Chapter II
Verses 1-11. It was probably the third day after Nathanael had believed on the Lord as the Son of God and the King of Israel, when the marriage in Cana of Galilee took place. But there is another meaning to this third day, which we point out in our exposition. From Chapter xxi:2, we learn that Nathanael was of Cana, a small place not very far from Nazareth; possibly our Lord visited this place on the invitation of the new disciple. Whose marriage it was which took place in Cana we do not know, for there is nothing said about it. Wicked Mormonism teaches that it was the marriage of our Lord! But the mother of Jesus was there and Jesus was called, and His disciples, to the marriage. By accepting the invitation to attend this marriage, a feast of joy and gladness, our Lord fully endorsed what He Himself as the Creator had instituted. For it was He who said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him” (Gen. ii:18). And the first Adam and his bride are types of the second Man and the Church, as Eve was of the body of the man and also his bride. And now the marriage relation on true Christian ground is a precious symbol of Christ and the Church (Ephesians v). How contradictory are the miserable inventions of Romanism on this point. The Romish church on the one hand decries marriage, speaks of it as fleshly and imperfect, and then advocates celibacy. On the other hand Rome has made marriage a sacrament, because the Lord Jesus attended this wedding feast. That there should be such perversions as to the divinely instituted state of matrimony was foreseen by the Holy Spirit, for we read in 1 Timothy iv:3, “Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God has created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.” This prophecy has found its fulfillment in the Romish church.
And when they wanted wine at the marriage, His mother, who seemed to have been at home in the place where the marriage took place, said to Him, “They have no wine.”
Why did she say this and appeal thus to Him? Different answers have been given. Luther’s comment is as follows: “Mary thinks He is so good and gracious, that it needs no petition; I will only inform Him what is wanting, and He Himself will do more than we can ask.” Others like Bengel suggest that it was a hint from her that He and His.disciples might withdraw and not embarass the house. But that seems unreasonable. Mary knew who He was. She knew that He is the incarnate Son of God whom, as to His human body, she conceived by the Holy Spirit, and though He had not yet worked miracles and manifested His Power and His Glory, she believed that He could supply all the need at that feast. And He fully understood what was in her heart, what she meant, that she tried to induce Him to act. Would He then, the infallible Son of God, take his orders from His mother? He at once utters a word of reproof. “Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come!” Romanists have tried hard to explain away this word of correction but they have all failed in doing it. The rebuke shows her error, her mistake. He did not want her to interfere with His Work. Well saith Bishop Ryle, “She erred here, perhaps from an affectionate desire to bring honor to her Son, as she erred on other occasions. ‘The words were meant to remind her that she must henceforth leave our Lord to choose His own times and modes of acting. The season of subjection to her and to Joseph was over. The season of His public ministry had at length begun. In carrying on that ministry, she must not presume to suggest to Him. The utter contrariety of this verse to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church about the Virgin Mary is too palpable to be explained away. She was not without error and sin, as Roman writers have dared to assert, and was not meant to be prayed to and adored. If our Lord would not allow His mother even to suggest to Him the working of a miracle, we may well suppose that all Roman Catholic prayers to the Virgin Mary, and epecially prayers entreating her to “command her Son” are most offensive and blasphemous in His eyes.”
And Mary accepted the reproof and spoke a word which shows her submission, ‘‘Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.” She tried to command Him and now she urges the servants to do whatsoever He saith. It might be called the “commandment of Mary” and be pointed out to Romanists, in helping them to see the true Gospel.
Then He speaks. The six water-pots are filled at His command with water to the brim. He commands again to draw out and to bring it to the governor of the feast. He tasted what was offered unto him and found that the liquid which he tasted was not water, nor water and wine mixed, but pure and excellent wine. He then told the bridegroom that he has kept the good wine till the last, contrary to the usual custom of serving the best wine first and the worst wine last.
