Chapter I

Verses 1-18. The opening verses (1-4) manifest the character of the fourth Gospel. The Synoptics (Matthew, Mark and Luke) begin with historical statements concern-: ing the wonderful Person who walked among men. The Gospel of John opens with a doctrinal revelation of that same Person. The beloved disciple is the chosen instrument of the Holy Spirit to reveal the full glory of the Son of God, the Only-begotten of the Father, tabernacling among men and manifesting Him. We find nothing said in this Gospel of Him as the son of David and the son of Abraham. The character of the Gospel of John is therefore more doctrinal than historical. It reveals Him who is the true God and the eternal life. He came forth from the Father, with whom He is one; He came into the world to reveal the Father and He has returned to the Father (chapter xvi:28). And He who is the life and light of men communicates eternal life to men, so that born again as children of God they are no longer in darkness, but know the light and walk in the light.

The first eighteen verses contain the great truths of His Person, His Godhead, that He is the Life and the Light of men, that He came into the world which was made by Him and that the world knew Him not, and then the great results of His coming, for those who receive Him, are mentioned. These opening verses contain the entire Gospel of John in embryo.

“In the beginning was the Word.” ‘The definite article before “‘beginning” is not found in the Greek, so that the literal translation is, “In beginning was the Word.” This first statement takes us beyond the first verse of the Bible. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” This is the beginning of creation, but here is another beginning, a timeless beginning, that beginning without a beginning, which our finite mind cannot fathom nor understand. All things had their beginning, but God has no beginning; He has always been. He who is the Word was in the beginning; He who is before all creation, before all things, and above all creation, has no beginning. ‘The little word “was” means “existing.”” We hear Him say later in this Gospel, “Before Abraham was, I am’; He is the self-existing One. Here then we have the sublime revelation that our Lord Jesus Christ is an eternal Being.

But why is He called by John the Word? No other writer of the New Testament uses the word Logos. Much of interest is connected with this fact. Philo of Alexandria, a mystical Jewish philosopher, used the same term, and numerous critics have charged the writer of this Gospel with having borrowed this expression from Philo. But one of the greatest authorities on these ancient sources, Professor Harnack, has completely abandoned this theory and states that “the Word, as used by the Apostle John, has little more in common with the Logos of Philo than the name.” Still another reliable scholar declares that “‘nothing could be more unlike than Philo and John.” The fact is that Philo with his mystical speculations spoke of the Logos, as an undefinable something, as an intermediate agency between God and man, but he never spoke of the Logos as a person.

Others have traced the use of the word Logos to the Aramaic paraphrases of the Hebrew Scriptures in the so-called Targumim. These paraphrases employ the word “Memra” (the Aramaic equivalent for the Greek Logos) whenever God is spoken of as revealing Himself to man. All His relations to the world are in these paraphrases ascribed to the Memra, the Word. It is so used in hundreds of passages. But John could not have copied from these exegetical works because they were written several centuries after he wrote his Gospel.

But we do not need to speculate on the use of the expression. The Holy Spirit had before spoken of the second person of, the Godhead as the Word. “By the Word of the Lord were ‘the heavens made” (Psalm xxxiii:6); “He sent His Word and healed them” (Psalm cvii:20); both passages may be interpreted as meaning the Son of God. And the Son of God is called the Word, because He is the express image of God, just as the invisible thought is made visible by the spoken word. He is the revealer and interpreter of the mind and the will of God. Martin Luther explains it in a very

s simple way: “Just as a man has a word in his heart, so also God in His eternal majesty and Deity has a Thought, a Word in His own heart, with Himself. This Word, which God the Father has is so entirely one with Him, that there is nothing in God which does not also belong to the Word; so that when we see the Word we see God.”

The first sentence then, “In the beginning was the Word” reveals the fact that the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, is eternal. He is with God before all things. The second statement shows that He is a Person, distinct from God the Father, and yet one with Him. “And the Word was with God.” Where God was from all eternity there also was the Word, the Son of God, sharing His Glory and all His attributes; their Godhead is one. And the Word was the object of God’s eternal Love, for He became not Love yesterday, but “God is Love.” He has always been Love. Of this eternal love-relation the Lord Jesus Christ bears witness in His great prayer recorded in this Gospel, ‘‘For Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world” (Chapter xvii:24).

And then the crowning revelation, “And the Word was God.” He therefore is very God and not a creature, an angel, or any other being inferior to God. In nature, essence and substance He is God. Human language could not make it plainer than it is made in this statement, that the Lord Jesus Christ is very God. This first verse of the Gospel of John is one of the profoundest revelations of the Bible, yet so blessedly simple that a child can know its great truth. We must likewise remember that throughout this Gospel we have the self-witness of our Lord to the three great facts concerning Himself as stated in this revelation. The Lord testifies of His own eternal existence, ‘I and the Father are one,” “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,” “I am in the Father and the Father in me” (Chapter x:30, xiv:9-11). How marvelous 1s that fifth chapter in which the Lord Jesus Christ confirms by His own words the Spirit’s testimony of this first verse! Well has it been said, “To maintain in the face of such a text, as some so-called Christians do, that our Lord was only a man, is a mournful proof of the perversity of the human heart.” And Unitarianism and its kin, Christian Science, falsely so-called, Russellism (alias International Bible Student Association), and Modernism, furnish “the mournful proof of the perversity of the human heart.” How anyone in view of such plain statements can maintain that our Lord is only a creature and not very God, is hard to believe. But it is written that the god of this age blinds the eyes of them that believe not. Well has a saint of God said on this verse, “It is rashness to search too far into it. It is godliness to believe it. It is Life eternal to know it. And we can never have a full comprehension of it till we come to enjoy it.”

“The same was in the beginning with God” (verse 2). This is a repetition of the great truth stated in the previous verse, the Holy Spirit anticipating the time when men would teach that the Lord Jesus Christ was not from all eternity a person in the Godhead distinct from God the Father, and yet with Him in an eternal and ineffable union. The very repetition of it shows its great importance. “Repetitions in Scripture have divers uses. In prayer they argue affection. In prophecy they note celerity and certainty. In threatenings they note unavoidableness and suddenness. In precept they mean the necessity of performing them. In the truths, like that before us, they serve to show the need of believing and knowing them.”

The next verse takes us into the realm of Creation, the beginning of which the first verse of the Bible speaks. “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made” (verse 3). When the Holy Spirit wrote through the Apostle Paul the message to the Colossians, who were being influenced by false views on the Person and Glory of Christ, He gave the same revelation. “For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by Him and for Him” (Col. i:16). He is the Creator of all things. But that does not mean the creation of evil; God is not the author of moral evil. The evolution theory practically makes Him that. The question, “If nothing was made without Christ, from whence came sin?” has often been raised by theologians. Sin came in after all things had been created. “By one man sin entered into the world” (Satan’s fall was before that). “That sin could not have entered without divine permission, and that its entrance has been overruled to the display of Divine Love and Grace in Redemption, are undeniable truths. But we have no right to say that ‘sin’ was among the ‘all things’ which were made by Christ.”

And this creation, so wonderful in its vastness, and in the minutest details, this great Book of Nature, speaks of Him and makes known His Glory. Alas! how little we know of that revelation of Himself in creation!

“In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.” After we have learned of His Godhead and His Creatorship we hear of what was in Him. “In Him was life.” While it is true that He is the source of all life, mere physical life is not meant, for the second part of this verse declares that this life was the light of men. It must therefore be more than physical life; it is spiritual life. And this spiritual life which is in Him is eternal life. He alone is the source of eternal life. It is true of Him, “With Thee is the fountain of life; in Thy light we shall see light” (Psalm xxvi:9). John speaks of this in His Epistle, “God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son” (1 John vii). And that life was the light of men; it was active from the beginning, and then that life which was with the Father was manifested unto us, the Word became flesh.

