SECTION VI.

THE SEPARATION BETWEEN THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT AND THE CHILDREN OF DARKNESS EFFECTED BY THE POWER OF THE LIGHT IN THE LIFE OF JESUS.

(John. x. 22-xiii. 30.)

The great fermentation called forth, by the influence of Christ on the spiritual world around Him, comes at length to a crisis. The opposition between the elements of light and the elements of darkness, in individual minds, reaches the point of decision. Some attach themselves to the light, others to the darkness. By this decision the separation between the children of light and the children of darkness is introduced. It presents itself first in the breach between the ruling party in Judea, — which wishes to stone the Lord, and compels Him, by its persecution of Him, to make His escape, — and the believers in Perea, who readily receive Him and afford Him an asylum. Proceeding on its course, it produces a separation between the unbelievers and the believers in Judea at the grave of Lazarus. A similar separation meets us in the antagonism displayed between the rejoicing of the festive multitude, who make a triumphal procession in honour of the Lord, and the rage of the Pharisees at this act of homage. Again, a new separation is caused by the opposition between the believing Hellenes, who come to seek the Lord, and the hardened portion of the people, from whom He withdraws Himself. As the completion of these separations, appears the purging of the company of the disciples from the presence of Judas, which had already indicated its approach at the anointing in Bethany. This forms the close. It is the type of the completion of the judgment, of the completed purification of the Church.

According to the Gospel of John, the Jewish festivals during the life of Jesus had a peculiarly tragic significance. According to their proper aim, they should have been nothing else than days prophetic of His coming — a constant advent-celebration; but they have become the great days of offence, on which the rejection of Jesus hurries on from its incipient stages to its final completion. At the first Passover feast at which He publicly appears. His mode of operation already occasions suppressed astonishment among the Judaists. At the second feast which He publicly celebrates — the feast of Purim — they take such offence as to commence a process against Him with a view to put Him to death. At the third festival — the feast of Tabernacles — a resolution is taken by the Sanhedrim to take Him prisoner in order to put Him out of the way, and likewise to excommunicate His open adherents. We see Him now for a fourth time appear at a feast — the feast of the Dedication; and they form a design to stone Him to death. This is the prelude to the last Jewish festival, at which the proscription of the true spirit of these festivals, or the rejection of Christ, is completed — the Passover feast at which He was crucified.

And it was the feast of the Dedication at Jerusalem, and it was winter. — This festival was celebrated in remembrance of the reconsecration of the temple, which had been profaned by Syrian idolatry. It had been appointed by Judas Maccabeus, and lasted eight days. It took place in the month Chislen and on this occasion its commencement was on 20th December.¹ — And Jesus walked in the temple, in Solomon's porch — on the eastern side of the temple; according to tradition, a remnant of the first temple: hence the name. — Then came the Jews around Him, and said unto Him, How long dost Thou hold our minds in doubt? If Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. This was the last transient blazing up of a desire to do Him homage, under the condition that He would respond to their chiliastic-political Messias-ideal, and in so far the last repetition of the temptation in the wilderness, which He had also once again encountered at the feast of Tabernacles.² The answer of Jesus bears witness to the most prudent caution: 'I told you, and ye believe not (because, namely, He had not said it in their sense). The works that I do in My Father's name, they testify of Me. But ye believe not,' He said again, 'because ye are not of My sheep, as I said unto you.' He had told them this about two months before; and indeed He had said it to the same party, on an entirely similar occasion, when they wished to stamp Him as the Messiah according to their chiliastic notions. Therefore He must come back on the words which He had then spoken to them.³ They did not believe Him in the higher ethical sense in which He demanded their faith. They would not submit themselves to His spiritual guidance, but wished to guide Him as their instrument. As for the rest, they seem really to admit that He may possess the historical predicates of the Messiah. This interpretation of the words of Jesus follows clearly from the sequel: 'For My sheep hear My voice, and I know them — in their progress towards the light, they have unfolded their real individuality, their capability of being recognized — and they follow Me — they do not demand that Christ follow them. And I give unto them eternal life. And they shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck them out of My hand.' This He said to them, probably, in the first instance with reference to their wretched public policy, whose predominating principle was the fear that they would perish under the dominion of the Romans, if they did not free themselves from it by a political Messias; but also with reference to the faithful among- the people who followed Him, but whom they persecuted and desired to pluck out of His hand. My Father, who gave them to Me, is greater than all. And no one is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand.'

' I and the Father are one! '

In these words lay, in the first place, the proof that His people are hid in the Father's hand. He and the Father are one. Consequently, the sheep who are in His hand are also in the Father's hand.

At the same time, however, these words expressed the peculiar mystery of His being, His true Messianic character in contrast to their idea of the Messias; the consciousness of His unity with the Father in His divine existence, as also in His will, thus His divinity.

Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. This was the constant cause of offence which they found in the life and in the words of Christ: His real oneness with God, which involved the real propitiation, and the real Church, and the real worship, and from which proceeded, as a necessary consequence, the dissolution of their entire typical priestly glory, their learning, and their righteousness.

