Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 14:22
Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?
Judas saith unto him – This was the same as Lebbeus or Thaddeus. See Mat 10:3. He was the brother of James, and the author of the Epistle of Jude.
How is it … – Probably Judas thought that he spake only of his resurrection, and he did not readily see how it could be that he could show himself to them, and not be seen also by others.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Joh 14:22-24
Judas saith unto Him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us and not unto the world?
How may the Lord disclose or reveal Himself to His disciples, and not to others?
Disclosure, or revelation, is at least a double process. It consists in the presentation of an object of knowledge, and a mental reception of what is presented; a clear manifestation, and an object of this who is capable of apprehending it. Again, different objects of knowledge manifest or disclose themselves through diverse channels of apprehension. There is demonstration through the senses, as when we report, upon the authority of the sense of touch, that an object is hard, soft, smooth, or rough. There is also the declaration of the reason, as when we candidly consider the professions of a political party and decide upon their merits. And there is the revelation of the affections, as when we discern the bitterness of ingratitude or the sweetness of fidelity. Each kind of truth has its own channel and method of getting at the mind. Moreover, different truths or objects manifest themselves in various degrees, according to the capacity of the recipient. Not long ago I visited one of my colleagues in his mineralogical cabinet. Opening one of the drawers, I took in my hands two specimens with the remark, These are duplicates. Oh, no, was the reply, they are quite different minerals. How do you know that? I said; they look just alike. No, was the response, they look extremely unlike. To my sight the specimens were identical. To his critical vision, although casting the same rays of light upon his eye as upon mine, and presenting the same surface, they made an incomparably more definite revelation. There are said to be men employed in the wine vaults connected with the London docks who are able by taste not only to distinguish between a sherry, a claret, and a port, but also to tell the district in which a given wine was produced. It is even asserted that in many cases they can name the year of the vintage. To each of us is given the share of revelation which his capacities can apprehend. Men say, Let us understand these so-called spiritual truths; let them be explained, demonstrated. Let us be convinced. The demand is fair; but the explanation, the demonstration, the conviction, must be to a capacity appropriate to this special kind of truth. A truth has not been revealed to us unless we have experienced the emotions which it is fitted to arouse. Any of us may read accounts of what is seen by the astronomers who are using the Lick telescope, but only they who have gazed through that splendid glass, to resolve nebulae into clusters of hitherto undistinguished worlds, have known experimentally, have personally received the revelation of these hitherto unknown worlds. To one who does not possess it already, words cannot convey experimental knowledge. They simply name our ideas. Any new knowledge which they seem to give is simply a rearrangement of ideas previously in the mind. Looking into the kaleidoscope, you see gaudy colours. Turn the kaleidoscope: something new has apparently entered it. In fact the same light is there as before, so are the same bright pieces of glass; but they now have a different arrangement, and therefore reflect and transmit the light in a different way. Words are simply the power to turn the kaleidoscope of our experiences. If we lack the experiences, words cannot give them. All you who are parents had many times heard the words describing parental feelings before you yourself became parents. You thought you knew their meaning; but in fact it was a totally new experience when your first helpless child was placed in your arms. Let us seek to apply all this to the Masters words. The Lords manifestation becomes revelation to some and not to others, not because of differences in God, or in His manifestations, but because of differences in men. To expect that the result shall be to all of us a revelation, it is necessary to assure ourselves that we have that spiritual sense to which the Lord alluded in His reply to Judas. There must be not only an exhibition of the Divine self, there must also be the human capability of apprehending this. Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love Me, he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. The heart is not the sensitive plate upon which the manifestations of the Father can become the visible image, until it is prepared by the chemistry of love. With such preparation, the Divine manifestation meets a human capacity to receive, and revelation is complete. You read in the Bible a passage as familiar to you as the alphabet. Hitherto it has seemed to contain very little meaning, and certainly has been no mediator between you and God. Now, however, it scintillates with new meaning, and seems weighty with unsuspected value. Every high-school scholar is familiar with the experiment by which the agency of the air in the phenomena of sound is proved. A silver bell is suspended upon a spiral spring in a glass globe. The bell is kept in vibration, and its sound is at first clearly heard. But now an air pump is set in motion beneath the globe. The impact of the bells tiny tongue upon its sides goes on as before, yet as the air is exhausted the sound grows fainter and fainter, and at last completely dies away. The ocular manifestations are exactly as before, but the receptive medium of the air, without which sound cannot exist, is gone. In the Masters explanation, love is that medium, that condition of the heart, within which alone the manifestations of the Divine presence and of Divine truth can transmute themselves into revelation. The mysticism of this chapter is transcendent realism. There is a touch more delicate than touch, a vision more penetrating than vision, a hearing more acute than hearing. Jesus Christ was not a physical but a spiritual revelation. The physical senses of hundreds of men came into relation with the manifestations of Christs physical existence, but, for lack of that eighth sense, of love, discovered in him no divinity. Jesus Christ presents a body of spiritual facts adapted to human apprehension. He is not spiritual fact made discernible by physical faculty. The whole life of Christ, as written in the Scriptures, is the Holy Spirits canvas. If we go to it sympathetically, the Spirit of God will glorify Himself in us. He will cause us to see and feel and know the facts of spiritual life. It is our right to have just as authentic evidence that the grace of God changes the heart, as stands in the records of the apostles. It is given us to have a spiritual insight for ourselves, and to be able to testify, not that there is an old chronicle which reports that a Pharisee of Tarsus was spiritually blind and somehow gained spiritual eyesight, but to testify that we were blind, yet now see. It is our privilege to know that the Spirit of Christ is the vital power of our spiritual nature, and from immediate knowledge to testify of its operation. (History, Prophecy, and Gospel.)
Christ manifesting Himself to His people
What a blessed Master Jesus Christ was! How familiar did He allow His disciples to make themselves with Him! He was none of your dignitaries who pride themselves on that dignity; but He talks to His disciples just as a father would to his children–even more kindly than a master might to his pupils. Here is
I. A GREAT FACT: that Jesus Christ does reveal Himself to His people, but He does not unto the world. The fact is implied in the question, and there are many who have a Bible of experience–which teaches us that it is true.
1. The favoured people to whom Jesus Christ manifests Himself. Us. It appears that they do not belong to the world. They are men who are not worldly in principle, in action, in conversation, in desires, in object, or in end.
2. Special seasons of manifestation. When. These highly favoured men do not always see Jesus Christ alike. There are special times when God is pleased to reveal Himself to His people.
(1) Times of duty. I never found a lazy or indifferent Christian have a manifestation of Jesus Christ; I never heard one who gave himself wholly to business talk much of spiritual manifestations. Those who do but little for Christ, Christ does but little for them in the way of special favours. The men who are the most zealous for their Master discern the most of His loving kindness, and enjoy His richest blessings.
(2) In seasons of trial. Do not complain then; for it is in the time of trouble we see most of Jesus. Previous to trial you may generally expect a season of joy. But when the trial comes, then expect to have delight with it.
3. The wondrous display. Jesus manifests Himself. There are many manifestations of God to His children; but this is the most precious of all. He does this in different ways. You have seen Jesus with the eye of faith hanging on the cross. At other times you have had a manifestation of Christ in His gifts. Then, again, you will see Him in His triumph.
4. The effects of this manifestation.
(1) Humility. God has respect unto the humble, but the proud he knoweth afar off.
(2) Happiness: for he must be happy who lives near to God.
(3) Holiness. Some men profess a great deal; but do not believe any man unless you see that his deeds answer to what he says.
II. AN INTERESTING INQUIRY.
1. It was suggested by
(1) Ignorance. Judas thought: If we see Him the world must see Him too.
(2) Kindness. He wanted it all to be given to everybody. Ah! we never need be more benevolent than God.
(3) Love to his Master. He wished Christs dominion might be universal.
(4) Admiration. Who are we that we should have it?
2. The answer. The question was not answered; for it was unanswerable. Is it not enough that He should do so? (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Who bring and who repel Christ
The real meaning of the question is, Lord! What has come to pass to induce you to abandon the course on which we entered when you rode into Jerusalem with the shouting crowd?
His question is no better in intelligence, though it is a great deal better in spirit, than the taunt of Christs brethren, If Thou do these things, show Thyself to the world. Judas, too, thought of the simple flashing of His Messianic glory, in some visible vulgar form, before else blind eyes. How sad and chilling such a question must have been to Jesus! Slow scholars we all are; and with what wonderful patience He reiterates His lesson.
I. WHAT BRINGS CHRIST AND WHAT CHRIST BRINGS. Note two significant changes in the form of expression.
1. He had formerly said, If ye love Me; now, as against Judass complacent assumption, He says, Anybody may have the vision if He observes the conditions.
2. Christs Word is wider than commandment. It includes all His sayings as in one vital unity and organic whole. We are not to go picking and choosing among them; they are one. And every word of Christs, be it revelation or be it a promise, enshrines within itself a commandment.
Note
1. That Christ will show Himself to the loving heart.
(1) Every act of obedience to any moral truth is rewarded by additional insight. Every act of submission to His will cleans the lenses of the telescope, and so the stars are brighter and larger, and nearer. As we climb the hill we get a wider view.
(2) But in our relation to Him we have to do not with truths only, but with a Person. There is only one way to know people, that is, by loving them. They tell us that love is blind. No! There are not such a clear pair of eyes anywhere as the eyes of love. Sympathy is the parent of insight into persons, as obedience is the parent of insight into duty.
(3) Our loving obedience has not only an operation inwards upon us, but has an effect outwards upon Christ. Too commonly is it the case that even good Christian people have a far more realizing faith in the past work of Christ on earth than in the present work of Christ on themselves. They think the one a plain truth, and the other something like a metaphor, whereas the New Testament teaches us plainly that there is an actual supernatural communication of Christ, which leads day by day to a fuller knowledge, a larger possession, of a fuller Christ. And one piece of honest loving obedience is worth all the study and speculation of an unloving heart when the question is, How are we to see Christ?
2. Jesus shows Himself to the obedient heart in indissoluble union with the Father. Look at the majesty and, except upon one hypothesis, the insane presumption of such words as these: If a man love Me My father will love him. As if identifying love to Christ with love to Himself. And look at that wondrous union, the consciousness of which speaks in We will come. Think of a man saying that. Just as in heaven there is but one throne for God and the Lamb, so on earth there is but one coming of the Father in the Son. And this is the only belief that will keep this generation from despair and moral suicide. The world has learned half of that great verse, No man hath seen God at any time, nor can see Him. If the world is not to go mad, if everything higher and nobler than the knowledge of material phenomena and their sequences is not to perish from the earth, the world must learn the next half, The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. Christ shows Himself in indissoluble union with the Father.
3. Christ shows Himself to the obedient love by a true coming.
(1) That coming is not to be confounded either with mere Divine Omnipresence, nor of increased perception on our part of Christs fulness. That great central Sun draws nearer and nearer to the planets that move about it, and, having once been in an almost infinitely distant horizon, approaches until planet and Sun unite.