“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehendeth it not.” Solemn truth this is! The light has been constantly shining in the darkness which sin has brought into the world, and the darkness is so dense and horrible that the light as such cannot banish. The spiritual darkness comprehended (or apprehended) it not. The commentator Bengel remarks on these five first verses of this Gospel, ‘‘In the first and second verses of this chapter mention is made of a state before the creation of the world; in the third verse the world’s creation; in the fourth the time of man’s uprightness; in the fifth the time of man’s fall.”

But how feeble are human words of comment on these wonderful statements on the threshold of this Gospel! They are inexhaustible. Only the light of eternity will reveal the fullest meaning of them.

Verses 6-10. He who was sent of God to witness to the Light is now introduced in this Gospel. We notice the striking contrast between Him, the Son of God, and John. Our Saviour is the Creator, John the creature; He is the Life and the Light, John a witness, “a man sent of God.” His person and work as the forerunner is clearly predicetd in the Old Testament (Isaiah xl:3, etc.; Mal. ii:1). Of him our Lord testified that among them that are born of women no greater one hath risen than John the Baptist, and yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he (Matthew xi:10-12). He was born in as miraculous a way as Isaac, and was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb. His great call was to witness to the Light. But he was not that Light. In chapter v:35 our Lord speaks of John as “a burning and shining light.” How exact the words of God are may be learned by the two words used for Light, in connection with our Lord as “the Light” and John the Baptist as a burning and shining light. The Greek word used in describing John as a light means “‘candle,” translated thus in Matthew v:15 and Rev. xviii:23. The word used to describe our Lord as the Light is the word “Phos” — ‘the Light.” He is the fountain and source of all light. And as it has been said, ‘‘What an assurance of a worldfa away from God, that the light must have one to proclaim it, the Creator must have one to introduce Him into His own world. And then it was necessary to say, ‘He was not that light,’ lest men should mistake the witness to Christ for the Christ he witnessed to.”

And here we may notice the difference between what is said of John the Baptist and his ministry in the Synoptics, especially in the Gospel of Matthew, and what we read of him here. In Matthew he is heralding the King and proclaims that the promised Kingdom, promised by the Prophets of God, had drawn nigh. In bearing that witness he also witnessed concerning the Light. But why, isithere nothing said of this peculiar ministry in John’s‘ Gospel? Why do we not read again of that Kingdom being .nigh?

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN ily!

Why is all this omitted in the fourth Gospel? The reason is very simple. Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed some twenty years before the beloved disciple was instructed by the Holy Spirit to write. The nation had been overtaken by that which the lips of the Son of God had so vividly pictured. They had fallen by the edge of the sword and were now being scattered among all the nations. When John wrote his Gospel, the new dispensation, this present dispensation of Grace, had fully set in. Judaism is no longer recognized by God and this Gospel repeatedly bears witness to this fact, as we hope to show. It is different with the synoptic Gospels; these move upon Jewish ground. Judaism being set aside, the fact of Israel having rejected the kingdom makes it unnecessary to introduce John the Baptist as the herald of the King in this Gospel. The truth is, if the forerunner’s witness to Israel were brought into this Gospel, it would be all out of keeping with the scope of it.

His witness was given concerning Christ as the Light, that all might believe through him. This does not mean, as some expositors have it, through Christ, but through the witness of John the Baptist. We must also notice that in verse seven the word “‘men”’ is in italics. It does not mean that all mankind should believe through hearing the witness John bore, but those Jews who were waiting for the consolation of Israel, who believingly expected the coming of Christ as their Redeemer. In this chapter we find later a blessed illustration of the results of the witness to Christ through John. And Christ is the true Light, yea, the only Light. Notice the correct rendering of verse 8. “The true Light was that which, coming into the world, lighteth every man.” This verse has occasioned much difference of opinion. It would take pages to state them all. These words take us beyond the confines of Israel. ‘The true Light, lighteth not the Jews only (though it is true that only to Israel promises were given), but the true Light lighteth every man who is in the world, the Gentiles as well as the Jews. He is dispensing Light to all who are in the world.* He casts His Light on every human being in the

*The word “world” as we shall learn from the exposition is on the great characteristic words of the Gospel of John.

world. There is much said about heathen darkness, but from this we learn that there is heathen light as well.

But what does the Light find in the world? Nothing but the darkest darkness, opposing Him as the true Light. This we learn from the next statement: “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him” (came into being through Him), “and the world knew Him not.” Before He ever became incarnate and appeared in the creature’s garb on earth to make God known to man, He was in the world. There was a revelation of Himself in Creation as well as a primeval revelation; His Spirit also was at work among men, for He said, “My Spirit shall not always strive with man” (Gen. vi:3). But the world turned away from the Light. We find this in the first chapter of Romans: “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things which are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves wise, they became fools.”’ (Rom. i: 19-22.) These words are the right comment of the tenth verse of the first chapter in John.

Verses 11-14. He came in the fullness of time, in God’s own time, to the nation, which had been specially prepared. The advantage of the Jews was that unto them were committed the oracles of God. (Rom. iii:2.) Theirs was the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises. “Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever.”? (Rom. ix:4, 5.) To this nation He was promised, of this nation, as the seed of Abraham and the son of David He came, and when He came, of whom all their prophets spake, they received Him not. It is again of interest to note the two words used in the original for “His own.” He came unto His own, which means, what was His own, His own things; and His own, His own subjects, received Him not. The land to which He came, the city and the temple, all were His own; and those who should have bowed in homage at His feet received Him not. It does not say “they knew Him not” (in contrast with the world which knew Him not); they deliberately refused to receive Him. They rejected their King.

The eleventh verse embodies all that which in detail is described in the preceding Gospels. How He came to His own, manifested Himself in their midst and then was rejected by the nation. This is the story of the Synoptics in a nutshell. And now we are led in this Gospel into something new, which in the preceding Gospels is not even hinted at. With the statement that His own received Him not, the way is opened to bring in that which was in the eternal purpose of God, though not fully revealed in the Old Testament Scriptures. His own rejected Him, but what about those who receive Him? The answer is blessed indeed — “to them gave He the right” (or authority) ‘‘to become the children of God, to those believing on His Name.” It is Grace which comes in at this point. Of course, it is all in anticipation of the Cross and the great work accomplished there in the death of Christ. The world knew Him not; the Gentile world had turned away from Him, the Jews had rejected Him; all the world is guilty before God. And now Grace acts, and this Grace makes of lost sinners children of God by faith in His Name. Nowhere in the Old Testament is the sonship of individual believers declared. Here for the first time in the Word of God we find the precious good news, the Gospel of Grace, that those believing on His Name, the Name of a rejected Christ, a Christ who died and is risen from the dead, become the children of God.

Well may we pause here and think. Here is the eternal truth of Grace. Here we are face to face with truths which remain as long as a race of sinners is on earth. We have learned of the human race not apprehending the light, the world not knowing Him, the Jews rejecting Him, and God in Grace coming in and saving those who are lost, making them His children and accomplishing this in ONE way only. ‘Believing on His Name.” But these great truths, these heavenly truths, unchangeable as God is unchangeable, are the truths which are rejected in our day. One of the most widespread false teaching today is that which claims that all men are children of God, and that if man lives right and acknowledges God in some kind of a religion, God is his Father and all is well with him. We are reminded of the eloquent preacher who, a few years ago, preached on the mutilated text of Scripture, ‘We are all the sons of God.” He preached to his audience the old delusion of a Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man and claimed that all men are sons of God, and none will be lost. But the second half of this verse he omitted — ‘‘We are all the sons of God by faith in Jesus Christ.” And the latter, personal faith in the Son of God, the Christ who died for the ungodly, is today not only ruled out, but bitterly opposed and ridiculed.

