Here we see Him accepting, not as fellow-servant, but as Lord, those souls who had been under the training of the predicted messenger of Jehovah that was to prepare His way before, His face. Jesus said to her, You are right when you say you have no husband. Jesus declared of God the Father, God is Spirit, (John 4:24) meaning that God the Father has no tangible body which may be seen. He was God. The Jews were not satisfied with that, but demanded still that he should be put to death, John 19:39-40. Hence, after having first unmistakably laid down the necessity of the cross, He next shows the grace that was manifested in the gift of Jesus. It becomes a question of man's own condition, and how he stands in relation to the kingdom of God. The effect is thus final, even as His person, witness, and glory are divine. WebJohn repeats that people must believe in Jesus as the Son of God in order to be saved, and that love for God is inseparable from love for Gods people (5:1). John 7:24) They reason and are in utter uncertainty. Natural birth had nothing to do with this new thing; it was a new nature altogether in those who received Him: "Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." "John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This is he of whom I spake: He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before me." (Ver. This is the more striking, because, as we have seen, the world and Israel, rejecting Him, are also themselves, as such, rejected from the first. This we have had fully before. And they which were sent were of the Pharisees. 29) on which, as it were, Jesus speaks and acts in His grace as here shown on the earth. (Verse John 7:39), Nothing can be simpler than this. 1 John 4:19, ESV: We love because he first loved us. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. John 7:38; John 7:38) And then we have the comment of the Holy Ghost: "(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified)" There is, first, the thirsty soul coming to Jesus and drinking; then there is the power of the Spirit flowing forth from the inner man of the believer in refreshment to others. Thus it is a kind of transitional fact for a most important part of our gospel, though still introductory. (Ver. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. He could have healed the man without the smallest outward act to shock their zeal for the law. Fritzsche, p. 21). Art thou Elias? Verse John 1:29 opens John's testimony to his disciples. Still the eternal day alone will show out the full virtue of that which belongs to Jesus as the Lamb of God, who takes away the world's sin. Here, then, we have a remarkable display of that which preceded His Galilean ministry, or public manifestation. The Light, on coming into the world, lightens every man with the fulness of evidence which was in Him, and at once discovers the true state as truly as it will be revealed in the last day when He judges all, as we find it intimated in the gospel afterwards. And while He does not hide the privilege of the Jews, He nevertheless proclaims that "the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. The Father and the Son were at work. Thus, manifestly, the whole question is terminated at the very starting-point of our gospel; and this is characteristic of John all through: manifestly all is decided. 3. (ver. Pilate, disposed to gratify the The character is wholly different from the position and glory of Messiah in Israel, according to promise and prophecy. Then the soldiers mockingly but truthfully hail Jesus as the king of the Jews (19:3). So in the baptism with the Holy Ghost, who would pretend to such a power? infinite truth! What you have just said is quite true.. In Him was life for this scene of death; and it is of faith that it might be by grace. The same God who did not leave Himself without witness among the heathen, doing good, and giving from heaven rain and fruitful seasons, did not fail, in the low estate of the Jews, to work by providential power at intervals; and, by the troubled waters of Bethesda, invited the sick, and healed the first who stepped in of whatever disease he had. Accordingly there is a four-fold testimony to Jesus: the testimony of John the Baptist; the Lord's own works; the voice of the Father from heaven; and finally, the written word which the Jews had in their own hands. John 1:19-37; John 1:19-37) It is here presented historically. He could, therefore, tell them of heavenly things as readily as of earthly things; but the incredulity about the latter, shown in the wondering ignorance of the new birth as a requisite for God's kingdom, proved it was useless to tell of the former. But this, however worthy of God, and indispensable for man, could not of itself give an adequate expression of what God is; because in this alone, neither His own love nor the glory of His Son finds due display. It is not only the nature, but the model and fulness of the blessing in the Son, who declared the Father. Expressly had He told the man to take up his couch and walk, as well as to rise. a toilet or bathroom. ( ) flesh, and dwelt among us." Later He was determined to be Son of God with power by resurrection of the dead. Now, it is the Holy Ghost in the power that gives rivers of living water flowing out, and this bound up with, and consequent on, His being man in glory. John 1:26-27; John 1:26-27) For himself he was not the Christ, but for Jesus he says no more. The refusal of His precious blood will, on the contrary, make their case incomparably worse than that of the heathen who never heard the good news. Blessed servant he of an infinitely blessed and blessing Master! Thus solemnly does the meek Lord Jesus unfold these two truths. So it must be now; for God is revealed; and the Father in grace seeks true worshippers (be they Samaritans or Jews) to worship Him. For The Baltimore Sun. It is evident, that were He not God, it would be an interference with His glory, a place taken inconsistent with His sole authority, no less than it must be also, and for that reason, altogether ruinous to man. 17 This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we're free of worry on Judgment Day - our standing in the world is identical with Christ's. This brings in the great counterpart truth, that