A Few Thoughts on John's Gospel
James Ebenezer Batten
Table of Contents
A Few Thoughts on John's Gospel: Part 2
John 11 gives occasion to our Lord to pass into a yet further glory upon the death of Lazarus, and to act by sovereign power in His higher titles, as "the resurrection and the life." Here also Jesus refuses to hold His intercourse with them about death, as they viewed it in relation to Lazarus, but teaches the disciples to look at it in the presence of Himself and His Father, that they may understand Him and the new doctrine which He declares. "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby." How else could He act in character as "the resurrection and the life," without a Lazarus who was dead (in the twelve hours of man's day) and buried, and had been in the grave four days already, so that those who loved him said, "by this time he stinketh." Death and the grave and corruption looked at in their condemning and separating powers in relation to God in His righteousness, and man upon whom death was inflicted on account of sin, are indeed fearful; all men are guilty under the weight of this penalty, and every mouth is stopped at the grave of Lazarus. Jesus is alone here with God, in the presence of Satan and his greatest power!
The blindness of the man who was born so, whether through his own sin or the sin of his parents, left him yet alive in this world; and the transgression of the woman who was taken in adultery, and whom Moses commanded to be stoned, forfeited her own life to the curse of the law she had broken; but "God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved."
Jesus took this place in the temple and passed before the scribes and Pharisees as the light of it; but they left Him alone with the convicted woman as "the light" to her, who under the law, which they used, was appointed to death. He had also come to the man who was born blind and had so filled his vessel with "the light" from Himself, that the man needed only to learn further the Person who had brought to him "life" in the confession of "the Son of God" whom he worshiped.
Happy deliverance and trophies were these for themselves and for. Him who was passing thus through the world in a power that was able to turn the very causes of human misery out of it, or, in the meanwhile, to find a new use for them for "the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby." This is what the Lord is doing as "the potter" with the clay; and under His skill everything is seen to suit Him and serve His purpose very well for glory or beauty, and just as it is! The language and actings of Him, who now comes into Bethany as "the resurrection and the life," are all in correspondence with such a title. "He saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." In the hands of Him that quickeneth and raiseth, "this sickness is not unto death," though, speaking as those about Him to (after the manner of men), Lazarus was dead and buried, and in corruption.
Passing this, however, we see that even the faith of Martha and Mary, which recognized a resurrection at the last day" (for this was their hope), must open itself out to take in Jesus in the light of His own perfections "while it is called to-day," and learn all these lessons afresh in this connection with the Son of God. "The last day" therefore is out of place when Jesus is in their midst to act as the resurrection and the life.
Here we may well challenge our hearts upon the importance of such a revelation as we are considering in all its parts. Now that Christ is come, He calls us out to learn our new lessons as "the truth is in Jesus" in His company, and as He teaches us, by act and deed. Old things are passed away in His creation, so that "sickness... unto death" and almost everything besides, which is the natural order and relation in Adam, have given place to another order in the Son of God, who was dead but is alive again and lives for evermore and has "the keys of hell and of death."
How slowly we make room, like the two sisters and the group at Bethany, for the display of "the glory of God," above and beyond all that sin and Satan brought into the world and put us under in the cruel bondage of death and corruption, not seeing that the Son of God had laid hold of it all for Himself, to be glorified thereby, down to the grave by means of death, and up to the right hand of the throne of God in glory, by means of resurrection! What a pathway of trespass and guilt—sin and blindness-sickness and death -have these chapters opened up; and what misery would they still record if Jesus had not passed through the midst as "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," and made all its stumbling-blocks His own steppingstones up to the right hand of the Father and the crown of glory which adorns the Victor's brow.
"When Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying unto Him, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." But in this confidence of her love, she is not near enough to His own heart, in the secret that all He is, as the Son of God, for the objects of His affection; for "Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." He did not come to reach His glory by preventing death, as Mary supposed (for He abode two days in the same place where He was), but came to win His spoils by means of death, and to bring in the Father of glory in due season to His own sepulcher, that He might raise and glorify His Son with other glories besides those which He had with Him "before the world was."
We may remark here that this visit of Jesus as the Son of God to Bethany, and the rolling away the stone from the mouth of the cave to bring out man who lay therein with a napkin about his face and "bound hand and foot with graveclothes," is a common companion picture to the "exceeding high mountain" in the other gospels, upon which Jesus stood and was transfigured before His disciples. His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light when "He received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." 2 Pet. 1:17. The Son of man in righteousness, thus accredited to us by His transfiguration upon "the holy mount," was at His height in majesty and glory upon the earth; further, He cannot rise that way unless He goes up alone to God in the title of His own worthiness. On the other hand, Lazarus in his cave, "bound hand and foot with graveclothes," under the power of death, was sunk down into the depths of corruption! These two extremes are met in the Person of the Son, who passes through John's Gospel (not so much in the coming and majesty and glory of His earthly kingdom) as in the veiled power and title of "the only begotten of the Father," to work the works of God out upon the new platform and footing, that "Neither bath this man sinned, nor his parents" that he was born blind; or as to -Lazarus, "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby."
