God proves itself by keeping His commandments, Jesus could set before the individual, v. 29, at the resurrection a destiny corresponding to his works; and, xii. 25, 26, to His servant, not shrinking from self-sacrifice for his humble service, quite in the way of the Synoptists (Matt. x. 39; Luke xiv. 11, and therewith § 32, b), he could set an equivalent reward in his being honoured by the Father. In view of the glorious prospect which Christian hope opens up (I. iii. 2), the apostle in this sense exhorts to strive after purity from sin (ver. 3), as every stain of sin excludes from this blessed goal; and he warns them against being seduced to fall away, by pointing to the loss of the full reward threatened in the future life (II. 8: iva μισθὸν πλήρη ἀπολάβητε). . CHAPTER IV. THE HISTORICAL REALIZATION OF SALVATION. § 152. The Preparatory Revelation of God. Israel possessed a revelation of God in prophecy, the last bearer of which was the Baptist, whose task it was to bear testimony for Christ (a). This testimony had an abiding significance, inasmuch as it was to lead to faith in the Son of God (b). The law, too, although it was already abrogated for the apostle for the present, is a revelation of God. It makes one receptive of the revelation of God in Christ, and thus serves as a positive preparation for the latter (c). But the majority of the very people of the Logos has not received with the passage I. ii. 28, where also confidence at the day of judgment is made dependent on abiding in God, and it hence then follows necessarily that the tert. comp. with Christ's abiding, which, as iii. 3, 7, can only be placed in the character of this abiding, is to be sought in His continuous abiding in God, and this, it is self-evident, excludes any fear before the judgment. But the same thing is shown ver. 18, but from the other side, according to which, by the abiding in love, which is identical with abiding in God, the nature of divine love is perfectly realized in us. For a τελεία ἀγάπη, as it drives out all fear, is just the ȧyázn Tırıλuwμívn in ver. 17; and if it is here spoken of love generally, then we also saw, note b, how indissoluble the love to God is from love to the brethren, so that the application can quite easily be made to the latter. the salvation, although that salvation found receptive souls in the heathen world (d). (a) Even Judaism possessed a knowledge of God, in comparison with which that of the Samaritans is designated as a not knowing of God (iv. 22); there must therefore have been given even in Old Testament times a revelation of God, a thing which Köstlin, p. 88, wrongly denies. Doubtless, it is even said in the Old Testament itself (Ex. xxx. 20) that there was then no direct vision of God, such as the Son had with the Father (vi. 46), and as Christians can have by Him; yet the word of God came to individuals (x. 35; comp. ix. 29), or they saw a form of God (v. 37) in vision or in a theophany. But the prophets could testify of Him from personal experience too; for they had indeed beheld even the glory of the Logos (xii. 41; comp. § 145, a), and heard Him speak, as is plain from this, that, according to the Messianic interpretation of the apostle, they often introduce Him speaking (ii. 17, xii. 38, xiii. 18, xv. 25; comp. § 74, c; 116, c). On that account it is self-evident that the passage x. 8 can refer only to the contemporary leaders of the people, and not to the prophets of the Old Testament (comp. also, Scholten, 'The knowledge of God possessed by the Jews is, to be sure, only a relative knowledge, and it ceases to be a knowledge of God as soon as God is perfectly revealed in Christ (vii. 28, viii. 19, 55, xv. 21, xvi. 3; comp. § 147, c, footnote 7); but so long as it corresponds to the stage of the revelation of God given, it is a real knowledge, and every stage of it is designated as knowledge simply (§ 149, a, footnote 3). Even the Samaritans had a knowledge of God; but because, by their rejection of prophecy, they had excluded themselves from the higher stages of the revelation of God in Israel, Jesus calls it an oux sidévæs. Even the revelation of God in Christianity is yet, according to I. iii. 2, not the highest, but as that which corresponds to the revelation of God in Christ, it is spoken of throughout simply as knowledge. "If Jesus denied to the nation in His time both forms of prophetic revelation (v. 