Jesus, unruffled by this outburst of rage, calmly replied, 'Many good works have I showed you from My Father. For which of these works do ye stone Me?' He could with good ground put this question, as He was conscious of the unity of His life in work and word, and as the life exhibits itself proportionally stronger in works than in words. More calmly and beautifully He could not have expressed the consciousness of His innocence, and more pointedly He could not have told them that they desired to kill Him for righteousness' sake, and thus made themselves the executioners of a pseudo- theocratic criminal jurisprudence of darkness, in opposition to the light. This rebuke brought them in some measure to reflection. They replied, 'For a good work we stone Thee not, but for blasphemy; and because that Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God.' They have, therefore, the notion, that the human and the divine exclude each other, and this they regard as orthodoxy. Jesus answered them, 'Is it not written in your law — that so imperatively binds you, as ye say, whilst to Me it is more than law, namely life — I said, Ye are gods (Psa. lxxxii. 6⁴)? If now he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came — the prophets and judges as the representatives of the Deity — and the Scripture cannot be broken — in its development; must rather therein be fulfilled, that the development may proceed to its completion, that the true manifestation of God may follow the typical representatives of God, and the Son of God, the theocratic-symbolical gods — say ye of Him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God?' By doing so, they themselves blaspheme the developing force, the vital germ and kernel, of the Old Testament, which they profess to hold so sacred. 'If 1 do not the works of My Father — undeniable divine works — believe Me not. But if I do, though ye believe not Me, believe the works, that ye may (gradually come to) know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.' As they have not sufficient vital power in them to exercise faith immediately in His person, and thence to pass over to a belief in His miracles, He points out to them that they should at least attempt the reverse method of a lower-toned, embarrassed orthodoxy, and from an acknowledgment of the divinity of His works proceed forward to a belief in His person. This contrast of a twofold manner in which faith unfolds itself, a more noble and a more ordinary, appears on various occasions in John, particularly chap, v, 36, 37, xiv. 11. Yet both ways conduct to the goal, if one honestly pursue them. Even by the last, one may come to the apprehension that the Father is in Christ — that the life of Christ thus is the representation of a pure divine activity in Him, the prophetic function in its absolute form — and that He is in the Father — that His life is pure resignation to God, and self-apprehension in God — absolute high-priesthood; and thus has one arrived at the conclusion, that He and the father are one — that He is the eternal King, the Son of God, who, in the absolute appointment of God, and acquiescence in His determination, finds His own eternal, free self-determination.

Then they sought again to lay hold of Him — to take proceedings against Him in a less violent form; — but He escaped out of their hands. Once more He passed in invulnerable majesty through the company, who w^ould gladly have apprehended Him. This time, however, their rage was already so excited, that they were on the point of pursuing Him, in order to take Him prisoner.

The withdrawal of Christ had on this occasion a more serious import than formerly. The mortal enmity of the Pharisees had now ripened to the full. Their resolution was taken.

This occasioned Jesus to turn His face towards the mountains of Perea, where a more susceptible people waited for Him. He went therefore again beyond Jordan, into the region where John at first baptized; and there He abode. It now showed itself here, with what blessed effect John had prepared the way for Him. — Many resorted to Him, and said, John indeed did no miracle; but all things that John spake of this man were true. And many believed on Him there — in that region.

The friends of the light in Perea form a strong contrast to the votaries of darkness in Judea. This is the first form of the separation.

However, not all inhabitants of Judea had forsaken Him, although here the party of His enemies was predominant. This was soon to become manifest.

Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. It was that Mary who — as is already known to Gospel recollection, and as is afterwards narrated, chap, xii. — anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore his sisters sent unto Him, saying, 'Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick.' It was the announcement of a strong trust in a delicate request. When Jesus heard that. He said, 'This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby' — which is at all times one with the glorifying of the Father. Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. With all the three He w^as united by an intimate friendship, and they were specially dear to Him. — When He now heard that he was sick. He remained still two days in the same place where He was. Certainly He did not continue there under any mere pretext, but was detained by the holiest and most pressing labours; yet with the consciousness that thus also it was best for the anxiously longing sisters in Bethany. Nevertheless it was a mystery to those about Him, that He remained under these circumstances, which His disciples sought to explain by the necessity of avoiding the country of Judea on account of His persecutors. This opinion seems to have established itself among them. Then, after the expiry of this time, He said unto His disciples, 'Let us go into Judea again! 'His disciples said unto Him, 'Master, the Jews of late sought to stone Thee, and Thou wilt go thither again? 'Jesus answered, 'Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not; for he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth; for he seeth not the light of this world.' We have already met with this parable in another form, when Jesus lingered with the blind man on the temple mount. On that occasion the disciples seemed disposed to exhort the Lord to haste; on this, they exhort Him to delay. Then, He probably connected the parable with the setting of the sun; here, with the early morning, the time of departure. The day with its twelve hours lies before Him; a figure of man's lifetime. He means to say, the duration of his life is measured out with certainty to man. He must not spend his life-time in anxious fear of death, which hinders him in the work of his calling, but in life's full certainty. The true day of his life is, however, one with the day of his duty, which is the day of his day. If he walks and labours in the light of his daily duty, his life also is abundantly secured to him for this purpose. If, however, he seeks wilfully to lengthen the day of his life, at the expense of the day's work of duty appointed him, he then walks in the night, he stumbles and falls. As now, on the one hand, the day of one's life and the. day of one's calling are one, so that one is certain of the first along with the second; so also, on the other hand, the night of death is one with the night of the cessation of the earthly calling. When thus a man has reached the termination of his calling, he infallibly finds the pebble in the way, and experiences the dimness in the eye, by which his death is brought about. Is he however inclined, as in this case the disciples were, to prolong his life at the cost of his calling, he will then discover, that with the walking in the night of unfaithfulness to duty, the day of life itself will also become to him a night, in which he, in a spiritual sense, stumbles and falls. The last thought predominates here. Indeed, the parable is rather spoken with reference to the disciples than to the Lord; hence the significant expression: If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not; for he seeth the light of this world. The light of the world shone in the most proper sense on the day of their life, and they should be assured, that they would not stumble and fall, so long as they walked in the brightness of this light. Had they turned their backs on Him, they would have fallen into the darkness of night, which would have been their ruin. When He had thus encouraged them,⁵ He said further, 'Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep.' Then said His disciples, 'Lord, if he sleep, he shall recover.' The words of Jesus intimated that the journey was necessary: Lazarus sleeps, I must awake him out of sleep. They were disposed to draw the opposite conclusion: If he sleep, it is a sign that he already begins to do well, without its being needful for Thee, to hasten to him. They have thus an interest, on this occasion, not to take His words, he sleepeth, in their deeper meaning. The Evangelist remarks: Jesus, however, spake of his death; but they thought that He spoke of the slumbering of sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, 'Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that ye may believe — learn to believe better. Nevertheless, let us go to him.' Then said Thomas, who is called 'The twin,' unto his fellow-disciples, 'Let us also go, that we may die with Him — with whom we go, and whom we will not forsake even in death.' It is a gloomy, melancholy word, and therefore also obscure. The gloomiest thought in it is this: We shall probably rather sink with Lazarus into the tomb, than draw him out of it. Yet the bright star of fidelity shines on the dark ground of despondency: rather die with Jesus through faithfulness, than live separated from Him by unfaithfulness. This is the character of Thomas.⁶

