secret thoughts and purposes of them; or, as man, understood by One needs no more than to read, as believers, these wonderful expressions of the Holy Ghost, where we cannot but feel that we are on ground wholly different from that of the other gospels. 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. 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. kingdom, in which they might hope for great secular advantages: But even this sufficed not: the Son of man must be lifted up. (Ver. It finds, of course, a present application, and links itself with that activity of grace in which God is now sending out the gospel to any sinner and every sinner. seize him in order that they might make him King. If, on the contrary, a soul has been taught of God the glory of the person of Him who was made flesh, he receives in all simplicity, and rejoices in, the glorious truth, that He who was made flesh was not made flesh only to this end, but rather as a step toward another and deeper work the glorifying God, and becoming our food, in death. "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." Such was Jesus in person, contrasted with all who belong to the earth. And such was Jesus. The issue of all is, that the will of man is the real cause and spring of enmity. Then a great multitude followed Him, because they saw His signs which He performed on those who were diseased. 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. The results for the believer or unbeliever are eternal in good or in evil. The dreadful truth comes out: the Lord did not trust Himself to them, because He knew all men. As being the omniscient God, who knew their hearts, and the Blessed servant he of an infinitely blessed and blessing Master! In the beginning of the chapter it was rather an essential indispensable action of the Holy Ghost required; here it is the privilege of the Holy Ghost given. The healing of the courtier's son, sick and ready to die, is witness of what the Lord was actually doing among the despised of Israel. In Mark 9:1, Jesus promised that some of the very ones in His presence would not see death until they saw the kingdom come with power. Of course it is the revelation of Christ; but here He was simply revealing the sources of this indispensable new birth. through "sin." (Ver. (VerseJohn 4:10; John 4:10) Infinite grace! We'll send you an email with steps on how to reset your password. Jesus Walks on the Sea. (Ed. Historically it was the second of three bells rung around death, the first being the passing bell to warn of impending death, and the last was the lych bell or corpse bell, which survives today as the funeral toll . "He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true. The close of the chapter shows us the Lord in Galilee. (ver. The death knell is recognizable by its muffled sound. The addition of "unto him" detracts, to my mind, from the exceeding preciousness of what seems to be, at least, left open. None but a divine being could thus deal with the world. 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. None the less did the result of His death proclaim His Deity. But Jesus finds him in the temple, and said, "Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee." Such are the grand emphatic points to which the Lord leads. Alas! This He does in verses 16-19. Please enter your email address associated with your Salem All-Pass account, then click Continue. The premillennial concept is the result of literalizing a few symbolic verses in the book of Revelation, coupled with a considerable disregard for scores of Bible passages of clearest import. thinking about a temporal kingdom, as the people, and might Nothing less than everlasting life in Christ can deliver: otherwise there remains judgment. The Jan. 6 commission's death knell. Not only man under law has no health, but he has no strength to avail himself of the blessing that God holds out. This last is the figure of a truth deeper than incarnation, and clearly means communion with His death. But the erosion of Tradition began long ago, without their knowledge, as will be shown below. The incarnate Word was here full of grace and truth. Thus we feed on Him and drink into Him, as man, unto life everlasting life in Him. Here was a meeting, indeed, between such an one and Him, the Son, true God and eternal life. For the astonishing thought is, not merely that Jesus receives the Holy Ghost without measure, but that God gives the Spirit also, and not by measure, through Him to others. There is the nicest care to maintain His personal glory, no matter what the subject may be. If He judges, it is not without full warning. (Verses John 7:19-23) What judgment could be less righteous? Here there is no John proclaiming Jesus as the One who was about to introduce the kingdom of heaven. but He, who is the Word made flesh, is the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, and so competent to declare, as in fact He has. Beholding Him as He walked, he says, Behold the Lamb of God! (Verses John 7:3-5) The Lord intimates the impossibility of anticipating the time of God; but then He does it as connected with His own personal glory. But how precious the grace, in presence of their hatred and proud self-complacency! It is thus strikingly an anticipation of the result in glory. 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. Spite of the most express signs, and the manifest finger of God that wrote the ten words on tables of stone, the law sinks into comparative insignificance. reasons of his departure, were to prevent the attempt; to show I apprehend the words the Authorised Version gives in italics should disappear. All others prove not only that they are bad, but that they hate perfect goodness, and more than that, life and light the true light in the Word. Had it been meant, it was no wonder that Nicodemus did not know how these things could be. to deliver the nation from the Roman yoke, and set up a temporal All disciplinary action, every probationary process, disappears. Hence, then, we have the Lord Jesus alluding to this fresh necessity, if man was to be blessed according to God. He could have healed the man without the smallest outward act to shock their zeal for the law. In these two points of view, more particularly, John gives testimony to Christ; He is the lamb as the taker away of the world's sin; the same is He who baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. Heavenly things, therefore, could not but be natural to Him, if one may so say. They would fall a prey to Antichrist, and meanwhile are accused of Moses, in whom they trusted, without believing him; else they would have believed Christ, of whom he wrote. It was much, yet was it little of the glory that was His; but at least it was real; and to the one that has shall be given. Here the Lord introduces the cross. Coming after John as to date, He is necessarily preferred before him in dignity; for He was ( ) [not come into being ( )] before Him. 