150 xxvi. John Reflections on the design of Christ's coming. SECT. fest as in open day; knowing it will appear that they are wrought in God, that is, that they are agreeable to the Divine nature and will, and III. 21. the consequence of that union of soul with him, which is the highest dignity and happiness of a rational creature. Be it therefore known unto you all, that this gospel which I preach is the great touchstone of men's true characters; and, as nothing but a corruption of heart can oppose it, so I faithfully warn you that, if you reject it, it is at the peril of your souls. This was the purport of our Lord's discourse with Nicodemus; and it appears by some following circumstances of the story, that it made a deep and lasting impression on his mind. See John vii. 50. and xix. 39. Ver. IMPROVEMENT. How happy is it for us that, since none of the children of men 13 ever ascended up into heaven to learn the mysteries of Divine knowledge there, the only-begotten Son of God has been pleased to 11 come down from thence that he might instruct us! He spake what he knew, and testified what he had seen: Oh that men were so wise as to receive his testimony, be the discoveries ever so new or the doctrines ever so sublime! Let us with peculiar pleasure attend unto that abstract of the gospel which he exhibited in this profitable and comprehensive discourse with Nicodemus.-It presents to our view Christ, and him crucified. It opens the treasures of Divine beneficence and 16 compassion, and shews us the Father of mercies so loving a world, which he might justly have abhorred and destroyed, as to give his only-begotten Son to be a ransom for it. 14 Let us behold him lifted up on the cross as the great attractive to whom all were to be drawn! In him shall we find the Divine cure for our souls, infected as they are with the poison of sin, if we behold him not merely with a curious but a believing eye. Whatever our wounds be, if in the exercise of faith we look to him, we shall not die of them; but it is owing to our own obstinacy and impenitence if we yet perish. He might justly have appeared in a different form for the con17 demnation of sinners, rather than their salvation. The Son of God That they are wrought in God: Vw pyaμeva.] Grotius thinks that is here used for xara, and that it only signifies agreeable to the Divine nature: this is certainly comprehended, but it is not all might it expresses. His instance of the like use of the particle in 1 Cor. vii. 39. seems insufficient; for to marry ex Tw Kupw in the Lord, signifies there the marrying one who is in Christ, that is a Christian. a At John the Baptist's last testimony to Christ. 151 xxvi. might have come into an apostate world armed with thunderbolts SECT. of flaming vengeance to punish the violation of his Father's law; but his hands are filled with eternal blessings. Ver. As we love our own souls, let us apply to him in time for this 19 salvation. Let us dread the aggravated condemnation of those who, when light is come into the world, prefer darkness to it, and obstinately shut their eyes against it, though it be the dawnings of an eternal day. May integrity and uprightness preserve us! (Psal. xxv. 21.) And, conscious of a real desire to govern ourselves according to 20, 21 the light we have, may we chearfully lay ourselves in the way of more; that in the last awful day, when the sentence of Divine wrath shall be executed on all the servants of sin, and their character shall stand disclosed in the most odious colours, ours may shine out beautiful and fair, and the good deeds that we have done, being now wrought in God, may then not only be accepted and applauded, but through the grace of the Redeemer abundantly rewarded by him! SECT. XXVII. John the Baptist's last testimony to Christ on occasion of a dispute concerning his baptism, and that administered by our Lord's disciples. John III. 22, to the end. JOHN III. 22. AFTER these things, came Jesus and his disciples into the land JOHN III. 22. AFTER these things, Jesus and his disciples rer. John came from Jerusalem, where they had kept xxvii. of Judea, and there he the passover together, into a part of the land of tarried with them, and Judea, at some distance from the capital city; 11. 22. baptized. and there he continued with them, and by their ministry, though not in his own person, baptized. (See John iv. 2.) 23 And John also near to Salim, because And John was also at that time baptizing at 23 was baptizing in Enon, Enon, which was a place near Salim, a town there was much water on the west side of Jordan; and he particularly there: and they came chose that place because there was a great quanand were baptized. tity of water there, which made it very convenient for his purpose: and they came from all a At Enon,---because there was a great quantity of water there.] It is exceeding difficult to determine the true situation of this place, about which geographical writers are not at all agreed. We may conclude however from ver. 26, that it was on the west side of Jordan, as Bethabara, where John had baptized before, was on the other side. But nothing surely can be more evi parts, dent than that wohla vdala many waters, R 2 b John 152 John's disciples tell him that Jesus also baptized, SECT. parts, and were baptized by him. xxvii. John For the 24 For John was not reader will observe that John the Baptist was yet cast into prison. not yet thrown into prison"; as he was a few . 24 months after, by the injustice of Herod, in whose territories that place lay. 25 26 27 25 Then there arose some of John's disciples And there was about this time a warm dispute between [some] of the disciples of John and a a question between [certain] Jews, who had been baptized by and the Jews about Christ, about this right of purifying, or baptism, purifying. which was administered in different parts by these two Divine teachers; for notwithstanding their commissions and administrations were so harmonious, yet some, through ignorance and weakness, were ready to oppose them to each other. to whom thou barest witness, behold, the same And such was the concern of John's disciples 26 And they came unto John, and said upon this occasion, that they came to John, and unto him, Rabbi, he said unto him, Rabbi, we are solicitous for thy that was with thee honour in the present conjuncture of affairs: for beyond Jordan, he that was lately with thee on the other side Jordan, and to whom thou gavest such an honourable baptizeth, and all men testimony there, behold, he now baptizeth, and come to him. people from all parts, yea even such as have before received thy baptism, come unto him; which, as we fear, may cause thy baptism to be neglected and tend to the injury of thy character, since some are already making very invidious comparisons between him and thee. But John replied to his disciples, with an humility and integrity agreeable to the rest of his character, and said, in order to convince them farther of the superior honours due to the