INTRODUCTION TO
John
CIRCUMSTANCES OF WRITING
A close reading of the Gospel of John suggests that the author was an apostle (1:14; cp. 2:11; 19:35); one of the Twelve (“the disciple Jesus loved”: 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:20; cp. 21:24-25); and, still more specifically, John, the son of Zebedee. The church fathers, too, attested to this identification (e.g., Irenaeus). Since the apostolic office was foundational in the history of the church (Ac 2:42; Eph 2:20), the apostolic authorship of John’s Gospel invests it with special authority as a firsthand eyewitness (Jn 15:27; 1Jn 1:1-4).
The most plausible date of writing is the period between AD 70 (the date of the destruction of the temple) and 100 (the end of John’s lifetime), with a date in the 80s most likely. A date after 70 is suggested by the references to the Sea of Tiberias in 6:1 and 21:1 (a name widely used for the Sea of Galilee only toward the end of the first century); Thomas’s confession of Jesus as “my Lord and my God” in 20:28 (possibly a statement against emperor worship in the time of Domitian); the reference to Peter’s martyrdom, which occurred in 65 or 66 (21:19); the lack of reference to the Sadducees, who ceased to be a Jewish religious party after 70; and the comparative ease with which John equated Jesus with God (1:1,14,18; 10:30; 20:28).
The testimony of the early church also favors a date after AD 70. Clement of Alexandria (cited in Eusebius, Hist. eccl., 6.14.7) stated, “Last of all, John, perceiving that the external facts had been made plain [in the other canonical Gospels] . . . composed a spiritual gospel.” The most likely place of writing is Ephesus (Irenaeus, Haer., 3.1.2; see Eusebius, Hist. eccl., 3.1.1), one of the most important urban centers of the Roman Empire at the time, though the envisioned readership of John’s Gospel transcends any one historical setting.
John’s original audience was probably composed of people in the larger Greco-Roman world in Ephesus and beyond toward the close of the first century AD. Hence John frequently explained Jewish customs and Palestinian geography and translated Aramaic terms into Greek.
CONTRIBUTION TO THE BIBLE
Of all the Gospels and any of the New Testament books, the Gospel of John most clearly teaches the deity and preexistence of Christ (1:1-2,18; 8:58; 17:5,24; 20:28). Together with the Gospel of Matthew, it provides the most striking proofs of Jesus’s messiahship. It does so by narrating seven messianic signs, by seven “I am” statements of Jesus, by specific fulfillment quotations, especially at Jesus’s passion, and by showing how Jesus fulfilled the symbolism inherent in a variety of Jewish festivals and institutions. Jesus’s messianic mission is shown to originate with God the Father, “the One who sent” Jesus (7:16,18,28,33; 8:26,29; 15:21), and to culminate in his commissioning of his new messianic community in the power of his Spirit (20:21-22). John’s Trinitarian teaching is among the most overt presentations of the tri-unity of the Godhead—Father, Son, and Spirit—in the entire NT and has provided much of the material for early Trinitarian and Christological formulations in the history of the church.
STRUCTURE
John is divided into two main parts. In the first section (chaps. 2–11) the focus is on both Jesus’s ministry to “the world” and the signs he performed. Jesus performs seven signs that meet with varying responses. The second major section (chaps. 12–21) reveals Jesus’s teaching to his disciples and the triumphant “hour” of his passion. John’s record of the passion focuses on Jesus’s control of the events. He had to instruct his adversaries on how to arrest him (18:4-8). Pilate struggled with his decision, but Jesus knew what would happen. Jesus died as the Lamb and was sacrificed at the very time lambs were being sacrificed for Passover (19:14).
SPURGEON ON JOHN
John is the majestic evangelist. He is the high-soaring eagle with piercing eyes. His is the Gospel of the Son of God. We cannot describe the deity of Christ in clearer language than John uses. He was with God. He was God. He did the works of God, for he was the Creator. If any doubt his deity, they must do so in distinct defiance of the language of Holy Scripture.
PROLOGUE
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. 4 In him was life, A and that life was the light of men. 5 That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome B it.
6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him. C 8 He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. 9 The true light that gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. D
10 He was in the world, and the world was created through him, and yet the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be E children of God, to those who believe in his name, 13 who were born, not of natural descent, F or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, G but of God.
QUOTE 1:11-12
You will never go to heaven in a crowd.
14 The Word became flesh and dwelt H among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son I from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified concerning him and exclaimed, “This was the one of whom I said, ‘The one coming after me ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.’ ”) 16 Indeed, we have all received grace upon J grace from his fullness, 17 for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side K —he has revealed him.
JOHN THE BAPTIST’S TESTIMONY
19 This was John’s testimony when the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him, “Who are you? ”
20 He didn’t deny it but confessed: “I am not the Messiah.”
21 “What then? ” they asked him. “Are you Elijah? ”
“I am not,” he said.
“Are you the Prophet? ”
“No,” he answered.
22 “Who are you, then? ” they asked. “We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What can you tell us about yourself? ”
23 He said, “I am a voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Make straight the way of the Lord A — just as Isaiah the prophet said.”
24 Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. 25 So they asked him, “Why then do you baptize if you aren’t the Messiah, or Elijah, or the Prophet? ”
26 “I baptize with B water,” John answered them. “Someone stands among you, but you don’t know him. 27 He is the one coming after me, C whose sandal strap I’m not worthy to untie.” 28 All this happened in Bethany D across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
THE LAMB OF GOD
29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the one I told you about: ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.’ 31 I didn’t know him, but I came baptizing with water so he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and he rested on him. 33 I didn’t know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The one you see the Spirit descending and resting on — he is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.” E
35 The next day, John was standing with two of his disciples. 36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God! ”
37 The two disciples heard him say this and followed Jesus. 38 When Jesus turned and noticed them following him, he asked them, “What are you looking for? ”
They said to him, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying? ”
39 “Come and you’ll see,” he replied. So they went and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon. F
40 Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard John and followed him. 41 He first found his own brother Simon and told him, “We have found the Messiah” G (which is translated “the Christ”), 42 and he brought Simon to Jesus.
When Jesus saw him, he said, “You are Simon, son of John. H You will be called Cephas” (which is translated “Peter” I).
PHILIP AND NATHANAEL
43 The next day Jesus J decided to leave for Galilee. He found Philip and told him, “Follow me.”
44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the hometown of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law (and so did the prophets): Jesus the son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”
46 “Can anything good come out of Nazareth? ” Nathanael asked him.
“Come and see,” Philip answered.
47 Then Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said about him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”
48 “How do you know me? ” Nathanael asked.
“Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you,” Jesus answered.
49 “Rabbi,” Nathanael replied, “You are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel! ”
50 Jesus responded to him, “Do you believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this.” 51 Then he said, “Truly I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
1:1-3 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.” John is the majestic evangelist. He is the high-soaring eagle with piercing eyes. His is the Gospel of the Son of God. We cannot describe the deity of Christ in clearer language than John uses. He was with God. He was God. He did the works of God, for he was the Creator. If any doubt his deity, they must do so in distinct defiance of the language of Holy Scripture.
1:6 “There was a man sent from God whose name was John.” How different is the style of this verse from the one that precedes it! How grand, how sublime, are the evangelist’s words when he speaks of Jesus, the Word of God! How truly human he becomes, how he dips his pen in ordinary ink when he writes here. Yet this is a noble testimony to the herald of Christ. John the Baptist was “a man sent from God.” John was a special witness, but we ought all to be witnesses to complete the chain of testimony. Every Christian should reckon that he is sent from God to bear witness to the great light that through him people might believe.
1:11-12 “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name.” The people you would have thought would have eagerly welcomed Christ did not do so. But here and there a man stood apart from the rest, or a woman came out from her surroundings, and each of these said, “I receive Christ as the Messiah.” You will never go to heaven in a crowd. The crowd goes down the broad road to destruction, but the way that leads to eternal life is a narrow way. They that go to heaven must come out one by one and say to the one sitting at the wicket gate that stands at the head of the way of life, “Set my name down, sir, as a pilgrim to the Celestial City.” We were slaves before. Now we are God’s children. We were strangers, aliens, enemies; and every word that means an evil thing might have been applied to us. But when we laid hold on Christ, we were regarded as the children of God.
1:29 “Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” The text not only mentions a lamb; it says, “Here is the Lamb of God.” It is not merely a sacrifice to which we are to look, but the sacrifice that God has appointed and ordained to be the one and only sacrifice for sin. This is an all-important point. “The LORD has punished him for the iniquity of us all” (Is 53:6). If Christ had not been sent by God to be the Savior of sinners, our faith would have no firm foundation to rest on. But as God himself has set forth Christ to be the propitiation for human guilt, then he cannot reject the sinner who accepts that propitiation.
It is “the Lamb of God” we must focus on. It is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died on Calvary, “the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring [us] to God” (1Pt 3:18). God appointed him to die as the substitute for sinners. God accepted this sacrifice when he died, and now Jehovah himself, speaking from his throne of glory, says to the sinner, “Believe on my Son, whom I have set forth as the propitiation for human sin. Trust in him and you will be eternally saved.”
A 1:3-4 Other punctuation is possible: . . . not one thing was created. What was created in him was life
B 1:5 Or grasp, or comprehend, or overtake ; Jn 12:35
D 1:9 Or The true light who comes into the world gives light to everyone, or The true light enlightens everyone coming into the world.
G 1:13 Or not of human lineage, or of human capacity, or of human volition
H 1:14 Or and dwelt in a tent ; lit and tabernacled
I 1:14 Son is implied from the reference to the Father and from Gk usage.
K 1:18 Other mss read The one and only Son, who is at the Father’s side
B 1:26 Or in, also in vv. 31,33
C 1:27 Other mss add who came before me
D 1:28 Other mss read in Bethabara
E 1:34 Other mss read is the Chosen One of God
F 1:39 Lit about the tenth hour
G 1:41 Both Hb Messiah and Gk Christos mean “anointed one”
H 1:42 Other mss read “Simon, son of Jonah
THE FIRST SIGN: TURNING WATER INTO WINE
2On the third day a wedding took place in Cana of Galilee. Jesus’s mother was there, and 2 Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding as well. 3 When the wine ran out, Jesus’s mother told him, “They don’t have any wine.”
4 “What does that have to do with you and me, A woman? ” Jesus asked. “My hour has not yet come.”
5 “Do whatever he tells you,” his mother told the servants.
6 Now six stone water jars had been set there for Jewish purification. Each contained twenty or thirty gallons. B
7 “Fill the jars with water,” Jesus told them. So they filled them to the brim. 8 Then he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the headwaiter.” C And they did.
9 When the headwaiter tasted the water (after it had become wine), he did not know where it came from — though the servants who had drawn the water knew. He called the groom 10 and told him, “Everyone sets out the fine wine first, then, after people are drunk, the inferior. But you have kept the fine wine until now.”
11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee. He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
QUOTE 2:11
It is a blessed need that makes room for Jesus to come in with miracles of love.
12 After this, he went down to Capernaum, together with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples, and they stayed there only a few days.
CLEANSING THE TEMPLE
13 The Jewish Passover was near, and so Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found people selling oxen, sheep, and doves, and he also found the money changers sitting there. 15 After making a whip out of cords, he drove everyone out of the temple with their sheep and oxen. He also poured out the money changers’ coins and overturned the tables. 16 He told those who were selling doves, “Get these things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace! ” A
17 And his disciples remembered that it is written: Zeal for your house will consume me. B
18 So the Jews replied to him, “What sign will you show us for doing these things? ”
19 Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple, C and I will raise it up in three days.”
20 Therefore the Jews said, “This temple took forty-six years to build, D and will you raise it up in three days? ”
21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 So when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the statement Jesus had made.
23 While he was in Jerusalem during the Passover Festival, many believed in his name when they saw the signs he was doing. 24 Jesus, however, would not entrust himself to them, since he knew them all 25 and because he did not need anyone to testify about man; for he himself knew what was in man.
2:11 “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee. He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.” This beginning of miracles was worked at a wedding to show great generosity. Marriage was the last relic of paradise left among us, and Jesus sought to honor it with his first miracle.
Our Lord’s miracles were worked in each case to meet a need. The wine had failed at the wedding feast, and our Lord had come in at the time of the need, when the bridegroom was fearful of being made ashamed. That need was a great blessing. If there had been sufficient wine for the feast, Jesus would not have worked this miracle, and they would not have tasted this purest and best of wine. It is a blessed need that makes room for Jesus to come in with miracles of love. It is good to run short that we may be driven to the Lord by our necessity, for he will more than supply it. If we have no need, Christ will not come to us. But if we are in dire necessity, his hands will stretch out to us. If our needs stand before us like huge empty water pots, or if our souls are as full of grief as those same pots were filled with water up to the brim, Jesus can, by his sweet will, turn all the water into wine—the sighing into singing. We should be glad to be weak so the power of God may rest on us.
A 2:4 Or “You and I see things differently ; lit “What to me and to you ; Mt 8:29; Mk 1:24; 5:7; Lk 8:28
B 2:6 Lit two or three measures
A 2:16 Lit a house of business
JESUS AND NICODEMUS
3There was a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to him at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform these signs you do unless God were with him.”
3 Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again, E he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
4 “How can anyone be born when he is old? ” Nicodemus asked him. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born? ”
5 Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again. 8 The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
9 “How can these things be? ” asked Nicodemus.