Such a one in our midst makes the depths of this ruin and disgrace to man His own; and it is to be rolled away out of the floor in the title of Him who has written it upon His own heart, as before and with His Father, in the fire of His jealousy, and the zeal of His house which had eaten Him up. How will He and the ground and the dust thereof (out of which Adam was originally taken) settle this new and last question now that man has been driven back "unto dust" by that death which his Creator inflicted upon him as a sinner? The work, the sad work of Satan, is before the Son of God at the grave—where man who was made in the image of God has been laid in the, separating power of death, the keys of which the usurper held upon the cave and over the captive dead-buried out of sight from those who were in tears at the felt desolation of that hour. A groan goes up to God from the heart of Jesus who has come into such a scene of helplessness and misery to "work the works of God" in the face of Satan's power and title at the grave's mouth. T h e groan found its answer between the Father and the Son; a n d "Jesus lifted up His eyes, and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me. And I knew that Thou hearest Me always." Nor is this new work of Jesus as "the resurrection and the life" to be only for the glory of God (as the first object, ever before His Son); but in truest sympathy and love for the oppressed and bereaved, He adds, "because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me."
In whatever way this grace could associate others with itself in such an act, it is ever the delight of His unjealous love to do! How like Himself it is, when Jesus bids them begin this mighty action, saying, "Take ye away the stone"- an act only to be rivaled, when all was over, by the same love which bade them, "Loose him and let him go." What a moment for them, for they did it! The groan to God brought its answer from above to the opened ears of Jesus. Perfect in the expression of His sympathy to the sorrowing and helpless ones with whom Jesus wept, they looked that these tears should be wiped away by power from Him, as the Son of God. Jesus is left in possession of the entire scene, and "cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot." A new thing had been wrought already in the man who walked about upon the earth with his eyes opened by means of the clay which Jesus made out of it; but now a greater wonder is to be wrought in reply to the groan and the tears and the loud cry; for Lazarus comes forth from the depths of the grave at the bidding of Jesus the Son of God passing through the ruins as "the resurrection and the life." Blessed Savior, Thou hast won back all that the enemy had plucked from the hands of men, from Adam in paradise to Solomon in his kingdom and majesty in Jerusalem, as declared when Thou wast transfigured upon the holy mount. In this Gospel Thou art come down from that height, that Thou mightest be seen also to enter into the palace of the strong man and spoil his goods, and take from him all his armor wherein he trusted.
A Few Thoughts on John's Gospel: Part 3
John 12 opens after these triumphs, and presents Bethany under quite another aspect. It is no longer the house of weeping, for "There they made Him [Jesus] a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus [whom the grave and corruption had given back out of the tomb of death] was one of them that sat at the table with Him." Only one crowning act remains to be done for "the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby," in order that the counsels of the Father and our eternal blessing may be established beyond the reach of Satan's power, and outside the range of sin and the judgment of God. Who could take up this work, and by what new paths in life or death, incarnation or ascension, could such an end be reached, but by the Son of God come down from above, in the mystery of "the Word... made flesh," that He might accomplish it? In this spirit, Mary took "a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment."
Elias and Moses, the two men who appeared in glory on the top of the exceeding high mountain, spoke with Jesus of "His decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem"; and He carried this secret down with Him into the house of Bethany, that He might declare it to those whom He loved, and in connection with this anointing.
To the natural thoughts of Judas (like the inquiry respecting the man who was blind from his birth, and its causes) this use of the ointment is but waste, and it should have been sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor; but Mary is in the current of her Lord's thoughts; and He said, "Let her alone: against the day of My burying hath she kept this." The act of Mary had this significance to the heart of Jesus; and He prepares Himself for the path by which the causes of human misery, and God's dishonor, and the world's bondage, should be met and overcome. Long ago the Spirit of prophecy had cried, "O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction"; and now He is come, to whom that finger pointed. Jesus, knowing that His hour was come, speaks to His Father about it, and says about Himself, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." He who proved Himself as "the resurrection and the life" at the cave of Lazarus, has in view His last and greatest work -expiation for the guilty. He sets Himself to descend into the belly of the earth, that the dust of the tabernacle floor- the writing of the finger-and the original curse upon the ground-may get their answer, and be set aside in His own death, as "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."
God the Father of glory may then take His new place, and raise up Jesus out of His grave on the third day, as the proof of His own glory over sin by death, and of our redemption; for "God hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." 2 Cor. 5:21. A deeper path than all these groans and tears at the grave of Lazarus, opened itself to our Lord, and Jesus said, "Now is My soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save
Me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name."
It is no longer merely Adam's sin that is in question, or the transgressions of his posterity, multiplied as they may be; for "God manifest in flesh" has come into the midst of the family as a man, and brought every adverse power into crisis in His own Person at His cross. Satan's usurped rights over man were challenged and set aside by the perfect obedience in life and death of the last Adam. Tempted by the devil in the wilderness (when the temptations were ended), Jesus said, "Get thee hence, Satan." So again, in Gethsemane, when "His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground," in the knowledge that this was Satan's hour and the power of darkness; still He accepted it in the confidence that it was the path of the predeterminate counsel that led to the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby in life and in death, and at the right hand of the Father!