We pass on to our readers a sad illustration of how men gave up the faith in the Gospel, though they once taught it and evidently believed. Before us is a commentary on John’s Gospel, published half a century ago. The author, then a young man, gives an excellent comment on the words of verse 12. Let us listen to him:

“““To become sons of God.’ Sons and therefore (1) partakers of the Divine nature, (2) entitled to walk in freedom as children, not in bondage as servants, (3) heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, His only Begotten Son. But the full conception of the meaning of this sonship we cannot know till in the other world we see Him as He is.

““Even to them that believe on His Name.’ His Name is Jesus — t. e., Saviour — given to Him because He saves His people from their sins. To have faith in that name is to have faith in Him as a personal Saviour from sin. Observe, then, that this verse comprises the whole Gospel in a sentence. It declares (1) the object of the Gospel, that we are by nature the children of wrath and may become sons of God; (2) the source to which we are to look for this prerogative of sonship: power conferred by God; (3) the means by which we are to attain it; personal faith in a personal Saviour from sin.”

Could any one state it better? Yet the hand which wrote these words fifty years ago has written since that which denies and destroys that faith. The above quotation is from the “Commentary of the Gospel of St. John,” by Dr. Lyman Abbott. And he is one of the many known as no longer holding that faith, which was once and for all delivered unto the Saints.

We must not pass lightly over this great Gospel text: “But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become the children of God, to those believing in His Name.” The reader will note that we change the word “sons” in the authorized version to “children.” John never uses the word “son.” In 1 John iii:1 it is mistranslated, as it is here. Not “Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God,” but “the children of God.” In John’s writings it is always the question of life in Christ, having been born again and thus brought into the family of God. Sons of God believers are likewise, but the Apostle Paul is used to tell us of the fullest meaning of our sonship and heirship in Christ.

And we become children of God by the new birth which is a communication of life and nature. ‘‘Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” To be thus begotten of God is brought about by receiving the Word, believing on His Name, and by the action of the Spirit of God. The above negative statements answer all the modern inventions which deny the new birth. Not of blood, that is by inheritance, as the Jews boasted of having Abraham for their father; not of the will of the flesh, by reformation, and the efforts of themselves; nor of the will of man, by the acts and deeds of others, as the religious man does, by looking to an ordinance or a man-made priesthood to help him.

The fourteenth verse tells us of the incarnation, the revelation of God to man, in Him who became man.

The eternal Word, the Word which was and is God, we are now told, became flesh, He took on the human nature. In the early Church a system arose under the name of Docetism, which was the source of Gnosticism.* One of

*This wicked system is in some of its teachings reproduced by Satanic agencies in ‘Christian Science” of our times.

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the representatives of Docetism was Cerinthus, a contemporary of the Apostle John. The Docetists believed that our Lord had only an apparent human body. We believe the term “flesh” is employed by the Apostle John to show the reality of the manhood of our Lord and thus to rebuke these false teachers. We might mention here that four other heresies are completely answered by John i:14. (1) Arianism, which holds that our Lord was not true God. This heresy is alive today in Unitarianism, Russellism (International Bible Students, as they call themselves now), Christian Science and other cults. The fact that this verse states that the Word became flesh, and the first verse of this Gospel states that the Word was God, furnishes a perfect denial of Arianism. (2) Appollinarianism, which taught that our Lord was God and Man, but this system held that our Lord only had a human body and not a human soul. The word “flesh” contradicts this, for it means a real man with body and soul. (3) Nestorianism holds that the Godhead made one person, and the manhood another person. This is also answered by this text, “the Word became flesh,” which shows union and not separation. (4) Eutychianism confounded the natures of our Lord and taught that Christ is from two natures, but not of two natures. This speculative theory is also silenced by this statement. And there are other false teachings concerning the Person and the nature of our Lord. We believe that John i:14 answers them all.

The truth stated in this verse is not for reason to explain, but for faith to believe. How the two perfect and distinct natures were united in one Person, perfect God and perfect Man, the finite mind of man cannot explain nor define. There is an old Latin inscription, said to date back to the first century, which is interesting, as it embodies the faith of the beginning. It represents ‘The Word” which became flesh, giving this self-witness: “I am what I was — that is God.” — “I was not what I am — that is man.’ — “I am now called both, that is both God and Man.”

The modern heresy which goes by the name “Kenosis”’ and which is taught in many of the leading theological seminaries of today, must be branded as dangerous and wicked in the light of the simple statement, “The Word became flesh.” The term signifies “emptying” and is derived from Phil. ii:7 — “He emptied Himself’ (Greek: Ekenosin). This theory teaches that in His incarnation our Lord voluntarily limited and abridged His divine powers, and that during the entire period of His humiliation the divine attributes were suspended, and He thought and spake as a mere man. In other words, this theory teaches that He ceased to be God when He took on the body of man; “The Word became flesh” tells us that He did not cease for a moment to be God, for He is God manifested in the flesh. He emptied Himself of the outward glory which He had with the Father before the world was (John xvii:2); He could not empty Himself of His Deity. God cannot cease to be God. “It was the God-man that lived, suffered, died, and rose again. It is written, that God has purchased the Church with His own blood. It was the blood of one who was not man only, but God.”’*

Furthermore, the word “flesh” does not mean that He had a body as a true man in which was sin. He did not take on “sinful flesh.”” He knew no sin, not only in the sense that He did not sin, but that He had a nature which could not sin. The body He took on in incarnation was called into existence by a creative act of the Holy Spirit. It was a holy body, a prepared body. No taint of sin or corruption was in that body. The eternal Word, as holy as God is, for He is God, could never tabernacle in a human body which in any way had something of fallen human nature in it. The peccability of our Lord is another evil doctrine. Many good Christians hold it without realizing what an awful dishonor is done by it to our Lord, and that the logical consequence is, that if our Lord could have sinned and sin was in His human nature, He needed a Saviour and could not have been our Saviour. And because the body of our Lord, a real human body, had no sin and knew no sin, death, which is in the world by sin, had no claim on His body. Yet because it was a real human body, it was possible for that body to die. When He went to the cross, He Who knew no sin was made sin for us and then He gave that body as the unspeakable, great sacrifice. Yet ~*Bishop Ryle.

— — that body of flesh given on the cross, which died*there, could not see corruption. Therefore that body was raised from among the dead. In that body He left the world and went back to the Father. Sitting at the right hand of God, interceding in behalf of His people as a priest and advocate, He is still Man as well as God. Christ’s humanity and Deity are both in heaven. And when He returns to establish His Kingdom He comes in that same body.

And the Word became flesh “‘tabernacled among us.” This is the better translation, which, however, does not mean that the Son of God dwelt in His human body as in a tabernacle, which He abandoned when He went back to the Father. Well has one said, “Christ continueth now, and shall forever, as true Man as when He was born of the Virgin. He so took human nature as never to lay it down again.” He made His abode with men, tabernacled here for thirty and three years. Some blessed coming day, when the eternal purposes of God are all accomplished, when the new heaven and the new earth have been called into existence, He will forever tabernacle with redeemed men. ‘‘Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them.” (Rev. xxi:3.)

