《Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures – John (Ch. 4~Ch. 8》(Johann P. Lange) 04 Chapter 4

As I hear.—Denoting in the form of sensible perception absolute, sensible, spiritual knowledge. A hearing, in the sense of perfect moral, teleological perception of the divine will, as previously a seeing in the sense of perfect intellectual perception of things in principle. The words at the same time assert the Saviour’s knowledge of the men’s condemnation of themselves. Because I seek not mine own will.—Because He perpetually sacrifies Himself, He can judge the world in execution of the will of His Father, who sent Him. The paternity points to His origin, the sending, to His object.

John 5:31. If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.—A man’s testimony in his own cause is not received; it must be supported by the attestation of another: the oath. A human tribunal requires at least two witnesses, Numbers 35:30; John 8:16-17.^[FN66] Yet not the number of witnesses, but the nature and quality of the witness, is the thing here emphasized by the Lord. The attester must be distinct from the one attested. This is the human rule. In theocratic terms: A prophet without divine attestation, or even the Messiah without the same, would be a contradiction. “The precise principle Isaiah, that the individual does not testify to himself, and thus separate himself from the universal, but that one testifies for another, and then on the highest scale he who is other to the Song of Solomon, the Father, testifies to the Son. John 8:14 seems to contradict this. But: (1) In the law of judicial testimony a person’s testimony respecting himself has its place; (2) particularly in regard to a fact of personal consciousness; (3) in case of a testimony which has the testimony of the Father associated with it.

John 5:32. There is another.—The sequel shows that this ἄλλος is the Father. [So Cyr, Aug, Beza, Beng, Lücke, Thol, Olsh, Luthardt, Hengstenb, Brückner, Meyer, Godet, Alford. It cannot be John the Baptist (Chrys, Erasm, Grot, De Wette, Ewald), on account of John 5:31; John 5:36, where Christ presents His testimony as unnecessary, and assigns it a subordinate value as compared with that of the Father. “The reason why our Lord mentions John is not ‘as ascending from the lesser witness to the greater’, but purposely to remove the idea that He meant him only or principally by these words, and to set his testimony in its proper place: then at John 5:36 He returns again to the ἅλλος μαρτ. περὶ ἐμοῦ.” (Alford.) I know that, etc. This, as Meyer observes, is too strong and solemn for the testimony of the Baptist. “It is the Son’s testimony to the Father’s truth,” comp7:28, 29; 8:26, 55.—P. S.]

John 5:33-34. Ye sent unto John.—Reminding them of the fact which the evangelist relates in John 1:19. Towards the end of His pilgrimage also, Matthew 21:25, He again reverts to this. At the same time hinting what follows farther on. This leads to the more precise explanation of the words: I receive not testimony from man ( John 5:34). That Isaiah, not: I reject it (Tholuck), or, do not make use of it (Beza), or, do not catch at it (De Wette), but: I do not need it for Myself, and do not make account of it, as necessary to support my public appearance as Messiah.^[FN67] I expect my attestation in a higher testimony, in the testimony of the Father. John was a witness with whom, as the completer of the Old Testament, they must from their point of view be satisfied; but Jesus cannot satisfy Himself with this testimony; as founder of the New Testament, He must have a new and higher. But these things I say, that ye may be saved.—[Not for My benefit, for I do not need this human testimony, having a divine one, which is all sufficient, but for your salvation. Bengel: Vestra res agitur.—P. S.] He reminds them of that testimony, because for them it was valid, and contempt of it would be an undoing of the old covenant, and would bring perdition upon them.

John 5:35. He was the lamp burning (or, lighted) and shining. [Ἐκεῖνοςἦνὁλύχνοςὁκαιόμενοςκαὶφαίνων. “What a glorious phenomenon was Hebrews, and how little have you appreciated him!” Meyer.] He was John has retired. He was in prison at the time of the Lord’s return to Galilee ( John 4:44; Matthew 4:12), and was soon after beheaded ( John 6:1; comp. Matthew 14:13). [So also Stier and Alford.—P. S.] Jesus therefore considered his imprisonment as the end of his course.

