personal life, and through death pass into another and higher form of existence, I must let My body be broken and My blood be shed for the life of the world." That is the turn which the evangelist gives the discourse on the bread of life (vi. 51), by making Jesus go on to say, not, "I am the bread of life," but, "The bread which I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." It is the idea that His death is necessary to salvation which here stands out in the development of His doctrine of salvation; but this idea calls for independent discussion.

§ 4. SAVING SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF JESUS

The train of thought hitherto pursued leads us to recognise an indirect necessity of the death of Jesus for salvation; His death was the passage into a state of glory in which He could act effectively, and truly live within His own. And this idea, which we have in the Synoptics in Luke xii. 49, 50, is also contained in the institution of the Supper, and is repeatedly expressed by Jesus in John. "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I go away, I will send Him unto you (xvi. 7). 'Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground, and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." The idea everywhere, just as in vi. 51 f., is that of being set free by death as a spiritual and living power, a πvеûμа CwOTTOLOûv, which can really find entrance to the susceptible soul, and so reproduce its own inmost nature in many; that is, He fixes attention, not so much on the death as the saving fact, as on the resurrection and what follows from it, the exaltation and glorification. But He knew also a direct necessity of His death for salvation. His death, indeed, was not at the first a certainty to Him; only by a late Johannine interpretation is the thought of His death imported into earlier words, such as ii. 19-21, iii. 14. But as He saw that men love darkness rather than the light (iii. 19), that they hate the light which has come into the world, because it reproves their evil works (vii. 7), God's purpose became clear to Him. Even in that guilty resolve to extinguish the light that has appeared He recognised the purpose of His heavenly Father

BEYSCHLAG.-I.

18

to glorify Him through apparent defeat, and to make the utmost exertion of the powers of evil which rule the world result in a triumph of holy love which should set the world free. "A hireling who is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not," He says (x. 12), in view of His threatened death, "a hireling seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth; and the wolf catcheth, and scattereth the sheep. I am the Good Shepherd, and lay down my life for the sheep." The mortal conflict between the cause of God's kingdom and the self-seeking of the authorities, which was being waged in Israel, must have ended with the defeat of the little flock gathered by Jesus, if He had not made it one with Himself and carried it onward in apparent defeat to spiritual victory. That situation and its decision, however, were not of temporary, but of permanent and universal interest. The spirit which in Israel resisted Jesus, is the prince of this world, the spirit of selfishness, deceit, and hatred which rules the world, and which has a hold on all men but one (xiv. 30); this spirit of the world must be conquered by one for all, in order that his dominion in the world may once for all be broken, and power be won for all to tread him under their feet. It is this view which Jesus in xii. 31 f. sets forth with regard to His approaching death. "Now is the judgment of this world; now is the prince of this world cast out (dethroned). And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me." The hour of decision between the spirit of this world and the Prince of eternal love has arrived. The world accomplishes its own judgment by revealing the completeness of its sinful and lost condition, and at the same time the impotence of its hatred and enmity to God. But the spirit of selfishness ceases to be the ruler of the world when the utmost possible sin is outdone by the unswerving obedience of Jesus, even unto death. A stronger than he has morally overcome this spirit, and from the heavenly throne which He obtains, in consequence of that victory, He will draw all men after Him by giving them His own victorious power over selfishness and sin. His death therefore says to His own, "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (xvi. 33), as His victory is to be theirs also. That enables us to understand those utterances, in which a purifying and sanctifying significance is

attributed to His death for His own. The synoptic saying about the Son of Man who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and give His life a ransom for many (Matt. xx. 28), is to some extent in John's Gospel, in the symbolical action of the feet washing. That was the last service of love which, as a true servant, He would render for His own upon the cross, and it represented in its "cleansing," which is expressly mentioned, the influence which His surrender to death would have upon His own. For it is worthy of special notice, in the first place, that Jesus expressly repudiates the idea that His death is necessary to begin or to establish the moral purity of His own. "He that is bathed needeth not, save to have his feet washed, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean" (xiii. 10)-clean because of the word which I have spoken unto (xv. 3). His death therefore is not the first thing that purifies and sanctifies His own, for that is already done by the word of His teaching. His death is only to complete the work of cleansing which His whole intercourse with them as a teacher had begun. And it really has the power of completing it; for the highest act of divine love is to lay down life itself in obedience to God and in love for the brethren (x. 17, 18, xv. 13); how could such an act fail to cleanse from all remains of sinful self-seeking those who lay it to heart? Again, the words of the intercessory prayer, ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν ἁγιάζω ἐμαυτὸν, ἵνα ὦσιν καὶ αὐτοὶ ἡγιασμένοι év áλnocía (xvii. 19) are a true parallel to the "for you" in the institution of the Supper,-like the passage (vi. 51) already discussed. There can be no doubt that these words refer to His self-consecration to death, and so the idea of sacrifice contained in the synoptic words of institution in their twofold allusion to the Passover and the covenant sacrifice come here also into prominence. But here again we find no avτí, instead of, but vπép, for the advantage of, and the sacrificial death of Jesus is described, not as aiming at an atonement of the guilt of the disciples, but at their sanctification in (the) truth (ver. 17), by which is undeniably meant the ethical sanctification of their hearts and their walk. The image of the brazen serpent in iii. 14, even if Jesus meant it to allude to the death upon the cross, does not point to an atonement, but to recovery, that is, regeneration, and so the idea of

