This language is said of both, but most strongly of the latter. Pilate, disposed to gratify the The Word, in order to accomplish these infinite things, "was made. So we see in the attractive power, afterwards dealing with individual souls. (sometimes initial capital letter) a prostitute's customer. He who inspired them to communicate His thoughts of Jesus in the particular line assigned to each, raised up John to impart the highest revelation, and thus complete the circle by the deepest views of the Son of God. They crown Jesus with thorns and dress him in a purple robe. One must be born again. For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. How was this? 18 There is no fear in love. Nothing less than everlasting life in Christ can deliver: otherwise there remains judgment. All disciplinary action, every probationary process, disappears. "The law was given by Moses." Thus we feed on Him and drink into Him, as man, unto life everlasting life in Him. : a Jewish prophet who according to Gospel accounts foretold Jesus' messianic ministry and baptized him. There is no other way in which the new nature is made good in a soul. Instead, Pilate has Jesus flogged (John 19:1). John 4:16. The chapter pursues this subject, showing that it is not only God who thus deals first, with the necessity of man before His own immutable nature; next, blessing according to the riches of His grace but, further, that man's state morally is detected yet more awfully in presence of such grace as well as holiness in Christ. He is ever God; He is the Son; He quickens and raises from the dead. Simon was one of the commonest names at the time (along with Jesus, Joseph, John and Levi), and so he is distinguished from others by his nickname, which Matthew assumes he has already been given; we hear of an earlier It was not so. Observe, it is not (as is often very erroneously said or sung) a question of sins, but of the "sin" of the world. Sons they might have been in bare title; but these had the right of children. The effect is thus final, even as His person, witness, and glory are divine. He has given us the spirit of adoption by which we call Him, Abba, father! My wifes dad was a chiropractor and when she got to be old enough, he gave her an opportunity to be a receptionist at his clinic. Man might pull Him down destroy Him, as far as man could, and surely to be the basis in God's hand of better blessing; but He was God, and in three days He would raise up this temple. 3 Reasons Proverbs 23:7 Says 'As a Man Thinks, So He Is'. John 1:20-25) John does not even speak of Him as one who, on His rejection as Messiah, would step into a larger glory. How singularly is the glory of the Lord Jesus thus viewed, as invested with the testimony of God and its crown! through "sin." Christ's road from Judea to Judgment is the alternative for man: for God it is the resource to make good the glory of the Son, and in that nature, in and for which man blind to his own highest dignity dares to despise Him. 10 million Ukrainians without power because of Russia. Mark what, as such, He does declare Him. And in this He is sovereign. The heart-searching issuing in perception of the prophetic rank of Jesus. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." No doubt there are intervening applications; but such is the ultimate result of His work as the Lamb of God. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. How could either light or love rest in a scene of sin, darkness, and misery? What a witness all this to His person! * The best text omits other expressions, evidently derived from verses John 1:15; John 1:30John 1:30. It was not the time now to demonstrate in public power these coming, yea, then present truths. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment." Expressly had He told the man to take up his couch and walk, as well as to rise. (Verses John 5:13-16), A graver issue, however, was to be tried; for Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. At that time Jesus remained in the judgment hall. One of the peculiarities of our gospel is, that we see the Lord from time to time (and, indeed, chiefly) in or near Jerusalem. 4:2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: Web16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. And while He does not hide the privilege of the Jews, He nevertheless proclaims that "the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. At first she tried to hide her sins, but Jesus How withering the words! 