Obedience unto death was the only measure of His perfection as the faithful servant who loved his master, his wife, and his children, and would not go out free. The sin and.
the iniquity of His own people, the flesh, the world, and Satan; the majesty and righteousness of God in their own nature, as well as in holy judgment against all evil, were gathered up by Christ at that hour, and made His own care at the cross. He not only vindicated the rights of God in His ways with men in government, but glorified the Father according to His own essential being and Godhead; and, in doing this, He proved at the same time who this Son of man must be, who did it. He who in grace to us and in infinite love to the Father made all these His own care, wrought them out in His atoning sufferings and death when "He said, It is finished: and He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost."
In the righteous judgment which He bore, as the Just One for the unjust, it follows that the prince of this world must be cast out. In the same judgment which He took, and because of it, He further said, "Now is the judgment of this world." Unrighteousness must in due time be as publicly judged by God from heaven, because righteousness in the suffering victim was cast out by the world and its prince; and Jesus was with the Father.
As to Himself in grace to us, Jesus said, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me. This He said, signifying what death He should die."
Blessed Savior, what Thy people owe Thee! who hast broken through every yoke- borne the curse-put away sin by the sacrifice of Thyself- annulled him that had the power of death (that is, the devil)-brought life and incorruptibility to light-and set us in relationship with Thyself, and with Thy Father as our Father, and with Thy God as our God!
Chapter 12 closes, however, "in darkness" as regards those in whose midst He was thus shining forth as the light of life, and lighting up the darkest places of the earth by taking possession of them in His own glory, and so drawing out "the sting of death" itself, if they would only let Him, because He could not be holden of it. But they listened to the law instead of beholding the glory of the Son, and said, "We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth forever: and how sayest Thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? who is this Son of man?" and they too are offended at Him. Nevertheless, Jesus presents Himself once more to them in this group of chapters as the light of life, saying, "While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light," lest darkness come upon you.
Like the accusers of chapter 8, who went out one by one, and left Jesus alone with the woman; or like the scribes and Pharisees who cast out of the synagogue the man blind from his birth, who confessed Jesus and worshiped Him; so these in their turn compel Jesus to take an action for Himself (a last and final one), but in judgment against them; "These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide Himself from them"! The sun which had risen in such brightness upon them, and shed its beams across their path, has gone down in obscurity- and set, till another day, because of their unbelief. They have lost Jesus, and the light of the world has left it! The first seven chapters of this Gospel ended by every man going to his own house, "and Jesus... unto the mount of Olives"; they then parted company till His feet shall stand thereon another day. These five chapters finish, as we have seen, by Jesus hiding Himself from them and the world. Chapters 13 and onward open the new and blessed subject of the Father's house, and of our union there by grace in all the counsels of the Father, to the glory of the departed One who is the Son of His own love.
A Few Thoughts on John's Gospel: Part 1
It seems that our Lord begins action in John 8 by sovereign power and a new grace which is continued in the four following chapters. This new action is consequent upon His return from "the mount of Olives," with which the first seven chapters ended.
If so, it is dispensationally in keeping (and will be morally so too in His future dealings with Israel) to find Him "early in the morning" in the temple, sitting down to teach the people. Equally in character with this position on His part was the act of the scribes and Pharisees, who brought before Him the "woman taken in adultery," that He who alone could pass judgment on the sin should take this place, and in righteousness condemn h e r. This scene not merely opens out the trespass to which their thoughts and intentions were limited, but has a far wider and more serious application to the nation and its rulers, under the guilt of whoredom and adultery, which should have lain heavily upon their consciences in the presence of their Jehovah-Jesus! Is not this the iniquity which has first to be judged and tried by the bitter water of jealousy, according to "the law of jealousies, when a wife goeth aside to another instead of her husband, and is defiled"? Numb. 5:29. Prophet after prophet had been sent unto them, mentioning this sin: "Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD." Jer. 3:20.
The scribes and Pharisees, who brought the woman and accused her, declared that "Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned"; but they are not in the current of His own thoughts about the deeper trespass which had been brought to light by His own presence in their midst. How could He judge or condemn the woman, and not in righteous jealousy curse them? They had set her "in the midst," and demanded, "What sayest Thou?" To His eye they had by their own act set themselves in the midst with her; and passing beyond the statute laws of Moses (see Numb. 5:17) into the depths of His own feelings about them, He refused to take their accusation. Long ago, He had sent Jeremiah, saying, "Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after Me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown" (chap. 2:2); and now one greater than a prophet had come to win her heart back to Himself by His own grace. If He applied the law of Moses to the nation, as the accusers wished Him to do toward the adulteress, He must have taken "holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor... and put it into the water," and as a priest of the tabernacle bring up the question before the Lord. This He refuses to do. Now mark how He passes into His own heights and depths of love (cost what it may in the end) to justify Himself in not condemning either the woman in her sin or the nation in its greater trespass.