10 “Are you a teacher F of Israel and don’t know these things? ” Jesus replied. 11 “Truly I tell you, we speak what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you do not accept our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven — the Son of Man. G
14 “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may H have eternal life. 16 For God loved the world in this way: I He gave J his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. 19 This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, A so that his deeds may not be exposed. 21 But anyone who lives by B the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God.”
QUOTE 3:16
When the lightning writes the name of the Lord with flaming finger across the black brow of the tempest, we are compelled to see it; so also when love inscribes the cross on the tablet of our sin, even blind eyes must see that “love consists in this.”
JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST
22 After this, Jesus and his disciples went to the Judean countryside, where he spent time with them and baptized.
23 John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water there. People were coming and being baptized, 24 since John had not yet been thrown into prison.
25 Then a dispute arose between John’s disciples and a Jew C about purification. 26 So they came to John and told him, “Rabbi, the one you testified about, and who was with you across the Jordan, is baptizing — and everyone is going to him.”
27 John responded, “No one can receive anything unless it has been given to him from heaven. 28 You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah, but I’ve been sent ahead of him.’ 29 He who has the bride is the groom. But the groom’s friend, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly D at the groom’s voice. So this joy of mine is complete. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.”
THE ONE FROM HEAVEN
31 The one who comes from above is above all. The one who is from the earth is earthly and speaks in earthly terms. E The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32 He testifies to what he has seen and heard, and yet no one accepts his testimony. 33 The one who has accepted his testimony has affirmed that God is true. 34 For the one whom God sent speaks God’s words, since he F gives the Spirit without measure. 35 The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hands. 36 The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son G will not see life; instead, the wrath of God remains on him.
3:16 “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” The love of God is a wonderful thing, especially when we see it set on a lost, ruined, guilty world. What was there in the world that God should love it? There was nothing lovable in it. No fragrant flower grew in that arid desert. Enmity to him, hatred to his truth, disregard of his law, rebellion against his commandments—those were the thorns and briars that covered the wasteland, but no desirable thing blossomed there.
Where did this love come from? Not from anything outside of God himself. God’s love springs from himself. He loves because it is his nature to do so. “God is love” (1Jn 4:8). Nothing on the face of the earth could have merited his love, though there was much to merit his displeasure. This stream of love flows from its own secret source in the eternal deity, and it owes nothing to any earthborn rain or stream; it springs from beneath the everlasting throne and fills itself full from the springs of the infinite.
In the gift of his one and only Son, God commended his love to us, in that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rm 5:8). The black background of sin makes the bright line of love shine out the more clearly. When the lightning writes the name of the Lord with flaming finger across the black brow of the tempest, we are compelled to see it; so also when love inscribes the cross on the tablet of our sin, even blind eyes must see that “love consists in this” (1Jn 4:10).
E 3:3 Or from above, also in v. 7
G 3:13 Other mss add who is in heaven
H 3:15 Other mss add not perish, but
J 3:16 Or For in this way God loved the world, and so he gave, or For God so loved the world that he gave
A 3:20 Lit and does not come to the light
C 3:25 Other mss read and the Jews
F 3:34 Other mss read since God
G 3:36 Or refuses to believe in the Son, or disobeys the Son
JESUS AND THE SAMARITAN WOMAN
4When Jesus H learned that the Pharisees had heard he was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (though Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were), 3 he left Judea and went again to Galilee. 4 He had to travel through Samaria; 5 so he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the property A that Jacob had given his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, worn out from his journey, sat down at the well. It was about noon. B
7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
“Give me a drink,” Jesus said to her, 8 because his disciples had gone into town to buy food.
9 “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? ” she asked him. For Jews do not associate with C Samaritans. D
10 Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.”
11 “Sir,” said the woman, “you don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this ‘living water’? 12 You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”
13 Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well E of water springing up in him for eternal life.”
15 “Sir,” the woman said to him, “give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”
16 “Go call your husband,” he told her, “and come back here.”
17 “I don’t have a husband,” she answered.
“You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’ ” Jesus said. 18 “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 Jesus told her, “Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. F Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Jesus told her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”
THE RIPENED HARVEST
27 Just then his disciples arrived, and they were amazed that he was talking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do you want? ” or “Why are you talking with her? ”
28 Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah? ” 30 They left the town and made their way to him.
31 In the meantime the disciples kept urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32 But he said, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”
33 The disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat? ”
34 “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work,” Jesus told them. 35 “Don’t you say, ‘There are still four more months, and then comes the harvest’? Listen to what I’m telling you: Open A your eyes and look at the fields, because they are ready B for harvest. 36 The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. 37 For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap what you didn’t labor for; others have labored, and you have benefited from C their labor.”
QUOTE 4:34
When we have conquered ourselves, we have conquered all.
THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD
39 Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of what the woman said D when she testified, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 Many more believed because of what he said. E 42 And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, since we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world.” F
A GALILEAN WELCOME
43 After two days he left there for Galilee. 44 (Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.) 45 When they entered Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him because they had seen everything he did in Jerusalem during the festival. For they also had gone to the festival.
THE SECOND SIGN: HEALING AN OFFICIAL’S SON
46 He went again to Cana of Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. There was a certain royal official whose son was ill at Capernaum. 47 When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, he went to him and pleaded with him to come down and heal his son, since he was about to die.
48 Jesus told him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
49 “Sir,” the official said to him, “come down before my boy dies.”
50 “Go,” Jesus told him, “your son will live.” The man believed what A Jesus said to him and departed.
51 While he was still going down, his servants met him saying that his boy was alive. 52 He asked them at what time he got better. “Yesterday at one in the afternoon B the fever left him,” they answered. 53 The father realized this was the very hour at which Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” So he himself believed, along with his whole household.
54 Now this was also the second sign Jesus performed after he came from Judea to Galilee.
4:10 “Jesus answered, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.’” See the deadly mischief of ignorance concerning spiritual things? If she had known, she would have asked, and Christ would have given. But the first link was missing and, therefore, the rest of the chain was not drawn on. Sometimes all people need is a little wise instruction, and they will then trust the Savior. God grant that we may always be ready to give it. Some need much more than that, but Christ could truly say to this Samaritan woman, “If you had known, you would have asked, and I would have given.”
4:13 “Jesus said, ‘Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again.’” All things that are of earth are unsatisfactory. Our spirit craves for something more than time and sense can yield, but nothing that comes of earth, even if it should yield a transient satisfaction, can maintain its excellence for long. Pointing to the water in Jacob’s well, our Lord said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again.” And therein he took up his parable against all earthly things, whether fame, or riches, or fleshly pleasure, or anything else beneath the sun. Whoever drinks at these shallow wells will not quench but thirst. If for a time he imagines that he has done so, he will be deceived, and in a little season the old craving will return. Waters from his own cistern may stay a man’s desires for a while, but before long he must thirst again.
4:34 “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” He says nothing about his own will. People think that if they could have their own way they would be perfectly happy, and their dream of happiness consists in this—that their wishes will be gratified, their own longings fulfilled, and their desires granted to them. This is all a mistake. A person will never be happy in this way. Perfect happiness is to be found in exactly the opposite direction, namely, in the casting down of our own will entirely and asking that the will of God may be fulfilled in us. “This is my food,” says the sinner, “to do my own will.” Jesus Christ points to another table and says, “This is my food, to do the will of him that sent me. My greatest comfort and the most substantial nourishment of my spirit are not found in carrying out my own desires but in submitting all my desires to the will of God.” When we have conquered ourselves, we have conquered all. When we have won the victory over our own desires and dislikes and have subdued ourselves through sovereign grace to the will of God, then we will be perfectly happy.
4:46-47, 53 “There was a certain royal official whose son was ill at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, he went to him and pleaded with him to come down and heal his son, since he was about to die. . . . So he himself believed, along with his whole household.” Notice that the official’s faith came in stages. There was first the spark of faith, which rested entirely on the report of others. And it was such a little faith that it only concerned the healing of the sick child. The nobleman did not know that he needed healing in his own heart. Then notice that his faith was so feeble that he limited Jesus’s power to his local presence. He asked Jesus, “Sir, come down before my boy dies.” Yet his faith was sufficient for him to take a considerable journey to find our Lord.
Then there was the fire of faith. He stood before the Savior resolved not to go away from him. His only hope for his child’s life was in this great Prophet of Nazareth, and therefore he did not intend to leave him till his request was granted. Then we see the flame of faith. When Jesus said, “Go, . . . your son will live,” “The man believed what Jesus said to him and departed.” Finally there was the conflagration of faith. When the answer to his prayers was confirmed, “he himself believed,” as well his wife and son. From that day forth he became a disciple of the Lord Jesus. He followed him, not as a healer only, or as a prophet only, or as a Savior only, but as his Lord and his God.
B 4:6 Lit about the sixth hour
C 4:9 Or do not share vessels with
D 4:9 Other mss omit For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.
F 4:23 Or in spirit and truth, also in v. 24
C 4:38 Lit you have entered into
D 4:39 Lit because of the woman’s word
E 4:41 Lit because of his word
THE THIRD SIGN: HEALING THE SICK
5After this, a Jewish festival took place, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 By the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there is a pool, called Bethesda C in Aramaic, which has five colonnades. 3 Within these lay a large number of the disabled — blind, lame, and paralyzed. D
5 One man was there who had been disabled for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and realized he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to get well? ”
7 “Sir,” the disabled man answered, “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, someone goes down ahead of me.”
8 “Get up,” Jesus told him, “pick up your mat and walk.” 9 Instantly the man got well, picked up his mat, and started to walk.
Now that day was the Sabbath, 10 and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “This is the Sabbath. The law prohibits you from picking up your mat.”
11 He replied, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
12 “Who is this man who told you, ‘Pick up your mat and walk’? ” they asked. 13 But the man who was healed did not know who it was, because Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. E
14 After this, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well. Do not sin anymore, so that something worse doesn’t happen to you.” 15 The man went and reported to the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16 Therefore, the Jews began persecuting Jesus F because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.
HONORING THE FATHER AND THE SON
17 Jesus responded to them, “My Father is still working, and I am working also.” 18 This is why the Jews began trying all the more to kill him: Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal to God.
19 Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, the Son is not able to do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father A does, the Son likewise does these things. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing, and he will show him greater works than these so that you will be amazed. 21 And just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to whom he wants. 22 The Father, in fact, judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, 23 so that all people may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
LIFE AND JUDGMENT
24 “Truly I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to life.
25 “Truly I tell you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he has granted to the Son to have life in himself. 27 And he has granted him the right to pass judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28 Do not be amazed at this, because a time is coming when all who are in the graves will hear his voice 29 and come out — those who have done good things, to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked things, to the resurrection of condemnation.
30 “I can do nothing on my own. I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
WITNESSES TO JESUS
31 “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. 32 There is another who testifies about me, and I know that the testimony he gives about me is true. 33 You sent messengers to John, and he testified to the truth. 34 I don’t receive human testimony, but I say these things so that you may be saved. 35 John B was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.
36 “But I have a greater testimony than John’s because of the works that the Father has given me to accomplish. These very works I am doing testify about me that the Father has sent me. 37 The Father who sent me has himself testified about me. You have not heard his voice at any time, and you haven’t seen his form. 38 You don’t have his word residing in you, because you don’t believe the one he sent. 39 You pore over the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, and yet they testify about me. 40 But you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life.
41 “I do not accept glory from people, 42 but I know you — that you have no love for God within you. 43 I have come in my Father’s name, and yet you don’t accept me. If someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. 44 How can you believe, since you accept glory from one another but don’t seek the glory that comes from the only God? 45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope. 46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me. 47 But if you don’t believe what he wrote, how will you believe my words? ”
QUOTE 5:44
If others praise us, if they dwell on our good points, if they pay respect to our position, if they notice our abilities and talents, we are apt to think there should be some special way to heaven for us because we are so respected.
5:6 “When Jesus saw him lying there and realized he had already been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to get well?’” The great Physician fixed his eye on him, for his was an extraordinary case. Probably he was known and talked of as the man who had been paralyzed thirty-eight years. Note that it does not say, “When the man saw Jesus,” but, “When Jesus saw him.” He did not know Jesus. Possibly he had not even heard of his healing power and compassionate love. He was not seeking Jesus, but Jesus was seeking him.
5:44 “How can you believe, since you accept glory from one another but don’t seek the glory that comes from the only God?” The mere fact of receiving honor, even if that honor is rightly rendered, can make faith in Christ difficult. We can come to feel that we are something when others honor us, and this is dangerous, for we won’t believe in Jesus until we know we are nothing in and of ourselves. If others praise us, if they dwell on our good points, if they pay respect to our position, if they notice our abilities and talents, we are apt to think there should be some special way to heaven for us because we are so respected. And when the gospel says, “You must be saved as a sinner or not at all. You must give up all claims of merit and all reliance on what you can do, or else you never can be saved,” then, in all probability, the mere fact of our having received honor from other people will render it the more difficult for us to believe a doctrine that gives no honor to people but stains the pride of all glory and casts human excellency into the dust.
Moreover, that same spirit that makes us love the praises of people makes us dread their threats. We cannot be pleased with the adulation of others without becoming fearful of their censure. It is a perilous thing to taste of human honor. To despise it utterly is the only way of bearing it without being injured by it. For I say again, delight in the praises of others saps the foundations of a person’s vitality. Delight in the praise of people takes us away from following after the glory of God and makes us afraid of following the truth if it costs us ridicule and reputation.
C 5:2 Some mss read Bethzatha ; other mss read Bethsaida
D 5:3 Some mss include vv. 3b-4: — waiting for the moving of the water, 4because an angel would go down into the pool from time to time and stir up the water. Then the first one who got in after the water was stirred up recovered from whatever ailment he had.
