After its first few sentences, all the rest of this prayer of Jesus centred on his disciples, so it may be taken as fairly certain that even the earlier petitions on his own behalf were really with them in mind, for it was only through himself that eternal life and the glory of the Father could come to them. He had been unremitting in his efforts to educate them in this truth: “I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.” That expression: “Thou gavest them me” comes six times in this prayer! (v.6twice,9,11,12,24).

The Name

The allusions to Moses come through clearly here (see Study 205). The “name” of the Lord declared to Moses (Ex.34 :6,7) was declared by him to the people, just as the glory of the Lord also was visible in him in a truly awe-inspiring fashion (34 :29-35). And as the men of Levi, unexpectedly loyal to their leader and reacting sharply from the sin of the golden calf, were assigned a perpetual loyalty to the sanctuary of the Lord (Dt.33 :8-10), so also now the disciples given to Jesus as his necessary helpers, had hung on in their loyalty to him against all, discouragements.

Jesus had both “manifested” the Name of God (v.6) and “declared” Him (v.26). The former word nearly always implies theophany, the latter means “made known” through his teaching. The “Name” he manifested was, of course, much more than the divine Covenant Name or other cognomen. As with Moses in the mount, the Name of the Lord now declared by Jesus was His character and attributes and purpose. “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth (the fulfilment of His promises), keeping mercy for thousands (very probably means “for a thousand generations”; Ex.20 :6RVm), forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (Ex.34 :6,7). It may be doubted whether at this time the apostles appreciated that their Jesus was to be the vehicle of such surpassing grace, but in due time the Spirit of truth illuminated their understanding very remarkably.

“They have known^”

Given to Jesus by the Father, they “kept” his word and became the staunch custodians of his teaching. Here again is yet another aspect of the inescapable paradox woven into so much of the teaching of John’s gospel. Given by the Father-this is election-but keeping their Master’s word is only by personal decision and act of will.

“Now they have come to know that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.” Throughout the past three years there had been plenty of occasions when their confidence in him had faltered, times enough when devotion had been clouded by mystification; yet they had held on, unable to define clearly the grounds of their conviction about him, but unwilling to let go.

It seems not unlikely that the past tenses used by the Lord in his prayer concerning his disciples were so used by anticipation of the greater consolidation of faith which came to them later on. The very words spoken by the Father to His Son (Dt.18 :16,18) were now spoken to them by Jesus, “and they received them’—at this time only in a limited sense; the “receiving” of the inner meaning of their Lord’s instruction would be theirs in due course. “They have known surely that I came forth from thee, and they believed that thou didst send me.” It may be doubted whether at this moment the apostles had grasped as a literal fact that Jesus was the Son of God, born of a virgin (8 :42). And the sense in which he was “sent” would naturally be interpreted by them in the light of his word about themselves: “As thou hast sent me unto the world, even so have I also sent them into the world” (v.18). But the full realisation of the person and work of Jesus would necessarily come to them after the resurrection, after Pentecost.

There is a marvellous exclusiveness about this petition of Jesus for his own: “I pray for them: I pray not for the world” (cp. Mt.10:32). Once again it was the Jewish world which he reprobated. He had come unto his own, and his own received him not (astonishing understatement!). And as long as Israel gave him only a stubborn rejection, “pray not for this people” was the mandate God laid upon him (Jer.11:14;cp. 1Jn.5:19).

So all his concern was centred on these humble inadequate men given him by his Father—’for they are thine: and all mine are thine, and thine are mine.” Once again the paradox shouts for resolution: if this be so emphatically true, why the need for this most intense insistent prayer? But the Book supplies no answer. To the unbeliever this is foolishness, to the man of God it is faith, and thus the Son of God is glorified in him.

How well Jesus knew the frailty of these to whom he was to commit so much. There might well be grounds for concern how they would fare without him: “I am no more in the world, but these are in the world (that hostile Jewish world of entrenched privilege, religious distortion, and consolidated prejudice). Holy Father (the one who prays thus is a High Priest entering into a Holy of Holies),… Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me.”

The unique mode of address used by Jesus here is a measure of the intensification of his emotion and earnestness. In such an environment as the disciples would find themselves, how could they hope to keep their heads above water without having “everlasting arms” to support them and without a wisdom far beyond their own?

The exact equivalent of this prayer (v. 11) is to be found in an impressive Messianic psalm: “Let not them that wait on thee, O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake; let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel” (69 :6). And another psalm which includes a moving passage about Judas (55:12-14)ends on this note: “Cast upon the Lord that which he has given thee, and he shall sustain thee” (55 :22). In his protracted intercession for those given him by the Father, Jesus expressed the spirit of this psalm perfectly.

The son of perdition

His own concern and vigilance for the twelve had been unremitting: “While I was with them, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept (NEB: kept them safe), and none of them perished, but the son of perdition.” The implications here are very striking. If the twelve were “given” to Jesus by the Father, it must mean that there was direct divine guidance in their selection, a guidance imparted in the course of a whole night spent in prayer about them (Lk.6:12).

Judas was one of those “given” by the Father, yet he became “a son of loss.” Then what did John mean by his earlier declaration that “Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him” (6:64)? Perhaps this should betaken to mean that Jesus knew (from the Old Testament) that the traitor must be one of the inner circle of his disciples.

The added phrase: “that the scripture might be fulfilled,” lends support to this. “Let his days be few, and let another take his office” (Ps.109 :8; and cp. Ps.55 :12-14; 41 :9; 35:12-14).

In this specific example of Judas the earlier paradox reasserts itself. “Given to Jesus by the Father” would seem to imply the inevitability of salvation, Nevertheless Judas perished. Indeed, Jesus spoke of him as already perished (the RV reading is correct), although still competent for the evil work of betrayal. Here once again is the Johannine idiom (learnt from Jesus?). “He that loveth not his Brother abideth in death” (1 Jn. 3:14).

The ground for this prayer on behalf of the disciples was now repeated: “And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world (he surely meant ‘concerning the world—the next few verses seem to demand this meaning), that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.” This repetition of the word “fulfilled” suggests allusion to another Scripture to be fulfilled, probably to Psalm 16 :11: “Thou wilt shew me the path of life; in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand (“I come to thee”) there are pleasures for evermore” (but see also Zeph. 3:17;ls.29:19;51:ll;66:5). Here immediately after a clear prophecy of his resurrection, is a dear prophecy of his ascension. It is to be recalled, also, that just before this prayer Jesus had been making his promise to send the Spirit of truth from the Father (16:7; 15:26; 14:26).

Concern for the disciples

The benefit of the disciples as the spring and source of this prayer had already been copiously emphasized in his earlier words to them. It is worthwhile to bring the passages together, in order to get the full effect of the Lord’s concern for his weak unsure followers:

“Now I tell you before it come, that when it (the betrayal) is come to pass ye may believe that I am he” (13:19).

“And now I have told you before it (the ascension) come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe” (14:29).

“These things (the warning of persecution, and the comfort of the Holy Spirit) have I spoken unto you that ye should not be offended” (16:1).

“But these things (the hostility of the rulers) have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you” (16:4).

“These things (about the new commandment) have I spoken unto you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be fulfilled” (15:11).

“These things (his and their relationship to the Father) have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace” (16:33).

For all the hardship which hung over him, Jesus could hardly have shown greater solicitude for his followers and less for himself than by the long and intense sequence of petitions which he offered for them: “I have given them thy word; and the world hated them (cause and effect? 15 :18,19), because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (why this immediate repetition?). The world referred to was, once again, the Mosaic system and the unspiritual men associated with it; and the evil he sought their deliverance from was the danger of their being sucked back into compliance with an entrenched self-interest which his sacrifice must bring to an end.

Sent into “the world”

This part of the prayer has a close affinity with the assurance spoken to Peter a short while before: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan (the Jewish adversary—the “world”) hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren” (Lk.22 :31,32).

If they were true followers, they could expect their own experience to match his own. “As thou didst send me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world” (v.18). This can hardly have reference to the earlier, rather brief, mission they had carried out some months before. It must be about the great work of preaching which they were to undertake after his ascension. But it is not easy to see why a past tense should be used here (cp. 4 :38), unless indeed this prayer was actually offered just before the ascension.

He prayed that their self-denying consecration to an evangelizing mission might match his own: “For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth . . . Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth” (v. 19,17).

This “truth”, as in so many places in the Old Testament, alluded to the mighty promises of God which centred in himself. Indeed, the key phrase here was a quotation of king David’s thankful response to the great Messianic promise made to him through Nathan: “Thy words are truth, and thou hast promised this goodness unto thy servant” (2 Sam.7 :28). In the days to come it would be a firm conviction of the immutability of that promise and of its sure fulfilment in Christ which would keep these frail men constant and courageous in their ministry—this, and heaven’s response to their Master’s prayer.

Thus they were launched on their mission— “sent into the world’—even as their Master had himself been “sent into the world” from the time of his baptism by John.

Notes: Jn. 17:6-19

12.	Those that thou gavest me I have kept; an allusion to Ex.23? cp. 1 Pet. 1:2,5.
	Perdition; s.w. Mt. 26:8. Judas was the only one of the twelve who reckoned his discipleship a loss.
13.	I speak in the world. Alternative meaning: ‘through the apostles and their witness.’
17.	Thy truth: the Promises: e.g. Gen.24:27; 32:10; Ex.34 :6; Ps.31 :5; 40:10,11; 89:14; 132 :11; Mic. 7:20.
	Sanctify them through… thy word; cp. Ex.19:14; Eph. 5:26.

The soul of Jesus was clouded with the prospect of impending persecution and suffering. This chiefly because of his disciples. The world hating him, would assuredly hate them also. So he was much concerned to fortify them against the evil to come: “These things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember (and understand; 2:17, 22; 12 :16) that I told you of them” (13 :29; 14 :29 also). Forewarned and with yet greater confidence in their Lord as a true prophet when his words were so exactly fulfilled, they would brace their souls against the onset of antagonism and stiffen their loyalty to his cause.

He could have spelled out these ominous predictions for them in the early days of their discipleship. But what purpose could it achieve when they had Jesus constantly with them? But now he was to be taken from them. Then their understanding of his person and work were marvellously limited: now, for all their many misunderstandings, they knew and loved him better.

In a little while he would be snatched away from them, but because he had been at pains to explain to them beforehand (15 :18-25) there was no need for bewildered blunders such as Peter’s: “Lord, why cannot I follow thee now?” (13 :37). Even so, there was puzzlement enough, as their later cross-questioning of him was to show (16 :17-19). And, inevitably, a bleak sense of impending bereavement clouded their present enjoyment of his fellowship.

Yet, paradoxically, it was for their own good that he be taken from them. “It is expedient for you that I go away,” firstly, because it was so fore-ordained in the Word of God: “Thou hast ascended up on high”—this first, and then: “thou hast led captivity captive, thou hast received gifts for men . . . that the Lord God might dwell among them” (Ps.68 :18). Jesus now reiterated this: “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you.”

