Chapter XIV (2)

22 Judas[561] saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it
that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the
world?

[561] Luke 6:16.

23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me,
he will keep my words: and my Father will love him,
and[562] we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

[562] 1 John 2:24; Rev. 3:20.

=22, 23. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot.= The same person called Lebbeus in Matt. 10:3 and Thaddeus in Mark 3:18. In Luke 6:16, etc., and Acts 1:13, he is called “Judas (the brother) of James.” See Note on Twelve Apostles, Vol. I, p. 149.--=Lord, and what has happened that thou wilt manifest thyself to us, but not at all= (οὐχὶ) =to the world?= His question is not, as represented by our English version, the expression of a mere curiosity, In what way wilt thou make this manifestation of thyself? it is the expression of amazement and perplexity. All the disciples were anticipating that Christ would manifest his Messiahship in some unexpected manner, striking terror into the hearts of all his opponents, and becoming, by some miraculous forth-putting of power, King of kings and Lord of lords. Judas, hastily concluding that there is to be no other manifestation than that of which Christ is now speaking, expresses his amazement and perplexity. What has happened to lead to the abandonment of a world manifestation of the Messiah? is the meaning of his question. But Christ has not said that he will not at all be manifested to the world; only that the world cannot see that manifestation of him of which he is now speaking.--=Jesus answered and said unto him.= He does not reply to the question of Judas; enters into no explanation; simply reiterates that the condition of receiving the spiritual manifestation of Christ as a personal Presence is obedience to his directions. Christ never suffers himself to be turned aside from practical instruction by inquiries in theoretical theology.--=If any one loves me, he will keep my word.= _Word_, not _words_; singular, not plural. His command is but one word: love.--=My Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him.= This promise is more than the preceding one (ver. 21). There Christ promises simply that the obedient disciple shall see his Lord; here that he shall become a temple in which his Lord will constantly dwell; there that Christ shall manifest himself to the soul; here that the Father and the Son shall dwell in the soul. “They shall come like wanderers from their home and lodge with him; will be daily his guests, yea, house and table companions.”--(_Meyer._) Thus Christ by his commandments knocks at the door of the heart; he that hath those commandments hears the voice; he that keeps them opens the door (Rev. 3:20). Thus, too, the Christian’s experience on earth is a foretaste of his experience in heaven. “Here below it is God who dwells with the believer; above, it will be the believer who will dwell with God.”--(_Godet._) By his language here, _We will come unto him_, Christ identifies himself as the companion of the Father in the spiritual experience of the disciple. See ver. 15-17, note.

24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the
word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent
me.

=24.= In contrast with the disciple who _has_ and _keeps_ the word of Christ, our Lord portrays the opposite character. He loves not Christ; he makes no attempt to treasure and guard his instruction; and in rejecting the word and its Bearer he rejects the Father whom the Bearer represents and by whom the word is given. Beware of reading the negative, “The word is not mine,” as equivalent to The word is not merely mine. Christ here, as in many other passages, disavows the paternity of his own instructions. They are not his; they are the Father’s who dwells in him, and inspires the words and performs the works. See ch. 12:49, note.

25 These things have I spoken unto you, being _yet_ present
with you.

26 But[563] the Comforter, _which is_ the Holy Ghost,
whom the Father will send in my name, he[564] shall teach
you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance,
whatsoever I have said unto you.

[563] verse 16.

[564] ch. 16:13; 1 John 2:20, 27.

