cuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep your's also. Ezek. iii. 7. & xxiv. 9. ch. 21 But all these things will they do unto you a Matt. x. 22. for my name's sake, because they know not him xvi. 3. that sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, b ch. ix. 41. they had not had sin: but now they have no || cloke for their sin. d е Rom. i. 20, James iv. 17. || Or, excuse. 1 John ii. 23. ch. iii. 2. & vii. 31. & ix. 23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. 32. treatment. The mass of your countrymen will reject your words, just as they have rejected Mine; but the few, the godly remnant -those whose hearts God has prepared-will keep your sayings as they have kept Mine." 21-24. "But all these things will . . . If I had not come and spoken to them...no cloke for their sin... hateth my Father also hated both me and my Father." The meaning of these verses is very clear. Jesus is the perfect manifestation of the Father in His character, His words, and His works, so that, just as they who saw Him saw the Father, and they who loved Him loved the Father, so they who hated Him hated the Father. So that the manifestation of Jesus was that which brought out the depth of their sin, and their real hatred of God under their hypocritical zeal for His Law and His Name. Notice how the Lord, in verse 22, alludes to His words as taking away all excuse, because the words of One Who spake as never man spake; and in verse 24 alludes to His works as so manifestly done by the power and authority of the Father, as to make their rejection of Him not merely a thing without cloke or excuse, but a wilful rejection of both His Father and Himself. They saw the Witness to the Father in His mighty and beneficent works, and they actually hated what they saw, and so hated the final and conclusive testimony of God to Himself. ["Ye do alway resist the Holy Ghost, as your fathers did so do ye."] "The rejection of Jesus characterized their state as one of invincible estrange 25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled f Ps. xxxv. 19. that is written in their law, 'They hated me without a cause. & lxix. 4. g Luke xxiv. 49. ch. xiv. 17, 26. & xvi. 7, 13. Acts ii. 33. h 1 John v. 6. g 26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, h he shall testify of me: ment, as hatred of God, which is, by its very nature, the unpardonable sin, and was thus distinguished from mere ignorance, as that of the heathen." (Godet.) 25. "This cometh to pass... they hated me without a cause." These words of the Psalmist are to be found in a strictly Messianic Psalm, and were fulfilled in Christ, i.e., completely and absolutely accomplished in Him, as they were in no other man; for all other men have something in them which calls out at times our anger, or our opposition, or our dislike; but in the Lord Jesus there was nothing but pure love, earnest desire to do good, patient endurance of wrong, and so, as it could be said of no other human being, "They hated Him without a cause." 26. "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you," &c. The Comforter, or the Paraclete; whatever be the full meaning of the word, it certainly seems to include what belongs to both our words Advocate and Comforter. "Even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father." This promise of the coming of the Comforter seems to be given here to console and sustain the Apostles under the prospect of the hatred of the world. It must be taken with the eighth, ninth, and tenth verses of the next chapter. "The world may reject and hate Me; but there is One Whom I will send, Who, by His witness to Me, will prove it to be in the wrong. He will make manifest to it the sin of its unbelief in Me, the righteousness of all My Life, and the judgment which will overtake its prince, though he may seem for a little moment to overcome Me." "Whom I will send unto you from the Father, . . . which proceedeth from the Father." The more this place is examined, the more it is certain that our Lord does not here intend to assert that the Holy Ghost proceeds only from the Father; for why does He mention here at all that He "proceeds from the Father"? 27 And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning. Luke xxiv. 48. Acts i. 8, 21, 22. & ii. 32. & iii. 15. & iv. 20, 33. & v. 32 & x. 39. & xiii. 31. 1 Pet. v. 1. 2 Pet. i. 16. k Luke i. 2. 1 John i. 1, 2. Evidently to emphasize the independence of the witness of the Spirit to Him. By saying that He Who will testify of Him proceeds from the Father, He means to assert that the Spirit will testify of the Mind and Will of the Father respecting Jesus, and so will effectually disprove the calumny of the Jews, that the Supreme God, the God of Israel, was opposed to the mission and claims of Jesus. That the Spirit of God proceeds ultimately from the Father is certain from this, that the Son Himself, from Whom He also is, or proceeds, is "of the Father." So that, in proceeding from the Son, He proceeds from the Father, from Whom, and in Whom, the Son Himself is. But He is so distinctly called the Spirit of "the Son," or of "Christ " (Rom. viii. 9; Phil. i. 19; 1 Pet. i. 11), and the Lord, by His action of breathing upon the Apostles when He said to them, "receive ye the Holy Ghost," seems so clearly to indicate that the Spirit proceeds from Him also, that we cannot but gather that He is