The Seventh Sunday of Easter is May 12, 2024.
This particular day is also referred to traditionally as Exaudi Sunday, so called because of the traditional Introit, taken from Psalm 17:1. The two first words in Latin are ‘Exaudi Domine’ — ‘Hear, Lord’.
Because it follows Ascension Day, when Jesus physically leaves His disciples, I have read that it is a sad Sunday in the Church year. The faithful recall the forlorn disciples, among them the Apostles, who saw Christ’s ascent into Heaven and then awaited the arrival of the Holy Spirit.
Readings and exegeses for Ascension Day, which this year was on Thursday, May 9, are as follows:
Readings for Ascension Day (same regardless of Lectionary year)
Readings for Exaudi Sunday, Year B, can be found here.
The exegesis for the First Reading, Acts 1:15-17, 21-26, is here; the disciples cast lots for a replacement for Judas. Matthias was chosen over Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus.
We do not know much about St Matthias. Some historians say he preached in Ethiopia and died there. Others say he died of old age in Jerusalem. Another group of scholars believe he was martyred in Jerusalem: stoned then beheaded.
Whatever the case, Matthias remains a popular name in France and Germany.
St Matthias is venerated in Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran churches, each of which has a different feast day for him.
The Gospel reading is as follows (emphases mine):
John 17:6-19
17:6 “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
17:7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you;
17:8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.
17:9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.
17:10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.
17:11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.
17:12 While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled.
17:13 But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.
17:14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.
17:15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.
17:16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.
17:17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
17:18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.
17:19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
John 17 is comprised of the prayers that Jesus prayed after the Last Supper while He awaited His arrest. John’s is the only Gospel with such a detailed account, not only of these prayers, but in the accounts of our Lord’s final discourse from John 13 through John 16.
Many commentators, including both Henry and MacArthur, call this chapter ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ because only Jesus as the Great High Priest was able to pray it. What we consider The Lord’s Prayer — ‘Our Father, which art in heaven’ — is the prayer Jesus gave to us.
Henry describes the intercessory prayers in John 17 for us:
This chapter is a prayer, it is the Lord’s prayer, the Lord Christ’s prayer. There was one Lord’s prayer which he taught us to pray, and did not pray himself, for he needed not to pray for the forgiveness of sin; but this was properly and peculiarly his, and suited him only as a Mediator, and is a sample of his intercession, and yet is of use to us both for instruction and encouragement in prayer. Observe, I. The circumstances of the prayer, ver 1. II. The prayer itself. 1. He prays for himself, ver 1-5. 2. He prays for those that are his. And in this see, (1.) The general pleas with which he introduces his petitions for them, ver 6-10. (2.) The particular petitions he puts up for them [1.] That they might be kept, ver 11-16. [2.] That they might be sanctified, ver 17-19. [3.] That they might be united, ver 11 and 20-23. [4.] That they might be glorified, ver 24-26.
… Sursum corda was anciently used as a call to prayer, Up with your hearts, up to heaven; thither we must direct our desires in prayer, and thence we must expect to receive the good things we pray for.
The exegesis for verses 20 through 26, in which Jesus prays for all believers, can be found here; these are read on the Seventh Sunday of Easter, Exaudi Sunday, in Year C.
MacArthur says:
From beginning to end, this chapter is the Lord’s Prayer; He prayed it. It is pure prayer, and it is for us, it is for us. It is the Lord Jesus praying for us, praying for His people. And because it is for us, it is an incomprehensible privilege to have this prayer written down in Scripture. The eleven disciples heard Him pray these words. But in the purposes of God, they were written down so all believers through all time could also hear. This is a firsthand opportunity to hear what’s on the Lord’s heart for His people. This prayer was prayed deep into Friday morning in the darkness as the disciples walked toward the garden of Gethsemane where our Lord would pray, and be tempted, and overcome that temptation, and then be arrested by a crowd led by Judas; and later on that Friday, He would be crucified.
These are the last hours before the cross, and this is when He prays that prayer. He has said everything He wanted to say to the disciples in the upper room earlier on Thursday night when they were celebrating Passover and when He was instituting the Lord’s Table, and then He said even more things as they left the upper room and walked through Jerusalem and beyond Jerusalem, headed toward the garden of Gethsemane. He’s now through speaking, and what He’s been saying – recorded in 13, 14, 15, and 16 of John – is promises; promise, after promise, after promise, after promise: promises of peace, promises of joy, promises of blessing, promises of persecution, promises of death, promise of all promises – the Holy Spirit would come, and the Holy Spirit would fulfill in them all the promises that our Lord gave.
The legacy of Jesus is given to His disciples and to us in chapters 13 through 16. And now in chapter 17, He prays that God the Father will fulfill all these promises, and fulfill them in an ultimate way by bringing His own to heaven. These are the Lord’s final words to the eleven before His death, and what we have here is a preview of His new heavenly ministry which is about to begin.
In today’s verses, Jesus prays for His disciples, particularly the eleven remaining Apostles, Judas having left already. We will see a reference to him in verse 12.
Jesus prayed to His Father that He had made His Father’s name known to those whom He was given from the world; Jesus acknowledges that they were His Father’s people, that God gave those people to Him and that they have kept His word (verse 6).
Henry explains:
Whom he did pray for; not for angels, but for the children of men. 1. He prays for those that were given him, meaning primarily the disciples that had attended him in this regeneration; but it is doubtless to be extended further, to all who come under the same character, who receive and believe the words of Christ …
1. The charge he had received concerning them: Thine they were, and thou gavest them me (v. 6) …
Now,
(1.) This is meant primarily of the disciples that then were, who were given to Christ as his pupils to be educated by him while he was on earth, and his agents to be employed for him when he went to heaven. They were given him to be the learners of his doctrine, the witnesses of his life and miracles, and the monuments of his grace and favour, in order to their being the publishers of his gospel and the planters of his church. When they left all to follow him, this was the secret spring of that strange resolution: they were given to him, else they had not given themselves to him. Note, The apostleship and ministry, which are Christ’s gift to the church, were first the Father’s gift to Jesus Christ. As under the law the Levites were given to Aaron (Num 3 9), to him (the great high priest of our profession) the Father gave the apostles first, and ministers in every age, to keep his charge, and the charge of the whole congregation, and to do the service of the tabernacle. See Eph 4 8, 11; Ps 68 18. Christ received this gift for men, that he might give it to men. As this puts a great honour upon the ministry of the gospel, and magnifies that office, which is so much vilified; so it lays a mighty obligation upon the ministers of the gospel to devote themselves entirely to Christ’s service, as being given to him,
(2.) But it is designed to extend to all the elect, for they are elsewhere said to be given to Christ (ch. 6 37, 39), and he often laid a stress upon this, that those he was to save were given to him as his charge; to his care they were committed, from his hand they were expected, and concerning them he received commandments. He here shows,
[1.] That the Father had authority to give them: Thine they were. He did not give that which was none of his own, but covenanted that he had a good title. The elect, whom the Father gave to Christ, were his own in three ways:—First, they were creatures, and their lives and beings were derived from him. When they were given to Christ to be vessels of honour, they were in his hand, as clay in the hand of the potter, to be disposed of as God’s wisdom saw most for God’s glory. Secondly, They were criminals, and their lives and beings were forfeited to him. It was a remnant of fallen mankind that was given to Christ to be redeemed, that might have been made sacrifices to justice when they were pitched upon to be the monuments of mercy; might justly have been delivered to the tormentors when they were delivered to the Saviour. Thirdly, They were chosen, and their lives and beings were designed, for him; they were set apart for God, and were consigned to Christ as his agent. This he insists upon again (v. 7): All things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee, which, though it may take in all that appertained to his office as Mediator, yet seems especially to be meant of those that were given him. “They are of thee, their being is of thee as the God of nature, their well-being is of thee as the God of grace; they are all of thee, and therefore, Father, I bring them all to thee, that they may be all for thee.”
[2.] That he did accordingly give them to the Son. Thou gavest them to me, as sheep to the shepherd, to be kept; as patients to the physician, to be cured; children to a tutor, to be educated; thus he will deliver up his charge (Heb 2 13), The children thou hast given me. They were delivered to Christ, First, That the election of grace might not be frustrated, that not one, no not of the little ones, might perish. That great concern must be lodged in some one good hand, able to give sufficient security, that the purpose of God according to election might stand. Secondly, That the undertaking of Christ might not be fruitless; they were given to him as his seed, in whom he should see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied (Isa 53 10, 11), and might not spend his strength, and shed his blood, for nought, and in vain, Isa 49 4. We may plead, as Christ does, “Lord, keep my graces, keep my comforts, for thine they were, and thou gavest them to me.“
2. The care he had taken of them to teach them (v. 6): I have manifested thy name to them ... Observe here,
(1.) The great design of Christ’s doctrine, which was to manifest God’s name, to declare him (ch. 1 18), to instruct the ignorant, and rectify the mistakes of a dark and foolish world concerning God, that he might be better loved and worshipped.
(2.) His faithful discharge of this undertaking: I have done it. His fidelity appears, [1.] In the truth of the doctrine. It agreed exactly with the instructions he received from his Father. He gave not only the things, but the very words, that were given him. Ministers, in wording their message, must have an eye to the words which the Holy Ghost teaches. [2.] In the tendency of his doctrine, which was to manifest God’s name. He did not seek himself, but, in all he did and said, aimed to magnify his Father. Note, First, It is Christ’s prerogative to manifest God’s name to the souls of the children of men. No man knows the Father, but he to whom the Son will reveal him, Matt 11 27. He only has acquaintance with the Father, and so is able to open the truth; and he only has access to the spirits of men, and so is able to open the understanding. Ministers may publish the name of the Lord (as Moses, Deut 32 3), but Christ only can manifest that name. By the word of Christ God is revealed to us; by the Spirit of Christ God is revealed in us. Ministers may speak the words of God to us, but Christ can give us his words, can put them in us, as food, as treasure. Secondly, Sooner or later, Christ will manifest God’s name to all that were given him, and will give them his word, to be the seed of their new birth, the support of their spiritual life, and the earnest of their everlasting bliss.
3. The good effect of the care he had taken of them, and the pains he had taken with them, (v. 6): They have kept thy word, (v. 7) they have known that all things are of thee (v. 8); they have received thy words, and embraced them, have given their assent and consent to them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and have believed that thou didst send me. Observe here,
(1.) What success the doctrine of Christ had among those that were given to him, in several particulars:—
[1.] “They have received the words which I gave them, as the ground receives the seed, and the earth drinks in the rain.” They attended to the words of Christ, apprehended in some measure the meaning of them, and were affected with them: they received the impression of them. The word was to them an ingrafted word.
[2.] “They have kept thy word, have continued in it; they have conformed to it.” Christ’s commandment is then only kept when it is obeyed. Those that have to teach others the commands of Christ ought to be themselves observant of them. It was requisite that these should keep what was committed to them, for it was to be transmitted by them to every place for every age.
[3.] “They have understood the word, and have been sensible on what ground they went in receiving and keeping it. They have been aware that thou art the original author of that holy religion which I am come to institute, that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.” All Christ’s offices and powers, all the gifts of the Spirit, all his graces and comforts, which God gave without measure to him, were all from God, contrived by his wisdom, appointed by his will, and designed by his grace, for his own glory in man’s salvation. Note, It is a great satisfaction to us, in our reliance upon Christ, that he, and all he is and has, all he said and did, all he is doing and will do, are of God, 1 Cor 1 30. We may therefore venture our souls upon Christ’s mediation, for it has a good bottom. If the righteousness be of God’s appointing, we shall be justified; if the grace be of his dispensing, we shall be sanctified.
MacArthur adds that it is interceding for us that marks Jesus Christ out from any other priest, since they all die. Yet, Jesus lives and reigns at the right hand of God the Father and intercedes for us always, throughout history, thereby making him the great High Priest:
Now, I want to say something that you may at first not understand. We look at His cross work, the work on the cross, and we elevate that, and rightly we should. We look at the resurrection and we exalt Him for His resurrection, and rightly we should. But He has a more glorious work. It is the work of intercession that is the truest and fullest expression of the atonement …
Yes, Christ died to pay our debt of sin; but even more importantly, He lives to bring us to glory. He lives to make intercession. Hebrews 7:25, “He ever lives to make intercession for His people.”
The apostle Paul understood that intercession was more than atonement. Look at Romans, chapter 5. Romans, chapter 5 – familiar words – verse 8, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Then notice the next phrase: “Much more then.” Wait a minute. How can anything be more than that? How can anything be much more than that? But he says, “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be being saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be being saved by His life.”
What is much more than His death? His life. His death provides the sacrifice for sin, but He ever lives to make intercession for us to bring us to glory. That’s the much more. That’s the much more. He goes on interceding for us.
Jesus continued, saying that the disciples know that everything that He has been given comes from His Father (verse 7).
Jesus said that the words God the Father gave Him He gave to them; they received those words and know, in truth, that He came from the Father, and they believed that God sent Him (verse 8) to the world.
MacArthur tells us what this means:
That essentially is what ministry is about. That is our Lord giving us a model of ministry. He came so that they would know the truth, so that they would receive the truth, so that they would understand the truth and believe the truth. This is a model of how ministry should be. They believed.
They believed that Jesus worked by the power of God. They believed that Jesus had come from God. They said, “We know You’re the Holy One of God.”
They believed that everything He did was according to the will of God, everything He said was the Word of God. They believed that His miracles were done by the power of God, and they were full of the compassion of God. They believed that everything He ever taught had divine authority because it was from God. They believed that Jesus was holy, that every day He ministered to sinners and yet never sinned. They believed that He had regular constant communion with God the Father, and that everything He did expressed the will of the Father. They believed that He was the divine Son of the Father, and they heard the Father give that testimony at the transfiguration and at the baptism.
They knew that everything He possessed was from God. His nature was from God, His words were from God, His works were from God. They received, therefore, all His words as true; and they understood, therefore, His divine origin that He came from the Father; and they believed in His divine mission up to now. They believed that He had been sent by the Father, that He came from heaven, that He is the eternal Son of God. They believed that.
Jesus then made a specific intercession, asking on His disciples’ behalf and not on behalf of the world but only for those whom God gave Him because they are God’s (verse 9).
Here we have the Doctrine of Election, or predestination. Not everyone is destined to be saved. That said, we do not know who is to be saved, therefore, we must go and preach the Gospel in whatever way we are called to do.
Jesus said that all of His people are God’s people and all of God’s people are His people, and He — Jesus — has been glorified in them (verse 10).
Henry elaborates:
All mine are thine, and thine are mine. Between the Father and Son there can be no dispute (as there is among the children of men) about meum and tuum—mine and thine, for the matter was settled from eternity; all mine are thine, and thine are mine. Here is,
(1.) The plea particularly urged for his disciples: They are thine. The consigning of the elect to Christ was so far from making them less the Father’s that it was in order to making them the more so. Note, [1.] All that receive Christ’s word, and believe in him, are taken into covenant-relation to the Father, and are looked upon as his; Christ presents them to him, and they, through Christ, present themselves to him. Christ has redeemed us, not to himself only, but to God, by his blood, Rev 5 9, 10. They are first-fruits unto God, Rev 14 4. [2.] This is a good plea in prayer, Christ here pleads it, They are thine; we may plead it for ourselves, I am thine, save me; and for others (as Moses, Exod 32 11), “They are thy people. They are thine; wilt thou not provide for thine own? Wilt thou not secure them, that they may not be run down by the devil and the world? Wilt thou not secure thy interest in them, that they may not depart from thee? They are thine, own them as thine.”
(2.) The foundation on which this plea is grounded: All mine are thine, and thine are mine. This bespeaks the Father and Son to be, [1.] One in essence. Every creature must say to God, All mine are thine; but none can say to him, All thine are mine, but he that is the same in substance with him and equal in power and glory. [2.] One in interest; no separate or divided interests between them. First, What the Father has as Creator is delivered over to the Son, to be used and disposed of in subserviency to his great undertaking. All things are delivered to him (Matt 11 27); the grant is so general that nothing is excepted but he that did put all things under him. Secondly, What the Son has as Redeemer is designed for the Father, and his kingdom shall shortly be delivered up to him. All the benefits of redemption, purchased by the Son, are intended for the Father’s praise, and in his glory all the lines of his undertaking centre: All mine are thine. The Son owns none for his that are not devoted to the service of the Father; nor will any thing be accepted as a piece of service to the Christian religion which clashes with the dictates and laws of natural religion. In a limited sense, every true believer may say, All thine are mine; if God be ours in covenant, all he is and has is so far ours that it shall be engaged for our good; and in an unlimited sense every true believer does say, Lord, all mine are thine; all laid at his feet, to be serviceable to him. And what we have may be comfortably committed to God’s care and blessing when it is cheerfully submitted to his government and disposal: “Lord, take care of what I have, for it is all thine.“
5. He pleads his own concern in them: I am glorified in them—dedoxasmai. (1.) I have been glorified in them. What little honour Christ had in this world was among his disciples; he had been glorified by their attendance on him and obedience to him, their preaching and working miracles in his name; and therefore I pray for them. Note, Those shall have an interest in Christ’s intercession in and by whom he is glorified. (2.) “I am to be glorified in them when I am gone to heaven; they are to bear up my name.” The apostles preached and wrought miracles in Christ’s name; the Spirit in them glorified Christ (ch. 16 14): “I am glorified in them, and therefore,” [1.] “I concern myself for them.” What little interest Christ has in this degenerate world lies in his church; and therefore it and all its affairs lie near his heart, within the veil. [2.] “Therefore I commit them to the Father, who has engaged to glorify the Son, and, upon this account, will have a gracious eye to those in whom he is glorified.” That in which God and Christ are glorified may, with humble confidence, be committed to God’s special care.
Jesus then prayed about His future: the Crucifixion, the Resurrection and the Ascension.
He asked that, as He was no longer in the world but on His way to the Father, yet His disciples would continue to be in the world, that God protect them in His name, so that they may be one just as He and the Father are one (verse 11).
There we have the Doctrine of the Trinity, even if the Holy Spirit is not mentioned in that verse.
MacArthur says:
The Father loves the Son infinitely and eternally; and because we are in the Son, He loves us infinitely and eternally. We are as accepted as the Son is accepted: “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” And we are in Him, loved as He is loved. That is our justification, that is our sanctification, and that is our glorification. How amazing is it to be loved by God as He loves His own Holy Son.
And let me stop and just say something about Christianity that you need to understand. You might not think that the Trinity is an important doctrine, but it is absolutely foundational to everything that is true about God. John says in 1 John, “God is love.” If God was only a solitary, singular person, that could not be a part of His eternal nature, because there would be no one to love.
… the triune God is eternal love, and has loved eternally within the Trinity.
If Jesus was a created being, God would love us like He loved Jesus, another created being. But Jesus is not a created being. He is the eternal Son, the eternal second member of the Trinity. God loves us like He loves His Son. This is a love beyond anything that any creature will ever experience.
With that infinite, holy, perfect love, He loves His Son, and He loves us in His Son. This is salvation fullness. This is life. This is blessing. This is glory. So when Christ goes into the heavenly Holy of Holies and comes before the Father, as He does continually, we are there in the throne room with Him. We are there in Him.
Henry discusses the world and our Lord’s prayer that His disciples be preserved in it as they go about His work:
Now the first thing Christ prays for, for his disciples, is their preservation, in these verses, in order to which he commits them all to his Father’s custody. Keeping supposes danger, and their danger arose from the world, the world wherein they were, the evil of this he begs they might be kept from. Now observe,
I. The request itself: Keep them from the world. There were two ways of their being delivered from the world:—
1. By taking them out of it; and he does not pray that they might be so delivered: I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world; that is,
(1.) “I pray not that they may be speedily removed by death.” If the world will be vexatious to them, the readiest way to secure them would be to hasten them out of it to a better world, that will give them better treatment. Send chariots and horses of fire for them, to fetch them to heaven; Job, Elijah, Jonah, Moses, when that occurred which fretted them, prayed that they might be taken out of the world; but Christ would not pray so for his disciples, for two reasons:—[1.] Because he came to conquer, not to countenance, those intemperate heats and passions which make men impatient of life, and importunate for death. It is his will that we should take up our cross, and not outrun it. [2.] Because he had work for them to do in the world; the world, though sick of them (Acts 22 22), and therefore not worthy of them (Heb 11 38), yet could ill spare them. In pity therefore to this dark world, Christ would not have these lights removed out of it, but continued in it, especially for the sake of those in the world that were to believe in him through their word. Let not them be taken out of the world when their Master is; they must each in his own order die a martyr, but not till they have finished their testimony. Note, First, The taking of good people out of the world is a thing by no means to be desired, but rather dreaded and laid to heart, Isa 57 1. Secondly, Though Christ loves his disciples, he does not presently send for them to heaven, as soon as they are effectually called, but leaves them for some time in this world, that they may do good and glorify God upon earth, and be ripened for heaven. Many good people are spared to live, because they can ill be spared to die.
(2.) “I pray not that they may be totally freed and exempted from the troubles of this world, and taken out of the toil and terror of it into some place of ease and safety, there to live undisturbed; this is not the preservation I desire for them.” Non ut omni molestia liberati otium et delicias colant, sed ut inter media pericula salvi tamen maneant Dei auxilio—Not that, being freed from all trouble, they may bask in luxurious ease, but that by the help of God they may be preserved in a scene of danger; so Calvin. Not that they may be kept from all conflict with the world, but that they may not be overcome by it; not that, as Jeremiah wished, they might leave their people, and go from them (Jer 9 2), but that, like Ezekiel, their faces may be strong against the faces of wicked men, Ezek 3 8. It is more the honour of a Christian soldier by faith to overcome the world than by a monastical vow to retreat from it; and more for the honour of Christ to serve him in a city than to serve him in a cell.