=25, 26. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.= That is, As far as this I am able to carry my instructions, but no farther; the Spirit shall complete them. Christ has already contrasted the work of the Spirit with his own: his own dwelling with his disciples is temporary, the abiding of the Spirit is forever; he speaks _to_ his disciples, the Spirit speaks _in_ them (ver. 16, 17). He now indicates a further point in the contrast. His own teaching was partial; for he had many things to say which they could not bear (John 16:12), and much which he did say they could not understand till their experience, developed by the indwelling of the Spirit of God, had prepared them to comprehend it. But the promised Spirit shall, as the Christian is able to bear the truth, teach all things.--=But the Comforter.= See above on ver. 16.--=The Holy Spirit.= That is, the Spirit of holiness. As he is the Spirit of truth, because all experience of the higher spiritual truth comes in and through him, so he is the Spirit of holiness, because all holiness of life and character is wrought out by the soul only as the Holy Spirit works in and with us the good pleasure of God (Phil. 2:12, 13; Heb. 13:20, 21).--=Whom the Father will send in my name.= As the disciple is to pray in Christ’s name (see ver. 13, note), so the Father will answer him in Christ’s name. That name is Jesus, _i. e._, Saviour, because he saves his people from their sins (Matt. 1:21), and Christ, _i. e._, The Anointed One, because he is the High Priest who makes atonement for the sins of his people, and reconciles them unto God. See Vol. I, p. 57, Note, etc., on Names of Jesus. The Holy Spirit is, then, sent in his name, not because he is sent in his stead; he is not; the work of the Spirit and of the Son are not the one in lieu of the other; nor because he is sent in answer to the intercessory prayer of the Son; the love of the Father is the cause of the dispensation of the Spirit, as of the incarnation and the atonement of the Son; but because he is sent to complete the work of the Son, to perfect that salvation which is represented by the name Jesus, and that atonement and reconciliation which is represented by the word Christ (John 3:5, 6; 7:39; Rom. 8:14-16, 26; 14:17; Gal. 5:16, 17; Ephes. 2:18, etc.).--=He shall teach you all things.= That is, all things respecting the divine life.--=And bring to your remembrance all things whatsoever I have said unto you.= “He will teach new truths by recalling the old, and will recall the old by teaching the new.”--(_Godet._) In its application to the apostles, this is a promise of inspiration and a guarantee of substantial accuracy, both in their reports of events and of the instructions of Jesus Christ, and in their interpretation of the laws and principles of the spiritual life. “It is in the fulfillment of this promise to the apostles that their sufficiency as witnesses of all that the Lord did and taught, and consequently the authenticity of the Gospel narrative, is grounded.”--(_Alford._) But there is no reason to limit this promise to the twelve to whom it was immediately spoken. It occurs in the middle of a discourse which by universal consent belongs to the church universal. There is no consistency in claiming the promise of the manifestation of Christ in ver. 21, the indwelling of the Father and the Son in ver. 23, and the peace of God in ver. 27, and rejecting the promise of inspired instruction in ver. 26. This promise, then, like that of Matt. 28:20, is made to the church for all time; it is a promise of a continually progressive instruction in the spiritual life, adapted to varying needs and exigencies, both of the community and of the individual, carrying on to its consummation the necessarily incomplete instruction of the N. T., as well as making clear to the spiritual apprehension that which preceding generations either imperfectly understood, wholly failed to understand, or only partially comprehended. The spiritual guide of the church is not an official hierarchy, nor ecclesiastical tradition, but the living experience of those that love Christ, have his words and keep them. This promise points to and assures the church of a progressive Christian theology, and corresponds with the apostle Paul’s declaration, “We know in part and we prophesy in part” (1 Cor. 13:9, 10).

27 Peace[565] I leave with you, my peace I give unto you:
not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your
heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

[565] Ephes. 2:14-17; Phil. 4:7.