also "of the Son." Besides, the analogy of the Mission of the Son from the Father would lead us to the same conclusion. The Father is never sent; the Son is sent, because He is the Son, and so "of the Father." And so the Holy Ghost can be sent by the Son, because He is "of the Son." If, in some sense, the being of the Spirit does not depend upon that of the Son, it is hard to distinguish His mode of existence from that of a Son. 27. "And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning." The Spirit bears witness, after His manner, spiritually; and so, directly on the heart, and mind, and conscience. The witness of the Apostles is after the manner of man. It is limited to what they have seen of the life and conduct of Jesus, and to the words they have heard Him speak; and so the Lord adds, "because ye have been with me from the beginning." The reader will remember how, when a new Apostle was chosen to fill the place of the traitor, the choice was limited to those which "had companied with the Apostles all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among them, beginning from the Baptism of John." (Acts i. 21, 22.) TH CHAP. XVI. HESE things have I spoken unto you, that ye "should not be offended. a Matt. xi. 6. & xxiv. 10. & xxvi. 31. b ch. ix. 22, 34, & xii. 42. e Acts viii. 1. & ix. 1. & xxvi. d ch. xv. 21. 1 Tim. i. 13. b с 2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. d 3 And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. 2. "He doeth God service." "He offereth worship unto God" (Godet), so also Alford; "He offereth service unto God" (Revisers). 3. "Unto you" omitted by A., B., later Uncials, nearly all Cursives, Old Latin (b, e, l); retained by N, D., L., Old Latin (a, c, f), Vulg., Syriac, and some versions. 1. "These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended." "These things: no doubt those in the nineteenth and twentieth verses of the last chapter-that the world hateth them; that if the world has persecuted the Master, it will also persecute the disciples. With this we must include the next verse. 2. "They shall put you out of the synagogues." This implies that they would be separated from all social, as well as religious, fellowship with the outward Israel. "Yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth ", &c. One is reminded by this of the words of the Apostle: "I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth many of the saints did I shut up in prison . . . and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them." (Acts xxvi. 9, 10.) ... "Doing God service" is a sacrificial term, and really means, in the mouth of a Jew, offering God sacrificial worship, "not merely as a good work, but as an act of sacrificial worship" (Luthardt), who also quotes a Rabbinical saying, "Whoever sheds the blood of the impious, does the same as if he offered a sacrifice." (See Exod. xxxii. 27-30; Numb. xxv. 11.) 3. "And these things will they do [unto you], because they have e 4 But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told f you of e ch. xiii. 19. & xiv. 29. them. And these things I said not unto you at See Matt. ix. the beginning, because I was with you. 5 But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? 15. ver. 10, 16. xiii. 3. & xiv. ch. vii. 33. & 28. 4. "When the time is come." "Their time" (or "hour"), A., B., several Old Latin (b, c, e, f), Vulg., Syriac; "the time" (or "hour") read in N, D., later Uncials, most Cursives, and some versions. not known," &c. Notice how the Lord here identifies knowing Himself with knowing the Father. This is the natural corollary of "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father," and "if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also." (xiv. 7, 9.) 4. "But these things have I told you... that I told you of them... these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you," &c. Considerable difficulty has been made of the declaration in the latter part of this verse, inasmuch as the Lord, very early in His ministry, had warned the Apostles very distinctly of what they would have to suffer, particularly in Matt. x. 16-30. Various reconciliations have been proposed, as that the Lord here speaks more distinctly of their having to suffer death for His sake; or that the discourse in Matt. x. contains sayings of our Lord not all uttered at one time, but some of them in view of His near approaching departure. But should we not look for the solution in the words, "because I was with you," which surely point to the coming of the Paraclete? The characteristic of this latest discourse of our Lord is not the persecutions of the Apostles so much as His own departure, and the coming of the Comforter. They would suffer because He would depart; but they would equally be comforted and sustained by the Paraclete also because He would depart (verse 7). And so, till the time of His departure drew nigh, and while He was yet with them, He said not these things, these mixed utterances respecting His leaving them, their consequent sufferings, and their comfort and support under them. We have only to note the amazing difference between the discourse in Matt. x. and this last discourse, to see the meaning of "These things I said not unto you at the beginning." 5, 6. "But now I go my way to him that sent me . . . sorrow hath filled your heart." These verses must be taken together. The CC |