even God present on earth and made flesh is not enough. It was meet that so it should be; for, as a question of right, none could claim; and grace surpasses all expectation or thought of man, most of all of men accustomed to a round of religious ceremonial. He distinguishes between seducing spirits, and faithful ministers of the word; the former are of the world, speak of worldly things, and worldly men hear them; but the latter are of God, and they that have any spiritual knowledge of God hear them; but such as are not of God do not heal them, by which may he known the spirit of truth from the spirit of error, 1Jo 4:5,6. How could either light or love rest in a scene of sin, darkness, and misery? Even now faith knows, that instead of sin being the great object before God, ever since the cross He has had before His eyes that sacrifice which put away sin. The brethren of the Lord Jesus, who could see the astonishing power that was in Him, but whose hearts were carnal, at once discerned that it might be an uncommon good thing for them, as well as for Him, in this world. Hence the Lord, while fully owning the labours of all preceding labourers, has before His eyes the whole boundless expanse of grace, the mighty harvest which His apostles were to reap in due time. How can such have relationship with God? Before the manner of His manifestation comes before us in verse 14, we have the secret explained why some, and not all, received Christ. His aspect as thus tabernacling among the disciples was "full of grace and truth." "For God sent not his Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world through him might be saved." (Verses John 5:17-18). This is indispensable; for God is a Spirit, and so it cannot but be. That means that under Biden's budget plan the federal debt would increase by $16.411 trillion or 57.8% in the 11 fiscal years from when he first took office in fiscal 2021 through fiscal 2032. At the end of fiscal 2032, it predicts, the total federal debt will be $44.797 trillion. There He supposes His full rejection and death. To have righteousness we Then (ver. Also called john mule . John 1:20-25) John does not even speak of Him as one who, on His rejection as Messiah, would step into a larger glory. No mere man, nor angel, not the highest, the archangel, but the Son. Judgment is the alternative for man: for God it is the resource to make good the glory of the Son, and in that nature, in and for which man blind to his own highest dignity dares to despise Him. But they learn that it was his divine Physician who had not only healed, but so directed him. The way you see God has everything to do with how you approach Him, how you relate to Him. : a Jewish prophet who according to Gospel accounts foretold Jesus' messianic ministry and baptized him. The distinctiveness of such a testimony to the Saviour's glory need hardly be pointed out. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him. Such was the grace that God was displaying in Him, the true and full expresser of His mind. But there was a man who had been infirm for thirty and eight years. Man might pull Him down destroy Him, as far as man could, and surely to be the basis in God's hand of better blessing; but He was God, and in three days He would raise up this temple. John then declared his own waning before Christ, as we have seen, the issues of whose testimony, believed or not, are eternal; and this founded on the revelation of His glorious person as man and to man here below. Nay, the Father has given all judgment to the Son. The looking for signs and wonders is rebuked; but mortality is arrested. Not only man under law has no health, but he has no strength to avail himself of the blessing that God holds out. 1 John 4:19, NASB: We love, because He first loved us. Man is morally judged. In the process of torturing Jesus, the soldiers ironically coronate him king. The Spirit of God uses that word; it is thus invariably in conversion. , , . He who owns the reality of Christ's incarnation, receives most thankfully and adoringly from God the truth of redemption; he, on the contrary, who stumbles at redemption, has not really taken in the incarnation according to God's mind. The Word, in order to accomplish these infinite things, "was made. We discuss being disciples not admirers of Christ. In the five porches, then, of this pool lay a great multitude of sick, blind, lame, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. But see the blessed fruit of receiving it. They spoke of the world; the world might hear them. No argument can be drawn from Luke 4:23 against the view that the incidents are different, for therein a ministry at Capernaum would already be presupposed (Schleiermacher, Kern, de Wette, Weiss, Bleek, Holtzmann, and others), as 2. : an apostle who according to various Christian traditions wrote the fourth Gospel, the three Johannine Epistles, and the Book of He who Knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than And he answered, No. Beholding Him as He walked, he says, Behold the Lamb of God! First, we must worship, if at all, in spirit and in truth. Granted He was the Son of man; but as such, He had all judgment given Him, and would judge. It was not so. As the Lamb of God (of the Father it is not said), He has to do with the world. Alas! This last is the figure of a truth deeper than incarnation, and clearly means communion with His death. And whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. (Ver. It was worldliness in its worst shape, even to the point of turning the glory of Christ to a present account. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." They wonder, as they had murmured before (John 7:12-15); but Jesus shows that the desire to do God's will is the condition of spiritual understanding. The author is the apostle John, "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (13:23 [see note there]; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7,20,24). And they asked him, and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet? (16-19) Jesus speaks of her sinful life. Now it is that the great question is decided; now it is that a man receives or refuses Christ. Realizing that the woman would have to see her personal sin before she could see her spiritual need, Jesus began to speak of her marital affairs. 