Him.... He that hath seen me, hath seen the LECT. Father." Our Evangelist notes incidentally, that these sayings of our Lord were uttered, this discussion with the Pharisees took place, in a particular part of the temple; that part where were situated the chests to receive the offerings of those who frequented the temple. See how exact, how circumstantial is our Evangelist! how easy it would have been to convict him if he had recorded any thing falsely! how by this minuteness of narration he laid himself open to criticism, challenging inquiry; and how by invariable truthfulness he comes out of the trial ever triumphant! How does this history, with such marks of truth, demand, yea even force our faith! But the quarter of the temple where our Lord uttered these bold words, and confounded the gainsayers, was the most public, the most frequented; where His enemies had Him in their power, and might easily have apprehended Him, but that an invisible hand restrained them for the present, though against their own will and intention. "His hour was not yet come"." Not yet was come their hour and the power of darkness. He had to work the works of Him that sent Him while it was yet day". Soon the night was coming in which He should thus no longer work. Till then His foes were held in with bit and bridle, XXXV. mch. xiv. 7. 9. "Habet hic locus (v. 19.) testimonium clarissimum, de unitate Patris et Filii: quare v. 20. ut mirabile quiddam describitur, quod Jesum non comprehenderint." Bengel. • Luke xxii. 53. ch. xii. 27. P ch. ix. 4. LECT. lest they should fall upon Him. The wicked XXXV. spirit within them was only withheld a while from proceeding to action. Christ's "hour was not yet come, because His work was not yet done." So every good man may nerve himself with the thought, "My times are in Thy hand"." But the great truth it behoves us here to dwell upon, the grand lesson we may learn, is, that sin with all the bitter fruits which follow is darkness; Christ with all the blessings He brings is light. From all that evil He came to deliver us. All this good He is ready to give us. And to be delivered from that darkness, to attain to this light, we must, so we here learn, follow Christ". "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrinet." So said the Son before. And again afterwards, "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him"." This is the secret of divine manifestations. To those who walk according to the light they have, Christ will give more light; even revealing unto them Himself: while to all other He saith, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." Alas! that after all these things any should be willing to "walk on still in darkness;" that when light is come into the world, men should love darkness rather than light! 9 Henry. 8 v. 12. See also ch. x. 4. 27. uch. xiv. 21. 23. Ps. xxxi. 13-15. tch. vii. 17. * ch. iii. 19. LECTURE XXXVI. CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE CONFERRETH WITH THE JEWS, JOHN viii. 21-27. WE come now to the substance of another of LECT. those divine discourses which our Evangelist has XXXVI. recorded", another of the Lord's conferences with contradicting sinners', malicious Pharisees, and blaspheming Jews. What led to it we are not informed, but the Lord is here introduced to us as repeating what He had said to them on another occasion, "Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come." That former saying of His He now expands into the words with which this passage opens. He prophesies of the time so soon to come when He should be finally withdrawn from them, and they should see Him no more for ever'. And He adds a The elev ovv náλw would seem to indicate that this was another discourse, and on another occasion: an opinion which is confirmed by a comparison of v. 20. with v. 59. The difference of the event shewing the difference of the occasion. b Heb. xii. 3. c vv. 3-6. 13. Matt. xxii. 15. Mark xii. 13. dch. vii. 20. vv. 48, 49. Matt. xii. 31, 32. Mark iii. 28-30. Luke xxii. 65. Acts xiii. 45. xviii. 6. Rev. ii. 9. ech. vii. 34. "Ye shall seek me" is not a prediction of what these particular Jews should do, but rather a proverbial expression, implying that they should no longer find Him amongst them. seeking on their part, as to the fact absence from them. See Job vii. 21. It refers not so much to any active LECT. a sad sentence, framed after one of their own XXXVI. prophets, "Ye shall die in your sins:" in your sin, so it is in the original; in your state of sin, from which faith in me can alone deliver you' He was about to return to His kingdom in heaven. How could they come thither, while they continued in unbelief, while they refused to believe? So once before He affectionately urged them, "Ye will not come to me that ye might have life." mean. The Lord's saying sets them thinking, or rather talking, amongst themselves; canvassing one with another, as before', what this saying of His could And with their usual baseness and carnal bent, their inclination to earth, they ask, " Will He kill Himself? because He saith, Whither I go ye cannot come :" as though they were superior to Him; as though He could do what they would not think of doing; as though He might stoop to suicide, but they never". Yet by the idea expressed they betray the nature of their own minds. And so the Lord reproves them: reproves these who "judge after the flesh"," these " earthly m The Jews seem to have regarded this as a not uncommon termination to the career of disappointed adventurers. The case of Ahitophel (2 Sam. xvii. 23.) and others will occur to the reader. Grotius cites the case of Samson. The story of Empedocles will occur to the classical reader. If a man may devote himself to death out of pure vanity, as in old times Empedocles is said to have done, he may be impelled to the same by revenge against others, as Hindoo fanatics even now a days, thinking to lay their death at the door of those who have done them real or imaginary wrong. n v. 15. "Ergo quo ego vado dixit, non cum itur ad mortem, sed quo ibat ipse post mortem." Aug. in Jo. Tr. xxxviii. 3. XXXVI. minded" ones, "from beneath," "of this world," LECT. whose minds gravitate downwards. They are ever interpreting Him literally, putting a carnal construction upon His spiritual sayings, giving an earthly meaning to His heavenly words. Still their imagination and reasoning is of this world, baser even than before. Then they had said among themselves, "Whither will He go, that we shall not find Him? will He go to the dispersed among the Gentiles° ?" but now they proceed to more ungodliness, and ask, "Will He kill Himself? because He saith, whither I go, ye cannot come." A fitting question surely for those who were about themselves to kill Him". The Lord, having reproved them for their carnal mind, proceeds not to answer their contemptuous questioning, but to convince them of their deadly sin; not to gratify their carnal curiosity, but to convict them of their dangerous unbelief: telling them not what He particularly was about to do, but what they were in special danger of doing; repeating and expanding that sad sentence already uttered; shewing them that their unbelief was that which shut the kingdom of heaven against them; that by their unbelief they were shutting the kingdom of heaven against themselves. And He uses not now, as before, the singular, your sin1: for this was a many-headed monster; the fruitful parent of a wretched progeny; not a sin by itself, but a great brood of errors and evils and sins and evils and sins and wickednesses. ⚫ ch. vii. 35. "Pessima cogitatio: imo Judæi illum erant occisuri." Bengel. 4 v. 21. in the original, év τîî åμаpτlą iμŵv. |