It was a miracle. While in the previous chapter our Lord manifested His Divine Omniscience, here He reveals Himself as the Omnipotent Creator. The Creator’s power was needed to accomplish what was done in the twinkling of an eye. He needed no grapes, no mellowing process, nothing whatever. His power made the wine, and thus in the beginning of miracles He manifested forth His Glory. In the previous chapter we read that the Law was given by Moses, but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ. Moses’ first miracle was the turning of water into blood, typical of the ministration of the law unto death; and our Lord’s first miracle was turning water into wine, typical of the joy and the ministration of Grace. Wine is the symbol of joy and gladness; surely His Love is better than wine. It is the emblem of His own precious blood which He gave on the Cross, when He was poured out like water. And He keeps the good wine last. How different from the world! It gives that which man esteems good first, and then the bitterness and disappointment. His people have tribulation in the world, from which His grace saved them, but in it all the real joy and peace which comes in believing. And finally there comes a day, the day of His Coming, when we shall see Him as He is, and then we shall find out how true it is, “Thou hast kept the good wine until now!” What joy and glory, then, when we shall drink anew with Him in His own presence!
And what is the dispensational application of this first miracle? Let us remember that the marriage was on the third day. We believe this third day relates to the two days marked off in the first chapter of this Gospel. As we pointed out, on that first day the two disciples followed the Lord and ‘dwelled with Him, a blessed type of the Church and what is going on throughout this age — the preaching of the message, Behold the Lamb of God, and the gathering of His Church around Himself, Then the second day, on which Nathanael believed, the type of the Jewish remnant. The third day brings us to the consummation, when Israel is restored to her former relationship with the Lord, when they will be received back. It is the day of which Hosea so beautifully writes when he records Israel’s future confession, “After two days will He revive us, in the third day He will raise us up and we shall live in His sight”? (Hosea vi:1-3). The mother of Jesus, who is at the feast, typifies Israel; the disciples who come with the Lord represent the church-saints, with whom He comes when Israel’s time of blessing and glory has come. The marriage here must not be identified with the marriage of the Lamb in Revelation xix. Some apply that marriage scene also to Israel, and make the Lamb’s wife the reinstated Israel. But the marriage in Revelation xix takes place in heaven and not on earth; it is the Church which, symbolically speaking, becomes the Lamb’s wife. The marriage of Israel takes place on earth and is an earthly scene of glory.
And up to now His hour is not yet come. But all is waiting for that third day. When it comes, the sad, deplorable history of Israel and mankind will be reversed. The best wine will then be given, and it will not fail when He is upon the Throne. And let us note it will be the beginning of miracles, the manifestation of His Glory. What glory will then follow! Yet the whole earth will be filled with His Glory.
Verses 12-17. From Cana He went down to Capernaum, which was situated on the lake of Galilee. There our Lord seems to have spent much of His time and worked some of His great miracles. Yet Capernaum was unbelieving and rejected Him, as we learn from Matthew. “Then He pronounced judgment upon the city” (Matt. xi:23). His mother and brethren accompanied Him, but He did not abide there many days. Here for the first time “His brethren” are mentioned in the Gospel. We read of them in the seventh chapter that they did not believe on Him (vii:5). In the first chapter in the Book of Acts we receive the information that they were among the waiting company, so that they had believed on Him. There is no certainty about these brethren of our Lord. Some claim they were the sons of Joseph by a former marriage. The Apostle James is also called the Lord’s brother (Gal. 1:19) and yet he was the son of Alpheus or Cleophas, the husband of the Virgin Mary’s sister. In Mark vi:3 their names are given.