The lamp. With the article.^[FN68] The appointed lamp of the advent of the Messiah, burning and shining. Interpretations: 1. Bengel: Elijah, with reference to Sirach 48:1 : “Then stood up Elijah the prophet like a fire, and his word burned like a lamp.”^[FN69] 2. Luthardt: The figure of the one who carries a light before the coming bridegroom. The rejoicing just afterwards mentioned, which might be probably the performance of a wedding dance in the torch-light, might be decisive for this view. But the one who holds the torch is not the torch itself. The general figure in Luke 1:76 (Meyer) is not quite satisfactory.^[FN70] It must be observed, that the manifestation of Jehovah is always preceeded by a token of light and fire. The indication of this appears even in Genesis, John 3:24; John 15:17. Then the burning bush becomes the token of the manifestation of Jehovah, Exodus 3:2; afterwards the pillar of fire, Exodus 13. The permanent typical symbol of the manifestation of God in Israel was the candle-stick in the temple; its complement being the fire upon the altar. In the prophetic vision the manifestation of Jehovah is announced and marked by a token of light and fire combined ( Ezekiel 1:13); by light and fire the advent of the Messiah is heralded and proclaimed, Zechariah 14:7; Malachi 3:2. All those tokens of light and fire meet in the Baptist. He is the flame-signal of the Messiah, the last Old Testament form of the pillar of fire and of the candle-stick in the temple; therefore the lamp, at once flaming and shining. The figure of the lamp (λύχνος) was current ( 2 Samuel 21:17; 2 Peter 1:19; Revelation 21:23).

Burning and shining. Meyer disputes the opinion that these words denote two peculiarities of John: fiery zeal and illumination; since the two belong together.^[FN71] And yet the two are also to be distinguised. It was the sin of the Jews, that they were not warned by the burning of John and so made his shining a mere transitory appearance.

And ye were willing.—Ἠθελήσατε. Bringing out the sinful caprice in which they made the earnest light a passing festival torch for a joyous throng or dance. Respecting the enthusiastic concourse on the appearance of the Baptist, see Matthew 3:5. Out of this came, instead of the μετάνοια which John preached, an ἀγαλλιασθῆναι. We might think here of the dancing of gnats in the twilight, or a swarm of flies around a lamp; but more natural is the thought of a joyous dance approaching with a festive torch. For a while.—Πρὸςὥραν belongs according to Bengel, ἠθελήσατε, according to Meyer, to ἀγαλλιασθῆναι; but the two things are not to be separated. To their fickle ἐθέλειν it belonged to make to themselves out of the earnest preacher of repentance, an entertaining event of the day. In his light.—They made the λύχνος itself for awhile the light, φῶς, of which it was to be only the harbinger. Comp. Matthew 11:16. Furthermore they endeavored to find a bright entertaining side to the earnestness of his preaching of repentance, and hence at last forsook him, because he was too earnest for them.

John 5:36. Greater witness.—Μείζωτοῦ ’Ι ωάννου, instead of τῆς μαρτυρίας τοῦ Ἰωάννου. Constructio compendiaria. For the works which the Father hath, etc.—The testimony of His miracles is the testimony of His Father Himself, because the Father hath given Him the works. To finish.—The idea of consummation again; description of Christianity. That the Father hath sent me.—The end (τὸ τέλος) points back to the beginning, the ἀρχή, the sending, which, in its eternity, becomes a perfect: ἀπέσταλκε, John 3:34.

John 5:37. And the Father himself.… hath borne witness of me.—It is a question whether a new and different testimony from that of the works ( John 5:36) is here introduced1. This is the testimony of the works (Augustine, Grotius, Bauer, Neander, Stier, etc.). 2. The testimony of God at the baptism of Christ (Chrysostom, Bengel, Paulus).^[FN72] 3. The witness in the spirit of the believer, the drawing of the Father (De Wette [Alford], Baumgarten-Crusius, Tholuck; but wavering). 4. The testimony which God has given in His word, in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, to His Son (Cyril, Nonnus, etc., Bede, Calvin, Lücke, Meyer). Unquestionably this last interpretation is established by the perfect μεμαρτύρηκε, as well as by the ensuing discussion on the Holy Scriptures. Evidently, however, Christ combines the outward word with the inward word in the spirit; and He means not the abstract letter of the Scripture, but the concrete, living Old Testament revelation as a unity of word and spirit (see John 5:37-38). The third and fourth interpretations, therefore, must be combined. This is the direct, strongly pronounced testimony of the Father.

Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape.—Christ denotes the soul, the inner life, the truth of the Old Testament revelation. This consisted in the hearing of the voices of God, the word of revelation given in vision, and seeing the emblems of God, His δόζα (the Angel of the Lord), by the true believers of the ancient covenant, particularly by the prophets. From this life of Revelation, i.e, from the spirit and truth of the Old Testament, these persons were so alienated that Jesus could say to them: Ye have never heard even one of His voices (one living tone of His voice), never seen a single form of His manifestation (a glimmer of His living revelation). And this He could say to them with perfect assurance, because they did not perceive the voice of God even in the word of Christ (comp. Hebrews 1:1), because they did not see even the angel of the Lord in His incarnation, as He stood before their eyes, John 14:9. In this reproof it is implied that the process of revelations by visions, out of which the Holy Scripture as a document proceded, must in some sense repeat itself in the inward awakening (hearing) and illumination (seeing) of the true reader (Leben Jesu, III, p598). Hence also the conjunctive οὔτε, οὔτε, is followed by καὶ οὐ. The result of such an awakened hearing and enlightened seeing is the abiding of the word, as a new life and vision, in the believing heart (λόγος μένων ἐν ὑμῖν). That Isaiah, the φωνή and the εἶδος go together in the one effect and efficient power of the λόγος μένων.

Different interpretations: 1. The voice at the baptism (Chrysostom, Lampe, Bengel; Lücke on the contrary: We should then expect τὴν φωνήν). 2. Jesus concedes in His words some objection which the Jews would have made (Euthymius Zigab, Kuinoel, Pauls; a characteristically rabbinical interpretation). Similarly Baumgarten-Crusius: “Never before has this direct exhibition of God been made, as it now is.” 3. Cyril, Theophylact: Jesus denies to them all direct apprehension of the Old Testament revelations (Lücke: “then Jesus must have spoken of their fathers”). 4. A reproof that they had no eye nor ear for the direct testimonies of God in His—the Messiah’s—appearance and work (Lücke). But this comes in the succeeding demonstrative words: For whom He hath sent, Him ye believe not5. A metaphorical interpretation (still more definite than in Lücke): “Metaphoricæ sunt locutiones, quibus in summa docere vult, alienos esse prorsus a Dei notitia. Nam sicuti vultu et sermone homines se patefaciunt, ita Deus vocem ad nos suam Prophetarum voce emittit, et in sacramentis quasi visibilem formam induit, unde cognosci pro modulo nostro queat. Verum qui eum in viva sua effigie non agnoscit, satis hoc ipso prodit, nullum se numen colere, nisi quod ipse fabricarit ( 2 Corinthians 3:14).” Calvin. Similarly Luthardt: “φωνή and εἶδος are not to be referred to particular symbolical revelations in the Old Testament, such as Isaiah’s and Jeremiah’s hearing the φωνή of God, and Ezekiel’s and Daniel’s seeing his εἶδος in the Spirit; but to the total revelation recorded in the Old Testament, as God’s exhibition Himself.” So Meyer also, except that he includes theophanies and visions. And to just these, in their symbolical import, the whole matter comes.

[Grotius: Quomodo mandata regis discet, qui legatum excludit. With the messenger of God they necessarily also rejected His message.—P. S.]

John 5:39. Ye search the Scriptures.—Meyer: “That ἐρευνᾶτε is indicative (Cyril, Erasmus, Casaubon, Beza, Bengel, and many moderns, including Kuinoel, Lücke, Olshausen, Klee, De Wette, Maier,^[FN75] etc.), not imperative (Chrysostom, Augustine, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigab, Luther, Calvin, etc., Paulus, Baumgarten-Crusius, Hofmann, Luthardt,^[FN76] etc.), is shown by the context, to which an imperative would be foreign matter, particularly out of harmony with the correlative καὶ οὐ θέλετε. Comp. also Lechler in the Studien und Kritiken, 1854, p795.” Comp 2 Corinthians3. As the Jews, in their way, searched the Scriptures very diligently (see Tholuck, p175), the sentence, if imperative, must have specified and strongly emphasized the right mode of search.