And He who tabernacled down here for thirty-three years, who pitched His tent in His own land, among His own, is the same who dwelt of old with Israel, who dwelt in that earthly tabernacle, whose glory was seen in the midst of His people and whose glory filled the temple.

“And we beheld His glory, the glory as of an Only Begotten with the Father, full of Grace and Truth.” ‘This is the witness of John and his fellow disciples. See also John’s first Epistle (1 John i:1). They beheld His Glory; they were eye witnesses. We doubt not the allusion is mostly to the transfiguration, of which John was a witness, and where they were, according to the statement of Peter, eye-witnesses of His Majesty, when He received honor and glory from the Father (2 Peter i:16, 17). But they also beheld the Glory of His Deity in His miracles. And He is the Only Begotten with the Father. Only John by the Spirit of God uses this phrase, “the Only Begotten”; it tells us of His eternal Sonship. He was always the beloved of God; always with God. And here again we are constrained to say, we must believe and not even attempt to explain.

“The subject is one of those which we must be content to believe and reverence, but must not attempt to define too narrowly. We are taught distinctly in Scripture that in the unity of the Godhead there are three Persons of one substance, power and eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. We are taught, with equal distinctness, that ‘Sonship’ describes the everlasting relation which exists between the first and second Persons in the Trinity, and that Christ is the only begotten and eternal Son of God. We are taught, with equal distinctness, that the Father loveth the Son, and loved Him before the foundation of the world. Qohn xvii:24). But here we must be content to pause. Our feeble faculties could not comprehend more if more were told us.’’*

And such a One has opened to a world of sinners the riches of God’s fathomless Grace and Truth. He has made known Grace and Truth; all Grace and Truth are in Him, by Him and through Him. See the blessed foreshadowing in Exodus xxxiii:18, 19.

Verses 15-18. John the Baptist’s witness is next recorded. It was given long before this Gospel was written by the beloved disciple. In the Greek the verb is in the present tense, not “‘bare witness,” but “‘beareth witness.” While the witness-bearer had left the earthly scene, his testimony was not dead, but still living and glorifying the Son of God. And this is his witness: “(He that cometh after me is come to be before me, for He was before me.” John appeared first and was, according to the testimony of our Lord, the greatest prophet. The Lord Jesus in His ministry came after John, but the forerunner now declares that He who came after him, has come into a greater place of honor and glory, and then the Baptist bears witness of the pre-existence of our Lord; John did not say “‘for He is before me,” but, ‘‘for He was before me.”

The sixteenth verse is not the witness of John. It is a word of praise, of grateful, adoring acknowledgment of those who have believed on His Name and who have found in Him ““*Ryle on John.

all their need and wants supplied. The beloved disciple, by the Spirit of God, utters this praise and every individual believer may join in. It is the universal praise of the Redeemed, that all their springs, their blessings are in Him, and in Christ alone. The fullness here is that fullness of the Godhead which dwells in Him bodily, as the risen, glorified Christ with whom the believer is one. And out of that blessed union with Him there flows forth grace upon grace, nothing but grace, without measure and without limit. All that our souls need is found in Him and supplied by Him, grace upon grace. It has been explained to mean “grace in the place of grace, constant, fresh, abundant supplies of new grace, to take the place of old grace, and therefore unfailing, abundant grace, continually filling up and supplying all our need.”” And that grace which is stored up in Him is inexhaustible. Chrysostom said, ‘“The sea is diminished if you take a drop from it, though the diminution be imperceptible; but how much soever a man draw from this Fountain, it continues undiminished.”

The law was given through Moses; it could do nothing for man, for it was weak through the flesh, man being a sinner without strength (Rom. viii:3). The Son of God came and Grace and Truth came to be by Him. He is the Truth and manifests the Truth, and Grace is by Him also. The remarks of Augustine on this verse are helpful. “The law threatened, not helped; commanded, not healed; showed, not took away our feebleness. But it made ready for the Physician, who was to come with grace and truth.” The second giving of the Law (the first tables of stone having been broken) brought down the Lord; He descended in a cloud and stood with him (Moses) there. And the descended Lord proclaimed the name of the Lord. In the proclamation of that Name, He said “Abundant in Grace and Truth.” And that Lord who descended was none other but the Son of God (Exod. xxxiv:4-9).

It was at that time that Moses prayed “Show me Thy Glory.” And he received the answer “Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see me, and live” (Exod. xxxiii:20). No man hath seen God at any time. But here is One who has always been with the Father, the Only-begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, and He hath declared Him. There can be no question in the presence of this positive statement “no man hath seen God at any time” that all the manifestations of God in Old Testament times were not the manifestations of God the Father, but of God the Son. And Christ the Son of God is in the bosom of the Father (not was in the bosom for He never left that place). It expresses the loveplace He has, the place of greatest intimacy and affection. And as such He came to declare the Father, to make Him, who is invisible, visible to man.

We have concluded with this verse this marvellous opening section of this Gospel. That we have in this section one of the greatest revelations of God’s Holy Word can never be denied. Still it is denied, and men, calling themselves scholars, talk of the Johannine theology, as if John’s mind put these great and inexhaustible, fathomless statements together. No man could ever conceive such wonderful truths as they are put together in these first eighteen verses of this chapter. Let us meditate on them more and praise God for His wonderful Love and Grace in giving us such a Saviour and such a salvation.

The second half of this chapter introduces this wonderful person of whom the opening verses bear witness. The Evangelist now describes, in His own God-given way and manner, that blessed Life in His earthly ministry; the historical part begins here.

Before He appears upon the scene we have the witness of John the Baptist.

Verses 19-28. The witness of John the Baptist as recorded in this Gospel is of a different nature from the recorded witness in the preceding Gospels. There it is the witness to the nation, but here he bears witness to the person of Him who was about to appear in their midst, All that which concerns the nation, the promised kingdom. is omitted in this Gospel. The fact that the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him who he was, shows the effectiveness of his preaching. It must have created a great sensation; the delegation was probably sent by the Sanhedrim. Then he confessed and denied not. He confessed that he was not the Christ and he«did not deny who he was. It is a beautiful example of true humility. He takes no honor whatever for himself, but Christ is the Person whom he desires to honor and to exalt.

“The greatest saints of God in every age of the Church have always been men of John the Baptist’s spirit. In gifts, and knowledge, and general character they have often differed widely. But in one respect they have always been alike; they have been “clothed with humility” (1 Peter v:5). They have not sought their own honor. They have thought little of themselves. They have been ever willing to decrease if Christ might only increase, to be nothing so that Christ might be all. And here has been the secret of the honor God has put upon them. “He that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke xiv:11).