37), because prophecy had been silent for centuries, yet He will in that way confirm the truth that His contemporaries yet possessed the word of God, though only in the written records of those earlier revelations (ver. 38). Nevertheless, it was a mistake if they thought that by the possession of these writings they already had (ver. 39) eternal life, i.e. the real saving blessing, as it was given only by the perfected revelation of God (§ 146), and if on that account they would not come to Christ, in order to receive it from Him alone (ver. 40). For these writings had their essential significance only in this, that they (i.e. God in them) but testified of Christ (ver. 39; comp. vv. 37, 46) or of His fate (xx. 9), and this was here done in many ways by the typical histories embodied in them (iii. 14, vi. 32; perhaps also i. 52). Comp. § 73, c. 2 B VOL. II. p. 149; Immer, p. 539). As the last of these prophets, for the apostle the Baptist comes into notice (§ 149, b), and exclusively as regards his papτupía (i. 19); since he, too, had heard a voice of God (ver. 33), and had seen a form (vv. 32, 34), in consequence of which he could testify of the Son of God. But his significance must cease when the Light Himself had come into the world (vv. 7, 8; comp. iii. 29, 30).3 For in spite of this, its testimony of the Logos prophecy is yet by no means a Christianity in the midst of Judaism (comp. Kostlin, p. 53), it rather ever testifies of the Bearer of the perfect revelation of God who is coming; this revelation it cannot give itself. Of earthly origin and of earthly nature the prophet, too, can but speak what is earthly, what refers to the earthly appearance of Messiah (iii. 31); and if Jesus comprehends His own testimony, so far as it had to do with what was earthly, with that of the Baptist (ver. 11), yet He only who has come from heaven can declare heavenly things (vv. 12, 13; comp. vv. 32, 33). But He can do this only after He has appeared in the flesh (comp. § 145); the perfect revelation of God and Messianic times come only with the incarnation of the Logos. Abraham had rejoiced in joyful hope at the day of Messiah, but only when the Messiah appeared on the earth had he seen Him (out of Hades), and his hope had received its fulfilment (viii. 56). (b) The testimony of prophecy has its significance by no means exclusively for Judaism (comp. Köstlin, p. 133). It is not merely to unbelieving Jews that Jesus points to the fact that the Scriptures testify of Him (note a); He shows even to the disciples how the Scriptures are fulfilled in His fate (xiii. 18, xv. 25, xvii. 12), and He does it with the express design, that they may be led thereby to believe that it is He of whom the Scriptures prophesy (xiii. 19). But the 3 He was a lamp, who might have led His contemporaries to the knowledge of the truth (v. 35), and Jesus holds his testimony to be valid, as it could work faith, and therewith salvation in them (ver. 34). But He needs no more any testimony of man's, since He had received from the Father the testimony of His works (ver. 36). To be sure, He distinguishes from the human testimony of the Baptist the testimony of God in the Scriptures (vv. 37-39), a testimony which was yet given only by the prophets; but only because the divine origin of these was generally acknowledged, while the divine mission of the Baptist was not. Gospel shows, above all, how weighty this testimony of the Scriptures is for the apostle, and also for believing readers.* If, alongside the witness for Christ, he does not quite so strongly emphasize the promises of prophecy, that does not prove that it is done by him strictly only as an accommodation for Judaism (Köstlin, p. 134; comp. Reuss, ii. p. 477 [E. T. ii. 427]); but it is connected with this, that the Messianic salvation is for him essentially a revelation of God given in the person of Christ, for the believing reception of which there is required, according to § 149, b, no testimony as regards His person. Yet even Jesus Himself sees, vi. 45, vii. 38, the blessings of the Messianic times prophesied in the prophets, and it is pointed out by the Gospel, with a design like that of but one of the Synoptists, that He is the bringer of the saving consummation promised in the Old Testament and looked for by the people. Even in the coming of the Baptist the popular questions about the Messiah are at once raised (i. 20, 25, iii. 28). Even the first disciples confess, on the ground of the testimony which the Baptist gives of His being the Son of God (in the Messianic sense) (i. 34), that they have found in Jesus the Messiah (ver. 42), of whom Moses and the prophets wrote (ver. 46), the Son of God, appointed to be the King of Israel (ver. 50). Jesus Himself makes the Samaritan woman know Him as the looked-for Messiah (iv. 25, 26; comp. vv. 29, 42), and the people wish, since they have recognised in Him the prophet promised Deut. xviii. 