propitiation (cancelling of guilt) through the death of Jesus, although it is not unknown to the evangelist (1 John ii. 2), nowhere appears in Jesus' own words. That is an indication that if we are to think and teach according to the Scriptures, the idea of propitiation is not to be made the chief element to which the morally redeeming power of the death of Jesus must be subordinated, far less the exclusive element in the saving significance of that death. It is the cleansing and sanctifying aim of Jesus' sacrifice of Himself that appears here so emphatically, and what we have called the indirect saving significance of the death of Jesus is here united with the direct, for in the view of our Gospel the death of Jesus is assuredly to exercise a cleansing, sanctifying influence, not merely by the moral impression of a past event, but by the mighty spiritual influence which the Crucified exercises on His own, as the Risen and Glorified One. We may therefore say that the Johannine Christ, as we will find again in the teaching of Paul, and have already found in the synoptic institution of the Supper, places salvation not in His death per se, but in His death in connection with His resurrection and glorification. His death upon the cross was an incomparable act of obedience to the Father (xiv. 31) and of love to the brethren (xv. 13), and so it was the perfecting of His character; but it was also the reason of His exaltation and glorification. The two aspects are inseparable, and in both the death had a redemptive power upon His own.

§ 5. GLORIFICATION OF JESUS AND SENDING OF THE SPIRIT

The death of Jesus therefore issues in an exalted life in which He was sure that He would exercise an enhanced activity and simply in virtue of His life and death-would first attain to a full communication of Himself. "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me" (xii. 32). The evangelist, in accordance with the literal mode of exposition of his time, has applied this ὑψωθῆναι ἐκ τῆς γῆς to the visible lifting up upon the cross; but Jesus assuredly had a more comprehensive and spiritual intention; He thought of His return to the Father, of His exaltation to glory which should result from His death, and for which He prayed in the

intercessory prayer (cf. vi. 62). Of the activity which He intends to exert in His state of exaltation Jesus speaks especially in His farewell discourse; but His utterances are twofold, and seem to be inconsistent with each other. At one time He comforts His disciples with the promise of His own return to an abiding blessed communion. He will not leave them orphaned, but only goes away that He may prepare a place for them in the eternal Father's house, and will then come again to receive them to Himself (xiv. 3, xviii. 28). A little while, and they should see Him no more and again a little while, and they should see Him; and then no man should take their joy from them (xvi. 17-22). But at other times His words imply a continuous absence from them. They work and suffer here on earth, but He is in heaven with the Father, active in their interests, and specially He prays that they may have a substitute for His presence which till then they had enjoyed. He will send to them another Paraclete, that is, an Advocate, a Helper,1 who will take His place and abide with them for ever, the Spirit of truth who proceedeth from the Father, whom the world cannot receive, and who shall lead them, the disciples, into all truth (xiv. 16, xvi. 7). It is natural to think of distinguishing between these two predictions so as to refer the first to the experience of the disciples at Easter, the latter to their experience at Pentecost; but the most recent attempt thus to distinguish only reveals the impossibility of establishing such an interpretation. The promised reunion of Jesus with His disciples comprehends, of course, the facts of Easter, as is most perceptible in the words, "a little while, and ye shall not see Me: and again a little while, and ye shall see Me" (xvi. 16, 19-22); it also perhaps -in the passage xiv. 3, "I will come again, and receive you to myself; that where I am, there ye may be also "-comprehends the idea of the final parousia. It does not, however,

1 Not Comforter, as Luther confusing zapáxλntos, advocatus, with aрaxλTwp, consolator, has translated.

2 So Weiss, N. T. Theol. ii. 407, by assuming at the same time references to the final parousia (e.g. xiv. 3). When the assertion is there made, in opposition to Reuss, that "communion with Christ is not at all conceived as mediated by the Holy Spirit," we may ask, How then is it to be otherwise conceived?