2. Another way is by keeping them from the corruption that is in the world; and he prays they may be thus kept, v. 11, 15. Here are three branches of this petition:—
(1.) Holy Father, keep those whom thou hast given me.
[1.] Christ was now leaving them; but let them not think that their defence was departed from them; no, he does here, in their hearing, commit them to the custody of his Father and their Father. Note, It is the unspeakable comfort of all believers that Christ himself has committed them to the care of God. Those cannot but be safe whom the almighty God keeps, and he cannot but keep those whom the Son of his love commits to him, in the virtue of which we may by faith commit the keeping of our souls to God, 1 Pet 4 19; 2 Tim 1 12. First, He here puts them under the divine protection, that they may not be run down by the malice of their enemies; that they and all their concerns may be the particular care of the divine Providence: “Keep their lives, till they have done their work; keep their comforts, and let them not be broken in upon by the hardships they meet with; keep up their interest in the world, and let it not sink.” To this prayer is owing the wonderful preservation of the gospel ministry and gospel church in the world unto this day; if God had not graciously kept both, and kept up both, they had been extinguished and lost long ago. Secondly, He puts them under the divine tuition, that they may not themselves run away from their duty, nor be led aside by the treachery of their own hearts: “Keep them in their integrity, keep them disciples, keep them close to their duty.” We need God’s power not only to put us into a state of grace, but to keep us in it. See, ch. 10 28, 29; 1 Pet 1 5.
[2.] The titles he gives to him he prays to, and them he prays for, enforce the petition. First, He speaks to God as a holy Father. In committing ourselves and others to the divine care, we may take encouragement, 1. From the attribute of his holiness, for this is engaged for the preservation of his holy ones; he hath sworn by his holiness, Ps 89 35. If he be a holy God and hate sin, he will make those holy that are his, and keep them from sin, which they also hate and dread as the greatest evil. 2. From this relation of a Father, wherein he stands to us through Christ. If he be a Father, he will take care of his own children, will teach them and keep them; who else should? Secondly, He speaks of them as those whom the Father had given him. What we receive as our Father’s gifts, we may comfortably remit to our Father’s care. “Father, keep the graces and comforts thou hast given me; the children thou hast given me; the ministry I have received.“
(2.) Keep them through thine own name. That is, [1.] Keep them for thy name’s sake; so some. “Thy name and honour are concerned in their preservation as well as mine, for both will suffer by it if they either revolt or sink.” The Old Testament saints often pleaded, for thy name’s sake; and those may with comfort plead it that are indeed more concerned for the honour of God’s name than for any interest of their own. [2.] Keep them in thy name; so others; the original is so, en to onomati. “Keep them in the knowledge and fear of thy name; keep them in the profession and service of thy name, whatever it cost them. Keep them in the interest of thy name, and let them ever be faithful to this; keep them in thy truths, in thine ordinances, in the way of thy commandments.” [3.] Keep them by or through thy name; so others. “Keep them by thine own power, in thine own hand; keep them thyself, undertake for them, let them be thine own immediate care. Keep them by those means of preservation which thou hast thyself appointed, and by which thou hast made thyself known. Keep them by thy word and ordinances; let thy name be their strong tower, thy tabernacle their pavilion.”
(3.) Keep them from the evil, or out of the evil. He had taught them to pray daily, Deliver us from evil, and this would encourage them to pray. [1.] “Keep them from the evil one, the devil and all his instruments; that wicked one and all his children. Keep them from Satan as a tempter, that either he may not have leave to sift them, or that their faith may not fail. Keep them from him as a destroyer, that he may not drive them to despair.” [2.] “Keep them from the evil thing, that is sin; from every thing that looks like it, or leads to it. Keep them, that they do no evil,” 2 Cor 13 7. Sin is that evil which, above any other, we should dread and deprecate. [3.] “Keep them from the evil of the world, and of their tribulation in it, so that it may have no sting in it, no malignity;” not that they might be kept from affliction, but kept through it, that the property of their afflictions might be so altered as that there might be no evil in them, nothing to them any harm.
Jesus said that He had protected those whom God had given Him, guarding them (as would the Good Shepherd), and not one of them was lost except for the one destined to be lost — Judas — so that Scripture might be fulfilled (verse 12).
MacArthur explains, also referring to verse 11, with our Lord’s plea for the Apostles’ preservation:
Back in the 10th chapter of John and verse 27, there’s a reminder of this in some of the most familiar words of our Lord: “My sheep – ” My sheep, My sheep “ – hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” “They’re Mine and they’re Yours. You owned them; they were Yours; You gave them to Me. I have held them. Now, Father, You hold them; You guard them; You keep them. You and I are one. While I was with them – ” He says “ – on earth, I was keeping them. The ones that belonged to You, and now to Me, I was keeping them.” Keep means “to watch over protectively.” We’re going to see an illustration of that in chapter 18 that may be the most remarkable illustration of that promise or that purpose of Christ in the whole of the gospels.
When in chapter 18, they come to arrest Jesus, they want also to arrest the disciples. The Lord never lets that happen; He protects them from that, because theoretically, it could have destroyed their faith. But He will never let anything that could do that happen. We’ll see that in chapter 18.
He is about to suffer. He is about to come under the weight and burden of sin, and take His hands away from His disciples; and the Father needs to guard them for those hours. And then when He comes back to heaven, the Father needs to continue to guard them, which He promises to do through the Holy Spirit, whom He gives to every believer.
“I guarded them,” He says in verse 12. That’s phulass, it means “to protect from outside threats.” It’s used in Luke 11 of a strong man guarding a house. It’s used in Acts 28 of soldiers guarding Paul. “I guarded them; I kept them. I now need You, Father, to take over and guard them. And by the way, while I was guarding them – ” He said “ – none of them perished.”
Now, if the sentenced ended there, we’d have a problem: “None of them perished.” We’d all be saying, “Wait, wait a minute. There’s only eleven here. There’s Judas. What about Judas? What about Judas? Isn’t Judas proof that a disciple, a visible associate of Jesus, a preacher for God, can be lost? Isn’t Judas the prototype of a believer who is saved and then loses salvation because he turns and rejects the Lord he once confessed?”
If our Lord didn’t say anything here about Judas, we would have a serious dilemma. So to make sure that never happens, He injects into this otherwise magnificent and beautiful prayer, this one ugly, dark, black note in the whole prayer; it’s the only one. “I guarded them, and not one of them perished.”
Not one of what? Not one of whom? “None of the ones You have given Me perished. None of them. None of the ones who were Your and now are Mine perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.” Judas was never a son of God, he was always a son of perdition.
Son means “nature.” Perdition is the word for “destruction, waste, ruin.” He was a son of ruin. It’s used in Matthew 7:13, “The broad road leads to destruction.” He is a son of destruction, not a son of God. He is an outsider.
Back in the 6th chapter of John at the end of the chapter, Jesus us with the disciples, and Peter says, “‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.’ Jesus answered them, ‘Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?’ He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, for he was one of the twelve that who was going to betray Him.”
There was a devil there from the beginning, a son of perdition, never a son of God. You say, “Well, isn’t this a terrible blight on the plan?” No. This was the plan so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.
Back in chapter 13 on that very same evening in the upper room, Jesus said, “I do not speak of all of you – ” 13:18 “ – I know the ones I have chosen. I know the ones I have chosen. I know the ones – ” in 17 “ – the Father has given Me; but it is that the Scripture may be fulfilled – ” Psalm 41:9 “‘ – He who eats My bread has lifted up his heel against Me.’ From now on I’m telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am, that am God, because I know about Him what you don’t know, and I know what he will do. He is a son of perdition, he is a devil.”
That same night in the upper room, Satan entered into Judas. Judas was nonetheless treated with love by the Lord that same night. Chapter 13, Judas was treated as the honored guest, given the first piece of bread to dip in the sop, as they called it, the meal. Judas is guilty on his own. The fact that Scripture prophesied he would do this is not a determinism, he did what he chose to do.
Listen to Matthew 26:24, “‘The Son of Man is to go, just as it is written of Him; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if had not been born.’ And Judas, who was betraying Him said, ‘Surely it is not I, Rabbi?’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have said it yourself.’” So our Lord says, “I’ve guarded them. None of them has been lost, none of them have perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.”
Part 2, covering verses 13 through 19, continues tomorrow.
Political stories abound this week, both north and south of the English border.
Scotland: a postscript
Following up on my May 7 post on Scotland’s new First Minister John Swinney, he has given past and future leadership rival Kate Forbes MSP a prominent role in the Holyrood government.
Yet, in reality, how prominent is that role?
The casual follower of politics would think that it was an important one.
On Wednesday, May 8, Guido Fawkes reported (purple emphases mine):
Initial terms of the Swinney-Forbes deal have been carried out. John Swinney has been sworn in as First Minister today and has just appointed Forbes to replace Shona Robison as deputy First Minister. Forbes says:
I am deeply honoured to accept John’s invitation to be his deputy first minister. This is a moment of extraordinary privilege for me. I look forward to working with John and cabinet colleagues to deliver for the people of Scotland and build a better country.
Interestingly, Guido says that Swinney is scrapping the Holyrood post of Minister for Independence.
Hmm! Independence is the SNP’s raison d’être.
Wings Over Scotland had more, with a screenshot of a Holyrood document that says:
Kate Forbes, the youngest-ever Deputy First Minister, will take on the Economy portfolio and responsibility for Gaelic
In a debate that day, the House of Lords made much of Forbes’s responsibility for preserving the Gaelic language and enhancing its use across Scotland, but, overall, the Wings Over Scotland post told us that Forbes’s appointments were not that important in the grand scheme of things:
All he’s done is give Kate Forbes the smallest possible sliver of Shona Robison’s [Finance Minister’s] job and everything else has stayed the same.
As anyone remotely familiar with the Scottish Parliament will know, the economy is almost entirely reserved to Westminster.
Holyrood was never intended to exercise any significant control over it, so shaving it away from the Finance Secretary’s brief is a token gesture …
(It will however allow Forbes to oversee the creation of the unpopular, undemocratic “Green Freeports”, which were no part of the SNP’s 2021 manifesto.)
Furthermore:
… the office of Deputy First Minister is ceremonial – it’s very much the exception rather than the rule if the DFM ever becomes the actual FM.
Therefore:
So all we learned today is that Kate Forbes was pretty cheaply bought (like the other supposed contender for the SNP leadership), and that business will continue as usual. The appointment of Forbes will do nothing other than antagonise the Scottish Greens, and while we’re all in favour of that, it can only make the job of getting anything done in the next two years harder …
As we told you last week, then, get ready for two incredibly boring years of nothing much happening, which is exactly what Swinney was manoeuvered into place for.
One of the two Alba Party MPs in Westminster, Kenny MacAskill (a former SNP MP), analysed Swinney’s appointment as SNP leader and First Minister:
It was a coronation not a challenge for John Swinney, thus avoiding what he’d previously faced when leading the SNP. But even though he won comfortably then and would have done so again, it’s indicative of a malaise surrounding him.
For whilst he commands widespread respect, he neither enthuses the wider membership, let alone activists … Moreover, whilst experienced, stepping back and being intent on stepping down, that along with recent ministerial portfolio performances have taken much of the sheen off his political persona.
He’s not the continuity candidate, more the “circling the wagons” candidate. After Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation the task was to continue it and Humza Yousaf was the one chosen to do that, albeit only just sneaking in ahead of Kate Forbes. With his fall it became obvious that Sturgeonism was over.
But her legacy had to be protected, reputations defended and even positions maintained. Kate Forbes would have been a reset of the Party. Changes at HQ as well as in Government would have followed. A new direction would have been taken. That has all been cast asunder.
The New SNP oligarchy in a panic that Forbes might win dragooned John Swinney from his retirement. Hence why senior figures were out pleading for it or at home phoning to achieve it.
His victory will see them sleep easier, even if decline will continue. But as I used to say about Labour and it now applies to the SNP, those in charge don’t really care so long as they remain in situ. They’ll even take defeat before removal from control …
Plus ça change as they say.
Labour boast of two new MPs
Wednesday, May 8, was also a notable day in the House of Commons as Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer could display a further bounty of new MPs at PMQs.
One was the newly-elected Labour MP for Blackpool South. He replaces the Conservative MP Scott Benton, who had to stand down in the constituency, thereby triggering a by-election.
The second came as a shock: Natalie Elphicke, the Conservative MP for Dover. As I watched PMQs and listened to Starmer make the announcement, I thought, ‘Surely, some mistake’, but, no.
The Telegraph shared my bemusement:
It is hardly surprising that a Conservative MP for Dover would take issue with the Government’s failure to get to grips with the cross-Channel migrant crossings, which affect the Kent port perhaps more than anywhere else. But for Natalie Elphicke to cross the floor of the Commons and join Labour is positively bizarre.
Rishi Sunak may be struggling to “stop the boats” as he has promised – indeed 1,300 asylum seekers have made the journey since April 30 – but at least he is trying to arrest the flow. Labour pays lip service to tougher border controls but only because it knows voters are concerned about what is happening. The Opposition has no realistic or workable plan to deter the influx. We know this, not least because Mrs Elphicke has said so on a number of occasions.
She wrote in one newspaper: “Not only have Labour got no plan of their own to tackle illegal immigration, they simply do not want to.” She described the party leader as Sir Keir Softie because of his approach to the problem. “In trying to sound tough, [Labour] have revealed that they are anything but,” she added.
Elphicke never struck me as a wet Conservative. Furthermore, she is not standing as a candidate in the upcoming general election, still to be announced.
The Telegraph went through the same process as I did:
If she felt compelled to leave the Conservatives, she could have sat as an independent or joined Reform. Since she is not proposing to defend the seat at the next election there is speculation (which has been denied) that she may have been offered a peerage.
Whatever the case, Starmer made Rishi Sunak look weak, as this is not the first time in recent weeks that a Conservative MP has crossed the aisle. Dan Poulter, an NHS mental health physician, was another whose presence on the Labour benches made PMQs at the end of April:
Certainly her defection was timed to cause maximum damage to her erstwhile party, when she popped up behind Sir Keir just before Prime Minister’s Questions. Has there been some grubby deal? We should be told.
Guido posted Elphicke’s full statement as to why she joined Labour: their housing policy, although there is her dislike of Rishi Sunak, too. Most of us did not know that one of her main interests is social housing. Apparently, she grew up in a council house. Rumour has it that she will become a housing adviser to Labour.
Note that most of the following is likely to be Labour boilerplate:
Today I announce that I have decided to join the Labour Party and that I will sit in Parliament as a Labour MP.
When I was elected in 2019, the Conservative Party occupied the centre ground of British politics. The party was about building the future and making the most of the opportunities that lay ahead for our country.
Since then, many things have changed. The elected Prime Minister was ousted in a coup led by the unelected Rishi Sunak. Under Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives have become a byword for incompetence and division. The centre ground has been abandoned and key pledges of the 2019 manifesto have been ditched.
On housing, Rishi Sunak’s Government is now failing to build the homes we need. Last year saw the largest fall of new housing starts in England in a single year since the credit crunch. The manifesto committed to 300,000 homes next year – but only around half that number are now set to be built. Renters and leaseholders have been betrayed as manifesto pledges to end no fault evictions and abolish ground rents have not been delivered as promised.
The last couple of years have also seen a huge rise in homelessness, in temporary accommodation and rough sleeping with record numbers of children now in temporary accommodation, without a secure roof over their head.
Meanwhile Labour plan to build the homes we need, help young people onto the housing ladder and care about the vulnerable and homeless. That’s why I’m honoured to have been asked to work with Keir and the team to help deliver the homes we need.
We need to move on from the broken promises of Rishi Sunak’s tired and chaotic Government. Britain needs a Government that will build a future of hope, optimism, opportunity and fairness. A Britain everyone can be part of, that will make the most of the opportunities that lie ahead. That’s why it’s time for change. Time for a Labour Government led by Keir Starmer. The General Election cannot come soon enough.
Guido reminded us of how she got elected as MP in 2019 (red emphases his):
Eyebrows went very high when Elphicke was spotted sat on the opposition benches. It has now been confirmed. A PMQs stunt executed well…
Elphicke was elected Tory MP for Dover in 2019 after her MP husband Charlie was charged with three counts of sexual harassment. Her statement focusses on housing and Tory failures to deliver on housing manifesto promises. Who will it be next week?
Guido also posted a laundry list of the times Elphicke criticised Labour, including Sir Keir Starmer. Excerpts follow. This is the Natalie Elphicke I remember, the one who wanted action taken on the Channel crossings:
- Said Labour’s “latest relaunch completely ignored the small boats crisis“ …
- Wrote an op-ed for the Express titled: “Don’t trust Labour on immigration they really want open borders“…
- Said that “Labour back fewer and weaker border controls when it comes to illegal arrivals on our shores.“
- Attacked Labour for planning to force taxpayers to “pay asylum seekers nearly £20,000 a year“.
Housing came up only once in the list:
- Attacked Labour for achieving 100 times fewer council homes than the Tories.
Guido concluded:
Should make for a fun first meeting with her local Labour colleagues…
He posted about that very topic on May 9 and included the audio of the soundbite:
The internal fallout over Natalie Elphicke’s defection continues, with the Labour leader of Dover District Council, Kevin Mills, saying he had reacted with “horror” when he heard she was crossing the floor. Mills said on BBC Radio 5 Live that she should have stood down as an MP instead:
Well, I had to check yesterday wasn’t April 1st when I was told by officers…. [I was in] complete shock…I have to say to some degree of horror… Extremely concerned, I would say.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement from the leader of Elphicke’s local authority …
It did not seem as if Elphicke’s new fellow MPs thought much of her defection to their side, either.
Guido told us that, in 2022, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves had expressed something off-colour to Elphicke, a two-word imperative ending in ‘off’. Meanwhile, on May 8, 2024:
Guido isn’t sure every Labour MP is the biggest fan of defector Natalie Elphicke. Florence Eshalomi and Lloyd Russell-Moyle have got busy tweeting about how great the current Labour candidate for Dover is. Just in case Natalie tried to stand for Dover at the election…
UPDATE: A Labour source gets in touch over the defection: “What’s the point?“
Like the editorial writers at The Telegraph, veteran Guardian columnists were also at pains to understand the defection.
Polly Toynbee wrote that it was ‘a one-day-wonder’:
No, no, this is an uncharacteristic mistake. Keir Starmer’s welcoming hand on Natalie Elphicke’s shoulder is a picture his enemies will relish as proof he was never really a Labour man. Where was the steadying hand of a Pat McFadden or Sue Gray to make him stop and think: just say no?
It is easy to see how, in the hectic frenzy of 24-hour Westminster, the astonishing gift of the most comically unlikely MP crossing the floor at PMQs looked irresistible. The wow factor was a great theatrical coup, a sugar-rush of triumph. God knows what’s in it for her; some revenge for an unknown slight? Or a last-minute bid to dissociate herself from her nasty party? Maybe she’s just part of the great chicken run of “gissa job” Tory MPs clambering off before the Tory ship goes under.
The notion that she’s defecting because Rishi Sunak has abandoned the centre ground, as she claimed, is laughable. She belonged to the Common Sense faction of Conservative MPs, one of the most rightwing cabals of culture warriors, chaired by Suella Braverman’s svengali, John Hayes, who would topple over if he moved any further right: fellow members include Jonathan Gullis, Edward Leigh, Andrew Rosindell, Danny Kruger and, formerly, Lee Anderson, until he scarpered to Reform. If she’d brought that whole crew over to crash his party, would Starmer have embraced them too?
Policy discipline has been the hallmark of Starmer’s phenomenal revival of the party: ejecting anyone off-message, imprinting his brand on all candidates duly paraded, word-perfect, in recent byelection victories. Neil Kinnock, who expunged Militant, knows a thing or two about defining a party: “We’ve got to be choosy,” he told The Week in Westminster on BBC Radio 4. “It’s a very broad church but churches have walls and there are limits.”
Glee over Elphicke plainly abandoned any intellectual definition of what it is to be “Labour”. Where was Elphicke’s line-by-line recantation of all her past atrocious sayings? Kate Osamor was given back the whip super-fast on the same day: she had long apologised for linking Gaza with the Holocaust …
This is a one-day-wonder: Elphicke is not standing again and will be as forgotten as Christian Wakeford (if the name escapes you, he defected to Labour in 2022). Dr Dan Poulter’s hop across the floor last month drew a loud raspberry from inside the NHS. He said he could no longer look his NHS colleagues in the eye, after years, even as a health minister, of voting through the most brutal NHS funding cuts ever. But he’s the kind of Tory penitent Labour can accept, while Elphicke is off the scale …
This is a one-day stumble for Keir Starmer. Elphicke will vanish into pub-quiz land. But, as rumours abound, other jumpers may follow: her admission to the party has set the lowest bar: if not her, can anyone be turned away?