Then, too, they must learn the wholesome truth, however reluctant they might be to face it, that a man can only grow into mature discipleship away from Christ. For the basic Christian virtue is the faith which struggles and grows and flourishes without the present aid of theophany.

More than this, how could Jesus come to be the Lord of disciples everywhere if he were to be localised in one spot and restricted in his fellowship to one small group? Indeed, it was expedient that he go away.

The promised Comforter

But he left them a true promise (this is the idiomatic meaning behind his words: “I tell you the truth”)-the Holy Spirit would be their aid and guide and comfort in every spiritual need. To some extent the disciples would appreciate what he meant, for on an earlier occasion when he had sent them out preaching, away from his personal direction and support, they had found themselves mysteriously and wonderfully helped by the very powers which they had seen in him (Mt.10:1). And later, at a time of uncertain faith, when Jesus had gone into the mount of transfiguration, how unsure and helpless they had been without those powers, when they were faced by the double challenge of an epileptic boy and hostile argumentative Pharisees (Mk.9:16-18).

But in the days to come, renewed and encouraged by the Pentecostal gift, these men were to show themselves worthy witnesses of their Lord. “He (the Holy Spirit) will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and .of judgment;” As in the earlier part of this discourse, the “world” here is certainly the Jewish world.

But why should the Holy Spirit be referred to by a personal pronoun? This could be because the Holy Spirit is God in action-the Father’s power vindicating His Son through the inspired witness of his disciples. Or, the pronoun “he” could be regarded as necessary to agree with the earlier word “Comforter” (parakletos is a masculine noun), and so right through this passage (especially in v.13). Yet another suggestion, on very different lines, will be offered later in this study.

A Power of Conviction

Jesus went on to expound his teaching about the Holy Spirit. First, there must be reproof of Jewry regarding its sin in rejecting himself-“because they believe not on me.” In all men this is the great sin-lack of faith in Christ. It is a sin which invalidates every other .virtue a man may have, no matter how many or how fine. And this sin-the rejection of Jesus—was to write off as worthless all the Jewish dedication to good works and godliness. The sin was specially grievous because of the sustained witness of Jesus himself and of his unique works.

From the earliest days the Holy Spirit in Peter hammered away at this unpalatable truth: “Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of Life… Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out…” (Acts 3 :14,15,19). “They were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (2:37). The apostle’s preaching had brought conviction not only of their own sin, but also of Christ’s righteousness, and of his unique power to intercede with God: “because I go to my Father” (v.10; 1 Jn.2 :1). The Holy Spirit in Peter once again: “Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear” (Acts 2 :24,32,33). This speech of Peter’s was beautifully complementary to the words of Jesus in its allusion to the promise of the Holy Spirit and to the vindication of Jesus through his ascension to God’s throne (“Because I go to my Father,” Jesus said). It was a claim which would have been bitterly contested and rancorously denounced if there had been any shred of evidence to encourage such a rejection.

A third equally momentous conviction was to be brought home to the Jews—that through Jesus the entire Mosaic system was coming to an end: “the prince of this (Jewish) world is judged.” As Jesus put it in this brief trenchant phrase, the “prince” or “ruler” of Jewry was the high priest whose office and functions made him the pivot and fulcrum of everything to do with the Law of Moses. With the death of Christ all this revered system became nugatory. Jesus, “blotting out the hand-writing of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross” (Col.2 :14). The apostles came to this intensely revolutionary idea very slowly and timidly.

Stephen and Paul were the most clear-sighted regarding it. Nor did they lack the courage to assert this truth: “And by him (Jesus) all that believe (both Jews and Gentiles) are justified from all things, from which ye (Jews) could not! be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13 :39), Without the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit’s wisdom how could these frail men have ever come to espouse, let alone advocate, such a radical doctrine?

Until their concept of Jesus had changed drastically, much that he would fain impart must remain unsaid: “Ye cannot bear them now.”

Always Jesus had adjusted the quality of his instruction to the capacity of the twelve to take in what he was saying: “he spake the word unto them, as they were able to hear it… when they were alone he expounded all things to his disciples” (Mk.4 :33,34). He fed them with milk, and not with meat, for hitherto they were not able to bear it (1 Cor.3:2).

Promise of the Apocalypse

However, during the Forty Days—and much later through the Apocalypse—he was to further their understanding very profoundly. In earlier discourse (Studies 172,199), Jesus had deliberately aimed to bring out the parallel (and the contrast) between himself and Moses. In that designed similitude the earlier counterpart of the first promise of the Spirit of truth was the Angel of God’s Presence guiding Israel in the wilderness. Now Jesus recurred to the same idea: “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth (concerning me): for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.” This last sentence is an explicit promise of the Book of Revelation—for what other showing of future things was given to the apostles?

The ensuing comment harmonizes admirably * with this: “All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” This is very close in idea to Revelation 1:1 “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John.” The two passages have exactly the same ingredients: The Father, Jesus, the angel (called also the Spirit), the Lord’s apostles, things to come shewn—in John the word “shew” (anangello) is chosen to suggest an ange!l The words may even mean that when the Apocalypse was given an inspired understanding of it or commentary was also available to the early church through the guidance of the Spirit of truth. And when it is realised that Revelation, in the primary fulfilment of Seals and Trumpets at least, is very largely concerned with the overthrow of Jerusalem and its Mosaic system, the context in John is also seen to harmonize remarkably closely, for-as just indicated-verses 8-11 are only meaningful when read with reference to the old order in Jerusalem which the Truth in Christ was to supersede.

“This is my blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Mt.26 :28).

The very familiarity of the words can be a hindrance to the understanding of them. Even if the Epistle to the Hebrews did not say so explicitly, there can be no manner of doubt that Jesus had in mind the supersession of the Old Covenant made at Sinai and the fulfilment of the prophecies by Jeremiah and Ezekiel of a new and living way. So a proper appreciation of the Sacrament involves a certain insight into these earlier Scriptures.

The sequence in Exodus is simple and forceful in its lessons:

a.	There was a fence about the mount. None must presume to approach Jehovah in His holiness (ch. 19 .-12,13,23,24).
b.	The Law of God was rehearsed in the ears of the people (ch.24:3).
c.	They expressed an emphatic resolution to obey (v. 3,7).
d.	Burnt offerings and peace offerings (and before these, sin offerings? Heb.9 .-19) were slain (v.5).
e.	The sacrificial blood was sprinkled on the altar (God’s side of the covenant) and on the people (their assent to it) and also (Heb. 9:19) on the Book of the Law (the essential link between the two parties),
f.	Thus the covenant was made. Contrast here the Covenant of Faith made with Abraham, when God only (and not Abraham) ratified the Promise (Gen.15:17).
g.	“Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel” (v.9). The fence about the mount was gone. After the sacrifice and covenant, fellowship with the God of Israel was now possible.
h.	“They saw God, and did eat and drink” (that is, the peace offering; v.11). The fullness, of the vision (v. 10) was greater than anything yet vouchsafed to them.
i.	But for Moses there was a yet more awe-inspiring experience, and in this he was accompanied by Joshua-Jesus, whilst Aaron was left behind.
j.	On this occasion, as in the Transfiguration of Jesus, “the cloud (the Shekinah Glory of the Lord) covered the mount.. . And God called out of the midst of the cloud . . . and Moses entered into the cloud” (v. 15,16,18).
k.	Moses was shown “the example and shadow of the heavenly things” (Heb.8 :5; Ex.25).
l.	When he re-joined the people, he came as the very embodiment of divine glory (Ex.34 :29).

In all this the anticipation of the principles of the New Covenant in Christ is easy to trace, but with differences.

The holiness of God and the sin of man still erect a barrier which is only to be removed by hearing the Word of God and believing it. Note that Israel promised obedience, but the word of Jesus is: “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom He hath sent” (Jn.6:29).

The sacrifice necessary for ratification of the Covenant is the blood of Christ: “Where a covenant is, there must also of necessity be the death of the covenant sacrifice. For a covenant is of force over the dead (the offering): otherwise it is of no strength at all while that covenant-offering still lives” (Heb.9 .-16,17).

But whereas Israel had the blood of the offering sprinkled upon them, in the New Covenant the New Israel symbolically partake of the blood: “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. . . This is my blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. Drink ye all of it” (Jn.6 :53; Mt.26: 28,27). “I will put my la w in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts” (Jer.31 :33).

By virtue of this Covenant Sacrifice there is fellowship with the God of Israel, a fellowship to be more fully realised when Jesus eats and drinks with his redeemed in his kingdom (Lk. 22:16,18).

The Transfiguration of Jesus was the demonstration and guarantee that all this will be accomplished in him. Moses spoke to Jesus of “the Exodus (Lk.9 :31 Gk.) which he should accomplish at Jerusalem”-a plain declaration that Israel was still in Egypt, and did not know it. In due time Jesus will come again “in the glory of his Father” to constitute those he has redeemed out of bondage “a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation” when “the glory of the lord fills the Tabernacle.”

The words of Jesus at the Last Supper- “this is the blood of the New Covenant”-also make a firm link with Jeremiah 31. There note specially:

a.	Verse 32: “Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers . . . which my covenant they brake” (symbolized at the outset by Moses’ breaking of the tables of stone). This New Covenant is to stand, whereas the sheer waywardness of Israel set aside the other.
b.	Verse 33: “I will put my law in their inward parts (into their minds; Heb.8 :10; and cp. Ps.51 :6), and write it in their hearts.” But this is precisely what was already prophesied concerning Christ (Ps.40 :8). So the New Covenant is to make men Christ-like. Hence the difference, already mentioned, between being sprinkled with the blood of the covenant and actually drinking it. Cp. Hebrews 9 :14: “How much more shall the blood of Christ . . . purge your conscience from dead works…”
c.	“Write it in their hearts.” Paul combines these words with Ezekiel 11 :19,20 in another pointed contrast with the Old Covenant (2 Cor.3 :3) which could not achieve this; Dt.5 :28,29and 29:4.
d.	In Hebrews 8 :11, where Jeremiah 31 :34 LXX is quoted, the Greek makes a delightful distinction between the verbs: “And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour . . . saying, “Get to know, learn about, the Lord: for they shall all know me familarly, or by instinct, from the least of them unto the greatest of them.” And the order of words in the last phrase is perhaps intended to suggest that the first qualification for knowing God is humility: the least will learn first.
e.	“For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (contrast Ps.103 :14)-“the new covenant for remission of sins” (Mt.26 :28). There is sharp contrast here with the Old Covenant which offered material blessing when a man showed himself obedient. The New Covenant begins with free unmerited forgiveness.
f.	Under the law sin could only be forgiven when associated with the bringing of a sin-offering. Thus: “my blood of the new covenant for the remission of sins” was a clear declaration beforehand that Jesus would die such a death.