=27. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you.= As the peace of a child depends on the presence of his mother, so the peace of these disciples on the presence of their Lord. He speaks to their unuttered forebodings, and declares that he will leave this peace in his departure as a legacy to them. But he will do more than this. Thus far they have had peace in his presence; he will henceforth impart to them his own source of strength in sending to them the indwelling Spirit of God, so that they shall have, as he had, peace in themselves. “_My peace_” implies the peace which belongs to himself, is a characteristic of his own experience and a part of his own nature. So in Phil. 4:7 the “peace of God” is that peace which is characteristic of the Divine Being. It was this peace which enabled Christ to stand unmoved and unperturbed in the court of Caiaphas and the hall of Pilate. It was the fulfillment of this promise which enabled the apostles to meet in like manner, unfearing and untroubled, the threats and persecutions of the authorities in Jerusalem immediately after the day of Pentecost (Acts 4:8, 19, 31; 5:29, 41); which gave Stephen serenity in the storm of stones (Acts 6:15; 7:59, 60); enabled Peter to sleep in chains (Acts 12:6); gave to Paul and Silas their songs in the night (Acts 16:25); kept Paul unmoved in the midst of the mob at Jerusalem (Acts 21:31-40), and in the peril of shipwreck (Acts 27:21-26, 31-35). Compare also, for expressions of this peace of Christ in the Christian’s experience, Rom. 5:1-5; 8:35-39; 2 Cor. 4:7-9; Phil. 4:11-13; Heb., ch. 4. This peace is a characteristic of the divine nature (Phil. 4:7), therefore a characteristic of Christ, who is called Prince of Peace, because one of the distinguishing characteristics of his kingdom is peace (Isa. 9:6; Rom. 14:17); therefore a fruit of the Spirit in the experience of the followers of Christ (Rom. 8:6; Gal. 5:22); therefore the privilege and duty of every disciple, who because of his peace and his power to bestow it upon others is called a son of God (Matt. 5:9). It is therefore not the peculiar luxury of a favored few, but the duty and privilege of all (Rom. 2:10); not dependent on temperament or circumstances, but on a faith which receives and recognizes an indwelling God (Rom. 5:1; Ephes. 2:14; Phil. 4:9); not the occasional siesta of the wearied worker, but the abiding spirit and sacred power of his work (Phil. 4:7; Col. 1:11; 3:15). It is not without Spiritual significance that Christ’s last words, as of “one who is about to go away and says goodnight and leaves his blessing” (_Luther_), are a promise of peace.--=Not as the world giveth give I unto you.= The wish of peace was a customary leave-taking among the Jews (1 Sam. 1:17; Luke 7:50; Acts 16:36; 1 Pet. 5:14; 3 John 14. Compare Gen. 43:23; Judges 6:23). Christ distinguishes his promise here from the salutations, which were often, as with us, mere empty formalities, and which at best were but wishes or possibly prayers. This salutation is more than a benediction, it is the promise of an actual gift.--=Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.= He thus returns to the opening words of his discourse, words of strength-giving and reassurance (see ver. 1).

28 Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come
_again_ unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because
I said, I[566] go unto the Father: for my[567] Father is
greater than I.

[566] verse 12.

[567] 1 Cor. 15:27, 28.