In the flutter of excitement, Labour high command momentarily forgot they are the masters now (almost). They need no defectors: all that matters is defecting voters, and I doubt Elphicke brings many. Dignity matters, and it devalues Labour membership to accept the dregs of the defeated party opposite. Starmer may regret this precedent in tough times ahead when trying to impose policy discipline on any future Labour mavericks.
However, John Crace was less sure about this being a ‘one-day-wonder’ event but agrees that this could come back to haunt Starmer:
Defections tend to be one-day wonders. An awkward photo op with your new party leader. Thirty minutes in the limelight at prime minister’s questions. And then oblivion. Seldom to be seen or heard of again.
… Dan Poulter. He was barely seen in the Commons when he was a Tory MP. Don’t expect that to change much as he serves out his time as an opposition backbencher before stepping down at the coming election.
Labour must have been hoping that Natalie Elphicke would follow a similar trajectory. Another embarrassing day for the government. Tories wondering if the game is up if Rishi Sunak can’t even keep the rightwing headbangers in his party on side. It hasn’t quite panned out like this. The reverberations of Nat’s defection have continued into a second day. And the embarrassment is almost all Labour’s …
Normally it’s the Tories who crash and burn on these occasions. Today it was Labour’s turn.
A totally self-inflicted wound. Starmer could have told Elphicke: “Thanks, but no thanks. We appreciate your offer but don’t think you’re quite the right fit. Why don’t you sit as an independent for a while to process your feelings about the Tories properly? Maybe join Labour in six months’ time when you’re ready.” Then the party might have claimed the moral high ground and still banked the win. Instead, it got greedy.
Crace ended by pointing out how tired Conservative MPs and the Government look these days:
Meanwhile, almost nothing was happening in the Commons. It seldom does these days. The government has almost given up doing anything. Just wasting time before the election. Even Penny Mordaunt [Leader of the House] looks washed up. She used to use her weekly Thursday session at business questions as her personal leadership campaign. To remind Tory MPs what they could have had. Might have yet. But today, even she looked beaten. Flat. Her jokes died on her lips. Her heart wasn’t in it. This must be the end of days.
He is not wrong. The debate schedules have been appalling light over the past six months, as if MPs had solved every issue and could go home early.
When MPs from all parties point this out to Penny Mordaunt, she claims she is under constraints when it comes to scheduling debates. Hmm.
But I digress.
ConservativeHome‘s Henry Hill wrote an opinion piece for The Telegraph in which he says Natalie Elphicke is under a misapprehension if she thinks Labour will solve the housing crisis:
… she has previously written for ConservativeHome in support of rent freezes, and said that the only good types of occupancy are owner-occupation and social housing – not the “private renting experiment”.
Now I’m a fanatic on housing. But it’s important to note that none of these proposals address the fundamental need to actually build millions of houses. It’s all more state-assisted borrowing, which will only inflate prices further, with state tenantry as the increasingly-necessary alternative.
It has always been an open question whether Labour will actually live up to its big talk on the housing crisis. If Starmer is drafting Tory Nimby’s to work on his policy, that isn’t a good sign.
It seems that only Elphicke’s constituents did not mind that she had switched parties. She’s local and they like her. The Guardian reported:
The news spread quickly in Dover, with most people who spoke to the Guardian already aware that their MP had defected. Voters from across the political spectrum shared their surprise at the move, yet many were positive about Elphicke, whom they consider a linchpin of the community.
Mae Montenegro, 50, said she would vote for Elphicke regardless of her party affiliation as she is an active member of the community, including attending her local church, St Paul’s, where she recently organised an anniversary celebration for the priest. “It’s her decision,” she said. “I want a person who represents the community, not the party.”
Robert Hewer, 74, had voted for Elphicke previously and would vote for her again, as her hardline views on immigration reflect his perception that “immigration is eroding our culture”.
“She’s a people person, she supports the local community,” he said. “She’s anti-uncontrolled immigration, which is a big issue in Dover and the UK. I can understand her move because the Conservatives haven’t done what they promised. They’ve let her down and she’s making a point.”
A former miner, Hewer was brought up to vote Labour, but switched to the Conservatives a decade ago in support of Brexit. He would consider returning to Labour in future, though he considers Keir Starmer “too woke”.
This would not deter him for voting for Elphicke again, however. “I would vote for her, because I know her,” he said. “Know the devil you’re getting into bed with.”
Alwyn Conway, 80, agreed that Elphicke had done “good work” in the area, and shared Hewer’s apprehension about a Labour government. While he felt it was a matter of “the devil and the deep blue sea”, he added that “with the Conservatives you know where you are. It might be out of the frying pan and into the fire”.
But Conway said he may still vote for Elphicke in the general election: “If Natalie’s changed over and she’s of the opinion of stopping boats, that could swing me in her favour. I vote for the person, not the party.”
Of course, that is a moot point, because she will not be running for re-election.
Let’s end with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Elphicke’s defection clearly rattled him on Wednesday, as evidenced at the opening of PMQs.
Guido provided a video clip and a brief commentary:
Fresh off the news that Tory MP Natalie Elphicke defected to Labour, PMQs got off to a testy start. Rishi Sunak hit out at the “virtue signalling lawyer from North London“, to which Starmer fired back with an even more scathing attack: people “know there’s nothing behind the boasts, the gimmicks, the smug smile. He’s a dodgy salesman, desperate to sell them a dud”. Strong words…
Guido’s sketchwriter Simon Clark later explained that Rishi was unaware of Elphicke’s move until just moments before he went to the despatch box and pointed out that the PM’s initial terseness disappeared as PMQs went on. What’s more, the Conservatives had taken quite an electoral beating in council elections on Thursday, May 2:
Did the Tory whips know? No one knew. In the hubbub of pre-PMQs, the Leader of the House went to give the news to Rishi standing at the Speaker’s side. His most vociferous Conservative had defected in the last 90 seconds – the unkindest cut of all.
Rishi is getting seriously short of members. And quite short of Members. But what a brave face he put on it …
In defeat – in the aftermath of “the biggest by-election swing in history” as LOTO put it, the PM behaved with a dignity and a posture that was entirely admirable, and even amazing … He congratulated all former councillors, PCCs and mayors, saying, “I hope his new ones do him as proud as I am of all of mine”.
Keir’s script was less gracious but no doubt more pleasing to his supporters. “He’s lost 1,500 Tory councillors, half of his party’s mayors, and a leadership election to a lettuce.” It took a full second for his deputy to realise her leader had made joking and she almost made laughing. “How many times does the public, and his own MPs need to reject him before he takes the hint?”
Rishi replied more joshing than jousting, to remind him of Tony Blair’s advice, that “He can be as cocky as he likes about local elections, but in general elections, it’s policy that counts.”
Labour laughed and were probably right to do so. If policy counted, the Tories would be 20 points further behind the 20 they currently are.
However, Starmer managed to land a zinger when Rishi asked him a question. For those unfamiliar with the format, Starmer asks the questions, and Rishi answers:
He said, What about that Sadiq Khan? He believes there’s an equivalence between the terrorist attack by Hamas and Israel defending itself. So will LOTO take this opportunity to … (etc and so forth).
It set Keir up for a repartee we have grown to know and love: “He’s getting ahead of himself before a general election, asking me questions.”
Oh, dear. It’s not the first time that’s happened between the two and probably won’t be the last in the months that follow.
Yesterday, someone online posted the following photo of a page from a history book:
Someone else, replying to the image, said that it came from a volume by the famous British historian AJP Taylor.
The first page to the chapter ‘The Great War: Old Style, 1914-1915’ (book title unknown — to me, anyway) is illuminating in revealing how much freedom was in place in England at that time.
The final sentences on the page conclude (emphasis mine):
… broadly speaking, the state acted only to help those who could not help themselves. It left the adult citizen alone.
Despite what many would call the ‘horrors’ of living in that era, we discover that there were no passports, income tax was low, education mandates were in place as well as health and safety laws.
In case the image disappears from this post, excerpts follow. Consider all of this highlighted:
Until August 1914, a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman … He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country for ever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home. For that matter, a foreigner could spend his life in this country without permit and without informing the police. Unlike the countries of the European continent, the state did not require its citizens to perform military service. An Englishman could enlist, if he chose, in the regular army, the navy, or the territorials. He could also ignore, if he chose, the demands of national defence … The Englishman paid taxes on a modest scale: nearly £200 million in 1913-14, or rather less than 8 per cent. of the national income. The state intervened to prevent the citizen from eating adulterated food or contracting certain infectious diseases. It imposed safety rules in factories, and prevented women, and adult males in some industries, from working excessive hours. The state saw to it that children received education up to the age of 13. Since 1 January 1909, it provided a meagre pension for the needy over the age of 70. Since 1911, it helped to insure certain classes of workers against sickness and unemployment. This tendency towards more state action was increasing. Expenditure on the social services had roughly doubled since the Liberals took office in 1905. Still, broadly speaking, the state acted only to help those who could not help themselves. It left the adult citizen alone.
For my overseas readers, the Liberals were a political party, the forerunners of the current Liberal Democrats. Note that they were partly instrumental in increasing the size of the state through increased public expenditure — provided by the taxpayer.
I wonder if any of the above is still taught in schools today.
Last week, my entries concerned Scottish politics, namely the SNP’s (see here, here, here and here).
With a swift resolution within a week of Humza Yousaf’s resignation as Party leader and First Minister, John Swinney has succeeded him in both positions.
John Swinney is a household name in Scotland, for better or worse.
On Monday, May 6, The Guardian reported on his return to the helm (emphases mine):
Few people understand the internal dynamics and historical loyalties of the Scottish National Party better than John Swinney, who joined the party at 15 and quickly rose to become national secretary by his early 20s.
… at 60, Swinney is a generation older than his predecessor, Humza Yousaf …
The man who promises to unite the SNP after a year of extraordinary upheaval – including the arrest of senior figures in Police Scotland’s investigation into SNP finances, successive policy rows and the end of the governing partnership with the Greens – was born in Edinburgh in 1964, where his father owned a car repair garage.
After studying politics at the University of Edinburgh, he pursued a career in finance before entering first the Westminster parliament and then Holyrood, as one of the first intake of MSPs in 1999. His presentation is often described as bank managerial, but in person his wry humour and comradely decency is much more in evidence. He is an active member of the Church of Scotland, and Labour’s Jim Murphy – who was Scottish secretary at the time – once joked: “There’s nobody in Scotland who doesn’t like John Swinney.”
Really? Okay …
The article continues:
Though firmly on the gradualist wing of the party when it comes to Scottish independence, he remained close to the more radical Alex Salmond, taking over after Salmond unexpectedly quit as leader in 2000, until Swinney resigned in 2004 after party critics moved against him following a poor European elections result.
He went on to serve as an unstintingly loyal deputy to Salmond’s successor, Nicola Sturgeon, surviving a vote of no confidence in 2021 after a row over the government providing its legal advice to the special Holyrood committee set up to examine the handling of harassment complaints against Salmond.
Last year, after Sturgeon’s home was searched and she and her husband, Peter Murrell, were arrested as part of the police investigation into SNP finances, Swinney chaperoned her around the Holyrood parliament, standing by her side as she spoke to reporters.
Swinney stepped back a bit last year in Holyrood, but now he is once again ready for a leadership role:
When Sturgeon quit last spring, Swinney also announced his own return to the backbenches after 16 years as a cabinet secretary, expressing his desire to spend more time with his wife, Elizabeth, who has lived with multiple sclerosis for many years and with whom he has a son.
In his leadership acceptance speech on Monday, Swinney admitted he had been “physically and mentally exhausted” at that point but said that 12 months later he was “rested and ready”.
… saying he intended to lead the party into the 2026 Holyrood elections and beyond.
We shall see. I expect more of the same incompetence.
The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.
Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.
My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.
Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK) with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
From Shem to Abram
10 This is the account of Shem’s family line.
Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father[a] of Arphaxad. 11 And after he became the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters.
12 When Arphaxad had lived 35 years, he became the father of Shelah. 13 And after he became the father of Shelah, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.[b]
14 When Shelah had lived 30 years, he became the father of Eber. 15 And after he became the father of Eber, Shelah lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.
16 When Eber had lived 34 years, he became the father of Peleg. 17 And after he became the father of Peleg, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters.
18 When Peleg had lived 30 years, he became the father of Reu. 19 And after he became the father of Reu, Peleg lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters.
20 When Reu had lived 32 years, he became the father of Serug. 21 And after he became the father of Serug, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters.
22 When Serug had lived 30 years, he became the father of Nahor. 23 And after he became the father of Nahor, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters.
24 When Nahor had lived 29 years, he became the father of Terah. 25 And after he became the father of Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.
26 After Terah had lived 70 years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran.
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Last week’s post was about the sons and descendants of Shem, who was the father of the Semites.
Today’s verses give us more information about some of them, and John MacArthur explains why (emphases mine):
Now, in chapter 10, you have … the genealogy of all three of Noah’s sons given. If you glance back at the chapter, it begins with the generations, the toledoth of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And then it goes on, in verse 2, “The sons of Japheth,” and it goes on to list them. Verse 6, “The sons of Ham,” and it goes on to list them. “The sons of Shem,” down in verse 21.
So, you have this general listing of the genealogies that flow from the sons of Noah. As we come, however, to chapter 11 and verse 10, the focus is again on Shem, but not in a broad sense as it is in chapter 10. The focus on Shem in chapter 10, just shows all the various people groups that came, whereas in chapter 11, it narrows down to focus on one line – the line of election, we could call it. The line of Shem that goes directly to Abram who is the father of Israel and, next to Jesus, the most important man in the history of redemption.
We are told that this is the account of Shem’s family line; two years after the Flood, Shem was 100 years old and became the father of Arphaxad (verse 10). As MacArthur pointed out, only the line of election is involved here.
MacArthur calls the history of humanity thus far ‘paganism versus promise’:
As we see throughout the Genesis record, and we’ll see it here, the story is an ongoing continuum of paganism versus promise. And we saw that at the very outset; we saw that in the conflict between Cain and Abel. We saw that in the society that was built in the time of Lamech. We saw that in the society that was developed before the flood – where paganism dominated, and there were only a few who accepted God at His word and believed His promise – one family who survived that horrifying holocaust. Even after the flood, it is still that ongoing contrast of paganism and promise – the people of paganism and the people of promise.
The scripture from Genesis to Revelation diagnoses man and sort of drops him into those categories. Since the fall, which is recorded in the third chapter of Genesis, all men are sinful, wicked, and in constant rebellion against God. Man is a rebel; he is opposed to God; he is dead in sin, bound in the grip of paganism deep within his nature.
Romans 3 is probably the most concise description of the sinfulness of man. And I know you’re familiar with Romans 3. I just want to call one thing to your attention. As you notice Romans 3:10 through 18, “There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; none who does good, not even one.
“Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths; the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
You notice, if you have that kind of Bible that does that, that that is all in quotes and caps because every one of those statements is taken from the Old Testament. That is not a New Testament diagnosis; that is an Old Testament diagnosis. Better yet, that is a universal diagnosis of the wretchedness of man.
Man is defined as wicked and sinful and rebellious and opposed to God. Every way you can define Him, that’s how it comes out.
So, the story of man is a story of paganism. It’s a story of rebellion. But it is also a story of promise. We found that back in chapter 3 – you can look at it for just a moment, a brief review. In chapter 3 and verse 15, right in the middle of cursing the serpent and cursing the man and the woman, cursing the ground and cursing the environment around them – right in the middle of all those curses, verse 15 produces a promise, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” Right in the middle of this section in which everything is cursed is the first revelation of God’s promise to crush the serpent. The first promise that God is going to deliver sinners from the power of their great adversary.
It is true man chose Satan’s word over God’s, Satan’s worldview over God’s, Satan’s leadership over God’s, Satan’s will over God’s, Satan’s friendship over God’s. And man became the enemy of God who hid from God, who distrusted God, who rebelled against God, who rejected God.
But it is also true that man was not fixed irretrievably and forever in that disastrous condition. Unlike the angels who fell and could never be redeemed, man is granted a promise that one will come and will crush the head of Satan. Satan may well have thought that if he could bring about the fall of man, man would be as irredeemable as his demons; he was wrong …
… the seed of a woman, a virgin-born son would someday come and crush Satan’s head. That’s the first prophecy in the Bible. It is the first time that the great reality that where sin abounds grace much more abounds can be applied …
And so, it would be through Noah now that the seed would come to bruise the serpent’s head. And of Noah’s sons, it would be through Shem. And of Shem’s progeny, it would be through Abram, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, or Judah that the Messiah would come. And so, the record moves inexorably toward the revival of Messiah.
Genesis 11 begins with the story of the tower of Babel, with Babel eventually becoming Babylon. God thwarted the plan that everyone would speak a common language as they progressed in paganism.
MacArthur says:
I think formal pagan religion was sort of launched at Babel. And then the religion that was formalized at Babel in the ziggurat, which was a form of pagan worship probably identified with astrology, when people were scattered all over the world, they took their religion with them. It was a hybrid of some of the truth of the true and living God twisted and perverted by whatever form of paganism had developed at Babel. It flowed out across the whole world. But God had a plan to bring about a nation who would be a witness nation to go to the world and tell them about the true and living God whom they had forgotten.
So, when you come into chapter 11, it’s really important to see the genealogy. You go from Shem, in verse 11 = or verse 10 – all the way down to Abram who appears toward the end of this genealogy for the first time in verse 26.
MacArthur introduces today’s verses with Shem’s offspring Arphaxad:
… this genealogy that we’re going to look at, verse 10, begins 2 years after the 40-day flood.
After Shem became the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters (verse 11).
Note that Shem’s lifespan is about 400 years less than Adam’s and his immediate descendants, bar Abel.
MacArthur tells us more:
Now, let me give you little numbers to think about. Noah was 500 when his first son was born, chapter 5, verse 32. He was 500 years old when he had his first son. His first son, by the way, was Japheth. Shem was likely born 2 years later, because ancient – in ancient times, mothers generally nursed their babies for about 24 months or up to 24 months so they wouldn’t be able to conceive for that amount of time that they were nursing their children. So, it would be maybe she nursed for a year – a year-and-a-half, and sometime in the era she became pregnant again, and Shem was born two plus years, let’s say, after Japheth. So, Shem would have been 100 years old 2 years after the 40-day flood. And that’s what it says, “He was 100 years old and became the father of Arpachshad two years after the flood,” which means that he wasn’t the firstborn – we know that because the firstborn was born when Noah was 100, and he wasn’t 100 until 2 years after the flood. “Shem lived five hundred years after he became the father of Arpachshad, had other sons and daughters,” – a total of 600 years. His father lived 950 years. So, we see something beginning to happen rather immediately. Right? Lifespan is shortening significantly. The effects of the flood on the world, the universe, the atmosphere, as well as the effect of sin passing down from generation to generation.
When Arphaxad was 35 years old, he became the father of Shelah (verse 12).
After he became the father of Shelah, Arphaxad lived another 403 years and had other sons and daughters (verse 13).
MacArthur calls our attention to Arphaxad’s lifespan:
At 35 he fathered Shelah. He lived another 403 years for a total of 438 years. So again, the lifespan is dropping.
Before we find out more about Shelah, there is a footnote from Bible Gateway with an alternative verse 13:
13 And after he became the father of Cainan, Arphaxad lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters, and then he died. When Cainan had lived 130 years, he became the father of Shelah. And after he became the father of Shelah, Cainan lived 330 years and had other sons and daughters
MacArthur explains that verse:
… if you go to Luke 3:36, you will read another name stuck in there … the name Cainan appears – C-A-I-N-A-N is the way it’s transliterated. It appears in the genealogy in Luke. And the question is why? Why? This genealogy in the Old Testament, right here in Genesis 11, is repeated one other place. It’s repeated in 1 Chronicles 1. And in the genealogy here, the name Cainan is not recorded. And in the genealogy of 1 Chronicles 1, Cainan is not recorded either.
The Masoretic scribes who knew the Hebrew well didn’t put it in any of their texts. But the name Cainan does appear in the Septuagint, which is a Greek translation of the Old Testament. It is likely that some scribe in – at some point, copying Luke’s gospel, and being familiar with the Septuagint, picked up Cainan out of the Septuagint – which isn’t in the Hebrew text, the Septuagint not – it being a translation, not an inspired original – and stuck it into Luke’s account. It is better than when you see the word Cainan in Luke’s account to understand it as an addition made at a later time. Also, the Septuagint convolutes the order of the names as well and so is not precisely reliable as a primary source. So, just in case you come across the name Cainan, the best understanding of that would be that it was added later by someone who thought it should be there because they picked it up in the Septuagint version.
MacArthur tells us that Shelah was an important male name for generations afterwards:
Shelah became a very common name for families in Judah. Chapter 38 it’s mentioned a number of times; chapter 46, verse 12; Numbers 26:20; 1 Chronicles 2; 1 Chronicles 4, Shelah becomes a very common name.
When Shelah had lived 30 years, he became the father of Eber (verse 14).
After he became the father of Eber, he had other sons and daughters and lived another 403 years (verse 15).
MacArthur tells us that Eber is significant:
… Eber, from which the word “Hebrew” comes …
When Eber was 34, he became the father of Peleg (verse 16). Afterwards, he fathered other sons and daughters and lived 430 more years (verse 17).
In case anyone is wondering why the repetition about ‘other sons and daughters’ appears in these verses, MacArthur says:
That’s just to tell you that the world is expanding in terms of its population, even in this very important line of people.
