plainly Jesus.

Yet no sword was used against Jesus, even though men came “with swords and staves to take him” (Mt.26:55; and note Ps.22 :20).

“Awake, O sword” is rhetorical apostrophe addressed to the wielder of the sword; compare: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates” (Ps.24:7) addressed to the gatekeepers of Zion.

It is perhaps possible to go a step further and see the wielder of the sword not as some human authority but as an angel (Num.22 :23; Josh.5 :13) under whose unseen direction Roman and Jewish powers alike were.

The Hebrew text uses an unusual word for “the man that is my fellow.” All the other eleven occurrences of it come in Leviticus with reference to offences against or by one’s fellow man. Here it is used of God’s “fellow” who never committed any offence against any.

Is it possible to infer from the sequence of phrases: “Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered,” that when Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane he was actually smitten (by Malchus, the high priest’s servant?) before the disciples “all forsook him and fled”?

Rather remarkably, another prophecy uses the same terminology: “All my bones are scattered abroad” (Ps.22 :14)—as though emphasizing the figure of the Lord’s Body and its members.

The “little ones” in the prophecy are Christ’s disciples. God turned His hand upon them for good at a time when the minority of the nation (“the third part”) was to be refined and cherished as the true people of Jehovah and the majority were to be “cut off and die’—a judgment that came in A.D.70, and will yet happen again. It is interesting to note the number of times Jesus appropriated this phrase “the little ones” from Zech 13 :7-Mt.18 :4,5,6,10,U; Lk.12 :32; Jn.13 :33.

Pusey (“Minor Prophets”) seems to imply that some of the leading Jewish rabbis (e.g. Ibn Ezra and Abarbanel) were apparently driven by Christian polemics to consider seriously the appropriateness of the details of this prophecy to Jesus of Nazareth.

The immediate fulfilment required that “the sheep of the flock be scattered abroad “(cp. Jn.16 :32), and within the hour it came to pass: “All the disciples forsook him, and fled,” and this—Matthew is careful to underline—’that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled” (26:56).

Reassurance: “After I am risen”

Yet it was to help them, and not to discourage, that Jesus spoke these words, for he continued: “But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.”

Here, one would think, is the plainest of all plain assertions of ultimate triumph. Yet nothing is more clear from the resurrection narratives that the utter unexpectedness of it all: “And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not. . . Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished which were early at the sepulchre . . . And certain of them which were with us found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not” (Lk.24:11,22).

So these words of Jesus would only become meaningful on the third day. And thus also it will be, doubtless, at the Second Coming, with many a prophecy now shrouded in mystery or neglect. This would be specially true of the phrase “I will go before you (as a shepherd) into Galilee.” Angels “looked down with sad and wondering eyes,” heard these words marvelling, and later repeated them with gladness in the echoing emptiness of the tomb (Mt.28 :7). There is here not only a continuation of the figure of Shepherd and sheep (cp.Jn. 10 :4; Mk.10 :32; Heb.13 :20), but also an implicit instruction that they stay in Jerusalem until after his resurrection.

In later days this mention of Galilee would be greatly treasured because of its symbolic value, as implying the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles. Jerusalem and its temple were to be disowned.

But at the time the words were spoken, they must have been meaningless to these bewildered men.