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Pentecost Sunday, the Church’s birthday, is May 28, 2023.
Readings for Year A along with other resources for Pentecost can be found here.
There are two Gospel options in Year A. One is an extract — John 20:19-23 — from the Second Sunday of Easter, the Doubting Thomas reading, John 20:19-31.
The other option is from John 7, which follows. Emphases mine below:
John 7:37-39
7:37 On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me,
7:38 and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’”
7:39 Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
This episode in our Lord’s ministry took place less than a year before His crucifixion.
It happened during the week-long Jewish feast of Sukkot, or Booths in the sense of tents or shelters. It is also known as the Feast of Tabernacles.
It commemorates God’s protection of and provision for the Israelites when they spent 40 years in the desert. Because it takes place in the early autumn, it is also a harvest feast and a time of great joy.
On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out that anyone who thirsts should come to Him and let those who believe drink, for Scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’ (verses 37, 38).
As is so often the case, there is much to examine in so few verses.
Matthew Henry’s commentary summarises what happened on the final day of Sukkot, the festival’s culmination:
… it was a custom of the Jews, which they received by tradition, the last day of the feast of tabernacles to have a solemnity, which they called Libatio aquæ—The pouring out of water. They fetched a golden vessel of water from the pool of Siloam, brought it into the temple with sound of trumpet and other ceremonies, and, upon the ascent to the altar, poured it out before the Lord with all possible expressions of joy.
John MacArthur has more:
At this feast, they celebrated the wilderness wanderings for 40 years when they lived in tents and booths and temporary housing that they moved as they migrated around the wilderness for those four decades. During that period of time, God protected them, preserved them, gave them food and drink. Finally, that ended with a generation dying and a few entering into the land of promise, the Canaan land, and the birth of the nation of Israel.
To commemorate God’s preservation of that nation during those years of wandering, God instituted in Leviticus 23, a feast, an annual feast of remembrance around the time of the Fall [autumn].
They were in that feast. It’s a week-long, and now it’s the last day. That’s very very important. The last day. Very significant. Let me tell you why. Every day of the feast, there was a ritual that was repeated. As far as we can tell from history, it was repeated every day. And this is what happened. Based on Leviticus 23:40, the instruction is this: that the people, the worshippers who celebrate the feast are to take the fruit of good trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook – several different kinds of trees. They are to get the branches. That’s Leviticus 23. They are to take the branches, and they are to use those branches to create booths to commemorate the wilderness wandering and the temporary housing remembering the goodness of God. That had developed into a very very special kind of ritual.
The Pharisees had instructed the people to all bring their branches, at each particular time of every day during the feast, to the main altar and to surround that altar and put up their boughs and their branches to create a kind of makeshift covering over the altar. This was in the temple area. Every day of the festival, thousands upon thousands, tens of thousands of people were there, and they would come, and they would create this covering of palm branches, willow branches, and other kinds of thick trees. They would form this kind of covering around the altar. The altar is then in the midst of this covering with all these people surrounding it – those holding the branches and those beyond. The high priest would then go to the Pool of Siloam by prescription. And he had a golden pitcher in his hand, and he would dip it in the water of the Pool of Siloam. And he would come back, and he would pour the water out on the altar as a remembrance of God providing the waters for the people of Israel at Meribah out of the rock.
And when he poured the water, historians tell us, the people were required – by the way, he came back through the water gate, which was so named because people brought water through it. So he would come back through the water gate, and historians tell us the people recite Isaiah 12:3. Isaiah 12:3 says, “With joy, shall we draw water out of the wells of salvation.” “With joy, shall we draw water out of the wells of salvation.”
So the whole ceremony remembers the wilderness wandering. It remembers the water provided there, but it’s all symbolic of God’s salvation, his deliverance of Israel temporarily during those 40 years – is merely a remembrance of God as a saving God who delivers his people and should remind them of soul salvation. The water, then, comes to the altar in the hand of the priest. It is poured out. And when it is poured out, and the people have recited the passage from Isaiah, they were required then to sing the Hallel. The Levitical choir would start the Hallel is sung 113-118. Hallel from which we get “Hallelujah,” hymns of praise. They would sing Psalms 113-118. So that’s the scene … it was the most celebratory of all the Jewish feasts.
So the whole dramatic ceremony is a vivid thanksgiving for God’s salvation of his people and protection and preservation and deliverance of his people in the wilderness wandering and how he supplied water for them. They also added to the celebration a prayer for more water that God would send rain. Now what makes this especially important on the last day, is that on the last day, before pouring out the water, the people marched around the altar seven times. Why? To commemorate the march around what city? The city of Jericho because that spelled the end of the wilderness wandering.