We discovered last week that the name Peleg means ‘divided’. It is possible that he was born during the ill-fated tower of Babel project. Recall that Eber also had another prominent son, Joktan (Genesis 10:25-28):
25 Two sons were born to Eber:
One was named Peleg,[d] because in his time the earth was divided; his brother was named Joktan.
26 Joktan was the father of
Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 27 Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 28 Obal, Abimael, Sheba, 29 Ophir, Havilah and Jobab. All these were sons of Joktan.
MacArthur explains Joktan’s absence in Genesis 11’s account:
We remember in verse 25 the name of one son of Eber – Peleg – because in his days the Earth was divided. His name means divided. And that very likely signals that he was born at the time of the scattering at Babel. This particular son of Eber is the chosen line. His brother Joktan fathered Arab tribes, but Peleg fathered the people of God.
At the age of 20, Peleg fathered Reu (verse 18); afterwards, he fathered more sons and daughters, living another 209 years (verse 19).
MacArthur calls our attention once again to the reducing lifespans seen here:
He lived a total of 239 years. His father lived 464. And so, time continues to diminish. Father 464, grandfather 433, and he’s dead 200 years sooner.
Note also that these men are becoming fathers at what we would consider the usual age today.
When Reu had lived for 32 years, he became the father of Serug (verse 20). After that, Reu lived another 207 years, having had other sons and daughters (verse 21).
When Serug had lived for 30 years, he fathered Nahor (verse 22). After Nahor’s birth, Serug fathered other sons and daughters and lived another 200 years (verse 23).
MacArthur points out:
He lives for 230 years and fathers other children. You also notice that they’re having children younger now.
When Nahor had lived for 29 years, he fathered Terah (verse 24). After Terah’s birth, Nahor lived for another 119 years, fathering other sons and daughters (verse 25).
MacArthur says:
So, Nahor lives only 148 years. Actually, Abram lived only 175 years. So, you can see it’s beginning to shorten even more.
And Nahor, just a handful of generations down from Shem, only lives a quarter of the time of Shem’s life. So, the impact of sin, the impact of the flood on the environment is shortening life. This, then – the man Nahor – is Abram’s grandfather …
There is no other ancient near eastern material available that forces gaps into this genealogy. So, we take it at its face value. This is the way it really was.
After Terah had lived for 70 years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran (verse 26).
MacArthur tells us more about Terah:
Terah begins the Abrahamic record. By the way, there are names of people in the Old Testament and in this genealogy that are also the names of places, because very often they use names that were used both for towns and for people; that’s not hard to understand. Towns were named after people. They still are in some parts of the world. So that Terah, the name of Abram’s father, was also a place in the northwestern upper Mesopotamian valley.
Now, “Terah lived seventy years” – follow this very closely – “Terah lived seventy years, became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.” Now, I want you to understand something here; you’re going to be confused when you read other parts of the Scripture. He didn’t become a father till he was 70. That’s kind of unusual now, because people are having their sons earlier. But when it tells us that he had three sons when he was 70, it doesn’t mean that they were triplets. It means that he began to have these sons at the age of 70. And if you look at the biblical record, Abraham was not the firstborn son. He was born 60 years later, when Terah was 130 years old … How do we know that?
Well, in chapter 11, verse 32, it says the days of Terah were 205 years and he died. In chapter 12, verse 4, “Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.” After his father died, he left. That’s what Acts 7:4 says. He didn’t leave till his father died. So, if his father died at 205, and he was 75, then he was born when his father was 130. Right?
And so, when he had his son at 70, it wasn’t Abram. He was born in the hundred and thirtieth year of his father. He’s not the firstborn son, but why is he listed first? Because he’s important. Similar to the listing of Noah’s sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The birth order was Japheth, Shem, and Ham. But Shem is mentioned first because of his priority.
Of this genealogy, Matthew Henry also notes the reduced lifespans but differs somewhat with MacArthur on why they are so. Although he attributes man’s sin, he says that there was no fault of nature, whereas MacArthur has said in the past that the Flood introduced rain and storms:
… laying these three genealogies together, we shall find that twice ten, and thrice fourteen, generations or descents, passed between the first and second Adam, making it clear concerning Christ that he was not only the Son of Abraham, but the Son of man, and the seed of woman. Observe here, 1. Nothing is left upon record concerning those of this line but their names and ages, the Holy Ghost seeming to hasten through them to the story of Abram. How little do we know of those that have gone before us in this world, even those that lived in the same places where we live, as we likewise know little of those that are our contemporaries in distant places! we have enough to do to mind the work of our own day, and let God alone to require that which is past, Eccl 3 15. 2. There was an observable gradual decrease in the years of their lives. Shem reached to 600 years, which yet fell short of the age of the patriarchs before the flood; the next three came short of 500; the next three did not reach to 300; after them we read not of any that attained to 200, except Terah; and, not many ages after this, Moses reckoned seventy, or eighty, to be the utmost men ordinarily arrive at. When the earth began to be replenished, men’s lives began to shorten; so that the decrease is to be imputed to the wise disposal of Providence, rather than to any decay of nature. For the elect’s sake, men’s days are shortened; and, being evil, it is well they are few, and attain not to the years of the lives of our fathers, ch. 47 9. 3. Eber, from whom the Hebrews were denominated, was the longest-lived of any that was born after the flood, which perhaps was the reward of his singular piety and strict adherence to the ways of God.
MacArthur emphasises that paganism dominates here:
… as I told you, Terah was not a believer in the true God. Joshua 24:2 says he served other gods. He was an idolatrous pagan. So, these three boys – Abram, Nahor, and Haran – mentioned there in verse 26, were born into a pagan family. And I want you to understand something about their paganism. Influenced by the astrology of Babel, it appears that they worshiped the moon god. Terah has been related, by Hebrew scholars, to the Hebrew word yarea, which is the word for moon. And it indicates that he was actually named, perhaps, for the moon god by his father Nahor, who was perhaps a worshiper of the moon god as well.
It is also interesting to note that the birthplace of Abram, the town of Ur, was known and is known, by archeologists and historians, as the major center of the worship of the moon god in ancient Mesopotamia.
The name Nahor pops up again in verse 26, which is in the Lectionary, but MacArthur tells us this is not the same person:
That’s Abram’s brother named after this grandfather, which may indicate that he was the firstborn son and was given the name of his grandfather.
MacArthur tells us more about Abram and his immediate family, including Nahor from verse 26:
Now, Abram – later Abraham in chapter 17, verse 5 – Abram means “exalted father.” But Abraham means “father of many nations.” He was named “exalted father.” He ended up being named the “father of many nations” by God.
Nahor was named after his grandfather. And that’s why I kind of think he may have been the first one born. And there’s more about his family in chapter 22. I won’t tell you the whole story. But chapter 22 indicates that Nahor had 12 sons. Twelve sons. All of them, then, would be Abraham’s nephews. Right? His brother’s sons. One of his brother’s sons was Bethuel, the father of – are you ready for this? – Rebekah, who married Abraham’s son Isaac and became the mother of Jacob and Esau. It’s a small, small world in ancient times. Marrying your second cousin was certainly in order.
The third one named, besides Abram and Nahor, was Haran. Haran is also the name of a town in Moab – Beth-haran – mentioned in Numbers 32:36 and Joshua 13:27. It may have been where he had an influence or settled or just may be coincidental.
Now, all three of these names are well known in Jewish history. They all appear in the biblical record, as you go through Genesis, and so they are noted for us here. Abraham lived for 175 years. He died, as I said, just a couple of years after the death of Noah and was likely – listen to this – survived by Shem outliving Abram. He was probably survived by Shelah and also by Eber.
But Abram is the key person here, because Abram believed in the true God. God in glory appeared to him, as I read for you from Acts chapter 7. Let me read just further down the book of Genesis to chapter 15 for a moment. It isn’t to say that at that time Abram was a regenerate, justified man. It is in chapter 15 that God says, “‘Look toward the heavens, count the stars, if you’re able to count them.’ He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” His actual justification is there described.
But Abram was a believer in the true God, apparently, and the glory of God appeared to him. Romans 4:3 says, “Abram believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” I think that actual conversion of Abram came at the time there described in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis.
But I’m convinced that when God approached this man, when he was still down in Ur – you can go back to Genesis at this point – he was one who was certainly at least seeking to worship the true God.
So, starting in verse 27, you have a new toledoth, a new generation, the generations of Terah. They culminate the generations of Shem. They inaugurate the generations of Terah. Verse 27, he repeats, “He became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran” – and this is an interesting note – “Haran became the father of Lot.” Why introduce one son? Why pick Haran and mention that he had a son named Lot? Why is he the only son mentioned?
Well, read the next verse, “Haran died in the presence of his father” – literally died in his father’s face, died while his father was alive. And because this – one of the three sons – died, his son had to take his place in the line of primogenitor. He had to take his father’s place. And so, Lot is mentioned because he takes the place of his father who dies. He, then, is treated more like a son than a grandson. In fact, Abram himself, who is his uncle, takes him under his wing, doesn’t he? Takes him into the land of Canaan with him. So, since Haran died before his father Terah died, his son Lot took his place as if he were a son.
MacArthur tells us more about Ur of the Chaldeans, or the Chaldees:
Now, notice at the end of verse 28, all this is going on in a town called Ur. Ur – we are familiar with that if we know anything about the Bible, Ur of the Chaldees – a familiar name, a familiar place. The best location archeologically – at least the one that I would lean toward – is that Ur is located on the northwest corner of the Persian Gulf. If you were to go south from the land of Israel and east down toward the Persian Gulf – you know, the top of the Persian Gulf has kind of a straight line from west to east. The northwest corner of the Persian Gulf, just a little up from there would be the location of ancient Ur in the southern Mesopotamian valley.
It was one of the most important centers of Sumerian culture – ancient culture. In the year 1922, there was discovered there a place called Tell el-Muqayyar, an Arabic name for a tell. A tell is a mound that reveals a location where civilization has been. One civilization on another, on another, on another, on another creates a tell as they build and build and build, and one goes out of existence, and they build on it; and another one goes, and they build – that’s what they call a tell or a mountain. That tell was excavated from 1922 to 1933, is believed to be the ancient location of Ur.
Some archeologists feel that at the time of Terah and the birth of his sons, it had reached its zenith and was starting to decline as a great city. And that may explain why Terah and his family wanted to leave. But that would be a very human explanation. It is called Ur of the Chaldeans even though technically, at the time of Abraham, it wouldn’t have been Ur of the Chaldeans. Moses, remember, is reading Genesis to the children of Israel, who are entering the Promised Land. This is a long time after these events take place. And they know it as Ur of the Chaldeans. Chaldean tribes, through its history, were later associated with it. And so, it was that way known to Moses’ people. Terah and his family lived there, and it was known – and archeologists have supported this – as a center for the worship of the moon god.
Genesis 12, which is in the Lectionary, covers Abram’s initial encounter with God and his sojourn into Egypt with Sarai, his wife.
Genesis 13 tells us about the quarrelling that occurred between Abram and Lot; they eventually split up and moved apart from each other.
Next time — Genesis 25:1-6
The Sixth Sunday of Easter is May 5, 2024.
Readings for Year B can be found here.
The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):
John 15:9-17
15:9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.
15:10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.
15:11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
15:12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
15:13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
15:14 You are my friends if you do what I command you.
15:15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.
15:16 You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.
15:17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur (as indicated below).
Today’s reading continues last week’s, John 15:1-8, in which Jesus spoke of Himself as the vine, His Father as the vinegrower and us as the branches.
He warned that those who do not abide in Him are like withered or dead wood on the vine; they are good for nothing but burning.
This was to explain to the eleven remaining Apostles that Judas had betrayed Him, which came as a surprise to them because they thought that Judas was one of them. However, he was not.
Jesus said (John 15:5):
15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.
It is worthwhile discussing this more before examining today’s verses. John MacArthur preached five sermons on today’s verses but they also clarify what went before.
MacArthur addresses fruitfulness in the Christian life, which is an obligation to our Lord:
Yes, we all bear the fruits of righteousness, but we don’t all have much fruit, and we all need to have more fruit.
We say, “How do you do that?” Well, it’s not a matter of human effort. It’s about abiding in Christ. Now, let me make a simple point out of this. The more you focus on Christ, the more fruitful you become. The more you focus on yourself, the less fruitful you become. Lose yourself in the glory of Christ. That’s 2 Corinthians 3:18. As you gaze at His glory, you move from one level of glory to the next to the next to the next by the Holy Spirit, until you literally become like Him.
In his next sermon, MacArthur says that the way we focus on Christ is by abiding in Him the way He abides in us:
Abide: I know that is kind of an old word and it sort of has spiritual overtones. It’s simply the Greek verb men, don’t walk away from Christ. Stay; remain. Don’t leave. Don’t defect. Don’t become an apostate. This is His word to the 11 remaining disciples: “Continue to believe. Continue to be faithful.”
This is a call to anyone and everyone who is attached to Christianity and could be in danger of departing. If it happens, 1 John 2:19 says, “They went out from us because were not of us.” Don’t do that; don’t defect.
Hebrews 10 says, “The severest punishment in hell will belong to those who were close to Christ and turned their back on Him because they trampled underfoot the blood of the covenant and counted it an unholy thing.” If you’re in any sense like Judas, connected to Christianity, don’t walk away. Many had done that. Chapter 6, there was a wholesale exodus of people who were called disciples who walked no more with Him. Judas is no solitary figure, even in the gospel of John, but he is the archetypal defector.
… He gives promises to those who stay. What is the value of abiding? Why should I stay? Well, the passage starting in verse 4 and going down to verse 11 lists a series of promises to those who remain, who stay, and they’re basic.
… This is kind of Christianity 101. The first benefit … is salvation, salvation, eternal life. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have – ” what? “ – eternal life” …
What is salvation? It is having the life of God in you, the eternal life of God. The eternal life of God is not separate from God, and so salvation is stated in that 4th verse in these words: “Abide in Me, and I in you, and I in you.” Or, in verse 5, the abiding branch: “I in him.” “I in you.”
… the Trinity lives in a believer. The Trinity takes up residence in a believer.
… So when somebody asks you, “What does it mean to be a Christian?” you tell them it means that “the triune God of the universe – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – has taken up residence in me.”
… Bottom line: only as you abide in Him and He abides in you can you bear much fruit, much fruit.
This fruit then, according to verse 8, becomes the proof that you’re a disciple. That’s what verse 8 says: “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” So that is the only way we know that we are disciples of Christ that are genuine, that we are branches connected to the vine. Our Lord said on another occasion, “By their fruit, you will know them. A good tree doesn’t produce bad fruit; a bad tree doesn’t produce good fruit. Good tree, good fruit.”
MacArthur then describes the characteristics of good Christian fruit:
First of all, fruit is genuine repentance, based on Matthew 3:8. Fruit is genuine repentance – a genuine, honest, penitence concerning sin. Sorrow over sin, not sorrow over the consequences of sin. There is that kind of sorrow. But sorrow over the reality of sin. A true and real sorrow over sin – the sorrow of repentance. That, of course, is a very foundational fruit. If the Lord is at work in you, if you are connected to Christ, if His life is flowing through you, there will be an honest repentance.
Now, we are told to bear fruit in this section, to bear more fruit, and that God is glorified when we bear much fruit. There is a progression here that is very important for us to understand …
… As we abide in Christ, and as we yield to Christ, and as we increase in the knowledge of Christ, our fruitfulness increases. By every means of grace, by every means of grace, our abiding is deeper and wider and higher and richer, and we become more fruitful …
Secondly, spiritual attitudes. Another kind of fruit – first repentance – another kind of fruit: spiritual attitudes. Galatians 5:22, “The fruit of the Spirit is – the fruit of the Spirit who dwells in us is – ” this is the product, this is the manifestation of the life of the Trinity in us, “ – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
Those are attitudes, are they not? Those are attitudes. Those aren’t acts, those aren’t behaviors, they’re what’s behind behaviors. So here, clearly, fruit is virtuous, spiritual attitudes. And, by the way, all of them, all of them were perfectly manifest in Jesus Christ. So we could say it is fruit in us to manifest the very characteristics of Christ – not in the perfection with which He possessed them, but those same virtues we pursue.
In Ephesians 5:9 it says, “Fruit is all goodness and righteousness and truth.” That’s internal: a love for goodness – being good to people; a love for righteousness – honoring God. A love for truth as revealed in Scripture …
Thirdly, another kind of fruit – and I’m just taking you to scriptures that demonstrate this – a third and very important aspect of fruit: go to the 13th chapter of Hebrews for just a moment; Hebrews, chapter 13, verse 15. Here is instruction that, “Through Him – ” that is through Christ. Without Him we can do nothing, right? Again, it’s, “Through Him.” He is mentioned in verse 12 as “the one who sanctified His people through His own blood.” “Through Him – ” who lives in us, the true vine from which we draw our life. “Through Him then, let us – ” once in awhile, every Sunday? “ – continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.”
That’s worship …
You can’t worship until you’ve been redeemed. You can’t worship until you’ve repented and been saved …
“So let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.” See that little phrase “give thanks”? That’s probably not the best translation of the Greek. The Greek is the word homologe. Logeó is a Greek verb meaning “to speak” or “to say,” from which we get logos. Homo, H-O-M-O in English means “the same,” the same. Homogeneous, the same.
So what it’s saying is this: “Offer God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that save the same, to His name.” What does that mean? What do we do in worship? We give back to God the very same things that He has reveals to us about Himself. This is what worship is. It is saying back to God everything that He has revealed to us as being true about Himself. All of that is in Scripture.
… True praise then is saying back to God all His attributes as revealed in Scripture. You go through the Scripture from beginning to the end; the attributes of God are scattered all across the pages of Holy Scripture. The more you know the Bible, the more you know about the nature and character and essential being of God. The more you know who He is and what His attributes are, the more you can say back to Him, “God, you are the Creator, You are the Sustainer, You are the Redeemer. You are all-wise, all-knowing, all-sufficient, all-powerful. You are unchanging. You are gracious, loving, kind. You are just, holy, pure” …
The second thing is to say back to God not only what He has revealed about His nature, but what He’s revealed about His works. So when you go through the psalms, you read things like, “You are the God who did this. You are the God who brought Your people out of Egypt. You are the God who parted the Red Sea. You are the God who led Israel through the wilderness. You are the God who brought us into the Promised Land. You are the God who protected us at the Passover,” et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
You come into the New Testament: “You are the God who has redeemed us through the offering of Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom You put on the cross and then raised from the dead.” In other words, that is the sum and substance of praise. It is to say back to God with a grateful, thankful heart, all that God has revealed He is and all that He’s revealed He has done; that’s praise. So your praise then is essentially confined by the divine revelation. The more you know about the Word of God, the more you know about God and what He’s done. And the more you know about what He is and what He’s done, the purer your praise is. That’s fruit. That’s the fruit of your lips – worship …
Let me give you another component, a fourth – Philippians, chapter 4 – and this just kind of digs down a little deep in a more specific way. In Philippians, chapter 4, the apostle Paul was obviously in need, very difficult times for him, and dear friends sent him gifts. They sent him supplies, food; and he was extremely grateful. In fact, in verse 16 of Philippians 4, he reminds them that when he was in Thessalonica, they sent a gift more than once for his need. They were very, very generous and loving toward him …
He saw that gift, that expression of love, as spiritual fruit produced through them by the indwelling God. It is the similar significance of chapter 15 of Romans: “Macedonia and Achaia – ” 15:26 “ – have been pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem.” These Gentile churches were sending money to Jerusalem for poor believers. They were pleased to do so. They’re indebted to them; for if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual things, they’re indebted to minister to them also in material things.
In other words, the gospel came through the Jews and came first to them, and then through them; and so the Gentiles are sending a gift. Verse 28: “Therefore, when I have finished this, and have put my seal on this fruit of theirs, I’ll go on my way to Spain.” He saw the Gentiles sending money to poor Jews in Jerusalem as spiritual fruit. So we could add something else to the list: spiritual fruit is contributions to those in need, contributions in those in need …
Then we give you a fifth element of fruit: 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Corinthians 14. Yeah, you know what’s going on in 1 Corinthians 14 – some of you do – chaos in the Corinthian church with tongues and all kinds of chaos, as everybody was doing whatever they wanted in the services. Paganism had encroached in the worship, and so Paul wants to call a halt to all this nonsense, all this meaningless talk. So he says in verse 14, “If I pray in a language, another language, my spirit prays, my mind is unfruitful. If I’m praying in a language I don’t know, my mind is not engaged” …
So you want to be fruitful, say things that edify. That’s another kind of fruit – communication that edifies, communication that blesses, communication that instructs. It may be in a prayer, it may be in a teaching environment, it may be in a conversation, it may be in a counseling or discipling setting.
Now, another one [sixth] … pure conduct, pure behavior.
… Philippians 1:11, “Being filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ.” Or, Colossians 1:9-10. It says essentially the same thing, “so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respect, bearing fruit in every good work, bearing fruit in every good work.”