(2) That coming is a permanent residence. Very beautiful is it to notice that our Lord here employs that same sweet and significant word, In My Fathers house are many mansions. Yonder they dwell forever with God; here God in Christ forever dwells with the loving heart. It is a permanent abode so long as the conditions are fulfilled, but only so long. In the last hours of the Holy City a great voice said, Let us depart hence; and tomorrow the shrine was empty, and the day after it was in flames. Brethren, if we could keep the Christ in whom is God, remember it is by the act of loving obedience.
II. WHAT KEEPS AWAY CHRIST AND ALL HIS BLESSINGS (Joh 14:24)?
1. He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My sayings. No love, no obedience. That is plainly true, because the heart of all the commandments is love, and where that is not, disobedience to their very spirit is. No power will lead men to Christs yoke except the power of love. It was only the rising sunbeam that could draw music from the stony lips of Memnon, and it is only when Christs love shines on our faces that we open our lips in praise, and move our hands in service. Those great rocking stones down in Cornwall stand unmoved by any tempest, but a childs finger, put at the right place, will set them vibrating. And so the heavy, hard, stony bulk of our hearts lies torpid and immovable until He lays His loving finger upon them, and then they rock at His will. That makes short work, does it not, of a great deal that calls itself Christianity? Reluctant, self-interested, constrained obedience is no obedience; outward acts of service, if the heart be wanting, are rubbish.
2. Disobedience to Christ is disobedience to God. Paul has to say, So speak I, not the Lord. And you would not think a man a very sound or safe religious teacher who said to you to begin with, Now, mind, everything that I say, God says. The personality of Jesus Christ is never, through all His utterances, so separated but that God speaks in Him: and, listening to His voice, we hear the absolute utterance of the uncreated and eternal wisdom.
3. Therefore follows the conclusion, which our Lord does not state, but leaves us to supply. What brings Him is the obedience of love; what repels Him is alienation and rebellion.
Conclusion:
1. It is possible for men not to see Christ, though He stands there close before them.
2. Christs showing of Himself to men is in no sense arbitrary. It is you that determines what you shall see. The door of your hearts is hinged to open from within, and if you do not open it it stops shut, and Christ stops outside.
3. You do not need to do anything to blind yourselves. Simple negation is fatal. If a man love not; that is all. The absence of love is your ruin.
4. You ask how can I get this love and obedience. There is only one answer. We know that we love Him when we know that He loves us; and we know He loves us when we see Him dying on His cross. So here is the ladder, that starts down in the miry clay of the horrible pit, and fastens its golden hooks on His throne. The first round is, behold the dying Christ and His love to me. The second is, let that love melt my heart into sweet responsive love. The third is, let my love mould my life into obedience.
And then Christ, and God in Him, will give me a fuller knowledge and a deeper love, and make His dwelling with me. And then there is only one step left, and that will land us by the throne of God, and in the many mansions of the Fathers house where we shall make our abodes with Him forever more. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
If a man love Me, he will keep My words
Love and obedience
I. THE LOVE OF CHRIST WILL PRODUCE OBEDIENCE TO HIS WORDS. Because
1. It presupposes a sense of the evil of sin and a desire for righteousness.
2. Love desires to please, and ever shrinks from grieving its object.
3. Love is essentially imitative. To love evil is to be debased; to love goodness is to be ennobled.
4. The affections exert a strong influence on the will. The strength of evil lies in the love of it, and so the strength of goodness.
II. WHOSOEVER LOVES AND OBEYS CHRIST WILL SECURE TO HIMSELF THE FATHERS LOVE.
1. This is natural. There is no nearer passage to a parents heart than to love his child.
2. God loves Christ in a manner and degree of which we can form no conception; and if you love Him, too, although your love may differ in manner it is the same in kind. So you are partakers of the Divine nature, which is love, and as God loves and delights in Himself, He will love and delight in you.
3. To love Christ is to be like Him, and for the same reason that God loves Christ will He love us. God loves us in our unholiness, and if He so loved us when we were enemies as to give His Son to die for us, how much more will He love us now we are His friends?
III. LOVE TO THE SON AND THE LOVE OF THE FATHER WILL RESULT IN THE INDWELLING OF BOTH. Love ever seeks to dwell with its object. The effect of its indwelling is
1. Peace and satisfaction. Gods presence constitutes the joy of heaven, and where He comes He brings heaven.
2. Hungerings and thirstings after righteousness and God. So sweet is Gods love that appetite grows on what it feeds upon. The tasted drop begets a longing for the ocean.
3. Privilege and honour. (F. J. Sharr.)
Love the source of obedience
1. There is nothing that a sincere Christian more desires than to keep the commandments of Christ. But human nature is human nature still; and lapses occur daily. The more anxious we are to stand in all the ordinances of the law blameless, the more we are convicted of failure; and failure at last makes us indifferent or despondent.
2. But may it not be that our ill success is due to misunderstanding the philosophy of the subject, and failure to appropriate the forces which would have surely pushed us on toward success? What, then, is this Divine energy, which, were it constantly in our hearts, would, with an authority that we should gladly recognize and yield to, command obedience? It is love to Christ.
I. LOVE IS A PASSION.
1. The strongest and most unconquerable forces in human nature are the passions. Like rivers in spring time, when the snows are melting on the mountains, and the clouds, driven by south winds, are emptying their waters upon the earth, they rise and swell, and overflow, submerging the whole nature.
2. God is the Parent of our passions: He begat love, and said, It is the fulfilling of the law, i.e., the force out of which all obedience comes, just as we say, That mans fortune is in his brains. Not that it is in dollars and cents actually there; but that within his brain are the forces that shall win his fortune.
3. Now, Christ, the greatest and wisest of all Teachers, knew the use of passion; for it was His own child. He created man with it. He knew, too, its potency; for, when a man was begotten, He supplied it to him in due measure and force. When He began to teach, He did not go to the conscience, and say, Convict; not to the reverential faculty, and say, Adore; nor to the reason, and say, Argue, speculate. No: He went straight and at once to the great central force in nature–to that engine-like power in man, which has power not merely to propel itself, but to start all the long train of faculties that are dependent upon it into motion, and to say, Love. Christ used it everywhere. In the case of the poor wicked woman, whose tears fell at His feet when He was at dinner with the Pharisee, He made it the measure of forgiveness. He made it the source of all obedience, as in our text. The Apostle John made it the test of regeneration. And, as if he would put it so that all eyes must see it, he wrote, God is love.
II. LOVE REQUIRES A PERSON TO ELICIT IT.
1. Regarded as a sentiment, love is possible in respect to principles; but, regarded as a passion, it is possible only touching a person. A patriot does not lay down his life for liberty in the front rank of battle with the same feeling which fills a frontiersman when he dies fighting at the door of his log cabin in an heroic attempt to defend his wife and children from the murderous savages. We admire beauty, we reverence virtue, we praise modesty as elements of character; but never until the eyes behold them clothed in physical form do we love them. The qualities we admire, the woman we love.
2. Here, at this point, you see how love educates one in worthy directions. The man loves the woman, the woman the man, and each the qualities that the other represents. Each educates the other into a finer appreciation. They grow to be each more like the other. In this great love of assimilation going on between those who truly love, based on the apprehension of embodied virtues, I find the true source of that gratitude in my heart, that God took flesh and dwelt among us. Before Christ came, God was an abstraction, a collection of powers and principles, august and lovely, known to the reason, the conscience, the reverential faculties, but not to the warm, passionate side of human nature. And may God forgive us, who, having this living, breathing, personal Saviour revealed to us, love Him so little! If ye love Me, said Christ: not the principles I represent, the truth I teach, My virtue, but Me.
3. Is it not just at this point that we are able to see why religion is so cold and unexpressive? Our philosophy is at fault. We have put truth in front of Him who revealed it. We keep the principles, but lose the Person, of Christ. We have lost sight of the sun in our eager chase to capture the sunbeams.
4. Whence comes the charm of love and loving life? Is it not grouped around some person, as fragrance around a flower? Does it not come from the eye, the voice, the face, the form, of one beloved? Let the loved form be stricken, the voice silent and where is the charm of your love gone? It has gone out, with the personal life that expressed it; gone as the fragrance goes when you shake the leaves of the rose from their fastenings; gone back to God who gave it; and your house is left unto you desolate. What is domestic life now? And what is religious life when the face and form of Jesus are gone from the chamber of your heart, but a cold, silent, embarrassed, constrained, and mournful state?
5. You hear people say that the absence of religious emotion in our churches and among the upper classes is due to their culture and refinement. It is not so. The argument proves too much. Love is not subject to such modification. Who would say that a cultivated person cannot love as intensely as a rude one? Must a young man marry an ignorant girl in order to be loved? This sublime passion has but one voice, one touch, the world over. Like some bird, true to its species, that inhabits every clime, its food, its plumage, its mode of birth and growth, its note, are everywhere the same.
III. THE POWER OF LOVE.
1. Obedience is the hardest of all things for those naturally inclined not to obey, to do. It is so with a child. And it is therefore necessary to bring the strongest possible motive to bear upon the child, that he may obey. You say, My children love me, but they do not mind me. That motive does not make them obedient. But have you ever shown your child the connection between your heart and his wrong conduct? Have you made the little fellow understand how his behaviour hurts you? Have you sought to restrain him as you would a young dog, by the stamp of your foot and the glance of your eye? or as a parent should, by moral education? Some people appeal more to brute fear in their children than they do to human love.
2. Love is the strongest passion known to mortals. It is stronger than hate, for death checks its cry. Leaving the bloody body on the sand, it returns content to its kennel. But love is not checked, is not weakened by death. There is no power like love. It will carry heavier burdens, endure more buffeting, do more service, face more perils, live on under the sense of deepest shame, beyond any other emotion that the heart of man is able to feel. (W. H. H. Murray.)
On obeying Christ
I. THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE WHO OBEY CHRIST BECAUSE THEY SEE FOR THEMSELVES THAT HIS COMMANDMENTS ARE LOFTY AND GOOD. But this is not the same thing as obeying Christ.
1. If a man over whom you have no authority consults you about a piece of work, and does not take your advice, you may think him a dull or a lazy man, but not a disobedient one. There can be no obedience or disobedience where there is no authority. But if the man is your servant the case is different. He may think that his own way is better than yours, but he has to accept yours. You are his master. So if I recognize the authority of Christ, I shall obey Him before I recognize that His commandments are good and wise. His words are laws to be fulfilled, not ethical treatises the soundness of whose principles I find by study.