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. "But He said to them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of." 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. into, very probably was the same he went up to before; the The disciples come; the woman goes into the city, leaving her waterpot, but carrying with her the unspeakable gift of God. This is grace and truth. he left the company directly, upon this resolution of theirs, and He will have all honour the Son, even as Himself. And they which were sent were of the Pharisees. For if, on the one side, God has taken care to let us see already the glory of the Son, and the grace of which He was full, on the other side, all shines out the more marvellously when we know how He dealt with a woman of Samaria, sinful and degraded. So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone. But "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must ( ) the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." Bear in mind that one of the points of instruction in this first part of our gospel is the action of the Son of God before His regular Galilean ministry. John 4:1-6; John 4:1-6) What a picture of rejection and humiliation! After this we have, suitably to this gospel, John's connection with the Lord Jesus. The question really is, whether man would trust God. To the Pharisees, indeed, his words as to the Lord are curt: nor does he tell them of the divine ground of His glory, as he had before and does after. Under all changes, outwardly, He abode as from eternity the only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father. Christ here, it will be noticed, is not so much the quickening agent as Son of God (John 5:1-47), but the object of faith as Son of man first incarnate, to be eaten; then dying and giving His flesh to be eaten, and His blood to be drank. Hence it is that here the Son, according to the grace of God the Father, gives the Holy Ghost eternal life in the power of the Spirit. This Blog is really a continuation of my Previous Blog "Why Israel Has a Future in God's Plans - Romans 9-11 and the People of God" By Michael J. Vlach, Ph.D. 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. The first four chapters of John precede in point of time the notices of His ministry in the other gospels. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." Nevertheless, Christ did come to His own things, His proper, peculiar possession; for there were special relationships. A greater work was in hand; and this, as the rest of the chapter shows us, not a Messiah lifted up, but the true bread given He who comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world; a dying, not a reigning, Son of man. He bows to, as he explains, the sovereign will of God. He acts as such. The sacrificial death of Him who is God goes far beyond the thought of Israel. Jesus saw the man, and knowing that he was long thus, prompts the desire of healing, but brings out the despondency of unbelief. Her testimony bore the impress of what had penetrated her soul, and would make way for all the rest in due time. It was impossible that there should not be righteous dealing with human evil against God, in its sources and its streams. Fritzsche, p. 21). There is the need of another nature, and the only way in which this nature is communicated is by being born of water and the Spirit the employment of the word of God in the quickening energy of the Holy Ghost. In the Word was life, and the life was the light of men. Article Images Copyright 2023 Getty Images unless otherwise indicated. (1-4) A crowd gathers to Jesus near the Sea of Galilee. not the Jews only; for, as far as intelligence went, it was little better with the disciples till He rose from the dead. Of course they are just as truly inspired as John's; but for that very reason they were not inspired to give the same testimony. The Jews, then, who could not help, and pitied not their fellow in his long infirmity and disappointment, are scandalized to see him, safe and sound, carrying his couch on that day. He could be declared only by One who was a divine person in the intimacy of the Godhead, yea, was the only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father. The Jews, with all their privileges, were strangers here. He is viewed as retaining the same perfect intimacy with the Father, entirely unimpaired by local or any other circumstances He had entered. 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. All rights reserved. For this, therefore, the Jews sought the more to kill Him; because He added the greater offence of making Himself equal with God, by saying that God was His own Father. How could either light or love rest in a scene of sin, darkness, and misery? 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. Life resurrection will display how little they had to be ashamed of, who believed the record given of His Son; the resurrection of judgment will make but too plain, to those who despised the Lord, both His honour and their sin and shame. But if the Spirit speaks of the Son of God, the law dwindles at once into the smallest possible proportions: everything yields to the honour the Father puts oil the Son. No charge could be remoter from the truth. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. A person (the bell ringer) would place a leather muffle over half of the bell's clapper. As the new birth for the kingdom of God, so the cross is absolutely necessary for eternal life. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." He reminds them of his previous disclaimer of any place beyond one sent before Jesus. he departed again into a mountain, himself It is His person as incarnate first, then in redemption giving His flesh to be eaten and His blood to be drank. This only secures His honour in those that believe God's testimony to Him, the Son of God; and to these He gives life, everlasting life now, and exemption from judgment, in this acting in communion with the Father. Whosoever denieth the Son hath not the Father; he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also. John 4:1-54 presents the Lord Jesus outside Jerusalem outside the people of promise among Samaritans, with whom Jews had no intercourse. Do they receive Him not? Rev 20:7, 14 states death is thrown into into the lake of fire after the thousand year period. 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why is john 6:15 the death knell of premillennialism