E 5:13 Lit slipped away, there being a crowd in that place
THE FOURTH SIGN: FEEDING OF THE FIVE THOUSAND
6After this, Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee (or Tiberias). 2 A huge crowd was following him because they saw the signs that he was performing by healing the sick. 3 Jesus went up a mountain and sat down there with his disciples.
4 Now the Passover, a Jewish festival, was near. 5 So when Jesus looked up and noticed a huge crowd coming toward him, he asked Philip, “Where will we buy bread so that these people can eat? ” 6 He asked this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do.
7 Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii A worth of bread wouldn’t be enough for each of them to have a little.”
8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9 “There’s a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish — but what are they for so many? ”
10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.”
There was plenty of grass in that place; so they sat down. The men numbered about five thousand. 11 Then Jesus took the loaves, and after giving thanks he distributed them to those who were seated — so also with the fish, as much as they wanted.
12 When they were full, he told his disciples, “Collect the leftovers so that nothing is wasted.” 13 So they collected them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces from the five barley loaves that were left over by those who had eaten.
14 When the people saw the sign B he had done, they said, “This truly is the Prophet who is to come into the world.”
15 Therefore, when Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
THE FIFTH SIGN: WALKING ON WATER
16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, 17 got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. Darkness had already set in, but Jesus had not yet come to them. 18 A high wind arose, and the sea began to churn. 19 After they had rowed about three or four miles, C they saw Jesus walking on the sea. He was coming near the boat, and they were afraid. 20 But he said to them, “It is I. D Don’t be afraid.” 21 Then they were willing to take him on board, and at once the boat was at the shore where they were heading.
THE BREAD OF LIFE
22 The next day, the crowd that had stayed on the other side of the sea saw there had been only one boat. E They also saw that Jesus had not boarded the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone off alone. 23 Some boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24 When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. 25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here? ”
26 Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw A the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled. 27 Don’t work for the food that perishes but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal of approval on him.”
28 “What can we do to perform the works of God? ” they asked.
29 Jesus replied, “This is the work of God — that you believe in the one he has sent.”
QUOTE 6:29
As a forest may lie asleep within an acorn, so within the bounds of faith, little though it is, every virtue lies hidden.
30 “What sign, then, are you going to do so we may see and believe you? ” they asked. “What are you going to perform? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” B
32 Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, Moses didn’t give you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 Then they said, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
35 “I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them. “No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again. 36 But as I told you, you’ve seen me, C and yet you do not believe. 37 Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. 39 This is the will of him who sent me: that I should lose none of those he has given me but should raise them up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
41 Therefore the Jews started complaining about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They were saying, “Isn’t this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’? ”
43 Jesus answered them, “Stop complaining among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws D him, and I will raise him up on the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: And they will all be taught by God. A Everyone who has listened to and learned from the Father comes to me — 46 not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God. He has seen the Father.
47 “Truly I tell you, anyone who believes B has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that anyone may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
52 At that, the Jews argued among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat? ”
53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves. 54 The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day, 55 because my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56 The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the manna C your ancestors ate — and they died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.”
59 He said these things while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
MANY DISCIPLES DESERT JESUS
60 Therefore, when many of his disciples heard this, they said, “This teaching is hard. Who can accept D it? ”
61 Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were complaining about this, asked them, “Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you were to observe the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 The Spirit is the one who gives life. The flesh doesn’t help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. 64 But there are some among you who don’t believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning those who did not E believe and the one who would betray him.) 65 He said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the Father.”
66 From that moment F many of his disciples turned back and no longer accompanied him. 67 So Jesus said to the Twelve, “You don’t want to go away too, do you? ”
68 Simon Peter answered, “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” A
70 Jesus replied to them, “Didn’t I choose you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.” 71 He was referring to Judas, Simon Iscariot’s son, B one of the Twelve, because he was going to betray him.
6:29 “This is the work of God—that you believe in the one he has sent.” Faith is most pleasing to God because it is the comprehensive summary of all true work. There lies within a heart of faith every possible form of holiness. As a forest may lie asleep within an acorn, so within the bounds of faith, little though it is, every virtue lies hidden. It may be microscopic in form, but it is certainly there and only needs development.
If I had before me a list of all the graces of the Spirit of God and I were to take them up one by one and examine them for faith, I would find some measure of all these good works of the Spirit hidden away in the simple act of believing in Jesus Christ. I know what some of us have asked—“Is that all we have to do to be saved? Are we simply and only to believe in Christ, that is, entrust ourselves to him?” Yes, that is all, and it is so small an act that even the most uneducated heart can perform it. Yet within it there are inconceivable mysteries of goodness. What is more, all the graces come out of faith in due time, for faith sums up the whole of a Christian’s life.
6:37 “Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out.” Christ will not die in vain. His Father gave him a certain number to be the reward of his soul travail, and he will have every one of them. Almighty grace will sweetly constrain them all to come. My father recently gave me some letters that I wrote to him when I began to preach. They are almost boyish epistles, but, in reading through them again, I noticed in one of them this expression: “How I long to see thousands of men saved, but my great comfort is that some will be saved, must be saved, shall be saved, for it is written, ‘All that the Father gives me shall come to me.”
6:53, 55 “So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves. . . . because my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.’” Jesus did not guard his words by saying, “I am like bread, and faith is like eating and drinking,” but he said, “I am the bread of life” (6:35) and “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves.” To us who know the meaning of Christ’s words, it seems monstrous that anyone could have supposed that Jesus meant men to eat His real, literal flesh and to drink His actual blood. The best of literal food only feeds the body for a time, for that body ultimately decays. It is not in the power of food to repair the waste that is continually going on, that the physical system will forever abide firm and strong. This food is food, but it is not “true food.” There are also various kinds of drink that refresh and invigorate the body, and by means of these we are enabled to continue from day to day. But where is the water, where is the crystal fountain that can give immortality? Where is the juice expressed from any fruit that grows beneath the sky that can rid the body of all disease and pain and cause it to live on without end? Among all the many kinds of literal food and drink, there is no food that is worthy to be called “true food,” or any drink that is worthy to be called “true drink.” But the doctrine of the incarnation of Christ, which is expressed by his flesh, is food to our souls, and the great truth of the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ, which is expressed by his blood, is the most nourishing cordial to our hearts.
6:66 “From that moment many of his disciples turned back and no longer accompanied him.” We believe the truth of the final perseverance of the saints concerning the true people of God, but the question comes to our heart, are we such? Is there in us the incorruptible seed that lives and abides forever? And how are we to know that we are such but by this perseverance? While it is an effect of grace, it is also one of the most certain tokens of it, for there is not the true grace of God in the heart where there is no perseverance in grace even unto the end. “But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Mt 10:22).
A 6:7 A denarius = one day’s wage
C 6:19 Lit twenty-five or thirty stadia ; one stadion = 600 feet
E 6:22 Other mss add into which his disciples had entered
C 6:58 Other mss omit the manna
A 6:69 Other mss read you are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God
THE UNBELIEF OF JESUS’S BROTHERS
7After this, Jesus traveled in Galilee, since he did not want to travel in Judea because the Jews were trying to kill him. 2 The Jewish Festival of Shelters C was near. 3 So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea so your disciples can see your works that you are doing. 4 For no one does anything in secret while he’s seeking public recognition. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” 5 (For not even his brothers believed in him.)
6 Jesus told them, “My time has not yet arrived, but your time is always at hand. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it does hate me because I testify about it — that its works are evil. 8 Go up to the festival yourselves. I’m not going up to this festival, D because my time has not yet fully come.” 9 After he had said these things, he stayed in Galilee.
JESUS AT THE FESTIVAL OF SHELTERS
10 After his brothers had gone up to the festival, then he also went up, not openly but secretly. 11 The Jews were looking for him at the festival and saying, “Where is he? ” 12 And there was a lot of murmuring about him among the crowds. Some were saying, “He’s a good man.” Others were saying, “No, on the contrary, he’s deceiving the people.” 13 Still, nobody was talking publicly about him for fear of the Jews.
14 When the festival was already half over, Jesus went up into the temple and began to teach. 15 Then the Jews were amazed and said, “How is this man so learned, since he hasn’t been trained? ”
16 Jesus answered them, “My teaching isn’t mine but is from the one who sent me. 17 If anyone wants to do his will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own. 18 The one who speaks on his own seeks his own glory; but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him. 19 Didn’t Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me? ”
20 “You have a demon! ” the crowd responded. “Who is trying to kill you? ”
21 “I performed one work, and you are all amazed,” Jesus answered. 22 “This is why Moses has given you circumcision — not that it comes from Moses but from the fathers — and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. 23 If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses won’t be broken, are you angry at me because I made a man entirely well on the Sabbath? 24 Stop judging according to outward appearances; rather judge according to righteous judgment.”
THE IDENTITY OF THE MESSIAH
25 Some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill? 26 Yet, look, he’s speaking publicly and they’re saying nothing to him. Can it be true that the authorities know he is the Messiah? 27 But we know where this man is from. When the Messiah comes, nobody will know where he is from.”
“The officers answered, Never man spake like this man.”
This testimony is the more valuable as coming from enemies. It relates both to his eloquent manner and sacred matter.
I.AS TO HIS MANNER. THERE ARE TWO THINGS TO BE NOTICED:
1.The qualities of the speaker:
Incorruptible Truth.
Fidelity: To the young man, to the rich, to his followers.
Boldness: To the people at Nazareth, Capernaum, High Priest.
Zeal: He came to do his father’s work, and he did it.
Prudence: Could not be entrapped. No premature disclosures.
Wisdom: Confounding his enemies. Suited his discourses to his learner.
Humility: Woman of Samaria. Conversation with Children.
Love: Jerusalem, “Weep not for me,” “Father, forgive them.”
2.The Characteristics of his style.
Simplicity: His discourses, Parables, Figures, to the Poor.
Seriousness: No smile or joke. Rich man and Lazarus.
Earnestness: His whole heart and soul was in it.
Directness: Vineyard, Samaritan woman, Adultress,
Scribe[s] and Pharisees.
II.AS TO THE MATTER, “NEVER MAN SPAKE LIKE THIS MAN.”
1.Important: Soul, Sin, God, Holiness, Hell, Heaven.
2.Joyful: Pardon, Redemption, Restoration, Liberty.
If we compare Jesus with others, he excels.
Moses could preach law, not gospel; terror, not love.
Noah, preacher of righteousness, not full gospel.
Nathan’s personality. He excelled him in other things.
Elijah needed a little gentleness and love.
Jeremiah was all pathetic. Jesus sometimes rejoiced.
Jesus concentrated the marrow of all styles, the jewels of language, and the solemnities of eternity.
Yet. 1. His small success sets forth our dependance on the Spirit, while his character is the model of a minister.
70.
28 As he was teaching in the temple, Jesus cried out, “You know me and you know where I am from. Yet I have not come on my own, but the one who sent me is true. You don’t know him; 29 I know him because I am from him, and he sent me.”
30 Then they tried to seize him. Yet no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come. 31 However, many from the crowd believed in him and said, “When the Messiah comes, he won’t perform more signs than this man has done, will he? ” 32 The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring these things about him, and so the chief priests and the Pharisees sent servants A to arrest him.
33 Then Jesus said, “I am only with you for a short time. Then I’m going to the one who sent me. 34 You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come.”
35 Then the Jews said to one another, “Where does he intend to go so we won’t find him? He doesn’t intend to go to the Jewish people dispersed B among the Greeks and teach the Greeks, does he? 36 What is this remark he made: ‘You will look for me, and you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come’? ”
THE PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT
37 On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me C and drink. 38 The one who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.” 39 He said this about the Spirit. Those who believed in Jesus were going to receive the Spirit, for the Spirit D had not yet been given E because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
THE PEOPLE ARE DIVIDED OVER JESUS
40 When some from the crowd heard these words, they said, “This truly is the Prophet.” 41 Others said, “This is the Messiah.” But some said, “Surely the Messiah doesn’t come from Galilee, does he? 42 Doesn’t the Scripture say that the Messiah comes from David’s offspring F and from the town of Bethlehem, where David lived? ” 43 So the crowd was divided because of him. 44 Some of them wanted to seize him, but no one laid hands on him.
DEBATE OVER JESUS’S CLAIMS
45 Then the servants came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him? ”
46 The servants answered, “No man ever spoke like this! ” G
47 Then the Pharisees responded to them: “Are you fooled too? 48 Have any of the rulers or Pharisees believed in him? 49 But this crowd, which doesn’t know the law, is accursed.”
50 Nicodemus — the one who came to him previously and who was one of them — said to them, 51 “Our law doesn’t judge a man before it hears from him and knows what he’s doing, does it? ”
52 “You aren’t from Galilee too, are you? ” they replied. “Investigate and you will see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”
7:37-39 “Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. The one who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.’ He said this about the Spirit.” We who are believers have the most forcible reasons to hold the Holy Spirit in the highest regard, for what would we be without him? He gave us understanding that we might know the truth. He awakened our consciences, convicting us of sin. He gave us a hatred of sin and led us to repent. He taught us to believe and made us see Jesus, the Son of God. The Spirit has worked in us faith and love and hope and every grace. There is not a jewel on the neck of our souls that he did not place there.
Who has comforted us in our distresses, directed us in our perplexities, strengthened us in our weaknesses, and helped us in our infirmities in ten thousand ways? Is it not the Comforter whom the Father has sent in Jesus’s name? Can I speak too highly of the riches of his grace toward us?
