and the two disciples leave John for Jesus. The man could not tell the Jews the name of his benefactor. The looking for signs and wonders is rebuked; but mortality is arrested. It is not now the revelation of God meeting man either in essential nature, or as manifested in flesh; nor is it the course of dispensational dealing presented in a parenthetic as well as mysterious form, beginning with John the Baptist's testimony, and going down to the millennium in the Son, full of grace and truth. How were they not enjoyed in despised Samaria those two days with the Son of God among them! John 3:1-36 follows this up. THE WORLD'S GREATEST . (Ver. of (Ver. Thus, as in the former case the Lord's dealing in Galilee was a type of the future, this appears to be significant of His then present path of grace in that despised quarter of the land. And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." Read full chapter John 6:15 in all English translations John 5 John 7 New International Version (NIV) Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. His corporeal presence was not necessary; His word was enough. Thus a despised Christ is not merely a crucified Son of man, and given Son of God, as in John 3:1-36, but Himself a divine giver in communion with the Father, and in the power of the Holy Ghost who is given to the believer, the source of worship, as their God and Father is its object for the worshippers in spirit and truth (though surely not to the exclusion of the Son, Hebrews 1:1-14). "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." By and by He will apply it to "that nation," the Jews, as to others also, and finally (always excepting the unbelieving and evil) to the entire system, the world. It is the revelation of God yea, of the Father and the Son, and not merely the detecter of man. Alas! (Ver. But it is important we should know how He entered the world. In John 6:15 we read that "when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to a mountain by Himself alone." I have often considered this verse to be the death-knell of premillennialism. But they learn that it was his divine Physician who had not only healed, but so directed him. Also one of the two thus drawn to Him first finds his own brother Simon (with the words, We have found the Messiah), and led him to Jesus, who forthwith gave him his new name in terms which surveyed, with equal ease and certainty, past, present, and future. (VersesJohn 5:8-12; John 5:8-12), But were the Jews mistaken after all in thinking that the seal of the first covenant was virtually broken in that deliberate word and warranty of Jesus? At once their malice drops the beneficent power of God in the case, provoked at the fancied wrong done to the seventh day. It is the final setting aside of Judaism then, whose characteristic hope was the display of power and rest in the world. In Mark 1:14-15, Jesus told those around Him that the kingdom was as hand. His was an errand incomparably deeper, more worthy of God, and suitable to One "full of grace and truth." How, indeed, could it be stayed within narrow limits? Nothing less than everlasting life in Christ can deliver: otherwise there remains judgment. John then declared his own waning before Christ, as we have seen, the issues of whose testimony, believed or not, are eternal; and this founded on the revelation of His glorious person as man and to man here below. As mentioned in the Introduction Section, premillennialism was the prevailing view of the Early Church for about the first three centuries, The contrasts are as strong, at least, as the resemblance with the healing of the centurion's servant in Matthew 13:1-58 and Luke 7:1-50, which some ancients and moderns have confounded with this, as they did Mary's anointing of Jesus with the sinful woman's in Luke 7:1-50. There is but one unfailing test the Son of God God's testimony to Him. The Lord and the disciples are next seen in the country district, not far, it would seem, from John, who was baptizing as they were. and they might the rather be induced to take such a step, since, If she turned aside to questions of religion, with a mixture of desire to learn what had concerned and perplexed her, and of willingness to escape such a searching of her ways and heart, He did not refrain graciously to vouchsafe the revelation of God, that earthly worship was doomed, that the Father was to be worshipped, not an Unknown. Here, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." He who owns the reality of Christ's incarnation, receives most thankfully and adoringly from God the truth of redemption; he, on the contrary, who stumbles at redemption, has not really taken in the incarnation according to God's mind. The refusal of His precious blood will, on the contrary, make their case incomparably worse than that of the heathen who never heard the good news. Under all changes, outwardly, He abode as from eternity the only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment; but is passed from death unto life. Expressly had He told the man to take up his couch and walk, as well as to rise. "had it in their mind", as the Persic; to gather about him as one For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth: and he will show him greater works than these, that ye may marvel. Heavenly things are set in evident contradistinction, and link themselves immediately here, as everywhere, with the cross as their correlative. It was not that they were better than their neighbours. Nevertheless the Son had taken the place of being the sent One, the place of subordination in the earth, in which He would say, "My Father is greater than I." And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. (Verse John 7:39), Nothing can be simpler than this. (ver. And Jesus answers, "I that speak unto thee am he." Thus solemnly does the meek Lord Jesus unfold these two truths. The one, like the other, contributes to this great end, whether the Son of man necessarily lifted up, or the only begotten Son of God given in His love. But He, being God, was manifesting and, on the contrary, maintaining the divine glory here below. It was impossible that there should not be righteous dealing with human evil against God, in its sources and its streams. In Him was life for this scene of death; and it is of faith that it might be by grace. John 4:1-54 presents the Lord Jesus outside Jerusalem outside