and observance of the Sabbath have equal authority (vii. 22, 23). He regards the temple as God's house (ii. 16); He repairs to Jerusalem to the feasts, and He abolishes the worship at Jerusalem by worship in spirit and in truth, only for the future (iv. 21), not for the present (ver. 23). For the apostle, to be sure, who, moreover, regarded the highpriestly dignity as so high, that he looked upon the bearer of it as the (unconscious, to be sure) organ of divine prophecy (xi. 51), the abrogation of the Old Testament law was decided to be an event divinely willed by the fall of Jerusalem (comp. § 141, a). The objectivity with which He speaks to the Jews of purification (ii. 6), feasts (v. 1, vii. 2), the Passover (ii. 13, vi. 4, xii. 55), shows plainly that these Jewish customs (comp. also xix. 40, 42) found in his circles no longer any observance : for him the hour has already come, when worship in spirit and in truth takes the place of worship at Jerusalem (iv. 21). Yet he knows but the commandment, which is involved even in the evangelical message, and which even already has become old (I. ii. 7, iii. 11; II. 5). But that even in the law of the Old Testament, which also indeed reveals God as the righteous and holy One (comp. § 147, b), there is a revelation of truth, if it is but a partial one,-corresponding to

Only on this supposition has the justification of His observance of the Sabbath any sense, inasmuch as Jesus defends it on this ground, that even the anciently holy ordinance of circumcision requires an exception from the Sabbath rest. If He, v. 17, will have the divine Sabbath rest, of which the human is to be a copy (Gen. ii. 3), not to be so understood as to exclude every divine working, then He here but explains the law from the Scriptures themselves, as § 24, b, inasmuch as He assumes that the ceaseless working of God is known from them-that working of God on which He proceeds. In this passage, moreover, He vindicates for Himself the right to do as the Father does, only in virtue of His peculiar relation to the Father (comp. § 143, b, footnote 3).

8 When arguing ex concessis with Jews He speaks of their law (viii. 17, x. 34), or with the disciples, He shows that even the law, on the ground of which they hated Him without a cause, condemns their hatred as groundless (xv. 25), it does not follow from this that He who, according to iv. 22, knew Himself quite as a Jew, will have nothing to do with this law. It is true that He proclaims a new commandment for His disciples (xiii. 34; comp. § 151, a), but not as though the command to love were strange to the Old Testament (comp. § 25, b), but because the love which He requires is perfect love, practised after His own example (comp. § 147, c). Here, too, the new commandment which brings the perfect revelation of God is but the perfect fulfilling of the Old Testament (comp. § 24).

the preparatory stage of revelation,-is clear from this, that Jesus finds even in the territory of the law those who do the truth (iii. 21), and are of the truth, because they are determined by it (xviii. 37); and that the law was a revelation of God analogous to that of the New Testament, is clear from this, that those who do the truth are in God (iii. 21), and from God (viii. 47), quite as those in whom the New Testament revelation has become operative (§ 150).10 The law also is, accordingly, a preparatory revelation, just as prophecy. If the latter, by its testimony, fulfils the first condition for the originating of faith, the former fulfils the second (comp. § 149, b), in that it works that inner state of mind, which alone makes one receptive of the revelation of God in Christ. He only can know the divine in Christ who is willing to do the divine will (vii. 17), and he only who loves God will do that truly. If the love to God, which is the abiding condition for the normal development of the sacred life, is produced even by the revelation of God in Christ (§ 151, b), then must that love to God, which leads to the first knowledge of God, analogously be produced by the preparatory revelation of God.11

(d) Israel was the place for the revelation of God, which

If John puts the revelation of law by Moses in contrast with the communication of grace and truth by Christ (i. 17), the former is not thereby designated as something unreal and not of God (comp. Köstlin, p. 54), but only in contrast to the commanding revelation of law the perfect revelation is characterized by this, that it brings the gifts of grace to full reality. But, that between the partial truth, which, however, as it rests on divine revelation, involves no untruthfulness, and the perfect truth, there is no distinction expressed, results from the Johannean peculiarity, explained § 141, c (comp. footnote 1). Besides this passage, which reminds one of the Petrine use of the word (§ 45, b, footnote 3), the idea of xápis occurs, just as in Revelation (§ 135, c), only in the stereotyped prayer for blessing at the beginning of the Epistle (II. 3).

