United to each other in love, they must also be hated in common by the world; the world must feel to them as to their Master. He predicts the persecutions that await them. He sees before him the conflict of Christianity with all existing institutions (v. 18-23).

§ 277.-Promise of the Holy Ghost.-Concluding Words of Comfort to the Disciples. (John xvi. 7-33.)

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But he further promises, that in all their conflicts they shall have the Holy Ghost for a helper. The Holy Ghost was to accomplish, through them, all things necessary for the spread of the Divine kingdom. The process he states as follows: The Holy Ghost will convince the world of sin, and show that unbelief is the ground of sin; and further, will convince the world that Christ did not die as a sinner, but, as the Holy One, ascended to his Father in heaven, most perfectly manifesting His righteousness in his death, and in the exaltation to GOD which followed it; indeed, all that are convinced of sin will recognize him as the Holy One, and the source of all holiness in men. So he will gradually convince the world of judgment; that Satan, so long ruler of the world, has been judged, that evil has lost its sway, and therefore can cause no fear to such as hold communion with Christ. These, then, are the three great elements of the process: the consciousness of sin; of the righteousness of Christ, the Redeemer from sin; of the impotency of evil (judgment) in opposition to the kingdom of GOD. And to be conscious of sin; to know Christ as the Holy Redeemer; and the kingdom of GOD as the conqueror of evil, which shall finally subdue all things to itself: this is the whole essence of Christianity.

Christ had many things to say of his doctrine which the disciples were not then in a condition to understand. But he was just about to leave them; and therefore he pointed them to the Spirit of Truth, which was to unfold all the truth he had proclaimed. It was not to announce any new doctrine; but to open the truth of his doctrine; to glorify Him (v. 14) in them, by developing the full sense of what He had taught them. Again he passes from the giving of the Holy Ghost to his own communion with them, repeating what he had before ▾ Not "peace," but a “sword,” as in the synoptical Gospels; cf. p. 347. Cf. pp. 439, 440.

Cf. p. 122, on the two-fold relation of the disciples, (1.) As individual witnesses of Christ's ininistry; (2.) As organs of the spirit, like believert in general.

said, "A little while and ye shall not see me, and again a little while and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father" (inasmuch as his "going to the Father" was to be the ground of the new spiritual communion). And, again, some of them expressed the surprise of their contracted minds at his words (v. 17). Jesus, seeing their uncertainty, developed the thought still further. He told them they should be sorrowful for a season, but their sorrow would be turned into permanent joy. Their transient pains, like those of a woman in travail, would be the birth-throes of a new creation within them. "And ye now, therefore, have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.'

"And in that day ye shall ask me nothing," they would nc more need his sensible presence to ask of him as they had been wont. "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name (in conscious communion through Christ's mediation), he will give it you." (The father would reveal all things needful to them through Christ's mediation; clearing up all obscurities, and supplying the place of his corporeal presence.) Up to that time (v. 24), not having yet obtained confidence of communion with the Father through Christ, they had asked nothing of HIM; but then they should ask, and receive, that their joy might be full. Then, too, would Christ no more speak unto them in figures or parables, but would openly unveil all he had to say to them of the Father. "But," says he, "I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you;" in their conscious communion with Him they would be sure of the Father's love, and in His name would address themselves directly to the Father.

At last a ray of light beamed into the souls of the disciples. They felt the impression of the high things which Christ, in confident Divinity, had just announced to them. Yet, as their language shows that they did not fully understand him, it was rather a feeling than a clearly developed consciousness. Christ cautioned them against trusting it too far; that the hour was at hand when a faith of this kind would give way to a powerful impression of another nature; that they should be scattered,

But the promise certainly contains an allusion to his resurrection, inasmuch as his re-appearance was to the disciples the point of transition to the state of new spiritual communion.

It appears clear from v. 29, 30 that they understood the phrase, "Ye shall ask me nothing," in a sense different from that which he intended. It may readily be imagined that John's subsequent better comprehension of Christ's meaning caused this misapprehension to appear remarkable, ani served to impress it the more upon his memory.

and leave him alone: "Yet not alone," said he, "because the Fa ther is with me."

The aim of the whole discourse had been to impart to the minds of the disciples a spring of Divine comfort amid their struggles with a hostile world for the advancement of the kingdom of GOD. He closed it with a few words of farewell, embracing its whole scope: "These things have I spoken to you, that in (communion with) me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulations; be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."b

§ 278.—Christ's Prayer as High-priest. (John xvii.)

With a prayer Christ concludes this last interview with his disciples; with a prayer he prepares himself for the separation and the final conflict.

The import of the prayer is the same as that of the discourse. Conscious that his work (viz. to glorify GOD in man) on earth is finished, he prays the Father to take him to himself, and glorify him with himself. Not, however, with a selfish aim or selfish longings; it was to glorify the Father, and, what was inseparable therefrom, to impart the Divine life to mankind: "Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee; as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him." But as eternal life is only to be obtained by knowing the true GOD, revealed in Christ, he prays that this knowledge may be diffused among all men, and so eternal life be given to all.