=28. Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away= (verses 2, 3, 12).--=If ye loved me ye would rejoice.= There is a gentle rebuke in this language. It does not involve a denial or even a doubt of their love, but it recalls them from the selfish thoughts fixed wholly on their own sorrow to their allegiance and love to him. It may well be repeated to ourselves in the hour of death--parting from any Christian friend. Their thought of their own future gives them comfort (ver. 2 and 3); their thought of Christ’s love for and presence with them gives them peace (ver. 26, 27); their thought of his glory and their love for him gives them joy. Thus in the fruit of the Spirit joy and peace follow because they grow out of love (Gal. 5:22). We, as well as they, should rejoice, not sorrow, because Christ no longer dwells incarnate on the earth, but has gone to the Father.--=Because I said I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.= His departure to be with the greater Father was to be a cause of rejoicing, not merely to the eleven, but to his church universal. This is not because he is thus enabled to ensure his disciples a more powerful and perfect protector, for the protection of the Father is accorded through the Son, and as a protector the Son is one in power as well as in will with the Father (John 10:30, note). Moreover, it is our love for Christ, not the thought of our own interest, not even our spiritual interest, which is the secret of the joy which the Christian should experience in the exaltation of his Lord. Nor is the cause of that joy the fact that Christ was about to enter into glory and blessedness; for it is of the _greatness_, not of the _blessedness_ of the Father, nor of his own heavenly condition, Christ speaks; the phrase, “The Father is greater than I,” cannot, without violation of the meaning, be rendered, The Father is more blessed than I. It is true that because the Father is _greater_ than Christ, Christ in going to the Father went to a condition of greater power for his own redemptive work, for the up-building of that kingdom to which he and his followers are consecrated. Christ is more to his followers, more powerful in his work of redeeming love, in the Spirit than in the flesh, absent from his disciples and with the Father than absent from the Father and with the disciples. But more than this, more than in our ignorance of both the Father and Son we can comprehend, is meant by the declaration that Christ’s going to the Father was an exaltation, and in that exaltation we, his followers, ought to rejoice with and in him, if indeed we love him. The declaration, “_The Father is greater than I_,” is not inconsistent with the preceding declaration, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,” for that declaration is interpreted by the one which immediately follows, “I am in the Father and the Father in me;” he that has a spiritual apprehension of Christ has a spiritual apprehension of the Father, who is manifested in and through him. Nor is it inconsistent with Christ’s declaration, “I and my Father are one,” for Christ as the protector of his people may be one with the Father, and yet the Father may be greater than the Son in the eternal relation between the two. Nor is it inconsistent with John’s declaration that “The Word was God,” for the _Word_ is not Jesus Christ (see ch. 1:1, note), but God as manifested to the race, Jesus Christ being the Word _made flesh_ (ch. 1:14). It is inconsistent with any view of Christ’s character which denies the essential divinity of his nature; for the creature cannot say of God, without an extraordinarily irreverent egotism, “My Father is greater than I.” “The creature who should say, ‘God is greater than I,’ would blaspheme no less than one who should say, ‘I am equal with God.’ God alone can compare himself with God.”--(_Godet._) It accords with Christ’s habitual teaching concerning himself, as one who is sent forth the Father, derives his authority from the Father, does all things through the power of the Father, in all things obeys the will of the Father, and will return to the Father again (Matt. 11:26, 27; 20:23; John 5:19, 22, 26, 27; 6:57; 8:18, 29; 10:18, 36; 15:15; 17:18); and with that of the N. T. generally, which constantly represents Christ as receiving his divine power as Creator, Redeemer, and Judge from the Father (Ephes. 1:20-22; Phil. 2:9; Heb. 1:8, 9; 1 Cor. 15:28). Jesus Christ is God _manifest in the flesh_, and God in his absolute essence is greater than any manifestation of him is or can be. As the artist is greater than his picture, the architect than his house, the orator than his oration, so God is greater than the Word through which he utters himself to human apprehension. In thus interpreting this much debated passage, according to the plain and natural meaning of the words, and, as it seems to me, the teachings of Christ and his apostles, I accept substantially the interpretation of Meyer, who sees in this declaration an illustration of “the absolute monotheism of Jesus (ch. 17:3), and of the whole N. T., according to which the Son, although of divine essence, of one nature with the Father (ch. 1:1; Phil. 2:6; Col. 1:15-18), nevertheless was and is and remains subordinated to the Father, the immutably higher one, since the Son as Organ, as Commissioner of the Father, as Intercessor with Him, etc., has received his whole power in the kingly office from the Father (ch. 17:5), and, after the accomplishment of the work committed to him, will restore it to the Father (1 Cor. 15:28).” To the same effect, but more concisely, Edward H. Sears (_Heart of Christ_): “God as absolute is more than God as revealed.” Similarly Olshausen and Ellicott’s Commentary. Observe, however, that Christ’s language here involves only the relations between the Son as incarnate and the Father; in saying that the Son _was_ and _remains_ subordinated to the Father, Meyer attributes to the words here a meaning confessedly borrowed from other passages.