“If we profess to have any real Christianity, let us strive to be of John the Baptist’s spirit. Let us study humility. This is the grace with which all must begin, who would be saved. We have no true religion about us, until we cast away our high thoughts, and feel ourselves sinners. This is the grace which all saints may follow after, and which none have any excuse for neglecting. All God’s children have not gifts, or money, or time to work, or a wide sphere of usefulness; but all may be humble. This is the grace, above all, which will appear most beautiful in our latter end. Never shall we feel the need of humility so deeply, as when we lie on our deathbeds, and stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. Our whole lives will then appear a long catalogue of imperfections, ourselves nothing, and Christ all.’’*

They did not ask him if he was the Christ. Every real Jew believed in the coming of Christ, the Messiah. From Luke we learn that John was really suspected of being the promised One. “And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ or not” (Luke iii:15). But was he perhaps Elias? He answered very positively, “I am not.” Here we face the well known difficulty, how could the John Baptist make such a statement when the Lord Himself bore witness ~*Ryle on John.

that John is Elias? “Elijah truly shall first come and restore all things. But I say to you, that Elijah is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed... then the disciples understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist” (Matt. xvii:11- 12). The Jews expected Elijah, the literal Elijah to come back, before the advent of Messiah. John confesses that he is not that Elijah whom they expected and who is predicted-in Malachi iv:5. Many of the oldest commentators like Augustine, Gregory, Jerome and others taught and believed a double coming of Elijah. ‘‘As there are two comings of Christ, first to suffer, then to judge, so there are two comings of Elijah; first of John before Christ’s first coming, who is called Elias, because he came in the manner and spirit of Elias; secondly, of the person of Elijah, before Christ’s second coming”? (Chrysostom). ‘Whereas John denieth himself to be Elias, and Christ after affirmeth it, there is no contradiction. There is a double coming of Elijah. The one is in spirit before Christ’s coming to redeem; the other in person, before Christ’s second Coming. According to the first, Christ’s saying is true, This is Elias. According to the second, John’s speech is true, I am not Elias” (Gregory). ‘‘What John was to the first advent, Elias will be to the second advent. As there are two advents, so there are two heralds” (Augustine). And this solves the difficulty.

They asked him next if he was that Prophet. This question is based on Deuteronomy xvill:15. But the prophet promised in this passage is Christ Himself.

From Acts iii:22 we know that “The Prophet like unto Moses” is Christ. Evidently the questioners did not know that the Prophet promised by Moses is Christ. The traditions of the Elders probably taught something different.

Having only received negative replies from John the Baptist, they continued the interview by asking him, Who art thou? What sayest thou of thyself? These questions he answered by a statement of Scripture. He does not use Malachi’s prophecy concerning Elijah, but quotes Isaiah. “IT am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make

eee — eE — eEe — eEeEeEeEee straight the way of the Lord” (Isaiah xl:3).* He claims the fulfilment of this prophecy and that this mission is to prepare the way for Christ. Again we notice his great humility. He speaks of himself as only a voice. He whom he heralds is the Lord, Jehovah, but he only a voice crying in the wilderness.

There was no answer from the side of the delegation. They probably were in complete ignorance of the claim John the Baptist had made. The passage in Isaiah was known to them; the meaning of it was hidden from them; but John being filled with the Spirit from his mother’s womb had applied it to himself. The prominence which John gave to water baptism brings forth a second question. The inquirers had been sent by the Pharisees, the ritualistic sect of Judaism. The action of John, by commanding baptism, must have greatly concerned them. “Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet? Baptisms at different times and with a religious meaning were important ceremonials of the sect of the Pharisees. They taught all kinds of ablutions, including the washing of hands. They are anxious to know why he baptizes, what authority he has in doing it, if he is not that Christ or Elijah. Evidently they connected Baptism with the coming of Christ. According to ancient Judaism, baptism in water is, with circumcision, the essential thing for proselytes; without baptism no one could be admitted into Judaism. The traditional belief of Judaism was that when Messiah comes the nations would all turn to Judaism; and it may have been this belief which brought forth the question. Baptism was also looked upon by ancient Judaism as an expression of penitence. This of course was the meaning of John’s Baptism. When those who listened to him believed the message and repented, they went into the river Jordan and outwardly witnessed to their repentance by water baptism. Jordan is the type of death. This is proven by the meaning of the word Jordan, which is “descending,” and by the typical meaning,

*It will be learned by reading Isaiah xl that in this chapter there is as in so many other prophecies in the Old Testament, a blending of the firstyand second coming of Christ. Isaiah xl:1-11 can only be fully understood in the light of the Second Coming of Christ.

as seen in the passage of the children of Israel through Jordan. In submitting to John’s baptism and going into Jordan the confession was made that death was their due on account of their sins. No greater mistake can be made than to identify John’s Baptism with Christian Baptism. Yet theological writings and commentaries are filled with this error. Calvin, for instance, wrote, ‘‘it is a foolish mistake into which some have been led, of supposing that John’s Baptism was different from ours.’ Acts xix answers this perfectly. There in Ephesus the Apostle Paul found certain disciples. ‘They were baptized with John’s baptism, and ignorant of the great redemption facts, including the gift of the Holy Spirit. Then after Paul had instructed them, and when they heard and believed, Paul baptized them again in the name of the Lord Jesus. If John’s baptism is the same as Christian Baptism, the Apostle Paul would have made a colossal blunder in baptizing these disciples the second time. John’s Baptism was unto repentance; Christian Baptism could then not be instituted. It was given after the death and resurrection of our Lord, and is therefore into the death of Christ (Rom. vi:3-4). This is also one of the numerous arguments against the post-millennial theory that when John the Baptist preached the Kingdom, he announced the present dispensation. Neither the Kingdom preaching of John, nor his Baptism, has anything to do with this present dispensation, or with the Church.

And how it should have thrilled them when this humble Prophet, the voice, declared, “There standeth One among you, whom ye know not; He it is, who coming after me hath come to be before me; the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose.” How they should have at once asked the question, Where is this One? Who is He, so that we may know Him? But they are silent. They care not to know the One whom John so blessedly exalts in His witness. And so it is today in ritualistic Christendom.

Verses 29-34, It was the next day after the conversation with the Jerusalem delegation at Bethany* when the blessed

*This is not the Bethany where Mary, Martha and Lazarus had their home, but another place called by that name near one of the fords of the River Jordan. The place cannot be fully located. Bethabara as in the Authorized Version is an incorrect reading.

One whom John had announced, He who is the Life and the Light of men, appeared at the same place. He was not present the previous day, and probably came out of the wilderness where He had just spent the forty days in fasting and prayer, where He had been tested by the Devil. Then joyfully John acclaimed Him as the Lamb of God. “Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world.” This shows that John the Baptist knew Him as the Lamb of God, the Sin-bearer and the Saviour; he trusted in Him and his faith testified of Him. There are some who teach that John called Him the Lamb of God on account of His meek character, but this view is incorrect. While He was meek and lowly, John testified of Him as the One who had come to fulfill in His sacrificial death on the cross, all which had been foreshadowed in the Old Testament dispensation and all which the prophets predicted. He is the true Passover-Lamb, the Lamb of whom Isaiah spoke, “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth” (Isaiah liii:7). The expression John used is so much more significant as the Passover was near, which we learn from Chapter ii:13.

Every Jew was familiar with the meaning of the lamb, for it was used as the daily sacrifice morning and evening. Therefore sacrifice cannot be separated from the lamb; the two words belong together. He came to give Himself as the sacrifice for sinners. It must be noticed that John did not say that He was then taking away, as the Lamb of God, the sin of the world. When it says elsewhere in Scripture, “He was made sin for us,” it does not mean that He was made sin in His holy life on earth; He did not take away sin by His life. Nor does it say, ‘He will take away sin” nor “has taken away,” but “who taketh away the sin of the world.’’ It is a broad statement which includes the Person of the Saviour, the work He will do and the ultimate, great result of His work, the final effect of His: sacrificial death. Upon the work of Christ as the sin-bearer, the Christ who died for our sins according to the Scriptures, the Gospel is preached and when believed blessed results follow. Sinners are cleansed, saved by grace, born again, made children of

God and heirs of glory, are filled with the Spirit and united into one body. But all this, infinitely blessed as it is, is far from being the full meaning of this statement of John, nor is it the ultimate result of the precious work of the Lamb of God. We use the words of another.