7 He came as a witness to testify about the Light, so that through him everyone might believe. And He did accept that place thoroughly, and in all its consequences. Art thou that prophet? What Makes Covenant Theology So Important? There is the nicest care to maintain His personal glory, no matter what the subject may be. WebThe Witness of John. The Father seeks worshippers. Salem Media Group. This we have had fully before. No man hath seen God at any time. But they learn that it was his divine Physician who had not only healed, but so directed him. He saw him under the fig tree. His corporeal presence was not necessary; His word was enough. I do not mean by this all individuals, but creation; for nothing can be more certain, than that those who do not receive the Son of God are so much the worse for having heard the gospel. The resurrection of the Lord is not more truly a demonstration of His power and glory, than the only deliverance for disciples from the thraldom of Jewish influence. Not only man under law has no health, but he has no strength to avail himself of the blessing that God holds out. The Lord, it is true, could and did go farther than the prophets: even if He taught on the same theme, He could speak with conscious divine dignity and knowledge (not merely what was assigned to an instrument or messenger). All this, however, was abstract, whether as to the nature of the Word or as to the place of the Christian. Here, accordingly, it is not so much the means by which life is communicated, as the revelation of the full blessing of grace and communion with the Father and His Son by the Holy Ghost, in whom we are blessed. Bible> Commentaries> John 4:16 John 4:16 Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. This is indispensable; for God is a Spirit, and so it cannot but be. Neither does the Spirit say exactly as the English Bible says "sons," but children. for he knew He was the Christ. We discuss being disciples not admirers of Christ. The Word, God (and only begotten Son in the Father's bosom), He was eternally Son of God, too, as born into the world. The man could not tell the Jews the name of his benefactor. Commentary, explanation and study verse by verse. They knew what they worshipped, but not the Father, nor were they "true." Besides this, goodness overflows, in that the Father is gathering children, and making worshippers. Web1. Alas! If, on the contrary, a soul has been taught of God the glory of the person of Him who was made flesh, he receives in all simplicity, and rejoices in, the glorious truth, that He who was made flesh was not made flesh only to this end, but rather as a step toward another and deeper work the glorifying God, and becoming our food, in death. Web1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Wonderful things in the Bible I see, How truly it is man under law! . d. He said to His mother, Woman, behold your son : Jesus consciously cared for His It is thus strikingly an anticipation of the result in glory. For He who spoke was divine. Later He was determined to be Son of God with power by resurrection of the dead. Thus we have traced, first, hearts not only attracted to Him, but fresh souls called to follow Him; then, in type, the call of Israel by-and-by; finally, the disappearance of the sign of moral purifying for the joy of the new covenant, when Messiah's time comes to bless the needy earth; but along with this the execution of judgment in Jerusalem, and its long defiled temple. The apostle attests this. (Ver. "He came unto his own [things], and his own [people] received him not. None else could do either work: for here we see His great work on earth, and His heavenly power. "Ye will not come to me that ye might have life." They had stumbled before, and the Lord brought in not alone His person, as the Word made flesh, presented for man now to receive and enjoy; but unless they ate the flesh, and drank the blood of the Son of man, they had no life in them. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Observe: not which was, but "which is." But what we learn is, that our Lord (viewed as having entered into heaven as man on the ground of redemption, i.e., ascended, after having passed through death, into glory) from that glory confers meanwhile the Holy Ghost on him that believes, instead of bringing in at once the final feast of gladness for the Jews and the world, as He will do by-and-by when the anti-typical harvest and vintage has been fulfilled. John 1:19-37; John 1:19-37) It is here presented historically. We love him, because he first loved us. and the two disciples leave John for Jesus. This is all perfectly true, of course; and we have it elsewhere. Jesus not only could go up, as He did later, but He had come down thence, and, even though man, He was the Son of man that is in heaven. Did the dead (for so men are treated, not as alive under law) did they hear the voice of the Son of God? (VerseJohn 4:10; John 4:10) Infinite grace! 41 He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. All is fitly closed by the declaration, that "the Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand." (Verses John 7:40-53). John 1:17; John 1:17) The law, thus given, was in itself no giver, but an exacter; Jesus, full of grace and truth, gave, instead of requiring or receiving; and He Himself has said, It is more blessed to give than to receive. For the astonishing thought is, not merely that Jesus receives the Holy Ghost without measure, but that God gives the Spirit also, and not by measure, through Him to others. They could not deny Him to be man Son of man. He reminds them of his previous disclaimer of any place beyond one sent before Jesus. Art thou Elias? Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers. Then He rebukes the carnality of His brethren. saith unto her, fie, call thy husband, and come hither. 2 He was with God in the beginning. (Ver. But here these streams of the Spirit are substituted for the feast of tabernacles, which cannot be accomplished till Christ come from heaven and show Himself to the world; for this time was not yet come. The same God who did not leave Himself without witness among the heathen, doing good, and giving from heaven rain and fruitful seasons, did not fail, in the low estate of the Jews, to work by providential power at intervals; and, by the troubled waters of Bethesda, invited the sick, and healed the first who stepped in of whatever disease he had. They had no common thoughts, feelings, or ways with the Father and the Son. Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. And then the apostle returns to his former exhortation to brotherly love, which he enforces by the following reasons, because it is of God, a fruit of his Spirit and grace, and because it is an evidence of being born of God, and of having a true knowledge of him; whereas he that is destitute of it does not know him, seeing God is love, 1Jo 4:7,8, and having affirmed that God is love, he proves it, by the mission of his Son, to be a propitiation for the sins of such that did not love him, and that they might live through him; wherefore he argues, that if God had such a love to men, so undeserving of it, then the saints ought to love one another, 1Jo 4:9-11. The refusal of His precious blood will, on the contrary, make their case incomparably worse than that of the heathen who never heard the good news. Thus the Holy Ghost, given by the Son in humiliation (according to God, not acting on law, but according to the gift of grace in the gospel), was fully set forth; but the woman, though interested, and asking, only apprehended a boon for this life to save herself trouble here below. (VerseJohn 4:1; John 4:1) It was strange to her that a Jew should thus humble himself: what would it have been, had she seen in Him Jesus the Son of God? That means that under Biden's budget plan the federal debt would increase by $16.411 trillion or 57.8% in the 11 fiscal years from when he first took office in fiscal 2021 through fiscal 2032. The ignorance of the world has been proved, the rejection of Israel is complete: then only is it that we hear of this new place of children. He could have healed the man without the smallest outward act to shock their zeal for the law. In the process of torturing Jesus, the soldiers ironically coronate him king. John 7:38; John 7:38) And then we have the comment of the Holy Ghost: "(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified)" There is, first, the thirsty soul coming to Jesus and drinking; then there is the power of the Spirit flowing forth from the inner man of the believer in refreshment to others. Here we see Him accepting, not as fellow-servant, but as Lord, those souls who had been under the training of the predicted messenger of Jehovah that was to prepare His way before, His face. "He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true. Nor was it yet complete. Both of them were in relation to man on the earth; the one while He was here, the other from above. It was but preliminary, of course; still it was a deep reality, the then present grace in the person of the Son, the Saviour of the world, who filled their once dark hearts with light and joy. This He does in verses 16-19. John 3:17; John 3:17) This decides all before the execution of judgment, Every man's lot is made manifest by his attitude toward God's testimony concerning His Son. Thus a despised Christ is not merely a crucified Son of man, and given Son of God, as in John 3:1-36, but Himself a divine giver in communion with the Father, and in the power of the Holy Ghost who is given to the believer, the source of worship, as their God and Father is its object for the worshippers in spirit and truth (though surely not to the exclusion of the Son, Hebrews 1:1-14). Such shall live. The addition of "unto him" detracts, to my mind, from the exceeding preciousness of what seems to be, at least, left open. (SeePsalms 2:1-12; Psalms 2:1-12) But the Lord tells him of greater things he, should see, and says to him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, henceforth (not "hereafter," but henceforth) ye shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry commended World Economic Forum attendees on Tuesday, saying their efforts to combat climate change were "almost extraterrestrial." Jesus is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, but withal, as he had said, the eternal One, yet in view of His manifestation to Israel (and, therefore, John was come baptizing with water a reason here given, but not to the Pharisees in verses 25-27). (Ver. But it is important we should know how He entered the world. The Jews, with all their