blessed Jesus, Do not give way to such vain partiality and fondness for me: for a man can indeed receive, and therefore ought to assume nothing to himself, unless it be given him from heaven; but we are just what God is pleased to make us, and must stand in that rank which his infinite wis b John was not yet thrown into prison.] I think it probable from hence, as well as from tradition, and many other passages in this gospel itself, that St. John wrote it as a supplement to the rest. For he speaks of the Baptist's imprisonment as a thing generally known, and yet says nothing of his martyrdom, though he had given so large an account of his ministry. We cannot suppose he would have omitted so material a fact, had he not known that the other evangelists had recorded it at large; as will be seen in the next section, and in sect. lxxvii. dom 27 John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven. CA certain Jew.] The many copies which read it thus, as well as the autho rity of the Syriac version, and the citations of some of the fathers, determine me to prefer this reading, which I think gives rather an easier sense; as a single Jew might most properly be opposed to John's disciples, who were Jews themselves; and as a considerable part of the nation had entered themselves into that number, at least so far as receiving his baptism was a token of it. d You and he again acknowledges his superior dignity. bear me witness that I 153 xxvii. 28 Ye yourselves dom has seen fit to assign us. Nor have you SECT. said, I am not the Christ, any reason to be surprised at the report you bring but that I am sent be- me, or to imagine I shall regard it as a matter fore him. but the triend of the John of complaint for you yourselves, in what you III. 18. now have said, bear witness to me, and cannot but remember, that, even from the very first of my appearance, I expressly said and was on all occasions ready to repeat it, that I am not the Christ; but that I am sent as a harbinger before him; and therefore am so far from being in any opposite and separate interest, that his suc29 He that hath the cess is my greatest joy. It is the bridegroom 29 bride is the bridegroom: only that hath the bride; and it is his peculiar bridegroom, which right to enjoy her as his own: but as for the standeth and heareth intimate friend of the bridegroom, who standeth him, rejoiceth greatly near him, and heareth him express his delight and complacency in here, he is so far from envying and repining at it, that, if he really deserves the name of a friend, he rather rejoices with exceeding great joy on account of the bridegroom's voice. Such therefore is the friendship and the high regard I have for Jesus, that this that you have told me is my joy: which is so far from being at all impaired, that it is heightened and completed on this happy occasion, which you should rather have been ready to congratulate than to have made it matter of complaint. because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease. I know that as to him he daily must increase, 30 and, like the growing moon, appear continually more and more glorious; but I must gradually wane and decline till I entirely disappear from hence: (for the end of my ministry is now in a great measure answered, and therefore I quickly 51 He that cometh expect to be dismissed from it.) And it is fit 31 from above, is above it should be so: for he that cometh from above, as carth, is earthly, and Jesus did, is far above all the children of men, speaketh and so undoubtedly is above me; while, on the ali: he that is of the d You yourselves bear witness to me: auto υμείς μοι μαρτυρείτε.] There seems to be an intimation in these words, that what they themselves had just been saying was a sufficient proof of what the Baptist was going to declare; for they had described Jesus by the character of him to whom John had borne witness. * Heareth him express his delight and complacency in her.] Some have supposed that this alludes to a peculiar ceremony attending the marriages among the Jews; which the reader may find in Dr. Ham other mond in loc. and Selden. Uror. Heb. lib. ii. f He 154 xxvii. He testifies his joy in Christ's success. he that cometh from heaven, is above all, SECT. other hand, he that originally was of the earth, speaketh of the earth; being born like me in a natural way, is still of the earth, mean and imperfect, and can never John III. 31. hope, by any refinements and improvements, to equal what is heavenly and Divine; but what he says will correspond with his original, and, being earthly in his rise, he speaketh of the earth; the subjects of his discourse are comparatively low, or howsoever noble and sublime they be, there is a mixture of infirmity and weakness in his way of treating them: whereas he who originally cometh from heaven, and who has shewn so wonderful a condescension in his visiting this lower world, is still, in the midst of all his voluntary abasement, incomparably above all that dwell upon earth, not only in the dignity and glory of his person, but in the spiritual and hea no man receiveth his 33 He that hath received his testimony, 32 venly nature of his doctrine. And I declare 32 And what he it to you with the greatest confidence, that hath seen and heard, what he hath seen and heard, or what he knows that he testifieth: and to the utmost degree of certainty, that does he testimony. testify and publish to the world; and I exceedingly lament it, that, notwithstanding all that eagerness of curiosity with which the multitudes are flocking now about him, yet no man cordially receives his testimony; and among all that hear him there are very few who are duly affected with what he delivers, and yield as they ought to its Divine evidence and import33 ance. But he who hath indeed received his testimony acts a most wise and happy part and hath set to his seal, that hath, as it were, set his seal [to it] that God is God is true. true; acknowledging his hand in these credentials given to his Son, and his veracity in sending him thus furnished to fulfil his ancient 34 promises to his people. For he whom God hath sent into the world as the promised Messiah, speaketh the words of God, and all that he reveals should be regarded as Divine oracles: for God giveth not the powers and the inspiration of his Spirit [to him] by measure, under such limitations and with such interruptions as he gives it to his other messengers; but it dwells in him He that was of the earth.] To render owy i syns thus, prevents the appearance of a tautology in the following words, 8% syns 15, which would otherwise seem unavoidable. Under such limitations and with such interruptions as he gives it to his other by 34 For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him. messengers.] With what limitations and interruptions the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit were given, even to the greatest of the children of men, we shall have repeated occasion to observe in the process of this work. |