2. In the training of children we do not explain everything before we expect obedience. A child of six does not easily understand why he should take offensive medicine, or a child of ten why he should learn the Latin declensions. He has to do it first, and to discover the reasons afterwards. And so if a child be not disciplined to truthfulness, industry, etc., before he can see for himself the obligation of these virtues, he will never see that lying and indolence are vices. Compel him to be industrious and he will discover the obligations of industry.
3. And so if we obey Christ His commandments will shine in their own light. It is not by meditation but by practice that we see the beauty of His words.
II. THERE ARE OTHERS WHO ACCEPT CHRISTS JUDGMENTS ON ALL MORAL QUESTIONS AGAINST THEIR OWN BECAUSE HE KNOWS SO MUCH MORE ABOUT RIGHTEOUSNESS THAN THEY DO. This is a great advance, but it is not enough. It is only faith in Christs larger moral wisdom, not in His authority. It sometimes happens that a young man finds himself in a position in which it is hard for him to reconcile his personal interests with the claims of others. There are three or four courses open to him; one of them he dismisses as involving quite unnecessary sacrifice; he is perplexed about the rest. He consults an older man in whom he has perfect faith. His friend tells him that he is bound to take the course which he has dismissed from his mind. The young man cannot see why, but trusts his older friends judgment rather than his own. This is a great proof of confidence, but it is not obedience. Christ does not come asking only for our confidence. He comes asserting authority.
III. WE MUST OBEY GOD BECAUSE WE OUGHT.
1. There is a light which lighteth every man, and however broken and obscured is a light from heaven. It is the revelation of the eternal law of righteousness, and whatever obedience I owe that law which is revealed to conscience I owe to God. That God is my Creator, is good, can punish, imposes on me many obligations; but if He were not my God, though I should be bound to be grateful to Him, or should fear Him, yet my conscience would determine the measure of my duty towards Him, and I might not find absolute obedience to be due to Him. But in that He is God, He has an authority over me that is unique and unlimited; and you might just as well ask, Why should I obey conscience? as, Why should I obey God? The only answer in each case is, I ought. There is nothing more to be said.
2. And in Christ God comes and claims my obedience. He is the eternal law of righteousness incarnate. He does not counsel; He commands.
IV. THIS POSITION IS CHALLENGED ON THE GROUND THAT EVEN IN CHRISTS PRESENCE CONSCIENCE IS SUPREME. It is true that conscience must determine whether or not the claims of Christ are valid; but when conscience has once discovered that He is the personal revelation of the law of righteousness, it has discovered its Master. But am I to obey Christ against the dictates of my own conscience? Wait and see whether the conflict arises. It may happen that some of Christs precepts impose duties which conscience has not discovered, for conscience is not omniscient, and often discovers duties when too late to discharge them. What would we now give if we had recognized filial objections, which are now so clear, thirty years ago? Christ enables us to anticipate experience. He does not command what conscience condemns; but in the early years of Christian life it is very commonly found that He commands many duties which as yet conscience does not enforce.
V. THE CLAIMS OF CHRIST PROVOKE RESENTMENT not only speculative criticism, but.
1. It is one thing to submit to an abstract law which conscience discovers, in this there is no humiliation; it is quite another thing to submit to the government of a Person. Nor is the claim resisted, because made by one who has been made flesh There are many who suppose they believe in God, but who refuse Him all authority over conduct. They regard Him as nothing more than an hypothesis to account for the universe. While He is nothing more than this the personal life is free; as soon as He claims authority the freedom seems lost.
2. But those to whom the great discovery of God in Christ has come, know that in His service there is perfect freedom. The rule of law is the real tyranny. The law can only command; but when Christ becomes Lord of conduct, He stands by us in every conflict; gives strength as well as defines duty. Christ becomes our Comrade, but yet He is our Ruler, and we are under the government of a higher Will than our own.
3. We have to obey God in Christ. But when the real secret of the Christian revelation is mastered, the obedience assumes an unique character. The fountains of our life are in Him. He is our higher, truer self. Not until we abide in Christ, and He in us, are we able to keep His commandments. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)
Loved of God
An oak tree, as it stands in the open forest, presents one of the most perfect forms of sturdy independence. So fitted is that tree to stand alone, that the architect of the Bell Rock lighthouse copied the work of a greater Architect, and took as the model of a building that was to resist the sweep of waves and winds the trunk of an oak tree. In striking contrast with this, there are plants in nature, and some of them the most beautiful and fragrant, that cannot stand alone. Yet these are not doomed to be trodden under foot. No; types of him who is strong in his weakness, exalted in his humility, these may overtop the loftiest oak, and laugh at the storm that lays its head in the dust. And how? They are made to attach themselves to other objects; and when they have had no other objects to attach themselves to, they entwine their arms within each other–embrace their own body: like a selfish man, whose affections are all fixed upon himself. As these plants are, so are we; what their tendrils, and arms, and instruments of attachment are to them, our affections are to us. Man is not made to be independent. Constituted as I and you are, we can no more fling off our affections than we can fling off any other part of our nature, the object good or bad, be it the earth or be it heaven, man can no more live without loving than he can live without breathing. Obedience to the command love not the world had been an impossibility, unless there had been this other command–love the Lord thy God. I must love something; and if you would put the love of the world out of my heart, you must pour the love of God into it. Note
I. THE FATHER LOVES THOSE WHO LOVE HIS SON. How God should have loved those who hated Him–but that God should love us, so soon as through grace we come to love His Son–I as a father, you as parents, can easily understand. I love all that love my children. Do my child a good, and it has a double value than if it were done to myself; do my child an injury, and I know nothing in this world that would so soon lash and goad a father into madness. I have heard of good people who have been greatly distressed to know whether God loved them. The way to know that is just to see and know, Am I loving Christ? Can you appeal to Him who searches all your heart, and taking up the language of a man who, if he belied his Master, afterwards most bravely died for Him. Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee? Then, you can add, I know that God loves me; and if God loves me, happy am I, I can afford to dispense with the love of others. With my back at the throne of God I can defy the world. And even if they hate me who should love me, I am not miserable: with the sun in the sky, I can afford to dispense with the twinkling stars. The love of God is like the life of God, the covenant of grace standeth sure, and, whom He loveth He loveth to the end.
II. IF WE LOVE CHRIST, GOD AND CHRIST WILL COME TO US. David was so offended at the cold-blooded murder of Amnon, that although he permitted Absalom to return to Jerusalem, for two years he would not see him. And when the sin of Eden was committed, God was so offended that He withdrew. Intercourse between God and man after the Fall was mainly continued through servants, until at length His Son came, and He came to reconcile them that were at enmity, and has done it. And I take that to be expressed in, We will come unto Him. That implies that the offence has been removed; that the friendly visits are renewed. Having faith in Christ, we have peace with God. You may ask me how God and Christ come to us. I need not tell you, that they come in the Word, by daily grace, by the communications of the Spirit: so much so, that there are no lovers meet so often as Jesus and His bride; and there is no mother goes so often to her nursery, to see her children, as I believe our Father comes to visit His children upon earth. You see your neighbour once a day; you see your friend or brother once or twice a year; but if you are Gods people, there are none you meet so often as God. He comes at the time of prayer; takes the mercy seat at the family worship; and into that closet where the good man goes, goes along with him. The believer finds every morning a letter from home on his table, in his Bible–a letter from His Father. He may be humble, poor, despised; but there is not a man on earth moves in such high society as the humblest of Gods poor ones.
III. GOD AND CHRIST WILL ABIDE WITH US. What else will? Who else will? Not your parents, pastors, health, prosperity, family. A good man deprived of His all is left God, his Bible, grace, a throne of grace. Conclusion: Cultivate the love of Christ. It is a fire that will go out unless it is fed; it is a plant that will die unless it is cultivated. There are two sayings that should stir us up to this, Seeing is believing; Out of sight out of mind. Why is it that in heaven they ever love? Because they ever see? Now, as you cannot see Christ, there is the more need that you should make up by faith for want of sight. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
The Fathers love felt
The sun was shining in the heavens, revealing to the world the infinite beauty of form and colour, for untold ages before its rays were analyzed by the prism. It was bringing forth verdure by its warmth for untold ages before it was found out that oceans of hydrogen served upon his surface, and that heat, like light, is a mode of motion. What you and I want, and what you and I have, is not the bare truth that there is a sun, but the sense of its warmth. What we want, and what we have is not an analysis of what the idea of God means, but the sense that there is a Father who loves us, and has communion with us. (E. Hatch, D. D.)
Christ and His words
I. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN CHRIST AND HIS WORDS.
1. Christ and His words are both very fully made known to us. This is not always the case with the teachers of the race.
(1) Sometimes we may have a great personality who has stirred his own and subsequent generations, but we have few or none of his words. His secret has died with him, as in the case of Pythagoras, Noah, Enoch, Abraham.
(2) We may have great and noble words from a man, but we may know little of his personality–as in the case of Homer, Shakespeare, Plato, Isaiah, and many of: those prophets.
(3) But in Christ both the personality and the words have been brought out into the clearest and fullest illumination. We should have felt unsatisfied unless we had heard the law of love from His own lips, and our wish is met. And with the words God has given us the life, as never a life was given, by those four, each different, yet each the same, a separate mirror to take in the side presented to it, but all disclosing in life-like harmony the one grand person–each so absorbed in his theme that he himself is forgotten.
(4) The words of Christ, then, and Christ Himself, are both fully made known to us. The gospel has its expression in His words, but its power and spirit are in His life. He is Himself the Word made flesh–the greatest utterance in the greatest person.
2. There is a perfect harmony between Christ and His words.
(1) He and His words are in agreement, else they could not co-exist and coalesce as He says they must do. This is not always the case with a man and His words.
(a) Sometimes we can love and esteem a man, and yet his words carry neither conviction to the understanding nor moving power to the soul.
(b) Or, we may admire the words, but we cannot love the man. It is with pain that we turn from the words of Bacon to his life, and from the scorn of worldly ambition by the author of the Night Thoughts to his eager pursuit of it in courtly circles. One of the most melancholy contrasts is between the words of the wisest of men and the exemplification which he himself gave of wisdom. How different when we come to Christ! Our deepest moral nature sets the seal of approval on His words. Thou art fairer than the children of men; grace is poured into Thy lips. When He inculcates humility, He Himself is among the disciples as one that serveth. When He speaks of purity, He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. When He urges the law of kindness, He goes about doing good.
(2) While the words and life are in harmony, yet the life is greater than the words. A man should always be more than his expression. We feel that whatever some men may say or do, they are capable of something above it. This is preeminently true of Jesus. This superiority of the person to the words of Christ is not destructive of harmony; it is the highest reach of it. In all things that perfectly agree there must be a great and a greater, in some such way as God agrees with His universe, which is His expression of Himself, while yet He remains an infinity behind it. It is one of the most important steps a man can take in his spiritual history when he passes from listening to the sayings to looking up into the face of Christ, and learns that the words are only rays from the countenance of the Eternal Life, the natural breathings from Him who is the Word made flesh. Now we believe, not because of thy saying, but because we ourselves know that this is indeed the Christ.
II. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN LOVING CHRIST AND KEEPING HIS WORDS. Note
1. The central truth of Christian doctrine, viz., that there must be a change of heart before there is a change of life. Christ is the lawgiver of Gods world, and before we can obey His laws we must be on terms of amity with Himself. Gods friendship must come before Gods service. Now, it is frequently taught–that there must be service before there can be friendship, and that peace can only be purchased by obedience. But who can do anything that will bear the look of service in a spiritual sense until the heart is in it? Love to Him, however, can face every duty, dare every danger, endure every sacrifice, when it sees His self-sacrifice to save him from the most terrible of all evils, exclusion from the favour and life of the God. Less than this cannot explain either the Epistles or Gospels, neither can it, in the last extremity, bear the weight of what Christ requires of those who own His allegiance.
2. The Christian philosophy of morality.
(1) The superiority of the morality of Christianity, candid men who profess to stand outside generally admit. But what is often overlooked is that this superiority does not consist so much in its details as in its central principle of action. There is no system but Christianity that has gathered all the grand motives to morality round a person, and made the strength and essence of them spring from love to Him.
(2) There would be a fatal objection to this if Christ were less than God. For then His claim of implicit obedience would be impious, and if He had done less for man than save him from the lowest depth, He could not require all his nature to be given up to Him. Here, again, the morality of the gospel is seen to be closely connected with its doctrines. The Divinity of Christ forbids the charge of assumption on His part, and His atonement prevents the feeling that there is over-exaction from us. This view makes Christian morality and doctrine cohere; and those men who speak of detaching the gospel morality from the gospel doctrine are as rational as the men who would pluck a blossom from a tree and think to have it come to fruit.
Conclusion: There are only three conceivable ways in which morality can be thought of as springing up in man.
1. By instinct. But how feeble, fluctuating, contradictory, this is when left to itself; and if it were perfect, morality by instinct would be morality mechanical.
2. By reason. But reason can never furnish sufficient motive power; it becomes weakest when passion is strongest. Hence reason, in morality, is much more a thing for the philosopher in his closet than for the mass of men in the struggle and strain of life.
3. By love, and love going forth to a person. It is this way that Christianity has chosen. (J. Ker, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 22. Judas] The same as Thaddeus and Lebbeus, the brother of James, and author of what is called the epistle of Jude.
How is it] Or, how can it be – , what is to happen? – on what account is it? Judas, who was probably thinking that the kingdom of Christ should extend over all the earth, wonders how this can be, and yet Christ manifest himself only to his disciples and not to the world, Joh 14:19. To this our Lord, in a more express manner than he had done before answers:-
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Jude the brother of James, Jud 1:1, the son of Alphaeus; not Judas the son of Simon, who, from the city whence he was, was called Iscariot, and was the traitor; asks our Saviour, how it was, or wherefore it was, that he would manifest himself to them, and not to the world? This question either proceeded out of ignorance, not aright understanding of what manifestation of himself Christ here spake; or out of a pious desire that all might be made partakers of the same grace with them; or out of the apostles modest opinion of himself and his brethren; as if he had said, Lord, what are we that thou shouldest speak of any more special manifestation of thy love to us, than to the rest of the world? Or out of a deep admiration of Gods unsearchable judgments in leaving some of the world, while he made choice of others to dignify with such special distinguishing favours, hiding those things from the wise and prudent which he revealed to babes.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
22. Judas saith . . . notIscariotBeautiful parenthesis this! The traitor being nolonger present, we needed not to be told that this question came notfrom him. But it is as if the Evangelist had said, “Avery different Judas from the traitor, and a very different questionfrom any that he would have put. Indeed [as one in STIERsays], we never read of Iscariot that he entered in any way into hisMaster’s words, or ever put a question even of rash curiosity (thoughit may be he did, but that nothing from him was deemed fit forimmortality in the Gospels but his name and treason).”
how . . . manifest thyself tous, and not to the worlda most natural and proper question,founded on Joh 14:19, thoughinterpreters speak against it as Jewish.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot,…. This was Judas Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus, the same with Jude the apostle, the author of the epistle which bears his name; and is said to be “not Iscariot”, to distinguish him from the betrayer. The question put by him, Lord,
how is it, , which answers to , or , or , with the Talmudists, “what is this thou sayest”; what is the meaning of it? how can it be? or what is the reason of it,
that thou wilt manifest thyself to us, and not unto the world? arises either from ignorance of what Christ was speaking, imagining he meant a spectre, or some apparition of himself after his death, which should be visible to his disciples, and not to others; and how this could be, he wanted to know; or from that national prejudice which Judas and the rest of the apostles had given into, of a temporal kingdom of the Messiah, the glory of which should be visible to all the world; and therefore he wonders that he should talk of the manifestation of himself, only to some, or from an honest hearty desire that the glory of Christ might not be confined to a few only; but that the whole world might see it, and be filled with it: or rather from his modesty, and the sense he had of his own unworthiness, and of the rest of the apostles, to have such a peculiar manifestation of Christ to them, when they were no more deserving of it than others: the question is put by him with admiration and astonishment; and as not being able to give, or think of any other reason of such a procedure, but the amazing grace of Christ, his free favour and sovereign will and pleasure.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Not Iscariot ( ). Judas Iscariot had gone (13:30), but John is anxious to make it clear that this Judas (common name, two apostles also named James) was not the infamous traitor. He is also called Thaddaeus or Lebbaeus (Mark 3:17; Matt 10:3) and the brother (or son) of James (John 6:15; Acts 1:13). This is the fourth interruption of the talk of Jesus (by Peter, 13:36; by Thomas, 14:5; by Philip, 14:8; by Judas, 14:22).
And not to the world ( ). Judas caught at the word in verse 21 as perhaps a Messianic theophany visible to all the world as at the judgment (5:27f.). He seems to suspect a change of plan on the part of Jesus ( =how has it happened that).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Judas. See on Thaddaeus, Mr 3:18.
Not Iscariot. The Rev. improves the translation by placing these words immediately after Judas. “He distinguishes the godly Judas, not by his own surname, but by the negation of the other’s; marking at the same time the traitor as present again after his negotiation with the adversaries, but as having no sympathy with such a question” (Bengel).
How is it [ ] . Literally, what has come to pass. Implying that Judas thought that some change had taken place in Jesus ‘ plans. He had assumed that Jesus would, as the Messiah, reveal Himself publicly.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1 ) “Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot,” (legei auto loudas ouch ho Iskariotes) “Judas says directly to him, not the Iscariot-Judas,” but Judas the brother of James, the Judas who was also known as Lebbaeus, Luk 6:16; Mat 10:1.
2) “Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us,” (kurie kai ti gegonen hoti hemin melleis emphanizein seauton) “Lord, and what has happened that you are about to manifest yourself to us,” He, this Judas, had assumed that Jesus would reveal Himself as an earthly messiah or king, Act 1:6-7, to them as a disciple group, as a called out company that has been called out and chosen by you and followed you, from the beginning, Joh 15:16; Joh 15:27; Act 1:8; Act 1:21-22; The answer was by the evident sending of the Holy Spirit empowerment, as well as His resurrection appearance to them at least ten times after His death.
3) “And not unto the world?” (kai ouchi to kosmo) “And not to the world order,” because the world hated Him, was blind, ignorant of the righteousness of God, under dominion of the god of this world, Joh 15:18-20; 2Co 4:3-4; Eph 4:18.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
22. Judas ( not Iscariot) saith to him. It is not without reason that he asks why Christ does not cause his light to be imparted (71) to more than a few persons; since he is the Sun of Righteousness, (Mal 4:2) by whom the whole world ought to be enlightened; and, therefore, it is unreasonable that he should enlighten but a few, and not shed his light everywhere without distinction. Christ’s reply does not solve the whole question; for it makes no mention of the first cause, why Christ ‘ manifested himself to a few,’ conceals himself from the greater part of men; for certainly he finds all men at first alike, that is, entirely alienated from him; and, therefore, he cannot choose any person who loves him, but he chooses from among his enemies those whose hearts he bends to the love of him. But he did not intend, at present, to take any notice of that distinction, which was far from the object he had in view. His design was, to exhort his disciples to the earnest study of godliness, that they might make greater progress in faith; and, therefore, he is satisfied with distinguishing them from the world by this mark, that they keep the doctrine of the Gospel.
Now, this mark comes after the commencement of faith, for it is the effect of their calling. In other passages, Christ had reminded the disciples of their being called by free grace, and he will afterwards bring it to their recollection. At present, he only enjoins them to observe his doctrine, and to maintain godliness. By these words, Christ shows in what manner the Gospel is properly obeyed. It is, when our services and outward actions proceed from the love of Christ; for in vain do the arms, and the feet, and the whole body toil, if the love of God does not reign in the heart, to govern the outward members. Now, since it is certain that we keep the commandments of Christ only in so far as we love him, it follows that a perfect love of him can nowhere be found in the world, because there is no man who keeps his commandments perfectly; yet God is pleased with the obedience of those who sincerely aim at this end.
(71) “ Pourquoy Christ fera que sa lumiere sera manifestee.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(22) Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot.That he was not Iscariot is mentioned to distinguish him beyond all possibility of confusion from him who had gone out into the darkness, and was no longer one of their number (Joh. 13:30). He is commonly identified with Lebbus whose surname was Thaddus (comp. Note on Mat. 10:3), and was a brother or son of James (Luk. 6:15).
How is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?The word manifest has brought to the mind of Judas, as the word see had to the mind of Philip (Joh. 14:7), thoughts of a visible manifestation such as to Moses (Exo. 33:13; Exo. 33:18), and such as they expected would attend the advent of the Messiah (Mal. 3:1). But it was contrary to every thought of the Messiah that this manifestation should be to a few only. His reign was to be the judgment of the Gentiles, and the establishment of the Theocracy.
The words rendered, How is it that . . .? mean literally, What has happened that . . .? The words of our Lord, speaking of His manifestation, take Judas by surprise. He wonders whether anything has occurred to cause what he thinks a departure from the Messianic manifestation.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Query of Judas, and the reply, Joh 14:22-26.
Thrice has the steady stream of our Saviour’s discourse been interrupted by the respectful freedom of his disciples. Thomas has stated his difficulty; Philip has made his request; and now Judas propounds an investigation.
This announcement of a new thing, the coming of the Spirit, and the special manifestation of Christ and the Father with him to his chosen ones, awakens an inquiry.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
22. Judas not Iscariot John is here careful to exclude Iscariot from the honour of making this deep inquiry. Indeed it does not appear that Iscariot ever propounded an inquiry to Jesus regarding the deep things of his mission and doctrine.