Jesus, ever obedient to Jewish law, was present. He issued an open invitation to everyone there. He stood and cried out in issuing it.
Henry explains our Lord’s intent in crying out:
Jesus stood and cried, which denotes, (1.) His great earnestness and importunity. His heart was upon it, to bring poor souls in to himself. The erection of his body and the elevation of his voice were indications of the intenseness of his mind. Love to souls will make preachers lively. (2.) His desire that all might take notice, and take hold of this invitation. He stood, and cried, that he might the better be heard; for this is what every one that hath ears is concerned to hear.
Henry discusses the importance of seizing the opportunity to pass a message onto a crowd:
Now on this day Christ published this gospel-call, because (1.) Much people were gathered together, and, if the invitation were given to many, it might be hoped that some would accept of it, Prov 1 20. Numerous assemblies give opportunity of doing the more good. (2.) The people were now returning to their homes, and he would give them this to carry away with them as his parting word. When a great congregation is to be dismissed, and is about to scatter, as here, it is affecting to think that in all probability they will never come all together again in this world, and therefore, if we can say or do any thing to help them to heaven, that must be the time. It is good to be lively at the close of an ordinance. Christ made this offer on the last day of the feast. [1.] To those who had turned a deaf ear to his preaching on the foregoing days of this sacred week; he will try them once more, and, if they will yet hear his voice, they shall live. [2.] To those who perhaps might never have such another offer made them, and therefore were concerned to accept of this; it would be half a year before there would be another feast, and in that time they would many of them be in their graves. Behold now is the accepted time.
Both commentators call our attention to the openness of His invitation.
Henry says:
The invitation itself is very general: If any man thirst, whoever he be, he is invited to Christ, be he high or low, rich or poor, young or old, bond or free, Jew or Gentile. It is also very gracious: “If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. If any man desires to be truly and eternally happy, let him apply himself to me, and be ruled by me, and I will undertake to make him so.”
MacArthur says:
There will be another one in chapter 8. There will be a number of invitations right on down to the very end of his ministry. In fact, I doubt whether a day went by in his ministry in which he didn’t invite people to salvation, to the Kingdom, to the forgiveness of sin and eternal life. There was likely not a day that he didn’t invite people to believe in him, to confess him as Lord and Savior, and receive the salvation that comes only through him.
Earlier on, John’s Gospel gives us another of our Lord’s invitations to living water, which He made to the Samaritan woman at the well, John 4:5-42:
4:10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
4:11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?
4:12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?”
4:13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,
4:14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
MacArthur reminds us:
You will also remember in chapter 6 as he was speaking of himself as the “bread of life.” He encouraged people to eat this bread and to drink as well. In a land where water was scarce, a very dry land, water was a great commodity to express the work of salvation, the benefit of salvation to a thirsty soul. So this is a striking invitation. There was a context for the woman at the well. There was a real well and real water, and he played off of that to talk about the water that will satisfy a soul. And that soul will never thirst again. Here again, there is a context for the analogy of water …
MacArthur says that Jesus chose a powerful moment to issue His invitation here:
It is on that day, at that moment, when they are all celebrating the deliverance and the salvation of God – with that as a backdrop, and perhaps – can’t be certain – but perhaps, in the quiet moment when the festival reaches its apex and the priest takes the golden pitcher and pours the water, it is perhaps at that moment that Jesus says, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come and drink. Let him come to me.” Jesus dramatically captures the moment – turns it to himself. He must have positioned himself in the right place.
We read in verse 37 that he “cried out.” There’s that ekrazen again that strong word for yelling at the top of his voice. He wants to be heard. And in the drama of that moment, no doubt, he picked a moment when everybody was sort of holding their breath at the drama of the celebration. Jesus says, “‘You are thankful to God for water in the wilderness – water that satisfied the thirst of your forefathers. Come to me for water that quenches your soul.’” Your soul. You understand again, in a land where there’s so little water, how much water symbolized satisfaction – a necessity for life. So Jesus uses that analogy now for the third time really in the Gospel of John.
MacArthur discusses the elements of this invitation and their importance:
In the words that he says at that moment, there are three actions: “thirst,” “come,” “drink.” Three verbs. They really generally correspond to what the Medieval Latin fathers used to call notitia, fiducia, and assensus, the three elements necessary for saving faith. “Thirst,” that is the knowledge of the problem, the knowledge of the alienation, the knowledge of the deprivation, the knowledge of the condition and understanding of its implications, and including a knowledge of the source of water. Then “come,” that’s fiducia. That’s trust. And then “drink,” that’s assent.