Two other interpretations have been offered from the orthodox point of view: (1) That Christ speaks here of himself _as a man_. But this ancient interpretation, invented in the early controversy with the Arians, and revived recently by Ryle, has not, I think, despite the authority of Augustine in its favor, the sanction of a single modern exegetical scholar of any eminence. It is repudiated by Schaff, Godet, Luthardt, Meyer, Alford, Tholuck. This easy method of solving the seeming contradictions of Christ’s mysterious nature is utterly untenable, for whatever opinion may be entertained respecting his twofold nature as both God and man, no reader is authorized to say what acts and words were manifestations of the human and what of the divine nature. It is utterly inapplicable here, for “this interpretation implies a mere platitude. Who needs to be told that the human nature is inferior to the divine?”--(_Schaff._) (2) That Christ here compares his present earthly condition with that to which he will attain in going to the Father. This is Calvin’s interpretation. “Christ does not here make a comparison between the divinity of the Father and his own, nor between his own human nature and the divine essence of the Father, but rather between his present state and the heavenly glory to which he is afterwards to be received.” To the same effect, substantially, are Alford, Luthardt, and Tholuck. This is certainly involved in the language; the return from union with humanity to union with the Father was a change from a lower and lesser to a higher and greater condition. But much more is involved, for Christ by his words institutes a comparison, not between his earthly and his heavenly condition, as does Paul in Phil. 2:6-11, but between himself and his Father.

29 And now I have told you before it come to pass, that,
when it is come to pass, ye might believe.

30 Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the
prince[568] of this world cometh, and hath nothing[569] in
me.

[568] ch. 16:11; Ephes. 2:2.

[569] 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 1 John 3:5.

31 But that the world may know that I love the Father;
and as[570] the Father gave me commandment, even so I do.
Arise, let us go hence.

[570] Ps. 40:8; Phil. 2:8.

=29-31. And now I have told you * * * that when it is come to pass ye might have faith.= That is, before the Passion he foretells it and directs the thoughts and hopes of his disciples to a point beyond, to the results which are to be produced by the crucifixion, so that when the night of darkness comes these words may remain to keep alive their faith in him as one not _dead_, but only gone to the companionship of the Father, and coming again _with the Father_ to be the spiritual and indwelling companion of his own. Indirectly the office of prophecy is implied in these words; it is not to give in the present a clear view of the future, but to sustain faith and hope and courage, and make it clear to the believer, when the events themselves take place, that nothing is unexpected and unprovided for by his Father and Saviour.--=The prince of this world is coming.= See note on ch. 12:31. “Jesus sees the devil himself in the agents and executors of his designs (ch. 13:2, 27; 6:70; Luke 4:13).”--(_Meyer._) And yet the cup which they presented to him he accounts the cup which his Father giveth him (ch. 18:11), for even the prince of this world is not beyond the supreme control of God. The language here, as in ch. 12:31, plainly implies Christ’s belief in a personal devil, and the devil’s influence over and use of men as his instruments.--=Hath nothing in me.= Satan never succeeds in the accomplishment of his evil designs except when he finds _in_ the tempted something that recognizes him and pays allegiance to him. He that is only _in_ the world but not of the world may be _under_ the power of Satan, but cannot be _in_ his power. The declaration here is confirmatory of that implied by ch. 8:46.--=But that the world may know that I love the Father=, etc., * * * =arise, let us go hence=. Our English version is erroneously punctuated. There should be no break in the verse. Christ knew that Judas had gone out to perfect arrangements for the betrayal, knew the shame and torture that were before him, knew also the power of the Father to accomplish the world’s redemption by that suffering if it was endured to the end, and bade his disciples arise that they might go forth with him, as he went forth to show the world his love for and obedience to the Father. Thus, as he has just told his disciples that they are to show their love to him by their obedience (ver. 21, 23), he prepares to show his love to the Father by his obedience. But though they arose, they did not go immediately out. See Prel. Note to next chapter, and ch. 18:1.