“When Christ comes again in His Kingdom, there will bea further result; for all creation will then be delivered from the bondage of corruption, and Israel will at length look upon Him whom they pierced in their blind unbelief. The blessing resulting from the sacrifice of Christ will then be far and wide extended, but not yet complete. Only the new heavens and the new earth (and this exceeds the limited scope of the Jewish prophets) will behold the ultimate fulfillment; and then indeed it will be seen how truly He was “The Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world.’ For then, and not till then will sin have disappeared absolutely and all its active consequences. The wicked having been judged and cast forever into the lake of fire, as well as Satan and his angels, righteousness will then be the footing of God’s relationship with the world, not sinlessness as at first, nor dealings in Christ in view of sin as since and now, but all things made new.’’*

This is wonderfully illustrated by that blessed word which came from the lips of the Lamb of God, before He bowed His head and dismissed His Spirit — “‘It is finished.” We find it first in Prophecy in the twenty-second Psalm. That Psalm begins with the cry of the forsaken one, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” the very words which came from His lips when the waves and billows of divine wrath swept over Him. The Psalm ends with a statement which is the equivalent of “It is finished” — “He hath done.”’ And between the bitter cry of the cross in the first verse of this Psalm, and the exultant declaration of the last, we read of those who are His brethren (the Church), that Israel too will be saved by Him, that the ends of the earth will turn unto the Lord, and that He will get the Kingdoms of the earth. Still more striking is the use of this expression, “It is done,” which is practically the same as “It is finished,” in the book of Revelation. When the seventh Angel pours

*Wm. Kelly on John.

out his vial, in which the wrath of God is finished (marking the end of the great tribulation) we read that a “great voice out of the temple in glory, from the throne said, “It is done.” With this event the Lord returns and takes penn of the earth and the kingdoms become His kingdom. The last time “It is done” is used is in Revelation xxi:6. “And He said unto me, It is done.” When? When the new heaven and the new earth are come. And of “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.” It is then that the voice is heard, ‘‘Behold I make all things new — It is done.”’ Only then will the meaning of John’s great message be completely fulfilled, ““The Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world.”

Let us not overlook the fact that the text does not speak of the “sins of the world,” but of “sin.”” While it is perfectly true that the work of the Cross is sufficient to save the whole world, that the blood was shed for the sin of the world, it is only of those who believe that we read that Christ bore their sins in His body. But some have said that because Christ made atonement for all, and is the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world, the whole world will be ultimately saved. ‘I have no doubt,” says an able expositor, “from Scripture, that the vast majority of the world’s inhabitants will be found at last to have received no benefit from Christ, and to have died in their sins. I repudiate the idea of universal salvation as a dangerous heresy and utterly contrary to Scripture. But the lost will not prove to be lost because Christ did nothing for them.” He died for the ungodly, and for all there is the possibility of the offer of a free and full salvation; those who refuse must die in their sins, and die as if Christ had not died for them.

And then John the Baptist must have pointed to Him, the Lamb of God, saying, This is the One of whom I bore witness yesterday, of whom I told you. After me cometh a man, who is come to be before me. Here He stands Himself, He who was before me!

Then he witnesses concerning what had taken place at the Baptism of our Lord. He who sent John to baptize with water had given to him this sign, “Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and abiding onHim, He it is who baptizeth with the Holy Spirit.” When and how John received this sign from God we do not know; he had no doubt many revelations from God, but they have not been placed on record. And so it was when the Son of God came out of Jordan, heaven was opened unto Him, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him like a dove out of heaven and then abode upon Him. As we read in the Gospel of Luke, ‘“The Holy Spirit descended in a bodily shape like a dove,” from which some conclude that it was not necessarily a real dove, but a bodily shape resembling a dove in its downward flight. The dove is a beautiful emblem of the Holy Spirit, and also a type as we have it in connection with the flood and Noah. The Holy Spirit came on the Son of God and found His resting place there. This is the Anointing which He received. It is foreshadowed in the meal offering, that consisted of a cake of fine flour mingled with oil, with no leaven in it. This typifies the holy, spotless humanity of our Lord, produced by the Holy Spirit. And before the meal offering was baked and exposed to the fire, the type of the sufferings of Christ, oil was poured upon it (Levit. ii). But the great fact before us in this statement is not so much that the Holy Spirit descended upon Him, but that He is the Baptizer with the Holy Spirit. There is perfect order in this great revelation in the first chapter of this Gospel. The Deity of our Lord stands first, He is the Word, the eternal One. Then we heard that the Word was made flesh, His incarnation, that He is the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world, His sacrificial work, and now besides accomplishing redemption, He is the Baptizer with the Holy Spirit. For this He received the Holy Spirit as man, so that he might be the giver of Him to others. And He gives the Holy Spirit to His own who have received Him and accepted Him as Saviour; such are baptized by His Spirit into the Body of Christ.

It is of great interest to note the difference in the announcement of John the Baptist as reported in the Gospel of Matthew and in the Gospel of John. In the kingly Gospel, where John’s ministry as the herald of the King in proclaiming the nearness of the promised kingdom is more fully given,

John makes the following announcement: He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire, whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matthew iii). And here in the Gospel of John only one sentence is given, “He it is who baptizeth with the Holy Spirit.” It does not say here “Who baptizeth you with the Holy Spirit.” It seems clear that the words in the Gospel of Matthew must be considered as having some special relation to Israel. The nation has in the Old Testament a promise of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. (See Joel ii:28, etc.) The fire which John speaks of is not the gift of the Holy Spirit, but the fire Baptism means Judgment which is connected with His second coming. All this fits beautifully into the Gospel of Matthew, which is so prominently dispensational. Not a word of it is mentioned in the Gospel of John. Nor is it said here, ‘He shall baptize you,” but “He baptizeth with the Holy Spirit.”

The statement of John “I knew Him not” has been called by some a contradiction on account of Matthew iii:14, “John said unto Him, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest Thou to me?” Different ways of explaining this difficulty have been suggested. John evidently did not know Him perfectly as to His Person, though he had a deep impression as to His holiness when He came to be baptized by him. But when He had been baptized, and the sign was fulfilled by which John was to know Him as the Christ, and the giver of the Spirit, then he knew Him fully. Therefore he declares, “I have seen and borne witness that He is the Son of God.” And yet a short time later when John is in prison he sent two of his disciples to the Lord with the question, “Art Thou He that cometh or look we for another?’ (Matthew xi:3). It shows that John the Baptist, though filled with the Spirit from his mother’s womb, was subject to like passions as we are (James v:17).

Verses 35-39. And now comes another day. On the previous day John the Baptist had pointed out the Lord as “The Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world.” Such is the testimony of the Old Testament to Christ and His work in redemption. When John announced Him thus he spoke as a witness of the Old Dispensation. But now comes another day on which John announced Him again, and unlike the previous day, there is now direct result from his testimony in the gathering of disciples to Christ. When we turn to verse 43 we find a second day mentioned; on that second day Nathanael is brought to the feet of the Lord. In the second chapter “the third day” begins; on that day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee.

These three days have an interesting typical meaning which we mention before we follow the text. The day on which John heralds Christ with the words, ‘‘Behold the Lamb of God!” on which disciples follow Christ, dwell with Him in an unknown, a secret abode, is the type of the present age, after Israel rejected the message of the Lamb of God. In type we see what takes place during this age in the gathering of His own, which constitute the Church.