"Jesus stooped down, and with His finger wrote on the ground, as though He heard them not"; for in the love which had brought Him among them, and in which He was come to work, the sin of her who was taken in the act, and the sin of Israel, though equally under the eye of the sun for righteous judgment, was written on His heart in grace. He who came out from God, came not to put her away, but to put away her sin, and to cleanse her and make her whiter than snow. Viewed in this light, how significant of their state, and of His own purpose in love, are the words which He spake unto them: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again He stooped down, and wrote on the ground." He rolls the sin and the accusers away from the floor, and thus purges it; nor will He gather up the dust thereof in any earthen vessel, or prepare the bitter water of jealousy between Him and them. He walks in a higher path of His own, which none but He could make, and so goes out of the midst and away from all their accusations and questionings, saying to them, "I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." He was left alone and the woman standing in the midst. "When Jesus had lifted up Himself, and saw none but the woman, He said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more."
As "the light of life," He has thus purged His floor cleaner than by the law of stoning! Blessed One, who had come to make the sin His own, and eventually pass into the ground and take the curse Himself, and die the death, that what He wrote upon it in the day of His grace may (whenever gathered up in jealousy) be pardoned and obliterated by the blood of atonement, t h r o ugh the depths of His own sufferings.
If chapter 8 introduced the national charge of Israel's departure and estrangement from Him who had espoused her to Himself, and come after her, chapter 9 is equally significant as showing their individual state and national blindness. As the former could only be portrayed by the woman taken in adultery, so in this it is by "a man which was blind from his birth." The state of the nation was not in either case beyond the typical virtue of the balm of Gilead, or the skill of the great Physician; and this instance only calls forth the power and grace of Him whose prerogative it is to give sight to the blind. It is remarkable that Jesus refuses to take up this case, in the form in which the disciples view it, when they asked, "Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" He will not look at it in this light any more than judge the treacherousness of the nation by the woman. In the governmental ways and dealings of God with men upon the earth, such a question might fairly arise as this; for He did visit "the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation"; but taken outside the responsibility of man, and viewed in connection with the counsels of the Father and the Son, "Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."
In the pathway of the Word made flesh we follow Jesus thus showing "forth His glory"; and so the man that was born blind serves as exactly as the woman did for its display; yea, to the condemnation of those who stood around in unbelief and said they saw. As "the light of the world," He passed out from the temple, and from the midst of the woman and her accusers. In His true greatness, He refused to use that light in which He walked for condemnation, though He commanded it to shine in upon the consciences of each, so that all were convicted and made their escape from its searching power, "beginning at the eldest, even unto the last." There was yet another use of the light, and that is what we are now considering in the case of the man born blind; "He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."
It is a great action therefore that occupies Jesus at this time—not merely opening the eyes of the blind by sovereign power, but giving Himself as the object of sight in effectual grace to the man and to the nation, if they will accept Him being likewise the light without which the eye, though opened, could not behold Him! In view of this, Jesus said: "I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work." Observe, day and night get a new meaning when they are looked at in reference to Christ's continuance and work upon this earth. "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When He had thus spoken, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay." The dust of the floor, and the water, and the earthen vessel which would have made up the compound in the hand of the priest for the infliction of the curse and the rot, upon the trial of jealousy and unfaithfulness, had been refused. He who alone can bring meat out of the eater (Judg. 14:14) gives us now to learn instead the virtues of the spittle, and the ground, and the mystic clay in the hand of Him that is come to work the works of God. Jesus said to the man, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing." The dust of the ground, out of which the first man was made in the image of God, had been cursed because of transgression and Satan; but now, under the power of Christ, it is reclaimed and made available by the "sent" One through His spittle for bestowing an eye of faith to behold Him who came to bear away every curse, let it lie on whatsoever floor it may, and turn the curse into a blessing.
The light which had filled the temple just now and emptied it of every accuser (how could they abide in its searching power?), leaving the woman alone with Jesus, does the same thing among the scribes and Pharisees, now that the man who "was born blind" is brought into their midst. How well has the compound of the apothecary done its work in connection with the sent One? "If this man were not of God [he says to them], He could do nothing. They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out."
Jesus and the woman were left alone. And now the man who had walked in darkness all his days, but who has received the light of life from Christ, and confesses His sovereign power, is turned out of the synagogue to follow Him. "Jesus heard that they had cast him out: and when He had found him, He said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him?" Two precious assurances flow from the lips of Jesus upon this inquiry, as He unveils Himself to the outcast one; "Thou hast both seen Him [the new object to the opened eye], and it is He that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped Him." New relations are thus formed which lead the Lord to take (in chapter 10) the place of the Shepherd to this cast out sheep, and to declare His love for the flock as well as His protecting care against every foe. He also reveals the secret of the double title and interest which the Father's love, as well as His own, have over the sheep. "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand. I and My Father are one."