Then, when Jesus came, He found that he had lain in the grave four days already. Lazarus had thus died on the day of the departure of the messenger, and been immediately buried: the two days of the journey hither and thither, and the two days of the delay of Jesus in Perea, make four days. Bethany lay not far from Jerusalem, about fifteen stadia (1¾ miles). And many Jews had come to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother. "When now Martha — as superintendent of the household, always active, and the first to receive the messengers — heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet Him — at once, according to her usual assiduous manner, without first acquainting Mary with it. — Bat Mary sat — meanwhile — in the house. Then said Martha unto Jesus, 'Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died! But I know, even now, that whatsoever Thou wilt ask of God, God will give it Thee.' Martha speaks in words of strong, confidence. The first expression of it is: Jesus would certainly have restored the sick brother, if He had been there. The second is still stronger: if it now pleased Him, He might still obtain even the highest request from God. She does not venture to name this highest thing which she has in her mind. Manifestly Martha must already know of previous cases in which Jesus had raised men from the dead. Jesus responded to her thought with the word of promise: 'Thy brother shall rise again.' Martha saith unto Him — perhaps in part to learn in what sense He meant this, but also, no doubt, in the fear, that He possibly speaks only of the future resurrection of the dead — 'I know indeed that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.' Jesus said unto her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And wdiosoever liveth, and believeth in Me, shall never die. Believest thou this? 'From the one fundamental truth, that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, there follows, in its two aspects, the rising again of believers through Him: The dying believer shall live again, because with Christ he carries down a quickening life with him into the grave: the living believer shall never die. So far as death in its outward appearance is superinduced on the life of the Christian, his life is a future resuscitation of life in visible manifestation. So far, however, as faith is the governing principle of his life, he shall never taste death in the centre and kernel of his life. Martha saith unto Him, 'Yea, Lord, I have believed that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, who cometh into the world.' And when she had thus spoken, she went away, and called her sister Mary secretly, saying, 'The Master is come, and calleth thee.' As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly and came unto Him. For Jesus had not yet come into the town, but was still in the place where Martha met Him. The Jews then, who were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, 'She goeth unto the grave, to weep there.' Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, and said unto Him, 'Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died!' When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping who came with her — followed her — He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled — in infinitely strong sympathy with pure suffering, as also in infinitely strong self-possession, over against the spirit of temptation in the melancholic despondency which accompanied that

412 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN.

suffering.⁷ And He said, 'Where have ye laid him? 'They said unto Him, 'Lord, come and see!' Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, 'Behold how He loved him! 'And some of them said, 'Could not this man, who opened the ej^es of the blind, have caused that this man also should not have died?' Here already a twofold •position towards Jesus seems to discover itself. Some see only the bright radiance of His love for Lazarus; others fix their eyes on the circumstance, that He has not prevented Lazarus from dying, and they seemed almost ready to say. Rather should He have omitted the cure of the blind beggar on the Sabbath-day, than the restoration of so dear a friend, laid so near His hand. But Jesus again groaned in Himself — a sign that it was especially the seductive despondency and gloom in the temper of the Jews, the atmosphere of death in which they breathed, against which, in the unmixed strength of His life. He had to contend — and so He came to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, 'Take ye away the stone! 'Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto Him, 'Lord, by this time he stinketh; for he hath been dead four days.' From this circumstance, therefore, she concluded, that he must already be a prey to corruption; and this thought caused her for a moment to doubt, whether it would have any result to open the grave, and whether it would not be more suitable to avoid the sight of the dead in this repulsive condition. Jesus saith unto her, 'Have I not said unto thee, that if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?' Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up His eyes, and said, 'Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me. And I know that Thou hearest Me always. But because of the people that stand by, have I spoken the word, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me.' That is. He will in this case cause the miracle to be seen, as a manifest answer to prayer. His miracles are indeed so always; for He doth no miracle without prayer, and none without the responsive co-operation of the Father. On this occasion, however, He prays aloud, and aloud He represents the miraculous act, which He is about to perform, as a gift of God. Nay, He declares expressly, that He desires it to be so regarded, and that He, on this account, names the Father as the author of the work. Hence it follows, that He makes this work to be a solemn sign that God hath sent Him, that God is one with Him, and grants Him all the results of His operations.⁸ We saw how He exhibited this truth in a pictorial form in the cure of the blind man by the co-operation of Siloam; here He brings it out still more clearly, by basing the whole miracle on the prayer spoken aloud to the Father, by solemnly calling on Him, who in this great miracle shall testify to the truth of His life. In this way He desires to set aside the last remnant of a pretext, that He 13erfornis His miracles by the power of a strong egotistical will, or

SEPARATION OF THE DARKNESS FROM THE LIGHT. 413

even by the help of the powers of darkness. The miraculons act must be seen, after this invocation of God, to purely a divine act, and the divine act must become the last seal to the fact, that He is the Sent of God. When He had thus spoken, He cried with a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come forth!' And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, and his face was bound about with a napkin. Thus did he return to life, still blinded and chained by the integuments of death, but full of the energy of life, and fully conscious of it. Jesus saith unto them, 'Loose him — from his bands and bandages — and let him go — hold him no longer as if he still required your support.' He needs nothing further, than to be freed from these outward fetters of the tomb — the inward bonds are already broken.