C 7:2 Or Tabernacles, or Booths
A 7:32 Or temple police, or officers, also in vv. 45,46
B 7:35 Gk diaspora ; Jewish people scattered throughout Gentile lands
D 7:39 Other mss read Holy Spirit
E 7:39 Lit the Spirit was not yet
G 7:46 Other mss read like this man
H 7:53–8:11 Other mss include all or some of the passage after Jn 7:36,44,52; 21:25; or Lk 21:38.
8[53 Then each one went to his house.
1 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
AN ADULTERESS FORGIVEN
2 At dawn he went to the temple again, and all the people were coming to him. He sat down and began to teach them.
3 Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, making her stand in the center. 4 “Teacher,” they said to him, “this woman was caught in the act of committing adultery. 5 In the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say? ” 6 They asked this to trap him, in order that they might have evidence to accuse him.
Jesus stooped down and started writing on the ground with his finger. 7 When they persisted in questioning him, he stood up and said to them, “The one without sin among you should be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Then he stooped down again and continued writing on the ground. 9 When they heard this, they left one by one, starting with the older men. Only he was left, with the woman in the center. 10 When Jesus stood up, he said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? ”
11 “No one, Lord,” A she answered.
“Neither do I condemn you,” said Jesus. “Go, and from now on do not sin anymore.”]
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
12 Jesus spoke to them again: “I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.”
13 So the Pharisees said to him, “You are testifying about yourself. Your testimony is not valid.”
14 “Even if I testify about myself,” Jesus replied, “My testimony is true, because I know where I came from and where I’m going. But you don’t know where I come from or where I’m going. 15 You judge by human standards. B I judge no one. 16 And if I do judge, my judgment is true, because it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. 17 Even in your law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. 18 I am the one who testifies about myself, and the Father who sent me testifies about me.”
19 Then they asked him, “Where is your Father? ”
“You know neither me nor my Father,” Jesus answered. “If you knew me, you would also know my Father.” 20 He spoke these words by the treasury, while teaching in the temple. But no one seized him, because his hour had not yet come.
JESUS PREDICTS HIS DEPARTURE
21 Then he said to them again, “I’m going away; you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I’m going, you cannot come.”
22 So the Jews said again, “He won’t kill himself, will he, since he says, ‘Where I’m going, you cannot come’? ”
23 “You are from below,” he told them, “I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 Therefore I told you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.”
25 “Who are you? ” they questioned.
“Exactly what I’ve been telling you from the very beginning,” Jesus told them. 26 “I have many things to say and to judge about you, but the one who sent me is true, and what I have heard from him — these things I tell the world.”
27 They did not know he was speaking to them about the Father. 28 So Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own. But just as the Father taught me, I say these things. 29 The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do what pleases him.”
TRUTH AND FREEDOM
30 As he was saying these things, many believed in him.
31 Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you continue in my word, A you really are my disciples. 32 You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
33 “We are descendants B of Abraham,” they answered him, “and we have never been enslaved to anyone. How can you say, ‘You will become free’? ”
34 Jesus responded, “Truly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. 35 A slave does not remain in the household forever, but a son does remain forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free. 37 I know you are descendants of Abraham, but you are trying to kill me because my word has no place among you. 38 I speak what I have seen in the presence of the Father; C so then, you do what you have heard from your father.”
39 “Our father is Abraham,” they replied.
“If you were Abraham’s children,” Jesus told them, “you would do what Abraham did. 40 But now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do this. 41 You’re doing what your father does.”
“We weren’t born of sexual immorality,” they said. “We have one Father — God.”
42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, because I came from God and I am here. For I didn’t come on my own, but he sent me. 43 Why don’t you understand what I say? Because you cannot listen to D my word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, E because he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. 46 Who among you can convict me of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? 47 The one who is from God listens to God’s words. This is why you don’t listen, because you are not from God.”
JESUS AND ABRAHAM
48 The Jews responded to him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you’re a Samaritan and have a demon? ”
49 “I do not have a demon,” Jesus answered. “On the contrary, I honor my Father and you dishonor me. 50 I do not seek my own glory; there is one who seeks it and judges. 51 Truly I tell you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”
52 Then the Jews said, “Now we know you have a demon. Abraham died and so did the prophets. You say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.’ 53 Are you greater than our father Abraham who died? And the prophets died. Who do you claim to be? ”
54 “If I glorify myself,” Jesus answered, “my glory is nothing. My Father — about whom you say, ‘He is our God’ — he is the one who glorifies me. 55 You do not know him, but I know him. If I were to say I don’t know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him, and I keep his word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad.”
57 The Jews replied, “You aren’t fifty years old yet, and you’ve seen Abraham? ” A
58 Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.”
59 So they picked up stones to throw at him. But Jesus was hidden B and went out of the temple. C
8:12 “Jesus spoke to them again: ‘I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.’” That Jesus is the light of the world is to be seen in all parts of his blessed history. Look at him in his cradle. To the eye of faith, what radiance emanates from the newborn baby. Behold the mystery of the incarnation. God is manifest in our nature. He dwells among us. The light is clear and dazzling.
He shone in his growing up years as his increasing wisdom kept pace with his increasing stature. His baptism throws a wonderful light on consecration to God; and the dire temptations that quickly followed, wherein he defeated the tempter, have thrown a brilliant light on the path of all Christians. As a preacher he was luminous. He expounded the spirituality of the law of God. Light penetrated the precept through and through as he made the essence of purity apparent. His light cleared the law of the mists and fogs that the religious teachers had gathered around it. He shed light, too, on the covenant of grace. He promulgated the gospel of peace among the people. He told of God the Father, willing to receive his prodigal children back again into his heart. His parables threw wondrous light on the kingdom of heaven. His counsels and his cautions brought the final destinies of the righteous and the wicked into full view. Eternity dawned on his hearers while he spoke. His own life exhibited the power of love, the value of sympathy, and the virtue of forgiving injuries. His death gave yet more palpable evidence of unfaltering submission to the will of God and unflinching self-sacrifice for the welfare of people.
8:32 “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Our Savior later explains that he means free from sin. He who lives in sin is the slave of sin. Sincere belief in the word of Christ leads to emancipation from the tyrannical power of the evil that dwells in our members and from the dominating power of the sin that rules in the customs of the world. We will be free from our own prejudices, prides, and lusts. We will be free from the fear of others. If we have sunk so low as almost to ask of the great one’s permission to breathe, we will break that irksome fetter. The truth known within our spirits will make a free man of us. Up to now we may have been the bondsman of self. We have inquired, “What will this thing profit me?” and thus the desire of self-aggrandizement has ruled everything, but when Jesus is our Lord, we will be free from this sordid motive.
8:58 “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.’” They had asked him, “Who do you make yourself out to be?” And now they have his answer! It is the name by which God revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush, “I AM.” Yet Jesus takes this title to himself! “I AM,” as if his life was one continued present existence, as indeed it is, for with God there is no past or future, but all things are ever present to his infinite mind. Jesus’s statement claimed the Godhead. He declared that he was certainly God, self-existent from all eternity. Then they took up stones to cast at him. They counted him a blasphemer, and so he was if he was not all he claimed to be. If he was not really God, he led men to think he was. If he was not God, he was the biggest impostor who ever visited this world. But he is God and nothing less.
A 8:11 Or Sir ; Jn 4:15,49; 5:7; 6:34; 9:36
B 8:15 Lit You judge according to the flesh
A 8:31 Or my teaching, or my message, also in v. 37
B 8:33 Or offspring ; lit seed, also in v. 37; Jn 7:42
C 8:38 Other mss read of my Father
E 8:44 Lit from his own things
A 8:57 Other mss read and Abraham has seen you?
C 8:59 Other mss add and having gone through their midst, he passed by
THE SIXTH SIGN: HEALING A MAN BORN BLIND
9As he was passing by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? ”
3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus answered. “This came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him. 4 We D must do the works of him who sent me E while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
6 After he said these things he spit on the ground, made some mud from the saliva, and spread the mud on his eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So he left, washed, and came back seeing.
8 His neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar said, “Isn’t this the one who used to sit begging? ” 9 Some said, “He’s the one.” Others were saying, “No, but he looks like him.”
He kept saying, “I’m the one.”
10 So they asked him, “Then how were your eyes opened? ”
11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So when I went and washed I received my sight.”
12 “Where is he? ” they asked.
“I don’t know,” he said.
THE HEALED MAN’S TESTIMONY
13 They brought the man who used to be blind to the Pharisees. 14 The day that Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes was a Sabbath. 15 Then the Pharisees asked him again how he received his sight.
“He put mud on my eyes,” he told them. “I washed and I can see.”
16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, because he doesn’t keep the Sabbath.” But others were saying, “How can a sinful man perform such signs? ” And there was a division among them.
17 Again they asked the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he opened your eyes? ”
“He’s a prophet,” he said.
18 The Jews did not believe this about him — that he was blind and received sight — until they summoned the parents of the one who had received his sight.
19 They asked them, “Is this your son, the one you say was born blind? How then does he now see? ”
20 “We know this is our son and that he was born blind,” his parents answered. 21 “But we don’t know how he now sees, and we don’t know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he’s of age. He will speak for himself.” 22 His parents said these things because they were afraid of the Jews, since the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed him as the Messiah, he would be banned from the synagogue. 23 This is why his parents said, “He’s of age; ask him.”
24 So a second time they summoned the man who had been blind and told him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.”
25 He answered, “Whether or not he’s a sinner, I don’t know. One thing I do know: I was blind, and now I can see! ”
26 Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? ”
27 “I already told you,” he said, “and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? You don’t want to become his disciples too, do you? ”
28 They ridiculed him: “You’re that man’s disciple, but we’re Moses’s disciples. 29 We know that God has spoken to Moses. But this man — we don’t know where he’s from.”
30 “This is an amazing thing! ” the man told them. “You don’t know where he is from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone is God-fearing and does his will, he listens to him. 32 Throughout history A no one has ever heard of someone opening the eyes of a person born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he wouldn’t be able to do anything.”
34 “You were born entirely in sin,” they replied, “and are you trying to teach us? ” Then they threw him out.
SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS
35 Jesus heard that they had thrown the man out, and when he found him, he asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man? ” B
36 “Who is he, Sir, that I may believe in him? ” he asked.
37 Jesus answered, “You have seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”
38 “I believe, Lord! ” he said, and he worshiped him.
39 Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, in order that those who do not see will see and those who do see will become blind.”
40 Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things and asked him, “We aren’t blind too, are we? ”
41 “If you were blind,” Jesus told them, “you wouldn’t have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.
9:5-7 “‘As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’ After he said these things he spit on the ground, made some mud from the saliva, and spread the mud on his [the blind man’s] eyes. ‘Go,’ he told him, ‘wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which means ‘Sent’). So he left, washed, and came back seeing.” As soon as this man received his sight, “the man called Jesus” (9:11) came to the forefront. Jesus became the most important person in existence. All he knew of Jesus at first was his name, and under that name was the whole horizon of his vision. Jesus was more to him than the learned Pharisees, or than all his neighbors put together. Jesus was exceedingly great, for he had opened his eyes. Fixing his mind on Jesus, he saw more in him and declared, “He’s a prophet” (9:17). He boldly said this at great personal risk, telling it to the faces of the complaining Pharisees. Soon after, he came to believe that Jesus is the Son of Man, and he worshiped him (9:35-38).
THE GOOD SHEPHERD
10“Truly I tell you, anyone who doesn’t enter the sheep pen by the gate but climbs in some other way is a thief and a robber. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought all his own outside, he goes ahead of them. The sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 They will never follow a stranger; instead they will run away from him, because they don’t know the voice of strangers.” 6 Jesus gave them this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them.
7 Jesus said again, “Truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me A are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn’t listen to them. 9 I am the gate. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand, since he is not the shepherd and doesn’t own the sheep, leaves them B and runs away when he sees a wolf coming. The wolf then snatches and scatters them. 13 This happens because he is a hired hand and doesn’t care about the sheep.
14 “I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 But I have other sheep that are not from this sheep pen; I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. Then there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17 This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”
19 Again the Jews were divided because of these words. 20 Many of them were saying, “He has a demon and he’s crazy. Why do you listen to him? ” 21 Others were saying, “These aren’t the words of someone who is demon-possessed. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind? ”
JESUS AT THE FESTIVAL OF DEDICATION
22 Then the Festival of Dedication took place in Jerusalem, and it was winter. 23 Jesus was walking in the temple in Solomon’s Colonnade. 24 The Jews surrounded him and asked, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? C If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” D
25 “I did tell you and you don’t believe,” Jesus answered them. “The works that I do in my Father’s name testify about me. 26 But you don’t believe because you are not of my sheep. E 27 My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”
RENEWED EFFORTS TO STONE JESUS
31 Again the Jews picked up rocks to stone him.
32 Jesus replied, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these works are you stoning me? ”
33 “We aren’t stoning you for a good work,” the Jews answered, “but for blasphemy, because you — being a man — make yourself God.”
34 Jesus answered them, “Isn’t it written in your law, A I said, you are gods? B 35 If he called those whom the word of God came to ‘gods’ — and the Scripture cannot be broken — 36 do you say, ‘You are blaspheming’ to the one the Father set apart and sent into the world, because I said: I am the Son of God? 37 If I am not doing my Father’s works, don’t believe me. 38 But if I am doing them and you don’t believe me, believe the works. This way you will know and understand C that the Father is in me and I in the Father.” 39 Then they were trying again to seize him, but he eluded their grasp.