[Grammatically, ἐρευνᾶτε may be imperative: search, or indicative: ye search. It is not easy to decide between the two interpretations. The former has, by Luther’s German V. and by the A. E. V, become the current interpretation in the Protestant, as it was in the old Greek Church, and is often (by an a fortiori application to the New Testament) popularly used as an argument against Romanists. It is favored by the following considerations: 1) The position of ἐρευνᾶτε before τὰς γραφάς, which, however, is by no means conclusive2) The omission of ὑμεῖς before ἐρευνᾶτε, comp. ὑμεῖς before the indicative δοκεῖτε. 3) The consent of the Greek fathers, with the important exception, however, of Cyril of Alexandria4) The intrinsic improbability that Christ should have spoken in anyway reproachfully of the study of the Scriptures. (Hengstenberg discovers a far fetched allusion to Isaiah 34:16 : “Seek ye out of the book of the Lord,” a passage which is omitted in the Sept.)—Yet these arguments are in themselves insufficient, and must give way, in my judgment, to the one consideration that the connection and natural sense of the passage as a whole requires the indicative. The Saviour exposes the inconsistency, blindness and perverseness of the Jews in searching the letter of the Scriptures, and imagining to have eternal life in them, and yet refusing to believe in Him to whom these very Scriptures bear witness, and who alone can give to them that life which they vainly sought in the killing letter instead of the vivifying spirit. Thus by their unbelief the very book of God which they professed to honor, became their accuser, and a savor of death to them. Had He intended to exhort the Jews to search the Scriptures, He would not have continued: “for in them ye think, or, imagine to have (ὑμεῖς δοκεῖτε ἔχειν) eternal life,” but: “through them ye have (ἔχετε) or rather, shall have, shall find, eternal life;” nor would He have added: “And they are they which testify of Me,” but “for;” this being the reason why they should study the Scriptures. He would also probably have defined the verb as to the spirit and manner of searching the Scriptures; for the Jews did search them nicely and diligently, although by no means in the best way. The more natural interpretation, therefore, is this: “Ye do (indeed) search the Scriptures (not τὸν λόγον θεοῦ, but τὰς γραφάς, the letter of the several written books of the Old Testament), for in them (not through them, as a mere means to get at the living word of God) ye imagine to have eternal life; and they are they which testify of Me. And (yet—how inconsistent, how preposterous!) ye are not willing to come to Me that ye might have (that eternal) life. Ἐρευνάω is the very word which the Sanhedrists used of the study of the Scriptures, 7:52, when they told Nicodemus: “Search (ἐρεύνησον), and see that no prophet has arisen out of Galilee.”^[FN77] The Pharisees studied the Old Testament as they kept the Sabbath, and Christ rectified their study by pointing out the Christ in the Bible, as He rebuked their Sabbath keeping by doing works of mercy on the Sabbath day. They knew the shell of the Bible and ignored the kernel within. They searched minutely, pedantically and superstitiously the letter, but had no sympathy with the indwelling soul. They idolized the written book, while they resisted the living word contained therein (comp. John 5:38). Such bibliolatry led them away from Christ, while the true study of Moses and the prophets leads to Christ, as the fulfiller of the law and the promise. The O. T. promises life, not to the mere reader and searcher, but to the doer, of the law: “Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them” ( Leviticus 18:5). The Rabbis said: “He who acquires the words of the law, acquires for himself eternal life (Qui acquirit sibi verba legis, is acquirit sibi vitam eternam).” The unbelieving Jews search the Old Testament to this day in the same spirit and with the same result; their minds are blinded, and the vail is upon their heart ( 2 Corinthians 3:14-15). In like manner the New Testament is a sealed book to thousands of its readers and students within the Christian church, who either superstitiously, like the Jews, or skeptically, like the rationalists, stick to the mere outside of the Bible, and ignore or oppose the Christ within. Christ is the life and light of the whole Bible, its Alpha and Omega, and the only key that unlocks its mysteries to the believing mind. Comp. the remarks on John 5:46.—P. S.]