One final one [seventh]: bringing people to Christ – that’s fruit, that’s fruit – bringing people to Christ …
The apostle Paul wanted to go to Rome, in Chapter 1 of Romans, for one purpose – Romans 1:13, “that I may obtain some fruit among you, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. And I’m under obligation to the Gentiles, barbarians, wise, foolish. For my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you who also are at Rome because I’m not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, the Jew first, and also the Gentile” …
That is, I think the most wonderful fruit because it’s the end product of everything else. If you live a life that resents and resists sin, if you live a life that pursues holiness, if you live a life of worship, if you live a life with the right kind of spiritual attitudes, if you live a life that does good to others, shows love to them and manifests general righteousness, your life will have a powerful testimony. And when you say the triune God lives in you, there will be something to support that claim. That makes the gospel attractive, and the Lord will use you to lead others to salvation …
“If these qualities are yours – ” 2 Peter 1:8 “ – and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you lacked these things, you’re blind, short-sighted, forgotten your purification from your former sins. So be diligent, brethren, all the more, to make certain about His calling and choosing you. And as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; but you will know that an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.”
In his next sermon, MacArthur discusses answered prayer (John 15:7):
15:7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
MacArthur says:
There are two qualifiers here. Qualifier Number One: “If you abide in Me,” if you are a true believer, if you are a true branch, if you have a permanent union with Jesus Christ in which His life is coming through you …
… second condition, verse 7 “ – and My words abide in you, and My words abide in you” …
Why does He say that? Because to be a believer, you have access to God. To be a believer, you have the promise your prayers will be answered. But also to know that your prayer is going to be answered, you have to know something about God. You have to pray within the framework of God’s revelation.
So Jesus says that second condition is that – to borrow Paul’s language in Colossians 3, “that the word of Christ dwells in you richly.” You understand from Scripture who God is, what He desires.
… You’re asking in the framework of the name of Christ, the name of God, the purposes of God …
So, I remind you that this is an incredible, incredible promise from the Lord that whatever you ask consistent with His person, purpose, and plan, He will do. Your prayer should demonstrate, 2 Corinthians 10:5 that “every thought has been taken captive to the obedience of Christ.” You pray within the framework of divine purpose.
You might even say this: “Father, this I ask because this could be what You desire for Your glory, this could be what You desire for Your kingdom, this could be what You desire to exalt Your Son, this could be what You desire to show the power of Your Holy Spirit.” That’s the principle, always with a view to the divine name, the divine plan, the divine purpose, the divine person. This is what James calls “the prayer of a righteous man.”
MacArthur then gives us a concrete example of assurance, promised in John 15:8:
15:8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.
MacArthur says:
The hardworking vinedresser finds His glory in the fruitful vine.
I remember meeting a gentleman, a nearly 90-year-old gentleman who grows grapes up in the Central Valley and he wanted to show me his operation – one of the largest grape growers in California – and I thought he would take me to an office and show me whatever. I got up there, got in a pickup truck, bounced along through some ruts and ended up ankle-deep in dirt, walking down one row, after another, after another, while he reached in and pulled out the grapes. He showed me the fruit of his labor by showing me the grapes, and he explained to me every kind of grape. He found that if I wanted to know about him, I didn’t need to see his pickup truck and I didn’t need to see his office, I needed to see his fruit; and then I needed to eat it, which was an incredibly wonderful experience.
This is what the Father does. The Father is glorified when He goes down the rows of His children and when He sees the fruit. God’s glory is in the display of His own fruitfulness through us. God is gloried when we bear fruit. It’s like Matthew 5:16, “Let your light so shine before men.” It’s a different metaphor, same idea. “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and – ” do what? “ – glorify your Father who’s in heaven.” That glory goes to God.
It’s a simple as this: for a believer, for a true believer, you are not the explanation for your life, you’re not it. People may poke around to try to figure out why you are the way you are. There isn’t a human answer. There isn’t a human answer. There’s no human explanation for me being who I am. I am not the explanation of my life. God in me is the explanation of my life …
Now, the benefit of this, incredible benefit, just an incredible benefit – back to that same verse, verse 8, “and so prove to be My disciples.” The benefit is I know I’m a believer. How do I know I’m a believer? How do I know that? Because I can’t explain my life. I can’t explain my love. I can’t explain my peace, my joy, my knowledge, my wisdom, my understanding, my usefulness. I can’t explain me humanly – can’t. I can’t. Something is going on in me that has no explanation on a human level. So I look at my life and I have assurance that I’m a true branch because I see all this fruit ...
Go to 2 Peter 1. Peter talks about virtue here. First of all in verse 4, 2 Peter 1:4, he says, “We have become partakers of the divine nature, escaping the corruption in the world by lust.” So we’ve been transformed. We’re out of the corrupt, into the incorruptible. We have become partakers of the divine nature. That’s God in us, the eternal life in us. And as a result of that, as a result of that, we have been delivered from the corruption in the world by lust …
What do we do? We cultivate that in us. And the result? If that happens, “if these qualities – ” look at verse 8 “ – are yours and are increasing – ” more fruit, much fruit, “ – they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” You look at your life, and you go out and you do ministry, and you’re diligent in testing your faith, and stepping out on faith, and being morally pure and excellent and having sound knowledge, and exercising self-control, and persevering in the truth, and obedience and godliness and brotherly kindness and love. If you pursue those things, you will be neither useless nor unfruitful; and so you will look at your life and you’ll say, “Look at my life: look at the usefulness, look at the fruitfulness.”
With that, we move on to today’s verses, where Jesus talks about abiding in Him and obedience to Him through the commandment to love one another.
He said that, as the Father loved Him, so I have loved you — in reality, beyond all human comprehension — therefore, abide in that love (verse 9).
Jesus then said that we abide in His love when we obey His commandments, just as He Himself obeyed His Father’s commandments and abides in His love (verse 10).
Matthew Henry explains:
Christ, who is love itself, is here discoursing concerning love, a fourfold love.
I. Concerning the Father’s love to him; and concerning this he here tells us, 1. That the Father did love him (v. 9): As the Father hath loved me. He loved him as Mediator: This is my beloved Son. He was the Son of his love. He loved him, and gave all things into his hand; and yet so loved the world as to deliver him up for us all. When Christ was entering upon his sufferings he comforted himself with this, that his Father loved him. Those whom God loves as a Father may despise the hatred of all the world. 2. That he abode in his Father’s love, v. 10. He continually loved his Father, and was beloved of him. Even when he was made sin and a curse for us, and it pleased the Lord to bruise him, yet he abode in his Father’s love. See Ps 89 33. Because he continued to love his Father, he went cheerfully through his sufferings, and therefore his Father continued to love him. 3. That therefore he abode in his Father’s love because he kept his Father’s law: I have kept my Father’s commandments, as Mediator, and so abide in his love. Hereby he showed that he continued to love his Father, that he went on, and went through, with his undertaking, and therefore the Father continued to love him. His soul delighted in him, because he did not fail, nor was discouraged, Isa 42 1-4. We having broken the law of creation, and thereby thrown ourselves out of the love of God; Christ satisfied for us by obeying the law of redemption, and so he abode in his love, and restored us to it.
II. Concerning his own love to his disciples. Though he leaves them, he loves them. And observe here,
1. The pattern of this love: As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. A strange expression of the condescending grace of Christ! As the Father loved him, who was most worthy, he loved them, who were most unworthy. The Father loved him as his Son, and he loves them as his children. The Father gave all things into his hand; so, with himself, he freely giveth us all things. The Father loved him as Mediator, as head of the church, and the great trustee of divine grace and favour, which he had not for himself only, but for the benefit of those for whom he was entrusted; and, says he, “I have been a faithful trustee. As the Father has committed his love to me, so I transmit it to you.” Therefore the Father was well pleased with him, that he might be well pleased with us in him; and loved him, that in him, as beloved, he might make us accepted, Eph 1 6.
MacArthur says:
His love is poured out on us, and that the deluge basically is connected to our obedience. The more you obey, the more you are lavished with divine love. And who is the example of obedience? Verse 10: “Just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” Jesus perfectly obeyed the Father, and the Father poured out perfect divine love on Him. The more like Christ we are, the more of God’s love we experience. The more we follow the obedience of Christ, the more lavish the love of God becomes on us.
Jesus said that He told the Apostles these things so that His joy would be in them and that their joy would be made complete (verse 11).
MacArthur tells us about the blessing of joy:
“These things – ” meaning everything He’s just said in the previous ten verses. “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you and your joy may be made full. If there’s any love in me, it’s Christ’s love. If there’s any peace in me it’s His peace. If there’s any joy in me, it’s His joy, because I’m a partaker of the divine nature. “I’m saying all these things to you so that you may have My joy and that your joy may be made full.” That’s good news for the eleven.
… This is living, as the Scripture says, “with joy unspeakable, joy unspeakable – joy that can’t even be articulated.” He says in chapter 16, verse 22, “You have grief now – ” to them he says, “ – but I’ll see you again and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.”
All these things are permanent: a permanent salvation, a permanent sanctification, permanent access to the throne of God for all that is necessary, permanent assurance, permanent love, permanent joy. John picked up on that when he wrote his first epistle, chapter 1, verse 4, he said, “These things I write that your joy may be full.”
Jesus then gave the remaining Apostles — and us — His commandment: to love one another as He has loved us (verse 12).
MacArthur says that this love comes from holy example:
The Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father. The Father and the Son love us. We are to love them and love each other. Love defines this relationship.
Jesus went on to define this holy love, which is a demanding love, one which He showed us on the Cross: ‘No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’ (verse 13).
Today, the only time this is really demonstrated is in the military. It is no wonder that infantrymen refer to themselves as a ‘band of brothers’. Furthermore, they obey their superiors’ commands. Christian love operates on that same type of obedience.
MacArthur gives us a real life example:
This is an extreme friendship. It is an extreme friendship. You say, “By what definition?” By the definition of verse 13 – look at that: “Greater love has no one than this, than one lay down his life for his friend.” That’s extreme. You say, “I’m your friend? Okay, let’s see how far you go with that. You’re going to die for me? You’re going to push me off the tracks and let the train run over you? It’s that kind of friendship?”
I’m reading an interesting book. Part of it’s about a man that I’ve known through the years who was a Green Beret in Vietnam, and I wanted to read more of his story; and in reading this book, one of the main characters in the book, it takes us back to the Vietnam War, and the horrors and the slaughters that were going on there. There’s a story of a man named Benavidez who would, by all accounts seemed a very insignificant individual, but whose heroism was just absolutely beyond comprehension.
On one occasion when his friends who were part of his unit were trapped in the jungle, trapped by a massive force of Vietcong, and when all rescue attempts had been forwarded and helicopters had crashed and men were dying all over the place, he asked to jump onboard with a final effort to go in. And didn’t have a weapon – nothing but a little dagger. And this kind of non-descript little guy from Texas only grabbed one thing. And he heard that his friends – some of them – there were 12 of them to start with: 5 were dead, 7 were left, and they were all wounded. And he had heard that they were wounded because a radio report came out. And he grabbed the nearest thing, which was a medical pack. They couldn’t put him down because they were afraid to lower the helicopter down to the gunfire. So he said, “That’s okay.” And the side of the helicopter with the open door, he threw out the bag and then he jumped out all alone without a weapon, and went searching for his buddies to deliver medical aid to them in the middle of an unbelievable firefight.
The rest of the story you’ll have to read for yourself. The heroism is epic obviously. We get that, we honor that, we respect that, and we know that’s what our Lord’s saying. This is axiomatic, right? “Greater love as no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” We get that. That’s not a spiritual truth, that’s just reality, right? That’s axiomatic; that’s a self-evident truth. That’s the most you can do for somebody is give your life. I mean we get excited when we hear about somebody who wants to give up a vital organ to save the life of somebody else; we get that sacrifice. We read about these kinds of things throughout history.
I’m sorry to say we read about them seemingly less and less in the world in which we live, but we get that. That’s an extreme form of friendship. So it’s one thing for you to say you’re my friend, you know, “I’m your friend, but don’t ask me to, you know, change my schedule really.” Okay, there’s a kind of friendship; I’ll buy that, I can accept that, you know. Send me a Christmas card, that’s okay. It doesn’t go beyond that.
But we’re talking extreme terminology here. This is an extreme slavery where we do everything that our commander tells us to do; we do it joyfully. This is an extreme kind of friendship where we literally are willing to give our lives. Look, that’s what Jesus said, right, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his – ” what? “ – his cross.” That’s an execution. It might be that.
Paul said, “Look, in my life, I die daily. Every day could be my last day getting the gospel to people. My life is always on the line.” So the Lord says this is an extreme relationship that we have with Him. It is an extreme kind of slavery where we obey everything, and extreme kind of friendship where we give up our lives. And He’s our model – go back to verse 10: “If you keep My commandments, you’ll abide in My love just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” He’s the model of perfect obedience. He did everything the Father willed Him to do. He’s the perfect model of obedience.
He’s also the perfect model of sacrifice. Go down to verse 13: “Greater love had no one than this, than one lay down his life for his friends.” And that is exactly what He does. That’s exactly what He does. He gives His life for us. He is our model. He didn’t give His life only as an example, He gave His life as an atonement; but it was an example.
Jesus then said that the Apostles — and we — are His friends if we do as He commands us to do (verse 14).
Both our commentators refer here to what was known in ancient times as ‘the king’s friend’, a trusted servant. In the Roman world, this person would have been a very high-ranking slave.
Henry tells us:
“If you approve yourselves by your obedience my disciples indeed, you are my friends, and shall be treated as friends.” Note, The followers of Christ are the friends of Christ, and he is graciously pleased to call and account them so. Those that do the duty of his servants are admitted and advanced to the dignity of his friends. David had one servant in his court, and Solomon one in his, that was in a particular manner the king’s friend (2 Sam 15 37; 1 Kings 4 5); but this honour have all Christ’s servants. We may in some particular instance befriend a stranger; but we espouse all the interests of a friend, and concern ourselves in all his cares: thus Christ takes believers to be his friends. He visits them and converses with them as his friends, bears with them and makes the best of them, is afflicted in their afflictions, and takes pleasure in their prosperity; he pleads for them in heaven and takes care of all their interests there … he is a friend that loves at all times.
MacArthur tells us about ancient Rome:
Well, at the court of Roman emperors … there were some slaves who had risen very high, and they had become friends of the king, friends of the emperor, friends of Caesar. Everybody understood that.
Look, kings need slaves. There were slaves who had access to the king because they were so trusted, because they were so faithful. They had so much fidelity; they were so dutiful. They were so concerned to do what they were told to do, they had risen through the social ranks until they were trusted enough to be made the intimate friends of the king. We read about these slaves that they had the right to enter the king’s bed chamber so that they were the last ones to see him at night and the first ones to see him in the morning. They cared for his most intimate needs at a very personal level. They were so well-acquainted with him that they literally were trusted with his life, with his life. They had become protectors of his life. They would know his fears because they were intimately acquainted with him in all informal situations. They would know his thoughts. They would know his hopes, his joys, his ambitions.
Very likely, they would know his plans. They would know far more about this king than anybody who met him on a formal level. Any statesman, any politician, any noble, or any general wouldn’t know what these intimate friends of the king knew. These slaves who took his sandals off and put on his bedclothes, and were there in the morning to bring him out of bed, to help him prepare for the day. They knew more than his wives knew, because marriage was a convenience, and concubines were only for sexual pleasure, and children were not necessarily given the attention of their important fathers anyway.
One could say that these were the intimate people in the life of a monarch. They were the closest, most personal, private people in his world; and they had to be trusted. They had to be trusted with his life. They had to be trusted with his thoughts. They had to be trusted with his plans. They had to be trusted with his goals and objectives. And if you were a friend to the king, if you were a slave who was a friend, you were of all men most specially favored; and you can understand why.
By the way, the word “friend” in the Greek is philos. It’s from the Greek verb phile which means “to love, to love, to have affection for.” Jesus says, “You are My friends – slaves who are loved. You are slaves who know Me most intimately.”
Jesus then referred to servanthood.
MacArthur says that there is evidence that the original Bible manuscripts used the word ‘slave’ rather than ‘servant’:
Now, when we talk about slaves who are friends, we’re entering into a concept that is alien to even the evangelical world. It was back in 2010 that I wrote a book, and the title of the book was Slave. Some of you’ve seen that book; maybe some of you have looked at it – Slave. I had a hard time getting the publisher to accept the title. I had an even harder time getting them to accept the fact that I was going to expose a cover-up, a long-standing cover-up – a cover-up of centuries, trying to cover up the fact that Christians are slaves. I wrote the book to expose the cover-up, the effort that had gone on for centuries to hide this essential reality that we as Christians are slaves of Christ – slaves who are very intimate friends of the King …
The true reality of Christ’s lordship has been all but obscured and eclipsed through the centuries by the translators of the New Testament, and even the Old, who have tampered with the word “slave.” It really is an amazing cover-up – amazing, amazing. But let’s start with “Jesus is Lord.” That is the Christian confession. It is the word kurios, kurios. That’s the word “lord.” It means “one who has power, ownership, and absolute authority; one who has power, ownership, and absolute authority.” That’s a lord. It’s used 750 times in the New Testament, and its meaning is not in question.
There is a synonym to kurios. The synonym is despots, despots, which means “absolute ruler,” from which you get the English word “despot.” We use it as an adjective. Somebody’s a despotic ruler, we mean they are a unilateral dictator. That’s what despotés means. Jesus, in the little book of Jude, is called “Master and Lord – ” verse 4 “ – despotés and kurios.”
When the New Testament refers to Jesus, it primarily refers to Him as Kurios, Lord. For example, our Lord is referred to 94 times in the book of Acts; 92 of the 94, He is called Lord; 2 He is called Str, Savior. The lordship of Christ is clearly declared throughout the entire New Testament. He is kurios, sovereign ruler. He is despotés, absolute ruler. So when you say, “Jesus is Lord,” you’re not identifying Him merely as deity – although He is that. You’re not identifying Him in some sort of abstract way as the most important religious figure. When you say “Lord,” that’s slave talk, that’s slave talk. You are saying, “He is the Master with absolute power and absolute dominion.” That word would be used to describe a slave owner: “He is Lord” …
… verse 24 of Luke 9, “Whoever wishes to save his life will – ” what? “ – lose it.” You let go of all of it. You’re not in charge anymore. You’re not in control; that is most basic. Lord, despotés – master, lord, ruler. Very bold, very strong words. A master and a sovereign with absolute dominion; that is slave talk.
And by the way, wherever there was a kurios, there were slaves. Wherever there was a despotés, a master, there were slaves. If you were lord, then you were lord because you had slaves. And if you were a slave, you were a slave because you had a lord, or a master. One axiomatically implies the other.
No one is lord over nobody, and no one is a slave of no one. If Jesus is Lord and you call Him Lord, then He has a right to ask you the question of Luke 6:46, “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord,’ and do not what I say?” because Lord means absolute monarch. So Point Number 1: Jesus is Lord, Kurios – 750 times again that is used in the New Testament. It is inescapable what it means. It means He’s in charge. That’s Point 1.
Point 2: Christians are slaves. Christians are slaves. We are slaves to our Lord. Again, I remind you, the Bible doesn’t condone slavery. It doesn’t establish slavery. It doesn’t condemn slavery. It recognizes that it is and has been a social construct, and it assaults every unrighteous abuse of every kind of relationship, including that one. But the recognition, however, that that may be, for some people, the best of all possible relationships because you are bought and owned, and cared for, and protected, and provided for, and rewarded, and loved. There’s a security in that that doesn’t exist outside of that. But in the case of the spiritual reality, Jesus is Lord Kurios.
We are slaves, doulos. Have you heard that, doulos? What does doulos mean? Slave. It’s all it means. Please, that’s all it means. Doulos means slave. It appears 130 times in the New Testament; 130 times the word “slave” appears in the New Testament.
Now, I know you’re going to run to your New Testament, you’re going to look for all 130. I want to warn you, you won’t find them. You will not find them. You can get your concordance out and you’re not going to find them. Why? Because almost all of those are translated by a different word. They are translated “servant” or “bondservant.” Why? The word means “slave.” That’s all it means; that’s all it’s ever meant.
A slave is someone who is bought and owned. A slave was somebody who had no personal rights, no legal standing, couldn’t go to court, couldn’t own property – no freedom, no autonomy. That’s very different than being a servant. A servant is someone who does something – serves. A slave is someone who is something.
There are six words in the Greek language for servant, and they describe all kinds of functions that people do. A non-slave could serve; a slave could serve. Service doesn’t talk about the reality of your situation, it only talks about your function. But when you use doulos, if they wanted to translate servant in the New Testament in English Bibles or any other, they could translate servant six different ways because how the word is used kind of described its character.
One word for servant is diaknos which means “a table waiter.” Another word for servant is huprets which means an under rower, somebody who pulled oars in a ship. It could be used metaphorically for people who served. But doulos does not describe any function, it describes a relationship …
A slave is somebody who is dependent, obligated, subject to an alien will other than his own. It is not the word “servant.” Doesn’t describe a function. But sad to say, I don’t care what version you have – even up to the ESV, NAS, whatever – starting way back with the Geneva Bible, way back with the Geneva Bible, way back in the Middle Ages, there was a certain stigma about slavery. So translators sort of moved away from slave to servant; had less stigma.
One very interesting article in a theological journal back in 1966 says this: “By the end of the 13th century, slavery disappeared from northwestern Europe. Slavery, therefore, was known to the 17th century Englishmen, at least at the beginning of that century, not as an intimate accepted institution, but rather as a remote phenomenon. Slavery in their minds evoked the extreme case of a captive in fetters or chains, so they doubtless wanted to avoid the implication of cruelty inherent in that imagery. But in so doing, they have unwittingly diminished the force of the actual biblical term.”
