We have seen the 4th of John bring the Lord into Galilee a second time in the way of life-giving power to one ready to perish. This is pursued in chapters in this way, that all means or ordinances are unavailable for healing, because they suppose the power which the disease of sin has taken away. Christ then heals by life-giving power. He gives the power needed; and the impotent man carries the bed he was couched on. At the same time the miracle is wrought on the Sabbath, setting aside the seal of Jewish covenant, on the ground of the Father and the Son working in grace, as observed heretofore; and then the full development of life-giving power is gone into, life out of death; not merely healing; but the full bearing of this comes out, truth as wrought in Christ so as to deliver from judgment; for life-giving and judgment were both confided to Him; the latter exclusively, to secure His honor from all. This is more than intercepting death, though that be the power of life; it is life in Himself, and that according to the glory of His Person. It characterizes what He introduces in place of Judaism, but is eternal in its nature, and connected with the glory of His Person, though His official place, too; for, though Son of God, it is as Man He is manifested such here, and in that character judgment confided to Him. The end of the chapter contains testimonies which left the unbelievers without excuse. Assurance here is connected with not coming into judgment. The life-giving power of the Son of God being exercised, it is not in order to bring into judgment.
Chapter 6 is much more historical, chapter 5 being rather power connected with His Person. But of chapter 6 I have spoken; only here I judge, the tossing on the sea, though general in principle, and the portion of the saints during the whole time of His absence, but it applies to their circumstances on earth and, I doubt not, to His return to His disciples there; that is, the Residue; just as His miracle was for the poor of Israel. The doctrine of the chapter replaces this by another portion. Christ is here the object of faith, not acting in life-giving power.
Chapter 7. After bringing out the positive truth of the glory of Christ's Person, and Himself (in humanity and death) the object of faith and the true nourishment of the Church, death being the drink of life to it; having given Christ as the true manna, and the substitute of the paschal feast; chapter 7 considers the nation, as His brethren after the flesh, quite set aside, as having its portion with the world. The time for Christ to show Himself to the world was not come. The true Feast of Tabernacles for Israel, He presents Himself as sent of the Father. If there was the moral disposition to do His will he would know of the doctrine. All is uncertainty and confusion in the people, the Jews (that is, those of Judaea) astonished at the position He held, wondering what the rulers were about. Had they owned Him to be the Christ?
At last they send to take Him; but Christ announces His leaving them in a quite different way, and going where they could not come. Not only the Jews are set aside, but He is returning into a new sphere of existence, where they could not be. They would remain in their confusion; and, Christ going to the Father who had sent Him, they could not be there. But the Jews rejected, and Christ absent, the Holy Ghost would be given as a river flowing forth from him who had it. Instead of the manna and the waters of Rephidim, it would be Christ and His flesh and blood; and waters, not drunk, but flowing from the belly of him who drank of Christ. This flowing of the Holy Ghost would take the place of [the] rest of tabernacles realized by Christ's presence, when He shows Himself to the world. It is more than drinking in the desert, it is the Holy Ghost taking the place of Christ's presence in the Feast of Tabernacles.
In chapter 8 realities are brought out in the strongest and fullest manner, still beginning with reference to the Jews, but bringing out still further the full glory of the Lord Jesus; for chapters 6 and 7 were, so to speak, administrative; that is, what was so among the Jews surpassed with what Christ was; and so indeed chapter 5. Here the character of the law is brought out, as taken out of the hand of man, and placed in the hand of God, using it to the conscience. But then Christ is not come to judge, though He could, because He would do so in reference to Him whence He came and whither He went. He is the light of life, and whoever followed Him would not walk in darkness, but have that; and He was showing the law to be universally condemnatory, the light of the world.
The Jews are shown to be of their father the devil. All is shown in its true spiritual character in this chapter; and Christ not only presents Himself as Son, Son of the Father [showing], that sin made slaves, and the law held them in this position, but that the Son would make them free of the house, as the truth would deliver them from bondage. But things being pressed to the full bringing out of truth, the Lord not only mounts up to promise before the law, but to him who by election was before promise: “Before Abraham was, I am." The Jews, fully aware of the import of such a phrase, again take up stones to stone Him. Thus the divine Redeemer and Shepherd of Israel was cast out, after the full bringing out of who He was.