When that is concluded the second day comes. Nathanael unbelieving, is a type of the Jew, more strictly speaking, of those Jews who are God-fearing, still waiting for Messiah. Nathanael gets a demonstration of the Deity of Him of whom he said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Then he believes on Him as the Son of God, the King of Israel. That comes and takes place after the Church is completed.

On the third day there was a marriage in Cana. The Lord Jesus was there, His mother, His disciples,and then He manifested His Glory. That third day stands typically for the coming age of glory, when the water will be turned into wine.

On this day (verse 35) John stood and two of his disciples were with him. A short distance away the Lord Jesus was taking a walk, the Creator of all things moved about the fields. How lovely He must have been as in meekness and lowliness, in unspeakable loveliness, He walked along! John is enraptured by the sight, for he knew Him; and so he gives a second testimony. ‘‘Behold the Lamb of God.” Behold Him, how lovely He is! Behold Him whom the Father has sent! Behold Him who will ere long be the Lamb of God in sacrifice! He bears witness to His Person and to His Work. He is the Son of God and the Sin-bearer. And this is the great message of the Gospel for this present age,

en the message concerning the Son of God and His work, the work of the Cross, where the Lamb of God died for the ungodly. It is the core-truth of Christianity; omit it and Christianity is reduced to a religious, ethical system of no more value or meaning than Confucianism. But the message of the Christ, the Son of God and the Lamb of God, carries with it power. There is a physical law of attraction in God’s creation, the law of attraction through the message of the Lamb of God works in the spiritual realm, because the Spirit of Life and power operates in and through it. Oh! the blindness that men claiming to be teachers of Christianity do not see this and substitute the Devil’s counterfeits in the place of the one message which has power, which attracts, which saves.

We see it working on this first day, the beginning of the gathering of the disciples to Him who is the Center, who is all. These two disciples (Andrew and probably John, the author of this Gospel) heard the brief message. They heard the Word of God. Then as they heard, faith took hold of their hearts, for faith cometh by hearing, and having heard and believed they followed Jesus. And this is the way of salvation.

A God-given Saviour, a God-given message, a God-given power through that message in touching the dead condition of the human soul: Hearing, Believing and then Fellowship with Him, the Lamb of God. That is how the first disciples were brought to Christ and that is the way the Church has been gathered ever since, and is still being gathered. And now He turns. He knew them, He knew their hearts; yea, from before the foundation of the world He knew these two and that just such a scene as this would take place and that they would form the beginning of His Church; and, beloved reader, He knew us also as He knew these two, that we too would hear, believe and follow Him. And so He turns and says unto them, “What seek ye?” They address Him as Rabbi,* Teacher, accustomed to do so as the disciples of John and by Jewish usage. Rabbi, where dwellest

*The parenthetical statement giving the meaning of this Hebrew word shows that the Gospel was written for Gentiles more than for Jews. It is the same in other places of this Gospel, when ignorance of Hebrew or Aramaic is supposed.

Thou? Where dost Thou abide? The word “Dwell” is the same as the word “Abide” used elsewhere in this Gospel. (vi:27; xv). They want to be with Him, to share His abiding place. Their wish is granted. He speaks the first great word recorded as coming from His lips in this Gospel, “Come and see.”

Three little words, yet how inexhaustible they are! Come! That is the royal word of Grace. He used this word long before He ever appeared in the form of man. “Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord (the same Lord who speaks here); though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isa. 1:18). At the crossroads, when His people were beginning to reject the Kingdom offer and He pronounced His woe upon Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum, we hear Him say, “Come unto Me.” Zacchaeus in the sycamore tree, with a burdened, longing soul, hears it. “Make haste, come down.” And the “comes” in this Gospel! ‘Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out” (vi:37); and again, ‘‘No man cometh unto the Father but by Me” (xiv:6). “‘He that cometh to Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth in Me shall never thirst.” ‘““Come, for all things are now ready.” And we also have heard this royal word of Grace. We came and we have seen; we have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Some day we shall see — we shall see Him as He is, not as the two disciples saw Him, in the garb of humiliation, but we shall see Him in His Glory and then abide in His abode, the Father’s house with its many mansions.

All this is blessedly foreshadowed in this first event in the Gospel of John. They came, following Him, and abode with Him in the place unnamed and unknown to others. It typifies that place in Him which the believer has, the fellowship with Him, which belongs to all who trust in Him. And there they were for the night; they spent the night with Him. Perhaps the abode was outside in some shack, for He had not where to lay His head. But some one may say the night is not mentioned. It says they abode with Him that day, for it was about the tenth hour, about four in the afternoon; hence it must have been the entire night they spent in His fellowship. As another has said, “No night is mentioned, for where He is, it is day.”’ And so those gathering to Him, His true Church, abide in Him and with Him during the night, this present age, and when the morning breaks on that coming day His own shall come forth with Him and then share that abiding place of Glory with Him forever.

Verses 40-42. How this company is to be gathered and built and increased is seen in this paragraph. This simple story is the pattern of soul-winning and leading others to Christ. Andrew was one of them who had followed the Lord and enjoyed His fellowship. How he must have thought that night of his own brother Simon and wished that he too might be in that fellowship.

The first thing he did when morning came, he went and sought out his brother Simon and brought him the good news: “We have found the Messiah.” He took him by the hand and brought him to Jesus. To his own brother Andrew, Simon, surnamed Peter, owes the knowledge of becoming acquainted with the Lord Jesus.

“The fact before us is most striking and instructive. Out of the three first members of the Christian Church, one at least was brought to Jesus by the private, quiet word of a relative. He seems to have heard no public preaching. He saw no mighty miracle wrought. He was not convinced by any powerful reasoning. He only heard his brother telling him that he had found a Saviour himself, and at once the work began in his soul. The simple testimony of a warm-hearted brother was the first link in the chain by which Peter was drawn out of the world and joined to Christ. The first blow in that mighty work by which Peter was made a pillar of the Church was struck by Andrew’s words, ‘We have found the Christ.’

“Well would it be for the Church of Christ if all believers were more like Andrew! Well would it be for souls if all men and women who have been converted themselves, would speak to their friends and relatives on spiritual subjects, and tell them what they have found! How much good might be done! How many might be led to Jesus, who now live and die in unbelief! The work of testifying the Gospel of the grace of God ought not to be left to ministers alone. All who have received mercy ought to find a tongue, and to declare what God has done for their souls. All who have been delivered from the power of the devil ought to ‘go home and tell their friends what great things God has done for them’ (Mark v:19). Thousands, humanly speaking, would listen to a word from a friend who will not listen to a sermon. Every believer ought to be a home missionary — a missionary to his family, children, servants, neighbors and friends. Surely, if we can find nothing to say to others about Jesus we may well doubt whether we are savingly acquainted with Him ourselves.”’*

And Simon, true to his name (which means “hearing”’), heard at once. And when the Lord looked upon him He said, ‘““Thou art Simon the son of Jonas (“the dove”); thou shalt be called Cephas, which is, being interpreted, a stone” (Greek, Petros-Peter). But does this not clash with Matthew xvi where the Lord calls Simon Peter by his name at an entirely different occasion, that is, at Cesarea Philippi, after Simon’s great confession of Him as the Son of the living God?

But let us notice, in answering this supposed discrepancy, that the Lord here at first meeting Simon speaks of the future. It is the language of prophecy, ““Thou shalt be called Cephas,”’ this will be your name some day. The knowledge of Simon the Lord here displays is that of omniscience. He knew who he was and told him here of what He intended to make of him. That name is then fully revealed in its meaning in Matthew xvi. He is, of course, not the Rock upon which the Church is built, that is Christ the risen Son of God, but Peter was a stone, one of the living stones of which the Church is composed (1 Peter ii:4).