For in them ye think ye have.—Thinking, or imagining (δοκεῖτε) in opposition to believing or knowing [and thinking to have in opposition to actual having; comp. John 5:45, and John 8:54 ὑμεῖς λέγετε], imply in the first instance ignorance, but hero error also; therefore a censure (contrary to Meyer); for the sense is not: Ye think that eternal life is communicated to you through the Scriptures, but: Ye think to have eternal life in the Scriptures themselves (the plural is significant), in their mere outward letter, and to have it as an external possession outside of yourselves in their objective existence; thus clearly designating that Rabbinism, which for the Word of God made man substitutes the Word of God made book (see Sirach 24:23 [ταῦταπάντα βίβλος διαθήκης θειῦ ὑψίστου]; comp. H. Richter: Die evang. und röm. Kirchenlehre, Barmen, 1844, p47.)^[FN78]

And they are they [καὶἐκεἶναίεἰσιν].—Καί emphatic. [Just they, these very Scriptures which ye search. The copula brings out the absurdity of coupling contradictory things. Ye search the Scriptures which testify of Me, and ye reject Me; ye seek life, and ye will not come to Me who alone can give you life.—P. S.] “Which testify of me.—The participle εὐσιν αἱμαρτυροῦσαί means strictly: they are the testifiers of me, i.e, their proper nature and office is to bear witness of me. [The Old Testament was to Christ a mirror which reflected His own image.]

John 5:40. And ye will not.^[FN79]—The Scriptures point to Christ; but they will not come from the Scriptures to Him, that they might have life. The αἰώνιος seems designedly omitted. They think they already have the ζωὴ αἰώνιος in the letter of their Scriptures; but they must come to Christ before they can have any life at all. Of course the life meant is the ζωή αἰώνιος, but here great stress falls on its very conditions and incipiency. Bengel: Propius in Christo, quam in Scripturis vita habetur. [Οὐθέλετε implies the voluntary character, and hence the moral guilt of unbelief, comp. Matthew 23:37.^[FN80] The end of the discourse uncovers the secret motive of this unbelief, namely the self-seeking ambition of the heart. Reason may be more easily convinced of the truth of Christianity than the will may be subdued to the obedience of Christ. The springs of belief and unbelief are in the heart rather than the head. “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life,” Proverbs 4:23.—P. S.]

John 5:41. Glory from men.—Glory. Mere honor, especially in John, cannot be intended by the word δόξα. It is the δόξα of the Messiah. This Christ declares He will not receive, or appropriate, from human sources. The connection is: The Father testifies of Me in the Scripture; I must leave all to Him, as He glorifies Me; I cannot be glorified by the testimony of John in his ministry among you. That Jesus intended to prevent the charge of injured ambition (Luthardt, Meyer), is hardly to be supposed.

John 5:42. But I know you.—[“Εγνωκα, perfect. Bengel: Cognitos vos habeo; hoc radio penetrat corda auditorum. He knew them from their past history and from their conduct towards Him.—P. S.] With His sure discernment, that their heart is not directed towards God, He cannot and will not expect that His δόξα will be prepared for Him by the Sanhedrin, or by Judaism in general. The reason why they did not know, and honor Him, was that they did not love God. Ye have not the love of God in you.—They had none of that spirituality which is earnestly directed towards God and eternal things, ̓́Ι γ́νἀγάπην the love which is required by the law, as its sum and substance, or even that which is awakened by the promise. In you.—Ἐνἑαυτο ῖς [in your own hearts]. They have this love in their holy Scriptures, outside of themselves, in the holy medium of Revelation, as they have eternal life outside of themselves;—they themselves are full of worldliness.

John 5:43. In my Father’s name.—The very fact that He is come in the name of His Father, that He has predicated nothing of Himself, that He has executed the mission of the Father, done the works of the Father, answered to the testimony of the Father in the Old Testament, that He has even avoided the oft falsified name of Messiah, is the reason why they do not receive Him.