Then many of the Jews who had come to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on Him. But some of them went away to the Pharisees, and told them what Jesus had done. Neither the evident divine glory of the miracle itself, nor the express declaration of Jesus before God that He would perform this miracle as a sign of His divine mission — a declaration which constituted a great practical oath confirming His mission — could win the hearts of all the eye-witnesses. Without doubt, the journey, which some of them made from the grave of Lazarus to the Pharisees, was undertaken with a false and traitorous purpose. The fact, indeed, that Jesus has raised up Lazarus cannot be denied. Nay, even the Jewish rulers cannot deny the fact: nevertheless, or rather, for this very reason, they now resolve upon the death of Jesus. The 'chief priests and the Pharisees assembled the council, and said, 'What do we? — i.e., as a counterpoise to the works of Jesus, we must do something! — for this man doeth many miracles. — They must indeed, confess the fact; but now come considerations of policy. — If we let Him thus alone, all men will believe on Him; and then shall the Romans come and take away from us both the place and nation — the seat of the kingdom and the people of the kingdom, the fold and the flock of the Lord.' But just so did it come, because they would not allow the Lord to prosecute His mission; and such, as a rule, is the result of a false policy, whose substance consists in always sacrificing, with a purblind cautiousness, the more remote and deeper effects for the sake of the nearer and more superficial, the reality for the sake of the appearance. The very thing it would prevent, it brings about. And one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year — and one of those 'high priests of a year 'of the time, of the spirit of the time, such as then used to present so strong a contrast to the high priests of eternity⁹ — said unto them, 'Ye know nothing at all, and also consider not that it is better for us that one man should die for the people, than that the whole nation should perish.' — Jesus has raised up the dead: for this reason He shall die. This sentence, as expressive of the sentiments of Caiaphas, was the theory of pagan human sacrifice, of the worship of Moloch, although he certainly did not surmise that he had now sunk into the deepest depth of a diabolical, anti-theocratic heathenism. At the same time, however, he had, in this dark saying, unconsciously given expression outwardly, and according to the sound of the words, to the true meaning of the divine purpose. The Evangelist draws our attention to the circumstance in the words: But this he spake not of himself; but being high priest that year, he thus prophesied. For Jesus should — certainly — die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also that He might gather together into one — into one Church — the children of God that were scattered abroad. — The prophet of darkness, and of Moloch's sacrifice, was also at the same time a prophet of light, and of the perfect sacrifice of atonement. Yet he was the first consciously, the last unconsciously; the first as a voluntary agent of evil, the last as an involuntary instrument of the irony of the theocratic spirit against a typical high-priesthood, which had undermined its own foundations, and become a prey to the judgment; the first according to the meaning, the last according to the sound of his words. We may not overlook this last difference: Caiaphas spoke of political expediency in the expression. It is better for us; the divine purpose, on the contrary, has the everlasting salvation of men in view. Caiaphas holds the one man as absolutely worthless, in proportion to the value of the whole people; before the throne of Truth, however, this one man out values the whole people, nay, the whole world. Caiaphas desires to destroy the one man by a judicial murder; Righteousness, on the contrary, proposes to deliver Him over into the judgment of men, in the interest of justice itself. Caiaphas desires to sacrifice Him only for the ignorant laity of the Jews (λαός), in order thus to preserve from political ruin the whole people of God, the Jews with their proud priesthood, in contrast to the heathen world; the Grace of God gives Him for the world, and not only that He may deliver the whole people of God from death, but that He may gather all the scattered children of God into one heavenly Church. Of these contrasts, the last of which John himself brings forward, Caiaphas had no conception. It was even so with the Sanhedrim; for the wantonly wicked counsel of Caiaphas was in their eyes the decisive oracle, in virtue of the light and right — Urim and Thummim¹⁰ — in his breastplate.¹¹ — And from that day forth they took counsel together that they might put Him to death.

This is the second form of the separation between light and darkness: the believing and unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem place themselves in opposition to each other: on the one side stand the pious among the people; on the other, the rulers of the people with their adherents.

Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence into a district near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim,12 and there continued with His disciples. And the Passover of the Jews was nigh at hand. And many from the country — from the country, namely, in opposition to the city — went up to Jerusalem to effect their — Levitical — purification — to legalize themselves by means of the prescribed offerings, that they might be thus prepared to take their part in the celebration of the Passover. — These then sought for Jesus, and spake among themselves regarding Him as they stood in the temple. — Even there, under the eyes of the priests, was He the most important subject of their conversations. — 'What think ye? 'it was said: 'will He perhaps not come to the feast? 'But the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that if any man knew where He were, he should give information, that they might take Him.

In this opposition between the Israelites from the country, who, even at the Levitical purification in the temple, can speak only of Him, and the high council, which already publicly issues the edict, requiring that the residence of Jesus be declared by all who know of it, a new form of separation makes its appearance, namely, between the rulers of the people, and the believers throughout the whole land. The mandate of the high council neither intimidated the Lord, nor did His faithful adherents feel themselves bound by it. It probably occasioned Judas only to proceed farther on that dark path which he had now chosen. Six days before the Passover — therefore on Friday evening — came Jesus to Bethany, where Lazarus dwelt, who had died, whom He had raised from the dead. There they made Him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at table with Him. Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Then said one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot (a native of Carioth), Simon's son, who should betray Him, 'Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor?' This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. Then said Jesus, 'Let her alone: against the day of My burial — which thou hastenest forward — hath she kept this.¹³ For the poor ye have always with you, but Me ye have not always! '

This is the prelude of the last terrible separation. The spirit of large, magnanimous self-sacrifice drives the dark, stealthy spirit of treachery within the company of the disciples for the first time out of its lurking-place. This spirit manifests itself in the steward of the apostolical community of goods, who assumes the character of a representative of the interests of the poor, whilst he condemns the most beautiful offering of love and veneration for the Lord, an anticipation of His approaching death. He also, in his own dark way, foretells the death of Jesus, by giving the first premonition of the betrayal. The judgment pronounced against this sullen spirit, with his hypocritical concern about the common property and care for the poor, is, The poor ye have always with you, but Me ye have not always. On the other hand, the love of this female disciple is blessed, with the words, She has kept the costly treasure of ointment for the burial of Christ. This is the last and noblest destination of the treasure, which love out of a pure heart has husbanded: it shall anoint the dying Saviour, and the anointing shall be a token of His resurrection.