Unto us, and not unto the world In the body Christ was visible alike to his apostles and to the world. It is a query then with Judas of what nature is this manifestation, which is limited to Christ’s followers alone. Jesus can only reply by reaffirming with more distinct emphasis the spirituality of that manifestation.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Judas, (not Iscariot), said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will fully reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” ’
Like all the disciples the other Judas (‘Judas of James’ not Judas Iscariot) was puzzled. It was anticipated by most that the expected Messiah would make himself known to the world in a great outward show, so that the world would follow him, and it would appear that in spite of Jesus’ clear teaching of the opposite that is what the disciples have mainly assumed up to this point. For men have always assumed that once God works He will do it spectacularly and everyone will respond. Their view is that all that is needed is a boost. But it has never been so. Such spectacular happenings may produce a temporary change of attitude, but they never change the heart. Always it has been the comparatively few who have truly responded, for the response must be a true one from the heart, not one produced by mass hysteria. The change required to be brought about is not superficial. God had made many spectacular demonstrations of His power in the past, but in no case had it resulted in a full hearted continual response from those who claimed to be His people.
This is the mystery of ‘the elect’, those who respond to God and are chosen by God. They come to God as God reveals Himself in their hearts. Jesus Himself had said that only the minority would enter the ‘narrow’, the ‘pressed in’, way (Mat 7:14). So while man’s glory is in huge movements, and in the swaying of the masses, God works in individuals. It is, however, understandable that Judas was mystified. Who could foresee at that time what was to come?
Again it began with the resurrection appearances, but it continued as He personally revealed Himself in their hearts in their day by day lives, as the powerhouse within. As Paul could say, ‘yet no longer I but Christ lives in me’ (Gal 2:20). That is why Jesus could promise them, ‘Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world (age)’ (Mat 28:19-20).
(In Luk 6:16 this Judas is called ‘Judas of James’ i.e. probably ‘son of’. He is also called Thaddaeus (Mat 10:3; Mar 3:18). Having two names, often a Greek and an Aramaic one, appears to have been commonplace).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jesus Responds To Jude’s Question About An Earthly Kingdom By Pointing Out That The Need Is For A Personal Experience With God. The Kingly Rule Of God Is For Those Who Have That Experience ( Joh 14:22-24 ).
We note throughout this time together in the Upper Room how all the disciples felt free to ask questions directly. We had the example of John in Joh 13:25 (where interestingly it was Peter who backed down from asking the question), Peter in Joh 13:36-37, Thomas in Joh 14:5 and Philip in Joh 14:8. All were on an equal footing. Now it is the turn of ‘Judas of James’. He cannot understand this reference to illumination of a few when what was generally expected was a great and incontrovertible revelation to the world. Jesus replies by emphasising that it is the personal revelation to the few that is all important.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Joh 14:22-23. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, It is observable, that Judas Iscariot was so finished a hypocrite, that we never find him saying one word of Christ’s temporal kingdom, though probablythe hope of preferment and gain in it, was the chief consideration which engaged him to follow our Lord. The person here spoken of, was Judas, the son of Alpheus, the brother of James the Less, and a near relation of our Lord himself. See on Mat 10:2. Being so nearly related to Jesus, he might think himself peculiarly concerned to inquire into the meaning of an assertion which seemed inconsistent with the prospect of a temporal kingdom, in which perhaps he mightexpect some eminent office; and as, according to the notions which they had conceived of the Messiah, he was to appear to all the Jews, nay, to the whole world, and was to take unto himself universal empire; our Saviour’s last words, Joh 14:21 surprised and perplexed them not a little. Our Lord, therefore, in reply to Judas, told him, that he spake chiefly of a spiritual manifestation, such as the Father and he make of themselves to true believers, even on earth, by a revelation of themselves, and by the influence of the Holy Spirit who dwells in the believer’s heart as his temple, 1Co 3:16 for through the influences of the Spirit of God, believers are enlightened with a knowledge of the perfections of God, and withjust views of the character and office of his Son. Moreover, by the same influences, they are sanctified for an habitation of God, Eph 2:22 who makes his abode with them, and fills them with all peace and joy in believing, and with the most elevating hopes; and also sheds abroad in their hearts a sense of his love and, by so doing, gives them praelibations of heaven while on earth. The latter clause of this verse is remarkable; for had our Lord been a creature, though of the highest rank, it would have been blasphemy in him to have joined himself in this manner with God: My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Joh 14:22 . Judas (Thaddaeus or Lebbaeus, Mat 10:3 ; not, however, a brother of the Lord, Act 1:13-14 , but son of one James, Luk 6:16 ) [154] expects a bodily appearance of Christ in Messianic glory, has in this view misunderstood Jesus, and is therefore surprised that He has spoken of His as having reference only to the man who loves Him, and not also to the world of the unbelieving, on whom the Messiah when He appeared was in truth to execute judgment.
] What has come to pass , in respect to the fact that, etc.? What occurrence has determined Thee, etc.? See Kypke, I. p. 403 f. The foregoing as in Joh 9:36 .
The addition . was indeed, after Joh 13:30 , quite superfluous, but is to be explained as an involuntary outflow of the deep loathing felt at the traitor of like name. The latter is not to be thought of as again present (Bengel).
[154] Nonnus correctly remarks: , . .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
22 Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?
Ver. 22. How is it that thou wilt manifest, &c. ] Many a wise question the disciples ask him in this chapter; and yet our Saviour bears with their rudeness, and gently instructs them, preaching as they were able to hear, Mar 4:33 . So did Paul, 1Co 9:22 . So must all ministers, 2Ti 2:25 , if they mean to do good on it.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
22. ] , . = of Luk 6:16 ; see note on Mat 10:2 ff. Meyer remarks that the is pragmatically superfluous, after ch. Joh 13:30 , but is added by St. John from his deep horror of the Traitor who bore the same name.
The question seems to be put with the Jewish idea, that the Messiah, the King and Judge of the nations, must necessarily manifest himself to the world .
[ preceding an interrogation, expresses astonishment at what has just been said, and, assuming it, connects to it a conclusion which appears to refute or cast doubt on it. So Eur. Med. 1388, ! “ , .” ; See more examples in Hartung, i. p. 146, and cf. Khner on Xen. Mem. p. 117.]
. ] What has happened, that ? i.e. how is it, that ?
Joh 14:22-24 . A fourth interruption, by Judas .
Joh 14:22 . All that Jesus has said has borne more and more clearly in upon the mind of the disciples the disappointing conviction that the manifestation referred to is not to be on the expected Messianic lines. Accordingly Judas, not Iscariot, but Thaddaeus or Lebbaeus (Mat 10:3 ; Luk 6:16 ), says: . . . “What has happened that,” etc.? or, “What has occurred to determine you,” etc.? Kypke quotes from Arrian apposite instances of the use of this expression. Judas expresses, no doubt, the thought of the rest. Was there to be no such public manifestation of Jesus as Messiah, as would convince the world?
John
WHO BRING CHRIST
Joh 14:22 – Joh 14:24 This Judas held but a low place amongst the Apostles. In all the lists he is one of the last of the groups of fours, into which they are divided, and which were evidently arranged according to their spiritual nearness to the Master. His question is exactly that which a listener, with some dim, confused glimmer of Christ’s meaning, might be expected to ask. He grasps at His last words about manifesting Himself to certain persons; he rightly feels that he and his brethren possess the qualification of love. He rightly understands that our Lord contemplates no public showing of Himself, and that disappoints him. It was only a day or two ago that Jesus seemed to them to have begun to do what they had always wanted Him to do, manifest Himself to the world. And now, as he thinks, something unknown to them must have happened in order to make Him change His course, and go back to the old plan of a secret communication. And so he says, ‘Lord! what has come to pass to induce you to abandon and falter upon the course on which we entered, when you rode into Jerusalem with the shouting crowd?’
His question is no better in intelligence, though it is a great deal better in spirit, than the taunt of Christ’s brethren, ‘If Thou do these things, show Thyself to the world.’ Judas, too, thought of the simple flashing of His Messianic glory, in some visible, vulgar form, before else blind eyes.
How sad and chilling such a question must have been to Jesus! Slow scholars we all are; and with what wonderful patience, without a word of pain, or of rebuke, He reiterates His lesson, here a little and there a little, and once more unfolds the conditions of His self-revelation, and the fullness of the blessings that He brings. He moulds His words so as to meet both the clauses of Judas’s foolish question-’To us, not to the world’; and quietly tells them the positive conditions and the negative disqualifications for His self-revelation. So my text deals with two things, the crown of loving obedience in the possession of a fuller Christ, and the impassable barrier to His manifestation which unloving disobedience makes. Or to put it into briefer words, we have in one of the verses-first, what brings Christ and what Christ brings; and, in the other, second, what keeps away Christ and all His gifts. Now let us look at these two things.
I. We have what brings Christ and what Christ brings.
Now I need not dwell at any length upon the earlier words of this text, because we have had to consider them in previous sermons on the former verses of this chapter. I need only remark that here, as there, our Lord brings out the thought that the very life-blood of love is the treasuring of the word of the beloved One; and that there is no joy comparable to the joy of the loving heart that yields itself to the Beloved’s will. That is true about earth, and it makes the sweetest and selectest blessedness of our ordinary existence. And it is true about heaven, and it makes the liberty and the gladness of the bond that knits us to Him.
But I would like just to notice, before I come to the more immediate subject of my discourse, that remarkable expression, ‘He will keep My word.’ That is more than a ‘commandment’ is it not? Christ’s ‘word’ is wider than precept. It includes all His sayings, and it includes them all as in one vital unity and organic whole. We are not to go picking and choosing among them; they are one. And it includes this other thought, that every word of Christ, be it revelation of the deep things of God, or be it a promise of the great shower of blessings which, out of His full hand, He will drop upon our heads, enshrines within itself a commandment. He utters no revelations, simply that we may know. He utters no comforting words, simply that our sore hearts may be healed, but in all His utterances there is a practical bearing; and every word of His teaching, every word of His sweet, whispered assurances of love and favour to the waiting heart, has in it the imperativeness of His manifested will, and has a direct bearing upon duty. All His words are gathered into one word, and all the variety of His sayings is, in their unity, the law of our lives. So much by way of observation on the mere language of my text. And now let us look at what, as He says to us here, are the rewards and crown of loving obedience.
Christ will show Himself to the loving heart. That is true on the very lowest level. Every act of obedience to any moral truth is rewarded by additional insight. Every act of submission to His will cleanses the lenses of the telescope from some film that has gathered upon them, and so the stars look brighter and larger and nearer. All duty done opens out into a loftier conception of duty, and a clearer vision of Him. ‘To him that hath shall be given.’ As we climb the hill we get a wider view. Obedience is in all things the parent of insight.