The Passover being at hand He went up to Jerusalem. John does not call it the feast of Passover, or unleavened bread, as Matthew does, but John writes, “the Jews’ passover.” He uses this expression because this Gospel was written after the destruction of Jerusalem and the complete setting aside of the nation. Their feasts are now no longer “the feasts of Jehovah” but their own feasts and ordinances. The Apostle John exclusively mentions this particular Passover, when He entered the temple and cleansed the house. It must not be identified with the other cleansing of the temple recorded in Matthew xxi:12, 13; Mark xi:15; Luke xix:45. The cleansing of the temple which the synoptic Gospels give is the cleansing which took place during His last visit to Jerusalem; John reports the cleansing of the temple in connection with His first visit to Jerusalem in the beginning of His ministry. Here He made a scourge, but at the cleansing of the temple during His final visit to Jerusalem no scourge is mentioned at all.
The courtyard of the temple when our Lord entered was filled with those who sold oxen, sheep and doves to those who came to bring the appointed sacrifices, while others changed foreign coin. The whole scene shows the profanation of the house of the Lord, the divinely appointed place of worship for God’s earthly people. It showed the state of heart in which the Jewish people were. Their holiest functions had become commercialized, the house of the Lord had been degraded to a house of merchandise. Such was the spiritual condition of Israel. It is not better today in professing Christendom. We do not mean to say by this that a “church building” is the same as the house of the Lord. True worship is not in a house, with an altar and a priesthood such as Israel possessed. The words of our Lord to the woman of Samaria will open this more fully to our hearts. Ritualistic Christendom looks upon a building set apart for religious meetings as a holy place and patterns everything after the earthly house of worship which the Jews possessed. Protestantism has followed the same error in calling a place set apart for preaching of the Gospel, prayer and the ministry of the Word, the house of the Lord, as if He dwelt in a special manner in such a building. To speak of a ‘“‘church building”’ as the courts of the Lord, His dwelling place, His house, a temple, etc., is the language of the Philistine, and should never be used by those who are called to worship in the Holiest where He has entered, made nigh by His own precious blood, and who are enabled to worship in Spirit and in Truth by the power of the indwelling Spirit.
But it is equally true that in a place.set apart for prayer and the ministry of the Word, the place where the holy things of our faith are ministered, a spirit of quietness, reverence and decency should be maintained. How the so-called ‘‘churches”’ with all their high sounding names have become houses of merchandise, places of amusements, theatricals, moving picture shows, political conventions, different shows, including dancing for the young people, etc., we need not dwell upon at length. It is a worse profanation than the profanation of Israel’s house in the day our Lord stepped into its court. It shows that those who profess Christianity have made common cause with the world and know nothing of that separation which God demands of His redeemed people. The ministry of the Word, evangelistic campaigns led by evangelists who have “incorporated,” aiming at big collections to which Saints and Sinners, Jews and Gentiles, are urged to give, the different schemes to raise big sums of money, all these are greater evils than the selling of oxen and sheep in the temple court of Israel. It is unholy trafficking in the Truth of God.
The scourge He made was probably used to drive out the
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animals. Nothing is said that He used the whip on the persons. His person was sufficient to strike terror into the hearts of these traffickers. How His eyes must have flashed with holy indignation! It has been pointed out that in this transaction He used more physical force than at any other time. ‘‘Here we see Him doing no less than four things: (1) Making the scourge. (2) Driving out the animals. (3) Pouring out on the ground the changers’ money. (4) Overthrowing the tables.”
Then came from His lips, the lips into which Grace was poured (Psalm xlv), the scathing rebuke “Take these things hence! Make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise!”? In comparing His words here with the words He spoke at the cleansing of the temple three years later, we notice that here He speaks of His Father’s house; three years later He said ‘“‘My house.” That He mentioned here the temple as “My Father’s house” is another witness of our Lord to His Sonship. In Chapter v:18, He bears the same witness and then the Jews were ready to stone Him. But here His majestic, holy indignation strikes terror to their hearts and they flee His presence. And when three years later our Lord found the same conditions He said, “Ye have made it a den of thieves.”” The profanation had increased at a fearful rate so that the house had become a den of thieves.