We cannot fail to notice in t h e s e narratives how Jesus comes into the world, and accepts it just as it was by Adam's sin and Satan's power in death, to show Himself equal to every claim which the misery and wants of those in it daily and hourly brought across His path. More than this, for He passes through the world with the Father, in another and higher character than that by which as Creator-God the heavens and the earth and all that they contain were made by Him. Earlier in this Gospel, Jesus said to the Jews, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," introducing thus a power which could turn everything round to His own glory and the development of the hidden purposes of divine love. "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." In this equality with God, there cannot be any uncertainty as to the nature of this new power, or its exercise;—"For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom He will" is its scope; and we are the blessed objects in whom it is made good.
John 8
Our Lord begins action in John 8 by sovereign power and a new grace which is continued in the four following chapters. This new action is consequent upon His return from "the mount of Olives," with which the first seven chapters ended.
It is dispensationally in keeping (and will be morally so, too, in His future dealings with Israel) to find Him "early in the morning" in the temple, sitting down to teach the people. Equally in character with this position on His part was the act of the scribes and Pharisees, who brought before Him the "woman taken in adultery," that He who alone could pass judgment on the sin should take this place, and in righteousness condemn her. This scene not merely opens out the trespass to which their thoughts and intentions were limited, but has a far wider and more serious application to the nation and its rulers, under the guilt of whoredom and adultery, which should have lain heavily upon their consciences in the presence of their Jehovah-Jesus! Is not this the iniquity which has first to be judged and tried by the bitter water of jealousy, according to "the law of jealousies, when a wife goeth aside to another instead of her husband, and is defiled"? Numb. 5:29. Prophet after prophet had been sent unto them, mentioning this sin: "Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with Me, 0 house of Israel, saith the Lord." Jer. 3:20.
The scribes and. Pharisees, who brought the woman and accused her, declared that "Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned," but they are not in the current of His own thoughts about the deeper trespass which had been brought to light by His own presence in their midst. How could He judge or condemn the woman, and not in righteous jealousy curse them?
They had set her "in the midst," and demanded, "What sayest Thou?" To His eye they had by their own act set themselves in the midst with her. Passing beyond the laws of Moses (see Num. 5:31) into the depths of His own feelings about them, He refused to accept their accusation. Long ago, He had sent Jeremiah, saying, "Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after Me in the wilderness, in a land that was nol. sown" (chap. 2:2); now one greater than a prophet had come to win their hearts back to Himself by His own grace. If He applied the law of Moses to the nation, as the accusers wished Him to do toward the adulteress, He must have taken "holy water in an earthly vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor... and put it into the water," (Num. 5:17) and as a priest of the tabernacle bring up the question before the Lord. This He refuses to do.
He passes into His own heights and depths of love (cost what it may in the end) to justify Himself in not condemning either the woman in her sin or the nation in its greater trespass. "Jesus stooped down, and with His finger wrote on the ground, as though He heard them not," for in the love which had brought Him among them, and in which He was come to work, the sin of her who was taken in the act, and the sin of Israel, though equally deserving of righteous judgment, were written on His heart in grace. He who came out from God, came not to put her away, but to put away her sin, and to cleanse her and make her whiter than snow. Viewed in this light, how significant of their state, and of His own purpose in love, are the words which He spoke to them: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again He stooped down, and wrote on the ground." He rolls the sins and the accusers away from the floor, and thus purges it; nor will He gather up the dust thereof in any earthen vessel, or prepare the bitter water of jealousy between Him and them. He walks in a higher path of His own, which only He could take, and so goes out of the midst and away from all their accusations, and questionings saying to them, "I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." He was left alone and the woman standing in the midst. "When Jesus had lifted up Himself, and saw none but the woman, He said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more."
As "the light of life," He has thus purged His floor cleaner than by the law of stoning! Blessed One, who had come to make the sin His own and eventually pass into the ground and take the curse Himself, and die the death, that what He wrote upon the ground in the day of His grace may (whenever gathered up in jealousy) be pardoned and obliterated by the blood of atonement, through the depths of His own sufferings.
Chapter 8 introduces the national charge of Israel's departure and estrangement from Him who had espoused her to Himself, and had come after her. Chapter 9 is equally significant as showing their individual state and national blindness. As the former is portrayed, by the woman taken in adultery, so the latter is by "a man which was blind from his birth." The state of the nation was not in either case beyond the typical virtue of the balm of Gilead, or the skill of the great Physician, and this instance only calls forth the power and grace of Him whose prerogative it is to give sight to the blind.
It is remarkable that Jesus refuses to take up the blind man's case in the form in which the disciples viewed it when they asked, "Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" He will not look at it in this light any more than He will judge the treacherousness of the nation by the woman. In the governmental ways and dealings of God with men upon the earth, such a question might fairly arise as this, for He did visit "the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." Taken outside the responsibility of man, however, and viewed in connection with the counsels of the Father and the Son, "Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."