A large number of the Jews now learned that He was there; and they came not for Jesus' sake only, but also that they might see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead. But the chief priests consulted to put Lazarus also to death; for on his account many of the Jews went thither, and believed on Jesus. — Thus was a preparation made for the festive entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.

On the following day a great multitude of people who had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm-trees, and went forth to meet Him; and they cried out, 'Hosanna! Blessed be He that cometh in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel.' And Jesus, when He had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written: Fear not, daughter of Zion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass's colt (Zech. ix. 9). These things, however, understood not His disciples at the first; but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things unto Him. — They had thus not intended the fulfilment of that prophecy when they brought the ass's colt to Him. — But the people, who formed His (first) retinue — from Bethlehem — bore witness, that He had called Lazarus from the grave, and raised him from the dead. For this cause also the multitude — which fetched Him — went to meet Him, because they heard that He had done this miracle.

But the Pharisees said among themselves, 'Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? Behold, the whole world is gone after him! '

Whilst, thus, the people make the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem to be a triumphal procession, which after His many journeyings appears as the long-wished-for festive entrance of the Messiah into His royal city, the enemies of Jesus, in the rage of despair, helplessly clasp their hands. They seem for a moment to have lost all courage, in the presence of the glory of Jesus. This is shown by their beginning in bitterness to mock at themselves, as His impotent opposers.

This is thus quite a new form of the separation: the believing people on the one side, surrounding the Lord in a joyous triumphal procession; on the other side, the unbelieving rulers of the people who appear in the background discomfited, amidst despair, exasperation, and dissension.

Yet how soon should the turning point of this favourable position of affairs show itself, in spite of the fact, that not only the Jewish people surrounded the Messias in triumph, but that also the first-fruits of the Gentiles had come to do Him homage, as the precursors of a boundless world of Gentile believers!

And there were certain Hellenes among those that had come up to worship at the feast. These addressed themselves to Philip, who was of Bethsaida in Galilee, and desired him, saying, 'Sir, we would see Jesus.' Philip cometh and telleth Andrew, and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus. And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.¹⁴

He felt that He now stood on the highest eminence of His glory in this world; and thus also, in connection with this. He was filled with the anticipation of His approaching humiliation. His death. For His glory in this world was an early blossom of His higher glory beyond; and this latter He could attain to only by traversing the path of death.

He expressed this necessary condition in the form of a universal law of life. Everywhere in God's world the new, rich, and higher life proceeds from death, or rather from a deathlike dissolution of the old life, which serves as nourishment to the first germ of the new. This law of life in the physical world prevails also in the moral. Only from the priestly resignation of the old life into the hand of God, the new kingly life blossoms forth (see vol. iii. p. 42). It finds,  however, its last glorious fulfilment, its highest exemplification, in the kingdom of God: here must the King of glory descend into the deep abyss of death, submit to its ignominy and anguish, in order that His life might blossom again in the resurrection, and bring forth the fruit of reconciliation in its own glorification, and in the glorification of a reconciled people.

These words of Jesus, however, obtained a very special significancy, as an expression of His first historical contact with, and salutation of, the Hellenic world. The spirit of that people had led them to seek the ideal world, the glorification of life, on this side of death, of the grave, of pain, and of the new birth, and had thereby ever removed itself farther and farther from the real transformation of life, which proceeds from the pains of sanctification, from the inward death of world-renunciation, from the new birth and dying in the Lord. They therefore needed this word of Christ: It was the Gospel for the Hellenes.

He states, namely, in the words that follow, that the law of life now expressed is valid, not merely with respect to the Lord, but also with respect to His people: 'He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.' If a man seek selfishly to retain his old form of life, or his life as an egotistic life, he loses thereby his true life. If, on the other hand, he turns his back on all false worldly forms of life in repentance and sorrow, he rescues the kernel of his life, and saves it unto life everlasting. The application of these words now follows: 'If any man will serve Me, let him follow Me.' This is the demand of Christ. On the other hand. His first promise runs thus: 'And where I am, there shall also My servant be.' The second: 'If any man serve Me, him will My Father honour.'

The Lord found these reminders necessary, as His followers still allowed themselves to be moved by every hopeful token, to lose entirely out of view their call to a life of self-denial, to a journey beset with sorrows, and terminating in death. Finally, also, He was led to speak thus by the announcement of the arrival of the Greeks. He Himself, on the other hand, was carried by this announcement ever deeper into a near anticipation of His own death: * Now is My soul troubled,' He continues. 'And what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour? Yet for this cause came I unto this hour! 'For one thing only will He ask: 'Father, glorify Thy name! 'Then came there a voice from heaven: 'I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again ' — in the New Covenant as in the Old. — Then said the people that stood by and heard it, 'It was a peal of thunder.^ Others said, 'An angel spake unto Him.' Jesus answered and said, 'This voice came not because of Me, but for your sakes.' Thus did the voice of God sound wondrous to all. It came from heaven; but in its tone and expression it did not sound to all with equal clearness, because of the difference of susceptibility in the spiritual ear of the hearers: some perceived a wonderful peal of thunder without words; others, an angelic cry in most mysterious expression; a third class, a voice of God in definite words. But as the Lord had even now, by inward anticipation, passed through the judgment suspended over His life, and executed in His death, He proceeds to give utterance, by a like anticipation, in a spirit of Easter rejoicing, to His victory over the world: 'Now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth — as a banner be exalted on the cross — will draw all men unto Me.' — So sure is He of the saving power of His death. — This He said, remarks the Evangelist, to signify what death He should die. But these frames of mind are not mere premonitory signs: they are the beginning of His death, and of His rising again in the spirit.