But in reference to our relation to Him, we have to do not with truths only, but with a Person. How do we learn to know people? There is only one way-that is, by loving them. Sympathy is the parent of all true knowledge of one another. They tell us in the foolish old proverb that ‘love is blind.’ No! There is not such a pair of clear eyes anywhere as the eyes of love; and if we want to see into a man, the first condition is that we feel kindly towards him. Sympathy is the parent of insight into persons, as Obedience is the parent of insight into duty.
But both of these illustrations are only imperfect preparations for the great truth here, which is that our loving obedience to the discerned will of Jesus Christ has not only an operation inwards upon us, but has an effect outwards upon Him. I am afraid that Christian people in this generation have but a very imperfect belief in the actual, supernatural, and, if you like to call it so, miraculous manifestation of Jesus Christ, His very Self, to men that love Him and cleave to Him. Do you believe as a simple revealed truth, plain as a sunbeam in such words as these, that Jesus Christ Himself will do something on you, and in you, and for you, if you love Him and trust Him; that His hand will be laid on your eyes as it was laid of old; that He will indeed, in no metaphor, but in reality, show Himself to you? I may be mistaken, but I think that too commonly it is the case, that even good Christian people have a far more vivid and realising and real faith in the past work of Christ on earth than in the present work of Christ in themselves. They think the one a plain truth, and the other something like a metaphor, whereas the New Testament teaches us, as plainly as it can teach us anything, that, far above all the natural operations of truth upon our understandings, hearts, and wills, there is an actual, supernatural, continuous communication of Christ to hearts that love Him, which leads day by day, if they be faithful, to a fuller knowledge, a sweeter love, a larger possession, of a fuller Christ. And it is this that He tells us of, to fire our ambition to attain, in such words as these.
Brethren, one piece of honest, loving obedience is worth all the study and speculation of an unloving heart when the question is, ‘How are we to see Christ?’
Again, Jesus shows Himself to the obedient heart in indissoluble union with the Father. Look at the majesty, and, except upon one hypothesis, the insane presumption, of such words as these: ‘If a man love Me, My Father will love him’; as if identifying love to Christ with love to Himself. And look at that wondrous union, the consciousness of which speaks in ‘We will come.’ Think of a man saying that. It is blasphemous insanity; or else the speech of Him who is conscious of union with the Father, close and indissoluble and transcending all analogies. ‘We will come,’ together, hand-in-hand, if I may so say; or rather, His coming is the Father’s coming. Just as in heaven so closely are they represented as united, that there is but one throne ‘for God and the Lamb,’ so on earth so closely are they represented as united, that there is but one coming of the Father in the Son.
And this is the only belief, as it seems to me, that will keep this generation from despair and moral suicide. The question for this generation is, Is it possible for men to know God? Science, both of material things and of inward experiences, is more and more unanimous in its proclamation; ‘Behold! we know not anything’; and the only attitude to take before that great black vault above us is to say, ‘We know nothing.’ The world has learned half of a great verse of the Gospel: ‘No man hath seen God at any time, nor can see Him.’ If the world is not to go mad, if hearts are not to be tortured into despair, if morality and enthusiasm and poetry and everything higher and nobler than the knowledge of material phenomena and their sequences is not to perish from the earth, the world must learn the next half of the verse, and say, ‘The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.’ Christ shows Himself in indissoluble union with the Father.
Lastly about this matter, Christ shows Himself to obedient love by a true coming. ‘We will come and make our mansion with him.’ And that coming is a fact of a higher order, and not to be confounded either with the mere divine Omnipresence, by which God is everywhere, nor to be reduced to a figment of our own imaginations, or a strong way of promising increased perception on our part of Christ’s fullness. That great central Sun, if I might use so violent a figure, draws nearer and nearer and nearer to the planets that move about it, and having once been far off on an almost infinitely distant horizon, approaches until planet and Sun unite.
Dear brethren, if we could only get to the attitude of simple acceptance of this as a literal truth, and believe that, in prose reality, Christ comes to every heart that loves Him, would not all the world be different to us?
That coming is a permanent residence: ‘We will make our abode with him.’ Very beautiful is it to notice that our Lord here employs that same sweet and significant word, with which He began this wonderful series of encouragements, when He said, ‘In My Father’s house are many mansions.’ Yonder they dwell for ever with God; here God in Christ for ever dwells with the loving heart. It is a permanent abode so long as the conditions are fulfilled, but only so long. If self-will, rising in the Christian heart from its torpor and apparent death, reasserts itself and shakes off Christ’s yoke, Christ’s presence vanishes. In the last hours of the Holy City there was heard by the trembling priests amidst the midnight darkness the motion of departing Deity, and a great voice said: ‘Let us depart hence’; and to-morrow the shrine was empty, and the day after it was in flames. Brethren, if you would keep the Christ in whom is God, remember that He cannot be kept but by the act of loving obedience.
II. Now, in the next place, my text gives us the negative side, and shows us what keeps away Christ and all His blessings.
The first is, ‘He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My sayings.’ No love, no obedience. That is plainly true, because the heart of all the commandments is love, and where that is not, disobedience to their very spirit is. It is plainly true, because there is no power that will lead men to true obedience to Christ’s yoke except the power of love. His commandments are too alien from our nature ever to be kept, unless by the might of love. It was only the rising sunbeam that could draw music from the stony lips of Memnon, as he gazed out across the desert, and it is only when Christ’s love shines on our faces that we open our lips in praise, and move our hands in service. Those great rocking-stones down in Cornwall stand unmoved by any tempest, but a child’s finger, laid on the right place, will set them vibrating. And so the heavy, hard, stony bulk of our hearts lies torpid and immovable, until He lays His loving finger upon them, and then they rock at His will. There is no keeping of Christ’s commandments without love. That makes short work of a great deal that calls itself Christianity, does it not? Reluctant obedience is no obedience; self-interested obedience is no obedience; constrained obedience is no obedience; outward acts of service, if the heart be wanting, are rubbish and dung. Morality without religion is nought. The one thing that makes a good man is love to Jesus Christ; and where that is, there, and only there, is obedience.
‘Talk they of morals? O Thou Bleeding Lamb!
The grand morality is love of Thee.’
Then the second principle is, disobedience to Christ is disobedience to God. ‘The Word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father’s.’ Christ’s consciousness of union so speaks out here as that He is quite sure that all His words are God’s words, and that all God’s words are spoken by Him. Paul has to say, ‘So speak I, not the Lord.’ And you would not think a man a very sound or safe religious teacher who said to you, to begin with, ‘Now, mind, everything that I say, God says.’ There are no errors then, no deterioration of the treasure by the vessel in which it lies. The water does not taste of the vase in which it is carried. The personality of Jesus Christ is never, through all His utterances, so separated from God but that God speaks in Him; and, listening to His voice, we hear the absolute utterance of the uncreated and eternal Wisdom.
Therefore follows the conclusion, which our Lord does not state, but leaves us to supply. If it be true that the absence of love of Him is disobedience to Him, and if it be true that disobedience to Him is disobedience to God, then it plainly follows that what keeps away Christ and all His gifts, and God in Him, is unloving obedience. What brings Him is the obedience of love; what repels Him is alienation and rebellion. If the heart be full of confusion, of the world, of self, of unbridled inclinations, of careless indifference to His bleeding love, He ‘can but listen at the gate and hear the household jar within.’
And so, dear friends, from all this there follow one or two points, which I touch very briefly. One is, that it is possible for men not to see Christ, though He stands there close before them. It is possible to grope at noonday as at midnight, to see only ‘bracken green and cold grey stone’ on the hillside, where another man sees the chariots of fire and the horses of fire. It is possible for you-and, alas! it is the condition of some of my hearers-to look upon Christ and to turn away and say, ‘I see no beauty in Him that I should desire Him,’ whilst the man beside yon, looking at the same facts and the same face, can see in Him the ‘Chief among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely.’
Another thought is, that Christ’s showing of Himself to men is in no sense arbitrary. It is you that determine what you shall see. You can hermetically seal your heart against Him, you can blind yourself to all His beauty. The door of your hearts is hinged to open from within, and if you do not open it, it remains shut, and Christ remains outside.
Another thought is, that you do not need to do anything to blind yourselves. Simple negation is fatal. ‘If a man love not’; that is all. The absence of love is your ruin.
And the last thought is this, that my text does not begin at the beginning. Jesus Christ has been speaking about manifestations of Himself to the loving and obedient; but there are manifestations of Himself made that we may become loving and obedient. You can build a barrier over which these sweeter revelations, of which loyal love and docile submission are the conditions, cannot rise. But you cannot build a barrier over which the prior revelations to the unthankful and disobedient cannot rise. No mountains of sin and neglect and alienation can be piled so high but that the flood of pardoning grace will rise above their crests, and pour itself into your hearts. You ask, How can I get the love and obedience of which you have been singing the praises now? There is only one answer, brethren. We know that we love Him when we know that He loves us; and we know that He loves us when we see Him dying on His Cross. So here is the ladder, that is planted in the miry clay of the horrible pit, and fastens its golden hooks on His throne. The first round is, Behold the dying Christ and His love to me. The second is, Let that love melt my heart into sweet responsive love. The third is, Let my love mould my life into obedience. And then Christ, and God in Him, will come to me and show Himself to me; and give me a fuller knowledge and a deeper love, and make His dwelling with me. And then there is only one round still to roach, and that will land us by the Throne of God, in the many mansions of the Father’s house, where we shall make our abode with Him for evermore.
Judas. App-141. Brother or son of James (Luk 6:16, Revised Version) Five others of this name. Judas Iscariot; Judas, the Lord’s brother (Mat 13:30); Judas of Galilee (Act 5:37); Judas of Damascus (Act 9:11); and Judas Barsabas (Act 15:22). This is the only mention of this Judas. how is it . . . P = how comes it to pass?
wilt = art about to.
22.] , . = of Luk 6:16; see note on Mat 10:2 ff. Meyer remarks that the is pragmatically superfluous, after ch. Joh 13:30, but is added by St. John from his deep horror of the Traitor who bore the same name.
The question seems to be put with the Jewish idea, that the Messiah, the King and Judge of the nations, must necessarily manifest himself to the world.
[ preceding an interrogation, expresses astonishment at what has just been said, and, assuming it, connects to it a conclusion which appears to refute or cast doubt on it. So Eur. Med. 1388,- ! , . ; See more examples in Hartung, i. p. 146, and cf. Khner on Xen. Mem. p. 117.]
. ] What has happened, that ? i.e. how is it, that ?
Joh 14:22. , not Iscariot) He distinguishes the godly Judas, not by his own surname, but by setting aside (by the negation of) the surname of the other Judas; marking at the same time the traitor as present again after his negotiation with the Lords adversaries, but as alien to such a question.- , what hath happened that? [How is it that?]) The godly Judas seems to have supposed that something has happened, because of which the world would be deprived of that revelation of Jesus: but through modesty he had no remembrance of his own peculiar privilege above the world.-, unto us) who love Thee.- , not to the world) Joh 14:17; Joh 14:19. So the opinion of a worldly kingdom, generally entertained by the disciples, is cut off.