In the pathway of the Word made flesh we follow Jesus thus showing "forth His glory"; and so the man that was born blind as well as the woman taken in adultery serve as vessels for its display; yes, to the condemnation of those who stood around in unbelief and said they saw. As "the light of the world," He passed out from the temple and from the midst of the woman and her accusers. In His true greatness, He refused to use that light in which He walked for condemnation, though He commanded it to shine in upon the consciences of each, so that all were convicted and made their escape from its searching power, "beginning at the eldest, even unto the last."
There was yet another use of the light, and that is what we are now considering in the case of the man born blind: "He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."
Jesus not merely opens the eyes of the blind by sovereign power, but gives Himself as the object of sight to the man and to the nation, if they will accept Him. Also He was the light without which the eye, though opened, could not behold Him! In view of this, Jesus said: "I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work." Day and night obtain new meaning when they are looked at in reference to Christ's continuance and work upon earth. "As long as 1 am in the world, I am the light of the world.
When He had thus spoken, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay." The dust of the floor, the water, and the earthen vessel which would have made up the compound in the hand of the priest for the infliction of the curse and the rot, upon the trial of jealousy and unfaithfulness, had been refused. (Numbers 5). Instead, we learn the virtues of the spittle, the ground, and the mystic clay in the hand of Him that is come to work the works of God. Jesus said to the man, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing." The dust of the ground, out of which the first man was made in the image of God, had been cursed because of transgression and Satan; now, under the power of Christ, it is reclaimed and made available by the "sent" One through His spittle by bestowing an eye of faith to behold Him who came to bear away every curse, and turn the curse into a blessing.
The light which had filled the temple and emptied it of every accuser (how could they abide in its searching power?), leaving the woman alone with Jesus, does the same thing among the scribes and Pharisees when the man who "was born blind" is brought into their midst. "If this man were not of God," he says to them, "He could do nothing. They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And, they cast him out."
Jesus and the woman had been left alone. Now the man who had walked in darkness all his days receives the light of life from Christ, confessed His sovereign power, is turned out of the synagogue and follows Him. "Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He had found him, He said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him?" Two precious assurances flow from the lips of Jesus upon this inquiry, as He unveils Himself to the outcast one; "Thou hast both seen Him [the new object to the opened eye], and it is He that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshiped Him."
Thus new relationships are formed which lead the Lord to take (in chapter 10) the place of the Shepherd to this outcast sheep, and to declare His love for the flock as well as His protecting care against every foe. He reveals the secret of the interest which the Father's love, as well as His own, have over the sheep. "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand. I and My Father are one."
We cannot fail to notice in these narratives how Jesus comes into the world, accepting it in the condition it was in through Adam's sin and Satan's power in death, to show Himself equal to every claim which the misery and wants of those in it daily brought across His path. More than this we see how He passes through the world with the Father, in another and higher character as Creator, the heavens and the earth and all that they contain were made by Him. Earlier in this gospel Jesus said to the Jews, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," introducing thus a power which could turn everything to His own glory and the development of the hidden purposes of divine love. "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." In this equality with God, there cannot be any uncertainty as to the nature of this new power, or of its exercise. "For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom He will" is its scope, and we are the blessed objects in whom it is made good.
John 11
In John 11 our Lord passes into a yet further glory upon the death of Lazarus. He acts by sovereign power in His higher titles, as "the resurrection and the life." Here Jesus refuses to discourse with His disciples about death, as they viewed it in relation to Lazarus, but teaches them to look at it in the presence of Himself and His Father, that they may understand Him and the new doctrine which He declares. "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby." How could He act in character as "the resurrection and the life," without a Lazarus who was dead and buried, who had been in the grave four days already, and of whom those who loved him said, "by this time he stinketh"? Fearful indeed are death, the grave and corruption when looked at in their condemning and separating powers in relation to God in His righteousness and to man upon whom death was inflicted on account of sin. All men are guilty under the weight of this penalty, and every mouth is stopped at the grave of Lazarus. Jesus is alone here with God, in the presence of Satan and his greatest power!
Lazarus was dead while the man born blind (John 9) was still left alive in this world, and so was the woman who was taken in adultery and who had forfeited her own right to life to the curse of the law she had broken (John 8). But "God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved." Jesus took this place in the temple and passed before the scribes and Pharisees as the light of it; but they left Him alone with the convicted woman as "the light" to her, who under the law, which they used, was appointed to death. He had also come to the man who was born blind and had so filled his vessel with "the light" from Himself, that the man needed only to learn further that the Person who had brought "life" to him was "the Son of God."
These were happy deliverances for themselves and trophies for Him who was passing thus through the world with a power that was able to remove the very causes of human misery, to find a new use for them for "the glory of God that the Son of God might be glorified thereby." This is what the Lord is doing as "the potter" with clay, and under His skill everything is seen to suit Him and serve His purpose very well for glory or beauty just as it is!