In chapter 9, His sheep follow Him, to have part with the Son of God. The words of Christ, which revealed God His Father, had been rejected, and they would have killed Him, because they revealed God. But He worked the works of Him that sent Him while it was called day. Here also the Jewish position, in contrast with the light of God, is brought out. They saw the retributive justice of God in the blindness of this poor man. It was his parents' sin, or his own foreseen.
It was really nothing of the kind. To Christ it was the occasion of the working of divine power, to give sight to the blind. And such was the real state of things. Really blind by nature, it was God's work to give sight. This in itself set aside the whole Jewish system. God was working in divine power to one incapable by nature, instead of ordering justice according to conduct. But the manner is notable. He puts upon his eyes what was doubtless a figure of His human nature, and when the power of the Spirit through the word is added he sees clearly. The Holy Ghost taught that He was the sent of the Father. The apostle himself gives the word which solves the meaning of this remarkable act of Christ, the bearing of which is stamped with the clearest evidence.
The Sabbath Day, sign of the old covenant, again comes up. The evidence of the divine power sufficed for him who had received his sight. The reasoning of the others on these forms betrayed them. Yet they have, through the parents, complete evidence of the reality of the miracle. But the sheep, clearly enlightened, is cast out, to have share with the Son of God, whom he knew already as hearing the word of God. He believes, and worships. (Lord, give us thus to own Him, who has gone through all things for our sakes, and to know that the opening of our eyes is His work.)
This position is fully unfolded by the Lord in what follows [chap. to], where He unfolds the course of the Shepherd, His real position, as to Jews, as to Gentiles; the electing love of God; rising up from His obedient entrance by the door Himself to His unity with the Father, including His passing through death, as taking a new place in taking life again, thus perfectly pleasing the Father, whose ways and glory needed this; and death out of love to the sheep, for whom He would so give His life.
In all He stands alone. All Jewish pretension to it (even on this ground as shepherd of Israel) was false, and to plunder the sheep. He proves them unreasonable on their own ground; appeals (if they do not believe His words) to His works, and leaves them entirely, after they had twice sought to stone Him. This closed the setting in testimony before them God thus manifested in Him, the revelation of His Father, who they said was their God; for His being in the Father, and the Father in Him, this was the truth brought out to them.
The rest is preparation for His death, with the proof of what He would have been as a present blessing and glory, had He been received. The Father renders Him this testimony as needed before He goes. We may remark the Jews treated as unbelievers, to whom no room for the testimony He had given remained (chap. 10: 25).
Chapter 11. As regards the Jews, we have the proof that He could have brought back (as to power) all the saints departed (I say " as to power," because He who knew man knew expiation was needed); in fact, it is the revelation of life in Christ, the Son of God, according to the form in which He held it, as to its effect. He has it in Himself. He is it. As Christ was the power of resurrection and life-giving, the Jews are the instruments of death, and that against Him; but indeed accomplishing God's counsels unknown to themselves.
In chapter 12 we have first, it seems, the picture of the Remnant, beloved of God, and attached to the Lord, and that in principle in all times up to Christ's death; its true, but lowest, form in Martha. She serves willingly, even away from home, at the supper they make Him. In Lazarus we have the saints departed being brought to life again; in Mary, who had sat at Jesus' feet, and heard His word, another kind of devotedness, so to speak; her heart, attached to Him, enters into the circumstances in which He is. She anticipates His death, and attaches herself to Him as so leaving the world, yet in an affection yet looking at Him in connection with His ties here. She anoints His body for the burial. It is not Christ on high. It is, in the highest and anticipative sense, looking on the pierced One, and mourning; highest, because it is not after, as leaving a friend in doing it, but her heart entering into His devotedness in doing it. The Lord accepts this as opportune, and Himself insists on His going away. They remained here. One of His disciples betrays for money, even a thief. The Jews' hatred is open and violent. The secret of His thoughts and purpose of His heart was really with her who had sat at His feet. The Life-giver, the Son of God, was to die.