If another shall come in his own name.—We might doubt whether the Lord does not intend to say: under the assumed name of Messiah in some specifically shaped form. But the man coming in his own name Isaiah, in any case, a false Messiah (Meyer, against Luthardt); for he comes, (1) with no commission from the Father, but of his own ambitious impulse; (2) not with the works of the Father, but with self-chosen deceptions; (3) not for the glory of the Father, but for his own; (4) not in agreement with the holy Scriptures, but with a false Messianic idea. Meyer: “He will find acceptance, because he satisfies the opposite of the love of God, self-love (by promise of earthly glory, etc.). A distinct prediction of false Messiahs. See Matthew 24:24. According to Schudt: Jüdische Merkwürdigkeiten, 6, 27, 30 (in Bengel), sixty-four such deceivers have been counted since the time of Christ.” Since then many new ones have doubtless been added. (See the periodical: Dibre Emeth, Breslau, 1853,1854, and the note in Heubner, p304.) Tholuck, without sufficient reason, disputes the reference of the passage to false Messiahs, and refers it only to the false prophets, who came in their own name, and always found more followers than the true. Yet all appealed to a divine commission. Those who came in their own name, did so in opposition to the true Messiah; and this method is always pseudo-Christian and anti-Christian at the same time. Meanwhile the false prophets of the ancient time were but fore-runners of the pseudo Messianic manifestations of the New Testament age; and such future manifestations the Lord evidently has in view.^[FN81] Him ye will receive. Affinity of the ungodly mind, more explicitly declared in John 12:43.

John 5:44. Who receive glory one from another.—Not merely honor, but here again δόξα, with reference to the specific honor of Messiah: Messianic honors. Messianic dignities are both accorded and accepted in a hierarchical system from human, sinful motives, ambition, favor and the like. And seek not the glory that cometh from the only God.—Here evidently the δόξα is the divine pleasure, as conferring honor and glory on the believer; the δόξα θεοῦ of Paul in Romans 3:23. From the only God, παρὰτοῦμόνουθεοῦ. Grotius, De Wette [E. V, Godet]: From God only; making the adjective rather adverbial. Meyer and Tholuck [Alford], on the contrary, take μόνος after the analogy of John 17:3 : Ὀ μόνος ἀληθνὸιος θεός; 1 Timothy 6:15 : Ο μόνος δυνάστης. It was the deepest reproach to Jews, who gloried in the worship of the one God, that they recognized so various, and even human, sources of the δόξα, as really to be polytheistic in their conduct. These creature lights, in which the lustre is not recognized as radiance from the centre of light and honor in the only God, but which are made by men of men,—these form a disguised and subtle polytheism, a heathenism within a Judaistic hierarchical system.

John 5:45. Do not think that I shall accuse you.—[Christ’s office is not to accuse, but to judge.] Referring, no doubt, to the accusations which they brought against Him and the human trial upon which they put Him. Before their court He has assumed more and more the mien of a majestic judge. He has finally represented them as contradicting the testimony of God, as anti-Christs, pagans. They are disarmed by the authority and power of His words, and discharge Him. Now, so far as He is concerned, He proposes to discharge them. He will not accuse them to the Father, but another, says Hebrews, will accuse you, even Moses, in whom ye hope [ἠλπίκατε, have set your hope, comp. 2 Corinthians 1:10]. This is the last, the mightest stroke.^[FN82] That very Moses on whom they set their hope, will accuse them, and put their hope to shame. Not exactly the Holy Scriptures (Tholuck), but Moses himself, in his spirit, as the representative of the legal basis of the Holy Scriptures. If they rightly searched the Scriptures, they would find Christ and only Christ in the Old Testament, even in the books of Moses alone; but they find Moses in them, and only Moses, only law even in the prophets, and on this omnipresent Moses, whose all the Scriptures are in their view (see John 5:47), that Isaiah, on the legal element of the Holy Scriptures, they placed their self-righteous confidence. Through Moses they sought to be heirs of the Messianic kingdom; Christ Himself was to appear as a second Moses (nova lex). But Moses, says Hebrews, is the very one who will accuse you. Not so much that the law pronounces the curse on those who deal in the works of the law, as that Moses, both in single passages ( Deuteronomy 18:15), and in his whole law, especially in the types, wrote of Christ. Bengel: Scripsit nusquam non. [Comp. further remarks sub. John 5:46.—P. S.] Where and how accuse? In all judgments of conscience as well as in all the historical judgments of Israel the real Moses, the spirit of the law, accuses them for their unbelief even unto the end of the world. Not, therefore, for unbelief of particular prophecies, “as even De Wette thinks, but because the religious spirit of his law deposes so strong a testimony in favor of Him who, by His whole appearance, proves that He is the fulfilment of it.” Tholuck.