The language and actings of Him who now comes into Bethany as "the resurrection and the life," are all in correspondence with this title. "He saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." In the hands of Him that quickeneth and raiseth, "this sickness is not unto death," though, speaking after the manner of men, Lazarus was dead, buried, and in a state of corruption. The faith of Martha and Mary which recognized a "resurrection at the last day" (for this was their hope) also must embrace Jesus in the light of His own perfections "while it is called to-day." They must learn all these lessons afresh in this connection with the Son of God. "The last day" does not apply when Jesus is in their very midst to act as the resurrection and the life.
We may well challenge our hearts upon the importance of such a revelation of the person of Christ as we are considering. Now that Christ has come, we are "taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus." Eph. 4:21. Old things are passed away in His creation, so that "sickness... unto death" and almost everything else which is the natural order and relation in Adam have given place to a new order in the Son of God, who was dead but is alive again and lives forevermore and has "the keys of hell and of death."
How slowly we make room, like the two sisters and the group at Bethany, for the display of "the glory of God." His glory is so far above and beyond all that sin and Satan brought into the world placing man under the cruel bondage of death and corruption. How often we forget that the very Son of God took it all upon Himself at the cross, to be glorified thereby. He went down to the grave by means of death, and up to the right hand of the throne of God in glory by means of resurrection! What a pathway of trespass and guilt—sin and blindness—sickness and death—these chapters have opened up, and what misery would they still record if Jesus had not passed through the midst as "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." He made all its stumbling-blocks
His own stepping-stones up to the right hand of the Father and the crown of glory which adorns the Victor's brow.
"When Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying unto Him, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." But in this confidence of her love, she is not near enough to His own heart, in the secret of all that He is, as the Son of God, for the objects of His affection, for "Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." He did not come to reach His glory by preventing death, as Mary supposed (for He abode two days in the same place where He was), but came to win His spoils by means of death, and to bring in the Father of glory in due season to His own sepulcher, that He might raise and glorify His Son with other glories besides those which He had with Him "before the world was."
We notice here that this visit of Jesus as the Son of God to Bethany, and the rolling away of the stone to bring out the man who lay therein with a napkin about his face and "bound hand and foot with graveclothes," is a companion picture to the "exceeding high mountain" in the other gospels, upon which Jesus stood and was transfigured before His disciples. His face shone' as the sun and His raiment was white as the light when "He received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." 2 Pet. 1:17. The Son of man in righteousness, thus revealed to us by His transfiguration upon "the holy mount," was at His height in majesty and glory upon the earth. By contrast, Lazarus in his grave, "bound hand and foot with graveclothes," under the power of death, was sunk down into the depths of corruption! These two extremes are met in the Person of the Son, who passes through John's gospel, not so much in the coming and majesty and glory of His earthly kingdom as in the veiled power and title of "the only begotten of the Father," to work the works of God for the glory of God. So it was said concerning Lazarus, "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby."
The work, the sad work of Satan, is before the Son of God at the grave of Lazarus where man who was made in the image of God has been laid in the separating power of death, the keys of which the usurper held upon' the grave and over the captive dead, buried out of sight from those who were in tears at the felt desolation of that hour. A groan goes up to God from the heart of Jesus who has come into such a scene of helplessness and misery to "work the works of God" in the face of Satan's power at the grave's mouth. The groan found its answer between the Father and the Son, and "Jesus lifted up His eyes, and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me. And I know that Thou hearest Me always." Nor is this new work of Jesus as "the resurrection and the life" to be only for the glory of God (as the first object, always before His Son), but in truest sympathy and love for the oppressed and bereaved, He adds, "because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me."
In whatever way this grace could associate others with itself in such an act, it is always the delight of His unjealous love to do it! How like Himself it is, when Jesus bids them begin this mighty action, saying, "Take ye away the stone"—an act only to be rivaled, when all was over, by the same love which bade them, "Loose him and let him go." What a moment for them, for they did it! The groan to God brought its answer from above to the opened ears of Jesus. Perfect in the expression of His sympathy to the sorrowing and helpless ones with whom Jesus wept, they looked that these tears should be wiped away by power from Him, as the Son of God. Jesus is left in possession of the entire scene, and "cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot." A new thing had been wrought already in the man who walked about upon the earth with his eyes opened by means of the clay which Jesus made out of it. Now a greater wonder is to be wrought in reply to the groan, the tears and the loud cry, for Lazarus comes forth from the depths of the grave at the bidding of Jesus the Son of God passing through the ruins as "the resurrection and the life." The Savior has won back all that the enemy had plucked from the hands of men, from Adam in paradise to Solomon in his kingdom and majesty in Jerusalem, as declared when He was transfigured upon the holy mount. In this gospel He comes down from that height, that He might be seen also to enter into the palace of the strong man and spoil his goods, and take from him all his armor wherein he trusted.