So they decided to play fast and loose with a word that means slave, and you will find doulos translated slave as we found it in John 15 because here, it is referring to an actual slave as an illustration. Whenever it refers to an actual slave, or an illustration of a slave, or an inanimate kind of slavery – like slavery to sin or slavery to God, Romans 6 – they’ll translate it “slave.”
Whenever it refers to a believer, there’s an equivocation on that and it ends up being usually some form of servant. Sometimes, some have translated it bond-slave, but it’s all arbitrary. So what has happened is you read through your New Testament and you get the idea that we are servants of God, we are servants of the Lord, we are servants of the Lord – that’s how we think.
Truth is, we are what? Slaves, slaves. I did my very best with a long, drawn out plea with the translators of the ESV, the newest translation, to please translate doulos “slave,” plain and simple.
To show you how embedded this idea is in the Old Testament, which is Hebrew, there’s a Hebrew word ebed. It is a word for slave. It appears 800 times in the Old Testament, 800 times. In the King James Version, once translated slave. There’s just this running away from the reality of the idea of slavery. But slavery is what God wanted to communicate through those words because it describes our relationship to Christ.
I’m not free under Christ, am I? My freedoms are defined by Him. My duties are defined by Him. My convictions are defined by Him. My words are defined by Him. My actions are defined by Him. My relationships are defined by Him. Everything in my life is defined by Him. I have yielded up – when I said, “Jesus is Lord,” I have yielded up unqualified submission to the control and commands of the Lord.
Jesus said that He did not call the Apostles servants any longer because the servant does not know what the master is doing; therefore, He has called them friends, because He had made known to them everything that He had heard from His Father (verse 15).
Henry explains the verse, using the word ‘servant’, which, as MacArthur says, is in the KJV:
Christ loved his disciples, for he was very free in communicating his mind to them (v. 15): “Henceforth you shall not be kept so much in the dark as you have been, like servants that are only told their present work; but, when the Spirit is poured out, you shall know your Master’s designs as friends. All things that I have heard of my Father I have declared unto you.” As to the secret will of God, there are many things which we must be content not to know; but, as to the revealed will of God, Jesus Christ has faithfully handed to us what he received of the Father, ch. 1 18; Matt 11 27. The great things relating to man’s redemption Christ declared to his disciples, that they might declare them to others; they were the men of his counsel, Matt 13 11.
Then Jesus mentioned the Doctrine of Election, saying that the Apostles — and we — did not choose Him but that He chose them and us; furthermore, He appointed the faithful to go and bear fruit, lasting fruit, so that the Father will give them whatever they ask in His name (verse 16).
That statement recalls the aforementioned John 15:7.
Addressing the election of the faithful, MacArthur refers to the master and slave relationship involved:
… if you are a slave and a friend, and you have the privilege of this extreme slavery and extreme friendship, let me tell you something: you didn’t choose this. It’s against everything in your nature – everything, against everything. It’s not a voluntary organization, and that is why in verse 16 you read so unambiguously, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you.”
Now anybody who doesn’t understand that is not trying. That’s not obscure. And it’s very extensive. “What do you mean, chose me for what?” “Chose you to be slave and friend. Chose to disclose everything I heard from My Father so that you would be an intimate friend and there would be no secrets.” In other words, salvation. “I chose you,” that’s the Greek verb ekleg, from which we get the word “elect.” It’s the doctrine of election. “I chose you to be My slaves who are friends, and I made known to you all the truth.” That is salvation. But it doesn’t end there.
Then He says this: “And appointed you that you would go.” This is not just salvation, this is a commission, this is a commission. “I appointed you that you would go.” It’s the Greek verb tithmi, to set, to establish, to fix, to ordain. Very strong. In other words, when you were chosen to be a slave who is an intimate friend, when you were chosen to this extreme slavery, extreme friendship, it was with a view to fulfilling a commission; and it is a commission to go.
This is like a preview of the Great Commission, isn’t it? It’s a preview of the Great Commission: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” “I appointed you that you that you would go.” And then also, to make sure that you would have everything you need – end of verse 16: “Whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give it to you. So I have chosen you for salvation, I have chosen you for a commission, I have chosen you for a provision; and with that salvation and that commission and that provision, your life will have an eternal impact.”
Henry elaborates on asking the Father for something in His Son’s holy name:
Probably this refers in the first place to the power of working miracles which the apostles were clothed with, which was to be drawn out by prayer. “Whatever gifts are necessary to the furtherance of your labours, whatever help from heaven you have occasion for at any time, it is but ask and have.” Three things are here hinted to us for our encouragement in prayer, and very encouraging they are. First, That we have a God to go to who is a Father; Christ here calls him the Father, both mine and yours; and the Spirit in the word and in the heart teaches us to cry, Abba, Father. Secondly, That we come in a good name. Whatever errand we come upon to the throne of grace according to God’s will, we may with a humble boldness mention Christ’s name in it, and plead that we are related to him, and he is concerned for us. Thirdly, That an answer of peace is promised us. What you come for shall be given you. This great promise made to that great duty keeps up a comfortable and gainful intercourse between heaven and earth.
Jesus concluded by saying that He was giving those commands so that the Apostles — and we — may love one another (verse 17).
Henry refers us back to verse 12 to emphasise the importance of this commandment:
We must keep his commandments, and this is his commandment, that we love one another, v. 12, and again, v. 17. No one duty of religion is more frequently inculcated, nor more pathetically urged upon us, by our Lord Jesus, than that of mutual love, and for good reason. 1. It is here recommended by Christ’s pattern (v. 12): as I have loved you. Christ’s love to us should direct and engage our love to each other; in this manner, and from this motive, we should love one another, as, and because, Christ has loved us. He here specifies some of the expressions of his love to them; he called them friends, communicated his mind to them, was ready to give them what they asked. Go you and do likewise. 2. It is required by his precept. He interposes his authority, has made it one of the statute-laws of his kingdom. Observe how differently it is expressed in these two verses, and both very emphatic. (1.) This is my commandment (v. 12), as if this were the most necessary of all the commandments. As under the law the prohibition of idolatry was the commandment more insisted on than any other, foreseeing the people’s addictedness to that sin, so Christ, foreseeing the addictedness of the Christian church to uncharitableness, has laid most stress upon this precept. (2.) These things I command you, v. 17. He speaks as if he were about to give them many things in charge, and yet names this only, that you love one another; not only because this includes many duties, but because it will have a good influence upon all.
This reading has given us much to ponder in the days ahead.
Incidentally, Eastertide is soon coming to an end. Ascension Day is this coming Thursday, and Pentecost follows ten days later.
Election news dominated British headlines on Friday, May 3, 2024 and will continue to do so over the weekend.
In Scotland, news concerned an SNP leadership contest following Humza Yousaf’s resignation on Monday, April 29 (see here, here and here).
South of the border in England, the Conservatives had a local wipeout at Thursday’s council elections.
Let’s look at both.
Scotland: more of the same
There seems to be little appetite for another SNP leadership election in just over a year.
The hapless John Swinney, a past Deputy First Leader, is the fourth ‘continuity candidate’ as the MSP and former finance minister Kate Forbes has decided not to run.
On Thursday, May 2, Guido Fawkes gave us the short version of the Scottish situation (red emphases and italics his):
UPDATE: On Kate Forbes, Swinney says: “I want her to play a significant part in the team” in a“very involved, senior position”.
UPDATE II: Kate Forbes announces she won’t stand for leader, saying:
I have concluded that the best way to deliver the urgent change Scotland needs is to join with John Swinney and advocate for that reform agenda within the Scottish Government. I can therefore today announce that I will not be seeking nomination as the next SNP leader. John will therefore have my support and endorsement in any campaign to follow.
Well, that settles that.
That day, The Times told us ‘Why Kate Forbes pulled out of the SNP leadership race’ (purple emphases mine):
The sun was streaming through the window of Kate Forbes’s Edinburgh flat as she sat with her family and watched John Swinney outline his pitch to be first minister.
By that point the deal between the pair was already done and she knew she was not going to stand. She just needed to hear it from him …
That confirmation, alongside his pledge to prioritise economic growth and listen to alternative voices across the party, was what she needed to make her decision final.
Swinney laid it on thick, about Forbes …
“She is an intelligent, creative, thoughtful person who has much to contribute to our national life and if elected I will make sure that Kate is able to make that contribution,” Swinney, 60, said of Forbes.
… and himself:
“And that will be part of a united team that draws together our whole party, which given my deep, deep devotion to the SNP I think I am best placed to put together.”
Forbes said later:
… the best way to deliver the urgent change Scotland needs is to join with John Swinney and advocate for that reform agenda within the Scottish government.
She also tweeted:
Forbes did not make any media appearances because of a family emergency:
… as she was making her final decision on Wednesday evening her daughter, Naomi, had a minor accident which led to the pair having to visit Edinburgh’s Sick Kids hospital.
That institution used to be the Edinburgh Children’s Hospital. The hospital administration changed the name to ‘Sick Kids’ to make it more user-friendly. I have news for them: no one, including a child, gets admitted to a hospital if he or she is well.
The article continues, telling us about what has been going on behind the scenes this week:
Her decision was the culmination of days of backroom talks through intermediaries, the ultimate conclusions of which had already filtered through into government.
Civil servants were told on Wednesday to prepare for a new first minister being sworn in next week. This suggests there was knowledge that a contest to be SNP leader was unlikely and Swinney would be the only person on the ballot at noon on Monday when nominations close.
That doesn’t mean that getting to this point has been easy. Swinney and Forbes had a face-to-face conversation on Tuesday aimed at ensuring there was understanding and respect between the pair.
Other conversations took place between two MPs serving as links between Swinney and Forbes. Sources said that Ian Blackford, the former SNP Westminster leader, and Stewart McDonald, the former defence spokesman at Westminster, played a role as go-betweens for each camp.
Discussions between proxies for Swinney and Forbes started tentatively on Sunday — before Humza Yousaf had even announced his resignation — and intensified throughout Wednesday.
Not only was time an issue but so was money:
It is also understood that it could cost the party up to £180,000 to run an election, an additional strain that it does not need given it is currently struggling to attract cash.
Not surprising, considering no one knows what happened to the £600,000 in SNP donations, missing since at least 2021.
I question the ethics of Forbes remaining a member of the SNP, given their crooked revelations that have come to light over the past three years.
The consensus is that Forbes can run again in the next leadership contest:
… she lives to fight another day and avoids a potentially bruising general election with Labour projected to win more seats than the SNP in Scotland.
“It is in her interests to play a slightly longer game,” said a source.
More of the same.
The Spectator‘s and the Telegraph‘s Fraser Nelson said that she has brought Christianity back into political conversation, ‘Kate Forbes has still won a significant victory — for religion in public life’:
It’s not just that she was born into the Free Church of Scotland: she converted into it, leaving the more liberal Presbyterian church. She disagrees with gay marriage, sex outside of marriage and even women [religious] ministers. She’d uphold everyone’s rights, she says – but her faith is real. And far more important to her than politics.
In 2023:
Forbes went on to almost beat Humza Yousaf, winning 48 per cent of the vote. She decided not to run this time and instead cut a deal with John Swinney, who will be seen as a caretaker first minister with her as the heir apparent.
She has unabashedly defended her faith:
A Cambridge graduate, appointed Nicola Sturgeon’s finance minister at the age of 29, Forbes has long stood out. Brought up in India to missionary parents, she first followed the normal pattern of dodging questions about her faith.
Three years ago, she changed tack. “To be straight, I believe in the person of Jesus Christ,” she told an astonished Nick Robinson [BBC presenter]. “I believe that he died for me, he saved me. And that my calling is to serve and to love him and to serve and love my neighbours with all my heart and soul and mind and strength.”
Many politicians think this, but none would dream of saying so in public – not in such language. Talking about religion can only alienate and damage your prospects, it’s argued: faith needs to be kept as a dirty secret. Not just in politics but the workplace or any public space. You’ll be accused of bigotry and it’s best just to keep quiet.
This is the quiet-Christian consensus that Forbes wanted to challenge with her campaign, even if it cost her the race. But in the end, she ended up drawing more admiration than condemnation …
Forbes may well never end up as first minister and, if she does, the SNP may still be doomed. But she has proven an important point: it’s OK, now, to do God.
There’s a hymn sung in her church about the need to “dare to be a Daniel / dare to stand alone. Dare to have a purpose / dare to make it known.”
Adding the word “don’t” in front of each of these lines would have seemed useful advice to any politician in recent years but it seems Forbes has written a new rule book. She won’t be the last to use it.
Well, we’ll see. As of now, Forbes is still an outlier, albeit a welcome one.
The Conservatives’ historic losses
Moving on to England, the trend in the emerging election results from Thursday — as I write in the afternoon, final counts are not in — shows that Rishi Sunak and his Conservatives are in deep, deep trouble with losses of 122 councillors thus far:
Guido Fawkes told us that Conservatives were downplaying what could happen, e.g. in the London mayoral race:
The main Conservative talking point of the past 24 hours has been that London is looking closer than thought …
Really? There was no campaign. The Conservatives did not support their candidate, Susan Hall, at all!
Guido adds:
… it seems very unlikely Susan Hall will ultimately beat Sadiq Khan clinching a third term.
Too right.
Here’s another Conservative delusion that Guido reported:
The Tories are pushing hard that these are ‘mid term’ results so are irrelevant for a general election – an odd choice of defence given it’s the end of the parliamentary term and a general election year. Whether Sunak is safe is unresolved…
The ‘mid term’ local election was in 2021!
Guido explained Thursday’s elections:
Voters head to the polls for local elections today to elect eleven mayors, 2,600 councillors, 37 police and crime commissioners, as well as a new Blackpool South MP. The results will be significant, setting the mood music for the upcoming general election – and how internal Tory politics plays out over the summer …
Labour is streaking ahead by a solid and consistent 20 points in the national polls. On that basis, it is fair to say the Tories are going to struggle almost everywhere …
The government is spinning hard that winning just one of the Tees Valley or West Midlands mayoralties would be an incredible success. Both are in doubt in the final polling. Labour is managing down expectations on both – a sign that they are attempting to increase the damage should the Tories lose them. A mayoral wipeout would trigger major incoming flak for Team Sunak – but holding Tees Valley alone (Ben Houchen is the least Sunakite of the candidates) may not help them much either …
Notably, all the Tory mayoral candidates have distanced themselves from Rishi in their campaigns. The media has lost track of what is happening in Blackpool South, where Reform could well beat the Tories into second place. The results will drip out over the next few days. Watch out for some neck breaking spin …
On Friday morning, Guido told us:
… things are (as expected) bleak for the Tories …
The remainder of the picture is basically a total clean up for Labour – gaining Hartlepool, Thurrock, Redditch and even deeply formerly Tory Rushmoor. The Tories are pointing to Oldham, where Labour lost overall control of the council – but that is due to local factors over Gaza. A loss of control over the London narrative – with Tory briefings widely quoted overnight as saying Susan Hall would win – now seems unlikely. Plenty of big results still to come in though…
… Whether Sunak is safe is unresolved…
Then there is Richard Tice’s Reform Party. So far, its potential star candidate, Nigel Farage, has shied away from saying whether he will stand as a candidate in the next general election which must be held by January 2025 at the latest.
As of Thursday morning, Reform’s popularity is rising, according to a YouGov poll. Guido reported:
Though it’s no surprise the Tories are sinking in the polls, perhaps the bigger news is that Reform are on 15%, just 3 percentage points away from the Tories. Though they’re only fielding 300 candidates in the locals, they could pip the Tories to second place in the Greater Manchester mayoral race and in Blackpool South …
Imagine the polls if Nigel stood…
The Blackpool South by-election results are final. Scott Benton, the Conservative MP who won overwhelmingly in 2019, had to stand down a few weeks ago. Everyone predicted a return of the constituency to Labour, and so it proved.
Note Labour’s historic majority albeit with a turnout of only 33% and how close the Reform candidate came to the second place Conservative one:
Guido told us:
… Blackpool South has been convincingly retaken by Labour after Scott Benton’s implosion, with a massive swing of 26.3 points. That’s the third biggest swing from Conservatives to Labour in post war election history. Reform were within a whisker (117 votes) of putting the Tories into third place. Reform has performed strongly elsewhere so far where they are standing…
Is it that everyone suddenly loves Labour or the Liberal Democrats? No. It seems that people who have voted Conservative in the past stayed at home. One commenter on a Guido post has probably nailed it with this analysis:
The swing was from Conservative to Stay at home.
The Labour vote dropped by 12 % over their 2019 vote.
The Conservative vote dropped by 80%.
The Reform vote increased by 56.5% over the Brexit party vote.
Did Not Vote increased by 57.5% over 2019.
A swing from Conservative to Stay at Home lets Labour in.
The challenge for Reform is to persuade the 25% of the electorate who stayed at home this year, but didn’t in 2019 that there is an option they can vote for. Then there’s the 45% that didn’t bother in either, and had no faith in the system at all.
The challenge for the psephologists is to start acknowledging the underswell of disgust in the whole system that is swirling around the country.
A lot of those who voted Conservative in 2019 did so because a) Boris Johnson was such an effective campaigner as the face of Brexit and b) they trusted that their voices would be heard once more as happened in the 2016 Brexit referendum.
Since then — admittedly, the pandemic (not a Boris speciality) did not help — the status quo returned, beginning in 2021, and those voters have once again lost faith in the Conservatives.
Does Rishi Sunak care?
Probably not. He can leave the UK for California — or his father-in-law’s country, India. Either way, everything will come up roses for him. The rest of us will have to bear up under Labour’s rose.
Yesterday’s post examined the outgoing Scottish First Minister’s — Humza Yousaf’s — time in Holyrood.
The one before that discussed his resignation as First Minister.
Today’s will look at questions surrounding his personal life.
However, before we get to that, let’s look at the motions by Scottish Conservatives and Labour for a vote of no confidence as well as Kate Forbes’s chances of becoming the next First Minister. She ran against Yousaf in the 2023 leadership election and lost by a Brexit margin: 48% to 52%.
No confidence motions unsuccessful
Neither motion for a vote of no confidence on Tuesday, May 1, 2024 succeeded.
The Scottish Conservatives put forward one of no confidence in Humza Yousaf as First Minister.
Scottish Labour’s concerned the SNP government as a whole.
The Times told us that, with Labour’s motion, the Greens saved the SNP’s day (purple emphases mine):
Scottish Labour’s attempt to unseat the Scottish government has failed after the Greens voted against a confidence motion.
The Green co-leader Patrick Harvie said that the motion was “chaos for the sake of chaos” as his party voted against it. The motion was defeated by 70 votes to 58 …
If the motion had passed, the entire Scottish government would have been forced to resign, with Holyrood given 28 days to elect a new first minister before an election was called.
Yousaf has admitted in a BBC interview that he “paid the price” for the way he ended the SNP’s power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens. Speaking for the first time since announcing his resignation, the outgoing first minister said that ending the agreement was the right decision.
“But I have to acknowledge the manner in which I did it caused great upset and that’s on me,” he said.
Yousaf said it was clear to him that the SNP’s power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens was “coming to an end anyway” but said he regretted the manner in which he ended it.
At the confidence vote at Holyrood, the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, said Scotland that was “crying out for change” as he urged MSPs to back his motion …
Yousaf said he was proud of the SNP’s record in government, telling MSPs he had not “heard a single positive idea” from Labour in his 13 months in the top job …
But it was Harvie who put the final nail in the coffin of the motion, when he said: “This proposal portrays the true motives of others: chaos for the sake of chaos.”
He added: “Let’s just consider what would happen if it passed; a month to seek another government, then an election around the time that voters around the country were heading off on their summer holidays, a new government formed perhaps by August, leaving just a little more than a year and a half until the legally required dissolution for the 2026 election” …
Opposition members also used the opportunity to take aim at the potential next occupant of Bute House. Sarwar pointed to reports suggesting that Kate Forbes could struggle to appoint ministers and described John Swinney as “the finance secretary that broke the public finances and the worst education secretary in the history of the Scottish parliament”.
One has to hope that John Swinney is not the next First Minister.
Kate Forbes’s chances of succession
Most ordinary Scots and most Britons who know about Scottish politics think that Kate Forbes would bring common sense and stability to the SNP government.
During the 2023 campaign, her detractors complained that she, a thirty-something married mother, was a Wee Free, a member of a conservative Presbyterian breakaway denomination popular in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The same issues are coming up again.
One of my readers, dearieme, sent me a link to an April 30 editorial by Kenny Farquharson in The Times, excerpted below:
Kate Forbes is unfit to be first minister of a 21st-century Scotland. A 1920s Scotland, maybe. A 1950s Scotland, perhaps. But not Scotland in 2024.
Amid the machinations over who replaces Humza Yousaf as leader of the SNP, we need to keep this thought uppermost in our minds. It can’t be Kate …
What message would a Kate Forbes first ministership send? That single mothers are sinners? That sex outside marriage is wrong? That ghouls should be allowed to stand in the street outside abortion clinics muttering incantations? That most of us in secular Scotland are going to hell?
What comfort could be drawn from a Forbes first ministership by gay couples, given that this fundamentalist Christian politician has said she would not have voted for equal marriage? How secure would gay people feel about their hard-won civil rights?