John 5:46. For if ye believed Moses, ye would believe me.—True law-Jews are true faith-Jews. The same applies to Christianity. [Every true Jew who follows the teachings of the Old Testament Revelation, becomes naturally a Christian, as was the case with the apostles and primitive disciples, but every bad Jew instinctively rejects the gospel, because the Old and New Testaments are the revelation of one and the same God, the Old being a preparation for the New, the New the fulfilment of the Old. “Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet, Vetus Test. in Novo patet.” The agreement of Moses and Christ is also the underlying thought of the whole sermon on the Mount; Matthew and John are the disciples of one Master.—P. S.]

[For of me he wrote, περὶγὰρἐμοῦ—emphatically placed first—ἐκεῖνοςἔγραψεν.—Moses wrote of Christ, as the seed of the woman that shall bruise the serpent’s head ( Genesis 3), as the seed of Abraham by which all the nations of the earth shall be blessed ( Genesis 12. ff.), as the Shiloh unto whom shall be the gathering of the people ( Genesis 49), as the Star out of Jacob, and the Sceptre that shall rise out of Israel ( Numbers 24:17), as the great Prophet whom God will raise up, and unto whom the Jews should hearken ( Deuteronomy 18). Moreover, the moral law of Moses, by revealing the holy will of God and setting up a standard of human righteousness in conformity with that will, awakens a knowledge of sin and guilt ( Romans 3:20; Romans 7:7), and thus serves as a school-master to bring us to Christ ( Galatians 3:24). Finally, the ritual law and all the ceremonies of Mosaic worship were typical of the Christian dispensation ( Colossians 2:17), as the healing serpent in the wilderness pointed to Christ on the cross ( Numbers 21:9; John 3:14). This is a most important testimony, from the unerring mouth of Christ, to the Messianic character and aim of the whole Mosaic dispensation, and to the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch. Comp. Luke 24:44; Romans 10:5.—P. S.]

John 5:47. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall you believe my words?—Twofold antithesis [Moses and Christ—Moses’ writings and Christ’s words]. First, as the stronger, ἐκείνου—ἐμοῖς. Not as if Moses were more credible than Christ. But he is easier for beginners, and only through him do men get to Christ. This antithesis does not, as Meyer thinks, exclude the second. The Sanhedrists, like the Rabbins in general, officially concerned themselves simply with the writings; the words of Christ they heard only by the way.^[FN83] They had sought to prosecute Him according to the Sabbath law of Moses; He declares that they are apostates from Moses. But as they postpone their judgment, He postpones His.

[The discourse ends, as Meyer says, with a question “of hopelessness,” I prefer to say, holy sadness. Yet after all there is implied in this question a tender appeal of that infinite love which would again and again gather the children of Jerusalem together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, though they would not ( Matthew 23:37).—This whole discourse is one of the most remarkable in the New Testament. Nowhere else does Christ so fully explain His relation to His Father. It is not metaphysical, but the simple expression of His filial consciousness. With the utmost naturalness and almost childlike simplicity He utters the sublimest truths concerning His official dependence on, and essential oneness with, the Father. This relation the Nicene Creed has briefly and clearly expressed by calling Christ “Light of Light, God of God, very God of very God.” What can we mortals do but reverently listen to these astounding disclosures of the mysterious union of the Saviour of the world with the infinite God! And how terrific is the force of the argument against the blind and dead leaders of the Jews, especially when, at the close, He pursues them to their own territory and takes away the very foundation from under their feet by calling the grand figure of their liberator and lawgiver in whom they placed their hope, from the grave, and changing their pretended advocate into their accuser! The whole discourse is so characteristic, grand, pointed and telling, that the idea of an invention is utterly preposterous. Even Strauss and Renan dare not deny its essential genuineness, though they insist upon its Johannean coloring. “Le thème,” says Renan of the Johannean discourses in general (Vie de Jêsus), “peut n’être pas sans quelque authenticitê; mais dans l’exécution, la fantaisie de l’artiste se donne pleine carrière.” But John first became conformed in his mind to Christ before he conformed Christ to his mode of thought and speech, so that his theology is a faithful reflection of the theology of Christ. It would take no less than another superhuman Jesus to invent such a Jesus as the one exhibited by this plain fisherman of Galilee. The historical reality is the only sensible solution of the problem.—P. S.]