John 12
John 12 presents Bethany under quite another aspect after the triumphant resurrection of Lazarus. It is no longer the house of weeping, for "There they made Him [Jesus] a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus [whom the grave and corruption had given back out of the tomb of death] was one of them that sat at the table with Him." Only one crowning act remains to be done for "the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby," in order that the counsels of the Father and our eternal blessing may be established beyond the reach of Satan's power, and outside the range of sin and the judgment of God. Who could take up this work, and by what new paths in life or death, incarnation or ascension, could such an end be reached, but by the Son of God come down from above, in the mystery of "the Word... made flesh"? Only He might accomplish it. In this spirit, Mary took "a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment."
Elias and Moses, the two men who appeared in glory on the top of the exceeding high mountain, spoke with Jesus of "His decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem." He carried this secret down with Him into the house of Bethany, that He might declare it to those whom He loved, and in connection with this anointing.
To the natural thoughts of Judas this use of the ointment is only waste, and it should have been sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor. Mary is in the current of her Lord's thoughts, however, and He said, "Let her alone: against the day of My burying hath she kept this." The act of Mary had this significance to the heart of Jesus, and He prepares Himself for the path by which the causes of human misery, and God's dishonor, and the world's bondage, should be met and overcome. Long ago the Spirit of prophecy had cried, "0 death, I will be thy plagues; 0 grave, I will be thy destruction," and now He is come, to whom that finger pointed. Jesus, knowing that His hour was come, speaks to His Father about it, and says about Himself, 'Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." He who proved Himself as "the resurrection and the life" at the grave of Lazarus, has in view His last and greatest work—expiation for the guilty. He is "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."
God the Father of Glory may then take His new place, and raise up Jesus out of His grave on the third day, as the proof of His own glory over sin by death, and of our redemption, for "God... hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." 2 Cor. 5:20,21. A deeper path than all these groans and tears at the grave of Lazarus opened itself to our Lord, and Jesus said, "Now is My soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name."
It is no longer merely Adam's sin that is in question, or the transgressions of his posterity, multiplied as they may be, for "God manifest in flesh" has come into the midst of the family as a man, and has defeated every adverse power in His own Person at the cross. Satan's usurped rights over man were challenged and set aside by the perfect obedience in life and death of the last Adam. The Lord Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness, and when the temptations were ended, He said, "Get thee hence, Satan." So again, in Gethsemane, when "His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground," in the knowledge that this was Satan's hour and the power of darkness, still He accepted it in the confidence that it was the path of the pre-determinate counsel that led to the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby in life and in death, and at the right hand of the Father!
Obedience unto death was the only measure of His perfection as the faithful servant who loved his master, his wife, and his children, and would not go out free. The sin and the iniquity of His own people, the flesh, the world, and Satan, the majesty and righteousness of God in their own nature, as well as in holy judgment against all evil, were gathered up by Christ at that hour, and made His own care at the cross. He not only vindicated the rights of God in His ways with men in government, but glorified the Father according to His own essential being and Godhead; in doing this, He proved at the same time who this Son of man must be, who did it. He who in grace to us and in infinite love to the Father made all these His own care, wrought them out in His atoning sufferings and death when "He said, It is finished: and He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost."
In the righteous judgment which He bore, as the Just One for the unjust, it follows that the prince of this world must be cast out. In the same judgment which He took, and because of it, He further said, "Now is the judgment of this world." Unrighteousness must in due time be publicly judged by God from heaven, because righteousness in the suffering victim was cast out by the world and its prince, and Jesus was with the Father. As to Himself, in grace to us, Jesus said, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me. This He said, signifying what death He should die."
How much His people owe to that blessed Savior! He has broken through every yoke—borne the curse—put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself—annulled him that had the power of death (that is, the devil)—brought life and incorruptibility to light—and set us in relationship with Himself, and with His Father as our Father, and with His God as our God!
Chapter 12 closes, however, "in darkness" as regards those in whose midst He was thus shining forth as the light of life. He had lit up the darkest places of the earth by taking possession of them in His own glory, and so drawing out "the sting of death" itself, if they would only let Him, because He could not be holden of it. But they listened to the law instead of beholding the glory of the Son, and said, "We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth forever: and how sayest Thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? who is this Son of man?" and they too are offended at Him. Nevertheless, Jesus presents Himself once more to them in this group of chapters as the light of life, saying, "While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light," lest darkness come upon you.
Like the accusers of chapter 8, who went out one by one, and left Jesus alone with the woman, or like the scribes and Pharisees who cast out of the synagogue the man blind from his birth, who confessed Jesus and worshiped Him, so these in their turn compel Jesus to take an action for Himself (a last and final one), but in judgment against them. "These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide Himself from them"! The sun which had risen in such brightness upon them, and shed its beams across their path, has gone down in obscurity—and set, till another day, because of their unbelief. They have lost Jesus, and the light of the world has left it!
The first seven chapters of this Gospel ended by every man going to his own house, "and Jesus... unto the mount of Olives"; they then parted company till His feet shall stand thereon another day. These five chapters finish, as we have seen, by Jesus' hiding Himself from them and from the world. Chapters 13 and onward open the new and blessed subject of the Father's house, and of our union there by grace in all the counsels of the Father, to the glory of the departed One who is the Son of His own love.
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