privileges, were strangers here. But even this sufficed not: the Son of man must be lifted up. (Ver. The healing of the courtier's son, sick and ready to die, is witness of what the Lord was actually doing among the despised of Israel. To have righteousness we If He spoke the truth, they were blasphemers. This is the marked effect on the third day (ver. The Light, on coming into the world, lightens every man with the fulness of evidence which was in Him, and at once discovers the true state as truly as it will be revealed in the last day when He judges all, as we find it intimated in the gospel afterwards. For evidently it is the theme of worship in its Christian fulness, the fruit of the manifestation of God, and of the Father known in grace. Here the Lord was really owned by the multitudes as the great Prophet that should come; and this in consequence of His works, especially that one which Scripture itself had connected with the Son of David. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. Web40 One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. It is no question here of every man, but of such as believe. (e.g. John told us that he was at Jesus crucifixion and saw these things with his own eyes (John 19:35). The disciples of John dispute with a Jew about purification; but John himself renders a bright witness to the glory of the Lord Jesus. John 4:1-54 presents the Lord Jesus outside Jerusalem outside the people of promise among Samaritans, with whom Jews had no intercourse. John 1:29; John 1:29John 1:34; John 1:34) of John Baptist's testimony here named; the first day (ver. Here the Lord introduces the cross. 17 This is how love is made complete Then, resuming the strain of verse John 1:14, we are told, in verseJohn 1:16; John 1:16, that "of his fulness have all we received." 2. The issue of all is, that the will of man is the real cause and spring of enmity. Thus, as in the former case the Lord's dealing in Galilee was a type of the future, this appears to be significant of His then present path of grace in that despised quarter of the land. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. Was this false and blasphemous in their eyes? (Verses John 6:59-71) What and if they should see Him, who came down and died in this world, ascend up where He was before? ? Man was judged: another Man was there, the Lord from heaven, soon to stand in resurrection. Then the soldiers mockingly but truthfully hail Jesus as the king of the Jews (19:3). John 1:26-27; John 1:26-27) For himself he was not the Christ, but for Jesus he says no more. What more glorious proof than that the Holy Ghost is given not a certain defined power or gift, but the Holy Ghost Himself; for God gives not the Spirit by measure! The hour was one for faith, or unbelief. This brings all to a point; for the woman says, "I know that Messiah cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things." Such is God's vindication of His outraged rights; and the judgment will be proportionate to the glory that has been set at nought. Remark, too, the extent of the work involved in verse 29. It is not now the revelation of God meeting man either in essential nature, or as manifested in flesh; nor is it the course of dispensational dealing presented in a parenthetic as well as mysterious form, beginning with John the Baptist's testimony, and going down to the millennium in the Son, full of grace and truth. 17 This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we're free of worry on Judgment Day - our standing in the world is identical with Christ's. The allusion to the fig-tree confirms this. Also one of the two thus drawn to Him first finds his own brother Simon (with the words, We have found the Messiah), and led him to Jesus, who forthwith gave him his new name in terms which surveyed, with equal ease and certainty, past, present, and future. The Father and the Son were at work. Herein is our loveb made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. The results for the believer or unbeliever are eternal in good or in evil. It is not a message or a sign, however significant at the moment, which passes away as soon as heard or seen. (VersesJohn 7:33-36; John 7:33-36) Jesus was returning to Him that sent Him, and the Holy Ghost would be given. For if, on the one side, God has taken care to let us see already the glory of the Son, and the grace of which He was full, on the other side, all shines out the more marvellously when we know how He dealt with a woman of Samaria, sinful and degraded. But the Spirit would not confine His operations to such bounds, but go out freely like the wind. 19 The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. So in the baptism with the Holy Ghost, who would pretend to such a power? These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. a toilet or bathroom. Nay, the Father has given all judgment to the Son. It would not suit God, if it would suit man, that He, seeing all, should just pronounce on man's corruption, and then forthwith let him off with a bare pardon.
