27-30. after the sop Satan entered into him--Very solemn are these brief hints of the successive steps by which Judas reached the climax of his guilt. "The devil had already put it into his heart to betray his Lord." Yet who can tell what struggles he went through ere he brought himself to carry that suggestion into effect? Even after this, however, his compunctions were not at an end. With the thirty pieces of silver already in his possession, he seems still to have quailed--and can we wonder? When Jesus stooped to wash his feet, it may be the last struggle was reaching its crisis. But that word of the Psalm, about "one that ate of his bread who would lift up his heel against Him" ([Psa 41:9]) probably all but turned the dread scale, and the still more explicit announcement, that one of those sitting with Him at the table should betray Him, would beget the thought, "I am detected; it is now too late to draw back." At that moment the sop is given; offer of friendship is once more made--and how affectingly! But already "Satan has entered into him," and though the Saviour's act might seem enough to recall him even yet, hell is now in his bosom, and he says within himself, "The die is cast; now let me go through with it"; fear, begone!" (See on [Mt 12:43]).
Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly--that is, Why linger here? Thy presence is a restraint, and thy work stands still; thou hast the wages of iniquity, go work for it!
Joh 13:31-38. Discourse after the Traitor's Departure--Peter's Self-Confidence--His Fall Predicted
31. when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified--These remarkable words plainly imply that up to this moment our Lord had spoken under a painful restraint, the presence of a traitor within the little circle of His holiest fellowship on earth preventing the free and full outpouring of His heart; as is evident, indeed, from those oft-recurring clauses, "Ye are not all clean," "I speak not of you all," &c. "Now" the restraint is removed, and the embankment which kept in the mighty volume of living waters having broken down, they burst forth in a torrent which only ceases on His leaving the supper room and entering on the next stage of His great work--the scene in the Garden. But with what words is the silence first broken on the departure of Judas? By no reflections on the traitor, and, what is still more wonderful, by no reference to the dread character of His own approaching sufferings. He does not even name them, save by announcing, as with a burst of triumph, that the hour of His glory has arrived! And what is very remarkable, in five brief clauses He repeats this word "glorify" five times, as if to His view a coruscation of glories played at that moment about the Cross. (See on [Joh 12:23]).
God is glorified in him--the glory of Each reaching its zenith in the Death of the Cross!
32. If God be glorified in him, God shall also--in return and reward of this highest of all services ever rendered to Him, or capable of being rendered.
glorify him in himself, and ... straightway glorify him--referring now to the Resurrection and Exaltation of Christ after this service was over, including all the honor and glory then put upon Him, and that will for ever encircle Him as Head of the new creation.
33-35. Little children--From the height of His own glory He now descends, with sweet pity, to His "little children," all now His own. This term of endearment, nowhere else used in the Gospels, and once only employed by Paul ([Ga 4:19]), is appropriated by the beloved disciple himself, who no fewer than seven times employs it in his first Epistle.
Ye shall seek me--feel the want of Me.
as I said to the Jews--([Joh 7:34]; ). But oh in what a different sense!
36-38. Peter said--seeing plainly in these directions how to behave themselves, that He was indeed going from them.
Lord, whither guest thou?--having hardly a glimmer of the real truth.
Jesus answered, ... thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards--How different from what He said to the Jews: "Whither I go ye cannot come" ([Joh 8:21]).
Chapter 14
Joh 14:1-31. Discourse at the Table, after Supper
We now come to that portion of the evangelical history which we may with propriety call its Holy of Holies. Our Evangelist, like a consecrated priest, alone opens up to us the view into this sanctuary. It is the record of the last moments spent by the Lord in the midst of His disciples before His passion, when words full of heavenly thought flowed from His sacred lips. All that His heart, glowing with love, had still to say to His friends, was compressed into this short season. At first (from [Joh 13:31]) the intercourse took the form of conversation; sitting at table, they talked familiarly together. But when ([Joh 14:31]) the repast was finished, the language of Christ assumed a loftier strain; the disciples, assembled around their Master, listened to the words of life, and seldom spoke a word (only [Joh 16:17], ). "At length, in the Redeemer's sublime intercessory prayer, His full soul was poured forth in express petitions to His heavenly Father on behalf of those who were His own. It is a peculiarity of these last chapters, that they treat almost exclusively of the most profound relations--as that of the Son to the Father, and of both to the Spirit, that of Christ to the Church, of the Church to the world, and so forth. Moreover, a considerable portion of these sublime communications surpassed the point of view to which the disciples had at that time attained; hence the Redeemer frequently repeats the same sentiments in order to impress them more deeply upon their minds, and, because of what they still did not understand, points them to the Holy Spirit, who would remind them of all His sayings, and lead them into all truth ([Joh 14:26])" [Olshausen].