Joh 14:22
Joh 14:22
Judas (not Iscariot) saith unto him,-Judas was the brother of James and is the same person as Lebbaeus and Thaddaeus and is the author of the Epistle of Jude.
Lord, what is come to pass that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?-He failed as yet to understand the spiritual nature of Christs kingdom or the condition of his disciples after the resurrection; he expected an earthly, temporal rule and did not see how Jesus could manifest himself to the disciples and fail to do the same to the world. [This reveals again the carnal inability of the disciples at this time to comprehend the spiritual revelations of Christ. The spiritual manifestation in the heart they knew nothing about. They thought only of external, visible manifestation in Messianic glory, and they supposed, and rightly, that this would be to the whole world.]
world
kosmos = world-system. Joh 15:18; Joh 15:19; Joh 7:7. (See Scofield “Rev 13:8”).
Judas: Mat 10:3, Lebbaeus, Thaddaeus, Mar 3:18, Thaddaeus, Luk 6:16, Act 1:13, Jud 1:1
how: Joh 3:4, Joh 3:9, Joh 4:11, Joh 6:52, Joh 6:60, Joh 16:17, Joh 16:18
Reciprocal: Mat 7:24 – whosoever Mar 6:3 – Juda Joh 1:39 – Come Joh 14:21 – and will Joh 16:23 – ask Act 10:41 – Not
2
Not Iscariot is inserted to distinguish the two men of the name of Judas. This one was the same whose shorter form was Jude. Judas did not observe the difference between the material and the spiritual manner of being manifested, hence he asked Jesus the question reported in this verse.
Joh 14:22. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how hath it come to pass that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Judas is distinguished from the traitor, that we may have kept distinctly before us that the latter had gone out (chap. Joh 13:30). His error consists in not seeing that the spiritual can only be apprehended by the spiritual. Filled with the thought of the external kingdom, he cannot understand why the glorious revelation of Christ to be made to himself and his fellow-disciples should not be male to all, so that all may believe and be blessed.
Some understand these words of a temporal manifestation, and thing that Judas the brother of James, who spake them, still expected that Christ should be a temporal prince, and have such a kingdom as should be conspicuous to all the world, and therefore puts the question. How he could possibly shew himself to his disciples, and the world not see him? Others understand it of a spiritual manifestation; as if he had said, “Lord! who or what are thy disciples, that we should enjoy more special manifestations of thy love to us, than to the rest of the world? Why should we be dignified by such distinguishing favours above others?”
Learn hence, 1. That there is a real difference put by Christ betwixt his own children and the world, in the matter of special manifestations.
2. That there being no cause from the creature why Christ should make this difference, his discrimination grace is matter of just and great admiration. Well might the apostle out of a deep admiration say, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?
Ver. 22. Judas, not Iscariot, says to him, Lord, and what is come to pass, that thou art to show thyself to us, and not to the world?
The mode of the revelation of which Jesus had just spoken entirely perplexed the minds of the disciples, which were ever directed towards the outward manifestation, visible for all, of the Messiah-King and His glorious kingdom. It was especially in the lower group of the apostolic company, influenced by the carnal spirit of Iscariot, that such thoughts persistently continued. The Judas or Jude here mentioned bears this name only in Luke (Luk 6:16, Act 1:13). In the catalogues of Matthew (Mat 10:3) and Mark (Mar 3:18) he is designated by the names (surnames) Lebbeus and Thaddaeus: the bold or the cherished one. He occupies one of the lowest places among the apostles. The explanation: not Iscariot, is intended to remove the supposition of a return of Judas after his going out, Joh 13:30.
By saying: What is come to pass? Judas asks for the indication of a new fact causing the change of the Messianic programme, the proof of which he thinks he observes in the words of Jesus in Joh 14:21. The , and, before , is the expression of surprise; it was omitted in some MSS., as superfluous. To us signifies here: To us only.
14:22 {7} Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?
(7) We must not ask why the gospel is revealed to some rather than to others, but we must rather take heed that we embrace Christ who is offered unto us, and that we truly love him, that is to say, that we give ourselves wholly to obeying him.
The clarification of Jesus’ self-disclosure 14:22-24
There were two members of the Twelve named Judas. The one who voiced this question was Judas the son or brother of James (Luk 6:16; Act 1:13). He is probably the same man as Thaddaeus (cf. Mat 10:2-4; Mar 3:16-19).
Judas’ question reflects the disciples’ understanding that as Messiah Jesus would manifest Himself publicly, which He had taught them (cf. Mat 24:30). The disciples did not understand that Jesus would rise again bodily (Joh 20:9) much less that the Holy Spirit would come to indwell them. Therefore it is unlikely that Judas was asking Jesus to clarify the manner of His appearing. Judas wanted to know what Jesus meant when He said that He was not going to disclose Himself publicly but just privately to the Eleven. He and his fellow disciples failed to realize that Jesus would reveal Himself to them privately after His resurrection before He revealed Himself publicly at His second advent.
XI. THE BEQUEST OF PEACE.
“Judas (not Iscariot) saith unto Him, Lord, what is come to pass that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love Me, he will keep My word: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth Me not keepeth not My words: and the word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me. These things have I spoken unto you, while yet abiding with you. But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful. Ye heard how I said to you, I go away, and I come unto you. If ye loved Me, ye would have rejoiced, because I go unto the Father: for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe. I will no more speak much with you, for the prince of the world cometh: and he hath nothing in Me; but that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.”– Joh 14:22-31.
The encouraging assurances of our Lord are interrupted by Judas Thaddeus. As Peter, Thomas, and Philip had availed themselves of their Master’s readiness to solve their difficulties, so now Judas utters his perplexity. He perceives that the manifestation of which Jesus has spoken is not public and general, but special and private; and he says, “Lord, what has happened, that Thou art to manifest Thyself to us, and not to the world?” It would seem as if Judas had been greatly impressed by the public demonstration in favour of Jesus a day or two previously, and supposed that something must have occurred to cause Him now to wish to manifest Himself only to a select few.
Apparently Judas’ construction of the future was still entangled with the ordinary Messianic expectation. He thought Jesus, although departing for a little, would return speedily in outward Messianic glory, and would triumphantly enter Jerusalem and establish Himself there. But how this could be done privately he could not understand. And if Jesus had entirely altered His plan, and did not mean immediately to claim Messianic supremacy, but only to manifest Himself to a few, was this possible?
By His reply our Lord shows for the hundredth time that outward proclamation and external acknowledgment were not in His thoughts. It is to the individual and in response to individual love He will manifest Himself. It is therefore a spiritual manifestation He has in view. Moreover, it was not to a specially privileged few, whose number was already complete, that He would manifest Himself. Judas supposed that to him and his fellow-Apostles, “us,” Jesus would manifest Himself, and over against this select company he set “the world.” But this mechanical line of demarcation our Lord obliterates in His reply, “If any man loveth Me, … We will come to him.” He enounces the great spiritual law that they who seek to have Christ’s presence manifested to them must love and obey Him. He that longs for more satisfying knowledge of spiritual realities, he that thirsts for certainty and to see God as if face to face, must expect no sudden or magical revelation, but must be content with the true spiritual education which proceeds by loving and living. To the disciples the method might seem slow–to us also it often seems slow; but it is the method which nature requires. Our knowledge of God, our belief that in Christ we have a hold of ultimate truth and are living among eternal verities, grow with our love and service of Christ. It may take us a lifetime–it will take us a lifetime–to learn to love Him as we ought, but others have learned and we also may learn, and there is no possible experience so precious to us.
It is, then, to those who serve Him that Christ manifests Himself, and manifests Himself in an abiding, spiritual, influential manner. That those who do not serve Him do not believe in His presence and power is to be expected. But were those who have served Him asked if they had become more convinced of His spiritual and effectual presence, their voice would be that this promise had been fulfilled. And this is the very citadel of the religion of Christ. If Christ does not now abide with and energetically aid those who serve Him, then their faith is vain. If His spiritual presence with them is not manifested in spiritual results, if they have no evidence that He is personally and actively employed in and with them, their faith is vain. To believe in a Christ long since removed from earth and whose present life cannot now influence or touch mankind is not the faith which Christ Himself invites. And if His promise to abide with those who love and serve Him is not actually performed, Christendom has been produced by a mistake and has lived on a delusion.
At this point (Joh 14:25) Jesus pauses; and feeling how little He had time to say of what was needful, and how much better they would understand their relation to Him after He had finally passed from their bodily sight, He says: “These things I have spoken to you, while yet I remain with you; but the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, which the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I have said to you.” Jesus cannot tell them all He would wish them to know; but the same Helper whom He has already promised will especially help them by giving them understanding of what has already been told them, and by leading them into further knowledge. He is to come “in the name” of Jesus–that is to say, as His representative–and to carry on His work in the world.[16]
Here, then, the Lord predicts that one day His disciples will know more than He has taught them. They were to advance in knowledge beyond the point to which He had brought them. His teaching would necessarily be the foundation of all future attainment, and whatever would not square with that they must necessarily reject; but they were to add much to the foundation He had laid. We cannot therefore expect to find in the teaching of Jesus all that His followers ought to know regarding Himself and His connection with them. All that is absolutely necessary we shall find there; but if we wish to know all that He would have us know, we must look beyond. The teaching which we receive from the Apostles is the requisite and promised complement of the teaching which Christ Himself delivered. He being the subject taught as much as the teacher, and His whole experience as living, dying, rising, and ascending, constituting the facts which Christian teaching was to explain, it was impossible that He Himself should be the final teacher. He could not at once be text and exposition. He lived among men, and by His teaching shed much light on the significance of His life; He died, and was not altogether silent regarding the meaning of His death, but it was enough that He furnished matter for His Apostles to explain, and confined Himself to sketching the mere outline of Christian truth.
Again and again throughout this last conversation Jesus tries to break off, but finds it impossible. Here (Joh 14:27), when He has assured them that, although He Himself leaves them in ignorance of many things, the Spirit will lead them into all truth, He proceeds to make His parting bequest. He would fain leave them what will enable them to be free from care and distress; but He has none of those worldly possessions which men usually lay up for their children and those dependent on them. House, lands, clothes, money, He had none. He could not even secure for those who were to carry on His work an exemption from persecution which He Himself had not enjoyed. He did not leave them, as some initiators have done, stable though new institutions, an empire of recent origin but already firmly established. “Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.”