MANY BEYOND THE JORDAN BELIEVE IN JESUS
40 So he departed again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing earlier, and he remained there. 41 Many came to him and said, “John never did a sign, but everything John said about this man was true.” 42 And many believed in him there.
10:11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Jesus stands in the same relationship to his people as a shepherd does to his flock. He owns his people; every one of them belong to him. He prizes them because they are his—sets a value on each of them. He takes care of them, remembering them both night and day. His heart is never off them, and because of his inward love, there is an outward goodness that he constantly extends to them. He protects them from the wolf. He guards them from a thousand dangers. He supplies all their needs. He guides them in the right way. He brings them back when they wander. He strengthens them when they are weak. He carries them when they are too feeble to go on. He sees that they are a weak flock, a silly flock, and a wandering flock; therefore he is their strength, their wisdom, their righteousness, their all.
10:27-30 “My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” The security of the people of God lies, first of all, in the character of the life they received (“eternal life”) and in the glorious character of the one who says, “I give them.” The life that Christ gives is not that poor, paltry life that lasts the professor three weeks or three months and then dwindles down and dies. The children of God are safe, not only because of the life they receive but because of the dangers that are averted. They are in his hand—that is, in his possession. He grasps them as a man holds a thing and says, “It is mine.” No one can take them away from his protection. Someone may wickedly say, “They may get out of his hand themselves.” But how can this be true, for Jesus says, “They will never perish.”
A 10:8 Other mss omit before me
C 10:24 Lit “How long are you taking away our life?
D 10:24 Or openly, or publicly
E 10:26 Other mss add just as I told you
LAZARUS DIES AT BETHANY
11Now a man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair, and it was her brother Lazarus who was sick. 3 So the sisters sent a message to him: “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
4 When Jesus heard it, he said, “This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was. 7 Then after that, he said to the disciples, “Let’s go to Judea again.”
8 “Rabbi,” the disciples told him, “just now the Jews tried to stone you, and you’re going there again? ”
9 “Aren’t there twelve hours in a day? ” Jesus answered. “If anyone walks during the day, he doesn’t stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 But if anyone walks during the night, he does stumble, because the light is not in him.”
11 He said this, and then he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I’m on my way to wake him up.”
12 Then the disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will get well.”
13 Jesus, however, was speaking about his death, but they thought he was speaking about natural sleep. 14 So Jesus then told them plainly, “Lazarus has died. 15 I’m glad for you that I wasn’t there so that you may believe. But let’s go to him.”
16 Then Thomas (called “Twin” D) said to his fellow disciples, “Let’s go too so that we may die with him.”
THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE
17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Bethany was near Jerusalem (less than two miles A away). 19 Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother.
20 As soon as Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, but Mary remained seated in the house. 21 Then Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. 22 Yet even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”
23 “Your brother will rise again,” Jesus told her.
24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. 26 Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? ”
27 “Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who comes into the world.”
JESUS SHARES THE SORROW OF DEATH
28 Having said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”
29 As soon as Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Jesus had not yet come into the village but was still in the place where Martha had met him. 31 The Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw that Mary got up quickly and went out. They followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to cry there.
32 As soon as Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and told him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died! ”
33 When Jesus saw her crying, and the Jews who had come with her crying, he was deeply moved B in his spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you put him? ” he asked.
“Lord,” they told him, “come and see.”
35 Jesus wept.
36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him! ” 37 But some of them said, “Couldn’t he who opened the blind man’s eyes also have kept this man from dying? ”
THE SEVENTH SIGN: RAISING LAZARUS FROM THE DEAD
38 Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 “Remove the stone,” Jesus said.
Martha, the dead man’s sister, told him, “Lord, there is already a stench because he has been dead four days.”
40 Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God? ”
41 So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you heard me. 42 I know that you always hear me, but because of the crowd standing here I said this, so that they may believe you sent me.” 43 After he said this, he shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out! ” 44 The dead man came out bound hand and foot with linen strips and with his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unwrap him and let him go.”
THE PLOT TO KILL JESUS
45 Therefore, many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what he did believed in him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and were saying, “What are we going to do since this man is doing many signs? 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”
49 One of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! 50 You’re not considering that it is to your A advantage that one man should die for the people rather than the whole nation perish.” 51 He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, 52 and not for the nation only, but also to unite the scattered children of God. 53 So from that day on they plotted to kill him.
54 Jesus therefore no longer walked openly among the Jews but departed from there to the countryside near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, and he stayed there with the disciples.
55 Now the Jewish Passover was near, and many went up to Jerusalem from the country to purify themselves before the Passover. 56 They were looking for Jesus and asking one another as they stood in the temple: “What do you think? He won’t come to the festival, will he? ” 57 The chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should report it so that they could arrest him.
11:6 “So when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was.” Notice the connection. “Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus.” Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he waited two days to go to him. Sometimes true love may think fit to make us wait. It may be the truest love on God’s part to let us lie sick and not to come immediately to us to make us well. Yes, the truest love may demand that the sickness should turn to death, for out of death he may bring the greater glory. The Lord does not act according to human scales, for humans do not see what the Lord sees (1Sm 16:7). He sees the end as well as the beginning. If Jesus’s love in its wisdom made him tarry, however, that love in its sincerity at last moved him to seek the house of grief.
11:16 “Then Thomas (called ‘Twin’) said to his fellow disciples, ‘Let’s go too so that we may die with him.’” A singular mixture of faith and unbelief! Thomas so believes his Master that he is willing to die with him. He so doubts him that, although the Savior had plainly told him he was immortal till his work was done, yet he is afraid his Master and all of them will be put to death. The Lord knows us better than we know ourselves, and the Lord accepts us notwithstanding our infirmities.
11:24-26 “Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’” Martha is an excellent example of a class of anxious believers. They do truly believe but not with such confidence as to lay aside their cares. They do not distrust the Lord or question the truth of what he says, yet they wonder, “How will this thing be?” So they miss out on most of the present comfort the Lord would minister to their hearts if they received his word more simply. How? and Why? questions belong to the Lord. It is his business to arrange matters so as to fulfill his own promises.
THE ANOINTING AT BETHANY
12Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany where Lazarus B was, the one Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 So they gave a dinner for him there; Martha was serving them, and Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with him. 3 Then Mary took a pound of perfume, pure and expensive nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped his feet with her hair. So the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
4 Then one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot (who was about to betray him), said, 5 “Why wasn’t this perfume sold for three hundred denarii C and given to the poor? ” 6 He didn’t say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief. He was in charge of the money-bag and would steal part of what was put in it.
7 Jesus answered, “Leave her alone; she has kept it for the day of my burial. 8 For you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
THE DECISION TO KILL LAZARUS
9 Then a large crowd of the Jews learned he was there. They came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, the one he had raised from the dead. 10 But the chief priests had decided to kill Lazarus also, 11 because he was the reason many of the Jews were deserting them D and believing in Jesus.
THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY
12 The next day, when the large crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, 13 they took palm branches and went out to meet him. They kept shouting:
“Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord A — the King of Israel! ”
14 Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written:
15Do not be afraid,
Daughter Zion. Look, your King is coming,
sitting on a donkey’s colt. B
16 His disciples did not understand these things at first. However, when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him.
17 Meanwhile, the crowd, which had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to testify. C 18 This is also why the crowd met him, because they heard he had done this sign. 19 Then the Pharisees said to one another, “You see? You’ve accomplished nothing. Look, the world has gone after him! ”
JESUS PREDICTS HIS CRUCIFIXION
20 Now some Greeks were among those who went up to worship at the festival. 21 So they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and requested of him, “Sir, we want to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.
23 Jesus replied to them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces much fruit. 25 The one who loves his life will lose it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me. Where I am, there my servant also will be. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
QUOTE 12:26
The better way is to serve Christ by following him, by “doing the next thing,” the thing we can do—that simple little act that lies within our capacity, which will bring us no special honor but is what our Lord desires of us.
27 “Now my soul is troubled. What should I say — Father, save me from this hour? But that is why I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.” D
Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”
29 The crowd standing there heard it and said it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”
30 Jesus responded, “This voice came, not for me, but for you. 31 Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. 32 As for me, if I am lifted up A from the earth I will draw all people to myself.” 33 He said this to indicate what kind of death he was about to die.
34 Then the crowd replied to him, “We have heard from the law that the Messiah will remain forever. So how can you say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man? ”
35 Jesus answered, “The light will be with you only a little longer. Walk while you have the light so that darkness doesn’t overtake you. The one who walks in darkness doesn’t know where he’s going. 36 While you have the light, believe in the light so that you may become children of light.” Jesus said this, then went away and hid from them.
ISAIAH’S PROPHECIES FULFILLED
37 Even though he had performed so many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him. 38 This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet, who said: B
Lord, who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? C
39 This is why they were unable to believe, because Isaiah also said:
40He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their hearts,
so that they would not see with their eyes
or understand with their hearts,
and turn,
and I would heal them. D
41 Isaiah said these things because E he saw his glory and spoke about him.
42 Nevertheless, many did believe in him even among the rulers, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, so that they would not be banned from the synagogue. 43 For they loved human praise more than praise from God.
A SUMMARY OF JESUS’S MISSION
44 Jesus cried out, “The one who believes in me believes not in me, but in him who sent me. 45 And the one who sees me sees him who sent me. 46 I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me would not remain in darkness. 47 If anyone hears my words and doesn’t keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. 48 The one who rejects me and doesn’t receive my sayings has this as his judge: F The word I have spoken will judge him on the last day. 49 For I have not spoken on my own, but the Father himself who sent me has given me a command to say everything I have said. 50 I know that his command is eternal life. So the things that I speak, I speak just as the Father has told me.”
12:2-3 “So they gave a dinner for him there; Martha was serving them, and Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took a pound of perfume, pure and expensive nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped his feet with her hair. So the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” The two sisters and the brother who made up the favored household at Bethany, though all most truly loving Jesus, each had a different way of showing that love. Even so, true children of God do not always feel moved to serve the Lord Jesus in the same fashion or to express their love to him in precisely the same manner. Martha served. She was the housekeeper and with much diligence made him a supper. As for Lazarus, the people had come together to see Lazarus who had been raised from the dead. So for him to sit there and to show himself eating and drinking was to testify to onlookers that he was, indeed, alive. Now Mary, perhaps, had been somewhat fond of adorning her person. She may have cherished her long hair and been profuse in the use of perfume on it. The thought struck her—she would consecrate that hair to Jesus, and that pound of fragrant salve she had stored up for the beautifying of herself she would spend on him. She had found something to do and that something not the least of the three works of love! The service of the three members of that elect family made a complete feast. Martha prepared the supper, Lazarus conversed with their honored guest, and Mary anointed the Master’s feet.
12:26 “If anyone serves me, he must follow me. Where I am, there my servant also will be. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.” This is what Christ prefers above all else—that his servants should follow him. If we do that, we will serve him in the way he wants. I’ve noticed that many desire to serve Christ by standing on the top rung of the ladder. No one can get there in one step. The better way is to serve Christ by following him, by “doing the next thing,” the thing we can do—that simple little act that lies within our capacity, which will bring us no special honor but is what our Lord desires of us. In effect we can hear him say to us, “If anyone serves me, let him follow me, not by aiming at great things but by doing just that piece of work I put before him at the time.” “Do you pursue great things for yourself?” asked the prophet Jeremiah of Baruch. “Stop pursuing!” (Jr 45:5) he warned. We must heed his warning also.
B 12:1 Other mss read Lazarus who died
C 12:5 A denarius = one day’s wage
C 12:17 Other mss read Meanwhile the crowd, which had been with him, continued to testify that he had called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead.
D 12:28 Other mss read your Son
JESUS WASHES HIS DISCIPLES’ FEET
13Before the Passover Festival, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
QUOTE 13:1
The alpha of his love that we find in eternity bids us believe we will find the omega of it nowhere but there.
2 Now when it was time for supper, the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas, Simon Iscariot’s son, G to betray him. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had given everything into his hands, that he had come from God, and that he was going back to God. 4 So he got up from supper, laid aside his outer clothing, took a towel, and tied it around himself. 5 Next, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet and to dry them with the towel tied around him.
6 He came to Simon Peter, who asked him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet? ”
7 Jesus answered him, “What I’m doing you don’t realize now, but afterward you will understand.”
8 “You will never wash my feet,” Peter said.
Jesus replied, “If I don’t wash you, you have no part with me.”
9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.”
10 “One who has bathed,” Jesus told him, “doesn’t need to wash anything except his feet, but he is completely clean. You are clean, but not all of you.” 11 For he knew who would betray him. This is why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
THE MEANING OF FOOT WASHING
12 When Jesus had washed their feet and put on his outer clothing, he reclined again and said to them, “Do you know what I have done for you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord — and you are speaking rightly, since that is what I am. 14 So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done for you.
16 “Truly I tell you, a servant is not greater than his master, A and a messenger is not greater than the one who sent him. 17 If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
18 “I’m not speaking about all of you; I know those I have chosen. But the Scripture must be fulfilled: The one who eats my bread B has raised his heel against me. C 19 I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am he. 20 Truly I tell you, whoever receives anyone I send receives me, and the one who receives me receives him who sent me.”
JUDAS’S BETRAYAL PREDICTED
21 When Jesus had said this, he was troubled in his spirit and testified, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.”