Next, He enters in as King-Messiah. The next step is His glory as Son of Man. The hour was come (for the Greeks demanded Him) that the Son of Man should be glorified. But if the Son of God here below, the Life-giver, must die, the Remnant only associating themselves with Him, so He to whom the glory belonged must too. Messiah, Son of Man, if it were not to abide alone, must die. There was something deeper than Jewish royal glory. If He had to say to man, and the glory connected in God's counsels with it, He must die. Full moral glory must be given in man to God; and in spirit these also would be with Him, must follow Him in this. Still, He deeply feels what it is, but in perfect grace and submission looks to His Father, who replies by the double glory of raising as Lazarus, and raising to the better resurrection; and thus the Lord sees the world judged, and His lifting up on the cross the point of gathering to all. For if the cross be ignominy and death it is lifting up above the world, above every creature and everything in it, to attract or to deter. It is not heaven; but it is not earth, it is perfection before God in respect of evil; the highest thing, we may suppose, unless it be the enjoyment of God Himself, regard to whom, and that absolutely, it supposes.
For a while Jesus was still here as light. But in fact the Jews were blinded. They loved the praise of men. Christ revealed the Father, and the perfectness of the word which He spake would be the ground of judgment in that day. Still the Lord, rejected and cast out down here, was to go and to take His true place, that place which belonged to His nature, and His place before the Father, which shone through all His intercourse with the Jews when walking down here, the rejected Christ, the Son of David also.
But [chap. 13] His disciples are the abiding object of His affections, His own which were in the world. In this His true, though new, place as Man, He does not cease to love them, and in the presence of the work of Satan (which, through one of them, was to bring about His final rejection and death, as to what was here below, but in the consciousness that the Father had confided all to Him the Son, that He came from God, and went to God) He, in the perfect humility of love, sets about the service of His disciples according to their need in this world, in order to have a part with Him before His Father on high. It is not now His death entered into by a Remnant which surrounded [Him] with affection and testimony to His present power; His departure from earthly acceptance and glory, the setting sun of His earthly acceptance and place, with the bright rays of what it would have been had man had the heart to taste and accept it; but the full power of evil in Satan's influence in the wicked heart of man, in contrast with the full nature and official glory of the Son of God; and then His love to His disciples continuing as in that place, and to associate them with Himself as in it.
Having all things from the Father, and Himself coming from God, and going to God, and they to have part with Him, He passes out of the scenes where, in the midst of them, He would have been Son of David and Son of Man, surrounded by His elect and even risen saints, into His own proper place with His Father and God. This is the proper key to all this part of the word. With this in view, He shows them the continued exercise of His tender love: their Servant, to wash their feet; they were every whit clean, personally, by the power of the word, but whose feet yet touched the world; and then shows them their part with Him also in the exercise of the same ministry of love. For here it is not question of atonement, but of service. The same in mission; he that received His messenger received Him; still thus identifying the disciples with Himself.
That His cup might be full, one of them was to betray Him. The closest friendship in grace, the one to whom the sop of intimacy is given, is the ground and occasion, bears the fruit of the worst wickedness. Where Satan has possession of the springs of the will, there the heart is given up to his power, not as seeking an object, but hardening against even natural feelings; for every man would not betray his friend with a kiss. But this brought on the full translation of Jesus to His new, but rightful and perfect, place.
Note here, it is not in contrast with the Jews merely, but with His own familiar friend, betrayed on earth by him. He really was One who came from God, and went to God, and to whom the Father had committed all things.
Now He enters morally into it: “Now is the Son of Man glorified." This is remarkable. He was going to be glorified outwardly, but in Man; in Him who had fully (without sin) taken his place, heir of all his sorrows, and the counsels of God as to him; was not merely the object of these, but was to be the vessel of all that could glorify God. He had the glorious place of perfectly glorifying God in the most adverse and difficult circumstances, and made good His character in the midst of sin, which was opposed to it. And, as it could not have been otherwise, truth, holiness, justice, love, majesty, Christ gives Himself to bring out, gives Himself up: a glorious place for man, where the wondrous counsels of God have set Him; God thus is glorified in Him; then, as necessary consequence, and justice itself, God glorifies Him (as to position and outward glory) in Himself.
Nor is it merely hereafter in display, but a present, necessary consequence as to Christ Himself. Thus He enters into His new (and, as Son of God, old) and rightful place. God is glorified. He does not say the Father; it is “God is glorified," and thus in us through Him. Christ was necessarily alone here in now accomplishing it. The disciples could not follow Him now; yet (glorious thought!) they will follow Him; it is our place. Our present place is to be on earth for one another what He was for us. All human attempt to pass that way ends in failure and dishonor; as the ark was to go first, and then when it was a dry way because the ark had gone down into it, we pass Jordan as truly as the ark.
