He who owns the reality of Christ's incarnation, receives most thankfully and adoringly from God the truth of redemption; he, on the contrary, who stumbles at redemption, has not really taken in the incarnation according to God's mind. 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. All is in the character of the Son of man. All others prove not only that they are bad, but that they hate perfect goodness, and more than that, life and light the true light in the Word. Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? Thus it is not only the person of our Lord viewed as divine, and coming down into the world. (Verses John 1:41-44), On the morrow Jesus begins, directly and indirectly, to call others to follow Himself. This is why premillennial-ism is based on a kind of hermeneutical fundamental of the Christian Faith. In vain did any come to the Baptist to report the widening circle around Christ. But they learn that it was his divine Physician who had not only healed, but so directed him. If a man looks at the Lord Jesus as One who entered the world in a general way, and calls this the incarnation, he will surely stumble over the cross. How little they conceived of what was then said and done! It was an extraordinary birth; of God, not man in any sort, or measure, but a new and divine nature (2 Peter 1:1-21) imparted to the believer wholly of grace. (Verses John 5:17-18). This movement was not an unnatural one. 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. (Ver. From the very first, man, being a sinner, was wholly lost. In Him was life for this scene of death; and it is of faith that it might be by grace. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours." Here was a meeting, indeed, between such an one and Him, the Son, true God and eternal life. (VersesJohn 3:7-8; John 3:7-8), It is hardly necessary to furnish detailed disproof of the crude, ill-considered notion (originated by the fathers), that baptism is in question. Thus solemnly does the meek Lord Jesus unfold these two truths. The allusion to the fig-tree confirms this. Ringing of the death bells is done slowly and reverently. One must be born again. Then (ver. This the Lord refuses, and goes up the mountain to pray, His disciples being meanwhile exposed to a storm on the lake, and straining after the desired haven till He rejoins them, when immediately the ship was at the land whither they went. Verse 15. How truly it is man under law! Accordingly, if the law raised the question of righteousness in man, the cross of the Lord Jesus, typifying Him made sin, is the answer; and there has all been settled to the glory of God, the Lord Jesus having suffered all the inevitable consequences. Surely He was there, a weary man outside Judaism; but God, the God of all grace, who humbled Himself to ask a drink of water of her, that He might give the richest and most enduring gift, even water which, once drank, leaves no thirst for ever and ever yea, is in him who drinks a fountain of water springing up unto everlasting life. Hence the Lord, while fully owning the labours of all preceding labourers, has before His eyes the whole boundless expanse of grace, the mighty harvest which His apostles were to reap in due time. He who, living, was received for eternal life, is our meat and drink in dying, and gives us communion with His death. "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." Deeper questions demanded solution. For were it not God Himself in the person of Jesus, it had been no glory to God, but a wrong and a rival. Further, John attests that he saw the Spirit descending like a dove, and abiding on Him the appointed token that He it is who baptizes with the Holy Ghost even the Son of God. The Word, in order to accomplish these infinite things, "was made. It becomes a question of man's own condition, and how he stands in relation to the kingdom of God. When Jesus therefore perceived But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God." Meanwhile, for Christian worship, the hour was coming and in principle come, because He was there; and He who vindicated salvation as of the Jews, proves that it is now for Samaritans, or any who believed on account of His word. 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. some copies add, "and he prayed there"; the Syriac, Ethiopic, and Yet before a miracle, as well as in the working of those which set forth His glory, it is evident that so far from its being a gradual growth, as it were, in His mind, He had, all simple and lowly though He were, the deep, calm, constant consciousness that He was God. If she turned aside to questions of religion, with a mixture of desire to learn what had concerned and perplexed her, and of willingness to escape such a searching of her ways and heart, He did not refrain graciously to vouchsafe the revelation of God, that earthly worship was doomed, that the Father was to be worshipped, not an Unknown. Meanwhile there was a manifestation of goodness, active in love in the midst of evil, and toward such; active in the making known God and man, and every moral relation, and what He is toward man, through and in the Word made flesh. Christ did not wait till the time was fully come for the old things to pass away, and all to be made new. Here He is not portrayed as the Son of man who must be lifted up, but as the Son of God who was given. Not only man under law has no health, but he has no strength to avail himself of the blessing that God holds out. 