22 The disciples started looking at one another — uncertain which one he was speaking about. 23 One of his disciples, the one Jesus loved, was reclining close beside Jesus. D 24 Simon Peter motioned to him to find out who it was he was talking about. 25 So he leaned back against Jesus and asked him, “Lord, who is it? ”
26 Jesus replied, “He’s the one I give the piece of bread to after I have dipped it.” When he had dipped the bread, he gave it to Judas, Simon Iscariot’s son. A 27 After Judas ate the piece of bread, Satan entered him. So Jesus told him, “What you’re doing, do quickly.”
28 None of those reclining at the table knew why he said this to him. 29 Since Judas kept the money-bag, some thought that Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the festival,” or that he should give something to the poor. 30 After receiving the piece of bread, he immediately left. And it was night.
THE NEW COMMAND
31 When he had left, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him, B God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. 33 Children, I am with you a little while longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so now I tell you: ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’
34 “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
QUOTE 13:34-35
We who believe in Jesus are going to live together in heaven forever and ever, so we may as well be good friends while we are here.
PETER’S DENIALS PREDICTED
36 “Lord,” Simon Peter said to him, “where are you going? ”
Jesus answered, “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow later.”
37 “Lord,” Peter asked, “why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”
38 Jesus replied, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly I tell you, a rooster will not crow until you have denied me three times.
13:1 “Before the Passover Festival, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” Here is a beautiful description of Christ’s death—“to depart from this world to the Father,” just as though he was merely going on a journey, leaving one land for another. And if this is a fair description of such a stormy passage as that of our Lord Jesus, it must with equal truth describe the death of any of the children of God. The loosing of the cable, the spreading of the sail, the crossing over the narrow sea, the coming to the eternal haven and abiding there—what Christian heart needs to dread this?
Then consider the abiding love of Christ—“having loved his own”—his by election, his by redemption, for he regarded that as already done which was about to be accomplished. And “he loved them to the end,” or “to the perfection” as it might be rendered. The alpha of his love that we find in eternity bids us believe we will find the omega of it nowhere but there.
13:3-4 “Jesus knew that the Father had given everything into his hands, that he had come from God, and that he was going back to God. So he got up from supper, laid aside his outer clothing, took a towel, and tied it around himself.” While Jesus had a more than ordinary consciousness of his own dignified nature and position, he condescended to wash his disciples feet! And though many years elapsed between the event and the time John recorded it, all the details were pressed in his memory so that he distinctly mentions each separate act—Jesus “got up from supper, laid aside his outer clothing, took a towel, and tied it around himself.”
13:6 “He came to Simon Peter, who asked him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’” We have often noticed Peter’s fault. Let us notice Peter’s excellence. I admire his humility in thinking it too inferior an office for Christ to wash his feet. It is a most proper feeling. It seemed an overwhelming condescension of love that he could scarcely permit. Although he spoke rashly when he said, “You will never wash my feet,” his motive was a good one. It was because he could not allow his Lord to stoop so low—to wash the feet of such a poor fisherman.
13:34-35 “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” The love Christ commands his followers to have toward one another is not the ordinary love of person to person as such but the love of the new person in Christ to the new person in Christ. We are to love one another fervently in that sense. This love arises out of a totally new union. A person who is a Christian belongs to a special family. That family circle does not include the whole human race; it is a family inside the larger human family yet separated from it by an inner spiritual life. The moment a person is born again, he or she enters that inner circle and becomes a member of a new family. Within that sacred circle of electing love we are “all one in Christ Jesus” (Gl 3:28). We are brothers and sisters in Christ and are called to a new kind of love, a love that is like the love of natural siblings, only more sublime and with better reasons lying at the bottom than even the love of family members.
What’s more, we who believe in Jesus are going to live together in heaven forever and ever, so we may as well be good friends while we are here. We will see one another there in one common glory and be occupied forever in one common employment—the adoration of our Lord and Savior. The remembrance of this truth of God ought to break down many of the barriers that separate us.
G 13:2 Or Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son
B 13:18 Other mss read eats bread with me
D 13:23 Lit reclining at Jesus’s breast ; that is, on his right; Jn 1:18
THE WAY TO THE FATHER
14“Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe C in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; if not, I would have told you. I am going away to prepare a place for you. 3 If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also. 4 You know the way to where I am going.” D
5 “Lord,” Thomas said, “we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way? ”
6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you know me, you will also know A my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
JESUS REVEALS THE FATHER
8 “Lord,” said Philip, “show us the Father, and that’s enough for us.”
9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been among you all this time and you do not know me, Philip? The one who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who lives in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Otherwise, believe B because of the works themselves.
PRAYING IN JESUS’S NAME
12 “Truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do. And he will do even greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me C anything in my name, I will do it. D
ANOTHER COUNSELOR PROMISED
15 “If you love me, you will keep E my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor F to be with you forever. 17 He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you do know him, because he remains with you and will be G in you.
THE FATHER, THE SON, AND THE HOLY SPIRIT
18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live too. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you. 21 The one who has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father. I also will love him and will reveal myself to him.”
22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it you’re going to reveal yourself to us and not to the world? ”
23 Jesus answered, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 The one who doesn’t love me will not keep my words. The word that you hear is not mine but is from the Father who sent me.
25 “I have spoken these things to you while I remain with you. 26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.
JESUS’S GIFT OF PEACE
27 “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or fearful. 28 You have heard me tell you, ‘I am going away and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. 29 I have told you now before it happens so that when it does happen you may believe. 30 I will not talk with you much longer, because the ruler of the world is coming. He has no power over me. A 31 On the contrary, so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do as the Father commanded me.
“Get up; let’s leave this place.
QUOTE 14:27
Our sorrows usually spring out of ourselves, and when self is conquered, sorrow is, to a great extent, banished from the human heart.
14:1 “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.” I am glad the apostles were not perfect men. Otherwise they would have understood all that Jesus said at once, and we would have lost our Lord’s instructive explanations. They would also have lived above all trouble of mind, and then the Master would not have said to them these golden words, “Don’t let your heart be troubled.” The Lord takes no delight in the doubt and disquietude of his people. He would not have us sad. Great personal sorrows may well be an excuse if the griefs of others are somewhat overlooked. Yet although Jesus was going to his last bitter agony, and to death itself, he overflowed with sympathy for his followers.
14:6 “Jesus told him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” [ED: Jesus had told his disciples, “You know the way to where I am going,” and Thomas had objected, “We don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?” (14:4-5).] This verse is the answer to that question. It has been read with a great deal of profit without always being read correctly. If I were to divide a sermon into three parts and show that, first, Christ is the way; second, that he is the truth; and third, that he is the life, I would not give the meaning of the text. Jesus is not speaking about three things—he does not say, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” He is speaking about only one thing, namely, that he is the way, and then the two words, truth and the life, are put in to explain what he means by “the way.”
14:12 “Truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do. And he will do even greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” While the Master was here in his humiliation, he healed a few poor Jews and raised here and there a dead one, but he purposely veiled the splendor of his Godhead. Now that he has gone up on high, he does greater wonders by his servants than he, himself, personally did, for he said to a few poor fishermen, “Go and break up the Roman Empire,” and they did it! They preached the gospel, and the gods of the heathen that sat on their thrones for ages were cast to the moles and the bats! And there are greater victories yet before the church of God.
14:27 “Don’t let your heart be troubled or fearful.” Christian joy does not come from what we have, nor does sorrow come from what we lack. Our happiness does not come from the world, and neither does our depression—that is, if we live near to God. So it is not trouble that troubles saints; it is something far worse than that. I am afraid there are many Christians in great trouble who are so proud that they will not admit God has a right to deal with them as he is dealing. They think there ought to be some more lenient dispensations of kinder providence for them. They imagine themselves to be the kind of persons on whom the sun should always shine and whose path should be always smooth. And if it is not so, they think that God is dealing harshly with them—that he is not kind to them—and they doubt his love. We may tell them that the martyrs suffered far more than they do. We may point them to many of their fellow Christians who are in much worse circumstances than they are, but that will not reconcile them to their own trials. The fact is, there is a self-love about them that has exaggerated itself beyond all due proportions into a sinful self-esteem. And this proud, egotistical idea of what they ought to have and ought to be rebels against the sovereignty of God and refuses to submit to the will of the Most High. Our sorrows usually spring out of ourselves, and when self is conquered, sorrow is, to a great extent, banished from the human heart. We must get rid of this rebellion against the Most High, or else our hearts will continue to be troubled.
D 14:4 Other mss read this verse: And you know where I am going, and you know the way
A 14:7 Other mss read If you had known me, you would have known
B 14:11 Other mss read believe me
D 14:14 Other mss omit all of v. 14
E 14:15 Other mss read “If you love me, keep (as a command)
THE VINE AND THE BRANCHES
15“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he removes, and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be B my disciples.
ILLUSTRATION 15:15
The servant works in a building, and it is enough for him that he is laying part of a line of brick or stone. Perhaps he has never seen the design of the structure or had a wish to do so. But you and I have the great architect constantly coming to us to tell us what the building is to be and to explain to us his plans, and so we work with greater pleasure and joy than a mere laborer might.
CHRISTLIKE LOVE
9 “As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
11 “I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.
12 “This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master A is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.
17 “This is what I command you: Love one another.
PERSECUTIONS PREDICTED
18 “If the world hates you, understand that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you. 20 Remember the word I spoke to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they don’t know the one who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 The one who hates me also hates my Father. 24 If I had not done the works among them that no one else has done, they would not have sin. Now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But this happened so that the statement written in their law might be fulfilled: They hated me for no reason. B
THE COUNSELOR’S MINISTRY
26 “When the Counselor comes, the one I will send to you from the Father — the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father — he will testify about me. 27 You also will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.
15:5 “You can do nothing without me.” We have been saved by the almighty grace of God apart from anything we do, and now that we are saved, we long to do something in return. We feel a strong desire to be of some use and service to our great Lord and Master. The text, even though there is a negative in it, raises in our souls the hope that we may do something for Christ in this life. There is the ambition and hope before us of glorifying God by bringing forth the fruits of holiness, peace, and love. We desire to make beautiful the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. By pureness, by knowledge, by patience, by true love, by every good and holy work, we want to show forth the praises of our God. Apart from the Lord Jesus we know we cannot be holy. But joined to him, we can overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. And we walk in garments unspotted by the world. We read that the fruit of the Spirit is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gl 5:22-23). We cannot produce this fruit ourselves, and yet by faith we say with Paul, “I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me” (Php 4:13).
15:15 “I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father.” The heart of Christ is laid bare to his people. “The secret counsel of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he reveals his covenant to them” (Ps 25:14). Happy are his people, glad to be his servants—more glad, still, to be his friends.
16“I have told you these things to keep you from stumbling. 2 They will ban you from the synagogues. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering service to God. 3 They will do these things because they haven’t known the Father or me. 4 But I have told you these things so that when their time C comes you will remember I told them to you. I didn’t tell you these things from the beginning, because I was with you. 5 But now I am going away to him who sent me, and not one of you asks me, ‘Where are you going? ’ 6 Yet, because I have spoken these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. 7 Nevertheless, I am telling you the truth. It is for your benefit that I go away, because if I don’t go away the Counselor will not come to you. If I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will convict the world about sin, righteousness, and judgment: 9 About sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see me; 11 and about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.
12 “I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears. He will also declare to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. 15 Everything the Father has is mine. This is why I told you that he takes from what is mine and will declare it to you.
SORROW TURNED TO JOY
16 “A little while and you will no longer see me; again a little while and you will see me.” A
17 Then some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this he’s telling us: ‘A little while and you will not see me; again a little while and you will see me’ and, ‘because I am going to the Father’? ” 18 They said, “What is this he is saying, B ‘A little while’? We don’t know what he’s talking about.”
19 Jesus knew they wanted to ask him, and so he said to them, “Are you asking one another about what I said, ‘A little while and you will not see me; again a little while and you will see me’? 20 Truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice. You will become sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. 21 When a woman is in labor, she has pain because her time has come. But when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the suffering because of the joy that a person has been born into the world. 22 So you also have sorrow C now. But I will see you again. Your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy from you.
23 “In that day you will not ask me anything. Truly I tell you, anything you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. 24 Until now you have asked for nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.
JESUS THE VICTOR
25 “I have spoken these things to you in figures of speech. A time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but I will tell you plainly about the Father. 26 On that day you will ask in my name, and I am not telling you that I will ask the Father on your behalf. 27 For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. D 28 I came from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”
29 His disciples said, “Look, now you’re speaking plainly and not using any figurative language. 30 Now we know that you know everything and don’t need anyone to question you. By this we believe that you came from God.”
31 Jesus responded to them, “Do you now believe? 32 Indeed, an hour is coming, and has come, when each of you will be scattered to his own home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. 33 I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”
16:7 “Nevertheless, I am telling you the truth. It is for your benefit that I go away, because if I don’t go away the Counselor will not come to you. If I go, I will send him to you.” It is a better thing for us in this world to have the Holy Spirit in us than to have the bodily presence of Christ with us. We are better helped by the Holy Spirit than we would have been if Jesus had remained on earth.
16:33 “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.” In Jesus himself there is always an abiding peace. He had peace. If he had not himself possessed peace, we could not have had peace in him. What a holy calm there was in the spirit of our divine Master. He was a master of the art of peace. No man ever had more to disturb him, but no man was less disturbed. He could not be turned aside from anything that he had resolved to do, for he set his face like a flint (Is 50:7), and in the doing of it he could not be excited or discouraged, for his spirit was not of this changing world.