The people felt the mortal sorrow and the farewell earnestness in the words of Jesus. But they felt it with deep dissatisfaction. These expectations of Jesus did not appear to harmonize with their Messianic ideal. 'We have heard out of the law,' they said, 'that Christ abideth for ever — residing among His people. How sayest Thou then, The Son of man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of man? 'In their Christology they could not find the doctrine of the Son of God: and even as little could they find that of the Son of man. They desired no true Son of man, no Saviour revealing Deity in the flower of humanity, no suffering Messiah, but an oriental, superhuman David's son, like one of the gods, and embodying the exact intermediate notion of divinity penetrated by humanity, of humanity penetrated by divinity; the ideal of all paralyzed would-be orthodox systems; a frigid, unchanging symbol of the God-man, forming the centre of the frigid symbolism of the kingdom of God, beyond which such systems never choose to go. Christ therefore addressed to them these words of warning: 'Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you. Whosoever walketh in darkness, knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have the light believe in the light, that ye may be the children of the light.'

In these words He gave them to understand that the time of His departure was near at hand. Once more He exhorted them to make use of the short period of His stay among them to their salvation. — These things spake Jesus, and departed, and hid Himself from them. — How remarkable that He withdrew Himself, according to John, just at the moment when they had expressed the offence taken by them at the doctrine of the Son of man! Once more only should He appear among the people as a prisoner, in order, like a setting sun, for the last time to spread the radiance of His life over them.

To this He had pointed in His last words. He then withdrew from the people in deep sorrow, and remained in concealment. He. had spoken His last word to them, and now awaited the final decision. The Evangelist, however, informs us, in taking a short retrospect of the public ministry of Christ, how the decision, which had already indicated itself in the last utterances of the people, turned out.

And though He had done such signs — so great miracles — before their eyes, yet they believed not on Him: that the saying of the prophet Esaias might be fulfilled, which he spake (liii. 1): Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore — because, through their first unbelief, they had been guilty of causing the arm of the Lord to be concealed from them — therefore they could not believe; for Esaias saith again. He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and be converted, that I might heal them. After the judgment has begun its course, it demands its development onwards to its final consummation (chap. vi. 10, &c.) These things said Esaias, when he saw His glory, and spake of Him — for his seeing of the Lord was a seeing of Christ, a seeing of God in His incarnation; and in the full light of the glory of the Lord the whole strength of the obduracy of His people was made manifest to him, — the time of Christ was presented to him in vision. It might now have had the appearance as if the object of the mission of Christ had been in a great measure frustrated by this unbelief 'of the people. But that, again, would be contrary to belief. Especially, however, to the eye of John should the darkness of this misconduct of the people be made clear in the light of the divine purpose, and the appointed work of Christ. Moreover, he sees occasion in some degree to limit the general terms of the judgment already pronounced. Nevertheless he says, Even among the rulers also many believed on Him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put under the ban. For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. — And just in this did they stand in a position of hostility to the Lord, who only sought the honour of the Father, and the honour which the Father gives. — But Jesus cried, and said, 'He that believeth on Me, believeth not on Me — according to the outward appearance — but on Him that sent Me. And he that seeth Me — truly seeth Me, with spiritual as well as bodily eyes — seeth Him that sent Me.' His entire origin, His entire inward being, is a revelation of the Father, and so also His entire manifestation. This is His relation to God: He does not obscure the being of God to the view of man; but He glorifies Him so purely, so entirely, as if He disappeared before Him and in Him, like the glass before the picture. And thus does He glorify to the view of man the world also; therefore it is added, further, 'I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on Me should not abide in darkness.' — And as He does not darken but make clear the being of God; as He does not distort the image of the world and of reality, but shows them in their ideality, in_ their eternal relationships; even so also He brings into human life no dark traditions, no abstractions turned into positive realities. — 'If any mail hear My words,' He said, 'and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that despiseth Me, and receiveth not My words, hath already — in and with himself, in his unbelief, which is the opposite word to ]3elief — one that judgeth him. The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.' This then is the pure ideality of His administration. Also of His judicial administration. He glorifies the reality of the course of human affairs. This ideality of His administration, however, is connected with the ideality of His word: 'For I have not spoken of Myself. But the Father that sent Me, He gave Me a commandment what I should speak (give expression to),¹⁵ and what (generally) I have to say. This is the ideality of the word of Christ: it is the pure word of God in expression, and the pure word of God in its contents; the announcement of it rests on an immanent, free, divine law in His life. How entirely, however, this divine law constitutes His blessedness, He declares in the words that follow: 'And I know that His commandment is life everlasting. Whatsoever therefore I speak, so I speak even as the Father — Himself — hath said unto Me.'

This is the glorification of the life of Jesus in His whole being and administration in the world, especially also in reference to the fact that the people of Israel have not believed Him. The last announcement of this fact appears, however, in immediate connection with the circumstance, that the Hellenes already begin in faith, to seek for Him. In this event the separation between the light and the darkness presents itself in a new form, namely, as the antagonism between the believing Gentile world and the unbelieving Jews.

With what power the spirit of unbelief has seized the Jewish people, is shown in the circumstance, that it finds its most proper instrument within the company of the disciples — that thus even here a purification and separation must take place.

Now, before the feast of the Passover,¹⁶ when Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father; and when, having manifested His love to His own who were in the world, He continued the manifestations of it even unto the end;¹⁷ when the supper had already begun; when already the devil had put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray Him; when Jesus knew that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He was come from God and went to God — in that moment then, and under such a flood of opposite influences and emotions. He arose from supper — which was already prepared and about to be partaken of — laid aside His upper garments, took a towel, and girded Himself with it, poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet,¹⁸ and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. Then came He to Simon Peter; and Peter said unto Him, 'Lord, Thou washest my feet?' Jesus answered and said unto him, 'What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.' Peter saith unto Him, 'Never shalt Thou wash my feet.' Jesus answered him, 'If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me.' Simon Peter saith. unto Him, 'Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.' Jesus saith to him, 'He that is washed¹⁹ needeth not save that his feet be washed, but is clean every whit! And ye are clean, but not all' For He knew who should betray Him. Therefore said He, 'Ye are not all clean.'