On the day of Yousaf’s resignation Allan Kennedy, a lecturer in early modern Scottish history at Dundee University, said on Twitter/X: “Kate Forbes as first minister would be some impressive playing of the long game on the part of the Covenanters” …
I want a secular Scotland. I want this century to be the very first in Scotland’s story where religious belief and ecclesiastical power did not routinely dictate the way people were governed or lived their day-to-day lives. I want a Scotland that need not fear any US-style curbs on a woman’s right to choose an abortion.
Modernity is a concept worth defending. I did not think it would need defending in 2024, but apparently it does. During the last SNP leadership campaign I called Forbes “the MSP for the 19th century”. I stand by that. I would prefer a politician whose values chimed with the nation he or she sought to lead …
Forbes represents an authentic strain of rural Scottish presbyterianism. But she cannot successfully reconcile the moral strictures of the Free Church with the values of contemporary urban Scotland in all its diversity and dynamism.
Which is why I say again: in the third decade of the 21st century, Kate Forbes is unfit to be first minister of Scotland.
On May 2, Dr James Eglinton, the Meldrum senior lecturer in Reformed theology at the University of Edinburgh, responded in The Times:
Could Kate Forbes serve effectively as first minister of Scotland? In The Times this week, Kenny Farquharson argued she could not … In his argument, Scotland should “defend modernity” by setting a clear glass ceiling above Forbes and those like her.
Before we can defend modernity, though, we must define it — and herein lies the problem. The kind of modernity cherished by Farquharson was a product of the 18th century and died out in the mid-19th century. It does not capture how modernity functions in Scotland today, and says nothing about whether Forbes could serve well as first minister.
In Farquharson’s argument, modernity is monolithic, a package deal of views that all enlightened, right-thinking people will hold precisely because they are enlightened and right thinking. In that way, while modernity likes to talk about authenticity and individuality, it prizes and expects sameness of thought from those individuals.
When the 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant advanced that view, his ideas were novel and captivating to many. By the mid-19th century, though, Europe grew tired of that rigid expression of freedom, and came to see it as attainable only through coercion, silencing and self-censorship. Whereas the 18th century idealised the uniformity of acceptable beliefs, the 19th century valued the unity of people whose freedom to think took them to radically different conclusions. In the process, it gave us liberal democracy and our freedoms of belief and expression.
From then on, modernity has been a very different thing. It depends on individuals negotiating life on their own terms and recognising that each other person does the same. In that way, it is a constant negotiation, a shared effort to extend the freedom to others that we demand for ourselves. Nowadays, academics talk of multiple modernities — as numerous as modern people themselves — rather than a single modernity.
Is Forbes rooted in the 19th century? Certainly, in that she represents liberal democracy. Good for her. Is she a 21st-century person? As a working mum from a theologically conservative church in frontline secular politics, she is as modern as any of us …
We shall see what happens in the weeks ahead. We don’t even know if Kate Forbes will run again.
Now on to remaining aspects of Humza Yousaf’s life.
Two SNP-related marriages
Interestingly, both of Yousaf’s wives, past and present, have links to the SNP.
In 2010, Yousaf married Gail Lythgoe, originally from Essex, who, somehow, caught the Scottish independence bug.
The couple divorced in 2016.
CaltonJock has more from his February 22, 2023 post:
Lythgoe, a graduate teaching assistant at Glasgow University’s law school, was convener of the SNP’s student wing from 2010 to 2012 and sat on the SNP’s ruling national executive.
She was also a parliamentary assistant to SNP MSP Joan McAlpine, and worked at the Yes Scotland campaign in the 2014 referendum.
The split was not made public and only only emerged after Yousaf blamed it when he was fined £300 and had six penalty points added to his driving licence, after being caught by police driving a friend’s car without insurance.
Pleading guilty to the offence he said the incident was the result of stress brought about by his personal circumstances during his separation”.
Yousaf said the final split with his wife was amicable but since then she has left the SNP and actively urged people to vote for the Scottish Greens in the local election instead of the SNP. She wrote: “Glasgow needs diversity not cult-like voting habits, vote green.”
Yousaf’s current wife is Nadia El-Nakla, a divorcée with one child when the couple married in 2019. El-Nakla is an SNP councillor — the equalities spokesperson — in Dundee.
The couple have a daughter together and, in March 2024, the Yousafs announced that they were expecting another child.
Born in Dundee, El-Nakla has a Palestinian father and a Scottish mother.
She is a qualified psychotherapist counsellor with an MSc in Counselling from Abertay University in Dundee.
Perhaps this is why Yousaf said last autumn that he had plans to resume counselling in order to build his resilience. He already had counselling when his first marriage broke down.
On October 15, 2023, The Sunday Times reported:
Humza Yousaf has said he plans to resume counselling for his mental health while first minister, saying “people shouldn’t wait until a crisis moment” to seek help.
In an interview ahead of the SNP’s conference in Aberdeen, Yousaf said previous help he had sought for his mental health had built “resilience” and would be something he would return to in the future.
The first minister told a show at the Edinburgh Fringe that he sought counselling in 2016 during his time as transport minister, when he was also facing the breakdown of his first marriage.
Speaking to Holyrood Magazine, he said he was not sure if he could have continued to be a minister if he had not sought help.
“I definitely think counselling has given me resilience. I was just talking to my wife, actually, last week about making sure I continue counselling as first minister,” he said …
Yousaf also said his therapist recommended he use an app to practice mindfulness, a type of meditation that attempts to focus the individual on being in the moment.
He also spoke of how he dealt with the personal impact of the job, in particular leaning on his family.
“On a personal level, my family is so, so important, and I make time to set some appropriate boundaries,” he said.
The first minister said during his campaign for the SNP leadership that he would try to keep Monday evenings free to spend with his family …
Speaking as someone who watches First Minister’s Questions regularly on BBC Parliament, I rather doubt that Yousaf is practising mindfulness or getting counselling for resilience. He is no different to Nicola Sturgeon in his aggressive responses to Conservative and Labour Party leaders, which, on occasion, are rather offensive. In the private sector, such a bulldog style would be called ‘unprofessional’ or ‘unacceptable’.
In-laws’ visit to Palestine
Incredibly, at least to many Britons who had read or heard about it in the media, Yousaf’s parents went to Palestine on holiday to visit family after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.
Yousaf then pulled rank as First Minister to make arrangements to have them evacuated and then went on to hold a meeting with Turkey’s President Erdoğan while his wife and Mrs Erdoğan met privately for tea.
Effie Deans of Lily of St Leonards reminds us that Yousaf is Scotland’s First Minister, not the UK’s Foreign Secretary.
She gave us the story on January 14, 2024:
Humza Yousaf’s wife Nadia El-Nakla is Scottish. She was born and brought up in Dundee. But unlike most Scots she has family living in Gaza. Her parents chose to ignore Foreign Office advice about visiting Gaza and ended up in a warzone after the 7th October Hamas attack on Israel. That was unfortunate and naturally Humza Yousaf and his wife were concerned about their safety. But it is important that we distinguish between a politician’s political role and his personal life. Humza Yousaf is First Minister of Scotland. His wife is a Dundee SNP councillor. The Scottish Government has no role in foreign affairs …
When El-Nakla’s family were trapped in Gaza Humza Yousaf contacted the British government and Foreign Office to expedite their rescue from Gaza, but he didn’t do so as a private citizen like the rest of us would have done if our family were trapped in Gaza, he did so as First Minister of Scotland. But it has nothing whatsoever to do with that role. Humza Yousaf’s wife’s family deserved no more extra special help than any other British citizens trapped in Gaza just because SNP members had elected him leader of their party.
In time El-Nakla’s parents were able to leave Gaza with the help of the British government. I don’t recall any thanks from either Humza Yousaf or Nadia El-Nakla nor indeed from her parents.
Next, we discover that Nadia El-Nakla went to Turkey in November to attend an international summit calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
It seemed rather odd that at the time that she should do so. It cannot be often that a Dundee councillor meets the First Lady of Turkey and other important figures. Indeed, it is rather surprising that they knew of her existence.
She is said to have attended in a personal capacity. One assumes therefore that she paid for the trip out of her own money and didn’t claim expenses for her iPad. But the truth is that El-Nakla would have been nowhere near this meeting if she had not been married to Humza Yousaf.
Next, we discover that Humza Yousaf has a meeting with Recep Erdoğan the president of Turkey at the COP28 meeting in December. Yousaf did so without permission from the British government and without Foreign Office staff being present as is required.
The reason for this is that the First Minister has no role in foreign affairs, which is reserved to the British government. The UK cannot have two foreign policies one directed from London and the other from Edinburgh. Yousaf is not the leader of a nation state and therefore Scotland has no international role at all. El-Nakla is no more the wife of an international politician than the leader’s wife of a province in Turkey, who doubtless does not get to meet Erdoğan’s wife.
There is more:
Scotland gives £750,000 in aid to Gaza and shortly afterwards El-Nakla’s parents get to leave Gaza. Then we discover perhaps why El-Nakla went to Turkey to meet Erdoğan’s wife and why later Humza Yousaf was so desperate that no one would be present at his meeting with Erdoğan.
El-Nakla has just admitted that the Turkish government helped her family in Gaza to move to Turkey. It’s an amazing coincidence. Such generosity on the part of President Erdoğan. What did he get in return?
… he went to a lot of trouble to make sure that Foreign Office officials were not present, but I do know this, it is not the role of the First Minister of Scotland let alone a Dundee councillor to have international meetings so that non-UK citizens can move from Gaza to Turkey.
However, that does not seem to be enough of a solution:
El-Nakla now wants her Gazan family to come to the UK. She points out that Ukrainian refugees are living near her, why can’t her Gazan family not also come here as refugees?
Well, if El-Nakla wants Gazans in general rather than her family in particular to escape Gaza why doesn’t she ask Egypt to open the border? Perhaps she could fly to Egypt to have a meeting with the wife of President el-Sisi. Humza Yousaf could then attend an environment meeting somewhere where he happens to meet el-Sisi and the border between Gaza and Egypt could be opened.
But there is a problem here. Egypt does not want to open its border to Gaza and nowhere else in the Arab world wants to take refugees from Gaza and indeed when Israeli officials suggest resettling Gazans elsewhere, they are condemned by the whole world including I imagine El-Nakla and Humza Yousaf.
Utterly extraordinary, to say the least. Who would have that much nerve?
Yousaf’s family makes the news
In March 2024, Yousaf’s family made the news.
On Sunday, March 17, Scotland’s Herald reported that Yousaf did not declare his family’s rental properties in his register of ministerial interests:
Humza Yousaf is facing questions about why he hasn’t publicly declared his family’s £1.3million rental property empire in his register of ministerial interests.
The First Minister lists a single rental property in Dundee owned by his wife, Nadia El-Nakla.
However he has not included the eight rental properties in Glasgow owned by his parents and their accountancy firm, Yousaf & Co. Limited.
He has also spoken about private landlords, rent caps and eviction procedures in parliament without orally declaring any interest.
The Scottish Government said Mr Yousaf had only declared his wife’s rental flat as he could be seen as a “direct beneficiary” of it.
However the Scottish Tories said the First Minister needed to be “fully transparent”.
There is no suggeston of any wrongdoing by Mr Yousaf’s parents.
MSPs must declare their own financial holdings, such as rental properties, in a Holyrood register.
But ministers are held to a higher standard and also complete a second, more detailed register overseen by the Scottish Government’s top official, the Permanent Secretary …
Declarations should “cover interests of the Minister’s spouse or partner, and close family which might be thought to give rise to a conflict.”
Immediate family includes “parents, siblings or children” where an interest “might be thought to give rise to an actual or perceived conflict” …
The property folio could potentially give rise to a perceived conflict of interest for Mr Yousaf.
In May 2020, he voted on and agreed to Coronavirus legislation that changed the rules on tenancies and evictions while one of the family’s tenants was heading for eviction as they had been in arrears for more than three months.
Records from Scotland’s Housing and Property Chamber show that a property agent acting for Mr Yousaf’s father applied to the tribunal for a payment order and an eviction order for the flat on Albert Road in Glasgow owned by Yousaf & Co Ltd.
The documentation said that the tenant was due to pay £450 a month in rent, but had run up arrears of £4,950 to August 2020.
In February 2021, the tribunal agreed to make both the payment order and eviction order.
A Scottish Government spokesperson disagreed with the call for the family’s properties to be included in Yousaf’s register of interests:
The First Minister includes his wife’s rental property in his listed interests in line with his commitment to be transparent about interests to which he could be perceived to be a direct beneficiary.
This is not the case with the rental properties owned by the First Minister’s parents, therefore they are not required to be declared.
Hmm.
Two days later, on March 19, The Times reported, ‘Yousaf family firm removes “antisemitic” Palestinian posters’:
Humza Yousaf’s parents have removed pro-Palestinian posters from their family shop after they were criticised by a Jewish group.
The Yousaf & Co accountancy firm, established by the first minister’s father, Muzaffar, after he emigrated from Pakistan in the 1960s, had a large pro-Palestinian window display at its prominent Glasgow headquarters.
It included images in which the Palestinian flag is imposed over the entirety of a map of the Israeli state, surrounded by two hands snapping a chain encircling the country, alongside the slogan Free Palestine …
When Hamas invaded Israel, Yousaf’s parents-in-law, Elizabeth and Maged El-Nakla, became trapped in Gaza after a family visit coincided with the outbreak of war. They were eventually allowed to leave after spending almost a month trapped in the territory.
Yousaf’s wife, Nadia, has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza …
Yousaf & Co has been asked for comment.
Brother-in-law’s arrest
On January 16, 2024, The Sun, among other media outlets, reported that Yousaf’s brother-in-law had been arrested for a second time. The second arrest was in relation to a horrific murder in Dundee:
… Ramsay El-Nakla, younger brother of the First Minister’s wife Nadia, had secured bail after being accused of dealing heroin.
But officers stepped in as he got ready to leave the dock and nicked him in connection with another alleged incident.
He was among three arrested after a man reportedly fell from the window of a flat in Dundee last week.
A 36-year-old was seriously injured after he plunged from a tenement block on the city’s Morgan Street.
Emergency services rushed to the scene last Wednesday morning.
Cops taped off the street and locals reported a large police presence in the area.
Residents said they spotted a binman and a street sweeper going to help the injured man before paramedics arrived. He was then taken to Ninewells Hospital.
El-Nakla, 36, was first arrested last Thursday in connection with a different alleged incident …
On April 9, he was due to appear in Dundee Sheriff Court.
The Spectator‘s Steerpike told us:
Police Scotland has today confirmed that they have arrested Yousaf’s brother-in-law and charged him with abduction and extortion. It follows the death of a man who fell from a block of flats in Dundee in January.
Ramsay El-Nakla, 36, is the brother of Yousaf’s wife, Nadia El-Nakla and is due to appear in court later today. In a statement, Police Scotland said that:
A 36-year-old man has been arrested and charged with abduction and extortion following an incident where a man fell from a block of flats on Morgan Street, Dundee on Wednesday, 10 January. He died a week later in hospital. Three others were previously arrested and charged following the same incident. The 36-year-old man is due to appear in Dundee Sheriff Court today, Tuesday, 9 April, 2024. A report will be submitted to the Procurator Fiscal.
It comes three months after El-Nakla first appeared in court on charges of supplying heroin and being in possession of cocaine and cannabis. Back then Yousaf said ‘It would be inappropriate for me to comment at this stage’ adding ‘I’m very keen not be seen to interfere with any court case, let alone one involving my brother-in-law.’
What will his line be now…?
Who knows?
In any event, the wheels have come off Humza Yousaf’s wagon in much the same way he came off his scooter in Holyrood when he had injured his leg a couple of years ago:
A man so sure of himself at the time … perhaps less so now — despite all his bluster at First Minister’s Questions.
Yesterday’s post discussed the resignation of Scotland’s First Minister, Humza Yousaf, on Monday, April 29, 2024.
Today’s entry looks back at his career in the Scottish Parliament.
Before that, let us look briefly at the February 22, 2023 post from CaltonJock which tells us more about Yousaf’s youth (purple emphases mine):
Humza Yousaf was born on 7 April 1985 in Glasgow, Scotland. He enjoyed a trouble free lifestyle being privately educated at Hutchesons’ Grammar School, a fee paying independent school in Glasgow then going on to study Politics at the University of Glasgow, graduating with an MA in 2007.
He left university to work as a parliamentary assistant for a number of MSPs and has been financed from the public purse ever since. He has no experience of work outside the public sector.
Ministerial appointments
Yousaf was fortunate to have held rather important ministerial appointments in the Scottish parliament, beginning in 2012. He was Minister for External Affairs and International Development under then-First Minister Alex Salmond. When Nicola Sturgeon succeeded Salmond, Yousaf retained the position but under a different title, that of Minister for Europe and International Development.
In 2016, Sturgeon made him Minister for Transport and the Islands.
In 2018, Sturgeon promoted him to Cabinet Secretary for Justice, a post which he held until 2021. The level of police recorded crimes rose from 244,504 to 246,511 in 2020-2021. During that time, he came up with the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill, further amended only recently, on April 1, 2024, by which time he had been serving as First Minister for a little over a year.
After the May 2021 elections, with Jeane Freeman MSP’s standing down, Sturgeon made Yousaf her replacement as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, a position he held until he won the SNP leadership contest after Sturgeon resigned in February 2023.
In July that year, the WHO declared that Scotland had six out of ten coronavirus hotspots in Europe.
In September 2021, news emerged that Scottish waiting times for an ambulance reached six hours. Yousaf urged the public to ‘think twice’ before ringing for one. Audit Scotland found that 500 elderly people in Scotland died that year because of delayed access to emergency treatment.
Let’s take a closer look at Yousaf’s actions during his time as an MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament).
Transport Minister failings
While Yousaf was the Cabinet Minister for Transport, he was caught driving without car insurance.
On December 8, 2016, Scotland’s Herald reported:
TRANSPORT Minister Humza Yousaf has blamed the break up of his marriage after being caught by police while driving without insurance.
Mr Yousaf, who is already under pressure over poor service on Scotland’s railways, said he had made an “honest mistake” and would not contest the charge.
However, Yousaf had greater failings in the area of transport, as the aforementioned CaltonJock reminds us:
On 18 May 2016, he was promoted Minister for Transport and the Islands and was at the centre of controversy and public criticism over the poor performance of ScotRail, with its trains facing severe delays, cancellations and overcrowding.
Sturgeon was called upon to sack him over his shambolic handling of transport after the prolific Twitter-using Transport Minister admitted he knew nothing about his brief as he tried to defend his failings.
He was quizzed by MSP’s at Holyrood over his administration’s handling of the beleaguered network amid stalled projects and declining services after it emerged the bill for rail upgrades had rocketed by £379 million.
The intervention became necessary when a report from quango Transport Scotland revealed the cost of five schemes had risen to £1.5 billion from £1.1 billion.
The transport workers union Aslef called for Mr Yousaf to be sacked amid a growing crisis on the railway network.
Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan said: “The Scottish government response to the rail crisis has been pathetic. Transport Minister Humza Yousaf has stood by while Abellio Scotrail takes Scotland’s passengers and taxpayers for a ride”.
Hate speech
As if coping with coronavirus were not enough, on October 29, 2020, Yousaf wanted to ban freedom of speech in one’s own home, something he finally realised on April 1, 2024.
The Scottish chronicler, Effie Deans, posted on her site, Lily of St Leonard’s, ‘Why does Humza Yousaf want to police what I say in private?’
She says:
Humza Yousaf has explained that he wants to punish Scots for having insulting conversations at home. While we would retain the right to be offensive anyone stirring up hatred against various protected groups will be prosecuted. What this means is that we would no longer be allowed to speak freely in our own homes.
Yousaf had cited some hypothetical examples of private speech that should be criminalised. Yet, Effie Deans pointed out that such instances of criminality are:
already covered by other laws.
True!
Interestingly, Yousaf himself made a speech at Holyrood which many Scots — and other Britons — found objectionable. He complained with escalating anger that white people occupy most of the prominent positions in Scotland. That should come as no surprise since between 94% and 96% of Scots are Caucasian:
Around a year later, on April 15, 2024, the Revd Stu Campbell, author of Wings Over Scotland, noticed that not all of Yousaf’s text for that speech reached the official Scottish parliament transcript. Last month, he wrote to Holyrood to find out why and told the story in ‘The mutability of history’.
Campbell says that the transcript, which he linked to, reads as follows:
That is not the case only in justice. The chief medical officer is white, the chief nursing officer is white, the chief veterinary officer is white, the chief social work adviser is white.
However, in reality, as can be seen on the video, Yousaf went through a whole list of examples, which I won’t quote here but which you can read on Campbell’s post.
Campbell also remarked on the disagreeable tone of the speech:
He issued a string of sharp, accusatory and exclamatory sentences, each clearly separated by pauses, in an angry manner. What the Report presents reads very differently, like a calm list with no particular inflection.
Tone is of course to SOME degree a matter of personal interpretation (although I doubt any reasonable observer watching the speech either live or on video would doubt or dispute the Cabinet Secretary’s anger), but no amount of personal interpretation justifies material ALTERATION, such as the addition of words to the speech or the combining of multiple sentences into one, in order to better fit that interpretation.
Yousaf displayed biases during his time as Justice Minister, too, according to CaltonJock:
His social media shenanigans on Twitter got him into several scrapes when he was Justice Secretary.
He rushed to slam Rangers football players on Twitter for being filmed supposedly making sectarian chants – a video which was subsequently shown to be a fake, for which Yousaf refused to apologise.