And the incident has a striking dispensational, prophetic meaning. It foreshadows that cleansing which will take place when He comes again and manifests His Glory. The Jews in the future will erect another temple in Jerusalem where once more sacrifices will be brought, which are to the Lord an abomination, for they are the expression of their unbelief and apostasy (Isaiah Ixvi:l-4). This will be during the time of Jacob’s trouble, when the unbelieving part of the Jews are following and worshipping the Man of Sin. At that time the abomination will be set up in Jerusalem, that image of which we read in Revelation xiii. (See Daniel xii:11; Matthew xxiv:15). But when the Lord returns He will cleanse Jerusalem and purge it with the spirit of burning, that is judgment (Isaiah iv). Of this time of cleansing the Prophet Zechariah speaks. “In that
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day shall there be... every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah holiness unto the Lord of hosts; and all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, and seethe therein, and in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of Hosts” (Zech. xiv:21). The word Canaanite means “trafficker.”” The house and the nation will be cleansed. But when He comes again His wrath will be manifested, foreshadowed in the small scourge He made of cords. It will be the wrath of the Lamb (Psalm ii:12; Rey. vi:16).. And this wrath will be displayed not only against idolatrous Judaism but against apostate Christendom as well. The disciples remembered what is written in the Psalm, “the zeal of thine house has eaten me up.” It shows how well they were acquainted with the Word of God and the Spirit of God taught them the application of this Scripture. We find it in the sixty-ninth Psalm, the Psalm which is so frequently quoted in the New Testament Scriptures as a prophecy of our Lord in His humiliation and suffering.
Verses 18-22. It is significant that there was no protest from the side of the Jews against the action of our Lord. They evidently recognized the wrong in having defiled the house of the Lord. But they questioned His authority. Had he credentials that He is authorized to do this? If He is really divinely commissioned let him prove it by signs! This was their demand. But instead of working a miracle, which He might have done, He spoke a word which was an enigma to them. ‘‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”? He did not mean the temple buildings, but the temple, His body, which He the Lord of all had taken on. In that body dwelt the Son of God, as in the bodies of God’s children the Holy Spirit dwells. This is the answer He gave. His body would be killed but He would raise this temple in three days. He spoke these words as the omnipotent Son of God who has the power to lay down His life and the power to take it again (John x:18). Not only did the Father raise Him from the dead, but He arose by His own power.
The Jews did not understand what He meant. They thought only of the temple building, which Herod had rebuilt and repaired. According to the Jewish» historian Josephus, at the time our Lord was in Jerusalem it was exactly forty-six years that this work had been going on. Nor did His disciples grasp the meaning of these words of our Lord. But when He was risen from the dead they remembered it and then believed the Scripture through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, who showed unto them the things of Christ. The last three verses belong properly to the next chapter, with which a new section of this Gospel begins.
Verses 23-25. These closing verses of the second chapter form an introduction to the great teachings which now follow, and which are so characteristic of the Gospel of John, namely, the unfolding of the truth concerning eternal life, how it is imparted to man, and what goes with it. Here we have first of all a picture of the condition of man and how he is in need of a new nature, and must be born again. He was in Jerusalem during Passover, and at that time He did miracles by which He manifested His Power and Glory. These miracles were the credentials of King Messiah. They were the signs of the Kingdom. As a result of these signs He wrought many believed on His name; they therefore conceded Him to be the Messiah, the Son of David, the promised King; the miracles were evidences to them of the true Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth. But while they believed on His Name, not as Son of God, but as Messiah, He did not commit (or trust) Himself to them. Their faith was not such as affected their moral nature, not a faith which is expressed in complete submission to Him, or which opens the heart to receive Him. While they were fully convinced that He who did these miracles is the Messiah, their hearts were untouched. It was an intellectual belief which could assent to outward evidence, but which felt no need of a Saviour and would not own the real condition before God. It is an illustration of what the natural man is; how spiritually dead he is. The Lord Jesus looked through these men. Because He is God He knows the hearts of all the children of men (1 Kings viii:39). He is the searcher of hearts, who alone can sound the desperately wicked depths of the human soul.