Also, the word “covenant” (Jer.31 :32) would set every pious Jewish reader reminding himself that there is no covenant without a covenant-sacrifice (Heb.9 :16), yet Jeremiah specified no such sacrifice. In the upper room Jesus showed how the omission is made good: “This is my blood of the new covenant…”

Jesus had spoken to the disciples about the New Covenant as a Love Feast, using for it the word agape which also describes the highest of the virtues-the love which he had shown in a thousand ways during his ministry and which he was to exemplify supremely in his sacrifice. In the next part of his discourse his thought moved rapidly and frequently from one meaning of agape to the other, and there was constant close relation of these ideas to a comparable meal of fellowship with which the Old Covenant had been inaugurated at Sinai (Ex.24 :11).

“If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments.” At Sinai, the people heard the words of the Book of the Covenant and declared: “All that the Lord hath spoken will we do, and be obedient” (Ex.24 :7). With a repetition which could never be over-emphatic, the book of Deuteronomy sought to establish in the mind of every Israelite that the love of God and faithful observance of His commandments are inseparable (5 :10; 7 :9; 11 :1,22; 13 :3,4; 19:9; 30:16).

Now with an authority which would be blasphemous if he were not the Son of God, Jesus laid a like duty on his disciples. His words state very simply a principle of the highest value to all who belong to him. The secret of Christian obedience is the love of Christ. When a man really loves his Lord, obedience (or, the next best thing, earnest repentance after failure) is a relatively easy matter. With the love of Christ as the source and spring of his whole way of life, there is no longer any need for strongminded resolutions to forsake evil. Instead, intense wrestling of the soul gives place to a relaxed confidence in a beloved Lord who now readily commands allegiance. If a man really loves Christ, he does keep his commandments. So learning to love him becomes the highest duty. Directed to anyone but Jesus this is invariably difficult, for to know well any of one’s fellows is to know well the mass of faults and weaknesses which belong to him. But the more a man can learn about Christ the more he must come to love him-this peerless, altogether lovely Son of God. So here is the best of all reasons for ceaseless devoted study of the gospels.

The converse of this fundamental proposition is also true, alas! If a man does not follow a way of life ordered by the principles of Christ’s teaching, by that fact he declares how little he loves his Lord, no matter how pious his pretensions.

There can be little doubt that Jesus spoke this simple truth with primary reference to the “new commandment” which he had just given to his disciples, that they observe the Love Feast, the Agape. And experience has ever shown the truth of his words. No man who loves his Lord will neglect attendance at the Lord’s Table.

Israel and the New Israel

Still drawing out the parallel with the Old Covenant, Jesus now spoke his first promise of the Holy Spirit. At Sinai there had been a corresponding promise: “Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee unto the place which I have prepared. (“I go to prepare a place for you”). Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him. But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak (“keep my commandments”) then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries” (Ex. 23:20-22). In another respect also God’s Holy Spirit was made a Helper to His people -when He “took of the spirit that was upon Moses, and gave it to the seventy elders”, so that “when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, but they did so no more” (Num. 11:25RV), “Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them,” commemorated Nehemiah and his Levites (Neh. 9:20). And in Isaiah’s reminiscence of these experiences “the angel of his presence” and “his holy Spirit” are either closely associated or are actually equated (63:9-11).

The expression “another Comforter” clearly implies that the Holy Spirit was not the only Helper from God. The explanation is in 1 John2:l: “If any man sin, we have an Advocate (same word) with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” And in a somewhat enigmatic passage in Romans 8 Paul sets the Holy Spirit’s guidance and intercession alongside that of Christ himself (v.26,27).

The Comforter

There is a lot of argument amongst the commentators and language experts as to the precise meaning intended by the word Jesus used. By fairly general agreement “Comforter” is not really the right idea. “Advocate”, in the legal sense—that is, counsel for the defence-has classical support but seems to belong to another world from these passages in John’s gospel. Probably the rather general word: “Helper” comes as near as any to what was intended.

It is easy enough to understand many of the allusions to the Holy Spirit here and in the later Paraclete passages (14:26; 15:26; 16:13) as having reference to the remarkable powers with which members of the early church were endowed after Pentecost, but here the phrase: “that he may abide with you for ever” presents double difficulty. The Holy Spirit appears to be spoken of as a separate person (cp.v.26; 15:26; 16 :13; the orthodox dogma of the personality of the Holy Spirit has no other Biblical support apart from the pronouns in these places). Also, the abiding character of the Spirit’s indwelling contrasts strangely with Paul’s prophecy that the Spirit’s gifts would be withdrawn (1 Cor. 13:8).

He—the Spirit

One explanation of the first difficulty would be that the pronoun “He” refers to the Father who sends the Spirit in response to the plea of His Son. But this runs into difficulties in verse 17 and also in 16 :13. More probably the masculine pronoun has to be used because the antecendent Greek word for “Comforter” is itself masculine. In this case either “he” or “it” would be a valid translation into English. Or, once again, there is allusion to the angel who cared for natural Israel in their wilderness journey.

“Forever”

The duration of Holy Spirit endowment presents a much more tricky question. In this sequence of “Comforter” promises in John’s gospel, certain details seem to require restriction to the leaders of the first century ecclesia (e.g. 14:26: “he shall bring all things to your remembrance”); Paul was confident that the Spirit’s gifts were only temporary; indeed those gifts could be transmitted to others by none but the Twelve (Ms 8 :14-19), so the second generation was bound to see their gradual disappearance; and all the available historical evidence from early Christian writers supports this conclusion.

Nevertheless here Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would “abide with you for ever” (v.16). There are three ways of coping with this problem.

One is to take the phrase very literally: “unto the age,” as though meaning to the end of the Mosiac dispensation when the temple was destroyed in A.D.70. This is an uneasy solution since, with hardly an exception in the New Testament, “for ever” means just that, and not forty years.

Much more fitting is the suggestion which emphasizes the happy opinion in the early church that the Holy Spirit gifts were to be enjoyed as a foretaste of yet greater blessing: “the powers of the world to come” (Heb.6 :5), “the earnest of our inheritance” (Eph.4 :30). From this point of view, “abide with you for ever” could mean “abide with you now, and ultimately for ever in my kingdom.”

The third alternative regards the charismatic powers of the Spirit as an interim phase of ecclesial development which has not necessarily meant complete inactivity of the Holy Spirit since the first century ended. Otherwise there are, it is pointed out, a big number of familiar New Testament texts which have either to be written off as no longer valid or else have to be given a somewhat indirect meaning with reference to the inspiration of Holy Scripture as the believer’s only resource and guide in modern times. The subject is large and complex and, alas, often nebulous in its modern treatment.

There are evident weaknesses about all of these interpretations. Then, what of this?:

A different approach

The New Testament has plenty of clear indications of a first century expectation of an early return of the Lord. These are all inspired Scriptures, and therefore were correct when they were spoken or written. So also here.

In this discourse by Jesus there is the same expectation that the kingdom would be manifest within a human lifetime. In that case the Lord’s promise that the Comforter will “abide with you for ever” was literally true when spoken. There would never be a time after Pentecost when the Holy Spirit (as experienced in the first century) was not with and in the believers. (The same explanation helps with Acts 2 :39; 1 Cor.13 :10; Lk.11:13).

But these inspired expectations were not fulfilled. For explanation why, see “Revelation” (H.A.W),p.259ff.

Help needed

Jesus foresaw the tremendous tensions which the preaching of the gospel would set up, especially in Jewry, after his ascension. So he promised the Holy Spirit as a guide in times of difficulty, as a mainstay of truth against the contentions of error: “The world (the Jewish world) cannot receive him, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him.” That word “seeth” had reference, doubtless, to the remarkable works of the Holy Spirit in Jesus himself and in the early church. The unbelieving nation saw the miracles, but was blind to the truth which they so graciously and powerfully proclaimed. In this sense, but not in this sense only, the Holy Spirit was to continue the Lord’s own witness. More especially, its guidance would empower frail untutored men to add their inspired witness concerning all aspects of truth which the life of the eccclesia or the preaching of the gospel might need. Remarkably enough, in the earliest days its direction was specially needed to testify against Jewish unbelief in Jesus as the Son of God, but before the apostle John passed off the scene its witness was needed also to confound the opposite “spirit of error” which taught, with increasing success, that “Jesus Christ is not come in the flesh” (1 Jn.4:1-6).

“Ye know him,” Jesus continued, “for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” The tenses here are difficult. Perhaps Jesus meant: ‘By contrast with my adversaries you are readily recognizing the Holy Spirit in my words and actions as I continue to abide with you; the same divine power shall be in you.’

Orphans

In Israel the Firstborn received a double portion of the inheritance in order that, if any younger brother found himself in hard straits— an “orphan’—the Firstborn’s duty of helping such with food and drink could be fulfilled.

It was to this that Jesus now referred: “I will not leave you orphans (13 :33): I come to you.” For them absence need not mean deprivation. “Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more: but ye see me.” Clearly this “no more” was not to be taken absolutely. The world will assuredly see Jesus again. The Jewish world, which he had specially in mind, will one day “look on me they pierced, and shall mourn for him as one mourneth for an only son, a Firstborn” (Zech.12:10).

The Agape

It was a different vision of their Lord (from that of Zech. 12 :10) which he promised to them, his disciples: “But ye behold me: because I live, ye shall live also.” His expansion of this thought (v.21,23) shows that he spoke of their spiritual contemplation of him in the Agape, which was to celebrate not only his death, but also his living power. “Ye shall live also,” having already “passed from death unto life.” (1 Jn. 3:14 -another allusion to the Agape. How could they think of themselves as orphans, bereft of food and comfort, when he had bequeathed to them such a token of continuing blessing?

“In that day (the day of their meeting together to remember their Lord) ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” What more eloquent means of reassurance concerning these profound Shekinah truths than the simple remembrance of Christ in Bread and Wine as he had just appointed? “He that hath my commandments (13 :34), and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me (the Agape): and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” In all this there was implied comparison and contrast with the experience of the elders of Israel who, through the sacrifice offered by Moses, were given the privilege of beholding the Glory of the Lord and of eating peace-offerings in His Presence (Ex.24 :1-11). But high honour though this was, they could only worship “afar off.” How different the close fellowship with both Father and Son made possible for these humble disciples who were now being taught to appreciate their high status in the heavenly family!

In doing so, Jesus carefully chose a different word to describe this “manifesting” of himself to them from that so frequently employed to describe an open and unmistakable personal appearance (as in 7 :4; 17:6; 21 :1,14).

Judas, probably the youngest of the apostles, fastened on this implied difference. Like the rest, and especially the other Judas (note the parenthesis in this verse), he was eager to see his Master openly proclaimed to the nation as the Messiah of Israel. What other kind ol “manifestation” could Jesus mean? He feared that his leader might be abandoning his Messianic intentions altogether.

Jesus explained carefully the more immediate relevance of his words regarding the Breaking of Bread: “If any man love me (the Agape), he will keep my word (“do this in remembrance of me”): and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him (at the Love Feast), and make our abode with him (in the new spiritual temple, where there are many abiding places; v.2; Ex.25 :8). He that loveth me not (by neglecting the Breaking of Bread) keepeth not my words (and my Father will not love him, and we will not come and make our abode with him; v.23); and this word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me (compare God’s word to Moses: “I will be with thy mouth, and will teach what thou shalt say;” Ex.4 :12). “I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethen, like unto thee, and I will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him;” (Dt. 18 :18).

Passages such as this are more than sufficient to allay misgivings regarding the notorious “omissions” in John’s gospel. Many a devout reader has been more than a little puzzled, and even distressed, that so many of the highly important features of the Lord’s ministry, detailed by the synoptic writers, should apparently go unmentioned in the fourth gospel. Yet it may be said with fair confidence that most of the supposed omissions are actually included by John, but in his own characteristic fashion. In this particular place the blessing and power of the Breaking of Bread is beautifully expounded for the reader through the Lord’s own commentary, and with a fullness which the other gospels do not attempt.

Notes: Jn. 14:15-24

15.	Love me. . .my commandments. Linked together iii 13 :34; 15 :10,12; 1 Jn.2 :7,8; 3 :23,24; 5 :2,3. In all these places, the Agape. (AV, RV reading equally valid).
17.	The Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive. These ideas occur together in 1 Cor.2 :10.14.
	The outstanding passages for study besides Jn. 14,15,16 are:
	Lk. 11:13; Jn. 3:5-8; Rom.5:5; 8:1-27; 14:12; 15:13, 16, 30; 1 Cor. 2:11-16; 3:16; 6:11; 12:3, 13; 2 Cor. l:22; 3:3, 13, 14; Gal.5 :5, 16-18, 22, 25; Eph. l:19-21; 2:18,22; 3:16-20; 4:4,30; 5:18; 6 :18; Phil. 2:1; 3:3; Col. l:8,9; 1 Sam.10:10; 16:14; 19:9; 1 Kg. 18:46; Jud. 14:6; Ex. 31:3; 36:1. Also: Ps.119:12-18, 26, 27, 32-38; 51:6; 141:3,4; 143:10; Acts 16:14; Jas. l :5; 1 Thess. 3:12; Jude 24; Heb.13:21; 2 Thess. l :11; 3:3,5; Lk. 24:31,45; 1 Kgs.8:58; 17:9; Mt. 16:17; ls. 10:5,6.
21.	To him. Necessarily personal.
22.	Not Iscariot. This might well imply that the traitor Judas also was dissatisfied at having no manifestation to the world. Otherwise, in view of 13:20 this insertion is hardly necessary.
	Not unto the world. A dramatic change, apparently, from 12:15.
23.	My words, with allusion to Ex.24 :3.
	We will come unto him. According to the Didache 10 :10, “Maranatha” (our Lord has come) was pronounced between the meal of fellowship (the Agape) and the sacramental Bread and Wine.
	Our abode, with allusion to the Tabernacle; Ex.25 :8 etc.
19.	No more. Examples of limited usage of this expression: Jn.14 :30RV; 21 :6;;Mk.l5 :5 RV; Acts 20 :25; 2 Sam. 2:28 LXX 2 Kgs.6 :23,24; 1 Sam. 7 :13. The first of these is specially disastrous for JW interpretation.

	1.	Melchizedek as a type of Christ (Genesis 14:18-20; Hebrews 7:1-11).
		a.	Melchizedek means “King of r Righteousness.” Jesus is the only one to whom this title rightly belongs. He was first the Righteous One, and then –
		b.	He was king of Jerusalem (Mt.5 :35); which means-
		c.	King of Peace, strictly, King of the Peace that Jehovah will provide (Gen.22 :8,14).
		d.	Without father, without mother.” Through a misunderstanding of these words various unsupported suggestions have been made about Melchizedek being Shem, Enoch, or an angel. The words “made like unto the Son of God” explain. “Shaveh” (Gen. 14:17) means “made like”. Here is the authority for Heb.7:3 and all that it implies. Thus the narrative in Genesis 14 is designed, both in what is said and in what is left unsaid, to present the priesthood of Melchizedek as like that of Christ. Here, a contrast is made with the Aaronic priesthood which depended entirely on ancestry of both father and mother (Lev.21 :14;Neh.7:64,65).
		e.	“Having neither beginning of days nor end of life.” Again the reference is to priesthood. Christ’s priestly work is efficacious for every generation of the human race from Adam onwards. Compare the force of Hebrews 9 :15: “for redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant”; and-Romans 3 :25: “the remission of sins that are past.”
		f.	Melchizedek was greater than Abraham. So also Christ (Jn.8:53-58).
		g.	He blessed Abraham in the name of the Lord. But the real blessing on Abraham comes through Christ (Gen.22 :18).
		h.	In the narrative he offered no animal sacrifice; note the explanation made under
		i.	He brought forth bread and wine (Mt. 26:26-29). Was this too obvious for mention in Hebrews 7?
		j.	Acknowledgment of him means also renunciation of worldly advantage (Gen. 14:22-24).
		k.	Another slaughter of the kings is to be followed by Bread and Wine and divine blessing at Jerusalem (Mt.26:29; ls.25 :6).
		l.	Not only the house of Abraham but also Abraham’s Gentile friends are brought to God’s priest-king at Jerusalem (Gen. 14:13,24; Gal. 3:8,9).

	2.	In 2 Samuel 6 David deliberately took upon himself the role of a Melchizedek priest-king (a conscious anticipation of the Messiah he looked for?). Note there:
		v.13:	he offered sacrifice.
		v.14:	he wore the priestly ephod.
		v.18:	he blessed the people in the name of the Lord.
		v.19:	he gave the people Bread and Wine (the word “dealt” here in the LXX is the same as “divide” in Luke 22:17). The word translated: “a flagon of wine” (v.19) is, literally: “a pressing”, and may refer to (a) figs or dates pressed together, or to (b) wine from the pressing of grapes. AV is correct here.
		7:18:	he sat for prayer in the presence of the Lord(cp.Ps.110:1).

	3.	The Table of Shewbread in the Holy Place of the Tabernacle carried not only the Bread but also the Wine of the drink offerings (Lev.24; Ex.25 :29RV; Num.28 :7). Exodus 30 ;9 appears to exclude the disposal of the wine in any other way than by the priests. This could also be inferred from the fact that the Shewbread was to be eaten by the priest (Lev.24 :9). Thus in the great prototype of the House of God there was special provision for the sustenance of God’s servants, and they were to eat and drink it “in a holy place” (RV).
	4.	Proverbs 9 :1-12 may have been originally an appeal to the people to assemble soberly to take heed to the reading of the Law at the Feast of Tabernacles. But it is couched in terms which run on beyond that. There is the building of a house (v.l), the offering of sacrifice, and preparation of Bread and Wine (v.2,5), the appeal to turn from folly to the way of understanding (v.6), emphasis on the fear of the Lord (v.10), and promise of length of days (v.11).
	5.	Isaiah 55 :1,2 is (in spite of its familiarity) a difficult passage, and this largely because it mentions three things to drink (water, wine, milk) and nothing to eat. A re-translation is possible: “Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, break (Bread), and eat; yea, come, buy Wine and marrow . . . without price.” Read thus, the offer is of water and Bread, which become the Wine and marrow of the Messianic feast in ch.25 :6. Note how the main principles of the gospel are expressed here with a brevity so effective as to leave the contemplative reader marvelling.
		a.	The appeal is to everyone, not to Jews only;
		b.	to everyone who knows his own need (“everyone that thirsteth”),
		c.	and who is willing to come,
		d.	although conscious of an inability to buy what is sought (“he that hath no money”);
		e.	the gift is free,
		f.	And yet a price has to be paid—”hearken diligently… incline your ear.”
		g.	“Hear, and your soul shall live” carries the strong implication that otherwise the soul will assuredly die.
		h.	Where is also clear condemnation of justification by one’s own works: “Wherefore do ye spend . . . your earnings (RVm) for that which satisfied not?”
		i.	All this is associated indissolubly, not with the old covenant made at Sinai, but with the new “everlasting covenant” made sure to David through its ratification in Jesus. “The sure mercies of David” is a verbal allusion back to the Promise in 2 Samuel 7: “My mercy shall not depart from him . . . Thine house and thy kingdom shall be established (same word as “sure”) for ever (the “everlasting covenant”) before thee.” It is noteworthy also that “I will make an everlasting covenant with you” (LXX) is used by Jesus at the Last Supper: “I appoint unto you a kingdom . . . .” (Lk.22 :29-same Gk. words). The Promise is called “the sure mercies” because the forgiveness of sins, as well as promise of a kingdom, is involved.

On the way to Gethsemane, or perhaps after they had arrived there, Jesus made the last of several attempts to cushion the faith of his disciples to the tremendous jolt which was inevitable in the next few hours.

“All ye shall be offended (caused to stumble) because of me this night.”

Earlier in his ministry he had pronounced a dreadful curse on the man who would cause one of these “little ones” to stumble: “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Mt.18 :6,7). Yet now Jesus himself was to be the occasion of it. But really their own inadequate understanding of God’s purpose in him was the root cause, and Judas’s traitorous work the means.

The imperative of Old Testament prophecy

And all this was to be according to the prophets: “For it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.” All through his ministry Jesus had shown himself strongly aware of the fact that his work and experiences were bound to conform to what was already written concerning him in the Old Testament, but towards the end this emphasis intensified; and the same theme, properly appreciated by his biographers in later days, was continued with fulness of detail in their records of his death and resurrection.

Many a Scripture which is enigmatic and mysterious to the modern reader must have been luminous and crystal-clear to the discerning mind of the Son of God, thus providing for him both encouragement and acute discouragement as he learned the things that God had in store for the One who loved Him.

Here was a Scripture which specifically included his disciples also. It was written for them as well as for him. In quoting, Jesus deliberately changed the wording from “smite thou” (Hebrew), or “Smite ye” (Greek LXX),to “I will smite,” thus emphasizing the divine purpose in it all (compare Is.53 :6,10), “to do what thy counsel determined before to be done” (Acts 4:28).

Exact fulfilment

The details of Zechariah 13:7-9 need to be taken in conjunction with the earlier prophecy of chapter 11, in which the shepherd of God’s flock is made to cease from his work, the price of his labours being a mere thirty pieces of silver. Thus the bond of the covenant between God and His nation is broken, and the people are thenceforward committed to the authority of shepherds who are blind, worthless, or tyrannical.

Here, in chapter 13, the Shepherd who is God’s “fellow” and who is nevertheless smitten by the power of organized government (“Awake, O sword;” cp. Rom.13 :4) is plainly Jesus.

Yet no sword was used against Jesus, even though men came “with swords and staves to take him” (Mt.26:55; and note Ps.22 :20).

“Awake, O sword” is rhetorical apostrophe addressed to the wielder of the sword; compare: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates” (Ps.24:7) addressed to the gatekeepers of Zion.

It is perhaps possible to go a step further and see the wielder of the sword not as some human authority but as an angel (Num.22 :23; Josh.5 :13) under whose unseen direction Roman and Jewish powers alike were.

The Hebrew text uses an unusual word for “the man that is my fellow.” All the other eleven occurrences of it come in Leviticus with reference to offences against or by one’s fellow man. Here it is used of God’s “fellow” who never committed any offence against any.

Is it possible to infer from the sequence of phrases: “Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered,” that when Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane he was actually smitten (by Malchus, the high priest’s servant?) before the disciples “all forsook him and fled”?

Rather remarkably, another prophecy uses the same terminology: “All my bones are scattered abroad” (Ps.22 :14)—as though emphasizing the figure of the Lord’s Body and its members.

The “little ones” in the prophecy are Christ’s disciples. God turned His hand upon them for good at a time when the minority of the nation (“the third part”) was to be refined and cherished as the true people of Jehovah and the majority were to be “cut off and die’—a judgment that came in A.D.70, and will yet happen again. It is interesting to note the number of times Jesus appropriated this phrase “the little ones” from Zech 13 :7-Mt.18 :4,5,6,10,U; Lk.12 :32; Jn.13 :33.

Pusey (“Minor Prophets”) seems to imply that some of the leading Jewish rabbis (e.g. Ibn Ezra and Abarbanel) were apparently driven by Christian polemics to consider seriously the appropriateness of the details of this prophecy to Jesus of Nazareth.

The immediate fulfilment required that “the sheep of the flock be scattered abroad “(cp. Jn.16 :32), and within the hour it came to pass: “All the disciples forsook him, and fled,” and this—Matthew is careful to underline—’that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled” (26:56).

Reassurance: “After I am risen”

Yet it was to help them, and not to discourage, that Jesus spoke these words, for he continued: “But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.”

Here, one would think, is the plainest of all plain assertions of ultimate triumph. Yet nothing is more clear from the resurrection narratives that the utter unexpectedness of it all: “And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not. . . Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished which were early at the sepulchre . . . And certain of them which were with us found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not” (Lk.24:11,22).

So these words of Jesus would only become meaningful on the third day. And thus also it will be, doubtless, at the Second Coming, with many a prophecy now shrouded in mystery or neglect. This would be specially true of the phrase “I will go before you (as a shepherd) into Galilee.” Angels “looked down with sad and wondering eyes,” heard these words marvelling, and later repeated them with gladness in the echoing emptiness of the tomb (Mt.28 :7). There is here not only a continuation of the figure of Shepherd and sheep (cp.Jn. 10 :4; Mk.10 :32; Heb.13 :20), but also an implicit instruction that they stay in Jerusalem until after his resurrection.

In later days this mention of Galilee would be greatly treasured because of its symbolic value, as implying the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles. Jerusalem and its temple were to be disowned.

But at the time the words were spoken, they must have been meaningless to these bewildered men.

Once again Jesus gave himself to the unpalatable duty of preparing the minds of his apostles for the disappointments and shocks they were soon to be subjected to: “A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go the Father.”

This was too enigmatic for them-as indeed it has been for later generations of disciples. The idea appears to be this:

‘There is coming a little while during which you will not see me (the time of my death and burial). Then there will be another little while (the forty days) during which you will see me. But it will be only a little while (compared with what you would wish) because then I ascend to the Father’.

With hindsight this reading is relatively easy, but it is easy to understand how the disciples, still unwilling to believe in the death of their lord and certainly without any concept of his resurrection and ascension, were mystified.

They were probably all the more puzzled because Jesus made a deliberate change in the word for “see”, the second time using a word which very frequently (and especially in John) signifies seeing a divine manifestation (e.g. 1:18; 5:37; 6:46_; 8:38; 20:18, 25, 29). If, as suggested here, Jesus was referring to the “little while” of his resurrection appearances, this is specially appropriate.

A parable of travail

The repetitious query of the disciples shows that they were bewildered rather than enlightened by this saying. So there is perhaps some excuse for uncertainty in the minds of disciples today.

Although the request for more light was not put to Jesus directly he knew well enough how much it was needed. So he sought to help them by means of a little parable: “A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.” The reference beforehand to his own resurrection is fairly obvious. At Pentecost Peter was to use the same figure (harking back to this?) when he spoke of God “loosing the birth-pangs of death” when Jesus was raised up (Acts 2:24).

This idea, of the resurrection of Jesus as the birth of the New Creation, can be traced in various Messianic Scriptures. He is “the firstborn of all the (new) creation . . . the first born from the dead” (Col. l :15,18). It is with reference to his resurrection that the Second Psalm has the Father saying: “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee” (Ps.2 :7 is quoted in Heb.5 :5 with reference to the priesthood of Christ, and in Heb.1 :5 with reference to his exaltation to divine glory).

Isaiah 66 is particularly interesting in this respect because of the sustained similarities with the language of John 16, so as almost to suggest that Jesus was speaking with this in mind: “Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word; your brethren that hated you, that cast out your name as evil… they shall be ashamed, but he shall appear to your joy… Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child … Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her… and when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice” (ls.66 :5,7,10,14). But it should be noted here that Jerusalem’s time of suffering was to come after the birth of the Man-Child. And this is how it happened, for Jerusalem’s travail, as distinct from the distress of the Lord’s disciples, came in retribution for the rejection of Christ.

The details of purification at child-birth, as laid down in the Law of Moses, chime in neatly with the figure Jesus used. After the birth of a male child, circumcision must be on the eighth day and the period of purification was to run to the fortieth (Lev. 12 :2-4). Apparently, the eighth day after his resurrection Jesus appeared to the disciples for the last time in Jerusalem, restoring faith in Thomas, the last of the twelve to be convinced, and his personal presence with them ended on the fortieth.

Help promised

“In that day (the time of his resurrection appearances) ye shall ask me nothing”-that is, nothing about this little parable, because the event was to make its meaning clear and obvious. The statement can hardly be taken absolutely, because during the forty days they certainly asked him plenty of questions, including especially: “Wilt thou at this time, restore again the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1 :6). The answer to that was: “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons . ..”

But with the blessing of the Holy spirit, “whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.” Clearly, this was not an absolute promise, free from all limitations. The words are to be taken in some restricted sense. But what? The immediate context suggests prayers to God for fuller understanding. But on the other two occasions when Jesus made the same promise (14 :13; 15 :16), he was fairly evidently referring to the disciples’ preaching after his ascension. Then perhaps here also is an extension of Messiah’s privilege to those who help with his work: “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the Gentiles for thine inheritance” (Ps.2 :8)-the words follow immediately after: “this day have I begotten thee” (the Lord’s own parable). This first century reference of the psalm is suggested by its apostolic use in Acts 4:25-28. “Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be fulfilled” seems to imply the fulfilment of a prophecy—Psalm 2, or perhaps Isaiah 66, just quoted.

Almost all through this discourse Jesus had spoken by figure of speech and Old Testament allusion, and the disciples groped uncertainly for his meaning. Yet how could he put it otherwise? A bald matter-of-fact declaration of what they were to experience in the next few days was more than their powers of comprehension could rise to and more than their spirits could endure. For the same reason Scripture uses metaphor and idiom to inform those sharing the Hope of Israel about the glories and joys of Messiah’s kingdom. How is it possible to describe the wonders of a sunset to a man who has never had sight? So, necessarily, Jesus was talking to his disciples now more for future benefit than present enlightenment.

In yet another way their spiritual education would be furthered: “The time cometh (in the forty days) when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of ff» Father.” The walk of the two disciples to Emmaus with their unrecognized risen Lord was a sample of this when a marvellous illumination flood-lit clouded intelligence. All those encounters with Jesus up to the day of ascension must have been crowded with exciting experiences comparable to that of the blind man at Siloam.

In days to come, when high responsibility in the ecclesia accentuated their sense of need for guidance, yet more help would be fully available: “At that day ye shall ask in my name: and do I not say unto you that I will pray the Father for you?”—this assurance should surely be read as a rhetorical question, giving an implied promise of intercession on their behalf in heaven (1 Jn.2 :1). And (Jesus further implied) my prayers for you will be heard for the added reason that “the Father himself loveth you (here is the Greek word for “affection”), because ye have loved me and have believed that I came out from the Father.” Those Greek perfect tenses emphasize more strongly than their English counterparts their continuing loyalty through the past into the present.

The order of the words here is noteworthy. Their personal affection for Christ came first, and afterwards by slow degrees their faith in him as the Redeemer and Messiah. Even now their understanding was at best fragmentary and unsure. Yet the Father accepted the partial character of their faith because of their loyalty to His Son.

Often enough since those early days the experience of the apostles has been repeated-that a man has come to know and love Christ before ever he has gained a sound understanding of his atoning work and royal destiny. But if indeed a man does truly love Christ, the rest is almost sure to follow in due course.

Jesus now attempted a summary of what he hoped the apostles would recognize and appreciate regarding him: “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again I leave the world, and go to the Father.”

First, then, his divine origin. In the early days they naturally thought of him as “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (1 :45), but, with all their privileges of closeness to him, to stay there would evince a blindness almost or quite matching that of the rulers. In his birth he “came forth from the Father” (cp. Lk.l :35), and with a unique God-sent mission he had “come (out of the obscurity of Nazareth) into the Jewish world.” Soon he was to leave all in order to be personally present with (pros) the Father.

The reaction of the disciples was rather extraordinary: “Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no parable. Now we are sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee.” This is strange, for the entire discourse of Jesus since they left the upper room had been taken up with illustration and type, Old Testament allusion and enigma. Then, by “speaking no parable/’did they mean that now at last it had dawned on them that their Jesus was God’s great Reality, the fulfilment of every typical foreshadowing portrayed in their Scriptures? But if so, one is left wondering what Jesus had just said to bring this sudden enlightenment.

Alternatively, and oppositely, their declaration is to be taken as their most blundering demonstration yet that “they so little understood him as not even to understand that they did not understand.” The gentle irony of their Master’s reply, and his evident concern for them in the trial of faith suddenly to come on them gives more credence to this view.

Scattered, yet Sustained

“Do ye now believe? (the Lord surely spoke in irony again). Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone”-a very different outcome from what their confident words might give promise of: “By this we believe that thou earnest forth from God.”

Like Peter’s violent assertions of unfaltering loyalty, this declaration of faith in Jesus had its backlash: “ye shall be scattered every man to nis own.” The allusion to Zechariah 13 :7 was appropriate: “Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.” Within a couple of hours, “all the disciples forsook him, and fled” (Mt.26 :57). Even after the discovery of the opened tomb, “the disciples went away again unto their own homes” (Jn.20 :10). The two leaving Jerusalem for Emmaus on the day of resurrection provide yet another illustration of this(Lk.24:13).

Notwithstanding his inevitable deep disappointment in the disciples, Jesus was able to speak, both for his own reassurance and theirs, of a spiritual fortifying against adversity which none could deprive him of: “I am not alone, because the Father is with me”. It was the seventh time within a short while that he had said this (13 :31; 16:33). At the crucifixion there were to be open signs of this sublime truth.

“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.” Even the aftermath of wretchedness, when they came to reflect remorsefully on how they had let him down, was not to rob them of ultimate satisfaction. “In the world (of Jewry) ye shall have tribulation”-he had already spoken to them at length about this (15 :19-21) and it was clearly foretold in the Zechariah prophecy he had alluded to (13 :9)-“but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” Since the agony of Gethesemane still lay before him the past tense here would be no small difficulty, but for the specialised restricted meaning which John’s gospel so often has for the word /cosmos. Although Jesus still had before him the final struggle against his own human weakness, the other victory against the external powers of evil-the men of the Sanhedrin—was already won. They had already proved it by their plot to get him crucified. “The victory of the Jews was, in fact, their defeat” (Hoskyns). The same bitter opposition to the apostles would be a continuing demonstration of an intensifying victory of Christ. So let the paradox of it teach them good courage!

Notes: Jn. l6:16-33

16.	A little while. An alternative interpretation depends on reading this part of the Lord’s discourse as spoken near the end of the forty days: A little while -that is, before the ascension; ye shall not see me-the ascension; again a little while-the forty years before the Second Coming (an expectation strong in the NT. writings); and ye shall see me – at his return (hence v.l7: “because I go to my Father”).
17.	The repetition here is a strong mark of apostolic bewilderment.
23.	Ask. The form of the Gk. verb tends to support the interpretation suggested in the text.
33.	Overcome the world. So also the disciples: 1 Jn.4:4; 5:4, 5

Under the Law of Moses, the prescribed order of sacrifices was:

1. The sin-offering, in expiation of sin.
2. The whole burnt-offering-the re-consecration of the life of the forgiven sinner.
3. The meal-offering—the consecration of his daily works to the service of God.
4. The peace-offering-the sacrificial meal of fellowship.

The sacrifice of Jesus covers, of course, all these aspects of redemption, but the Last Supper has specially strong affinities with the idea of the peace offering, as the following summary of Leviticus 3 and 7:11-21 should demonstrate.

1. The essential idea is that of fellowship with God through the partaking of a meal in His presence—a meal provided by Him: e.g. 1 Chr. 29:21,22a (cp. Acts 2:42,46), ” Ex. 24:5,11; 1 Cor. 10:16,20,21; Col. 1:20-22.
2. The peace offering followed the burnt offering (Lev.3 :5). Fellowship at the Lord’s Table comes after the initial self-consecration in baptism.
3. The offerer was to put his hands on the head of the sacrifice, thus identifying himself with the slaying of it, and also expressing his dependence on it (the Hebrew word means “to lean, or to be supported”); ls.53 :6.
4. The sacrifice was slain by the offerer in person (Lev.3 :2), thus emphasizing yet further that the sacrifice was for himself (1 Tim.1 :15).
5. The blood of the sacrifice was put on the altar (Lev.3 :2j. In this way the sacrifice became God’s, fully devoted to His service (Jn.4:34).
6. the choicest portions were also burnt on the altar (Lev.3 :3-5). It was in the prime of his life that Jesus served God with the fulness of his powers.
7. The priest also received his special portions (Lev.7 :31,32). These, a heave-offering, expressed the ideal of willing perfect service (Ps.25:1; Ex.25 :2).
8. The rest of the sacrifice was given back to the offerer to be eaten by him before the Lord as a guest at His table; e.g. Dt.27 :7. Here especially, peace offering and Lord’s Supper fuse into one. (Mt. 26:26; Jn. 6:50-57,33; cp. Lev. 3:11 RVm: “bread”). In 1 Corinthians 10:16, the order of the peace-offering is pointedly followed: 1. The blood poured out. 2. The flesh eaten.
9. It was to be eaten with joy; Dt.12 :7,11,12,18 and 14 :23,26. and 27:7. (In the New Testament with hardly an exception, “joy” means joy in fellowship).
10. The highest form of peace offering was that which was a thanksgiving; Lev.7 :12,13,15. and in the early church one of the first names for the Lord’s Supper was Eucharist, thanksgiving (Lk.22 :17,19; 1 Cor.14 :17; Ps.ll6:12-19especiallyv.l7).
11. That which remained to the third day must be burned, that no corruption be associated with any offering of God (Lev.7 :17,18). Likewise there must be no denial of the resurrection of Jesus (Ps.l6:10).
12. Anyone partaking, being unclean, was reckoned unfit to be among the Lord’s people (Lev.7 :20). “Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils” (1 Cor. 10 :21). “Whosoever shall eat … or drink .. ‘• unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself . . .” (1 Cor. 11 :27,28; cp. 1 Pet.l ,”‘15,16).
13. The peace offering might be eaten with unleavened or with leavened bread, the former expressing the ideal of sinless service, and the latter emphasizing that the frailty of sin does not debar a man from fellowship with God.
14. In Isaiah 25 :6, “a feast of fat things” foretells a time when even that which is God’s portion (see item 6) shall be shared by the Lord’s redeemed, thus “partaking of the divine nature” (2 Pet.l :4). In this way the Lord’s Supper will be “fulfilled” in the kingdom of God” (Lk.22 :16).
15. The LXX expression for peace offering is “the offering of salvation”.

“A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” But this commandment was at least as old as Moses: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Lev. 19 :18); and already earlier in his ministry Jesus had infused a fullness of meaning into these words which would have left its mark on the minds of his followers if he had never said another word about it.

It can now be shown that he was referring to the institution of the Bread and Wine, which in the other gospels, comes in at this point. In the synoptic gospels, “Do this in remembrance of me” was an explicit commandment, about the Breaking of Bread, which Christianity, for all its faults and failings, has never dared disregard. John also has left his record of the institution of this sacrament, but has expressed it in different terminology.

Remembering that Jesus and the apostles ate a normal evening meal in the upper room and consummated that fellowship with the first sharing of sacramental Bread and Wine, the early church aimed at a close imitation of the same procedure. They met after sunset and enjoyed a meal of fellowship together. This they called the Agape, the Greek word for Love. Then at the appropriate moment the presiding elder would direct them to the memorials of Christ’s death. Thus the name Agape not only came to signify the Christian virtue of love, but it also became a specialised Christian word for the Breaking of Bread service. This usage went right back to the Lord himself. “Love one another” was his new commandment. The words mean: You are to observe this Love Feast, even as I have just shown you.

There is evidence that from the very earliest times (e.g. Ignatius, Tertullian) the primitive church was familiar with double meaning.

The fullest reference to the meal of fellowship is in 1 Corinthians 11 :

“When ye come together therefore into one place, it is not possible (RV) to eat the Lord’s supper, for in gating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry and another is drunken” (v.20,21).

The Apostle’s complaint was two-fold-cliquishness and unspiritual self-indulgence; class distinction between the wealthy and the slaves, and carousal without thought of the purpose of their coming together.

Let it be noted that Paul calls their assembly “the Lord’s supper,” a term utterly unsuited to the receiving of the mite of bread and sip of wine usual at present-day memorial services. These elements were of course included, but there was also the full-scale meal which was intended to be a meal of fellowship.

It is sometimes argued that in his reproof Paul required the Corinthians to desist henceforth from the Love Feast, whilst retaining the Bread and Wine as emblems of Christ. But this is a mistaken judgement, for the following reasons:

1. Paul’s words imply a reform, not an abolition: “When ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. And if any man hunger, let him eat at home . . .” (v.33,34), A continuance of their coming together to eat is implied, but a man is warned against coming with such eager appetite that the meal itself becomes his main concern.
2. It is inconceivable that Paul, guided by the Spirit, should establish the Agape in the ecclesia at Corinth and then some ten years later find it necessary, by the Spirit, to cancel what he had already taught.
3. Some time after Paul wrote these words he is found sharing the Love Feast at Troas (Acts 20 :7-ll). The words of verse 11: “When he therefore had broken the bread, and eaten . . .” are generally understood by the commentators as a reference to the Breaking of Bread and the meal of fellowship.
4. The Love Feast continued as a normal part of church practice into the fourth century before falling into disfavour with the apostate church. It would be strange indeed if the apostle’s injunction (if it were such!) to abandon the Love Feast should have been misunderstood or disregarded for so long until the council of Nicea (famous for its Trinitarian error!) brought enlightenment or a sense of duty! The Love Feast actually persisted in some localities to the seventh century, when those who practised it came under the ban of excommunication from the Catholic Church.

It should be noted, then, that Paul’s method of dealing with an undoubted evil was to point a stern finger at the root of the trouble and then recommend appropriate remedies. But “cut it all out” was never his method, neither is it the pattern of wise administration in the ecclesia today.

That the Love Feast, like every other Christian practice, was open to grave abuse cannot be doubted. Other New Testament passages besides 1 Corinthians 11 stress this sad fact.

Peter denounced bluntly certain false prophets and their unspiritual disciples as “spots and blemishes, revelling in their Love Feast (agapai) while they feast with you” (2 Pet.2:13RV). Jude took up the same passage. His version is: “These are spots in your Love Feasts, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear” (Jude 11).

Apart from the plain hints of early deterioration, there is little to be learned from these passages about the character of the early Love Feasts. It may be that Ephesians 5 :18-21 was written about the same problem in another ecclesia. The references there to being “filled with the Spirit” and to “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” suggest formal gatherings of the ecclesia. “Giving thanks always” echoes the name Eucharist (thanksgiving) which from the earliest times was another title of the Breaking of Bread service (Study 197). And “be not drunk with wine” repeats Paul’s reproach against Corinth (11 :2,22). “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ” now becomes a reminiscence of the example of Jesus who at the Last Supper washed his disciples’ feet and urged them to emulate such self-demeaning. This interpretation of the passage cannot be advanced with complete certainty, but it seems fairly likely.

Jesus also stressed that “by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples.” So far as the exercise of Christian love between brethren goes, the world in general somehow remains astonishingly unaware that certain people among them are loving disciples of a crucified and risen Jesus. But the observance of the memorial Love Feast is a characteristic of true disciples which should not be hid. Pliny’s letters to the emperor Trajan show that it was by this practice that the early disciples of Jesus were most readily identifiable. By it, wrote Paul, “ye do shew forth the Lord’s death till he come.” There is much to be said for making the Breaking of Bread service as public, and not as private, as possible.

Since the Greek words for “love” and “Love Feast” are identical, the possibility opens up that a number of passages, where the former, more usual, translation is given, should actually be read with reference to the Breaking of Bread.

Several places in John’s gospel fall into this category:

1. John 13 :1 : “When Jesus knew that his hour was come . . . having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.” If these words had been used with reference to the crucifixion, there would be no difficulty. But here, introducing the record about Jesus in the upper room, they read somewhat awkwardly; there is a certain inappropriateness-that is, until it is realised that they are saying: “his personal love for them culminated in the fellowship of the Love Feast.” The next sentence begins: “And supper being ready …” (the AV reading is definitely wrong here).
2. John 15 :12-14: “This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you.” The general meaning of the words is valuable. But how much more luminous do they become when read as the equivalent of: “Do this in remembrance of me”? The next verses continue: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends (the Lord’s sacrifice of his own life). Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you (regular observance of the memorial feast).” And the preceding words are a fitting introduction: “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might be full”-in nearly all its occurrences the dominant idea behind this key word is: “the joy of fellowship,” such as the Breaking of Bread ideally expresses.
3. 2 John 5,7: “And now I beseech thee, lady (this “elect lady” was an ecclesia), not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another… For many deceivers are gone forth into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.” (Here the word “For” is all-important. It indicates the influence of false teachers and their doctrine as a strong reason for keeping the new commandment. If that commandment was the general exercise of Christian charity, the connection is hard to trace. But if it was the Lord’s instruction to remember him at the Agape, then all is clear and consequential-for what better antidote to the “clean flesh” heresy (that Jesus did not truly share our nature) than the regular remembering of him in leavened bread and fermented wine, the symbols of his humanity?
4. Perhaps also 1 John 3 :14: “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.” Taken in a general sense regarding Christian love, the words are a wise reminder of true Christian character. But if 7. the reference is to the fellowship of brethren and the remembering of Christ at the Love Feast, how much more pointed their meaning! They then re-enunciate the long- recognized principle that a man’s attitude to the weekly remembering of Christ is one of the best tests of the sincerity of his faith. It is true that regular attendance at the Lord’s Table may cloak hypocrisy or empty formality, but regular absence is an undeniable sign of indifference. The passage continues: “And this is his commandment. That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.” That Greek aorist: “believe” refers to the initial act of baptism, and the continuous tense: “love one another” means the other sacrament, the Agape.
5. In 1 John 4:7-21, the word “love” comes in nearly every verse, and in several places the context seems almost to require reference to the “Love Feast and Breaking of Bread; e.g. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitation for our sins… We love him, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” The words seem to be written for the benefit of the one who says: “I go to the Lord’s Table to have fellowship with God—but not with So-and-so.” Participation in the Love Feast is the perfect answer to all such. It is hardly possible to share a meal together in an atmosphere of holy remembrance and thanksgiving, and not relax from a spirit of dislike or cherished grudges.
6. Is Paul making the same point in Romans 14 when he rounds off his counsel about an attitude of toleration towards those with different ideas about food and drink: “But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not in love (according to the Agape). Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died . . . For the kingdom o( God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” How much more point there is to these words if they were written specially about differences of opinion concerning food set on the table of the Love Feast.
7. In an earlier place Paul had written: “let love be without dissimulation,”(Rom. 12:9). Taken in a general sense, these words seem to have little connection with what comes before or after. They ought surely to be read as an exhortation to sincerity at the Love Feast. The preceding verses emphasize other aspects of ecclesial service-“prophesying” (the preaching of the Word); “ministering” (the steward or serving brother); “exhortation”; “he that giveth” (the ecclesial collection); “he that ruleth” (the presiding brother or ecclesial elder); “he that showeth mercy” (the welfare brother). In this context, “let the Agape be without dissimulation” is almost certainly the correct reading-an appropriate exhortation to sincerity and truth at the Breaking of Bread; cp. 1 Cor.ll :28,29.
8. However it be read, Colossians 3:13, 14 is a fine practical exhortation; but perhaps it should be read as an allusion to the Love Feast: “Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things the Agape, which is the bond of perfectness.”
9. The closing greeting in Ephesians should possibly be read thus: “Grace be withal them that share the Love Feast of our lord Jesus Christ in uncorruptness (of doctrine! Tit.2 :7)” (6 :24). The epistle would be read at the weekly meeting for the remembrance of Jesus.
10. 1 Peter 1:22 should be considered in the same light: “Seeing ye have purified your souls (by baptism) in obeying the truth . . unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye keep the Love Feast with a pure heart fervently.” This is much to be preferred to the AV, which reads as a mere platitude, in effect saying: “seeing that ye love the brethren, see that ye love the brethren.”
11. 1 Peter 4 :8 also deserves a re-translation on the same lines: “Above all things being fervent in your Love Feast, for the Love Feast covereth a multitude of sins.” Concerning the truth of this there can be no question; compare: “This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” But no amount of love for one’s fellows can bring the forgiveness of sins apart from faith in Christ and union with his sacrifice. (The context of 1 Pet.4 :8 concerns other details of ecclesial procedure but this is not the place to demonstrate it).
12. A passage in Hebrews which is frequently used as exhortation to faithful attendance at the Breaking of Bread has another possible allusion to the Agape: “And having an high priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart… And let us consider one another to provoke unto love (the Agape?) and to good works: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is … of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath. . .counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing?” (Heb. 10:21-29). The context is certainly right for such an allusion.
13. In 1 Corinthians 5 :13 Paul’s recommendation concerning the unworthy brother was: “Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person,” i.e. withdraw fellowship. Evidently this drastic action had its due effect, so that later Paul was able to write (in 2 Cor.2 :6-8): “Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted by the many (majority vote of the ecclesia). So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him . . . Wherefore I beseech you that ye would confirm the Agape toward him” (i.e. restore him to your fellowship at the Lord’s Table).

This list of passages is by no means comprehensive. Others are worth examining from this point of view. For instance, there is some evidence that an apostolic letter received by an ecclesia was read at the Agape, and the address: “Beloved” (agapetoi) was used with reference to this practice; e.g. 1 Jn.3 :2,21; 4 :1,7,11; Jude 3,17,20; Phil.2 :12; 1 Cor.10 :14; Rom.l :7; 16:24;cp. Col.3 :12; 1 Th.l :4; 2 Th.2 :13; Other passages worth considering are these: Jn.14 :15,21,24; 15 :9,10,13; 1 Cor.16 :20,22; 2 Cor.9 :7; Eph.l :6; 2 :4; 5 :2,18; 6 :24; 1 Th.4 :9; 2 Th.l :3; 1 Tim.l :5; 1 Pet.5 :14; 1 Jn.2 :5,10;3 :20-18; Jude 21; Rev.3 :20.

There are, as might be expected, allusions to the Love Feast without specific mention of its name.

The first disciples “continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, the Breaking of Bread and the prayers (of thanksgiving) (here the third and fourth terms define the second). .. and breaking bread from house to house they did eat their food with gladness and singleness of heart” (Acts 2:42,46).

When Paul, after his conversion, “received food, he was strengthened.” This first meal, on the first day of the week (as can be shown) would be the meal of fellowship. Otherwise why should Luke trouble to mention it? And of course by this Holy Meal Paul would be strengthened.

At Troas Paul, short of time in his journey to Jerusalem, waited a week so as to meet the brethren at the memorial service: “When he therefore . . .had broken the Bread and had eaten (sharing the Love Feast), and talked a long while (the word of exhortation) . . .so he departed” (Acts 20:11).

A catalogue of passages such as this helps to resolve what has been a difficulty to some-the sparse mention in the New Testament of the Breaking of Bread, the central feature of the Christian’s religious life (three occurrences outside the gospels). The answer to that problem now is: The references are there but in less direct phraseology, albeit in a terminology which would be readily understood by a first-century reader.

And what of the twentieth century? Since the early days of the gospel, fellowship has found its highest expression in the sharing of a meal-a meal characterized neither by grim austerity nor by convivial jollity, but by religious sincerity, wholesome talk, and cheerful friendliness; and since neither human nature nor the gospel have changed over the years, it would seem that present-day life in Christ can gain much from a similar activity.

And it does! For it can hardly be accident that a feature of Christadelphian fellowship meetings (“Fraternal Gatherings”) is a shared meal. Yet how much more could that meal bring blessing to all if only it had become traditional to consecrate meal-time conversation to the Lord instead of to the gods of health, holidays, shopping, or gossip.

But the early church’s Agape was a love Feast only by virtue of its climax and conclusion-the poignant yet confident remembering of Jesus in Bread and Wine “until he come.” The Love Feast was the Holy Place by which access might be had to the Mercy Seat beyond the veil.

How much is being lost in these days by the omission of the Love Feast? It is impossible to say. But is there any reason why ecclesias, especially small ecclesias, should not resuscitate this long-forgotten observance? To make it a weekly function would probably be undesirable, even if it were possible. But to convene a meeting on such lines once or twice a year, with the ecclesia forewarned and suitably prepared, could hardly fail to bring a rich spiritual reward.

Those who have been members of some small ecclesia where local circumstances have dictated the holding of a simple communal meal between Sunday services will know how much can be gained from good table-talk about Holy Scripture and the suffering and glory of Christ. From such a practice to the Agape itself is only a short step.

In the Love Feast neither time nor place nor form are commanded, only unanimity of spirit, All that is forbidden is unseemliness; and its rules and regulations are summed up in its name Love, Charity.

It is here taken as already established that the Last Supper was not a Jewish Passover. Too many difficulties stand in the way of such an identification. (See Study 181).

Yet Jesus called it “this Passover” (Lk.22 :15), and many of the details associated with the meal seem to have a Passover flavour about them. The timing of the meal after sunset, the special arrangement to eat it in Jerusalem, the number of the company at table, the sop, the two (?) cups in Luke, the giving of thanks, the hymn, Paul’s expression “the cup of blessing”-all of these facts have been stressed as suggesting that the Jewish Passover was kept.

A more accurate conclusion is that, for reasons which the following exposition should make plain, Jesus aimed at making the meal as much like a Jewish Passover as possible; this was to help his disciples appreciate him as the Lamb of God whose sacrifice makes possible a deliverance greater than that of Israel from Egypt. These ideas took on considerable importance in the thinking of the early church.

Hence the many details occurring in the crucifixion narrative which reinforce the idea that the passover ritual of Exodus 12 was intended as a fore-shadowing of Christ as the true Passover. Here, without doubt, is one of the finest types of the Old Testament. The following verse-by-verse exposition aims at bringing this out. (Apologies for some repetition from earlier gospel exposition).