The washing of the disciples' feet was no mere symbolical act.

422 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN".

How much it proceeded from the necessity of the moment is shown by the expression: When the supper had already begun — was about to be partaken of. There was no one among the disciples who had voluntarily offered himself to perform this needful household service. Jesus therefore took upon Himself this office. He gladly made use of the opportunity, to show to the disciples the greatness of His love. And because they needed it, He desired to make this act at the same time to be to them a symbol, a token of the love, humility, and readiness to serve, which they should show to one another. The washing of the feet should also form an emblem of the purification, of the preparation required by the holy Supper;²⁰ and along with this, should also prepare the way for freeing the company of the disciples from the spirit of uncleanness, which had taken possession of one of its members. He who, according to the law of washings, can be regarded as washen — He therefore said — the same is clean. He is, in virtue of that baptism, a clean member of the Church of God, and needs only further the ordinary washings of the feet, the daily purifications, especially before the holy Sapper. Christ declares this Israelitish typical law of washings to be a symbol of. the true relationships of the kingdom of God. The disciples were clean, through faith in the word of Christ, and by their entrance into His Church, and in so far they were washed. They required, however, ever anew, and especially now, a spiritual washing of the feet, which the Lord also provided for them in the outward feet-washing, in that it humbled their pride. This effect is shown especially by the conduct of Peter. The proud self-will which still obscures his humility betrayed him into first refusing to allow the Lord to wash his feet, and then into asking for a washing in an exaggerated form, instead of submitting simply to the law of pure resignation. Jesus, however, gives the disciples to understand that there exists uncleanness in the midst of them which destroys the whole power of the previous washing, and which cannot be removed by the washing of the feet — the sin of apostasy already germinating.

80, after He had washed their feet, and had put on His upper garments. He sat down again, and said unto them, 'Know ye what I have done unto you? Ye call Me Master and Lord; and ye say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done unto you. Verily, verily, I say unto you. The servant is not greater than his lord; nor is the apostle greater than He that sent him. If ye know these things, blessed are ye if ye do them. I speak not of you all; for I know whom I have chosen.' He then gave to His words another turn, showing that He avoided a more distinct intimation: 'Nevertheless, that the Scripture might be fulfilled: He that eateth bread with Me, hath lifted up his heel against Me (Pa xli. 9). I tell you now before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am He.'

The Lord now endeavours to ignore the 'presence of the traitor, and to converse alone with His faithful disciples. He has washed their feet. He has represented them as clean. To this condition is attached the promise: 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth any one whom I shall send, receiveth Me; and he that receiveth Me, receiveth Him that sent Me.'

The believing reception of an apostle shall thus indirectly have a meaning and a value, as if it were the reception of God Himself.

AVith the greatest caution did Jesus select the expression of this great promise. He put it quite conditionally, that the traitor might not refer it to himself also. But on the one hand, the constraint which his presence imposes on the Lord, making it needful for Him to impart His promises to His disciples only in a very indefinite or in a very conditional form, seems to oppress His heart; and, on the other hand. He seems in His pure truthfulness to be concerned lest the word should be applied by the disciples unconditionally to the whole company — therefore must He now speak freely of the traitor. When He had thus spoken, remarks the Evangelist, He was troubled in spirit, and testified — solemnly — and said, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray Me.' Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom He spake. — Which bears witness to a noble guilelessness, but also to the greatness of their false confidence in Judas; at the same time to a general feeling of guilt, in the consciousness of the want of perfect faithfulness. — Now there was lying on Jesus' bosom — on the right hand of Jesus, for one supported himself on the left, and sat towards the right side — one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it was of whom He spake. He then, leaning on Jesus' breast — in the confident familiarity of love, and of an untroubled conscience — said unto Him, 'Lord, who is it? 'Jesus answered, 'He it is to whom I — even now — having dipped a morsel, shall give it.' And He dipped the morsel — into the sauce charoseth, as was customary — and gave it to Judas Iscariot. And after the morsel Satan entered into him.

At the feast in Bethany his obduracy in sin had begun; at the feast in Jerusalem it was finally sealed. There he had received the thought of the betrayal, and with it Satan, into his soul; now this thought overpowered him with demoniacal force, and thereby he had become a passive instrument of Satan.

The Lord observed the dire change which had taken place, and said unto him, 'That thou doest, do quickly.'

In these words lay the completion of His terrible conflict with Judas, and with the whole world of treachery in His Church, nay, •with Satan himself, and his kingdom; and with the completion of the contest came also victory. The simplicity of these words, their calmness and composedness, their justice and wisdom, especially their heavenly, bright, spirit-like character, in contrast to the dark, hellish spirit manifested in Judas²¹ bear witness to this glorious victory of the Lord, the result of a strong inward agitation, which the most of the disciples but little remarked. Now, no one at the table, observes the Evangelist, knew for what intent He spake this unto him. — A proof how little the most of them surmised the truth, lies in the circumstance, that some of them even (τινὲς γάρ κ.τ.λ.) thought, because Judas carried the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, 'Buy those things that we have need of for the feast, or that he should give something to the poor.²²

If, however, a considerable time had still to elapse between this hour and the commencement of the feast, as those assume who make the supper, according to John, to have taken place a whole day before the paschal feast, the words of Jesus, spoken so late in the evening, could hardly have suggested to any of the disciples the thought referred to, as still one day, and in a case of necessity two, remained over for the needful purchases. Only on the supposition that it was already high time to attend to this matter, could this interpretation have come into their minds.

Judas, however, knew well what His words pointed to. When therefore he had taken the morsel, he went immediately out.

And it was night.

Judas went out into the boundless night. The Lord had removed him from the company of the disciples in the way of free intercommunication with him, without violence, without reproaches, without noise, by the spiritual and spirit-like power of the perfect life; or rather, Judas had executed on himself the judgment of his own self-banishment. This was the last, the highest and most subtle separation between light and darkness; the last typical pattern of the general judgment, which shall be ushered in by the revelation of the light of the world.