This evidently puts Christ out of the present scene; and on this ground chapter 14 proceeds. He could not rest here with them, but He goes to prepare a place for them in His Father's house; and He would come again, not to be with them as to the Jews and the world, but to take them to be with Him. But then they had seen and known where He was going, and the way; for He was going to the Father, and they had seen Him in Him, and He Himself was the way. But this was not all. Not only would He (chap. 13) purify them for communion, but He would, when ascended on high, obtain the Holy Ghost for those who obeyed Him, so that they would know He was in the Father, this full place of divine personal glory; and, further, their own union with Himself, so that they should be as near as possible to the Father, they in Him, and He in them. This was the effect of the presence of the Holy Ghost.
But there was yet this further: He would not leave them, even down here, deprived of comfort and alone. He would come to them in a spiritual sense. If they really loved Him (for they were troubled at His going away), they would keep His commandments. The Father would love them. This was an immediate affection, which they knew not yet; and Christ would manifest Himself to them; the double effect of walking in His ways. Judas asks how it could be that He should manifest Himself to them, and not to the world. The answer was, If a man walk according to Christ, the Father and He would come and abide with him. This was their present portion down here, till they abode in the Father's house on high. The Holy Ghost Himself would teach them all things, and bring all to their remembrance that Jesus said. He went away, indeed, but He left peace with them. He gave His own peace. Blessed portion here below! So that, if He placed them with Himself before the Father, according to the place He took, He left them also the place which He had with the Father on earth, the place of perfect peace, whatever He met with on earth.
Further, they were entitled to have joy in His joy; that is to rejoice because He Himself was happy, not merely because He had made them so; a high and blessed privilege, showing how He would have one even in heart with Himself.
This quite closed the series of revelations which treated of the transition from earthly, Jewish relationships, or risen with His disciples on earth, to His place with the Father in right of His Person, and in divine counsel, giving the revelation of their condition in His absence in respect of this, both as regards His Person and the presence of the Holy Ghost; their future portion and present peace, meanwhile. Though there could yet be some communications, it would not be much, for the prince of this world now came: for Satan is such; for the rejection of the Son has shown it. He had nothing in Christ, but His passing through the sphere of his power in death was that the world might know that He loved the Father, and obeyed to the end. The world, alas! would have hoped something from Satan's power to stop this witness to God. How often does it! But in Christ all this power of evil was truly the occasion of the full and perfect proof of love to the Father, and obedience to Him. Here the Lord closes His relationship with the world. “Arise," says He, "let us go hence."
What follows is a developed doctrinal discourse founded on all these truths. We may remark the parallel between verse 7 and verse 37 of chapter 13; Peter could no more know the bearing of that (typical) purification, necessary to have a part with Christ, in His real, now as Man realizing, relationship with the Father, than go by the way of death, which proved Christ's moral and perfect competency for it, into the Father's presence; competency for the glory of God, for He had perfectly glorified Him there where God needed it, in a new way (so to speak), and where man must do it. What a wonderful mystery! for who should obey for man but man, or could? for it would not have been according to the exigencies of God as regards man, nor of man under sin towards God. But Christ was Man obedient under sin, and with the perfect feelings He ought to have towards and before God there, and death, and Satan's power indeed, too.
Chapter 15 takes up the fact of the two great positions of Christ as setting aside the old or Jewish state. Christ Himself was the True Vine. Israel had been but the outward form. Note, all is on earth here. The disciples were already of it. But then it is in principle also the 'system continued on earth in its responsibilities. This might have been fully realized if the Jerusalem form of administration had continued. It is always true in principle of the Church viewed as on earth: fruit (whatever the gift) is derived from communion. They were to have Christ's place in testimony on earth, not as servants, but as friends who had His mind; that is, all He had received of His Father; that is, as down here on earth, perfect in His prophetic place among the Jews, come in by the door, though one with the Father, and speaking from Him. They were to be united among themselves, have this spirit in common which He had had towards them. All the means of true and full fruit-bearing in their position on earth are gone into. Their place in this was association with Him, and obedience, and disposing thus of all power in supplication.