The rush to judgement which was all the more troubling in light of his responsibility for the Scottish prosecution service.
The malicious prosecution of Rangers Football Club Directors was the illegal prosecution of innocent men in Scotland by the Crown Office and the Procurator Fiscal Service, with taxpayers being hit with a £51million and rising compensation bill with every penny being taken from front-line services.
A senior police officer who abused his power resigned, and a sheriff who abused his power is also resigning. Sturgeon and Yousaf the Cabinet Secretary for Justice remain silent on a scandal that contaminates Scottish justice.
Identity politics
During the 2023 SNP leadership contest, Guido Fawkes did some digging around in Yousaf’s past votes in Holyrood which betray what he was saying on the campaign trail.
On February 22 that year, Guido told us about Yousaf’s absence from a 2014 vote on gay marriage (red emphases his):
Humza Yousaf has become the frontrunner in the SNP leadership race. The Scottish Health Secretary has been quick to present himself as a champion of the LGBT community – in contrast to his nearest rival – and the SNP has lapped it up. In the past, Humza’s support hasn’t always been so forthcoming.
In 2014 Yousaf didn’t turn up for the pivotal vote to legalise gay marriage. He claims this was due to an unavoidable meeting with Pakistan General Consul about a Scot on death row – a meeting he booked 19 days prior, just two days after he was told the date he would need to attend the historic gay marriage vote. Surely unrelated to the fact Glasgow imams, an influential voice within his constituency, opposed the reform.
Guido concluded:
Humza has also previously voiced his support for Imran Khan – the populist former Prime Minister of Pakistan who banned gay dating app grindr. It seems his unequivocal LGBT support only extends as far as it’s politically expedient…
On February 25, Guido posted the reason why Yousaf missed the 2014 vote, which came from Alex Neil, an MSP who remembers, via Times Radio:
We were having a free vote at stage three.. and any minister who wasn’t going to vote for the bill, or we wanted to skip the vote, had to get the permission of the first minister to do so. There was a request from Humza, because, in his words, of pressure he was under from the mosque for him to be absent from the vote. And Alex Salmond, the first minister, gave him permission to do that. And a ministerial meeting was arranged to take place at exactly the same time as the vote in Glasgow to give Humza cover for not being there. Now, I’m not saying Humza was against the bill or anything like that because he wasn’t, he had voted at stage one, but because he had voted in stage one, in his words, he was put under pressure by his words, put under pressure by the leaders of the mosque in Glasgow about the possibility he might vote for it at stage three, and he requested to skip and he was skipped and the meeting was arranged deliberately to give him cover for the timing of the vote. That’s all I’m saying. But the key point is, Kate, on the one hand has been brutally honest to her own cost, brutally honest about what her honest opinion is. Humza I don’t think has been so upfront. And I think he should just be honest, that he skipped a vote and the reasons why he skipped the vote, because I think what people want in this campaign is openness and transparency and honesty. And when I was asked the question, is it true that he skipped the vote, I’ve given the correct answer the true answer, he did skip the vote.
Afterwards, CaltonJock says that Yousaf posted a spurious explanation on Twitter:
“Meeting Pakistan Consul discussing Scot on death row accused under Blasphemy Law not one could/want avoid.” But Mr Ashgar was sentenced to death for blasphemy eight days after the meeting meaning his “death row” status was not known at the time the meeting was set up.
Yousaf’s pandemic as Health Minister
CaltonJock tells us about Yousaf’s time managing the pandemic as Health and Social Care Minister:
He disappointed the public with his response to the Covid pandemic with a botched attempt to grab a headline when he announced that ten children up to the age of nine had been admitted to Scottish hospitals in the previous week “because of Covid”.
Professor Steve Turner, Scotland officer for the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, contradicted him and said that children’s wards were “not seeing a rise in cases with Covid” and added that the children in question had been hospitalised for other reasons.
Yousaf apologised for causing “any undue alarm”.
When the WHO declared Scotland the site of six out of ten European coronavirus hotspots:
The Scottish Government was accused of being ‘missing in action’ after it emerged that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Deputy First Minister John Swinney and Yousaf himself were all away on holiday at the time.
Yousaf said he had promised to take his stepdaughter to Harry Potter World, tweeting that: “Most important job I have is being a good father, step-father & husband to my wife and kids”.
Half a million facemasks had to be withdrawn under his tenure because they were past their expiry date:
This represented, conservatively, a possible waste of public funds to the tune of £4.5Million, money that might have been spent on employing 130 nurses for a year.
And there is no hard evidence that a single life has been saved by the use of these masks; in fact, the very lack of PR by politicians or health executives since their unveiling suggests strongly that there have been no patient – or staff – benefits whatsoever.
However, perhaps not all blame can be laid at Yousaf’s feet. Professor Jason Leitch, Scotland’s National Clinical Director, gave some strange advice about mask wearing.
Considering that Scotland had some of the strictest pandemic rules in the UK, Leitch told Yousaf that masks were not needed as long as one was carrying a drink.
On January 23, 2024, The Telegraph reported on what emerged at Britain’s coronavirus inquiry that day:
Mr Yousaf said he knew that he did not have to wear a mask when seated but did not know the rules around whether he needed one when “standing talking to folk”, despite being the health secretary.
Prof Leitch replied: “Officially yes. But literally no one does. Have a drink in your hands at ALL times. Then you’re exempt. So if someone comes over and you stand, lift your drink.”
Jamie Dawson KC, counsel to the inquiry, challenged Prof Leitch that he was advising Mr Yousaf how to avoid the SNP government’s own rules using a “workaround”.
He asked: “If the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care didn’t understand the rules, what chance did anybody else have?”
Prof Leitch said it was a “tricky area” and argued that the advice “follows the rules” as people were allowed to stand and talk without a mask if they were drinking.
However, Mr Dawson said: “You told him to have a drink in his hands at all times whether he was drinking it or not.”
Then there were all the deleted WhatsApp messages from the pandemic months:
Prof Leitch also claimed he did not delete his messages every night as he had told colleagues in a WhatsApp group.
He was shown a message where he said that “WhatsApp deletion is a pre-bed ritual” but told the hearing it was a “slightly flippant” comment …
The inquiry was later shown another message where he urged colleagues to delete messages.
On Sept 30 2020, he told members of a WhatsApp group: “Thanks all…and my usual gentle reminder to delete your chat…particularly after we reach a conclusion. Thanks all…”
He said it was not his intention to avoid messages being obtained under Freedom of Information laws but admitted using the auto-delete function in one group chat.
The Ukranian women
On March 16, 2023, during the SNP leadership campaign, Yousaf met with a group of Ukranian women, refugees in Scotland.
Amazingly, he asked them where the men were. They politely explained that their men were back home fighting the Russians:
The Mail had more on the story:
Ukrainian men who are of military age are largely forbidden to leave the country as the war with Russia continues. This means that the majority of the displaced Ukrainians arriving elsewhere in Europe are women, children or the elderly.
Mr Yousaf told the BBC a number of Ukrainian men were elsewhere in the building when he made the remark. He said in an interview later: ‘They of course were rightly saying to me that for many of them their families are not able to make it, not all of their families are able to make it. I don’t think any of the women were at all offended or upset.‘
But opposition parties tore into the gaffe this afternoon, with Scottish Labour’s deputy leader Jackie Baillie saying: ‘This is further evidence that Humza Yousaf is out of his depth. This is embarrassing.’
The Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton added: ‘From the man who would lead Scotland, this is clumsy and insensitive.
‘Many of these women could have male relatives fighting and dying on the Eastern front, defending not just Ukraine but the free democracies of our world. A worrying lack of awareness on display here.’
Yousaf as SNP leader and First Minister
On Monday, March 27, 2023, Humza Yousaf became SNP leader and Scotland’s First Minister.
Guido gave us the vote tally — a Brexit result of 52% to 48%. Amazing:
Humza Yousaf 52.1%
Kate Forbes 47.9%
Yousaf wins, 52% to 48%. The golden ratio…
Indeed.
That night, Dan Wootton, who was still on GB News, called Yousaf ‘woke’ and ‘useless’ in his editorial (full show available):
Two days later, Yousaf appointed his first cabinet. Guido noted:
Humza has added “NHS Recovery” to the Health Secretary title, presumably to reflect the urgent care it needs after his own tenure leading that department…
SNP issues
The SNP have had an unresolved financial scandal which first came to light a few weeks before the May 2021 election.
Nicola Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell, the Party’s executive, was arrested in connection with it on April 5, 2023.
That day, Guido told us that Yousaf had heaped praise on Murrell in the past:
With the news of Peter Murrell’s arrest breaking this morning, spare a thought for Humza Yousaf. Murrell wasn’t just a “proven election winner” for Humza’s party, he was also a “close acquaintance” of the First Minister. Just weeks ago, Yousaf was mulling over plans to keep him in post as the SNP’s exec, saying “anyone that doesn’t want a proven winner on their side, particularly in politics, I think that would be a little bit daft”. Yousaf’s praise for Murrell didn’t end there, he said the arrested SNP chief executive had done “more for our party and our movement than just about anybody else”. Clearly a great loss to the independence cause.
A few days later, Scottish police seized an SNP-owned motorhome vehicle which had been parked at Murrell’s mother’s house for well over a year. The Party had never used it for official purposes.
On April 11, it emerged that the SNP had been without auditors for six months.
Guido told us:
The SNP’s new era of “transparency” and “respect” is off to a roaring start under Humza Yousaf, who today claimed he had no prior knowledge that the party he now leads hasn’t had an auditor for the past six months. The same Humza Yousaf who sat practically an elbow’s length away from Nicola Sturgeon at the cabinet table while this was going on.
Following this morning’s news that Johnston Carmichael mysteriously quit as the SNP’s auditors “round about October“, Yousaf said:
“They resigned last year. I think it was in and and about October last year. But the fact that we don’t have auditors in place is one of the major priorities. You can imagine when I found that out, being the party leader, the party is quickly looking to secure another auditor […] When I learned about the fact that we don’t have an auditor in place, of course I’ve instructed the party to get on with finding another auditor, so we are working very hard to do that […] It’s certainly problematic. I won’t deny that at all.”
He added the situation was “extraordinary“, which is hard to disagree with. Extraordinary as it may be, Peter Murrell is nonetheless still a party member. Despite spending almost 12 hours in police custody last week…
On April 13, Guido posted a quote from Yousaf on the auditor situation; he claimed not to have known about it. Hmm:
Frankly, it would have been helpful to know beforehand…
Then the Party’s treasurer Colin Beattie was arrested in connection with the unresolved financial scandal.
On April 18, Guido reported the following, accompanied by a third-party video:
First Minister Humza Yousaf has spoken publicly for the first time since his party’s Treasurer Colin Beattie was arrested in connection with the SNP finance investigation. Yousaf is about to give a speech outlining his “priorities” for the Scottish government going forward, which he admits have been, erm, undermined somewhat by yet another arrest…
Yousaf said:
It’s clearly a very serious matter indeed, I’ve said already people are innocent until proven guilty… Of course I’m surprised that one of my colleagues has been arrested, but it’s a very serious matter indeed… it’s certainly is not helpful, of course… I’m not going to take away from the fact that the timing of this is far from ideal.
Guido concluded:
Yousaf stressed he does not believe the SNP is a “criminal operation“. This is where we are now. Colin Beattie, like Peter Murrell, still hasn’t been suspended from the party…
And, finally, on matters political, Margaret Ferrier, an SNP MP, had to stand down for violating coronavirus rules at the height of the pandemic. This was a parliamentary decision that was three years overdue; the process is the punishment.
As a result, a by-election took place in her constituency of Rutherglen and Hamilton West, which had a long tradition of voting Labour.
On the day of the by-election, October 5, Yousaf took his frustration out on Douglas Ross, an MP, an MSP and the leader of the Scottish Conservatives. The Presiding Officer demanded an apology from Yousaf.
Guido has the story and the video:
Humza Yousaf is obviously feeling the pressure from today’s Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election. This afternoon the First Minister went on an manic rant at Douglas Ross, accusing the Scottish Conservatives leader of “post-truth […] lies“, and repeatedly refusing to apologise despite the demands of Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone. You can tell that by-election is on a knife-edge…
I know Douglas Ross, despite having three or four or five jobs – I’ve lost count, Presiding Officer – was down at the Conservative Party Conference this week. Or as others have rightly dubbed it, the conspiracy party conference […] His post-truth, his lies about the police service, it simply will not wash here in Scotland.
After three demands for an apology, Yousaf finally relented, claiming he was “happy to apologise to the chamber for any offence“. Which is not quite the personal apology Johnstone demanded…
Yousaf was worried about the SNP holding the seat, and he was right so to be. Labour’s Michael Shanks won.
There’s still a little bit more to the Humza Yousaf story. More on that tomorrow.
On Thursday, April 25, 2024, the coalition government between Scotland’s Scottish National Party (SNP) and Scottish Greens dissolved.
Guido Fawkes reported (red emphases his):
Humza Yousaf has called an emergency cabinet meeting this morning to scrap his governing deal with the Scottish Greens. The SNP agreed to run the government with the Greens, who have seven seats, in 2021 under the Bute House [the First Minister’s stately residence, Edinburgh] agreement. They will now run a minority government with 63 MSPs…
The SNP scrapped its own target to cut emissions by 75% by 2030 to widespread ridicule as the Greens promised a vote to its members on whether to keep the Bute House deal going. Humza Yousaf said this week that SNP members weren’t to be given a say because they “already had a vote” on it years before. Hilarious…
Scottish Green members would have voted overwhelmingly to ditch the SNP while their politicians were still pretty keen to stay in power. Leaving Yousaf with one option…
That day, Scottish Conservatives brought forward a vote of no confidence in Yousaf’s leadership to be debated this week. Scottish Labour raised a similar vote, one in the SNP government.
Guido added:
UPDATE II: The Scottish Greens have signalled they will support the Tories’ motion of no confidence. The end is in sight…
Ultimately, because the coalition was dissolved, the two top Greens, Lorna Slater (a Canadian) and Patrick Harvie, lost their Scottish government roles.
An STV article published that day explained the reason for the collapse of the coalition (bold in the original, purple emphases mine):
The Scottish Greens have attacked Humza Yousaf as “weak and thoroughly hopeless” after he ended the Bute House Agreement in a surprise move on Thursday morning.
Co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater met with the First Minister at Bute House in Edinburgh where they both lost their jobs as government ministers.
In a furious statement, the Greens said the SNP “can’t be trusted” and accused the party of “betrayal”.
Speaking to journalists in Holyrood, Harvie, who served as minister for decarbonising buildings, tenants’ rights and active travel, suggested the SNP would no longer be in government by Christmas.
Let us remind ourselves via this Daily Mail article of Lorna Slater’s lack of interest in the environment. She preferred being driven around by a chauffeur:
After the 2021 Scottish election, the SNP, then under Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership, did not win enough votes for a majority government, hence the coalition with the Greens:
The Bute House Agreement was signed by Nicola Sturgeon and the Green leaders in 2021 and was continued into Yousaf’s premiership.
It saw the two parties agree on a raft of policies, from climate change to housing and gender reforms.
But the scrapping of the 2030 climate targets and the Scottish Government’s reaction to the Cass Report – which prompted the NHS to pause puberty blockers – put the two parties at odds.
The Greens were due to vote on ending the Bute House Agreement in the next month.
The party accused the SNP of selling out future generations by walking away from the deal.
“This is an act of political cowardice by the SNP, who are selling out future generations to appease the most reactionary forces in the country,” co-leader Lorna Slater said.
“Voters deserve better, Scotland deserves better. Scottish Green voters certainly deserve better.
“They have broken the bonds of trust with members of both parties who have twice chosen the cooperation agreement and climate action over chaos, culture wars and division. They have betrayed the electorate.
“And by ending the agreement in such a weak and thoroughly hopeless way, Humza Yousaf has signalled that when it comes to political cooperation, he can no longer be trusted.”
Harvie accused Yousaf of caving in to:
“backwards forces” in his party.
Scottish Labour are no fans of the SNP government, either:
In response to the end of the powersharing deal, Scottish Labour deputy leader Dame Jackie Baillie said: “This chaotic and incompetent Government is falling apart before our eyes.
“Humza Yousaf is too weak to hold his own Government together and he is too weak to deliver for Scotland.”
Everything is going down the pan: schools, NHS waiting lists and drug deaths, to name but a few pressing socio-economic issues.
Here is a full list of SNP failures that someone posted online:
Ahh, everything started out so promisingly on Yousaf’s first night in Bute House, March 28, 2023, when he won the leadership contest:
Six months later, Time put him on the cover as one of their ten ‘trailblazers shaping the future’. You can say that again:
It all depends on what way one considers ‘shaping the future’. For better or for worse?
Certainly, Time has made mistakes before, such as with its 1938 cover boy from Weimar Germany. Josef Stalin also adorned the magazine’s cover twice not so many years afterwards.
Returning to Edinburgh, however, the wheels started coming off Yousaf’s government in the way that he came off his scooter during the pandemic at one point. (Nicola Sturgeon was still First Minister at the time.) He took his scooter to navigate the halls of Holyrood because of a leg injury. The Sun covered what happened one day on his way to a debate:
Over the past weekend, nearly everyone thought that he would resign on Monday, April 29, rather than face a vote of no confidence.
That morning, the BBC reported:
He has arrived at Bute House in Edinburgh, the first minister’s official residence, for a press conference at 12:00.
The SNP leader has been under pressure since he ended a power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens last week.
Opposition parties in the Scottish Parliament had tabled two confidence votes – one in the first minister and another in the SNP government …
He had written to Scotland’s opposition parties asking them to find “common ground” ahead of the confidence votes.
The first minister’s decision to end the Bute House Agreement – the power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens – followed a backlash over the SNP scrapping 2030 climate targets and gender policies.
The article explained the politics behind Yousaf’s attempt to survive as First Minister:
The SNP has 63 MSPs in the 129 seat parliament. If the seven Green MSPs vote against him, he is reliant on support from sole Alba party MSP [formerly an SNP MSP], Ash Regan, to continue in his role.
Ash Regan had run against Yousaf in the 2023 leadership contest.
It sounded as if talks with Alba, led by former Westminster MP and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, took place at the weekend:
Mr Yousaf, the MSP for Glasgow Pollok, has reportedly ruled out cutting a deal with Alba, a pro-independence party formed by former First Minister Alex Salmond after he broke from the SNP.
Alba’s support would lead to a 64:64 tied vote in which case the presiding officer would be expected to vote to maintain the status quo.
The article went on to say:
The motion of no confidence in him personally is not binding, but if he lost he would come under intense pressure to step down.
If he lost the government vote, MSPs would have 28 days to vote for a new first minister or automatically trigger a Scottish Parliament election.
Scottish Labour has said the motion of no-confidence in the Scottish government would remain tabled even if Mr Yousaf resigns.
Douglas Ross, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, said Mr Yousaf had “jumped before being pushed” by the no confidence vote which they had tabled …
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton declined an offer of talks with Mr Yousaf over the weekend and called for him to resign.
And, lo, at noon, Humza Yousaf announced his resignation:
Guido has a video clip of Yousaf’s resignation speech:
However, he is not going anywhere until a leadership contest has taken place.
Guido says:
After a whopping 397 days as First Minister Humza Yousaf is resigning. At least he managed to last over a year, just…
Humza said he “underestimated the level of hurt” he would cause by ending the Bute House agreement in the way he did. What exactly did he expect?
Humza spent the weekend realising he couldn’t do a deal with Salmond and someone else had to try to keep the ship going. Salmond says he was still trying at 7:30 a.m. today. He will remain FM rather than passing to his deputy Shona Robinson until a leadership election is completed. Sturgeon’s deputy John Swinney is keeping tight-lipped…
Another BBC report told us more about the proposed votes of no confidence which, as I understand it, must be debated before MSPs vote on them:
Mr Yousaf had been facing two motions of no confidence this week, one tabled by the Scottish Conservatives in his own leadership as first minister and another from Scottish Labour on the government as a whole.
The timing of the votes has not yet been confirmed by parliament and it was unclear whether Mr Yousaf’s announcement will lead to either being pulled.
Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross told BBC News that Mr Yousaf should have quit with immediate effect and that his party’s motion of no confidence could still go ahead.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said he would wait to see how the week “plays out” but that the “principle” of his party’s no confidence motion in the government “still stands”.
If it passed, government ministers would be obliged to stand down. Only a simple majority would be required, meaning the number of members voting for would have to be greater than those opposed.
The parliament would then have 28 days to choose a nominee for first minister. If it was unable to do so, the parliament would be dissolved for an election.
The SNP currently have 63 MSPs, meaning they could be defeated if all MSPs from other parties voted against them.
However, the Greens are unlikely to vote against Yousaf or the SNP. They consider that his resignation suffices:
… BBC News understands that the Greens, who have seven seats, will not support either of the no-confidence motions following Mr Yousaf’s statement.
In any event, Humza Yousaf will soon be waving goodbye to the opulent Bute House and returning to Dundee, where he and his wife, a local councillor, live with their children.
It will be interesting to see how the leadership contest unfolds, given that there are no candidates worthy of leadership in the Scottish ‘parliament’, or more accurately, a national assembly. Devolved government of the nations outside of England is yet another Tony Blair initiative gone wrong, no matter what way one cuts it.
Churchmouse Campanologist 