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! This gives occasion to Jesus to teach us the lesson that conscience must be reached, and sense of sin produced, before grace is understood and brings forth fruit. Law, means, ordinances, could not meet the need no pool, nor angel nothing but the Son working in grace, the Son quickening. John 1:19-37; John 1:19-37) It is here presented historically. If He put forth His power, it was not only beyond man's measure, but unequivocally divine, however also the humblest and most dependent of men. There was purpose in it. Without sign, prodigy, or miracle, in this village of Samaria Jesus was heard, known, confessed as truly the Saviour of the world ("the Christ" being absent in the best authorities, ver. Life out of death was wanted by man, such as he is; and this the Father is giving in the Son. John 5:19-29), It is evident, then, that the Lord presents life in Himself as the true want of man, who was not merely infirm but dead. John 7:37) It is not a question of eating the bread of God, or, when Christ died, of eating His flesh and drinking His blood. John 3:1-36 follows this up. We have had his name introduced into each part of the preface of our evangelist. In short, the riches of God's grace are here according to the glory of the Son, and in the power of the Holy Ghost. This He does in verses 16-19. There is the nicest care to maintain His personal glory, no matter what the subject may be. If He spoke the truth, they were blasphemers. John 6:15. None the less did the result of His death proclaim His Deity. Nothing less than everlasting life in Christ can deliver: otherwise there remains judgment. Do any believe on His name? 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. The Jan. 6 commission's death knell. support such an army of men, and to succeed in the enterprise; John then declared his own waning before Christ, as we have seen, the issues of whose testimony, believed or not, are eternal; and this founded on the revelation of His glorious person as man and to man here below. for he that could do this, what was it he could not do? 15 Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself. It is not that He denies the truth of what they were thus desiring and attached to. John 3:14-15; John 3:14-15) It is not a question simply of the Son of God, nor is He spoken of here as the Word made flesh. (Verses John 1:44-51). And Jesus went up on the mountain, and there He sat with His disciples. and the two disciples leave John for Jesus. Her life is laid before her by His voice, and she confesses to Him that God Himself spoke to her in His words: "Sir [said she], I perceive that thou art a prophet." And worship is viewed both in moral nature and in the joy of communion doubly. No such sounds, no such realities were ever heard or known in Israel. Without it there is no divine understanding of Christ, or of His word, or of Scripture. Later He was determined to be Son of God with power by resurrection of the dead. The man went off, and told the Jews that it was Jesus: and for this they persecuted Him, because He had done these things on the sabbath. The issue of all is, that the will of man is the real cause and spring of enmity. One of the peculiarities of our gospel is, that we see the Lord from time to time (and, indeed, chiefly) in or near Jerusalem. They had no common thoughts, feelings, or ways with the Father and the Son. John 6:1-15 describes Jesus' feeding thousands of peoplethe fourth of the gospel of John's seven ''signs'' of Christ's divinity. alone, for the sake of secret retirement, and private prayer; and How, indeed, could it be stayed within narrow limits? The looking for signs and wonders is rebuked; but mortality is arrested. (Verses John 7:40-53). To the Pharisees, indeed, his words as to the Lord are curt: nor does he tell them of the divine ground of His glory, as he had before and does after. After these things Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. Now, it is the Holy Ghost in the power that gives rivers of living water flowing out, and this bound up with, and consequent on, His being man in glory. Man was judged: another Man was there, the Lord from heaven, soon to stand in resurrection. To this last the Lord attaches the deepest importance. Then He rebukes the carnality of His brethren. it was no lack of testimony; their will was for present honour, and hostile to the glory of the only God. "He was in the world, and the world was made by him." John 4:1-54 presents the Lord Jesus outside Jerusalem outside the people of promise among Samaritans, with whom Jews had no intercourse. 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