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Then, first, he prays for those who had already received this knowledge, and were to become instruments of its diffusion among men. As he is about to leave the world, and to leave the disciples alone in it, he commends them to the protecting care of the Father, to whom they are consecrated through him; that the Divine communion of life, which he had established, might be preserved among them. He commends them to HIS care, because the world, in whose midst they are, will hate them, since they are not of it. He does not ask their removal from the world; that would subvert the very work he had

Inward peace; Divine calmness amid the struggle with the world. b The relation is two-fold: (1.) The inward life in communion with Christ, who has overcome the Power of Evil, and gives his own to share in his victory; (2) The outward life in contact with the world, possibly harming, indeed, the outward man, but incapable of subduing, or disturb ing the peace of, the inner man, rooted in Christ's fellowship.

He considers those, and those only, as truly his own who follow the inward Divine call, the "drawing" of the Father. Cf. p. 146.

assigned them, the work of regenerating the world through the knowledge of GOD in Christ; he only prays that they may be inwardly separated from the world and its evil powers, and sanctified through the truth he had revealed; that his life, sanctified to GOD, and given up for them, might become the the ground of their sanctification.

He then extends his prayer to all that may be brought to faith by their preaching (v. 20). He prays that they may be united in the communion of life with GOD which he had established; that by it they may testify of him; that thereby they might show forth the glory of the inner life given by him, and bear witness of that love of GOD (v. 23) which they had experienced through him. (The true communion of Christ's disciples shows forth His glory, and the glory which He has imparted to them; the glory, namely, of their whole relation to GOD as children, secured for them by Him. The outward appearance is the reflection of the glory within.d) He then prays (v. 24) that all those who are "given to him" (already united with him-his glory already revealed in them) may be raised up to be where He is, to complete communion with him, to the beholding of his Divine glory (and this implies a share in that glory; for intuition and life coincide in the Divine).

This incomparable prayer of consecration for his own, and for all mankind, is closed with the words, "O Holy Father, the world hath not known thee (lost in sin, it cannot know the Holy One); but I have known thee (the Holy One knows the Holy One); and these have known that thou hast sent me (they are, therefore, separated from the world of sin, which is estranged from the Holy GOD); and I have declared unto them thy name (have revealed unto them Thee, as the Holy One, and not only as the Holy GoD, but as the Holy Father, with whom they stand in child-like communion), and will declare it further (all that had been revealed was but the germ, as it were, of subsequent developments); that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them (that as they know Thee more and more through the revelations of my Spirit, they may, in communion with me, learn more and more how thou lovest me and those that belong to me)."

Thus this prayer embraces the whole work of Christ, up to its final consummation; his work, upon the basis laid down by

In all time the spread of Christianity is most advanced by the power of the Christian life.

I translate dikale, "holy;" cf. xvi 19; 1 John ii. 29; iii. 7, 10.

himself, continually carried on, until all that submit to him shall be brought to a share in his glory-to a complete communion of Divine life with him. What is expressed in the "Lord's Prayer" as the object of the prayer of believers, is here presented as the object of his own prayer for believers.

CHAPTER V.

GETHSEMANE.

§ 279.-Comparison of John's Gospel with the Synoptical Gospels in regard to Jesus' Conflict of Soul.-Historical Credibility of the Synoptical

Account.

FULL of celestial serenity, Jesus went forth with the disciples, as was his wont, to the garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives, to await the coming of his captors. Various alternations of feeling ensued in his soul; and in regard to them there is an obvious difference between the synoptical Gospels and John; the former not mentioning them at all, the latter giving a partial account of them. In modern times this discrepancy has been supposed by some to be irreconcilable; so much so, that one side or the other must be maintained, according to the view which we take of the whole subject.

It is argued that we cannot imagine Christ, who had just spoken with such Divine confidence, and had poured out his soul before GOD in a prayer of heavenly calmness and assurance, as undergoing, immediately after, such struggles of soul as are recorded in the synoptical Gospels. But, laying John's Gospel out of the case, do we not find the same contrast in the other Gospels? Was not all this heavenly elevation, serenity, and confidence, presupposed in the institution of the Eucharist, according to its deeper sense? Was not that act, the pledge of his continuing communion with the Church, as recorded in the first three Gospels, as great a proof of those high thoughts on which his calmness was founded, as is contained in the final discourse and prayer given by John? Nay, even in these last, can we not trace alternations of feeling; subordinate, however, to the fundamental and Divine tone?

As for these alternations of feeling themselves, may we not conceive, that as in the life of believers, who represent (imperfectly indeed) the image of Christ on earth, caimness and tumult, confidence and despondency, alternate with each cther under the diverse influence of the outward world,f sɔ too there

Cf. John the Baptist.