the people of promise among Samaritans, with whom Jews had no intercourse. They had eyes, but they saw not; ears had they, but they heard not, nor did they understand His glory. Bear in mind that one of the points of instruction in this first part of our gospel is the action of the Son of God before His regular Galilean ministry. The Word, in order to accomplish these infinite things, "was made. But the erosion of Tradition began long ago, without their knowledge, as will be shown below. It is our evangelist's way of indicating His Galilean sojourn; and this miracle is the particular subject that John was led by the Holy Ghost to take up. that we may give an answer to them that sent us. So it must be now; for God is revealed; and the Father in grace seeks true worshippers (be they Samaritans or Jews) to worship Him. forsake the honours and riches of this world, for his sake; and Article Images Copyright 2023 Getty Images unless otherwise indicated. Here again, apart from this divine insight, the change or gift of the name marks His glory. John 7:25-31) He is going where they cannot come, and never guessed (for unbelief thinks of the dispersed among the Greeks of anything rather than of God). Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment." He could be declared only by One who was a divine person in the intimacy of the Godhead, yea, was the only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father. The healing of the courtier's son, sick and ready to die, is witness of what the Lord was actually doing among the despised of Israel. As the new birth for the kingdom of God, so the cross is absolutely necessary for eternal life. This brings in the great counterpart truth, that even God present on earth and made flesh is not enough. Thus it is not only the person of our Lord viewed as divine, and coming down into the world. The character is wholly different from the position and glory of Messiah in Israel, according to promise and prophecy. "Ye will not come to me that ye might have life." Death knell. Therefore, it seems to me, He adds verse 24. The question really is, whether man would trust God. He had no need that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man. "But He said to them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of." Jesus is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, but withal, as he had said, the eternal One, yet in view of His manifestation to Israel (and, therefore, John was come baptizing with water a reason here given, but not to the Pharisees in verses 25-27). They wonder, as they had murmured before (John 7:12-15); but Jesus shows that the desire to do God's will is the condition of spiritual understanding. On the third day is the marriage in Cana of Galilee, where was His mother, Jesus also, and His disciples. Such was the grace that God was displaying in Him, the true and full expresser of His mind. Man is morally judged. even took not his disciples with him, who were in the same way of This question is raised, or rather settled, by the Lord in Jerusalem, at the passover feast, where many believed on His name, beholding the signs He wrought. The Jews, with all their privileges, were strangers here. Verse John 1:29 opens John's testimony to his disciples. Not only is there no healing to be extracted from the law by a sinner, but the law makes more evident the disease, if it does not also aggravate the symptoms. "John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This is he of whom I spake: He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before me." "The law was given by Moses." 15 Therefore when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain by Himself alone. This we have had fully before. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." But "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must ( ) the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." Here was One on earth who knew all secrets. It would not suit God, if it would suit man, that He, seeing all, should just pronounce on man's corruption, and then forthwith let him off with a bare pardon. (Verses John 1:41-44), On the morrow Jesus begins, directly and indirectly, to call others to follow Himself. It is there that we found the Lord, in the other synoptic gospels, fulfilling His ordinary ministry. Man might pull Him down destroy Him, as far as man could, and surely to be the basis in God's hand of better blessing; but He was God, and in three days He would raise up this temple. For evidently it is the theme of worship in its Christian fulness, the fruit of the manifestation of God, and of the Father known in grace. man, and seize him in a violent manner, whether he would or not; (VersesJohn 3:20-21; John 3:20-21). * He says, One was among them of whom they had no conscious knowledge, "that cometh after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to loose." He is viewed as retaining the same perfect intimacy with the Father, entirely unimpaired by local or any other circumstances He had entered. And they asked him, and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet? seize him in order that they might make him King. He reminds them of his previous disclaimer of any place beyond one sent before Jesus. One needs no more than to read, as believers, these wonderful expressions of the Holy Ghost, where we cannot but feel that we are on ground wholly different from that of the other gospels. By MELANIE ZANONA. It was not intended for other beings it was God's free gift to man, to the believer, of course. The Lord, it is true, could and did go farther than the prophets: even if He taught on the same theme, He could speak with conscious divine dignity and knowledge (not merely what was assigned to an instrument or messenger). P07901 Death Knell for John Knox 1972 Etching 18 5/8 19 3/4 (473 500) on paper watermarked 'Arches France' 37 3/8 29 1/2 (955 750) printed by Jack Shirreff, Westbury and published by the artist Inscribed 'John Bellany 72' b.r. support such an army of men, and to succeed in the enterprise; This is grace and truth. So we see in the attractive power, afterwards dealing with individual souls. It is now eternal reality, and the name of Jesus Christ is that which puts all things to a final test. One must be born again for God's kingdom a Jew for what was promised him, like another. 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