1. Let not your heart be troubled, &c.--What myriads of souls have not these opening words cheered, in deepest gloom, since first they were uttered!
ye believe in God--absolutely.
believe also in me--that is, Have the same trust in Me. What less, and what else, can these words mean? And if so, what a demand to make by one sitting familiarly with them at the supper table! Compare the saying in [Joh 5:17], for which the Jews took up stones to stone Him, as "making himself equal with God" ([Joh 14:18]). But it is no transfer of our trust from its proper Object; it is but the concentration of our trust in the Unseen and Impalpable One upon His Own Incarnate Son, by which that trust, instead of the distant, unsteady, and too often cold and scarce real thing it otherwise is, acquires a conscious reality, warmth, and power, which makes all things new. This is Christianity in brief.
2. In my Father's house are many mansions--and so room for all, and a place for each.
if not, I would have told you--that is, I would tell you so at once; I would not deceive you.
I go to prepare a place for you--to obtain for you a right to be there, and to possess your "place."
3. I will come again and receive you unto myself--strictly, at His Personal appearing; but in a secondary and comforting sense, to each individually. Mark again the claim made:--to come again to receive His people to Himself, that where He is there they may be also. He thinks it ought to be enough to be assured that they shall be where He is and in His keeping.
4-7. whither I go ye know ... Thomas saith, Lord, we know not whither thou guest ... Jesus saith, I am the way, &c.--By saying this, He meant rather to draw out their inquiries and reply to them. Christ is "THE Way" to the Father--"no man cometh unto the Father but by Me"; He is "THE Truth" of all we find in the Father when we get to Him, "For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" ([Col 2:9]), and He is all "THE Life" that shall ever flow to us and bless us from the Godhead thus approached and thus manifested in Him--"this is the true God and eternal life" ([1Jo 5:20]).
8-12. The substance of this passage is that the Son is the ordained and perfect manifestation of the Father, that His own word for this ought to His disciples to be enough; that if any doubts remained His works ought to remove them (see on [Joh 10:37]); but yet that these works of His were designed merely to aid weak faith, and would be repeated, nay exceeded, by His disciples, in virtue of the power He would confer on them after His departure. His miracles the apostles wrought, though wholly in His name and by His power, and the "greater" works--not in degree but in kind--were the conversion of thousands in a day, by His Spirit accompanying them.
13-14. whatsoever ye ... ask in my name--as Mediator.
that will I do--as Head and Lord of the kingdom of God. This comprehensive promise is emphatically repeated in [Joh 14:14].
15-17. If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, &c.--This connection seems designed to teach that the proper temple for the indwelling Spirit of Jesus is a heart filled with that love to Him which lives actively for Him, and so this was the fitting preparation for the promised gift.
he shall give you another Comforter--a word used only by John; in his Gospel with reference to the Holy Spirit, in his First Epistle ([1Jo 2:1]), with reference to Christ Himself. Its proper sense is an "advocate," "patron," "helper." In this sense it is plainly meant of Christ ([1Jo 2:1]), and in this sense it comprehends all the comfort as well as aid of the Spirit's work. The Spirit is here promised as One who would supply Christ's own place in His absence.
that he may abide with you for ever--never go away, as Jesus was going to do in the body.
18-20. I will not leave you comfortless--in a bereaved and desolate condition; or (as in Margin) "orphans."
I will come to you--"I come" or "am coming" to you; that is, plainly by the Spirit, since it was to make His departure to be no bereavement.
21. He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, &c.--(See on [Joh 14:15]).
my Father and I will love him--Mark the sharp line of distinction here, not only between the Divine Persons but the actings of love in Each respectively, towards true disciples.