10 It is even presupposed that the Jews might have been the children of God (viii. 42), and might have been able to love Him (v. 42), had they used aright the Old Testament revelation of God (ver. 39); indeed, this must have been the case, if they had wanted to be receptive of the revelation of God in Christ, for only those who do the truth in God come to the light (iii. 21); only those who are of God and of the truth hear the word of Christ and receive it (viii. 47, xviii. 37), come therefore to faith.

11 But love to God is, in fact, the fundamental demand of the law (comp. § 25, b), and in whomsoever the law had not constantly quickened the opposition of the natural man, as it had done in Paul (§ 58, b), that man must it have driven to strive after a fulfilling of the known will of God (vii. 17), as it had

12

was given in prophecy and in the law, and which, as all revelation of God (i. 4, 9), was brought about by the Logos. Israel is therefore the very people of the Logos (i. 11),12 and here, too, the saving historical significance of Israel is thereby firmly retained, for which it was prepared by His revelation of God. Because the Messianic salvation comes from the Jews (comp. Rev. xii. 1–5, and therewith § 130, c, footnote 4), they on that account possess the knowledge of God (iv. 22). In order that the Messiah may be revealed to the people of Israel, John comes to them with his baptism with water, to prepare for Him the way (i. 31; comp. ver. 23). Jesus confines, quite as Israel (comp. xi. 51).

in § 28, d, His earthly activity to Briefly, when activity in Samaria was forced on Him rather than sought by Him, He turned at once to His Tarpís (iv. 44) ; and when He was told that the longing to see Him had arisen among the Greeks (xii. 22), He sees the hour of His glorification come a glorification which is to become His only by death (vv. 23, 24). His earthly activity was by a divine destination connected with Israel; only after His death could His glorification begin among the Gentiles; only when He has been exalted could He seek to draw all unto Him (ver. 32). But, no doubt, He here concludes His activity

done to our apostle, and it must have positively prepared him for the revela tion of God in Christ; while in the case of Paul, the law could prepare for Christ only negatively, while it showed that there is no salvation without Him (§ 72, b). In James, too (§ 54, a), and in a certain sense even in Paul (§ 88, c), we found, moreover, love to God, inasmuch as it made receptivity for salvation sure, made to be a condition of salvation; and that the religious moral striving, quickened by the preparatory revelation of God, made one ready to receive the message of salvation, even Peter teaches (Acts x. 34, 35). But while John designates the working of the preparatory revelation of God by the same expressions as those of the perfect revelation in Christ, he sets forth in the strongest way the essential affinity of the two (comp. § 141, a), without in any way thereby prejudicing the specific significance of the salvation given in Christ, since He also designates the nature of the thing, at the most diverse stages of development, by the same expressions (§ 141, c).

12 If Israel is called ràdia of the Logos, as the apostles are called the of dio of the incarnate One (xiii. 1), then it is therein implied that he has chosen the former as well as the latter (xv. 16); and as there is no clear distinction between what belongs to the Father and the Son (xvii. 10), Israel is here, too, the very chosen people of Jehovah, as in the Old Testament. Only under another Old Testament image they appear as the flock of Jehovah (comp. § 45, a), which He has enclosed in the fold of the Old Testament theocracy (x. 16), and then even as His household (viii. 35; comp. § 117, b).

with the result that all work among the people who had been prepared throughout sacred history for His coming was lost, because this preparation had not in the least attained its end (i. 11).13 This world-historical fact, which even then was tragically confirmed, had emancipated the apostle inwardly from his people (§ 141, a). He speaks of the Jews (oi 'Iovdaîoi), but only as the representatives of unbelievers. On the other hand, He assumes that rays of light which the Logos had from the beginning distributed among all men (I. iv. 9), had fallen also on the heathen world, had been there received, and had become effectual. In consequence of which there were here and there scattered, like a dispersion of the true people of God, even children of God there, who require only to be gathered together (xi. 52) and put under the guidance of the Good Shepherd, to whom in their innermost being they belong as His sheep (x. 16). The question finally to be dealt with by Christ is not the distinction of Judaism or heathenism, but is this, whether here and there the preparatory revelation of God, which the Logos had given, had been received, and had restored the inner preparation, which makes one receptive of the perfect revelation of God, and which is shown in the contrast of ποιεῖν τὴν ἀλήθειαν and φαῦλα πράσσειν (iii. 20, 21).