As the Master had peace in himself, he had a strong desire that all his disciples should have peace. Our Lord Jesus Christ delights to see his people firm, calm, and happy. Let us enjoy the calm of heart that comes of knowing that the reserves of God are infinite and that at any moment they can come to our aid and deliver us should an emergency occur. We shouldn’t be as movable as waves but as fixed as stars. We shouldn’t be like thistledown, blown away by every wind, but like a distant granite peak, which defies the storms of the ages.
C 16:4 Other mss read when the time
A 16:16 Other mss add because I am going to the Father
B 16:18 Other mss omit he is saying
JESUS PRAYS FOR HIMSELF
17Jesus spoke these things, looked up to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you gave him authority over all flesh, A so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him. 3 This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent — Jesus Christ. 4 I have glorified you on the earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5 Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with that glory I had with you before the world existed.
JESUS PRAYS FOR HIS DISCIPLES
6 “I have revealed your name to the people you gave me from the world. They were yours, you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given is from you, 8 because I have given them the words you gave me. They have received them and have known for certain that I came from you. They have believed that you sent me.
9 “I pray B for them. I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me, because they are yours. 10 Everything I have is yours, and everything you have is mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect C them by your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I was protecting them by your name that you have given me. I guarded them and not one of them is lost, except the son of destruction, D so that the Scripture may be fulfilled. 13 Now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy completed in them. 14 I have given them your word. The world hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19 I sanctify myself for them, so that they also may be sanctified by the truth.
JESUS PRAYS FOR ALL BELIEVERS
20 “I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in me through their word. 21 May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be A in us, so that the world may believe you sent me. 22 I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. 23 I am in them and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one, that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me.
24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they will see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the world’s foundation. 25 Righteous Father, the world has not known you. However, I have known you, and they have known that you sent me. 26 I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love you have loved me with may be in them and I may be in them.”
17:1 “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you.” Jesus seems to pray here as if he already stood within the veil—not pleading in agony as he did in the garden of Gethsemane but speaking with that authority with which he is clothed now that his work on earth is done. The great design of Christ, throughout his life on earth, was to glorify the Father. He came to save his people, but that was not his first or his chief aim. It was his objective, through the salvation of myriads of the sons of men, to glorify the Father.
17:11-12 “Holy Father, protect them by your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I was protecting them by your name that you have given me. I guarded them and not one of them is lost, except the son of destruction, so that the Scripture may be fulfilled.” Greatly we do need protecting. We have been redeemed, but we must still be protected. We have been regenerated, but we must be protected. We are pure in heart and hands, but we must be protected. We are made alive with the divine life. We have aspirations after the holiest things. Our love of Christ is intense, but we must be protected. The sunlight of heaven rests on our honored brow. We are near the gates of glory, but we must be protected. The same hand that bought us must protect us, and the same Father who has begotten us to a lively hope must get us to his eternal kingdom and glory. All glory be to him who is able to protect us from stumbling (Jd 24).
17:15 “I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.” If we die, it is not by chance but because God takes us out of the world. Believers fall asleep in Jesus neither before nor after the predestined time. No disease or accident can cut short their lives, and it would not be possible to prolong their existence beyond the time appointed by the Lord. Our lives are entirely in the keeping of our loving Father. The prayer of Jesus recognizes his Father’s sovereignty, but we ourselves must also recognize that we are entirely in God’s hands. He can take us out of the world, or he can keep us in the world and preserve us from evil.
17:17 “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” In this wonderful prayer our Lord, as our great high priest, appears to enter into that perpetual office of intercession that he is now exercising at the right hand of the Father. What a friend we have in Jesus, so willing, so speedy to do for us all that we need. How invaluable must the blessing of sanctification be when our Lord, in the highest reach of his intercession, cries, “Sanctify them!” The prayer means, “Father, consecrate them to your own self. Let them be temples for your indwelling, instruments for your use.”
B 17:9 Lit ask (throughout this passage)
C 17:11 Lit keep (throughout this passage)
D 17:12 The one destined for destruction, loss, or perdition
JESUS BETRAYED
18After Jesus had said these things, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley, where there was a garden, and he and his disciples went into it. 2 Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, because Jesus often met there with his disciples. 3 So Judas took a company of soldiers and some officials B from the chief priests and the Pharisees and came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons.
4 Then Jesus, knowing everything that was about to happen to him, went out and said to them, “Who is it that you’re seeking? ”
5 “Jesus of Nazareth,” they answered.
“I am he,” Jesus told them.
Judas, who betrayed him, was also standing with them. 6 When Jesus told them, “I am he,” they stepped back and fell to the ground.
7 Then he asked them again, “Who is it that you’re seeking? ”
“Jesus of Nazareth,” they said.
8 “I told you I am he,” Jesus replied. “So if you’re looking for me, let these men go.” 9 This was to fulfill the words he had said: “I have not lost one of those you have given me.”
10 Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.)
11 At that, Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword away! Am I not to drink the cup the Father has given me? ”
JESUS ARRESTED AND TAKEN TO ANNAS
12 Then the company of soldiers, the commander, and the Jewish officials arrested Jesus and tied him up. 13 First they led him to Annas, since he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. 14 Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it would be better for one man to die for the people.
PETER DENIES JESUS
15 Simon Peter was following Jesus, as was another disciple. That disciple was an acquaintance of the high priest; so he went with Jesus into the high priest’s courtyard. 16 But Peter remained standing outside by the door. So the other disciple, the one known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the girl who was the doorkeeper and brought Peter in.
17 Then the servant girl who was the doorkeeper said to Peter, “You aren’t one of this man’s disciples too, are you? ”
“I am not.” he said. 18 Now the servants and the officials had made a charcoal fire, because it was cold. They were standing there warming themselves, and Peter was standing with them, warming himself.
JESUS BEFORE ANNAS
19 The high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching.
20 “I have spoken openly to the world,” Jesus answered him. “I have always taught in the synagogue and in the temple, where all the Jews congregate, and I haven’t spoken anything in secret. 21 Why do you question me? Question those who heard what I told them. Look, they know what I said.”
22 When he had said these things, one of the officials standing by slapped Jesus, saying, “Is this the way you answer the high priest? ”
23 “If I have spoken wrongly,” Jesus answered him, “give evidence A about the wrong; but if rightly, why do you hit me? ” 24 Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.
PETER DENIES JESUS TWICE MORE
25 Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They said to him, “You aren’t one of his disciples too, are you? ”
He denied it and said, “I am not.”
26 One of the high priest’s servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, said, “Didn’t I see you with him in the garden? ” 27 Peter denied it again. Immediately a rooster crowed.
JESUS BEFORE PILATE
28 Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the governor’s headquarters. It was early morning. They did not enter the headquarters themselves; otherwise they would be defiled and unable to eat the Passover.
29 So Pilate came out to them and said, “What charge do you bring against this man? ”
30 They answered him, “If this man weren’t a criminal, B we wouldn’t have handed him over to you.”
31 Pilate told them, “You take him and judge him according to your law.”
“It’s not legal for us to put anyone to death,” the Jews declared. 32 They said this so that Jesus’s words might be fulfilled indicating what kind of death he was going to die.
33 Then Pilate went back into the headquarters, summoned Jesus, and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews? ”
34 Jesus answered, “Are you asking this on your own, or have others told you about me? ”
35 “I’m not a Jew, am I? ” Pilate replied. “Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done? ”
36 “My kingdom is not of this world,” said Jesus. “If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight, so that I wouldn’t be handed over to the Jews. But as it is, C my kingdom is not from here.”
37 “You are a king then? ” Pilate asked.
QUOTE 18:37
There are a thousand things you may not know, and you will be little the worse for not knowing them; but if you do not know what Jesus has taught, it will not go well with you. If you are taught of the Lord Jesus, you will have rest for your cares, balm for your sorrows, and satisfaction for your desires.
“You say that I’m a king,” Jesus replied. “I was born for this, and I have come into the world for this: to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”
38 “What is truth? ” said Pilate.
JESUS OR BARABBAS
After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, “I find no grounds for charging him. 39 You have a custom that I release one prisoner to you at the Passover. So, do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews? ”
40 They shouted back, “Not this man, but Barabbas! ” Now Barabbas was a revolutionary. A
18:8-9 “‘So if you’re looking for me, let these men go.’ This was to fulfill the words he had said: ‘I have not lost one of those you have given me.’” After the words “to fulfill,” we naturally expect some Old Testament text—something said by David in the Psalms or by one of the prophets—but it is “to fulfill the words he had said.” It was but an hour or two since Jesus uttered this sentence, but it is already among the inspired Scriptures, and it had begun to take effect and to be fulfilled at once. It is not the age of God’s Word but the truth of it that constitutes its power. What Christ had said that night in prayer was as true and as much the Word of the King as what God had spoken by his Spirit through holy men ages before.
18:22-23 “When he had said these things, one of the officials standing by slapped Jesus, saying, ‘Is this the way you answer the high priest?’ ‘If I have spoken wrongly,’ Jesus answered him, ‘give evidence about the wrong; but if rightly, why do you hit me?’” Here we get an exposition of one of Christ’s own sayings: “If anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also” (Mt 5:39). Of course, Christ would carry out his own command, so we see that he did not mean that his disciples were literally to turn the other cheek to those who struck them but that they were to bear such treatment patiently and not to give a railing answer. See how Jesus himself turned the other cheek. Nothing could have been more calm or more dignified and, at the same time, more full of the spirit of forgiveness.
18:37 “‘You are a king then?’ Pilate asked. ‘You say that I’m a king,’ Jesus replied. ‘I was born for this, and I have come into the world for this: to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.’” Christ is a king—a king by force of truth in a spiritual kingdom. For this purpose he was born; for this cause he came into the world. Our Lord, in effect, tells us that the truth of God is the preeminent characteristic of his kingdom and that his royal power over men’s hearts is through the truth of God. He dealt not with fiction but with facts—not with trifles but with infinite realities. He speaks not of opinions, views, or speculations but of infallible truths. Jesus is King in his people’s souls because his preaching has set us at rest on points of boundless importance; he has not given us well-chiseled stones but real bread. There are a thousand things you may not know, and you will be little the worse for not knowing them; but if you do not know what Jesus has taught, it will not go well with you. If you are taught of the Lord Jesus, you will have rest for your cares, balm for your sorrows, and satisfaction for your desires. Jesus gives sinners who believe in him the truths of God they need to know—the assurance of sin forgiven through his blood, favor ensured by his righteousness, and heaven secured by his eternal life.
B 18:3 Or temple police, or officers, also in vv. 12,18,22
A 18:40 Or robber ; see Jn 10:1,8 for the same Gk word used here
JESUS FLOGGED AND MOCKED
19Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2 The soldiers also twisted together a crown of thorns, put it on his head, and clothed him in a purple robe. 3 And they kept coming up to him and saying, “Hail, King of the Jews! ” and were slapping his face.
4 Pilate went outside again and said to them, “Look, I’m bringing him out to you to let you know I find no grounds for charging him.” 5 Then Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Here is the man! ”
PILATE SENTENCES JESUS TO DEATH
6 When the chief priests and the temple servants B saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify! ”
Pilate responded, “Take him and crucify him yourselves, since I find no grounds for charging him.”
7 “We have a law,” the Jews replied to him, “and according to that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.”
8 When Pilate heard this statement, he was more afraid than ever. 9 He went back into the headquarters and asked Jesus, “Where are you from? ” But Jesus did not give him an answer. 10 So Pilate said to him, “Do you refuse to speak to me? Don’t you know that I have the authority to release you and the authority to crucify you? ”
11 “You would have no authority over me at all,” Jesus answered him, “if it hadn’t been given you from above. This is why the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.”
12 From that moment Pilate kept trying A to release him. But the Jews shouted, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Anyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar! ”
13 When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside. He sat down on the judge’s seat in a place called the Stone Pavement (but in Aramaic, B Gabbatha). 14 It was the preparation day for the Passover, and it was about noon. C Then he told the Jews, “Here is your king! ”
15 They shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him! ”
Pilate said to them, “Should I crucify your king? ”
“We have no king but Caesar! ” the chief priests answered.
16 Then he handed him over to be crucified.
THE CRUCIFIXION
Then they took Jesus away. D 17 Carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called Place of the Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. 18 There they crucified him and two others with him, one on either side, with Jesus in the middle. 19 Pilate also had a sign made and put on the cross. It said: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. 20 Many of the Jews read this sign, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek. 21 So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Don’t write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that he said, ‘I am the King of the Jews.’ ”
22 Pilate replied, “What I have written, I have written.”
23 When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, a part for each soldier. They also took the tunic, which was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. 24 So they said to one another, “Let’s not tear it, but cast lots for it, to see who gets it.” This happened that the Scripture might be fulfilled that says: They divided my clothes among themselves, and they cast lots for my clothing. E This is what the soldiers did.
JESUS’S PROVISION FOR HIS MOTHER
25 Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing there, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.
THE FINISHED WORK OF JESUS
28 After this, when Jesus knew that everything was now finished that the Scripture might be fulfilled, he said, “I’m thirsty.” 29 A jar full of sour wine was sitting there; so they fixed a sponge full of sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it up to his mouth.
30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then bowing his head, he gave up his spirit.