15, to proclaim Him king (vi. 14, 15). Here, too, the faith of He sets forth emphatically how the disciple, in the holy zeal with which Jesus purified the temple (ii. 17), and in the entrance into Jerusalem (xii. 14-16), had seen a fulfilling of Scripture; he points out in the story of the crucifixion a series of fulfilments of Old Testament words of Scripture (xix. 24, 28, 36, 37; comp. I. v. 7, 8, and therewith § 149, b, footnote 4), and he finds in Isaiah the key to explain the unbelief which Jesus found among His people (xii. 38-40). The quotations are by John almost always introduced as simply words of Scripture (≈ ʼn ypapń: vii. 38, xix. 37; comp. xiii. 18, xix. 24, 28, 36: ἵνα ἡ γραφὴ πληρωθῇ; γεγραμμένον ἐστίν : ii. 17, vi. 31, xii. 15, sometimes with the addition iv - vóμ, or iv rois æpofúcais : x. 34, xv. 25, vi. 45). Only in i. 23, xii. 38, 39, is Isaiah introduced as speaking (comp. § 74, a; 136, b, footnote 5). With the exception of two quotations from Zechariah, they are taken from the Psalms and Isaiah; and he follows, except in those two cases (xii. 15, xix. 37 ; comp. Rev. i. 7), the text of the Septuagint, and in part they are dealt with very freely (xii. 15, 40, xiii. 18, xv. 25, and especially the scarcely recognisable vii. 38; comp. § 74, b). the disciples is tested at a crisis by Peter's confession, that He is simply the consecrated One of God, i.e. the Messiah (vi. 69). In the lively popular scene in the seventh chapter, the question discussed both by the doubters (vv. 26, 27, 41, 42; comp. xii. 34) as also by the believers (vv. 31, 41; comp. ver. 48), is, whether the signs of the Messiah agree with Him. The whole of chap. ix. turns on this, how the members of the Sanhedrim, since they have decreed excommunication for any one confessing His Messiahship (ver. 22), try to turn the man born blind, who had been healed by Him, away from believing in Him, and how Jesus leads Him to believe in His Messiahship (ver. 38). Once more the Jews ask of Him a frank confession of His Messiahship (x. 24), and, although He gives them more than they had asked, He yet evidently proclaims Himself to be the Son consecrated and sent by God, i.e. to be the Messiah (ver. 36). Even Martha replies to Him, on the occasion of His deepest revelations, by the simple confession of His Messiahship (xi. 27). On the occasion of His Messianic triumphal entrance, He allows Himself to be saluted by the people as the King of Israel (xii. 13); and in the presence of Pilate He admits His Messianic kingdom (xviii. 37; comp. also xix. 19-22).5 Even for his believing readers it must have been, in the view of the evangelist, a matter of abiding significance for the strengthening and perfecting of their faith, that Jesus wished to be the fulfiller of Israel's promise. (c) It is altogether a mistake when Köstlin, p. 135, asserts that John simply rejects the Mosaic law, as in the synoptical Gospels (§ 24, c) Jesus acknowledges the whole law to be binding, in that He condemns the transgression of it (vii. 19). He argues from the supposition that pre-Mosaic circumcision It is a simple evasion when Baur, p. 393 f., asserts that the Jewish name of Messiah is introduced only as an antiquarian designation; that the Davidic descent of the Messiah is brought forward as a popular Jewish idea (vii. 42); that the entrance into Jerusalem appears to be but an accommodation on the part of Jesus. • As Moses is acknowledged to be a prophet in the sense of note a (i. 46, v. 46), then the law given by him (vii. 19, 23; comp. i. 17) can but belong to the revelation of God given by him; and if the ypac is acknowledged simply in its inviolable authority (x. 35), then the voμos also belongs to it; indeed, its name, moreover, can but designate the whole Scriptures (x. 34, xv. 25; comp. i. 46), when it is used as the fundamental principal portion of the Scripture. |