Then He provides for their own proper joy also in this position. They would be persecuted, as He had been. Blessed privilege! But the Father not known, and He hated without a cause. The personal testimony of Jesus had left them without excuse. Had the old vine not rejected this last, this one proper, full testimony of the Father Himself, they might have remained in their position. Much, many, and various sins God could have pardoned in government; but they had hated the Father manifested in grace, and the Son (who had manifested Him) present in grace, so that the breach was irreparable, and they must be left in their sin. And so it was written in their law. Thus the old vine was wholly set aside.
But there was another, of whom He had spoken already, who was to replace Himself; the Comforter, whom He would send from the Father (for now He takes His place on high), who would bear witness, and they also, as regards all His life here. Hence their entire rejection by the old vine as an ecclesiastical system, and that even in their blindness in thinking to serve God, as (they supposed) they knew Him according to the old system. But it was total ignorance of the Father and Him, the true, full, only real revelation of God (who was their God), the truth and perfect light which had now only really come into the world; the rest having been only really provisional.
The Lord had now told them what concerned their relationship with the old system, so that it would be a confirmation of their faith when it arrived. His presence with them (supporting all Himself) had rendered it necessary while He was with them.
But they were still too exclusively occupied with the old, and their own circumstances, as left down here. None had his soul lifted up to inquire of what a God who was acting, and was not surely frustrated by the evil of His enemies, was going to do when Jesus was going. If (apparently by the wickedness of His enemies) He left, and all link was broken off down here, surely larger purposes of God were to be accomplished.
We may remark here that, as up to His rejection He had put in contrast His revelation of the Father and the Jewish order, now He is the True Vine, instead of the old one; and the Holy Ghost reveals Him, while He puts them in immediate relationship with the Father. We may remark that chapter 14 speaks particularly of the personal relationship of the Lord with His disciples in connection with His absence; the effect that this had upon them, and how both as to His having them ultimately with Him, and how He would be with them meanwhile, how they would enjoy it; the Comforter He would obtain, and the like; and this also in connection with His Person, what they had really had in Him when He was present, and how that bore on their association with Him even that He was going.
The other grand element, then, dependent upon the breaking of the connection of the Lord with the old vine (at least, of His apparent place in connection with it), was the presence of the Comforter, the Holy Ghost whom He would send, and that in connection with His going up on high. The effect and sphere of His presence was entirely above and independent of the Jewish question. He dealt with the world of which Christ was now the exalted Head. He took totally other ground than the law and the Jews. He demonstrated the sin of the world, and that because they believed not on Him. His presence was the consequence of the Son's being rejected, and by the fact brought them in guilty. It demonstrated righteousness, because it showed Jesus above, received of the Father, and taken from the world who would not have Him, to see Him no more. Awful effect of the justice of God the Father! But judgment was not executed on the world, but its prince was judged; for Satan was proved to be that; but he had committed himself to the utmost in the death of the Lamb (and He being raised up and glorified), fatally forever committed himself; he was judged; and the triumphant presence of the Spirit proved it.
Besides this effect of His presence, He would guide the disciples, and show them things to come; and, further, take of Christ's (and all that the Father had was His), and show it to them. Truth, prophecy, and the full glory of Christ was their portion under His teaching. Yet, further, Christ's absence was but for a time. He was not cut off, but going to the Father; and as this was really what was about to be accomplished they would see Him in a little while. This is a general principle. He was not lost, but soon to be here again; true for testimony on His resurrection, and finally at His return. Further, He placed them in immediate relationship with the Father. They should not ask Him, as if they could not go to God themselves; but being thoroughly associated with the efficacy of His work, and the acceptance of His Person, would go to the Father in His name, who loved them as attached to Him.
The Lord, in fine, speaks plainly as to His whole position, quite independent of the Jews. He came forth from the Father, and came into the world; and again, left the world, and went to the Father. The disciples perceive the plainness of His answer to their thoughts, but not its force, saying, Thou camest out from God. Nor had they, necessarily, the force to follow Him in the death which was His way to return. They would be scattered each to his own. All would be broken up by His rejection and smiting, and He left alone (but the Father was with Him); but in Him they would have peace; in the world, tribulation. It was a natural enemy, but overcome.