1 John 4:19, NLT: We love each other because he loved us first. 1 John 4:19, KJV: We love him, because he first loved us. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 17 This is how love is made complete John 5:19-29), It is evident, then, that the Lord presents life in Himself as the true want of man, who was not merely infirm but dead. If believers genuinely love God they will also obey his commandments. - Now Jesus knew (perceived by his Divine penetration of human thought here quickened by their anxious look and hurried whisperings) that they were wishing to question him, and he said to them, Are you inquiring among yourselves concerning this that I said, A little while, etc. This the Lord refuses, and goes up the mountain to pray, His disciples being meanwhile exposed to a storm on the lake, and straining after the desired haven till He rejoins them, when immediately the ship was at the land whither they went. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. Proud member Nevertheless, the heavenly part is little dwelt on, as John's gospel displays our Lord more as the expression of God revealed on earth, than as Man ascended to heaven, which fell far more to the province of the apostle of the Gentiles. There was purpose in it. 1 John 4:18. And in this He is sovereign. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. But knowing what will happen, and realizing it's part of a plan, greatly reduces our fear. It is thus strikingly an anticipation of the result in glory. He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias. The chapter pursues this subject, showing that it is not only God who thus deals first, with the necessity of man before His own immutable nature; next, blessing according to the riches of His grace but, further, that man's state morally is detected yet more awfully in presence of such grace as well as holiness in Christ. John 3:19; John 3:19) Other things, the merest trifles, may serve to indicate a man's condition; but a new responsibility is created by this infinite display of divine goodness in Christ, and the evidence is decisive and final, that the unbeliever is already judged before God. All rights reserved. Man, under law, proved powerless; and the greater the need, the less the ability to avail himself of such merciful intervention as God still, from time to time, kept up throughout the legal system. (See Hebrews 12:2, Hebrews 13:11-13) Again, let me just remark in passing, that although, no doubt, we may in a general way speak of those who partake of the new nature as having that life, yet the Holy Ghost refrains from predicating of any saints the full character of eternal life as a present thing until we have the cross of Christ laid (at least doctrinally) as the ground of it. Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. So rich and transparently divine was the grace: not some souls, more meritorious than the rest, rewarded according to a graduated scale of honour, but "of his fulness have all we received." Indeed, it is the total eclipse, not merely of law and remedial mercies, but even of promised Messianic glory, by everlasting life and resurrection at the last day. Christ's road from Judea to Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment." it was no lack of testimony; their will was for present honour, and hostile to the glory of the only God. God loves us as a father loves his own son. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? If His time was not yet come, their time was always ready. 7 He came as a witness to testify about the Light, so that through him everyone might believe. Nevertheless, Christ did come to His own things, His proper, peculiar possession; for there were special relationships. It was not intended for other beings it was God's free gift to man, to the believer, of course. The question really is, whether man would trust God. The man could not tell the Jews the name of his benefactor. The addition of "unto him" detracts, to my mind, from the exceeding preciousness of what seems to be, at least, left open. He was God. Here, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." But there was this difference from the former occasion, that, at the marriage in Cana (John 2:1-25), the change of the water into wine was clearly millennial in its typical aspect. No doubt Jesus Himself had the Holy Ghost given to Him, as it was meet that He in all things should have the pre-eminence; but it shows yet more both the personal glory of Christ and the efficacy of His work, that He now gives the same Spirit to those who receive His testimony, and set to their seal that God is true. There is difference of manner for the world and His own ignorance and rejection. The person of the Son was there the object of divine and overflowing joy even then, although, of course, in the full sense of the word, the Holy Ghost might not be given to be the power of it for some time later; but still the object of worship was there revealing the Father; butJohn 7:1-53; John 7:1-53 supposes Him to be gone up to heaven, before He from heaven communicates the Holy Ghost, who should be (not here, as Israel had a rock with water to drink of in the wilderness outside themselves, nor even as a fountain springing up within the believer, but) as rivers flowing out. Such was Jesus in person, contrasted with all who belong to the earth. Thus we feed on Him and drink into Him, as man, unto life everlasting life in Him. 17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. In short, the riches of God's grace are here according to the glory of the Son, and in the power of the Holy Ghost. Nothing is said about the fan in His hand; nothing of His burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Were the Jews zealously keeping the sabbath? For He who spoke was divine. Both of them were in relation to man on the earth; the one while He was here, the other from above. John 4:1-54 presents the Lord Jesus outside Jerusalem outside the people of promise among Samaritans, with whom Jews had no intercourse. A Spirit, and realizing it 's part of a plan, greatly reduces our fear knowing what will,. At all, in Spirit and in truth. ) on which, as it were, Jesus and... 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