22. Judas saith ... not Iscariot--Beautiful parenthesis this! The traitor being no longer present, we needed not to be told that this question came not from him. But it is as if the Evangelist had said, "A very different Judas from the traitor, and a very different question from any that he would have put. Indeed [as one in Stier says], we never read of Iscariot that he entered in any way into his Master's words, or ever put a question even of rash curiosity (though it may be he did, but that nothing from him was deemed fit for immortality in the Gospels but his name and treason)."
how ... manifest thyself to us, and not to the world--a most natural and proper question, founded on [Joh 14:19], though interpreters speak against it as Jewish.
23. we will come and make our abode with him--Astonishing statement! In the Father's "coming" He "refers to the revelation of Him as a Father to the soul, which does not take place till the Spirit comes into the heart, teaching it to cry, Abba, Father" [Olshausen]. The "abode" means a permanent, eternal stay! (Compare [Le 26:11], ; [Eze 37:26], ; [2Co 6:16]; and contrast [Jr 14:8]).
25-26. he shall teach you all things, and bring all to ... remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you--(See on [Joh 14:15]; [Joh 14:17]). As the Son came in the Father's name, so the Father shall send the Spirit in My name, says Jesus, that is, with like divine power and authority to reproduce in their souls what Christ taught them, "bringing to living consciousness what lay like slumbering germs in their minds" [Olshausen]. On this rests the credibility and ultimate divine authority of THE Gospel history. The whole of what is here said of THE Spirit is decisive of His divine personality. "He who can regard all the personal expressions, applied to the Spirit in these three chapters ('teaching,' 'reminding,' 'testifying,' 'coming,' 'convincing,' 'guiding,' 'speaking,' 'hearing,' 'prophesying,' 'taking') as being no other than a long drawn-out figure, deserves not to be recognized even as an interpreter of intelligible words, much less an expositor of Holy Scripture" [Stier].
27. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you--If [Joh 14:25], sounded like a note of preparation for drawing the discourse to a close, this would sound like a farewell. But oh, how different from ordinary adieus! It is a parting word, but of richest import, the customary "peace" of a parting friend sublimed and transfigured. As "the Prince of Peace" ([Is 9:6]) He brought it into flesh, carried it about in His Own Person ("My peace") died to make it ours, left it as the heritage of His disciples upon earth, implants and maintains it by His Spirit in their hearts. Many a legacy is "left" that is never "given" to the legatee, many a gift destined that never reaches its proper object. But Christ is the Executor of His own Testament; the peace He "leaves" He "gives"; Thus all is secure.
not as the world giveth--in contrast with the world, He gives sincerely, substantially, eternally.
28. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father, for my Father is greater than I--These words, which Arians and Socinians perpetually quote as triumphant evidence against the proper Divinity of Christ, really yield no intelligible sense on their principles. Were a holy man on his deathbed, beholding his friends in tears at the prospect of losing him, to say, "Ye ought rather to joy than weep for me, and would if ye really loved me, "the speech would be quite natural. But if they should ask him, why joy at his departure was more suitable than sorrow, would they not start back with astonishment, if not horror, were he to reply, "Because my Father is greater than I?" Does not this strange speech from Christ's lips, then, presuppose such teaching on His part as would make it extremely difficult for them to think He could gain anything by departing to the Father, and make it necessary for Him to say expressly that there was a sense in which He could do so? Thus, this startling explanation seems plainly intended to correct such misapprehensions as might arise from the emphatic and reiterated teaching of His proper equality with the Father--as if so Exalted a Person were incapable of any accession by transition from this dismal scene to a cloudless heaven and the very bosom of the Father--and by assuring them that this was not the case, to make them forget their own sorrow in His approaching joy.
30-31. Hereafter I will not talk much with you--"I have a little more to say, but My work hastens apace, and the approach of the adversary will cut it short."
for the prince of this world--(See on [Joh 12:31]).
cometh--with hostile intent, for a last grand attack, having failed in His first formidable assault ([Lu 4:1-13]) from which he "departed [only] for a season" ([Joh 14:13]).
and hath nothing in me--nothing of His own--nothing to fasten on. Glorious saying! The truth of it is, that which makes the Person and Work of Christ the life of the world ([He 9:14]; [1Jo 3:5]; [2Co 5:21]).