JESUS’S SIDE PIERCED
31 Since it was the preparation day, the Jews did not want the bodies to remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a special A day). They requested that Pilate have the men’s legs broken and that their bodies be taken away. 32 So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man and of the other one who had been crucified with him. 33 When they came to Jesus, they did not break his legs since they saw that he was already dead. 34 But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out. 35 He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows he is telling the truth. 36 For these things happened so that the Scripture would be fulfilled: Not one of his bones will be broken. B 37 Also, another Scripture says: They will look at the one they pierced. C
JESUS’S BURIAL
38 After this, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus — but secretly because of his fear of the Jews — asked Pilate that he might remove Jesus’s body. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and took his body away. 39 Nicodemus (who had previously come to him at night) also came, bringing a mixture of about seventy-five pounds D of myrrh and aloes. 40 They took Jesus’s body and wrapped it in linen cloths with the fragrant spices, according to the burial custom of the Jews. 41 There was a garden in the place where he was crucified. A new tomb was in the garden; no one had yet been placed in it. 42 They placed Jesus there because of the Jewish day of preparation and since the tomb was nearby.
19:2 “The soldiers also twisted together a crown of thorns, put it on his head, and clothed him in a purple robe.” Mockery was blended with cruelty. They might have made him a crown, yet surely it need not have been one of thorns unless they intended to put him to the utmost torment they could conceive. By this crown of thorns our blessed Lord was crowned king of the curse, for the earth was cursed through Adam’s sin. And part of the sentence pronounced by God in the garden of Eden was, “It will produce thorns and thistles for you.” So Christ wore the mark of the curse that man’s sin had brought upon the world.
19:7 “‘We have a law,’ the Jews replied to him, ‘and according to that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.’” They no doubt understood that he claimed to be divine and so he did. I have heard some say that Jesus was a good man but not God. If he was not God, he was certainly not a good man; for no good man, who was only a man, would claim to be God or lead others to believe he was divine. If he was not actually divine, he was a rank impostor.
19:19 “Pilate also had a sign made and put on the cross. It said: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.” How wondrous was the condescension that he, whom all heaven adored as the ever-blessed Son of the Highest, should be hanged on a tree with his accusation written over his head just as if he had been a common malefactor! It was God’s purpose that his Son should not die on the cross without a public proclamation of his innocence and an official recognition that he was what he had said he was, namely, the King of the Jews. Who was to put up such a notice over his head as he hung there? Peter might have been bold enough to attempt to do it, but he would certainly not have succeeded, for the Roman legionaries jealously guarded every place of execution. Even John, daring as he might have been in such a crisis, could not have achieved the task. It was best that it should be done by authority, done by the Roman governor, done with an official pen and so secured that no envious chief priest dared to pluck it down, and no hand of a scoffer could be lifted up to blot out its testimony. It was privileged writing because it was written with the pen of a Roman official. And there it must stay, under the authority of the Roman law as long as the body of Jesus hung on the cross. See what God can do!
19:30 “It is finished.” There is only one Greek word for this utterance of our Lord, although to translate it into English, we have to use three words—an ocean of meaning in a drop of language. Yet it would need all the other words ever spoken, or ever can be spoken, to explain this one word. It is altogether immeasurable. It is high—I cannot attain to it. It is deep—I cannot fathom it.
The perfect satisfaction of the Father with Christ’s work for his people so that Christ could say, “It is finished,” is a ground of solid comfort to his church forevermore. Take comfort from this—the redemption of Christ’s church is perfected. Not another penny need be paid for her full release. Those whom he bought with blood are forever clear of all charges, paid for to the utmost. All those overwhelming debts that would have sunk us to the lowest hell have been discharged, and they who believe in Christ will appear with boldness before the throne of God itself.
“Finished!” By that one word Jesus declared that he had broken the head of the old dragon. We have a stern battle yet to fight, but what does that matter? Our Lord has defeated the foe, and we have to fight with one who is already vanquished. Surely, “It is finished,” sounds like the trumpet of victory. Let us have faith to claim that victory through the blood of the Lamb. And let all Christians, as one mighty army, take comfort from this dying word of the now risen and ever-living Savior. His church may rest perfectly satisfied that his work for her is fully accomplished.
B 19:6 Or temple police, or officers
B 19:13 Or Hebrew, also in vv. 17,20
C 19:14 Lit about the sixth hour
D 19:16 Other mss add and led him out
THE EMPTY TOMB
20On the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark. She saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she went running to Simon Peter and to the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said to them, “They’ve taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve put him! ”
3 At that, Peter and the other disciple went out, heading for the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and got to the tomb first. 5 Stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then, following him, Simon Peter also came. He entered the tomb and saw the linen cloths lying there. 7 The wrapping that had been on his head was not lying with the linen cloths but was folded up in a separate place by itself. 8 The other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, then also went in, saw, and believed. 9 For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to the place where they were staying.
MARY MAGDALENE SEES THE RISEN LORD
11 But Mary stood outside the tomb, crying. As she was crying, she stooped to look into the tomb. 12 She saw two angels in white sitting where Jesus’s body had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you crying? ”
“Because they’ve taken away my Lord,” she told them, “and I don’t know where they’ve put him.”
14 Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know it was Jesus. 15 “Woman,” Jesus said to her, “why are you crying? Who is it that you’re seeking? ”
Supposing he was the gardener, she replied, “Sir, if you’ve carried him away, tell me where you’ve put him, and I will take him away.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
Turning around, she said to him in Aramaic, A “Rabboni! ” — which means “Teacher.”
QUOTE 20:16
‘Rabboni!’
17 “Don’t cling to me,” Jesus told her, “since I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”
18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord! ” And she told them what B he had said to her.
THE DISCIPLES COMMISSIONED
19 When it was evening of that first day of the week, the disciples were gathered together with the doors locked because they feared the Jews. Jesus came, stood among them, and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
20 Having said this, he showed them his hands and his side. So the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you. As the Father has sent me, I also send you.” 22 After saying this, he breathed on them and said, C “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
THOMAS SEES AND BELIEVES
24 But Thomas (called “Twin” D), one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples were telling him, “We’ve seen the Lord! ”
But he said to them, “If I don’t see the mark of the nails in his hands, put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will never believe.”
26 A week later his disciples were indoors again, and Thomas was with them. Even though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”
27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and look at my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Don’t be faithless, but believe.”
28 Thomas responded to him, “My Lord and my God! ”
29 Jesus said, “Because you have seen me, you have believed. A Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”
THE PURPOSE OF THIS GOSPEL
30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, B and that by believing you may have life in his name.
20:5 “Stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in.” John knew they had not taken away the body of Jesus [as Mary had concluded in verse 2], for if they had, they certainly would not have taken off the linen clothes. It would have been difficult and would have taken considerable time to unwrap the cold grave clothes when they were bound to the body by the ointments that had been used.
20:16 “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ Turning around, she said to him in Aramaic, ‘Rabboni!’—which means ‘Teacher.’” In the simple utterance of her name, there were tones she could not mistake. It was the sweetest music she had heard since her Lord’s last message from the cross. “Mary.” “Why, surely,” she must have thought, “it is the Master’s voice calling me by name!” The word, “Rabboni” means something more than “Master.” Mary seems to say, “Greatest and best of all Teachers, I know your voice! Now that you have called me by my name, I recognize you, and I wait to listen to the instruction you are ready to impart to me.”
20:29 “Jesus said, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.’” We have a special and singular blessing through not having seen and yet having believed. So let us not diminish it by looking for a voice, or a vision, or a revelation—something that is like sight—so that it could not then be said of us that we have not seen. Perhaps we have said to ourselves, “Oh that God would in some way reveal himself to me so that my senses might assist my faith. Oh that I might be hidden away in some cleft of the rock and might see the hem of Jehovah’s robe. If I might hear some divine voice whisper that I am his, then I would, indeed, rejoice and never doubt again. Or if I might see some miracle, something I was sure was the finger of God so that I would never doubt again, what a grand thing it would be!”
We should not ask for anything like that. We should not wish to have it even if we could, for “blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” We would be waiting for something that is practically the same as sight. We would show that we do not feel content to swim in the pure sea of faith. After all, it is only vanity that we are waiting for, so he will deny it to us and will say, “My children, instead of wanting to see, believe, trust, follow me in the dark, for it is better for you not to see. Even if you did see and believe, you would have obtained only an inferior gift; for the higher blessing, the cream of blessing, belongs to those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
JESUS’S THIRD APPEARANCE TO THE DISCIPLES
21After this, Jesus revealed himself again to his disciples by the Sea of Tiberias. He revealed himself in this way:
2 Simon Peter, Thomas (called “Twin” C), Nathanael from Cana of Galilee, Zebedee’s sons, and two others of his disciples were together.
3 “I’m going fishing,” Simon Peter said to them.
“We’re coming with you,” they told him. They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
4 When daybreak came, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not know it was Jesus. 5 “Friends,” D Jesus called to them, “you don’t have any fish, do you? ”
“No,” they answered.
6 “Cast the net on the right side of the boat,” he told them, “and you’ll find some.” So they did, E and they were unable to haul it in because of the large number of fish. 7 The disciple, the one Jesus loved, said to Peter, “It is the Lord! ”
When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he tied his outer clothing around him (for he had taken it off) and plunged into the sea. 8 Since they were not far from land (about a hundred yards F away), the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish.
9 When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish lying on it, and bread. 10 “Bring some of the fish you’ve just caught,” Jesus told them. 11 So Simon Peter climbed up and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish — 153 of them. Even though there were so many, the net was not torn.
12 “Come and have breakfast,” Jesus told them. None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you? ” because they knew it was the Lord. 13 Jesus came, took the bread, and gave it to them. He did the same with the fish. 14 This was now the third time Jesus appeared A to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
JESUS’S THREEFOLD RESTORATION OF PETER
15 When they had eaten breakfast, Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, B do you love me more than these? ”
“Yes, Lord,” he said to him, “you know that I love you.”
“Feed my lambs,” he told him. 16 A second time he asked him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me? ”
“Yes, Lord,” he said to him, “you know that I love you.”
“Shepherd my sheep,” he told him.
17 He asked him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me? ”
Peter was grieved that he asked him the third time, “Do you love me? ” He said, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”
“Feed my sheep,” Jesus said. 18 “Truly I tell you, when you were younger, you would tie your belt and walk wherever you wanted. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will tie you and carry you where you don’t want to go.” 19 He said this to indicate by what kind of death Peter would glorify God. After saying this, he told him, “Follow me.”
CORRECTING A FALSE REPORT
20 So Peter turned around and saw the disciple Jesus loved following them, the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and asked, “Lord, who is the one that’s going to betray you? ” 21 When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him? ”
22 “If I want him to remain until I come,” Jesus answered, “what is that to you? As for you, follow me.”
QUOTE 21:22
When sin is pardoned and the eternal safety of the soul is ensured, the next thing is to seek the purity of the soul and to secure a character that will be worth having throughout eternity.
23 So this rumor C spread to the brothers and sisters that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not tell him that he would not die, but, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? ”
EPILOGUE
24 This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true.
25 And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which, if every one of them were written down, I suppose not even the world itself could contain the books A that would be written.
21:12 “‘Come and have breakfast,’ Jesus told them. None of the disciples dared ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord.” I cannot tell how our Lord provided that fire of coals, or how he procured the fish broiling on the fire. But there was the fire and there was the fish, and these men were in a needy condition. They were wet, cold, and hungry, besides being weary from a night’s fruitless toil. And so, in the Lord’s own way, it will be seen that the Lord will provide. He who taught us to say, “Give us today our daily bread” (Mt 6:11) did not teach us an empty phrase. Those whose need presses so closely as even to make them acquainted with hunger may see how Jesus pities them and look to him for aid, for he is the same now as he was by the lake of Galilee. And as Jesus is so careful of the condition of his people that he will have their bodies fed, we may be sure that he will nourish our souls.
21:15-17 “Feed my lambs. . . . Shepherd my sheep. . . . Feed my sheep.” Fishing is not all, as many seem to think. It is a great part of our service, and would God, it were more attended to. But after it has been attended to, shepherding comes in and is a work of equal weight. Our Lord Jesus Christ would have his servants attend to this second task with all their hearts. If souls are converted, they have been brought up from the depths of sin, and the scene changes. We see a flock, “the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood” (Ac 20:28). This flock needs as much care as any other. Yes, it needs to be tended with the utmost labor and watchfulness. The Lord Jesus himself is the good Shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep (Jn 10:11), the great Shepherd who is brought again from the dead (Heb 13:20), and the chief Shepherd under whom he has appointed shepherds to watch for the souls of men (1Pt 5:4). He will have those of us whom he calls to his service to shepherd those who are converted—leading, protecting, feeding, comforting, and helping them. He will call us to account if we neglect this charge, for he will require his flock at our hands, saying, “Where is the flock that was given you, your beautiful flock?”
21:22 “What is that to you? As for you, follow me.” The main thing we have to do in this world is to seek after Christ until we find him as our Savior; or, in other words, the first thing for us to do is to look to him, to trust in him. We live in vain if we do not live for God, and if we do not live by faith in Jesus Christ, the one and only Savior. It is better for us never to have been born than to live and die without faith in Jesus Christ. We must make our souls our first concern, for what will it profit us if we gain the whole world and lose our souls?
After we are saved, the main business of our lives is still to follow Christ. When sin is pardoned and the eternal safety of the soul is ensured, the next thing is to seek the purity of the soul and to secure a character that will be worth having throughout eternity. There is no character worth having that is not fashioned according to the character of Christ. He is absolute perfection. In him is nothing redundant, and from him nothing is omitted that ought to be there. To be perfect, we must be like Jesus. “Keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith” (Heb 12:2), we are to conquer sins and wrong desires and, in the power of God’s Spirit, cultivate grace and virtue. If I am a Christian, I am to mold my doctrinal opinions, my thoughts, words, character, and acts after the model of Christ’s.