The word Cephas is Aramaic, Peter from Petros is Greek. It has been pointed out by church historians that three popes were so ignorant that they supposed that the word “‘Cephas”’ in Greek means “Head,” mistaking it for the Greek “Cephale.” Upon this ignorance these popes build their wicked assertion that Peter is the head of the Church. Even the great Cardinal Bellarmine made the same blunder.

Verses 43-51. A second day follows, and on that day the *Bishop Ryle.

Lord Himself called one to follow Him. He found Philip and said unto him, ‘‘Follow Me.” Philip and Nathanael who was first unbelieving, give us a most interesting dispensational picture. As we pointed out, the previous gathering of disciples, upon the testimony “Behold the Lamb of God,” and their abode with the Lord, gives a prophetic picture of what takes place during the present age, the gathering of His Church. Philip and Nathanael typify the calling of the remnant of Israel, after the true Church is gathered and her testimony ended.

Philip means “lover of horses.”” We noticed once in New Mexico a Spanish church building named “San Filipe’ — “St. Philip’s Church.” On the outside wall had been painted a race-horse with outstretched neck toward the goal. Whoever caused that race-horse to be painted understood well the meaning of the Greek word Philip.

He represents that portion of the people Israel, who during the tribulation period will hear the call of the King and then with outstretched neck, like a race-horse, press on towards the goal, when the King comes back to deliver them. And through this believing remnant a testimony will be given to others, who are still unbelieving. ‘This is represented by Philip finding Nathanael. Philip’s testimony is different from the testimony which John the Baptist bore. “We have found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Philip voices the belief of the Jews of his times. They knew that God had given them through Moses and the prophets a revelation, and in that revelation He had promised to them a Saviour-King, the Messiah. The baptised infidels in the professing church, who call themselves ‘“Modernists” deny both, the fact of revelation and the prophecies concerning a Messiah.

The testimony which Philip gave to Nathanael has even

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been used by these rationalists as an evidence against the

Virgin birth of our Lord. Did not Philip say that Jesus of Nazareth is the son of Joseph? The supposed inconsistency of this statement, and the account of Christ’s supernatural birth as given by Matthew and Luke, is purely imaginary. Philip was ignorant of the birth of Christ. Like others he heard of Him as “the carpenter’s son” (see Matt. xiii:54-57).

Nathanael (which means “the gift of God’) was, like Philip, an expecting Jew, who did not deny the fact of prophecy, centering in the Messiah, the son of David, as the hope of God’s people. But he was shocked when Philip spoke to him of that promised One as of Nazareth. Had he said — Jesus, the Son of David, of Bethlehem, Judah, Nathanael would have spoken differently. It would have arrested his attention immediately. But when Philip mentioned Nazareth, Nathanael said, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” In the Greek there is a scornful emphasis on the word Nazareth. Nazareth was an insignificant village. Its inhabitants were called ‘“Am-horatzin” — ignorant country people. They were of low origin and unbelieving (Mark vi:5-6). They were rough and violent, so that they were ready to murder Him, who was brought up in their midst (Luke iv:28). No wonder Nathanael was greatly disturbed when his friend spoke to him of the Messiah coming from such a place. With the rest of his contemporaries he looked for the Messiah as the conquering King, coming from David’s city to establish His kingdom; the story of His rejection, as revealed also by the prophets, he knew not. He is a type of that class of Jews during the very end of the present age, who are still ignorant of the identity of the coming King, and who stumble at His humiliation, but whose eyes will be opened, as Nathanael’s eyes were opened.

Philip ignored Nathanael’s objection. He invites him to come and to see. Well has it been said, “‘Personal experience is the best test of the truth of Christianity.’ While all this was going on the Lord Jesus knew all about it. He knew Nathanael; He knew his sincerity, his faith in the Word and promises of the God of Abraham; He knew his character and the secrets of his heart.

Nathanael was ready to do what Philip had asked. He was moving towards the Lord Jesus, who must have stood not far away. And as Nathanael neared to Jesus, He greeted him with the words “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.” The omniscient Lord knew him as a true believer in whom the Holy Spirit had wrought His

— — — — — — — — — — — e — — — — — — — — — work (Rom. ii:28, 29; Gal. iii:29, vi:15, 16; Ps. xv, xxxii:1-3). Nathanael is amazed at such a greeting. It was the first time he had looked into the face of the Lord Jesus. Where did He have the knowledge as to his own person? “Whence knowest Thou me?” This question gives the Lord the opportunity to say something more startling than the previously uttered description of Nathanael’s state of soul. The Lord said, “Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.” The Lord had first demonstrated to Nathanael His supernatural insight, and now He reveals His supernatural sight, His omniscience and His omnipresence, both of which show that He is God. What happened under that fig tree is a secret. Only the Lord and Nathanael know what it was, and the Holy Spirit has withheld the revelation of what took place. But we may surmise that Nathanael spent some time beneath that fig tree in deep soul exercise; perhaps he made an important decision relating to his spiritual life, on account of which the Lord had called him an Israelite indeed. Nor must we overlook the fact that what transpired was under the fig tree, which is one of the emblems of the people Israel. Perhaps in his musings, Nathanael, as a Messiah expecting Jew, had earnestly desired to know the Messiah. Many God-fearing Jews were convinced at that time that the promised King must soon appear in their midst.

With such a manifestation of Deity which the Lord Jesus had given to Nathanael his prejudice falls to the ground and he bursts out in ecstasy, “Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God; Thou art the King of Israel.”” Perhaps the Spirit of God brought suddenly before the heart of this believing Israelite the second Psalm, in which the Sonship of the Messiah and His Kingship is announced. He therefore confessed his belief in Him as the promised Christ. The full meaning of what he was saying, he probably knew not. And the Lord Jesus Christ did not correct him, but accepted the worship of Nathanael. Renan and other unbelievers in the Deity of our Lord advanced the theory that the belief that Christ is God was the outgrowth of His followers’admiration towards the end of His ministry, and that it was then tacitly accepted by Christ. But here He accepts the titles of Son of God and King of Israel in the very beginning of His ministry.

Like Nathanael, that portion of Israel which still holds to the promises of God as to the Messiah, will receive the demonstration, during the closing years of this present age, that the rejected and despised One, whom their fathers delivered into the hands of the Gentiles, the rejected Stone and stone of stumbling and offence, is the Son of God, the King of Israel.

In answer to Nathanael’s confession, the Lord assured him that he would see greater things. ‘‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” These words are generally spiritualized. It is pointed out, and rightly so, that here is a reference to Jacob’s vision, when he saw heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on a ladder. Then the application is made that Christ is the ladder for the sinner to ascend into heaven, thus the angels are used as types of sinners, and of spiritual blessings, which come to earth through Christ. ‘The meaning is a different one. The words of the Lord are prophetic.

In the first place the word “hereafter,” it is claimed, should be omitted. This is the opinion of such prominent scholars, whose knowledge of manuscripts is trustworthy, as Tischendorf and Alford. If we omit it, it reads ‘Ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” It could then be applied to both, the present and the future. But they did not see the angels of God ascending and descending during His lifetime. They were ministering to Him, but Nathanael did not behold this ministry at any time.

The present therefore is excluded. It is the matter of the future. The words of our Lord will be literally fulfilled in the day of His visible, glorious return to the earth. Then heaven will be opened and He will be revealed from heaven in flaming fire and with His holy Angels, who will be His attendants in that great event. We refer the reader to the book by the author on ‘The Angels of God,” in which this interesting truth is more fully developed.