But He does give them that which all other bequests aim at producing: “Peace I leave with you.” Men may differ as to the best means of attaining peace, or even as to the kind of peace that is desirable, but all agree in seeking an untroubled state. We seek a condition in which we shall have no unsatisfied desires gnawing at our heart and making peace impossible, no stings of conscience, dipped in the poison of past wrong-doing, torturing us hour by hour, no foreboding anxiety darkening and disturbing a present which might otherwise be peaceful. The comprehensive nature of this possession is shown by the fact that peace can be produced only by the contribution of past, present, and future. As health implies that all the laws which regulate bodily life are being observed, and as it is disturbed by the infringement of any one of these, so peace of mind implies that in the spiritual life all is as it should be. Introduce remorse or an evil conscience, and you destroy peace; introduce fear or anxiety, and peace is impossible. Introduce anything discordant, ambition alongside of indolence, a sensitive conscience alongside of strong passions, and peace takes flight. He, therefore, who promises to give peace promises to give unassailable security, inward integrity and perfectness, all which goes to make up that perfect condition in which we shall be for ever content to abide.
Jesus further defines the peace which He was leaving to the disciples as that peace which He had Himself enjoyed: “My peace I give unto you,”–as one hands over a possession he has himself tested, the shield or helmet that has served him in battle. “That which has protected Me in a thousand fights I make over to you.” The peace which Christ desires His disciples to enjoy is that which characterised Himself; the same serenity in danger, the same equanimity in troublous circumstances, the same freedom from anxiety about results, the same speedy recovery of composure after anything which for a moment ruffled the calm surface of His demeanour. This is what He makes over to His people; this is what He makes possible to all who serve Him.
There is nothing which more markedly distinguishes Jesus and proves His superiority than His calm peace in all circumstances. He was poor, and might have resented the incapacitating straitness of poverty. He was driven from place to place, His purpose and motives were suspected, His action and teaching resisted, the good He strove to do continually marred; but He carried Himself through all with serenity. It is said that nothing shakes the nerve of brave men so much as fear of assassination: our Lord lived among bitterly hostile men, and was again and again on the brink of being made away with; but He was imperturbably resolute to do the work given Him to do. Take Him at an unguarded moment, tell Him the boat is sinking underneath Him, and you find the same undisturbed composure. He was never troubled at the results of His work or about His own reputation; when He was reviled, He reviled not again.
This unruffled serenity was so obvious a characteristic of the demeanour of Jesus, that as it was familiar to His friends, so it was perplexing to His judges. The Roman governor saw in His bearing an equanimity so different from the callousness of the hardened criminal and from the agitation of the self-condemned, that he could not help exclaiming in astonishment, “Dost Thou not know that I have power over Thee?” Therefore without egotism our Lord could speak of “My peace.” The world had come to Him in various shapes, and He had conquered it. No allurement of pleasure, no opening to ambition had distracted Him and broken up His serene contentment; no danger had filled His spirit with anxiety and fear. On one occasion only could He say, “Now is My soul troubled.” Out of all that life had presented to Him He had wrought out for Himself and for us peace.
By calling it specifically “My peace” our Lord distinguishes it from the peace which men ordinarily pursue. Some seek it by accommodating themselves to the world, by fixing for themselves a low standard and disbelieving in the possibility of living up to any high standard in this world. Some seek peace by giving the fullest possible gratification to all their desires; they seek peace in external things–comfort, ease, plenty, pleasant connections. Some stifle anxiety about worldly things by impressing on themselves that fretting does no good, and that what cannot be cured must be endured; and any anxiety that might arise about their spiritual condition they stifle by the imagination that God is too great or too good to deal strictly with their shortcomings. Such kinds of peace, our Lord implies, are delusive. It is not outward things which can give peace of mind, no more than it is a soft couch which can give rest to a fevered body. Restfulness must be produced from within.
There are, in fact, two roads to peace–we may conquer or we may be conquered. A country may always enjoy peace, if it is prepared always to submit to indignities, to accommodate itself to the demands of stronger parties, and absolutely to dismiss from its mind all ideas of honour or self-respect. This mode of obtaining peace has the advantages of easy and speedy attainment–advantages to which every man naturally attaches too high a value. For in the individual life we are daily choosing either the one peace or the other; the unrighteous desires which distract us we are either conquering or being conquered by. We are either accepting the cheap peace that lies on this side of conflict, or we are attaining or striving towards the peace that lies on the other side of conflict. But the peace we gain by submission is both short-lived and delusive. It is short-lived, for a gratified desire is like a relieved beggar, who will quickly find his way back to you with his request rather enlarged than curtailed; and it is delusive, because it is a peace which is the beginning of bondage of the worst kind. Any peace that is worth the having or worth the speaking about lies beyond, at the other side of conflict. We cannot long veil this from ourselves: we may decline the conflict and put off the evil day; but still we are conscious that we have not the peace our natures crave until we subdue the evil that is in us. We look and look for peace to distil upon us from without, to rise and shine upon us as tomorrow’s sun, without effort of our own, and yet we know that such expectation is the merest delusion, and that peace must begin within, must be found in ourselves and not in our circumstances. We know that until our truest purposes are in thorough harmony with our conscientious convictions we have no right to peace. We know that we can have no deep and lasting peace until we are satisfied with our own inward state, or are at least definitely on the road to satisfaction.
Again, the peace of which Christ here speaks may be called His, as being wrought out by Him, and as being only attainable by others through His communication of it to them. We do at first inquire with surprise how it is possible that any one can bequeath to us his own moral qualities. This, in fact, is what one often wishes were possible–that the father who by long discipline, by many painful experiences, has at last become meek and wise, could transmit these qualities to his son who has life all before him. As we read the notices of those who pass away from among us, it is the loss of so much moral force we mourn; it may be, for all we know, as indispensable elsewhere, but nevertheless it is our loss, a loss for which no work done by the man, nor any works left behind him, compensate; for the man is always, or generally, greater than his works, and what he has done only shows us the power and possibilities that are in him. Each generation needs to raise its own good men, not independent, certainly, of the past, but not altogether inheriting what past generations have done; just as each new year must raise its own crops, and only gets the benefit of past toil in the shape of improved land, good seed, better implements and methods of agriculture. Still, there is a transmission from father to son of moral qualities. What the father has painfully acquired may be found in the son by inheritance. And this is analogous to the transfusion of moral qualities from Christ to His people. For it is true of all the graces of the Christian, that they are first acquired by Christ, and only from Him derived to the Christian. It is of His fulness we all receive, and grace for grace. He is the Light at whom we must all kindle, the Source from whom all flows.
How, then, does Christ communicate to us His peace or any of His own qualities–qualities in some instances acquired by personal experience and personal effort? He gives us peace, first, by reconciling us to God by removing the burden of our past guilt and giving us access to God’s favour. His work sheds quite a new light upon God; reveals the fatherly love of God following us into our wandering and misery, and claiming us in our worst estate as His, acknowledging us and bidding us hope. Through Him we are brought back to the Father. He comes with this message from God, that He loves us. Am I, then, troubled about the past, about what I have done? As life goes on, do I only see more and more clearly how thoroughly I have been a wrong-doer? Does the present, as I live through it, only shed a brighter and brighter light on the evil of the past? Do I fear the future as that which can only more and more painfully evolve the consequences of my past wrong-doing? Am I gradually awaking to the full and awful import of being a sinner? After many years of a Christian profession, am I coming at last to see that above all else my life has been a life of sin, of shortcoming or evasion of duty, of deep consideration for my own pleasure or my own purpose, and utter or comparative regardlessness of God? Are the slowly evolving circumstances of my life at length effecting what no preaching has ever effected? are they making me understand that sin is the real evil, and that I am beset by it and my destiny entangled and ruled by it? To me, then, what offer could be more appropriate than the offer of peace? From all fear of God and of myself I am called to peace in Christ.
Reconcilement with God is the foundation, manifestly and of course, of all peace; and this we have as Christ’s direct gift to us. But this fundamental peace, though it will eventually pervade the whole man, does in point of fact only slowly develop into a peace such as our Lord Himself possessed. The peace which our Lord spoke of to His disciples, peace amidst all the ills of life, can only be attained by a real following of Christ, and a hearty and profound acceptance of His principles and spirit. And it is not the less His gift because we have thus to work for it, to alter or be altered wholly in our own inward being. It is not therefore a deceptive bequest. When the father gives his son a good education, he cannot do so irrespective of the hard work of the son himself. When the general promises victory to his men, they do not expect to have it without fighting. And our Lord does not upset or supersede the fundamental laws of our nature and of our spiritual growth. He does not make effort of our own unnecessary; He does not give us a ready-made character irrespective of the laws by which character grows, irrespective of deep-seated thirst for holiness in ourselves and long-sustained conflict with outward obstacles and internal weaknesses and infidelities.
But He helps us to peace, not only though primarily by bringing us back to God’s favour, but also by showing us in His own person and life how peace is attained and preserved, and by communicating to us His Spirit to aid us in our efforts to attain it. He found out more perfectly than any one else the secret of peace; and we are stirred by His example and success, not only as we are stirred by the example of any dead saint or sage with whom we have no present personal living fellowship, but as we are stirred by the example of a living Father who is always with us to infuse new heart into us, and to give us effectual counsel and aid. While we put forth our own efforts to win this self-conquest, and so school all within us as to enter into peace, Christ is with us securing that our efforts shall not be in vain, giving us the fixed and clear idea of peace as our eternal condition, and giving us also whatever we need to win it.
These words our Lord uttered at a time when, if ever, He was not likely to use words of course, to adopt traditional and misleading phrases. He loved the men He was speaking to, He knew He was after this to have few more opportunities of speaking with them, His love interpreted to Him the difficulties and troubles which would fall upon them, and this was the armour which He knew would bear them scathless through all. That His promise was fulfilled we know. We do not know what became of the majority of the Apostles, whether they did much or little; but if we look at the men who stood out prominently in the early history of the Church, we see how much they stood in need of this peace and how truly they received it. Look at Stephen, sinking bruised and bleeding under the stones of a cursing mob, and say what characterises him–what makes his face shine and his lips open in prayer for his murderers? Look at Paul, driven out of one city, dragged lifeless out of another, clinging to a spar on a wild sea, stripped by robbers, arraigned before magistrate after magistrate–what keeps his spirit serene, his purpose unshaken through a life such as this? What put into his lips these valued words and taught him to say to others, “Rejoice evermore, and let the peace of God which passeth understanding keep your heart and mind”? It was the fulfilment of this promise–a promise which is meant for us as for them. It will be fulfilled in us as in these men, not by a mere verbal petition, not by a craving however strong, or a prayer however sincere, but by a true and profound acceptance of Christ, by a conscientious following of Him as our real leader, as that One from whom we take our ideas of life, of what is worthy and what is unworthy.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] “In this designation of the teaching Spirit as holy, there lie lessons for two classes of people. All fanatical professions of possessing Divine illumination, which are not warranted and sealed by purity of life, are lies or self-delusion. And, on the other hand, cold-blooded intellectualism will never force the locks of the palace of Divine truth; but they that come there must have clean hands and a pure heart; and only those who have the love and the longing for goodness will be wise scholars in Christ’s school.”–MACLAREN.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary