“There was a man sent from God whose name was John.”

This first mention of John the Baptist is a decided inconvenience to those with whom the personal pre-existence of Jesus is a dogma; for, translated literally, the phrase is: “There was a man sent from beside God” (para with genitive). Yet is there one serious student of the gospels who would maintain the personal pre-existence of John, even in the face of such an emphatic expression: “from beside God”? This is an excellent example of the distinctive idiom of the apostle John’s writing. Such examples should warn his readers that they must be careful to let John be his own interpreter, rather than attempt unsympathetically to impose a literal twentieth century meaning on some of his terms.

The present section is entitled: “The Witness of John” (v. 19), but in a later discourse (ch. 5) the Lord makes it clear that John was only one of five witnesses:

v. 31:	His own witness,
v. 32-35:	John the Baptist,
v. 36:	His works (miracles),
v. 37:	The Father (how?),
v. 39:	The Scriptures.

And later the witness is taken up by the other John and the Holy Spirit (19: 35; 1 Jn. 5: 6-11).

An Official Investigation

Whenever a prophet arose in Israel it was plainly the duty of the religious leaders to investigate whether the new teacher’s claims were valid or not, and then to make some suitable pronouncement regarding him, for the guidance of the people. Accordingly, when John’s mission had lasted some time, “the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou?”(Jn. 1: 19). This is the first of many examples in the fourth gospel where “the Jews” means the leaders of the nation. It is a point to be borne in mind for the more exact interpretation of other passages. When this gospel refers to the common people, the word “multitude” is generally used.

Very tactfully the official deputation (v. 22; cp. Lk 5: 17) was not made up of scribes and Pharisees. Instead, priests were sent, for John himself was a priest, and would therefore be less likely to receive their enquiries with the brusqueness he had earlier shown to critical Pharisees and Sadducees (Mt.3: 7). But with them came also Levites (Mal. 3: 3) – members of the temple guard, probably, to arrest John if he failed to satisfy his priestly interrogators. Pharisees were also included in the deputation – probably milder men like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea who may well have had their first introduction to Jesus through John.

Messiah? – Elijah? -Who?

The first and most obvious thing was to check John’s claims regarding himself: “Who art thou?” To this the first answer was an explicit negative: “I am not the Messiah” (cf. Lk. 3: 15). This was needful, since from time to time false claimants to this divine role had risen up, creating considerable disturbance (e.g. Acts 5: 36,37); and even now some of the people were inclined to regard John in this light (Lk. 3: 15). So “he confessed, and denied not, but confessed .” The expression is a strange one (cp. v. 3). Perhaps it is the evangelist’s emphatic way of saying that John did not prevaricate in his answer. Beating about the bush was not his way. It may mean that John’s answers were explicit and free from any symbolism. For, when asked: “Art thou Elias?” he answered: “I am not”, yet, on the basis of all that had been foretold concerning him by the angel Gabriel (Lk. 1: 17), the opposite answer might have seemed more appropriate. Or if may be that there is a certain bitter disappointment behind this reply: ‘That was to have been my work, to fulfil Malachi’s Elijah prophecy, but already it is evident that only to a limited extent is the nation willing to listen to my message.’

The next question, not too clear to the modern reader, but evidently explicit to John, was: “Art thou the prophet?” This might mean the Elijah prophet, foretold by Malachi, or “the prophet like unto Moses” foretold in Deuteronomy 18: 15-18, or “his (Elijah’s) prophet”, meaning Elisha who succeeded Elijah. The second of these is most likely, although not free from difficulty, since many Jews regarded the prophet like unto Moses as identical with the Messiah (Jn. 6: 14,15). Regarding both John gave a categorical “No”.

The effect of these repeated negatives almost certainly was a slump in John’s popularity, for two or three years later a similar situation (6: 14,15,66) had precisely that effect on the standing of Jesus with the multitude.

An Easy Test

These investigators must have known that John, being a priest, could make no Messianic claims for himself. Then why did they repeatedly press questions about this? Had they hopes, or fears, of hearing him assert a new Maccabee leadership?

There was a rabbinic teaching that there would be no more spirit of prophecy in Israel after Malachi, until Messiah came, and then the prophets would rise from the dead to fulfil Isaiah 52: 8: “Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing.”

So these interrogators now sought a positive answer. What claims did John make for himself? In reply he gave the answer he had always given: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight (s.w. Josh. 24: 23) the way of the Lord.”

There was no ambiguity about this. One of the tests of a true prophet propounded by the Law of Moses was: “When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously” (Dt. 18: 22). Accordingly, in the writings of practically every prophet in the Old Testament there is included some prophecy of speedy fulfilment to which this test might be applied (see Notes).

In the same way, John presented his credentials-a prophecy that he would soon be followed by one much greater than himself: “There standeth among you (as though ready for action), one whom ye know not (a double meaning here!)… he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Spirit”, that is, he is the Messiah.

This was a test easy to apply. They had only to be alert for the appearance of one whose every word and action was a constant (and not intermittent) manifestation of divine power, and they would not only know John to be a true prophet, but by that same token would also know that it was now time to turn away from John and give heed to one much greater. “His shoe latchet I am not worthy to unloose.” In the presence of the Glory of the Lord, Moses and Joshua must remove their sandals (Ex. 3: 5; Josh. 5: 15). But not this Man, for he is the Glory of the Lord; Isaiah’s prophecy about John and his message said so (Is. 40: 5; hence this detail in Acts 7: 33; 13: 25).

Why This Baptism?

Further enquiry was now pressed upon John. He had introduced a completely new rite, sanction for which was not to be found in the Law of Moses; and he required all, without exception, to accept it. What was his authority for this, and what did it signify? The anxiety of these enquirers is readily understood. The birth of the nation of Israel had been through baptism (1 Cor. 10: 1,2). Then did this new birth required by John mean a new law also?

The comprehensive reply of John was, in effect, Yes. His authority was a direct personal revelation from heaven. This baptism assured men of the forgiveness of sins through the Lamb of God. It revealed to Israel a vital part of Messiah’s work (v. 31). But its acceptance by the people was necessary if the Messiah was to be revealed in all his power.

Biblical Allusions

Always John pointed away from himself to One who was greater, the next day especially when he saw Jesus “coming to him”-the phrase seems to imply “for the purpose of being baptized”. It was very appropriate that at such a time John should announce him as “The Lamb of God which beareth the sin of the world”, with explicit allusion to the great Isaiah 53 prophecy which no less than twelve times asserts the Messiah to be a sin-bearing Suffering Servant of the Lord. And three times out of those twelve, “sin” is singular (v. 6,8,12), as in John’s phrase-one peerless sacrifice for all the vast appalling weight of human sin.

John’s choice of phrases was probably designed also to steer the minds of his hearers to another great prototype-the offering of Isaac: “And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind him one (all-sufficient) ram caught in a thicket by his horns” (Gen. 22: 13). This is not unlike: “Behold, the Lamb of God which beareth (as Isaac did the wood) the sin of the world … after me cometh a man which is preferred to me.” “God will provide himself a lamb (my son)”, faithful Abraham had said.

In this saying the word which John used for “man” is not the one which might be expected. Instead it is the word which very often means “husband”. In this gospel it always carries that meaning. So probably John had in mind the figure of the bridegroom which he was to use later, the man preferred before himself whilst he remained well content with the status of friend of the bridegroom, or best man, as modern speech would put it (Jn. 3: 29; Is. 61: 10,11).

There is probably more meaning even than this in John’s assertion: “he was before me”. The Greek here-literally: “he has become before me, for he was first of me”, or “he was my First”-is doubly puzzling. “First” implies “the first of more than two”, and may look back to Isaiah 41: 27, in a chapter which seems to be full of links with the Baptist; thus:

v. 15:	thresh, mountains, hills, chaff.
v. 16:	fan; glory in the Holy One of Israel.
v. 17:	the poor and needy seek water.
v. 18:	the wilderness a pool of water
v. 25:	he that cometh… from the north from the sunrising.
v. 27:	the First… behold, good tidings to Jerusalem.
v. 29:	all vanity, their works nothing.
42: 1:	mine elect in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my Spirit upon him.
42: 2:	he shall not cause his voice to be heard.
42: 3:	a bruised reed (Mt. 11: 7) shall he, not break.
42: 6:	for a covenant of the people.

What can John have meant by his repeated emphatic “I knew him not”? The words make best sense when taken literally-that the two men, although closely related, were quite unknown to each other, having grown up at opposite ends of the country. Only when John interrogated Jesus prior to baptism (as he did all other candidates for baptism), and found out who this newcomer was and that he had no sins to confess-only then would he realise, and with what excitement, that his ministry had now come to its climax.

The suggestion (in “Nazareth revisited”, by R.R. p. 57) that the two men enjoyed each other’s fellowship for only half an hour or so is full of improbability. With each one having so much to tell the other, and each realising that here was the best mortal fellowship he could hope to enjoy, it becomes incredible that they should meet and part so soon (note also the implication behind 3: 26).

Where John preached

All this took place, according to the common version, at Bethabara beyond Jordan. There is, however, better textual evidence for reading Bethania. This is certainly not the Bethany of Lazarus, Martha and Mary. Various identifications have been suggested, but there are two which combine to give the same result. Conder (and there are few more dependable authorities on the topography of Palestine) says that this was a corrupted form of the name Bashan. Alternatively, Beth—Anijah means House of Shipping and would require a location on the shores of Galilee; there is some likelihood of the place being at the south-east corner of the lake.

It now makes an interesting exercise in New Testament geography to trace the movements of John in the course of his brief ministry. He began in Jerusalem, moving soon to the wilderness of Judaea (Mt. 4: 1); thence to the nearest part of the river Jordan (Mk. 1: 5). Then “all the region round about Jordan” (Mt. 3: 5) was covered, so there must have been steady progress up the Jordan valley, as far as Galilee (according to the identification already made). It would be in this locality that Jesus came to him for baptism. Here also Jesus was identified to some of John’s disciples as the Lamb of God. The mention of Andrew bringing Simon to Jesus and of Philip finding Nathaniel both fit in here, for Bethsaida was, of course, on the shores of Galilee, and Cana was not far away.

John is next heard of at Aenon near to Salim (Jn.3: 23). This probably means that his ministry had now taken him into Samaritan territory, either because hunted by Herod or out of a realisation that the great work of the Messiah would not be restricted to Israel and that therefore he too must be prepared to extend his call to repentance to others besides his own people. He is last heard of in Herod’s gloomy fortress of Machaerus (according to Josephus), just east of the Dead Sea.

Thus his preaching took him almost the full length of the country. At the most northerly point and at the height of his fame he baptized Jesus. Thereafter, “he must increase, but I must decrease”. Before long his work ended, both physically and spiritually, in tragedy-his mission almost a failure, and his life savagely cut short to give an evil woman the horrific satisfaction of a long-planned revenge.

John 1:19-34

21.	l am not. This emphatic personal pronoun might well imply: ‘But soon you will know who is.’
26.	Other examples of short-term prophecies presenting the credentials of a prophet: 1 Sam. 3: 12-14; 1 Kgs. 13: 3; Am. 1: 1,2; Is. 2: 10-22 (Uzziah’searthquake);Jer. 1: 11-14; Ez.4; Mic. 1: 1-4;Mal. 1: 1-5.
	Whom ye know not.. A double meaning here; cp.v. 10,11
29.	Taketh away. This Greek verb means (a) bear; (b) bear away. Both meanings here, surely.
	The Lamb of God. Gk. amnos, as in Is. 53: 7 and Ex. 12: 5 LXX. But why amion in Apocalypse? To distinguish between the mortal and the immortal Son of God?
30.	Is preferred. Literally: hath become. A decided difficulty for trinitarians, for would not a pre-existent Christ be always “before” John?
31.	As a dove. Cp. this usage in 15: 16; Rev. 3: 3. Luke’s phrase: “in a bodily shape”, is not to be evaded; but the commentators manfully, and wilfully, do their best (worst).
33.	And remaining on him. Contrast the experience of the disciples during the ministry, and the early church, and even John himself. This passage is surely in mind at Lk. 7: 21 and Mt. 16: 1,4.
34.	I saw, a word often used of a divine vision.

After the discussion with Nicodemus, Jesus left Jerusalem for what must have been a sustained campaign of preaching in the country districts of Judaea (Jn. 3: 22). The fact that he chose at this time to leave Jerusalem was a clear answer to the section of the Pharisees who were proposing a working alliance with him. More important to Jesus were the humble country folk who esteemed his message for its own sake.

At first the response was enthusiastic. Drawn by the reports of miracles in Jerusalem (2: 23; 3: 2) and the cleansing of the temple (2: 15), people came in large numbers, and, held by the grace and freshness of his message, they stayed, and sealed their discipleship with baptism. “All men come to him”, John’s followers reported in some amazement, and not without a touch of envy.

Baptism – its Meaning then and now

The baptism which Jesus administered through the practical help of his first disciples was similar in character and meaning to the baptism which John’s converts received. It was, in essence, the Christian baptism which believers receive today. The only difference was this — whereas today baptism looks back to the death of Christ and receives all its meaning from his sacrifice, the baptism which converts of John and Jesus received in those early days looked forward to an acceptable sacrifice for sin whom God would provide. It is hardly likely that at that time the recipients of baptism understood quite clearly how and through whom their sins would be put away, but this lack would be rectified in due time. And in spite of these deficiencies it was, without doubt, a valid baptism.

Today, those who are beset from time to time with doubts as to the adequacy of their own knowledge or appreciation of the Truth at the time of their baptism can take comfort from considerations of this kind. The grace of God is not so meagre that it cannot take into account such human limitations.

Meantime John was equally assiduous in the work of God. The fact that Messiah had now launched his own personal appeal to the nation did not mean that there was nothing left for him to do.

Geography and Symbolism

The precise locality where John was now at work is not identifiable with any certainty. Aenon and Salim occur together in Joshua 15: 32 in a context which suggests the locality of Ziklag in the south-east of Judah. The mention of “much water there” probably identifies the “springs of water” given by Caleb to his daughter Achsah as part of her marriage dowry, thus increasing the joy of her bridegroom Othniel (Jud. 1: 15). It was now high summer, and places in the Negeb where there was water sufficient for baptisms would be remarkably few. Commentators, using Genesis 33: 18 as a pointer, favour a place in the vicinity of Shechem (Nablus), even though this was in Samaritan territory. In any case the place would hardly be identifiable by the majority of the gospel’s first century readers.

What symbolic meaning, then, did the writer of this fourth gospel see in “Aenon (fountains of water) near to Salim (peace) “where there were “many waters”? Isaiah 48:21, 22 includes these ideas in an eloquent passage about the blessing and providence of God for His redeemed: “He caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them: he clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out. There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.” The context of this passage is wonderfully descriptive of the appeal of Christ: “From the beginning I have not spoken in secret… the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me… O that thou wouldest hearken to my commandments! then should thy peace be as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea “ (v. 16,18).

But the name Aenon (= Hebrew: ayin) also means “eye”. This suggests another prophecy in Isaiah: “How beautiful upon the mountains (of Judaea) are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings (the gospel), that publisheth peace (Salim)… that saith unto Zion, the King of thy God!… they shall see eye to eye (Aenon), in the return of the Lord of Zion” (52: 7,8). It is hardly possible to be certain about these shadowy allusions, but those who have spent long hours on John’s gospel will know that this book is shot through with Old Testament ideas of this sort. The repeated confession of chapter 2: 22: “his disciples remembered that it was written of him”, is more than a hint of how this gospel should be read and studied.

The Pharisees at work again

If the sending of Nicodemus was intended as an unofficial deputation which might lead to a “take-over bid” for the movement Jesus had initiated, it was evident from the start that no success could be expected in that direction.

A similar attempt, with somewhat different emphasis, was now made to wreck the work of John. There arose a discussion between a leading Jew and some of John’s disciples. No head-on encounter was sought with John himself. The leaders had already had experience of this, and were still licking their wounds (Mt. 3: 7-12). These tactics of seeking to take over the movement from within gave better promise of success. Ultimately they were to prove so successful (see Study 36) that the same strategy was later attempted more than once with the followers of Jesus.

It looks as though the argument, about “purifying”, took this shape: ‘What good is this baptismal cleansing which you have received from your leader when not far away is another like him who is also teaching and baptizing?’ It is exactly the kind of superior quibble which Romans Catholics are fond of making about the wide diversification of various Protestant sects.

The point went home. John’s disciples came to him worried by the problem: “Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan (1: 29,36), to whom thou hast borne witness, behold, the same baptizeth and all men come to him” (3:26)—as who should say: ‘You and Jesus were working together at first. Now you are in competition, and he’s making more headway than you are. He has even taken some of your best disciples away from you’.

The Bridegroom

In reply John quietly bade them regain a sense of perspective: “A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.” In different ways this principle held good both for Jesus and for himself. The new preacher was making big progress; that was as it should be, for this was God’s declared purpose and intention with him. And from the outset John’s own role was secondary in character. ‘You have remembered how I bore witness to Jesus earlier. Remember also how I repeatedly told you and all men that I am not the Messiah, I am merely a forerunner’ (see v. 28). Then came a change of figure: ‘He is the Bridegroom. Mine is a lesser role. As friend of the Bridegroom I am happy to stand by in service and helpfulness. It gives me pleasure to hear him make his marriage vows’.

It is not impossible that here John was making allusion to the Song of Songs (2: 8,10). But another passage in Isaiah (61: 10) seems to be the more likely original: “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself (in a priestly garment), and as a bride adorneth herself with jewels.” The apostle John was surely thinking of this passage, for he went on to include two priestly allusions in his commentary: “God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him” is apparently an allusion to the copious pouring of anointing oil on the head of the high priest, in contrast to the limited application for other priests (Ex. 29: 7,20). And the expression: “he hath given all things into his hands” (v. 35) is an allusion to the Hebrew idiom for consecration as a priest (Ex. 29: 9 margin).

“He must increase”

The logic of John’s witness, spoken with unsurpassed humility, was that disciples like Peter and Andrew, James and John, and the others, should break off the loyalty they felt for their first leader and attach themselves instead to Jesus. “He must increase, but I must decrease”, John’s last public utterance was as plain as instruction could be, that the time was ripe for graduation to a better teacher. It may be that already John’s outspoken denunciations of Herod’s evil life were cutting short his own days of active witness. “This my joy (Lk. 1: 44) therefore is fulfilled” suggests a task completed. Probably the prophet was already worried as to the future of these men who clung to him with such mistaken faithfulness.

The Apostle’s Commentary

At this point (v. 30) there is a palpable break in the fourth gospel. The first person pronouns in the reported speech of the Baptist cease. The style and structure of the sentences change. The paragraph that follows (v. 31-36) reads more like the apostle John’s own comment on the high status of Jesus which the Baptist had been proclaiming afresh. Certainly the words are easier to understand from this point of view.

Also, the succession of phrases — so full of Johannine abstractions (as they seem to be) – immediately begins to make much more sense when it is realised that here is another of the apostle’s extended allusions to the Old Testament, characteristically put together without any specific quotation from the particular passage he has his eye on. Here the allusions all go back, as will be seen, to the grim episode of the Golden Calf. The passage thus becomes a further exemplification of the main theme of this gospel: “The Law was given through Moses, but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ” (1: 17).

The force of the allusions is best brought out by a tabulation (much as one dislikes applying railway time-table methods to such a holy book as this!):

These extended hints of Moses’ foreshadowing of the character and work of Jesus (an idea mentioned briefly by Paul also in 1 Cor. 10: 5,6) send the reader back to Exodus 32 to consider yet other aspects of this type; for instance:

1. The weakness and futility of the priesthood of Aaron.
2. His demands for their wealth in order to further a false religion (cp. the buying and selling and money-changing in the temple).
3. What was an abuse was called “a feast to the Lord”.
4. The golden calf foreshadowing the reverence of cherub figures in the temple: “these be thy Elohim, O Israel.”
5. The smashing of the Testimony.
6. Moses’ successful intercession for sinners, based on willingness to sacrifice himself.
7. The washing away of sin by the stream from the Smitten Rock (Dt. 9: 21; cp. the references to baptism; v. 22,23).

It is, however, important to observe how John is careful to include here certain pointed reminders of the marked superiority of Jesus over Moses:

1. “God giveth not the Spirit by measure” to Jesus. In one sense this was not true of Moses, for (as Exodus 34: 29,30 emphasizes) the glory in the face of Moses was a fading glory (2 Cor. 3: 13 RV).
2. “The Father loveth the Son” uses the best word of all – agapao -whereas for Moses (and only once at that) Scripture uses the lesser word philos, friend.
3. And whereas Moses had communion with the Angel of the Covenant, for Jesus there was an intimate fellowship with the Father Himself such as even those in Christ cannot hope to understand.
4. “He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God.” Thus John points out Jesus as the promised “Prophet like unto Moses” who is to supersede Moses: “I will put my words in his mouth… he shall speak in my name… unto him (and not to Moses) ye shall hearken” (Dt. 18: 18,15).
5. Moses’ self-sacrifice was not accepted (as being inadequate), but Christ’s self-sacrifice is all-sufficient.

It is perhaps useful also to observe how a clear recognition of the shape of the apostle John’s thought in this paragraph immediately evacuates the phraseology of any possible allusion to a pre-existent Jesus coming literally from heaven.

In any case there is need here, as in a number of other places, for allowance to be made for the kind of idiom in which John wrote: “He that cometh from above is above all.” Trinitarians fasten on such phrases as these with an avid but most unbecoming literalism. Yet they say no more than v. 34: “he whom God hath sent” (which language is used also of John the Baptist; 1: 6). The idiom comes out even more clearly in another antithesis: “Ye are from beneath; I am from above” (8: 23). The second phrase here can no more be taken literally than the first. The divine origin of Jesus and his higher spiritual status are the essential ideas intended. Similarly, “he that cometh from heaven is above all” (v. 31).

The Witness and its failure

Jesus was now bearing witness of “that he hath seen and heard” (the words imply a unique intimacy with God), and — so comments John not long before the overthrow of Jerusalem — ’no man receiveth his witness.” The words obviously call for some limited application, for all through the life of the apostle John the Truth of Christ made steady progress throughout the Roman Empire. Read with reference to the nation of Israel, the words were near to being literally true. The decade which witnessed the deaths of Paul and Peter saw also the steady dwindling away of effective impact of the gospel on orthodox Jewry. Indeed by that time the tide had set the other way. The main purpose of the Epistle to the Hebrews was to stem the drift of Jewish Christians back to the synagogue. At such a time John might well write: “No man receiveth his witness.” What a dramatic irony there is now seen to be about the querulous words of John the Baptist’s disciples: “the same baptizeth, and all men come to him”!

Notes: John 3: 22-36

22.	Tarried. In classical Gk. the word describes time-wasting, but in N .T. time-using.
27.	Given.. The form of this word implies: “and remaining on him” 1: 33.
29.	Bride… bridegroom. This figure of marriage runs into strange inconsistencies if it is not recognized that here (and in ch. 2 and Mt. 22: 2) the reference is to betrothal; whereas Rev. 21: 9 is the marriage itself.
	The friend of the bridegroom. Edersheim (in “Jewish Social Life”) maintains that “the friend of the bridegroom” was a custom and title normal in Judaea, where John and Jesus now were, but not in Galilee. Hence the omission of the phrase in 2: 1-11.
	Rejoiceth greatly. Therefore John did not teach his disciples to fast (Mt. 9: 14,15).
34.	Giveth not the Spirit by measure, as happened with Moses’ helpers; Num.11: 17 RV. There is here also a clear reference to ls. 40: 13 RVm.
35.	Into his hand. This idiom of consecration comes in Ex. 29: 7,29, together with much oil for anointing (the Spirit not by measure). Contrast the idiom for Christ’s authority as king: “all things under his feet” (Ps. 8: 6; 1 Cor. 15: 27; Heb. 2: 8).
36.	The wrath of God. The only occurrence in this gospel. It was John’s message; Lk. 3: 7; cf. Jn. 1: 32.

It is commonly assumed that the discussion between Jesus and Nicodemus continued right through the first 21 verses of John 3, and that in fact after the question: “How can these things be?” (v.10), it became a monologue. There are, however, several considerations (none of them decisive, admittedly) which suggest that the discourse of Jesus, or the summary of it supplied by John, actually ends at verse 12, the rest being commentary and amplification supplied by John out of his intimate knowledge of the Lord’s teaching and its bearing on the later bitter reaction of the Jewish nation to the preaching of the gospel through the apostles.

John’s words, not the Lord’s        

1. “And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven” (v. 13). The last clause here could hardly have been spoken by Jesus — unless one is prepared to assume that he was using “heaven” in a very unusual figurative sense.
2. “Only begotten Son” (v. 16,18) is a phrase used by John, and not by Jesus (1: 14; 1 John 4: 9).
3. The tenses of the verbs suggest a comment made at a later date: “gave his only begotten Son” has little relevance to the very beginning of the ministry of Jesus, before men had had opportunity to choose between belief and disbelief; but it is full of meaning for the time when John was writing and Jewry had already turned its back on the gospel.
4. Chapter 1: 16-18 is, very clearly, the evangelist’s expansion of John the Baptist’s declaration (v.15). Yet the many who read these verses as a continuation of the Baptist’s words could be readily forgiven their error, for there is no hint of a discontinuity at the end of v. 15. It would appear to be the same in this place also.
5. The first person pronoun is fairly common up if -to the end of v. 10, but after that it occurs only “ in the words of John (v. 27-30).

Literally from heaven?

Whether the view just advanced be accepted or not verse 13 still presents a problem of some magnitude. Since the ascension of Jesus into heaven was a literal bodily ascent, is it not necessary to take “he that came down from heaven” in the same literal fashion? The answer to that is: “Not necessarily”. But it has to be admitted that a literal meaning for both phrases is certainly desirable.

This is possible once the literal interpretation of John 20:17 be adopted. After his resurrection Jesus said to Mary Magdalene: “Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and your God.” Reasons have been given (ch. 242) for inferring from these words a personal ascension of Jesus to the Father on the morning of his resurrection after his appearing to Mary and before the walk to Emmaus.

Support for this view may perhaps be seen in the title used here: “Son of man.” The allusion (and in Jn. 12: 34 also) is to the Son of man prophecy in Dan. 7: 13, where a literal ascension to heaven and coming again in glory is the main theme of the revelation. Thus John’s words written years later, about Jesus coming down from heaven and ascending to heaven can be read literally in the light of what took place on Easter day. The comment is added here by the author of the gospel to underline the Lord’s special authority to instruct even a leader such as Nicodemus in “earthly things” and also “heavenly things.”

Theophany

A very different approach to this problem passage was suggested by John Carter. He pointed to the phrase “came down from heaven” as being a fairly common Biblical idiom for a Theophany.

Thus, “the Lord came down to see the city and the tower (of Babel)” (Gen. 11: 5). “Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire” (Ex. 19: 18; other examples: Gen. 18: 21; Ex. 3: 7,8: 19: 11,20; 34: 5; Ps. 18: 9,10; 68: 18; Dt. 30: 12; Is. 7: 11; 64: 1; Prov. 30: 4; Acts 7: 34; and compare Jn. 6: 33,38,50,51,58,62.)

Similarly, the termination of the Theophany is spoken of as “God going up”. Examples: “And he left off talking with him, and God went up from Abraham” (Gen. 17: 22). “And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city…” (Ez. 11: 23; see also Gen. 35: 13; Ps. 47: 5; 68: 18.)

If Jn.3:l3 is another example of this Biblical idiom, then it emphasizes that Jesus was a quite unique manifestation of God among men, without the phrases necessarily requiring to be read with strict literalness (cp. 1:51) regarding a personal coming from heaven and return thither.

The Brazen Serpent

Next comes the familiar allusion to the brazen serpent: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life” (v. 14,15). The reason for mention of this is not far to seek. It reinforces with special power the declaration of Jesus: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

The eloquent details of this allegory have often been worked out. The grumbling of the people in the wilderness was a sustained rebellion against the authority of God, and they were shown in very grim fashion that “the wages of sin” is death. They did not die from the sting of the serpent immediately. The poison took a while to work in a man’s system. But all who were bitten knew that death was inevitable. When they were prayed for, the divine compassion did not immediately remove the serpents from the camp. lnstead, the sin itself, represented by metonymy in a serpent of brass, was displayed before all. The dying sinner who would be healed must look in faith to this symbol of the crucifying of sin. Hitherto the tabernacle had been the centre of all his religion and piety, but if he persisted in looking to it for redemption in this hour of need, he died. Thus the Lord’s standard or banner (same word as Exodus 17: 15) became one who was “made sin for us” (2 Cor. 5: 21), a redeemer from the curse, “being made a curse for us, as it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree” (Gal. 3: 13). Through this God-provided salvation the sinner, stricken and yet saved from his sin, was enabled to cry with triumph: “O death, where is thy sting?” (1 Cor. 15: 56). No self-healing was possible. “Surely, shall one say, in the lord have I righteousness and strength: even to him shall men come… Unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear” (ls. 45: 23,24).

Divine Imperative

This sign in the wilderness became an imperative to Jesus: “even so must the Son of man be lifted up.” It is clear that this expression was used as a euphemism for “crucifixion”, for when Jesus said to the people: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me”, John’s comment is: “This he said, signifying what death he should die.” And the people, mystified, answered: “The Christ abideth for ever; and how sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? who is this Son of man?” (Jn. 12: 32-34). A crucified Messiah, was not at all the kind of leader they looked for.

Nevertheless he must be “lifted up”. There was no other way to save the believer from perishing. The time came when Jesus was to pray: “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” It may be taken as certain that, if it were possible, such a petition asked of such a Father by such a Son would have been granted. That it was not serves to underline the awful truth that even Divine Omnipotence and Omniscience could find no other road to man’s redemption. So “it behoved the Christ to suffer” (Lk. 24: 46). The Son of man must be lifted up!

Mini-Gospel

The familiar words of John 3: 16 turn the allegory of the brazen serpent into profound reality. There is a double link: “God so loved the world” echoes “even so must the Son of man be lifted up”; there is also the valuable repetition: “that whosoever believeth may have everlasting Iife” (v. 15,16).

It is appropriate that the first occurrence in John’s writings of this characteristic word “love”: should express the love of God for men -”not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 Jn. 4:10). The origin and spring of all agape is in God. That which men express towards God or for one another is not uncaused, as is the love of God. Any love men show for God springs from what God has first done. It is evoked by His love and nurtured by Him. But no human love can ever rise to God’s level for He gave (and did not merely send) His only begotten Son.

Modern sentimentality would clamour for a universalist redemption, yet a moment’s reflection shows that a salvation through Christ for all without exception would declare an unloving God. For a man who has no inclination or intention of acknowledging the supremacy of God everlasting life would be an eternity of misery, an endless torment.

This “gospel in miniature” includes a remarkable assembly of John’s key words and phrases. Another of these is “believe”. It is, of course, the verb form of the word “faith”. In his gospel John preaches justification by faith with just as much emphasis as Paul does in his epistles.

It may be possible to go further and to see in the phrase “believeth into him” (which is the more exact reading here and in 33 other places in this gospel) the idea of the disciple’s appropriation of the proffered “eternal life” through identification with Christ in baptism. Other qualifications over and above a self-yielding faith in Christ are not necessary. “Every one believing” (again, this is the more exact translation) may thus save himself from the serpent-sting of sin. There are no barriers of race, social status, or sex: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female.” This is the meaning of that great word “whosoever” (Rom. 10: 11,12; 1 Jn 2:2).

Alternatives

But whilst these humanly cherished distinctions are swept away in Christ, one sharp line of demarcation remains-the only alternatives are that a man rejoices in this eternal life in Christ or he perishes. Attempts have been made by believers in the immortality of the soul to make this word mean survival in misery, by contrast with the happiness of heaven; but it requires only a quick glance at a good concordance to verify that the normal meaning is “destruction, a final end”. To attempt to read into it the idea of survival in torment is to make nonsense of many a passage.

Furthermore, the Greek aorist will hardly allow of the idea of continuous punishment hereafter. It must signify a summary judgment which a man experiences once and for all.

By contrast, in the expression “have everlasting life” the verb is a continuous present. The implication is that “eternal life”, as John uses the expression, is not so much that which lasts for ever as that which is deemed fit to last for ever. In John the emphasis is qualitative rather than quantitative. This idiomatic usage occurs time after time; e.g. “He that believeth on me hath everlasting life” (6: 47); “he that hearefh my word and believeth him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and cometh not into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (1 John 3: 14); “he that hath the Son hath life” (1 John 5: 12); and, by contrast, “he that hateth his brother abideth in death” (even whilst alive in this mortality); and in Jn 17: 12 RV Judas has already “perished”, even though, in the next chapter, he is physically alive. At the same time there is no lack of examples of this meaning merging into future fulfillment (e.g. 4: 36; 6: 27,68; 12: 25)

Basic Doctrine in John 3: 16

It is perhaps useful to catalogue baldly the fundamental doctrines which are all explicitly stated or else implied in John 3: 16.

1. Redemption is an act of uncaused love on God’s part. The initiative is His, not the believer’s.
2. Jesus is a unique Son of God, the “only begotten”.
3. The sacrifice of Jesus is the means of human redemption.
4. This salvation is for all men, without any kind of distinction; in the true sense of the term it is “catholic”.
5. Justification is by faith in Christ, and by no other way.
6. This justifying faith also unites a man to Christ in baptism.
7. By contrast with the Law’s promise of “length of days”, it also brings present and everlasting future enjoyment of “eternal life.”
8. The only alternative for the unbelieving sinner is ultimate oblivion.
9. In 3: 13, “which is” – Gk: ho On – is the Covenant Name of God in Ex. 3: 14 LXX (cp. Phil. 2: 9).

Judgment

In the words that follow, the function of Christ as Judge of all appears to be explicitly disclaimed: “For God sent not his Son into the world to judge (and condemn) the world: but (he gave him; v. 16 – note the contrast in the verbs) that the world through him might be saved” (v. 17). Jesus repeatedly stressed this: “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world” (12: 47); “I judge no man” (8: 15); and especially: “If any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world” (12: 47). At first sight this appears to be in sharp contradiction with other sayings: “I have many things to say, and to judge of you” (8: 26); “if I judge, my judgment is true” (8: 16); “as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just” (5: 30).

These two aspects of Christ are readily reconciled by recognizing that the function and act of judging is reserved for the future, but the ground of judgment is the present. Even as he spoke Jesus was assessing the quality of the men who resisted him so perversely:

In fact, those who reject the claims of Christ are by that very act writing their own condemnation: “he that believeth not is judged (and condemned) already, because he hath not believed…”

John repeats this basic principle in other words: a man who comes face to face with Christ, the Light of the world, and then deliberately chooses to turn away, preferring the darkness, is by that choice made amenable to the judgment of God: “This is the condemnation (the ground of judgment) that Light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light.”

The words have often been given pointed reference to Nicodemus coming to Jesus by night. But this is hardly fair to the man, for, as Plummer has so concisely stated, “he wished to conceal, not an evil deed from good men, but a good deed from evil men.” The past tense “loved” suggests rather a reference to the nation-wide rejection of the gospel by Jewry within a generation of the crucifixion. John wrote his gospel before A.D. 70, and already it was evident that almost no more converts to the Faith could be expected from the ranks of the Chosen People. Earlier, (Study 14) it was shown that John often uses the word “world” with reference to the Jewish kosmos. It was hardly true in the fullest sense of the word that “light is come into the world”, the whole wide world, but it was already abundantly true of Israel both in Palestine and among the Dispersion. “ Their deeds (the Greek makes the pronoun emphatic) were evil.”

Special Reference to Jewry

Nearly every phrase which follows seems to have pointed reference to Israel: “Everyone that doeth evil hateth the light.” This word “evil” is not the same as in the previous verse; it means that which is trivial, futile, petty, flimsy, valueless. Turning away from the light of Christ was thoroughly evil. In the Jews it sprang out of an obession with that which was of no account — the unspiritual minutiae of rabbinic tradition and casuistry. Human pride would not allow men to come to the light lest these “works be reproved”. It would mean an open admission that hitherto lives of great religiosity had been wasted in sustained striving to achieve a God-pleasing righteousness by personal effort, in other words, justification by works.

By contrast, “he that doeth truth cometh to the light”. The phrase is a remarkable one and only becomes Intelligible when read not in contrast to that which is false but to that which is type and shadow — the inner spiritual reality, as against the outward forms of religion, the life in Christ rather than the jots and tittles of Mosaic discipline. The man who in this sense “doeth truth” comes openly to Christ, professing a bold discipleship, and “his deeds are made manifest, that they are wrought in (or, by) God”, that is, association with Christ is first of all a public confession of personal inability to achieve any worthwhile righteousness. Whatever of spiritual value accrues in his life is brought about by God working in him, and not by his own personal efforts on God’s behalf.

Appropriate to this climax of thought, John’s gospel proceeds to tell how some Jews abandoned all religious self-confidence and came to John the Baptist and to Jesus for a baptism which buried the old life and the old outlook (3:22,23). Instead they expressed their faith in the washing away of sins and in the regeneration made possible through the Lamb of God whom John had announced.

Notes: John 3: 13-21

14.	This Num.21 allusion may possibly support the view that the “cross” was an upright stake. LXX there uses John’s word “sign”. The brazen serpent would be fashioned, of course, by Bezaleel (=in the shadow of God) of Judah, and so — again, of course — it would be put on the standard of Judah.
15.	RV: may In him have eternal life. But in v. 16 the Greek is different.
16.	Only begotten. Heb. 11: 17 may allude to this verse; in which case, this gospel was written before A.D. 70.
	Perish = earthly things (v. 12);
	eternal life = heavenly things.
21.	Truth. In not a few places “truth” is used as a synonym for “righteousness”; cp. 7: 18; Ps. 51: 5,6; Rom. 2: 8; 1 Cor. 13: 6.

The synoptic gospels recount a considerable number of occasions when Jesus cast out demons or unclean spirits. In addition there are further references in John’s gospel, Acts and the Epistles. As a class these incidents constitute one of the biggest problems of interpretation in the New Testament. It can hardly be said that the answers usually supplied are completely satisfying.

The common evangelical approach claims to take the gospel records strictly at their face value. Demons, that is to say, wicked disembodied spirits do exist; they caused many of the ailments which people were stricken with; Jesus recognised this fact, and by his power as Son of God he drove them away and so restored health to the afflicted.

Personal Devils?

This would be fine if it did not involve recognition of a whole world of evil beings. Belief in a personal superhuman Devil is a necessary adjunct to this viewpoint. Apart from this, there is a considerable array of minor problems and difficulties left unsolved. These crop up as soon as one studies the various accounts afresh equipped with a question mark.

But the biggest difficulty of all is the non-appearance of demons in the vast volume of Old Testament history. Here, for once, the argument from omission is really telling. In a thousand pages of Old Testament there is no mention of demons. Then a turn of the page and they become a regular feature of the record. An explanation which does not account for this strange phenomenon is no explanation. Strange, truly, that these demons should have been so active and evident in the time of Jesus, and yet so much out of the picture for long long periods both before and after.

There is also the fact that the identical diseases spoken of in the gospels as due to demonic influence are today curable by medical experts hardly any of whom believe in the existence of evil spirits.

Modern Attitude

The modernist approach is either to say that the writers of the gospels shared the beliefs of their ignorant contemporaries and for this reason couldn’t help but cast their accounts of the Lord’s miracles in this particular form; or else it is asserted that in this field of knowledge Jesus was a child of his own generation, himself thoroughly believing in the existence of demons and in his own ability to exorcise them. On this all that needs to be said is that a theory which assigns to the modern student of the gospels a higher authority and a superior judgement to that of Jesus or even of those who wrote about him condemns itself. But it is characteristic of the age we live in.

The “Accommodation” Theory

The explanation which seems to have found most favour among the readers of these studies assumes that Jesus, whilst not at all believing in or teaching the existence of unclean spirits, nevertheless fell in with the thinking of his contemporaries, tacitly adopting demonic modes of speech but without supporting or encouraging such ways of thinking.

The sheet anchor of this interpretative approach is the Baalzebub controversy: “If I by Baalzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children (i.e. your disciples) cast them out?” (Mt. 12: 27).

Here, it is suggested, Jesus adopted the standpoint of his adversaries simply for the sake of argument, solely in order to expose the illogicality of their thinking. And if he did so in this instance, may it not be safely assumed that in all his other references to demons he was following precisely the same method?

The simple answer is: It may not be so assumed! For this tacit adoption, for the sake of argument, of an erroneous point of view only crops up in discussion when seeking to confute a seriously false assumption made by one’s adversary (as in Mt. 12: 27). But in no other mention of demons was Jesus attempting to say: “Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee.”

On the contrary, in a score of places and more, when the Lord found himself confronted with a demoniac, he seems almost gladly to have fallen in with the idea, positively encouraging those who heard him to believe in the existence of such beings. And, equally important, the inspired gospel writers have, time after time, adopted precisely the same approach in a way which almost demands of the reader that he believe in demons.

An emphatic but quite typical example is Mark’s account (ch. 5) of the Gadarene demoniac:

• “A man with an unclean spirit” (v. 2: Mark’s ‘narrative).
• “He (Jesus) said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit” (v. 8).
• “And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine” (v.         12: Mark’s narrative).
• “And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine” (v. 13: Mark’s narrative).
• “And they come and see him that was possessed with the devil…sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind” (v. 15: Mark’s narrative).
• “He that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him” (v. 18: Mark’s narrative).

Thus, five times in this God-guided account and once in the words of Jesus the reader is being steered to a belief in the reality of demons. In this fairly lengthy passage (20 verses) there is no hint that such a belief is an error of either major or minor importance.

It would be no difficult matter to assemble thirty or forty other verses from the gospels all of which similarly make tacit assumption that unclean spirits really exist — and all of them putting this idea in the very words of Jesus or of the men who were inspired to write about him.

This is the real problem. This is the big difficulty. And the “accommodation” theory is utterly unable to cope with it. Only by shutting one’s eyes to the frequency and plainness of such passages as those just cited is it possible to say that Jesus fell in with grossly mistaken ideas just for the sake of convenience.

Let the fact be faced that in any of these exorcism episodes the Lord could have set the whole matter straight in a couple of clear incisive sentences — yet he didn’t!

Accurate New Testament Diagnosis

Another much neglected fact of considerable importance is this: In a marked majority of instances, alongside the mention of demons, the gospels also provide a plain simple matter-of-fact diagnosis of the disabilities Jesus healed.

“A dumb man possessed with a devil, (Mt. 9: 32). “One possessed with a devil, blind and dumb: and he healed him” (12: 22). “(His friends said) He is beside himself. And the scribes said, He hath Baalzebub … “ (Mk. 3: 21,22). The Gadarene demoniac was found “sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind” (Mk. 5: 15). “Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is epileptic… and Jesus rebuked the devil…” (Mt. 17: 15,18 RV). “And they that were vexed with unclean spirits were healed” (Lk. 6: 18). “A woman which had a spirit of infirmity… and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself” (Lk. 13: 11). “He hath a devil, and is mad” (Jn. 10: 20; the same idea is implied in 7: 20 and 8: 48).

Let it be clearly understood, then, that in most instances the maladies from which these unfortunates suffered were clearly recognised and described. Mention of demons could be omitted without any loss of intelligibility — indeed, there might well be a gain in lucidity.

Thus the problem of demon terminology becomes more acute than ever.

Familiar Terminology

It is not certain whence these ideas about demons came into Jewish thought. Probably from Persia or Greece (Hellenized Syria). Between the Testaments the Jews came under the domination of both, and during the four hundred years before Christ it would have been impossible to resist altogether the encroachments of the conquerors’ religious ideas.

But it is difficult to be sure to what extent demon language came to be used merely as a mode of speech rather than as an expression of firm conviction.

Today many a man says “Go to hell” who hasn’t a flicker of belief in the existence of such a place. Today, “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost” hardly ever implies a belief in spooks. Today it is merely a well-understood figure of speech to say: “That politician is in league with the devil.”

Gospel evidence suggests that a somewhat similar situation existed in our Lord’s time regarding demons.

Then, once again, the question demands an answer: Why did Jesus so often go out of his way to talk about (and to) demons as though he firmly believed in their existence, when there was no real need for him to take the problem seriously?

Solution via the Old Testament

To attempt an answer to this question it is necessary to go off at a tangent, apparently, to explore the Bible’s teaching about angels of evil.

The angels — all of them — are God’s ministers. They exist to do His will. And His will very often involves what men construe as evil, although when seen from God’s point of view it is precisely what He wants to happen. “I make peace, and I create evil: I, the Lord, do all these things” (Is 45: 7). “Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?” (Am. 3: 6).

God is the controller of everything in this world. He originates all the “evil” circumstances in it, as well as the good.

It follows, then, that whatever evil He decrees is contrived by the angels to whom this work is committed. The Bible refers to these as “evil angels” or “angels of evil”. Let it be clearly understood, these are not wicked angels. There are no wicked angels. They are God’s ministers, fulfilling His will, being responsible for bringing what men interpret as “evil” into human experience. A long list of illustrative Bible passages is available.

Examples

Psalm 78: 42-49 recalls the plagues in Egypt: “He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels among them.” But these plagues were God’s retribution on the Egyptians.

“An evil man seeketh only rebellion (against God): therefore a cruel messenger (LXX: an angel without mercy) shall be sent against him” (Prov. 17: 11).

Exodus 12: 23 has a protecting angel and a destroying angel in the same verse: “The Lord will pass over (i.e. hover over) the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.”

“And David spake unto the Lord when he saw the angel that smote the people…” (2 Sam. 24: 17).

“And immediately the angel of the lord smote Herod, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost” (Acts. 12: 23).

Specially germane to this study is 1 Sam. 16: 14: “But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him”.

There are many more passages of this character.

In the light of this teaching it is evident that the various maladies which Jesus healed were there in the afflicted people by the will of God and under the contrivance and control of His angels j of evil.

Bible and Science

If it be objected that these sicknesses, many of them, at least, were the direct result of natural law, this must be agreed. Else, why should wise medicine so often work a cure?

Yet it has to be remembered that the Bible’s view of natural law is that all such are the direct handiwork of God, maintained in operation by His angels: “He saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth” (Job 37: 6; and many more in the same book). “He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Mt. 5: 45).

When stilling the storm on Galilee, Jesus “rebuked the winds and the sea” (Mt. 8: 26). But how could these mindless elements of Nature suffer rebuke^ Is not the reader intended here to look behind the natural phenomena to the angel of the Lord by whose operation these things happened?

The Bible has no use for the brainwashing inflicted by scientists on their contemporaries. There is not a word in the Scriptures about “laws of Nature”, except to pillory the idea (Ecc. 1: 13b; 3: 10,11). “Natural Law” has become a smokescreen put out by the scientists to save people from wholesomely seeing God at work in the world of Nature.

A Fairly Accurate Concept

From all this it follows that when the people spoke of their various disabilities as “being possessed with an unclean spirit” they were marvellously near to the truth of the matter. Theologically speaking they were actually much nearer the truth than the modern pagan who attributes his attack of ‘flu to a germ. The only error was the possible concept of these demons as powers or wickedness. Yet this does not appear to have been dominant in the people’s thinking. These demons are mostly referred to as “unclean spirits”, that is, evil angels, as in Ps. 78: 49. Only twice are they called “evil spirits” (Mt. 12: 45 = Lk. 11: 26; Acts. 19: 16), in circumstances which make the term specially appropriate. (See Study 76 and also “Acts” by H.A.W. ch. 84).

Here, then, is adequate reason why Jesus would appear to accommodate himself to the idea of demon possession. Provided the notion of wicked spirits be kept out of the picture, the concept is near enough to literal truth to be tolerable.

Another Difficulty Explained

Here, also, is the explanation why the Lord addressed himself directly to the “unclean spirit”, as in Mark 1: 25: “Hold thy peace, end come out of him.” As Son of God he had authority over the angel of evil who was responsible (under God) for the distress and suffering of the afflicted creature before him. The command: “Come out of him”, was an instruction to this angel to let go the sufferer from the dominance and control which had been exercised over him hitherto.

The Lord’s acquiescence in the terminology and conventional ideas of the people regarding the problem of suffering now presents less difficulty. It is no longer a patronising take-over of crude mistaken ideas, comparable to the Catholic church’s cynical appropriation of many an ancient pagan myth or custom. It is rather, the re-statement of an old and true idea in a new and better light, for the nurturing of faith in those whom the Lord blessed with his healing power. Men were being taught to see in Jesus of Nazareth a divine authority greater than the angels, greater than any in the universe save the Almighty Himself.

Seen in this light, the sharp contrast between the profusion of demonic detail in the New Testament and their non-appearance in the Old Testament ceases to perplex. Angels of evil in the Old Testament and demons in the New Testament fulfil the same essential functions. They are two ways of saying the same thing.

With such a view of a difficult problem now available, the threadbare and quite inadequate “accommodation” theory may be safely let go.

The baptism of Jesus was followed immediately by his temptation: “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil” (Mt. 4:11). Here was the immediate inevitable clash between the two natures in the Son of God. The phrases “led of the Spirit” and “tempted of the devil” use the same preposition, as though emphasizing these two natures in him.

Difficult as the idea may seem, this was the first conscious guidance the Holy Spirit provided. Mark’s word is very strong: “Immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness.” It may perhaps imply some reluctance on the part of Jesus (as in Gethsemane), because he knew already how strenuous the test would prove to be.

Following baptism every other child of God faces a similar, though less exacting, challenge. There comes at such a time the need to take a long cool look at the future and decide attitudes to life, if there is to be a full and complete self-dedication to the service of the Lord. It is only from this point of view that the records of the temptation of Jesus make sense.

Not to be taken literally

Superficial reading of the gospels has led many to the conclusion that the Satan confronting Jesus was a personal superhuman Devil, the primeval rebel against the supremacy of God. A more careful examination of the details provides no less than eight reasons for rejecting a literal interpretation or the temptation records:

1. “The devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them” (Mt. 4:8). Is there any mountain from which literally all the kingdoms of the world can be seen? The phrase “and the glory of them” intensifies the difficulty. The glory of no kingdom can be seen from the top of a mountain. And Luke’s additional expression: “in a moment of time” only adds to the problem of literal interpretation.
2. The devil challenged: “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” This is in flat contradiction with the Bible’s constant insistence that the entire world is under the unfailing control of the Almighty: “God rules in the kingdoms of men, and giveth them to whomsoever He will.”
3. A little reflection makes perfectly clear that if a superhuman Satan were to appear undisguised to Jesus, there would be no special potency about the temptation. In such a situation any reader of these words would find it comparatively easy to repel such a Tempter, because the temptation would be vitiated by its very obviousness. So for Jesus it would have been a test with little to it. The strength of temptation, as all must recognize, lies in its subtlety: “Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust (his desire to do that which is evil), and enticed” (Jas. 1:14). Even a Trinitarian has to argue for a non-literal Devil here: “The appearance of the Devil in person would have taken all force from the Temptation, for the Son of God would know him at once” (de Wette). Another Trinitarian (Olshausen) gets into this tangle: “To the Saviour we must ascribe the possibility of falling, as viewed from without. To God, made man, we must ascribe the impossibility of falling. The union of the two is a mystery”. (Indeed, yes!)
4. Hebrews 4:15 is explicit that “Jesus was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” This operates in reverse also. Since no one has experienced being tempted by the actual appearance of a personal superhuman Satan, clearly the same must be true regarding Jesus.
5. “When the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him for a season” (Lk. 4:13). The clear implication behind these words is that at some time (or times) later on, the devil returned to resume his evil attempts. Yet throughout the copious records of the four gospels no hint of this is given. On the other hand (as will be seen later) once the subjective character of these temptations is recognized, the renewal of them can be traced right through the gospels.
6. Mark 1:13 should be pondered carefully: “And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan.” But if the Matthew and Luke records are taken literally, only one out of the three temptations actually took place in the wilderness. The other two were located in Jerusalem and at the summit of a mountain.
7. Mark 1:13, taken literally, makes the temptation last for forty days. Yet the three temptations detailed by Matthew and Luke could have been over and done with in forty minutes. Indeed Matthew 4:2 is explicit that the first temptation took place at the end of the forty days’ fast. Thus the three records, read literally, are in contradiction.
8. A further example of contradiction is the difference in the order of the temptations. If Matthew’s order is a,b,c, then Luke’s is a,c,b. The literal interpretation can only stand at the expense of the accuracy and inspiration of the record.

Subjective Temptation – Problems disappear

These considerations lead to the conclusion that Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts describe in symbolic form a complex of temptations, which were essentially subjective. There was no need for Jesus to be literally on a pinnacle of the temple. He could transport himself there in imagination and mentally could envisage the whole problem whilst still in the wilderness. Similarly, in a moment of time it was easily possible for him to contemplate all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. In other words Mark is literally correct when he says that the temptations took place in the wilderness.

Also, from this point of view, the different orders given by Matthew and Luke are of no consequence since these major temptations of Christ would recur in his mind over and over again during and offer the forty days, not necessarily always in the same order. This is normal human experience, and Jesus was “in all points tempted as we are.”

No Human Adversary

The view, sometimes propounded, that the Satan tempter was some human adversary of the Lord is altogether inadequate and must be let go. Quite apart from the fact that such a suggestion is ineffective in dealing with several of the difficulties listed earlier, it is hardly possible to suggest any individual who could adequately fill the role of tempter. Even the high priest could not set Jesus on a pinnacle of the temple. Even the Roman emperor could not offer him all the kingdoms of the world. And why either of these gentlemen should think it worth their while to tempt an obscure peasant from Galilee and with these explicit seductions has never been explained. Those who advance ideas of this kind should be asked to carry their interpretation through to cover all the details of the narrative. The weaknesses would soon be apparent.

If an external tempter is to be insisted on, then the only possible solution is Dr. Thomas’s (Eur. 3.65): an angel from heaven. Certain details chime in well enough with this suggestion:

• “The tempter came to him.” The Greek word seems to require a personal approach.
• “The devil taketh him into the holy city.” Again the Greek expression describes one person accompanying another (so also in verse 8 and in many places in the gospels).
• “Fall down and worship me” How can words like these be given a purely subjective reference? How can they apply to “sin in the flesh”?
• ”The devil leaveth him, and behold, angels came…” If angels literally and manifestly came, should not the other phrase be given a similar, if opposite, sense?

Then how resolve the apparent contradiction between these opposing interpretations?

The fact has to be faced that whilst most temptations have an external provocative agent (e.g. an advertisement for whisky may be full of allurement to a man with a weakness for liquor), no temptation is of real force unless it makes real appeal to a man’s own personal inclinations: i.e. “when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed” (Jas. 1: 14). In other words, the external and the subjective element are usually both necessary before a temptation has power to bear down a man’s defences.

The problem of angelic temptation is not easy of solution, but the suggestions to be made in Study 30 about “angels of evil” may help.

Christ’s Human Nature

The interpretation suggested here requires acceptance also of the view that the temptations either originated or found an answering strain in the marred human nature which Jesus inherited. This apparently drastic conclusion is entirely in harmony with all that Scripture teaches regarding human nature and, more particularly, regarding the nature of Jesus. He shared fully the fallen human nature, which he came to redeem.

The best possible test of soundness of any teacher, says the apostle John, is whether he teaches truth concerning the nature of Christ: “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh (that is, truly sharing the stricken nature and propensities of the Adamic race), is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God” (1 Jn. 4: 2,3). There could be no better illustration of the truth of this doctrine about Jesus than the temptations in the wilderness and in Gethsemane.

Temptation is not Sin

It is important to distinguish clearly between the possibility that thoughts of evil may have arisen in the Lord’s mind (this did happen because of his human nature), and giving welcome and encouragement to such ideas (this never happened; every inclination to evil was strangled at its birth).

There are those who dislike or even resent this assessment of Christ. Such reaction is mostly through lack of careful thinking about the problem. Let the first temptation be considered as an illustration: “You are acutely hungry. Isn’t self-preservation one of the basic laws of human nature? Then turn these stones (Moses’ two tables of stone?) into bread, and satisfy your need. You have the power to do it. How are you to accomplish any good for men if you enfeeble yourself to this extent?” Even if it were some external tempter addressing this proposition to Jesus, it would be no temptation at all if the suggestion did not chime in with the inclination of his own nature. In other words, it became a temptation because he wanted to do this. At this point the temptation became subjective, as every temptation must, according to James 1: 14. But, much more strongly, Jesus wanted to honour the will of his heavenly Father.

This clash of inclinations was resolved by clear recognition of a moral principle expressed in Holy Scripture. If, instead, Jesus had feasted his imagination on the delights of satisfying his own appetite, then — on the principles of his own sermon on the mount (that hatred is murder, and lustful intention is adultery) — he would have been found a sinner before God.

Essentially, temptation is no temptation until it finds a responsive chord in the soul of the individual, and then there must be decision either to encourage and enjoy the idea (whether it issues in action or not), and this is sin; or to strangle it each time it comes into the mind, and this emphatically is not sin. The first of these was not true of Jesus. The second was.

And since “in all points he was tempted like as we are”, and normal human experience is far more often subjective than otherwise, it follows that many a time in his life, if not on these occasions in the wilderness, Jesus must have had to deal drastically with seductive thoughts of evil. So even if an external agent be insisted on for the wilderness temptations, the problem still exists much more considerably in the rest of the Lord’s human experience. Those who would go so far as to say that Jesus never had to cope with a subjective temptation deny not only the plain facts of the gospels but also the essential truth that “Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.”

The Meaning of the Temptations

From the point of view just argued for it is not difficult to see how the three temptations described by Matthew and Luke represent three major policy decisions, which Jesus would have to make governing the aims and methods of his ministry.

The first, in a nutshell, was the problem: You have this remarkable endowment of divine power; why not use it for your personal comfort and satisfaction?

It needs only a moment’s reflection to realise that any other human being with such endowments would be sorely tempted to use them selfishly. Jesus settled the issue once and for all. Throughout his ministry his miracles were never used for his own personal benefit. There is one partial exception to this rule, and once the meaning behind the coin in the fish’s mouth is understood, the propriety of that exception is seen immediately (Mt. 17: 24-27; Study 113).

The second problem was the temptation to make an irresistible impact on the Jewish nation by employing the powers of God’s Holy Spirit in the most sensational methods possible. Instead Jesus rejected the methods of modern advertising in favour of the directive of policy supplied by inspired prophecy about himself: “He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the streets” (Is. 42: 2; Mt.12: 16-21). In later days, there came circumstances, which called for what seemed to be a dramatic reversal of this role, but until the last few months this was the policy to which Jesus restricted himself. He said “No” to all forms of human vainglory.

The strongest pull of all would be towards establishing the heavenly kingdom immediately. Jesus knew full well from the Old Testament that the one born King of the Jews must also be the Suffering Servant of the Lord. The temptation must have been great indeed to leave the path which involved rejection and suffering, and instead take the short cut which would quickly give him the throne of the world. If such ignoble men as Tiberius could become emperor of Rome, then for certain within a few years Jesus-had he so chosen-could have brought himself to a position of absolute political authority over all the civilised world. The prospect of being able to “judge the poor of the people and save the children of the needy” by purely political methods must have been very alluring to Jesus because of his strong human sympathies and his deep compassion for those in trouble. This problem also he would encounter over and over again. His attitude towards it was settled, again once and for all, in the wilderness. In the earlier temptations he had decided against his ministry being selfish or spectacular. Now he also resolved that it should not be secular.

At mount Carmel Elijah had attempted a spectacular appeal to his wayward people, but after his forty days he was shown in the wilderness that greater good lay in a ministry of the “still small voice” amongst the seven thousand of the Lord’s faithful remnant (1 Kgs. 19: 8,11,12,18). Moses in his fortieth year in the wilderness came to a climax of failure by attempting a secular leadership over Israel: “Hear now, ye rebels, must we fetch you water out of this rock?” (Num. 20: 10). The Son of God was resolved to learn from their experience.

Three times this temptation record demonstrates the power of Holy Scripture; and in his last prayer for his disciples, the Lord Jesus three times asked that the same power might be recognized and relied upon by them also: “Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth” (Jn. 17: 17,8,14).

Most probably in the course of those forty days many other problems and temptations presented themselves to the mind of Jesus as he considered the years ahead. The familiar record is not to be regarded as full and complete. Luke intimates as much: “when the devil had completed every temptation…” (4: 13 RV). That word “every” surely implies more than three.

The Source of the Record

It is hardly a waste of time to enquire the source of the gospel writers’ information regarding this solitary temptation of Christ. How could Matthew and Luke have access to the facts they describe?

It cannot be ruled out that the gospel writers were the subjects of direct inspiration from heaven. However, all other considerations point to the probability that, as Luke himself asserts (Lk. 1: 2), this also was the fruit of assiduous compilation, under divine influence and direction.

In that case Jesus himself must have been the source of it, probably during those pregnant forty days after the resurrection, when he companied with his disciples and did so much to further their spiritual education. But how could he impart to them any adequate or worthwhile idea of the mental conflict he had faced at the beginning of his ministry, except by couching it in the parabolic form, which he had so often found marvellously useful? Such a conclusion can hardly be regarded as certain, but it has much to recommend it.

Biblical Background

The Biblical associations of this temptation experience of Christ are very copious, and all of them enlightening. The “forty” days recalls how Israel also faced the temptations of the wilderness for forty years after being baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. It was at the end of that forty years that Moses forfeited his own immediate inheritance of the Land through the implications of his rash speech at Meribah-Kadesh (Num. 20: 12). It was at the end of forty days that Elijah’s morale collapsed in the wilderness (1 Kgs. 19: 8). But it was also after the invincible Enemy had presented his challenge for forty days that he was slain by the valiant David using only one of the five smooth stones he had ready (1 Sam. 17: 40).

The detail, found only in Mark, that Jesus was “with the wild beasts” has symbolic force. Here was the second Adam fulfilling the divine commission to “have dominion over every living thing that moveth” (Gen. 1: 28), the lower creation which the descendants of the first Adam have so brutalized. Here was foreshadowed the fulfilment of the Messianic prophecy about the second Adam: “Thou modest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands … all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field” (Ps. 8: 6,7).

This experience in the wilderness was only a token fulfilment of these Scriptures and also of the Lord’s victory over the wild untamed thinking of ungenerate human nature. It was also the literal fulfilment of a prophecy with a profound symbolic significance behind it: “Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder: the young lion and the serpent shalt thou trample under feet” (Ps. 91: 13). In the days of his royal majesty, and even now in the days of his flesh, Messiah is more than sufficient to cope with human pride, human cunning, human deceit. It was a contest, which never ceased during the strenuous years of his ministry.

There was no lack of subtlety in the insinuation of the devil’s opening gambit: “lf thou be the Son of God…” Jesus had come straight from Jordan. The heavenly voice was still ringing in his ears: “My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” In Eden the doubt had been: “Yea, hath God said…?” Here no doubt was possible. Instead, the implication was: “You are the Son of God, then why not…?” The subtle self-justification would be, of course: “The salvation of all depends on me, so surely I am justified in turning a stone into food to keep myself alive!”

The contrast with the first Adam is striking. He, son of God (Lk. 3: 38), living in a delightsome garden, with abundance of everything, took the one food that was forbidden. Jesus, Son of God (Mt. 3: 17), in the wilderness and desperately hungry, said “No” to what might well seem to be an altogether legitimate satisfying of personal need. “Christ’s fast cures Adam’s greed” was the quaint succinct comment of one eighteenth century expositor.

The First Temptation misread

The Lord’s rebuttal of the first temptation is very commonly misunderstood. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” is often taken to mean: “Not material food, but the spiritual nourishment of the Bible.” A careful look at the context of this quotation from Deuteronomy 8: 3 shows that there should be a different emphasis: “And the Lord thy God humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna (angel’s food: Ps. 78: 25), which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.”

Here to read the last expression as a reference to inspired Scripture is to provide a perfect non sequitur. The meaning required is: “God’s commands to His angels.” In the wilderness God said to these immortal ministers: “Feed my people”, and the angels proceeded to provide manna six days out of seven for forty years. Thus Israel learned to abandon self-sufficiency and to depend on every word of Divine command to the angels, trusting, that is, on God’s providence.

So by this quotation Jesus declared his firm intention to live by faith in God’s care and guidance, as in all ages other men of God have lived. (Cp. the spirit of Mt. 7: 9-11). In this concise Biblical way it became a settled principle of his public life that he would not rely on the superhuman powers of the Holy Spirit either to make the way easy or to resolve difficulties, which his followers would have to face without such help.

A Logical Sequence

Confirmation of the interpretation just suggested comes from the details of the next temptation: “Cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up…” Paraphrased this says, in effect: “You declare that you are determined to depend only on God’s commands to His angels to provide and care for you? Here in Psalm 91 is a Scripture, which gives the angels explicit instructions for your benefit. Then make use of it! You said you would!”

The subtlety and cleverness of this prompt continuation from the first temptation is almost incredible. Out of the entire Old Testament what other Scripture would have provided so telling a rejoinder? All this might be read as supplying an additional proof of the subjective character of the temptation. What other mind besides that of Jesus himself could have made the point so Biblically and so forcefully?

Why then did Jesus turn emphatically away from an act, which had apparently such clear sanction in the Word of God? The answer lies in one word-context. It requires only a cursory glance through Psalm 91 to recognize that the heavenly help promised there is for a servant of the Lord in time of need, not for aggressive self-advertisement. The “tempter” may be acquitted of the charge, often levelled, of misquoting Scripture. True, the phrase “in all thy ways” was omitted. But its inclusion would have strengthened, and not weakened, the tempter’s argument. The mishandling of this Scripture lay in the wrong spirit in which it was quoted and the motive behind its use.

The Temptation to misuse Scripture

In this example there is a warning of much solemnity against the misappropriation of Bible texts and against the danger of insistence on the letter of Scripture, whilst at the same time perverting the spirit of the passage. Hardly a month goes by but one encounters examples of this kind of thing in the speech and writings of those who profess better and should know better.

To one as intimate with Scripture as Jesus was, to one with a mind as alert and quick as his, the temptation to use the Bible in a slightly unscrupulous way, to satisfy or justify his own personal inclinations, must have been a constant danger, a harassing besetting test. But again he laid down the principle that was to be one of his major guide lines: “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” In Egypt Israel had witnessed such a series of divine hammer-blows against the might and religion of that country as would last for a lifetime in the memory of any who saw them. Crossing the Red Sea, they had experienced the providence of heaven in protection and judgement which no one of them could ever nave anticipated. Yet within a few weeks these people were querulously complaining: “Is the Lord among us, or not?” That occasion lived in Moses’ memory. Forty years later he warned the sons of these sinners: “Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted him in Massah.” By quoting these words Jesus underlined his resolve not to put God’s goodness to the test. He already had ample evidence of it in his experience hitherto.

The Third Temptation

The third test was a temptation to respond to the tug of personal inclination, leaving aside the humble role of preacher of righteousness, evading the self-sacrifice of the cross, and (with a fine mixture of good and bad motives) seeking power over the nations. Such a policy, with its many allurements, could only be pursued by letting go the complete self-dedication to the will of God, which his recent baptism had proclaimed. Here, palpably, was the temptation of Eden over again-to cast off divine constraints and follow the inclination of self, with the desirable outcome dangled enticingly before the eyes: “Ye shall be as gods.”

To all this Jesus returned an almost violent negative: “Get thee hence, Satan.” Once again he saw a marked parallel between his own temptation and that of Israel in the wilderness. Exodus 23: 29-33 details one of the most blunt exhortations addressed to the people through Moses. They must resist all inclination to ensure, their inheritance of the Land of Promise through alliance with the debased nations already there: “Thou shalt not bow down to their gods… Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods…”

Instead, let them depend on every word of God to the angels of His power: “Mine angels shall go before thee, and bring thee in… and I will cut them off.” Forty years later, with allusion to this, the exhortation was renewed, this time a emphasising the danger of material progress and prosperity: “And it shall be, when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildest not, and houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantest not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full; then beware lest thou forget the Lord, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and him shalt thou serve and shalt swear by his name” (Dt. 6: 10-13). With these words from the Book of his strength, Jesus drove this temptation away.

The Temptations renewed

But in later days back it came again: “the devil departed from him for a season.” How many times Jesus was assailed with such allurements during his ministry, it is impossible to say, but a number of instances are clearly traceable in the gospel records.

John’s gospel gives no explicit record of the Lord’s temptations, yet all three are plainly traceable there.

He turned a few loaves and fishes into abundant food, but not for himself. At the word of his mother he turned water into wine, but in doing so, he manifested his glory only to the six disciples he had so far gathered round him (see Study 21)

At his last Feast of Tabernacles, his own brothers somewhat scornfully urged him to “manifest himself to the (Jewish) world” by doing wonderful works before the crowds in Jerusalem.

And after the feeding of the five thousand, the third temptation was pointedly renewed when “they sought to take him by force, and make him a king” (6: 15). For the sake of the people Jesus would dearly have liked to accept this greatness. But instead he went up into a mountain, not to contemplate the kingdom he might have, and its glory, but to seek in prayer strength to thrust the temptation away.

The second temptation assailed Jesus fiercely both at the beginning and the end of his ministry. When the men of Nazareth would have cast him headlong over a cliff, he could have let them do it and have alighted unharmed on the rocks below, thus turning their bitterness to awe. Instead he quietly evaded them and got away (Lk. 4: 29,30).

In Gethsemane (Mt. 26: 53,54) his word about twelve legions of angels, alert to save him from his enemies, was no rhetorical flourish, but literal truth. But this calling on the divine providence would have frustrated the divine purpose-strange paradox!-so he meekly suffered himself to be bound.

And on the cross he had to listen to the taunts and jeers of men not fit to live, as they mocked him with the challenge: “If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God” (Mt. 27: 42,43). Did it dawn on these evil men that Jesus could have done what they said? Yet had he come down from the cross he would have saved nobody, not even himself.

Matthew 16 is specially interesting because it appears to repeat all three temptations. The constant pressure from the Lord’s critics to “show a sign from heaven” (v. 1-4) was all the more insistent and repetitious because they were now apparently aware of his determination to avoid the sensationalism of the second temptation. So Jesus set his disciples an example by turning away from the challenge: “he left them, and departed.”

Then, in the boat, the twelve misunderstood his warning against “the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.” “It is because we have taken no bread”, they said. Jesus could have produced bread there and then, thus reassuring them and at the same time vindicating himself against his adversaries. But this repeat of the first temptation was similarly put aside. Instead he fell back on unspectacular, simple, patient reasoning with them, as with children.

Next came Peter’s heart — warming confession of faith in him as the promised Messiah. But when this was coupled with that disciple’s persuasions to leave out all thought of rejection and suffering, and to ensure for himself the crown which was his by right, Jesus was quick to see the danger of this repeated third temptation, and he reacted in the same abrupt emphatic fashion: “Get thee behind me, Satan.” And he went on to say, very poignantly: “What is a man (himself!) profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

A chapter such as this emphasizes very much the loneliness of Jesus at times when temptation was strongest. His disciples appear to have been little or no help to him. Yet this cannot always have been the case, for in the end of his ministry he thanked them for their support: “Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations” (Lk. 22: 28). By their tenacious, though often uncomprehending loyalty, when there seemed reasons enough for deserting him, they had been a greater help than they knew.

At this first crucial temptation in the wilderness” there was no moral support of even half-enlightened disciples. There was, if Jesus only knew it (and perhaps he did), the eager tense concern of unseen angels. What Paul wrote of himself and his fellow workers in the gospel must have been much more true regarding Jesus: “We are made a spectacle unto the world, both to angels, and to men” (1 Cor. 4: 9). With what gladness did those angels come to minister to Jesus when the strife was o’er! (Lk. 22: 43).

How they ministered is a matter for conjecture. The Greek word is used mostly of serving food. If this is the meaning here, Jesus also was provided with manna in the wilderness. But doubtless the angels ministered to him in other ways also. Did they remind him of cherubim and the flashing fire of the Shekinah Glory by which the Almighty had kept open the way to the tree of life and its heavenly food?

A Summary of the Sequence in the Temptation of Jesus:

a.	Use the powers of the Holy Spirit to look after yourself,
b.	No. I will depend on God’s commands to His angels (Num. 8:3).
a.	You insist on that? Very well, here is one of God’s commands to his angels: Ps. 91:11. So throw yourself down.
b.	I must not put my God on trial, asking (as Israel did): “Is the Lord among us or not?” I know already that He is with me.
a.	Yes, but the Lord said He would be with Moses (Ex. 33:14), yet all He gave him was a sight of the kingdom-then death. Here is a sight of your Kingdom. Since you refuse to await the help of angels, take it for yourself now.
b.	No, I must not usurp God’s authority. Moses died for doing just that. Besides, the kingdoms of the world are the Lord’s (Ps. 95:3-5). I must worship Him (v.6), and not tempt Him in the wilderness (v. 8-11).

Notes: Matthew 4:1 -11

2.	Forty days. When Moses was first in the mount fasting forty days he learned how the new sanctuary of God was to be fashioned. And the second forty days he was pleading for the forgiveness of his people. Jesus? It has been suggested that forty is the number specially associated with some new development in the work of God: Gen. 7: 4; the three forties in the life of Moses; the reigns of Saul, David and Solomon; A.D. 30-70; Dt. 9: 9,18,25; Ex. 34: 28;Jon.3: 4;Acts 1: 3.
3.	If thou be the Son of God is neatly answered by: ‘This I am. But I am also man’— “Man shall not live by bread alone…”
4.	Not by bread alone. Cp. Jer. 15: 16; Job 23: 10-12; Jn. 4: 32-34.
5.	Then. This word, and “Get thee hence” (v. 10) together indicate that Matthew’s gospel gives the correct sequence. Note the argument developed at the end of the chapter.
	Pinnacle. Is there here the subtle overtone of allusion to Dan. 9:27 RVm? — as who should say: ‘Proclaim yourself the one who will make this temple desolate.’
	His angels. At work in Lk. 4: 29 (but how?).
8.	An exceeding high mountain. Rev. 21: 10, Ez. 40: 2 (and Dt. 34: 1-4) might suggest that Christ was shown a vision of the Messianic Kingdom.
9.	Will I give thee. But had not Jesus just been declared to be the Heir? 3: 17 (= Ps. 2: 7,8); Rev. 11: 15. His Scriptures taught him, however, that it is the meek, and not the self-assertive, who inherit the earth. Ps.22: 27; ls.53: 11.
10.	Him only. This is the reading in Dt. 6: 13 LXX. Here is a clear indication (a) that Jesus used the Gk. Bible; (b) that Mt. wrote in Gk. and not in Heb., as is often asserted.
11.	Behold, angels. Their presence, as in Lk. 22: 43, measures the severity of the stress on this occasion. This is the experience of those in Christ also (Heb. 1: 14).

Luke 4:1 -13

1.	Returned from Jordan, as though intending an immediate return to Nazareth, but the Spirit directed otherwise. “Returned” may mean that the Temptation took place in the hills near Nazareth; see Mk. 1: 9.
	Led of the Spirit. So the temptation was by divine intention; cp. Gen.22: 1. So also 1 Cor. 10: 13.
2.	He did eat nothing. Some would interpret this as meaning an absolute minimum; Mt. 11: 18.
5.	In a moment of time. Hinting at the transitory nature of human kingdoms? The same word comes only in Is. 29: 5 LXX.
7.	Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. This was an explicit commandment. Ps.91: 11 was not.
9.	Set him on the pinnacle of the temple. A repeat of Ezekiel’s experience? Ez. 8: 13. It was here (according to Hegesippus) that just before the Roman war, James, the Lord’s brother, addressed the crowd and then was thrown down and clubbed to death.
13.	Departed from him for a season. Paul’s three-fold effort to be quite rid of his adversary- angel came to naught (2 Cor. 12: 8 sw). Nor was Jesus successful in this.

I fear that this book is over-ambitious. It attempts a fairly detailed study of every paragraph in the four Gospels_, and in such a way as to be of use to general readers and students alike. I can only hope that both classes will be tolerant of the results.

It was back in 1933 when I decided that in the whole range of Holy Scripture nothing demands scrupulous attention more than the four Gospels do. But more than a life-time is needed for the study of them, for they are the most close-packed records that ever were written. So although in this book there is no lack of attention to detail, it is not unlikely that a good deal has been missed.

Here are a few general observations which may be of help or interest to the readers.

1.	There is no apology for the marked Old Testament emphasis here, for it becomes more and more evident that the Gospels, shot through with allusions to the older Scriptures, demand to be interpreted in the light of them. “New Testament Christianity” is a religion of ignorance.
2.	References to various authorities on the Gospels are few. Had I been systematic in this, the book would have been overloaded with a mass of references of the sort most readers have no use for.
3.	Also, the original copious footnotes have been resolutely eliminated. To some extent the notes at the end of each chapter have taken over their function. But for the most part those notes consist of additional details of the sort that students may appreciate and which stubbornly refuse to blend into the main text.
4.	Even so, the body of the text has a fair number of extra Bible references (useful, I hope) and parenthetic additions. If to some extent these make for less smooth reading, I apologize. It was difficult to know what else to do with them.
5.	Inevitably, repetitions of ideas and emphasis will be found to crop up from time to time. In the first draft they grew like weeds. Even now, in spite of ruthless excision, some still survive.
6.	The original volume (1 st edition) stopped short at the burial of our Lord. That was a bad mistake on my part. Of course these Studies should have run on to the very end of the Gospels. Now they do, through the incorporation of my book: “He is risen indeed”, largely re-written.
7.	The order of the Studies is approximately that followed by any standard Harmony of the Gospels.
8.	The mystery of both double and single quote marks calls for explanation. As far as possible the former are used for exact quotation of Bible text. The latter come in where there has been an attempt at paraphrase (and, now and then, at imagining what might have been said).
9.	But it is necessary to say that, in spite of some appearance to the contrary, use of imagination in re-constructing Gospel scenes has been very sparing. A big proportion of what might seem to be based on imagination is actually there in the Gospel text. In some places there is inference with a high degree of probability.
10.	It is not to be hoped that complete freedom from error in interpretation has been achieved. A note to the author about any serious mistake would be appreciated.
11.	These Studies have also been tape-recorded by the author (not very efficiently, I fear) and are available from:
	The Williamsburg Foundation, 1620 Lititz Pike, Lancaster. Pa, USA 17601.
12.	It is not possible to set down here at all adequately my degree of indebtedness to a wide circle of good friends. But it would be churlish not to mention gratefully: my wife and her unflagging enthusiasm for these written studies, and for the tape-recorded version. the noble army of typists (one of them especially) who did such splendid copying, and without a single grumble. another noble army of well-wishers whose encouragement suggests a greater confidence in this undertaking than my own. a certain out-size enthusiast whose optimistic bullying chivvied me, and whose faith shamed me, into undertaking what I had decided was a quite impracticable project. the incredible patience and good temper of my printer. To all of these, thanks, thanks indeed

And now I trust that I may, without presumption, consign to the care and blessing of the Lord Jesus this sustained attempt to get to know Him better and to bring Him more intimately into the lives of others.

Suggestions on how to read this book

1.	These Studies are by no means all on the same level of readability. Where the going is deemed to be rather easier there is an asterisk at the heading. The general reader (and perhaps the more diligent student also?) will probably prefer to concentrate on these first, omitting also all the end-of-chapter notes. Then after a while, a complete re-read.
2.	Perhaps eventually time will be found to work systematically through the volume once again, this time giving attention to the notes as well and also following up the references.
3.	Others will be content to use the book simply as a work of reference, going as occasion requires to this section or that. The list of Contents pp VII-XII (and, failing that, the Index) should help such to find fairly readily what they are after.
4.	Will all readers please get accustomed to two standard abbreviations, which crop up frequently: LXX means, of course, the Septuagint Greek Version of the Old Testament — indispensable! s.w. means “same word” — it is an abbreviation good Bible students can do without.

Apart from the palpably erroneous Trinitarian view of this familiar passage the interpretation most commonly heard follows more or less these lines:

“The Word” is the eternal Divine Purpose in Christ, foreknown and planned from the very beginning. It was according to this eternal Purpose that all things in the universe came into existence. It embodies the growing light of God’s Revelation to men (through the Law and the Prophets), and came eventually to its fulness in the person of Christ, the Word now made flesh.

An Interpretation with Difficulties

Quite apart from the fact that this is an interpretation almost impossible to defend against the onslaughts of a skilful Trinitarian, there are far too many weaknesses and unexplained difficulties involved in the acceptance of it. In fact, when it comes to details, especially in the Greek text, there is nothing but vagueness and obscurity.

1.	This interpretation of the Word has to fall back for support on such remote passages as Ps. 147:15,18 and 107: 20, Pr. 8:22,23. These, and no others. John’s own usage-and this should prevail – is quite different. It should be very evident from this list that in the New Testament the normal meaning of logos is word. To insist on any other is precarious. Yet the commonly-heard interpretation of John 1:1 calls for a confident dependence on a remote and very occasional meaning of logos: “reason, purpose, intent” (see the foregoing list which has 4 such examples out of 300).
2.	“The Word was with God”. The vague (and pointless!) significance attached to this phrase gives no value whatever, or else a wrong value, to the Greek preposition “with”.
3.	It is necessary to insist on the reading: “all things were made by it (the impersonal divine Purpose) . . .That which hath been made was life in it…”, and so on. Logically, until one comes to “the Word was made flesh” in v.14, there can be no allusion to the personal Jesus, and “life in It (the Purpose)” is a poor insipid substitute for “life in Christ”, the normal New Testament expression everywhere else.
4.	The references in v. 6,7 to John the Baptist require that v.7 should also allude to Jesus the Man, not to Jesus the Idea. Verses 11,12 similarly require to be read with reference to Jesus the Man. How then does verse 14 “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” come in as indicating the climax of Divine Revelation, when clear references have already been made to Jesus the Man?
5.	To translate logos as “purpose” or “idea” is to mistranslate it. Young’s Concordance lists the following:

       

Logos:	account	8	talk	1
	cause	1	speech	8
	communication	3	thing	4
	doctrine	1	things to say	1
	fame	1	tidings	1
	intent	1	treatise	1
	matter	1	utterance	4
	mouth	1	word	208
	preaching	1	Word	7
	reason	2	words	4
	saying	50	work	2
	show	1	do	1

6.

A lot of pretentious nonsense has been talked about the relevance of John’s logos doctrine to the heresy of Gnosticism. There is no connection between the two. John wrote his gospel, and Paul his epistles, a full century before this patch-work of philosophical humbug was foisted on the Christian church. In the New Testament the great enemy of Truth is Judaism, and not any kind of philosophy. The case for this is overwhelming.

7.

Most important criticism of all. This approach to John 1 does not allow the apostle to be his own interpreter, but time after time (as will be seen by and by) it imposes on his words a meaning quite foreign to his own usage.

It is by this method-finding out how John himself uses the expressions which he employs—that a more exact and much more satisfying understanding of his Logos theme is to be arrived at. If it be investigated what are the precise meanings of such terms as the Word, the beginning, with God, all things, world, the Light, as they occur in John’s writings, the results ought to lead to a fairly exact idea of what John meant in his prologue. It is the more necessary to insist on this method because, as is fully recognized by all students of the New Testament, the apostle John has an idiom all his own. He frequently uses words and phrases with meanings quite different from those found elsewhere in Scripture.

The Word is Jesus

Thus, John refers to The Word in three other places, and in each case his allusion is to Jesus the Man. “His name is called the Word of God” (Rev. 19:13). “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life” (1 Jn. 1:1); that is, they heard his preaching, they saw his miracles, they looked upon him crucified, and they handled him when risen from the dead (Lk. 24:39). “Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw” (Rev. 1:2). Even this passage, which at first sight seems to require a different meaning for “the word of God” lines up with the others when it is realised that this is the first of a series of triads which meet the reader in Revelation 1 (compare verses 4b, 5a, 7). In fact, “the testimony of Jesus and all things that he saw” is the exact equivalent of 1 John 1:2.

The tentative conclusion concerning “the Word” in John 1:1 would therefore appear to be that it means Jesus the Man, and not Jesus the Idea or Purpose.

Further investigation confirms this conclusion.

The Beginning

The identity of the expression: “In the beginning” with Genesis 1:1 has led many to assume that John 1:1 refers to the beginning of the visible creation. But a careful use of the concordance reveals that out of 16 other instances where John speaks of “the beginning”, in no single case does he allude to Genesis 1:1. Admittedly, in two of them he refers to Genesis, but in both instances (Jn. 8:44; 1 Jn. 3:8) the allusion is to the serpent. This, however, is Genesis 3 and not the beginning of creation, when all material things were made by the word of God: “And God said…”

It is impressive to observe that all other occurrences of “the beginning” in John’s writings have to do with the beginning of the ministry of Jesus or the beginning of discipleship or some related idea. A few examples:

“And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning” (Jn.15:27).

“And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you” (Jn. 16:4).

‘Then said they unto him, Who art thou? And Jesus saith unto them, Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning” (Jn. 8:25).

“For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him” (Jn. 6:64). “Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning” (1 Jn. 2:7). “For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another” (1 Jn. 3:11).

This list should be conclusive. John 1:1 is speaking about the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. Hence, appropriately, the immediate reference to the Baptist: “There was a man sent from God whose name was John” (v.6), a reference which in the traditional exposition is badly out of place.

Mark’s gospel is now seen to have exactly the same approach: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; as it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face” (Mk. 1:1,2). And in Luke’s introduction also: “Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses-and-ministers of the Word” (Lk. 1:1,2). Note here also, that, as in John, “the Word” must be Jesus; the phrase “eyewitnesses and ministers” requires this.

John 1 and Genesis 1

It may be urged that the very similarity between John 1:1 and Genesis 1:1 demands that they be allowed to interpret each other. Since Genesis 1:1 is about the beginning of this creation, ought not John 1:1 to be so read also?

There can, of course, be no doubt that John intended his allusion to Genesis to be recognized, but all the evidence already marshalled points to the conclusion that what he sought to stress was this: Jesus was the Beginning of a New Creation; and in the spiritual realm God has worked on similar principles to those which marked His earlier creative work in the material sphere. In other words, John intends his readers to trace a parallel between the material creation (of Genesis 1) and the spiritual creation consisting of men and women made new in Christ.

There can be no doubt that the same kind of thinking is traceable in other parts of the New Testament (Col. 1:15-18; 2 Cor. 5:17; 1 Pet. 1:23; Heb. 1:2,10-12). The same idea is very probably implicit in the way in which Luke introduces the Greek word for “making a beginning” (in ch. 3:23) in a way that is almost untranslatable and which may even be ungrammatical. And also in Acts 1:1, where Luke employs a phrase from Genesis 2:3 LXX.

“With God”-How?

Back to John 1:1: “… and the Word was with God”. This Greek preposition is one which normally carries the idea of “facing towards” or “moving towards”. Out of a hundred occurrences in John’s gospel, there is not another where this preposition is translated “with”. The “eternal Divine Intention” thesis can make no sense at all of this phrase, for how can a divine Idea be “God-ward”? The notion is at best a misty one, an unworthy hazy enunciation of a hazy bit of unbiblical philosophy. Much more sensibly, Dr Thomas has the terse comment: “Here is companionship” (Eur. 1.90). “Pros implies not merely existent alongside of but personal intercourse” (Exp. Gk. Test.).

Instead, apply the expression to Jesus, and immediately there is seen to be a satisfying precision and fulness of meaning: In all his days Jesus was “with God” in that he lived a God-ward life, fully, completely, absolutely. And of him only could this be said; of him, in the very beginning of his days (v.2) and thenceforward without lapse of any kind.

No Definite Article

“And the Word was God.” Here the Trinitarian falls down by failing to observe that in the original the word “God” is without the definite article which it normally carries in New Testament Greek. The first time the word “God” comes in this verse, it has the article; the second time it is without it.

The general effect of this loss of article is to weaken the meaning. An interesting example traceable in the English version is in Pilate’s inscription over the cross: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”; whereupon the chief priests said: “Write not, The King of the Jews”; but that he said, I am King of the Jews” (Jn. 19:19,21). They sought to dilute the force of the inscription in two ways-by adding ‘he said”, and by omitting the article.

A neglected verse

Verse 2 appears to be needlessly repetitious, and accordingly the commentators give it scant attention: “The same was in the beginning with God.”

Two points at least are worth spending time on. The Greek pronoun translated “the same” comes no less than 44 times in John’s writings with reference to Jesus, the personal Jesus.

Also, the emphasis here clearly links the God-ward Christ with “the beginning”. So it seems not unlikely that there is here an indirect allusion to the Lord’s baptism in the beginning of his ministry, thus matching (in characteristic idiom) the narratives of the synoptists. There is the same God-ward emphasis in Mt. 3:16,17.

Consequently, then, “the Word was God’ declares the divinity of Christ, not his deity. And, accordingly, Moffat translates: “the Word was divine”, a translation with which no good Christadelphian need quarrel.

“All things” in the New Creation

Besides the words “in the beginning” (v.1) the other main reason for seeking a “cosmic” interpretation of this passage with reference to a timeless pre-historic Purpose of God in Christ has been the emphatic assertion of verse 3: “All things were made by him: and without him was not anything made.”

On the face of it this verse seems to demand an application to the Creation of Genesis 1, and accordingly it becomes a stronghold of the Trinitarian exegesis. But the Creation spoken of here is not the material creation of Genesis, but the New Creation in Christ. The Apostle John is emphasizing the powerful and instructive parallel between the two. Once this is realised, these words beloved of orthodoxy cease to be a weapon of misuse.

Nor is the point just made a case of pitting one opinion against another. Full demonstration is possible that no other view is tenable. Application of these words to the literal material creation is not one of two possible interpretations; it is definitely wrong.

First, let it be noted that the RV margin of verse 4a reads: “That which hath been made is life in him.” For full vindication of this as the correct translation the reader is referred to J.C.’s note in The Christadelphian for January 1957. Thus the creation referred to here is “Life in Him”-the New Creation.

This detail in the immediate context of the words under consideration should be decisive by itself. But an examination of the use of the expression “all things” in John’s gospel puts the issue beyond further argument. The reference is not to the ‘all things” of the visible universe—sun, stars, mountains, seas, trees, animals-but to the achievements of Christ in the spiritual realm: the redemption of men and women to be new creatures in Him. This is the sublimest act of God. This is God’s last Word.

No lack of examples

A few examples out of many which might be adduced:

“The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand” (3:35)

“For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth” (5:20); cp. the next verse: raising the dead and quickening them; and observe the language of creation in v.17: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”

“Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands…” (13:3).

“All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine (i.e. the teaching concerning Jesus, v.14), and shall show it unto you” (16:15).

“Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee”

(17: 7) Observe here how the “all things” is restricted by the phrase that follows: “And all things that are mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them (i.e. in the disciples, the redeemed)” (17:10).

“To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things,, even we unto him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, even we through him” (1 Cor. 8:6).

Thus it is possible to take John’s words in verse 3 in an almost literal sense: All things (in the

New Creation) have been made through Jesus, the Word of God. But then, why a neuter and not masculine plural? Probably with reference to the various significant features of the New Life in

Christ— Baptism, the Love Feast and Breaking of Bread, Holy Spirit gifts, and so on. Also, the absence of a definite article in this phrase implies each thing considered separately; each springs from Christ, and looks to Christ for its meaning; compare: “Without me (s.w. 1:3) ye can do nothing” (15:5).

Again, the phrase ‘made by him” (literally: “became through him”) carefully avoids the words “make” and “create” which dominate Gen. 1, so as to steer interpretation away from reference to that beginning.

“Life in him”-or “by means of him”-hides from most readers another subtle allusion back to Genesis. This word Zee, which in John always means spiritual life, is the very name which Adam gave to his wife (Gen. 3:20 LXX). “He called her Life who had brought in death; because he had now tasted a better life in the promise of the woman’s seed” (John Lightfoot). Absolutely right! It was in this way that Adam, and Eve also (4:1), were justified by faith. But now the apostle very neatly stresses that the promised salvation is Life in Him (the Seed of the woman), and not in her.

This Life is the Light not just of Jews but of men, without regard to race or status.

“The Light (of the gospel) shineth- present -, tense!-in darkness.” Again, the thought of the passage takes the reader back to Genesis, when darkness blanketed the whole world until God said: “Let there be Light”. But what Light could this be before any sign of sun, moon, or stars? The word “shineth” supplies a clue, for the New Testament uses it often to indicate a manifestation of Shekinah Glory (e.g. Mt. 24:27,30; 1:20, 2:7; Mk. 16:9). Such an interpretation is also suggested by the simple fact that the natural light-Day-divides itself from natural darkness-Night. The fact that “God divided. . .” encourages the reader to look for further meaning.

Now, with an eye on this, John insists that the Light of Christ was a Shekinah Glory shining in the gospel, a Glory not to be obscured by the darkness of a Judaism lacking all sign of a Shekinah: “the darkness apprehended it not.”

Men who loved darkness rather than Light were unable either to grasp the meaning of the message or to take it over or to overpower or extinguish it, although (note the past tense!) a determined attempt had already been made when they seized Jesus and put him to death. Nevertheless, the victory of the Jews was, in fad, their defeat, as the resurrection of Jesus was to prove.

Our Lord’s Human Nature

The question arises: If indeed these opening verses of John 1 have reference to the personal

Jesus right from verse 1, how is verse 14 to be understood? Does not “the Word made flesh” refer to the birth of Jesus, and does not this allusion come in most inappropriately if verses 1-13 have already been written about him?

The first answer to this objection consists of a challenge to expound verses 1-13 detail by detail, with reference to an impersonal Logos. It just cannot be done. The first five verses become nebulous and near to nonsense. The pointed mention of the ministry of John the Baptist (v.6-8)is out of place. And “to them that believe on his name” becomes an insult to the intelligence if reference to an impersonal Purpose or Idea is attempted.

A further answer is that “made flesh” refers not to the birth but to the nature of Christ. A study of uses of the word “flesh” in the New Testament shows that it is a normal synonym for unregenerate human nature. Thus when John declares: “the word was made flesh”, he is emphasizing that Jesus came with ordinary human nature, subject to the normal weaknesses and temptations of human nature. “Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God”, declares John peremptorily. And current (Christadelphian) “spirits” who fail by this very test need the same drastic exposure.

There is, however, a massive distinction to be drawn between Jesus and the rest of men, says John. The inherent ineradicable flaws in human nature—pride, selfishness, impiety, lust and all the rest-are ever found in men. Bring them to the Light, and the Light makes manifest. But in Jesus-”we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” And this in a man who was flesh!

Notes: John1: 1-5

1.	In the beginning. No article in Gk. But if the meaning here were intended to be identical, and not parallel, with Gen. 1:1, the article would surely be necessary. “The period of the ministry of Jesus and especially its opening incidents, and also the time of the first emergence of faith in Jesus, are all properly described as the Beginning” (Hoskyns).
	The Word. The use of Logos as a title for Jesus is not restricted to the writings of John. Besides Mk. 1:1,2; Lk. 1:1,2 there are also:Heb.4:12;Rom. 10:8; 1 Pet. l:23;Jas. 1: 18; Acts 19: 20.
	There is certainly no reference to Greek philosophy or any form of Gnosticism, such is unthinkable in the writings of a man like John. If there were, what connection would this prologue have with the rest of the gospel? John’s gospel is Jewish through and through (see Study 14).This fact is decisive.
	John Lighfoot suggests a parallel with Targum usage; e.g. “And Moses brought forth the people (at Sinai) to meet the Word of the Lord” (Ex. 19:17). And in Gen. 26:3, for “I will be with thee”, Targum has: “My Word shall be thy help”; and many such examples. Can it be doubted that in such passages allusion is intended to the angel of the Lord? In these places the rabbis had no use for a vague divine “Purpose”.
	With God. A few examples out of a great many: Jn. 1:29; 3:20; 6:17,35,68. In the light of Jn. 1:17,18, the same phrase is specially significant in Ex. 18:19; 19:21,24; 24:2; 32:30.
	With God. In 2 Cor. 5:18-21 the article is omitted (as here) in v. 19,21, but is present in the other verses.
3.	All things. With reference to the new Creation, observe how Jn. 20:22, 1 echo Gen. 2:7; 1:5. Consider also Eph. 3:9; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2; Rev.4;ll. 5. The light …the darkness. In idea, if not in fact, John is looking to Rev. 21:23,25.
5.	The light. . .the darkness. In idea, if not in fact, John is looking to Rev. 21:23,25.

Luke’s brief preface to his gospel, written in very elegant Greek, must be the beginning of all study of the gospels.

The most excellent Theophilus (“most fortunate Theophilus!”, says one writer, with feeling), to whom this gospel was addressed, is not identifiable, though not through lack of effort. Some have thought Theophilus to be the Philippian jailer. Other identifications include Titus Flavius Clemens, cousin of the emperor Domitian (but this calls for a decidedly later date for the gospel); and Theophilus, the Jewish high-priest following Caiaphas, A.D. 37-40; and one of Nero’s freedmen.

Such guesswork is not of serious consequence. Probably Luke was happy to let his gospel go out with this name in the preface because he saw also the appropriateness of it to any God-loving reader (Ps. 16:3).

The commonly held opinion that he is any God-loving or God-loved believer is probably vetoed by the title “most excellent”, for this designated a man in a position of honour and authority in the imperial Roman system (cp. Phil. 1:13). For example, the same title was used with reference to both Felix and Festus (Acts 23:26 -24:3; 26:25). It is noteworthy that when Luke came to follow up his gospel of Jesus Christ with the gospel of the Holy Spirit-the Acts of the Apostles-Theophilus was no longer “most excellent” (Acts 1:1). Had he, then, been demoted because of his faith in Christ? or was there a voluntary retirement from an imperial service now made impossible by his new faith?

Or, alternatively, was he given his honorific title in the gospel because not then baptized, but by the time Acts came to be written there had been an up-grading in Christ? (cp. 1 Cor. 1:26).

It was customary, indeed almost necessary, for any book published in Rome to have an influential sponsor, a kind of godfather for the new publication—patronus libri was the technical term. Amongst other things, he would help with initial expenses. But if the conclusion usually based on 2 Cor. 8:18 (see below) is correct, Luke’s gospel was in circulation before ever Luke got to Rome; in which case it is necessary to look elsewhere for Theophilus.

And almost certainly in vain, for the point has been well made that since this gospel describes a gross miscarriage of Roman justice, no Roman official in high office would be likely to enjoy having his name publicly associated with the published story of it. So Theophilus is almost certainly a pseudonym.

Written where? and to whom?

Luke probably wrote his gospel during the long stay in Philippi between the establishing of an ecclesia there and the time (Acts 20:5) when he joined Paul on his last journey to Jerusalem. “The brother whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches” (2 Cor. 8:18) is best identified with Luke, these words being an allusion to the recent publication of his gospel.

Certainly by the time Paul came to write his first letter to Timothy (A.D. 64?), he could quote from Luke 10:7 in a way which clearly implies that the third gospel was already widely-recognized as inspired Scripture (5:18).

Luke begins his preface with an allusion to the not inconsiderable body of “gospels” already in existence at the time (A.D. 58?) when his own was first being published: “Forasmuch (a very elegant Greek word – epeideper– hinting at the importance and necessity of this new undertaking), forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration…”

That verb: “taken in hand”, seems to hint ever so slightly at the inadequacy of those earlier efforts, and justifiably, it would seem, for not one of them has survived! It is true that a fair number of uncanonical gospels are known today – such as “The Gospel according to Peter” (supposedly). “The Gospel according to the Egyptians”. “The Gospel of the Childhood”. None of these has ever been acknowledged as authoritative, not even by the Roman Church. Most of them are plainly bogus. Not one of them dates from the first century. So this means that all the contemporary gospels alluded to by Luke have vanished from human knowledge except for Matthew, Mark and John.

Infallible Selection

How did the early church sort out so decisively the gospels which were worth keeping from those which were not? The explanation probably lies in one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit described by Paul as “the discerning of spirits” (1 Cor. 12:10). Evidently one of the safeguards, which the Lord provided for his people when the ecclesias were young and immature, was the endowing of certain individuals with the divine power to discriminate unerringly between that which was written or spoken by divine inspiration and that which was not.

There is another allusion to this in 1 Corinthians 14:29: “Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the others judge (RV: discern)”. In the first-century existence of this God-provided gift lies the guarantee that the books which comprise our New Testament are there by divine right. They were approved by the Holy Spirit in the leaders of the church, and the rest which were not were quickly let go, fell into neglect, and disappeared. The fact that by contrast apocryphal gospels of later centuries survived is a sharp testimony to the decadeure of the church in later times in its blithe willingness to accept truth and imposture alike.

It will be seen by and by that in a quiet but firm way Luke goes on to assert not only the dependability but also the divine approval and authority attaching to his own record. It is understandable that not a few who had known the Lord Jesus would be eager to preserve what they remembered of his acts and teaching. But it may be taken as fairly certain that these efforts were inadequate or faulty, else why should Luke add to what had already been attempted?

All those gospels, and Luke’s outstandingly, concentrated on telling the story of God’s purposes (pragmata) which He had foreshadowed in the writings of the prophets and brought to fulfilment “among us” in the life of Jesus. Luke would hardly have written “among us” unless he himself had been a personal witness of much that had already been told and which he too purposed to narrate. His careful and accurate use of pronouns in the celebrated “we” passages in the Acts of the Apostles makes this an almost inescapable inference.

O.T. Fulfilment

It is not difficult to see how King James’ men came to translate: “most surely believed”. But the Revised Version may surely be believed to be nearer the mark: “Those matters which have been fulfilled.” By such a word Luke seems to be bidding his reader see everything to do with Christ as a fulfilment of what was already written in the Old Testament.

Not unexpectedly this is the emphasis at the beginning of each of the other gospels:

“The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Mt. 1:1), with clear reference to the great covenants of the Old Testament.

“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; as it is written in the prophets…”(Mk. 1:1,2).

“In the beginning was the Word . . . for the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (Jn. 1:1,17).

Everything concerning Jesus is to be seen against an Old Testament backcloth. He who reads the gospels without this theme constantly in mind loses a great deal.

The Word

The early gospel writers alluded to by Luke are described as “eyewitnesses-and-ministers of the word.” The Greek phrase implies not two classes, but one. But a man cannot be an eyewitness of the word until logos is given a capital W. This allusion to Jesus as The Word is more common in the New Testament than is usually supposed:

“The Word of God is quick (living) and powerful… neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight” (Heb. 4:12,13). “He (God) sent the Word unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ” (Acts 10:36 RVm). “I commend you to God and to the Word of his grace, who is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance…” (Acts 20:32). “Of his own will begat he us by the Word of truth” (Jas 1:18). “Being born again… by the Word of God, who liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Pet. 1:23). “The ecclesia, of which I am made a minister… to fulfil the Word of God … which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 2:25,27). “The souls of them that were slain for the Word of God and for the testimony (about him) which held” (Rev. 6:9). After all, this emphasis on The Logos is a thing to be expected.

It is interesting also to note that, like the apostle John, Luke describes the early days of the Lord’s ministry as “the beginning” (cp. Jn 1:1,2; 6:64;8:25; 15:27 etc; so also Mk 1:1 and Acts 21:16 Gk.). The idea of a New Creation was strongly implanted in the thinking of the early church from the beginning.

The resemblance to the apostle John’s way of going about things is specially well-marked. Luke’s preface, with the gospel proper beginning at verse 5, is matched by 1 John which was almost certainly written as an accompanying letter to the Fourth Gospel. Luke’s first four verses and John’s first three verses have these ideas in common: “the beginning … Jesus the Word … eyewitnesses… I (we) write unto you … a declaration of that seen and heard . . . fulfilled.” But whereas Luke emphasizes “certainty”, John, writing with the foundation of the synoptists already well and truly laid, concentrates on “joy” – the joy of fellowship in Christ.

Dependability

The subtlety of writing behind Luke’s description of his own gospel-composition is something to marvel at. On the face of things he is stressing his “perfect understanding of all things (relating to the Lord Jesus) from the very first.” But here the two dominant words clamour for further interpretation, as implying divine guidance and control.

One of them might well imply close discipleship (along with Jesus).

“From the very first” is an adequate translation of the other (cp. Mt. 27:51; Jn. 19:23), suggesting recourse to personal memories and those of other early disciples. But anbthen is a double-meaning word which more often carries the idea of “from above” (e.g. Jn. 3:3,7,31; 19:11; Jas. 1:17; 3:15,17).

The conclusion hinted at in these words is reinforced by that translated: “it seemed good to me”. There can be no doubt that this Greek word is much more definite and emphatic than the rather colourless “seem” or “suppose” which often translate it. Luke here is making a very firm assertion.

With yet another touch of subtlety he has adopted the form of the verb which might well suggest: “This, which I now present for your reading and edification, represents my chief glory.” Who better than Luke, of all New Testament writers, could so neatly insinuate such lovely hints as lie here in one verse? It is in such passages where the student with Greek has an advantage.

The claim that the record concerning Jesus has been set down “in order” is not without its difficulty, for it is fairly easy to establish that in quite a few places Luke’s account does not follow a strict chronological order (see Notes). Presumably Luke’s meaning is: an intention to set things down systematically. But what system?

The personal address to Theophilus stresses the special benefit of this gospel for himself: “that thou mightest know the certainty of the things wherein thou hast been instructed”, quoting Pr. 22:20,21: “Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge? that I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth.”

Catechism

Here, “instructed” is the word which in English has become “catechized”. The idea is that of dinning into the memory by means of constant repetition (cp. Gal. 6:6; Rom. 2:18; Acts 18:25; 21:21,24). It was the method normally employed in the synagogue schools in ancient days. Then what sort of character was the “most excellent Theophilus” that he was willing to learn as a little child in this way? Believers in this enlightened twentieth century are much the losers by their neglect of this long proven method of instruction.

With his catechism of Christian fundamentals reinforced by a systematic gospel record, Theophilus could rest assured that his faith in Christ was safe — the word “certainty” is, literally, “without tripping up”.

In one small but significant detail the AV reading of this passage would be better for having an emendation-”that thou mightest know the certainty of the words, or sayings (logo!), wherein thou wast instructed.” With this detail restored, the link with the “Faithful Sayings” in Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus becomes easy, for the instruction of believers (for details see “Faithful Sayings”, by H.A.W).

It is perhaps desirable to add here a few brief suggestions about the writing of the other three gospels.

Early church tradition, not as strong as it is usually assumed to be, makes Mark’s gospel the earliest of the four. Analysis of the distribution of common material in the synoptists seems to support this idea. In that case, if the date accepted here for the writing of Luke be correct, Mark is even earlier.

Early testimony in effect makes Mark into a Gospel according to Peter, written down by “Marcus my son” (1 Pet. 5:13). Careful study of the text strongly supports this idea. It may fairly safely be accepted as true. This is almost the only theory about Mark which is worth taking seriously.

Matthew is supposed to have written in “Hebrew”, i.e. Aramaic. Yet it is almost certain that his gospel was written originally in Greek. Practically all the ingenious results which stem from translating Matthew’s Greek back into Aramaic, then applying a neat emendation, and then turning it into a very different English, belong to cloud-cuckoo land. Matthew may have produced a compilation of “Logia” (Sayings of the Lord) in Aramaic, but if he did (and there is only the erratic Papias to vouch for this) it was a document quite distinct from his gospel.

A presentable case can be made for the view that in Thessalonians and Corinthians Paul has a series of allusions to Matthew. If this conclusion is dependable, then Matthew (and therefore Mark?) must have been written before A.D. 52. There was a time when this idea would have been regarded as outrageous. Today it acquires a certain degree of respectability. After all, Matthew was a businessman, accustomed to keeping records. As likely as not he knew some kind of shorthand, and it would be relatively easy for him (even apart from Jn. 14:26) to preserve his own notes about what Jesus said and did, he himself being present.

There is also what is commonly referred to as the Synoptic Problem. “The Bible Handbook” (Angus & Green) sums it up this way:

“Let the substance of the Synoptics be divided into 89 sections. Of these are:

	Common to all three	42
	Common to Mt. and Mk.	12
	Common to Mk. and Lk.	5
	Common to Mt. and Lk.	14
	Peculiar to Mt.	5
	Peculiar to Mk.	2
	Peculiar to Lk.	9

To this fact of general agreement both in matter and in order, combined with minor differences in both, is to be added the no less significant one of verbal agreement and difference in recording the same incident or discourse. . . It is this double fact of agreement and difference that constitutes the Synoptic Problem. How is it to be accounted for?”

All kinds of complicated and ingenious theories have been coined. However, all that need be said here is that all the vast amount of time and energy that has gone into this highly speculative field has advanced understanding of the text very little indeed. It constitutes one of the most arid and fruitless segments of all gospel study. Life is too short to spend on futility of this sort.

John’s gospel appears to have been written after the other three, for here and there details in John (e.g. “we”; 20:2) assume the priority of the other records. And such evidence as is available indicates that this gospel was written before A.D. 70. But the point is mostly of academic importance.

Over long centuries a very popular approach to the four gospels has been to identify their several characteristics with the four faces of the Cherubim-Ox, Lion, Man, Eagle. This is an idea in need of critical reappraisal, if only because by no means all expositors equate the same gospel with the same cherub. The best case to be made out for this is to be found in “The Characteristic Differences in the Four Gospels”, by Andrew Jukes.

Notes: Lk. 1:1-4

1.	Taken in hand. This suggests “on their own initiative,” and if so implies the opposite for Luke. A divine directive? The only other occurrence of this Gk. word (2 Chr. 20:11) seems to carry a derogatory flavour.
	To set forth in order. This word comes nowhere else. Grammarian Blass insists that it means, or implies: “from memory”.
	A declaration: used by the Jews to describe the Passover routine (J. Lightfoot).
	Things. NT. usage nearly always has the idea of purpose or intention.
	Surely believed. Other NT. occurrences support this meaning for plerophoreo; e.g. Rom. 4: 21; 14: 5; Col. 2: 2; Heb. 6: 11; 10: 22. But if this is the meaning here, why should Luke bother to write? The first part of the word means “fulfil” (with reference to prophecy). The second part is repeatedly used about inspiration of the prophets; e.g. 2 Pet. 1: 17,18,21; 1 Pet. 1: 13; 2 Jn. 10; Acts2: 2; Heb. 1: 3; 6: 1; Gen. 1: 2 LXX. 2 Tim. 4: 5,17also might imply an O.T. foundation for the teaching.
2.	Ministers. Note to whom this word is applied in Acts 13: 5; 26: 16; Jn. 18: 36; 1 Cor.4: 1.
3.	It seemed good. On this see: “A neglected Greek verb”, by H. A. W.
	Perfect understanding. Here only does modest Luke abandon his modesty.
	Perfect. Better: “accurately”. Note how Luke stresses: (a) assiduous enquiry; (b) accurate work; (c) systematic narrative.
	In order. Examples of where Luke’s material is not in correct chronological order:
		3: 20,21 4: 5,9 4: 16ff 5: 1-11 10: 13-17	11: 14ff 11: 24-32 11: 39-52 13: 34,35	19: 37,41 21: 37,38 22: 21-23 22: 24-30
	Most excellent Theophilus. So it is right to refer to a man by his human titles. But see also 1 Cor. 1: 26; Job 32: 21,22.

       

Foreword (To be read)

I fear that this book is over-ambitious. It attempts a fairly detailed study of every paragraph in the four Gospels_, and in such a way as to be of use to general readers and students alike. I can only hope that both classes will be tolerant of the results.

It was back in 1933 when I decided that in the whole range of Holy Scripture nothing demands scrupulous attention more than the four Gospels do. But more than a life-time is needed for the study of them, for they are the most close-packed records that ever were written. So although in this book there is no lack of attention to detail, it is not unlikely that a good deal has been missed.

Here are a few general observations which may be of help or interest to the readers.

1.	There is no apology for the marked Old Testament emphasis here, for it becomes more and more evident that the Gospels, shot through with allusions to the older Scriptures, demand to be interpreted in the light of them. “New Testament Christianity” is a religion of ignorance.
2.	References to various authorities on the Gospels are few. Had I been systematic in this, the book would have been overloaded with a mass of references of the sort most readers have no use for.
3.	Also, the original copious footnotes have been resolutely eliminated. To some extent the notes at the end of each chapter have taken over their function. But for the most part those notes consist of additional details of the sort that students may appreciate and which stubbornly refuse to blend into the main text.
4.	Even so, the body of the text has a fair number of extra Bible references (useful, I hope) and parenthetic additions. If to some extent these make for less smooth reading, I apologize. It was difficult to know what else to do with them.
5.	Inevitably, repetitions of ideas and emphasis will be found to crop up from time to time. In the first draft they grew like weeds. Even now, in spite of ruthless excision, some still survive.
6.	The original volume (1st edition) stopped short at the burial of our Lord. That was a bad mistake on my part. Of course these Studies should have run on to the very end of the Gospels. Now they do, through the incorporation of my book: “He is risen indeed”, largely re-written.
7.	The order of the Studies is approximately that followed by any standard Harmony of the Gospels.
8.	The mystery of both double and single quote marks calls for explanation. As far as possible the former are used for exact quotation of Bible text. The latter come in where there has been an attempt at paraphrase (and, now and then, at imagining what might have been said).
9.	But it is necessary to say that, in spite of some appearance to the contrary, use of imagination in re-constructing Gospel scenes has been very sparing. A big proportion of what might seem to be based on imagination is actually there in the Gospel text. In some places there is inference with a high degree of probability.
10.	It is not to be hoped that complete freedom from error in interpretation has been achieved. A note to the author about any serious mistake would be appreciated.
11.	These Studies have also been tape-recorded by the author (not very efficiently, I fear) and are available from:
	The Williamsburg Foundation, 1620 Lititz Pike, Lancaster. Pa, USA 17601.
12.	It is not possible to set down here at all adequately my degree of indebtedness to a wide circle of good friends. But it would be churlish not to mention gratefully: my wife and her unflagging enthusiasm for these written studies, and for the tape-recorded version. the noble army of typists (one of them especially) who did such splendid copying, and without a single grumble. another noble army of well-wishers whose encouragement suggests a greater confidence in this undertaking than my own. a certain out-size enthusiast whose optimistic bullying chivvied me, and whose faith shamed me, into undertaking what I had decided was a quite impracticable project. the incredible patience and good temper of my printer. To all of these, thanks, thanks indeed

And now I trust that I may, without presumption, consign to the care and blessing of the Lord Jesus this sustained attempt to get to know Him better and to bring Him more intimately into the lives of others.

Suggestions on how to read this book

1.	These Studies are by no means all on the same level of readability. Where the going is deemed to be rather easier there is an asterisk at the heading. The general reader (and perhaps the more diligent student also?) will probably prefer to concentrate on these first, omitting also all the end-of-chapter notes. Then after a while, a complete re-read.
2.	Perhaps eventually time will be found to work systematically through the volume once again, this time giving attention to the notes as well and also following up the references.
3.	Others will be content to use the book simply as a work of reference, going as occasion requires to this section or that. The list of Contents pp VII-XII (and, failing that, the Index) should help such to find fairly readily what they are after.
4.	Will all readers please get accustomed to two standard abbreviations, which crop up frequently: LXX means, of course, the Septuagint Greek Version of the Old Testament — indispensable! s.w. means “same word” — it is an abbreviation good Bible students can do without.

The prologue to John’s gospel has a strange mystifying feature quite without parallel anywhere else. It is broken up into three separate pieces which alternate with three short sections about the work and character of John the Baptist:

Either set of three sections reads consecutively with a smoothness which is immediately apparent.

Why John should give the introduction to his gospel this shape is not easy to fathom, but the fact of it is almost self-evident.

The Lamp and the Light

John was not the Light, not the effulgent Glory of the Living God. He was only a lamp, burning and shining (5:35). There is a strange paradox here, for men use a lamp to illuminate what is in the dark; yet John the lamp was God’s way of lighting the path to the Light of the World. And Israel needed it, because they were a people sitting in darkness. But do men need anyone to bear witness to them concerning Him who is the Light of the World? ‘Surely’, says A. T. Robertson, “men can tell light from darkness!” But he adds the immediate comment: “No, that is precisely what men cannot do.”

So John’s assignment from God was to teach men to believe in Jesus as the true Light, the Shekinah Glory of God, who was to be revealed. He came “that all men through him might believe.” But first they needed to learn not to believe in themselves. Accordingly, an essential part of John’s message was: “All flesh .is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field” (Is. 40:6). This truth they were wondrous slow to learn. Consequently, even though a man of John’s character must inevitably make a tremendous impression on the people, so that they flocked in their thousands to hear him, his message was either not received at all (by the rulers), or was taken up (by the people) only to be let go again.

Even so, there was a lasting impact on some, for, years later in far-off Ephesus, Paul found a handful of believers who held tenaciously (although in some respects imperfectly) to the teaching of John as it had somehow reached them there (Acts 19:1-7).

For such a reason, doubtless, it was necessary for the writer of the gospel to emphasize: “He was not that Light. . .The true Light, which lighteth every man, was coming into the world.” This RVm reading of John 1:9 is equally possible with the more familiar reading. It is only a matter of re-punctuating the Greek text.

The Type and the True

This reference to Jesus as “the true Light” uses a word which implies, not the true in contrast to the false, but that which is the reality in contrast to type or shadow. Thus the phrase implies that Jesus was the more profound fulfilment of all that was signified by the appearances of the Shekinah Glory to God’s people in the wilderness.

This entire passage (v.6-18) is so shot through with typical allusions to Moses and Israel and the angel of the covenant in the wilderness that it taxes the powers of the expositor to set out the sequence of ideas in a coherent intelligible fashion. The device of parallel columns might help the reader to trace the allusiveness of John’s writing:

	John 1	Exodus
6.	A man sent from God whose name was John.	Moses sent to Israel in bondage to declare God’s impending deliverance (3:10).
7.	To bear witness of the Light.	Moses’ testimony to his encounter with the Angel of the Lord and the Shekinah Glory (3:16).
9.	He was true Light (alethinos, not the typical light)…	The Angel of the Covenant with the Glory of the Lord foreshadowed a greater deliverance (14:19,20).
	…which lighteth every (kind of) man that cometh into the world (the New Israel).	A mixed multitude joined Israel in their deliverance (12:38).
10.	He was in the world (of Israel), and that world came into being through him. . .and the world knew him not.	The Angel of the Lord present in the camp of Israel and the means of their deliverance (23:20).
11.	His own received him not.	The murmuring of Israel
12.	As many as received him. . .	The loyalty of the tribe of Lev! (32:26).
	…to them gave he power to become the sons of God. . .	The adoption of Lev! as the priestly tribe (32:29)
	…even to them that believe	The people believed that God had visited his people (4:31).
	…on his name	“My Name is in him” (23:21).
13.	Born, not of blood etc., but of God.	Levi selected, not (then) because of birth qualification but for godliness’ sake (Dt. 33:9,10).
14.	And the Word became (was born) flesh?…	(Here a contrast with the divine nature of the delivering Angel)
	… and tabernacled among us…	The Angel and the Shekinah Glory in the Tabernacle (33:9; 40:35).
	…full of grace and truth. . .	“He will not pardon your transgressions” (23:21). “Now if thou wilt forgive their sin-” (32:32).
	. . .and we beheld his glory. . .	The pillar of cloud and fire over the Tabernacle in the camp (Num. 10:34) (and see also Lev. 9:22,23).
	…as of the only begotten of the Father	(Here again a contrast-the Angel a “son of God”).
16.	And of his fulness have all we received. . .and grace (true forgiveness) instead of grace (the typical forgiveness under the Law)	“The Tabernacle was f?//ed with the Glory of the Lord” (40:36).
17.	Grace and truth (true forgiveness) come by Jesus Christ.	The Law was given (idiom: appointed) through Moses.
18.	No man (not even Moses) hath seen God at any time…	“Show me thy Glory …Thou canst not see my face … no man shall see me, and live” (33:18,20).
	…the only begotten, which is in the bosom of the Father … he hath declared him.	Contrast Moses hidden in a cleft of the rock (33:22). God made known through Moses in type and shadow.

The mission of John the Baptist is introduced with emphasis and exactness: “a man sent from God.” The Greek phrase implies: “from beside God”. Yet no one, except Mormons with their peculiar “personal-pre-existence” doctrine, believes that John came down from heaven. This is a particularly clear and useful instance of the characteristic Johannine idiom which, through being so often disregarded, has led to the Athanasian doctrine of Christ’s personal pre-existence in heaven.

Other examples, which no more prove the pre-existence of Christ than this passage (1:6) proves a pre-existence of John, are these:

1. “I came out from God . . . from the Father” (16:27,28).
2. “I am from him” (7:29).
3. “The only begotten of (from) the Father” (1:14)
4. “Whatsoever things thou hast given me are of thee” (17:7-same construction).
5. “I came out from thee” (17:8-the same again).

All of these, and more, use the same form of words, but orthodox theologians disregard the true meaning of the idiom because they want to.

The writer is nevertheless careful to omit the definite article, as at the end of verse 1 — not para tou theou, but para theou. Thus, in yet another way, he warns his reader away from assuming that the Baptist or his Lord made a personal descent from heaven. Compare Peter’s phrase: “holy men of God (para theou)” (2 Pet. 1:21), an exact parallel to the examples already cited.

John’s function, as repeated again and again in this first chapter, was that of witness to Christ.

His message concerning repentance and baptism has relatively meagre mention. John himself was “not that Light”. Always, in all four gospels, this contrast between John and Jesus is insisted on. The Baptist’s preaching was “in order that all men through him might believe.”

This admirably chosen preposition is given excellent force in the rest of this chapter. Priests and Levites from Jerusalem are bidden look away to one greater than John. And his imperative: “Behold the Lamb of God”, spoken to his own disciples, lost him their loyalty (v.36, 37), as he intended it should (cp. also 1 Cor. 3:5).

But “all men” did not and do not believe. It is simply not true that “he (the true Light) lighteth every man.” There are but few who want or can appreciate the illumination Christ brings. Again there is need to appreciate the force of John’s idiom (and it is not only his), that instead of “all” carrying the usual sense of “all without any exception”, it is not infrequently used to mean “all without distinction, all kinds of men”.

For instance:

1. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples” (13:35).
2. “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me” (12:32).
3. “All the people came unto him (in the temple)” (8:2).

So the meaning here (in 1:7,9) is that the gospel is not for Pharisees and scribes only, but for publicans and harlots also; not confined to Israel, but for all manner of Gentiles—barbarian, Scythian, bond and free: “that whosoever believeth in me should not abide in darkness” (12:46) The Light of God’s Shekinah was not meant for Israel only (Is. 49:6).

Yet another problem phrase underlines this basic truth. “He was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” It is fashionable nowadays to insist on the RVm reading: “The true Light, which lighteth every man, was coming into the world.” But for three reasons this may safely be treated as inferior:

1. The order of the words in the Greek text.
2. John Lighfoot’s demonstration that “every man coming into the world” was a much used rabbinic expression for “every kind of person”.
3. The very emphatic past continuous verb is utterly inappropriate with reference to Jesus (and the next three verses require reference to Jesus).

A triple mention of “the world” (kosmos) now introduces another Johannine idiom. Here, as with “all”, there is no universalism, but instead a very limited meaning: the Jewish world. This can bequickly demonstrated by examples:

1. “Behold, the world is gone out after him”, wailed certain Pharisees after the Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem (12:19). At that time the wide world did not even know that Jesus existed,
2. “Show thyself to the world” (7:4), jeered his brothers as they urged him to get busy with a big appeal at the Feast of Tabernacles.
3. “This is the condemnation (of Jewry), that light is come into the world, and men (Jews) loved darkness rather than light” (3:19).
4. Other examples: Jn. 1:29; 8:26; 15:19; 17:14.

And now yet another idiom: “The world was made by him”-literally: “The kosmos became through him.” In what sense was the Jewish world made through Christ?

There is special need here to appreciate the full efficacy of the redeeming work of Christ—that the forgiveness of sins, even for those who lived and died B.C., is through Christ, and only through him. His sacrifice is as efficacious to cover the sin of Noah, Daniel and Job-yes, and of Adam and Eve-as it is today to wash away the sins of one about to be baptized into his Name.

Consider four very significant passages:

1. ‘Jesus Christ, whom God set forth (RVm: purposed) to be a propitiatory sacrifice through faith in his blood, to declare his (God’s) righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God” (Rom. 3: 25).
2. “And for this cause he is the mediator of a new covenant, that a death having taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance” (Heb. 9:15).
3. “And many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection…” (Mt. 27:52,53). The evident intention here is to stress that the death and resurrection of Jesus were efficacious to raise from the dead even those who died before he did.
4. Genesis 3:15 is careful to emphasize that the Seed of the woman crushes not just the seed of the serpent but the head of the serpent itself. Right back to its fountain-head sin is overcome through Christ. Even Adam and Eve have their sin forgiven because of their declared faith in him, the promised Seed (3:20,21; 4:1).

It is in this vitally important sense that the world of Israel was made (came into being) through Christ. Apart from him that crucial covenant sacrifice offered at Sinai, when the people were consecrated to their God, had no meaning. The sequence there, in Exodus 24, needs to be considered. Israel was shut out from the presence of God. Bounds were set around the mount where He manifested Himself. Then came the building of an altar and the offering of the covenant-sacrifice. The blood was sprinkled on both altar and people. At the same time all gave their assent to the book of the Covenant. And then, only then, could the representatives of the nation ascend into the mount and eat a meal of fellowship in the very presence of the Glory of God (Ex. 24:4-11). But except there had been some rudimentary understanding of what lay behind the covenant-sacrifice, that shedding of blood would have been of no real value whatever.

Rejected

All this and all similar significant transactions in later days lie behind John’s trenchant phrase: “the world was made by him”. Yet with what mordant sadness does he go on to record: “and the world knew him not.” This is repeated: “He came unto his own—his own Land and Holy City, his own Temple, his own inheritance as Son of Abraham, Son of David, Son of God—and his own people received him not.” How this is underlined by John’s dramatic use of the same word “received”. “And they took Jesus/and led him away” (19:16, cp. also Lk. 20:14,15). They received him, but only to crucify him!

But whilst the nation as a whole turned its back on the Son of God, there were those, a faithful remnant, who did receive him.

Sons of God – New Born

“And whosoever received him (even them that believe and go on believing in his name), to them gave he authority, warrant, sanction to become sons of God” (v.12)

Gentiles, called by the gospel, especially needed this authentication of their new status as sons of God. Jews were confident that they already had this status, yet in truth they needed the same authorization.

The ‘Name” to be believed in makes a profitable investigation, worthy of the attention of any Bible student. Is it the Divine Name declared at Sinai (Ex. 34:6), the fulness of which is expressed in the Son of God? Or is it his name Jesus Christ, the Saviour from sin, and the promised King? Or is it his name Son of God which calls men to become sons of God? (cp. Is. 56:5). Whichever it is, the ideas inevitably overlap.

These who are sons of God through believing necessarily experience a New Birth. No man born and living in a completely natural way can be a son of God. He must be born “not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (v.13). The first and third expressions in this triad allude to the mother and father in a normal begettal, and they are united by “the will of the flesh”, which applies to both.

Attempts have been made to use these words as a proof-text of the Virgin Birth of Jesus, which is not otherwise taught explicitly in John’s gospel. It is true that a very few manuscripts and some of the earliest of the Fathers read: “which was born”, with reference to Jesus. But the mass of evidence the other way is not to be set aside. Yet is is easy to see how this changed reading came about. The early church had the wit to see that what is true of the redeemed must also be true of the Redeemer. Almost certainly John had this in mind when he wrote the words. So, less directly, it is valid to see an implication of the Virgin Birth of Jesus in these words. Later (3:3,4) the apostle was to record, with evident satisfaction, the Lord’s personal teaching how a man is to be born again—from above, and not by the will of the flesh (cp. also 1 Pet. 1:23).

The Word born “flesh”

The hint which John has just given concerning the Virgin Birth of Jesus is accompanied by a needful corrective of extreme or mistaken views concerning his nature. His was “the glory from the only begotten of the Father”, truly; nevertheless the Word was born “flesh”, that is (according to the very common usage of the New Testament) with ordinary human nature, sharing the fallen nature of Adam with all its propensities to evil, yet-the marvel of it!-always living a God-ward life: “the Word was with God”! Here was God manifest in flesh (and not stone; Ex. 34:4), so that the prophet seeing this before, and marvelling at it, could exclaim: “Behold, your God!” (Is. 40:5-9).

This Word of God “tabernacled” among us. Once again, like the True Light, the figure is that of Israel in the wilderness: “we beheld his Glory. . .full of grace and truth”. Here John’s hendiadys is equivalent to “true grace”; and since in so many places “grace” is the inspired Scripture’s way of alluding to undeserved forgiveness from God (Study 12) the allusion may be traced with confidence to the Shekinah Glory of God shining forth from above the Mercy Seat in the Tabernacle and thus signifying the forgiveness which God extended to His people on their Day of Atonement. Typically this was enacted in a Tabernacle which shared the punishment of God’s people in the wilderness. Its outward appearance was goat’s hair, a fitting symbol of the unattractive character of human nature. In the spiritual reality the heavenly Glory found expression in one who was born flesh. There was no beauty that they should desire him. Yet in him, and only in him, was the true forgiveness possible. He was “full of grace and truth”.

The Glory of the Lord

The apostle’s commentary on this message of John uses language appropriate to the same idea. Indeed apart from allusion to the Shekinah Glory it is difficult to interpret without falling into unhelpful vagueness: “And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace” (v.16). When, almost a year after the crossing of the Red Sea, the Tabernacle was completed and consecrated, “the glory of the Lord fil/edthe tabernacle” (Ex. 40:34,36,38). It is this word “filled” which the apostle picked up in order to expound it out of his own personal experience. Jesus had shown himself to be the Sanctuary of God filled with the Holy Spirit; and just as the priests were unable to enter the Tabernacle until the glory lifted from within to above it, so also the ensuing ministry of the apostles (note that plural pronoun “we”) could not take up where Jesus left off until the ascension of the Lord and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

“Grace for Grace”

Similarly, the vague mysterious expression “grace for (that is, instead of) grace” now falls into place, the two main ideas associated with “grace” in the NT. are the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Study 12). Both of these meanings make very good sense in this place. In Christ there is true forgiveness of sins, as against that which is typically foreshadowed through the sacrifices of the Tabernacle. Also, over against the Glory of God in the Tabernacle and the bestowal of the Holy Spirit on Moses’ seventy helpers (Num 11:24ff), there is the glorifying or Jesus offer his resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

Moses and Christ

The emphasis on Christ as the fulfilment of all that the Mosiac system was intended to teach is now stated more explicitly: “The law was given (a Hebraism for “appointed”) through Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” Here, as already suggested, “grace and truth” may be a hendiadys for “true grace”, that is “true forgiveness of sins”, in contrast to the typical teaching about this through the sacrifices under the Law (cp. “in spirit and in truth”; 4:23).

Alternatively, “grace and truth” may be the New Testament equivalent of the familiar Old Testament phrase “mercy and truth” which in every one of its occurrences refers to the covenants made by God with Abraham and with David. In that case the meaning is: “The law was revealed to Moses, but-greater than-that-Jesus Christ has brought the fulfilment of the Promises.”

This contrast is now summed up in a powerful allusion to Moses’ experience of seeing a veiled manifestation of the Glory of God whilst he was hidden in a cleft of the rock (Ex. 33:22). “No man hath seen (and goes on seeing) God at any time”, not even Moses/ for the theophany he beheld was specifically limited (v.22, 23). When the covenant was made at Sinai a theophany was not only heard but also seen (Ex. 24:10,11); but that was only transitory. But Jesus, the only begotten Son (contrast v.12), at the time of John’s writing had ascended into “the bosom of the Father.” John, the beloved disciple, had himself lain in Jesus’ bosom! (Jn. 13:23). Therefore who better qualified than he to “declare” Jesus? And Jesus being permanently so much more intimate with the Father than Moses ever was, what was the magnitude of the revelation of God which he could “declare”? (Mt. 11:27). The idea makes a wonderful climax to the build-up of allusions in this prologue.

Men used to talk (and still do) about the subtle philosophical ideas woven into this opening section of John’s gospel. All that is so much unmitigated rubbish. The first qualification for a proper understanding of this preliminary enunciation of the theme of the fourth gospel is an intimate knowledge of the Old Testament. It cannot be too strongly stressed that a sound appreciation of John’s gospel depends, most of all, on a clear recognition of the way in which, from start to finish, it sets Moses and Christ side by side, both for the sake of contrast and also to put beyond all argument that Jesus is greater than Moses; he is the fulfilment of all that Moses stood for.

In the last few years before the apostles passed off the scene one of the most serious problems they had to cope with was created by the intensive “counter-reformation” mounted by Judaism against Christianity (see: “The Jewish Plot”, by H.A.W.) It lured (or browbeat) many Jewish believers back to Moses and the synagogue. John’s gospel and epistles such as Colossians and Hebrews were written with the express purpose of stemming that drift. Hence John’s enunciation of the main theme of his gospel.

Notes: John 1:6-18

11.	His own. In John, only here and 10:12; 19:27.
	Received is explained in v. 12 as meaning “believed on his name”. For a vivid picture of this rejection, see Lk. 20:15.
13.	Blood. This word is plural, appropriate with reference to a human mother. If singular, ‘not of blood” would be an untrue statement, for all true believers are new-born out of the blood of Christ. Man. The common NT. word for “husband”.
14.	Among us … we behold. The pronouns seem to indicate other apostles reinforcing the testimony of John; cp. 21:24; 1 Jn. 1:1,2; contrast 20:29.
	We beheld. In the wilderness, the Glory was seen specially in the time of sacrifice; Lev. 9:22,23.
	His glory, in (a) his miracles; 2:11; 11:4,23,40; 12:37-43; (b) in Transfiguration; Lk. 9:32-35.
	The rabbis commonly said that the Second Temple lacked five things: 1. Ark (the mercy seat was known as the D’varah, the place of the Word). 2. The Glory (Shekinah has a close link with the word ’tabernacled’ here). 3. The spirit of prophecy; v.17 v 17 4. Urim and Thummim; v.18. 5. The divine fire.
	As of the only begotten. Cp. the parental joy and great feast at the weaning of Isaac; Gen. 21:8. Equivalent to this detail in John is the mention in Mt, Mk, Lk. that at the Lord’s baptism the heavens opened.
15.	Bare witness. Gk. present tense. Long after his death John’s witness still continued.
	And cried. A technical term for the work of a prophet; 7:13; Rom. 9:27; and rabbinic usage.
	He was before me. Why not ‘is’?
16	These are, of course, the comments of the apostle, not the words of the Baptist.
18	Which. Gk: ho On. Thus, very subtly, John intimates that the Divine Name (Ex. 3:14 LXX) now belongs to Jesus also (Ph. 2:9 RV; Rom. 9:5 Gk.); cp. also Jn. 3:13,31 Gk.