§ 153. Victory over the Devil.

Humanity, as a whole, is appointed to salvation, and requires it, because they are under the dominion of the

13 The present generation of Israel had not appropriated the word of God (v. 38), as all revelation has to be appropriated if it is to become effectual (viii. 37). And therefore it had not produced in them love to God, and had not made them the children of God (v. 42, viii. 42). They were no doubt Abraham's seed (viii. 37), but not the true children of Abraham in the sense of moral similarity of nature (ver. 39); they did not really belong to Jehovah's flock, which He had given to the chief Shepherd; they were not His sheep (x. 26), which He knew at once as such (vv. 14, 27). They therefore knew Him not when He came to feed His flock (ver. 14), and they believed not (ver. 26). There were no doubt some among them who really belonged to God (xvii. 6, 9), as they had allowed themselves to be made receptive by the preparatory revelation of God, who, as Christ's sheep (x. 14), heard His voice (ver. 3), and followed Him (ver. 27), while they heard (ver. 8) not the voice of false leaders of the people, who would alienate them from Him. But the very people of the Logos, in whole and part, received not Him who came into the world (i. 11).

devil (a). The devil is the author of sin, in that he, whose nature is bloodthirsty and false, seduced men to sin, to bring them to destruction (b). Those who surrender themselves to the inworking of the devil, and are his children, are unreceptive of the revelation of God in Christ, and fall under the divine judgment of hardening, which Jesus Himself by His appearance accomplishes (c). Beyond this circle Christ has broken the power of the devil, and those who believe on Him conquer him (d).

(a) As the election of Israel in the sacred history does not prevent the Logos from working even in the heathen world, so the whole world of men in general' is the object of the divine love, which has been revealed in the sending of the Son (iii. 16). God has sent His Son to them (iii. 17, x. 36, xvii. 18; I. iv. 19), and He has come to them (i. 9, iii. 19, vi. 14, xi. 27, xii. 46, xvi. 28, xviii. 37; comp. I. iv. 1; II. 7), and speaks to them (viii. 26), finally to leave them again (xvi. 28). Humanity as a whole is appointed therefore to salvation, a fact which Scholten, p. 58 f., without reason denies. Christ is the atonement for the whole world (I. ii. 2), and the gaining of them continues the final goal of His prayer (xvii. 21, 23; comp. xiv. 31). But humanity as a whole needs salvation, because they have sin (i. 29); they need light (viii. 12, ix. 5), life (vi. 33, 51), deliverance (iii. 17, iv. 42, xii. 47; I. iv. 14). The reason of this lies in this,

1 The idea of the xócμos is accurately defined by John, as with Paul (§ 67, a), while elsewhere in the early apostolic type of doctrine, apart from the Gospels (§ 138, c, footnote 8), there is indicated a transition to the Pauline conception only in Heb. xi. 7, 38. Only rarely does i xóopos stand for the universe (xvii. 5, 24, xxi. 25), or for the earthly world (xvi. 21; I. iii. 17; comp. elsewhere, yñ : iii. 31, xii. 32, xvii. 4), which in most cases is more closely designated as ¿ xócμos ouros (ix. 39, xi. 9, xii. 25, xiii. 1, xviii. 36). The formula iv - xócμ

forms its transition as a designation of the people in this world (i. 10, ix. 5, xiii. 1, xvii. 11; I. iv. 3; comp. xvi. 33, xvii. 13). This also is clearly evident, when the great mass of men as such is called i xócμos (vii. 4, xii. 19, xiv. 27, xviii. 20), and thus i xóaμos comes to be in the end a technical term for the world of men as a whole. On the ground of this steady usus loquendi, even in the passage I. ii. 15, which reminds one so much of Jas. iv. 4, ó xóopos may be but the world of men; at the same time mention is made, ver. 17, of their iμía, and i Tiv Tò biλnua ro eso forms the contrast to it, while the worldly mind, ver. 16, is designated as rò iv r xóou. Yet here there is no thought of the sum of all individual men, but of the world of men in their God-opposing attitude (comp. § 156, c).