Let’s kind of break those down a little bit. It’s pretty simple. The first tells of a recognized need: thirst. Thirst. Notice the general open invitation “If anyone is thirsty.” “If anyone is thirsty.” “If anyone is thirsty.” The invitations of Jesus were always unlimited. They were always universal. They were always open-ended. “‘If anyone is thirsty, come unto me all you who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.’” God told of the world that he gave his only begotten son that “whosoever believes shall not perish but have everlasting life.” Here again is another one of those invitations. “If you are thirsty.” Thirst is a craving. Thirst is a conscious craving. It’s something we know about. It’s something we’re fully aware of. We feel it, and the more thirst increases, the more anxious a person becomes. In fact, there can actually be a kind of madness that sets in if you cannot get a drink as you become more and more seriously thirsty.
What’s he talking about? He’s talking about a thirsty soul. A longing for deliverance, longing for hope, longing for peace, longing for forgiveness, for salvation, for liberation from the power of sin. If you are thirsting – anyone who is thirsting – anyone whose soul is parched, that’s where it all starts. It starts with that craving. Then the consciousness, the acute consciousness of that craving.
People come to Christ because they’re thirsty. Do you understand that? Because their souls are empty. That’s why when you do Evangelism, you don’t start with “come to Christ.” You start with the recognition of the desperate situation the sinner is in and try to help him understand that. So that’s where it all begins with thirst. Like the Philippian jailer who said, “What must I do to be saved?” That’s a thirsty soul crying out.
The second verb – the second action is “come.” It signifies the approach to him. “‘If any man will come after me” – Luke 9:23. Seeing him as the only source of soul satisfying, nourishing, living water. Come. Come to me. Come to Christ. It means, with all your heart and with all your will, you come to him. If he were here, you would do it with your feet, but he’s not here; you do it with your heart and your mind. If he were here, you would come and stand before him in your thirst. And you would fall on your knees, and you would cry out for him to give you the living water as the only source.
Spiritually speaking, it is to move toward Jesus Christ as the only source of your need. Turn your back on the world. Abandon your sin. Abandon your self-confidence. Cast your self at the feet of incarnate grace and truth in Christ. That’s “come.” No one else you can come to? He is the way, the truth, and the life. You come to him. You come to him alone. Let me remind you the only qualification is thirst – not morality, not religiosity, not good works, not being a benevolent person, not being “a basically good person.” There is no qualification like that. The only qualification is that you are thirsty. And very often, benevolent, basically good people, religious people, moral people don’t feel the thirst. That’s why when Jesus came, all the moral, religious people hated him. And it was the sinners and tax collectors and outcasts that came. It’s the thirsty that come. Nowhere else to go but him? He is the only one who can satisfy the soul.
Thirdly, “drink.” Drink means to appropriate – to appropriate. A river flowing through the parched valley doesn’t do any good unless you drink. Drinking means to take him, receive him, make him your own, embrace him. As he said to the woman at the well in John 4:14, “‘Drink, and you’ll never thirst.’” As he said in John 6, “‘You must eat and drink of me, my life, and my death.’” A songwriter wrote, “I heard the voice of Jesus say, ‘Behold, I freely give the living water, thirsty one. Stoop down, and drink, and live. I came to Jesus and I drank of that life-giving stream. My thirst was quenched. My soul revived, and now I live in him.’” That’s a sentiment that every Christian can understand. I came; I drank; I took Christ in.
All of that is simply a way to break out what it means to believe.
Then there is belief itself, which Jesus mentioned next (verse 38):
… this may be the most remarkable part about this invitation. Look at verse 38: “‘He who believes in me, as the Scripture said,’” and by the way, he collects from several verses in Isaiah and even makes reference to Ezekiel 37, a kind of composite statement, “‘as the Scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” Let me give you a simple analogy. This water that flows to you when you come to Christ comes into your life doesn’t stay in you. You’re not a bucket. You’re not a reservoir. It goes through you. You are a fountain that becomes a river. Really amazing statement. Not only do we drink and have our soul thirst forever quenched, but we become the fountain and the river of living water to others as it flows from us.
Verse 38 talks about the impact of a believer on the world. It’s thrilling. We receive soul-refreshing spiritual water, which is really an analogy for spiritual life, eternal life, with all of its elements and components meaning conversion, redemption, justification, sanctification, adoption, everything. We receive all that – a constant spring of pure, cleansing water of life in us, sanctifying us, making us more like Christ. But at the same time, and the real key here is, we become a fountain that turns into a river for the world. The blessed one becomes the blessor. The recipient of sovereign grace becomes the channel of sovereign grace. And in not a trickle, but a gushing river.