1.	Ex.12 :2: “This month shall be unto you the beginning of months.” Here, in Jesus, was a new beginning in the redemptive work of God. And so it is also for all who come within the scope of that redemption. Except they make their baptism into Christ a genuine new beginning, their understanding of life in Christ as “a new creature” is seriously defective. And should not one’s baptism, rather than the day of one’s natural birth, be the anniversary to celebrate?
2.	Verse 3: “In the tenth day … they shall take to them every man a lamb.” If was on this day, six days before the Passover celebration on the 15th Nisan (reckoned inclusively) that the anointing of Jesus took place at Bethany (Jn.12 :1). There can be little doubt that Mary was consciously identifying Jesus as the Lamb of sacrifice, She anointed his feet (Jn.12 :3) and also his head (Mt.26 :7). This is the counterpart to Exodus 12 :9: “his head with his legs.” The comment of Jesus chimed in with this; “Against the day of my burying hath she kept this” (Jn.12 :7). The verb here is not equivalent to “saved this”, but has the sense of keeping a commandment-the Passover commandment of Exodus 12:3,9.
3.	Verse 4: “Let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it.” The words emphasize fellowship, an aspect of redemption both essential and inevitable: hence Paul’s word “communion” (1 Cor.10:16).Then, in practice, ought not a man to seek fellowship at his nearest ecclesia?
4.	Verse 4: “Every man according to his eating”; i.e. enough and to spare, and to each participant according to his individual 10. need. Even so is Christ, at the Breaking of Bread.
5.	Verse 5: “Without blemish”. How many times did Pilate assert: “I find no fault in him at all”? Yet more important, the Father’s assessment of this sacrifice was the same: “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who … offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb.9 :14). “Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold . . . but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Pet.l :18,19; there are other Passover allusions in this context).
6.	Verse 5: “Ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats.” Jesus was himself one of “the flock”-he truly shared the nature of those whom he died to save. And yet Jewish tradition has always insisted that the Passover sacrifice be a lamb and not a kid. There is more fitness in this than perhaps the Jews have realised.
7.	Verse 6: “The fourteenth day … in the evening.” Jesus died on the cross at the very time when the slaying of the Passover lambs began in the temple court (Mk. 15:34). The phrase is literally, “between the two evenings” (see margin), an expression traditionally interpreted as meaning between the decline of the afternoon sun and its actual setting. This is demonstrated to be correct by the pointed allusion to the two evenings in the record of 15. the feeding of the five thousand at the preceding Passover (Mt: 14:15,23).
8.	Verse 6: “The whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it.” “The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all;” 16. and today “the whole assembly”, and not just the more faithful members, should gladly celebrate the fact.
9.	Verse 7: “And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses.” A public avowal of faith in the redeeming power of the blood of the Lamb. That mark of the blood is the equivalent of the Hebrew letter Cheth (Ps.119 :57), which also means “a fence”; or else to the letter He~(119 :33), which is almost the divine name Yah. And at Passover Jesus prayed: “Keep through thine own Name those whom Thou hast given me”(Jn.17:11).
10.	Verse 9: “Nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire.” When, at another Passover, Jesus cleansed the temple, “his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up” (Jn.2 :17). Contrast the boiled or stewed sacrifices during the rest of Passover week (Dt.16 :7, where the RV has correctly: “seethe”). Thus is emphasized the difference in degree of self-consecration of Jesus and of those redeemed by him.
11.	Verse 8: “With unleavened bread.” Originally a reminder of Egyptian affliction (Dt.16:3), in the New Testament it is given a somewhat different meaning: “Neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor.5 :7,8).
12.	Verse 11: “Loins girded” etc. Interpreted by Peter as an eager expectation of ultimate redemption in Christ (1 Pet.l:13). Cp: “Ye do shew forth the Lord’s death till he come.”
13.	Verse 12: “I will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt.” The reign of death over all who are not numbered among the Lord’s firstborn.
14.	Verse 13: “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” Observe that the blood must be there in fact. It was not sufficient to believe that the blood was on the door! The bearing of this on Christian baptism and on the indifference of certain evangelical contemporaries towards that rite will be obvious.
15.	Verse 14: “This day shall be unto you for a memorial.” This redemption was a vivid experience which must never grow dim in the memory. “Do this in remembrance of me.”
16.	Verse 16: “No manner of work shall be done . . . save that which every man must eat.” A minimum of attention to worldly interests is proper in those redeemed. There is here also an appropriate discouragement of dependence upon one’s own good works as a means of salvation: “For he that is entered into his (God’s) rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his” (Heb.4:10).
17.	Verse 19: “No leaven in your houses.” From time immemorial this commandment has been generalised by the Jews to mean a complete Spring-cleaning just before Passover. Accordingly, at the first and last Passovers of his ministry Jesus did in his Father’s House what all the Jews were doing in their own houses (Jn.2 :13; Mk. 11:15). Today the counterpart in the experience of the disciple is: “Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat” (1 Cor. 11:28). “Whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut ,off from the congregation” is also interpreted by Paul: “He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself.”
18.	Verse 22: “Take a bunch of hyssop … and dip it in the blood.” In Scripture hyssop is associated with cleansing from sin (Lev. 14:6; Ps. 51:7). This must be the reason why John was careful to mention it in his account of the crucifixion (Jn.19 :29).
19.	Verse 22: “None of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning.” The day-to-day meaning of these words ‘^’“”‘ probably is that there shall be no light- hearted abandonment of membership of God’s house: “Whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end” (Heb.3 :6). But consider also: “Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast” (Is.26 :20). The basis of this prophecy is Hezekiah’s Passover. Those who responded to his call, and kept Passover in Jerusalem, were the only people in the Land safe from the Assyrian invasion and from the storm and fire and destroying angel (ls.29 :5,6; 30 :30; and 37 :36) by which God brought deliverance. All of which is a figure of a greater deliverance in the last day when “the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity.”
20.	Verse 23: “The Lord will pass over the door.” Not “pass by”, as is usually understood, but “hover over” in protection. Compare the use of the same Hebrew word in Isaiah 31 :5: “As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem . . . passing over he will preserve it”-Hezekiah’s Passover, once again! On the night of the first Passover when “the destroyer” went through the land of Egypt, the houses of the twelve tribes of Israel were protected by twelve legions of angels “passing over” them. Al another Passover, the same angels were all on the alert, eager to protect the Son of God: “Put up thy sword into his place … thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall even now (RV) give me more than twelve legions of angels?” Today those angels minister to the new “Israel of God”: “The angel of the Lod encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them” (Ps.34 :7). “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs ol salvation?” (Heb.l :14).
21.	Verse 23: “The Lord . . . will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.” Psalm 78 :49 RV has the phrase “angels of evil.” Thus there were, on duty in Egypt that night, angels with two completely different assignments, all of them doing the will of God. The same apparent “conflict” continues to this day in the experience of the saints of God, and hence the problem of evil which continues as a problem to both men and angels until the day when there is “peace in heaven, and glory in the highest” (Lk.l9:38).
22.	Verse 26: “Your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service?” So it may be fairly confidently inferred what the boy Jesus was asking the learned rabbis in his Father’s house at his first full Passover (Lk.2:46) and also the nature of their answer: verse 27. But it would be interesting to know how they expounded this, under pressure of his further questions. “And then shalt shew thy son in that day . . .” (Ex.13:8). It is to this Haggadah (showing forth) that Paul alludes: “As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew (RV: proclaim) the Lord’s death till he come”(lCor.11:26).
23.	Verse 27: “It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s passover”- until Jesus came this was the only sacrifice which had neither altar nor priest. And, like his, it was three kinds of sacrifice in one:
	a) in the sprinkling of the blood, a sin offering (v.22: cp.Lev.4 :6);
	b) “roast with fire”, a burnt-offering (v.8, 10);
	c) in the eating of it, a peace-offering (v.8; Lev.l9:5,6).
	Yet although the Lamb was unique in those respects, it was to be followed by other sacrifices (Num.28 :16-25)—the types of those who seek to imitate the self-offering of Jesus (Rom.l2:1; Col. 1:24).
24.	Verse 29: “All the firstborn in the land of Egypt.” This included even the Godfearing Egyptians who did not identify themselves fully with Israel (Ex.9 :20). This also had its counterpart when Jesus died: “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children” (Lk.23 :28).
25.	Verse 38: “A mixed multitude went up also with them,” and later helped forward Israel’s apostasy (Num.11 :4). The New Testament likewise speaks of wheat and tares, grain and chaff, sheep and goats, good fish and bad.
26.	Verse 42 RVm: “It is a night of watching unto the Lord”, i.e. a night of prayer, as the request of Jesus to his disciples in Gethsemane plainly shows: “Tarry ye here, and watch with me” (Mt.26 :38). In Egypt Israel prayed, doubtless, for the full accomplishment of their deliverance-even though it had already been promised through Moses. In Gethsemane Jesus prayed for a fit and proper attitude of mind to his own ordeal, so that he might be the deliverer. In each instance the answer came almost immediately-to Israel, in the slaying of the firstborn and the urgent thrusting out from Egypt; to Jesus, in the appearance of an angel strengthening him. What would have been the experience of the eleven, had they been persevering in prayer instead of heavy with sleep? Today the disciple eats his Passover with prayer—but prayer for what? and with what kind of ready response? If for Israel there was immediate deliverance from bondage, cannot the same still be true, since this is “for the remission of sins” (Mt.26 :28)?
27.	Verse 45: “A foreigner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof.” And “this Passover” is not for those who are “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise”; but it is for those whom Jesus calls “not servants, but . . . friends; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth” (Eph.2:12;Jn.15:15).
28.	Verse 46: “Thou shalt not carry forth ought of the flesh.” Here is explicit condemnation of the men who thought to enjoy God’s highest blessings to Israel whilst refusing to share fellowship with others similarly blessed. Sharing the Lamb and yet not sharing one another’s fellowship is a hopeless contradiction. Dr. Thomas’s famous phrase: “Breaking a factious loaf in solitude.” The apostle John put it thus: “Even now there are many antichrists . . . They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us they would have continued with us” (1 Jn.2 :18,19).
29.	“Neither shall ye break a bone thereof.” A further emphasis that Christ is not divided. Any man so doing breaks God’s law: “We are members of his (Christ’s) body, of his flesh and, of his bones” (Eph. 5:30). The importance of this symbolism in the crucified body of Jesus is given special prominence in John’s narrative of the crucifixion: “The Jews therefore . . . besought Pilate that their legs might be broken . . . Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs… For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled” (Jn. 19:31-36). The words of the hymn: “Thy body broken for our sake”, can be misleading, except the word “broken” be mentally associated with the symbolic Bread and not with the Body.
30.	Verse 47: “All the congregation of Israel shall keep (i.e. observe) it”-“not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is”, not “counting the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing” (Heb.10 :25,29). These words may have been written as an explicit allusion to misuse of or indifferece to the blood of the Passover Lamb.
31.	Verse 49: “One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger.” The benefits of this sacrifice are for Jew and Gentile alike, but only on terms. The previous verse states what terms-that the Gentile first become a Jew. And thus the blessing of redemption comes to the whole “Israel of God.”
32.	Ch.13 :5: “When the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites.. .which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee . ..” So the first Passover was also a prophecy of inheritance. “This Passover” also is a prophecy of a yet better inheritance: “until it be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.”

This assemblage of details is not complete, but it will serve to illustrate why the early church came to see in the Jewish Passover a pattern of redemption in Christ. It becomes equally clear that this was by design of One who first instructed Israel to keep such a celebration, and according to such a pattern. The foreshadowing of Christ and the Breaking of Bread was purposed, and not an accident.