At the feast of the Dedication, the proper separations took their commencement. We see here the typical temple-dedication in the light of the real. Jesus announces in the temple His divinity, His oneness with the Father: that is the true consecration of the temple. The Jews wish to stone Him within the temple space; they profane the temple in the highest degree: that is the end of typical temple-dedications in their corruption. On this occasion we become acquainted, in its whole strength, with the frightful egotism concealed in chiliastic enthusiasms, and in the homage they render to honoured names, and how it is ready, every moment, to turn into hatred and contempt. At the same time, we learn how a golden thread of the coming incarnation of God, and of the doctrine of it, runs through the Old Testament — the typical 'gods 'precede the true Son of God. Once more there falls a ray of Christ's light on the two different points of view from which faith emanates; one of which proceeds from the works of Christ to a knowledge of His person, whilst the other immediately recognizes Him in His personality, and then also, in the light of it, His works. The journey of Christ to Perea shows us. in a clear light the general fruitfulness of the ministry of the Baptist; an indication of the fact, that the Lord makes manifest at the right time the more or less concealed results of the labour of His servants. It is also a type of the later flight of the disciples to Perea, and a symbol of the blessing which attends every pure and well-grounded flight and emigration of God's faithful witnesses. The mourning family at Bethany presents to us the Christian household in its day of sorrow, and the glory which is thrown around it by fellowship with Christ, in contrast to the Christian household in its time of gladness, as exhibited in the narrative of the marriage-feast at Cana. In the delay of Christ to leave Perea for Bethany, we see how the great trials of believers, especially of those most loved of the Lord, although they have also their own proper end in themselves, are often dependent on the circumstance, that the Lord has great and special works to perform, beyond their individual sphere. On the way to Bethany the disciples give us examples again of their pre-pentecostal exegesis of the words of the Lord, in which the inability to understand, and the unwillingness to understand, oftentimes correspond. In the expression used by Thomas, we hear the complaining tone of the nobler form of melancholic depression. In the words of Martha, the difference is clearly brought out between a more external hope of a future resurrection of the dead, and an energetic hope of the resurrection from the dead, already given to us with Christ, We then become acquainted in the light of Christ with the true character of outward condolences and lamentations, as likewise with the world's unmeasured and gloomy mourning for the dead. In contrast to it appears the holy mourning of the Lord, maintaining the calm confidence of life in the midst of death's sorrow. Beside it there is presented to our view, in the frame of Mary, the beautiful trembling sorrow of those souls which are outwardly still entangled in the sadness of the world, but yet in faith make haste to meet the Lord. The grave of the disciple now opens before our gaze: we observe how the relationships subsisting between him and his kindred and the Lord of life form a medium, to which the miraculous life-giving power attaches its operation. The quickening power of Christ appears in its most glorious manifestation; and by His invocation of the Father, the miracle obtains the special significance of a great divine testimony, with which His mission from the Father is sealed. Thus the time of greatest tribulation becomes for Jesus the richest period of His life; a symbol realized in the experience of all Christians. In the twofold course taken by the witnesses of the resurrection of Lazarus, we see anew the double effect of the Gospel, that it becomes to some a savour "of life, to others a savour of death. In the discussion of the high council we discover again the desperate shifts of worldly policy, more particularly of a secular church policy; and the typical high-priesthood exhibits itself finally in the act of committing spiritual suicide. The oracular declaration of Caiaphas, in its twofold meaning, is made a symbol of the glory, with which God, in the execution of His own purpose, gives a holy direction, for the benefit of His people, to all destructive resolutions and corrupt decisions of the great ones of the earth, more especially in the government of His Church. The Jews in the temple deliberating together and conversing about Jesus, while engaged in their temple-purifications, present a striking picture of the contrast between the old which is dying away and the new which is budding into life, in connection with which the ineffectiveness of the edict of the council comes especially into account. In the anointing at Bethany, the murmuring of a hypocritical community of goods, and pretended regard for the poor, is met and rebuked by the picture there exhibited of holy possession and of a holy ideally beautiful expenditure. The entry of Jesus into Jerusalem is exalted into a symbol of His perfect triumph over all His enemies: all the types of Holy Scripture are fulfilled, the witnesses of His deeds raise their voices in loud chorus. His opposers must fold their hands in despair. On this the glory ot the Gentile world thirsting for salvation appears in view; more especially, the typical idealism of the Grecian spirit is placed in its true light by the real idealism of Christianity. The significance of the high festive occasions of the Christian life in the present world, is then unfolded for our contemplation; they are the emblems of its future and everlasting glory, but therefore also the forerunners of new and more earnest struggles with death, which must be encountered previous to that consummation. At the same moment, the Lord, in the figure of the corn of wheat, throws a ray of glory on the dark, night-aspect of nature, on death and corruption, as symbols of resignation to God, and of the path that conducts to a blessed resurrection. The different interpretations put on the voice from heaven, which Christ hears in the temple, give us an explanation of the relation subsisting between the objective revelation of God, and the subjective apprehension of it on the part of men. The obduracy of the people is then illustrated and made luminous in the light of the divine judgment: we see how the old judgments proceed in their course onwards to their consummation. Over against this obduracy, with its unholy causes, the life and administration of Christ appears in its perfect divine purity and ideal glory. The washing of the disciples' feet exhibits the common services of the household, and all services of love, in the light of their higher meaning and end; and at the same time, it is given us as an emblem of ideal preparation for the communion, and likewise of voluntary, self-imposed excommunication. Finally, in the designation of the traitor, and in his removal by the power of the Spirit of Christ, it is made manifest how the Prince of light, in the full consciousness of His power, visibly and victoriously baffles all the projects of darkness, and even the satanic stirrings of apostasy within the Church. All the separations together, which reach their consummation in this final breach, represent in concrete delineation, the grand, true, and universal judgment which Christ, by His appearance and ministry on earth, introduces and completes.

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