This is just an amazing statement about how much your life matters … When you think about who matters in society, Christians matter because they are a saver of life unto life. They’re the fountain and river of living water that flows to the world. The results and people being redeemed and taken to eternal glory. That matters.
Therefore, MacArthur says that these invitations are more than historical episodes from our Lord’s ministry. They raise questions for us as well:
… I want to talk just a little bit about the matter of this invitation to begin with. Admiring Jesus, being impressed by Jesus, watching Jesus from afar, saying kind things about him is insufficient. It puts a person, in the end, in the same Hell as the people who hated Jesus, who hate him now, who reject him, who were guilty of his death even in Jerusalem at the Crucifixion. Admiring Jesus is not sufficient to grant eternal life. Some kind of superficial commendation of Jesus is not enough. The question is: what will you do with his invitations? What will you do with his invitations?
How were the people at the Sukkot celebration — and how are we — going to become that gushing river of water?
John explains that Jesus was speaking of the Holy Spirit, which believers then were to receive at the first Pentecost, although, when Jesus issued that invitation, the Spirit would not yet be with everyone, because our Lord had not yet been glorified (verse 39) through His death, resurrection and ascension.
Henry gives us this analysis:
Observe,
(1.) It is promised to all that believe on Christ that they shall receive the Holy Ghost. Some received his miraculous gifts (Mark 16 17, 18); all receive his sanctifying graces. The gift of the Holy Ghost is one of the great blessings promised in the new covenant (Acts 2 39), and, if promised, no doubt performed to all that have an interest in that covenant.
(2.) The Spirit dwelling and working in believers is as a fountain of living running water, out of which plentiful streams flow, cooling and cleansing as water, mollifying and moistening as water, making them fruitful, and others joyful; see ch. 3 5. When the apostles spoke so fluently of the things of God, as the Spirit gave them utterance (Acts 2 4), and afterwards preached and wrote the gospel of Christ with such a flood of divine eloquence, then this was fulfilled, Out of his belly shall flow rivers.
(3.) This plentiful effusion of the Spirit was yet the matter of a promise; for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. See here [1.] That Jesus was not yet glorified. It was certain that he should be glorified, and he was ever worthy of all honour; but he was as yet in a state of humiliation and contempt. He had never forfeited the glory he had before all worlds, nay, he had merited a further glory, and, besides his hereditary honours, might claim the achievement of a mediatorial crown; and yet all this is in reversion. Jesus is now upheld (Isa 42 1), is now satisfied (Isa 53 11), is now justified (1 Tim 3 16), but he is not yet glorified. And, if Christ must wait for his glory, let not us think it much to wait for ours. [2.] That the Holy Ghost was not yet given. oupo gar hen pneuma—for the Holy Ghost was not yet. The Spirit of God was from eternity, for in the beginning he moved upon the face of the waters. He was in the Old-Testament prophets and saints, and Zacharias and Elisabeth were both filled with the Holy Ghost. This therefore must be understood of the eminent, plentiful, and general effusion of the Spirit which was promised, Joel 2 28, and accomplished, Acts 2 1, etc. The Holy Ghost was not yet given in that visible manner that was intended. If we compare the clear knowledge and strong grace of the disciples of Christ themselves, after the day of Pentecost, with their darkness and weakness before, we shall understand in what sense the Holy Ghost was not yet given; the earnests and first-fruits of the Spirit were given, but the full harvest was not yet come. That which is most properly called the dispensation of the Spirit did not yet commence. The Holy Ghost was not yet given in such rivers of living water as should issue forth to water the whole earth, even the Gentile world, not in the gifts of tongues, to which perhaps this promise principally refers. [3.] That the reason why the Holy Ghost was not given was because Jesus was not yet glorified. First, The death of Christ is sometimes called his glorification (ch. 13 31); for in his cross he conquered and triumphed. Now the gift of the Holy Ghost was purchased by the blood of Christ: this was the valuable consideration upon which the grant was grounded, and therefore till this price was paid (though many other gifts were bestowed upon its being secured to be paid) the Holy Ghost was not given. Secondly, There was not so much need of the Spirit, while Christ himself was here upon earth, as there was when he was gone, to supply the want of him. Thirdly, The giving of the Holy Ghost was to be both an answer to Christ’s intercession (ch. 14 16), and an act of his dominion; and therefore till he is glorified, and enters upon both these, the Holy Ghost is not given. Fourthly, The conversion of the Gentiles was the glorifying of Jesus. When certain Greeks began to enquire after Christ, he said, Now is the Son of man glorified, ch. 12 23. Now the time when the gospel should be propagated in the nations was not yet come, and therefore there was as yet no occasion for the gift of tongues, that river of living water. But observe, though the Holy Ghost was not yet given, yet he was promised; it was now the great promise of the Father, Acts 1 4. Though the gifts of Christ’s grace are long deferred, yet they are well secured: and, while we are waiting for the good promise, we have the promise to live upon, which shall speak and shall not lie.
MacArthur says:
… verse 39 is a prophecy. He spoke of the spirit “whom those who believed in him were to receive” for the Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. The Holy Spirit couldn’t come until Jesus was glorified, ascended into Heaven. Then he sent the Holy Spirit, and … when the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost – launched the church. And then the river on the inside began to flow to the world. And it happened instantaneously because immediately on the day of Pentecost, all those Galileans who didn’t know those multiple languages began to speak the wonderful works of God in all kinds of gentile languages as the river began to flow.
… Rivers of blessing begin to pour out of those believers early in Pentecost. Peter preaches, the river starts, and 3000 people are saved. They preach again; another 4000 are saved. Tens of thousands are being saved. In Jerusalem, it extends to Samaria, and we’re still living the history today. The river is unleashed on the world through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit can make the river flow. He’s the power behind all witness – all witness.
MacArthur concludes:
So Jesus says, “‘For those of you who come to me and drink, you will not only be satisfied, but you will become a river of life to the world.’” That happened seven and a half months later on the day of Pentecost. That is the work of the Holy Spirit. What an amazing invitation to say not only will you have your soul totally satisfied forever with a water that’ll cause you to never thirst again – satisfy you forever, but your life will take on eternal significance. What an amazing invitation. That’s why I say this is the golden invitation of the Gospel of John. Rivers of water, not reserved for super saints or some kind of reservoir but, belonging to all believers all of whom become fountains that turn into rivers. What an invitation.
May all reading this enjoy a blessed Pentecost Sunday.
Eastertide finished the day before Pentecost. Next Sunday is Trinity Sunday. After that, until the first Sunday of Advent, where vestments are worn, celebrants wear green to mark what some denominations call ‘Ordinary Time’. Others designate those Sundays as being ‘after Pentecost’ or ‘after Trinity’.
In his sermon on the first five verses of John 17, John MacArthur explains why the Gospel writer referred to Jesus Christ as the Word.
Excerpts from his 2015 sermon, ‘The Lord’s Greatest Prayer, Part 2’, follow, emphases mine.
As a point of reference, here are the first five verses of John 1 and verse 14:
The Word became flesh
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Here are the first five verses of John 17, our Lord’s prayer — the only one we have — in the Garden of Gethsemane for Himself, for His disciples and for believers to come. These verses comprise the prayer for Himself:
Jesus prays to be glorified
17 After Jesus said this, he looked towards heaven and prayed:
‘Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
MacArthur addresses John’s Gospel, the objective of which is to show our Lord’s deity:
He is the head over all things. The Father literally gave to the Son all authority.
John has told us in chapter 5 that He has authority to judge. He has authority to judge, and He has authority to condemn, and He has authority to exalt. He will catapult the ungodly into eternal punishment, and He will exalt those who belong to Him into the heaven of heavens, and He will provide by His power resurrection bodies for both. He is the One who gives life …
Now we know that that authority that belonged to Him – that sovereign authority over all things, over the entire universe, and particularly over living things, including even spirit beings – that authority was set aside in His incarnation. And He literally came down; humbled Himself as a man, as a servant; became like a slave. He was basically mistreated by the contemporary Jewish authorities of His time. He was executed by the Roman authorities of His time. And He is the One who has authority over all creation, over all humanity, over all that exists, over all that lives. Authority belongs to Him. Authority belongs to Him for a very important reason, and that reason is stated for us back in John 1. Let’s go back to John 1.
That authority belongs to Him because of a statement in verse 4: “In Him was life.” “In Him was life.” That is the foundational identification of God. This is the foundational truth of Christianity. God, the eternal God, is the One who has given life to everything that exists. He didn’t receive life; in Him was life.
Before going into MacArthur’s discussion of Christ as the Word, a relevant passage in Acts 17 — Paul’s brief trip to Athens — tells us that the Greeks worshipped an unknown god, thought to have been the god of creation. As creation is an enduring mystery, this god had no physical attributes but was the greatest of them all:
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: ‘People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship – and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
24 ‘The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 “For in him we live and move and have our being.”[b] As some of your own poets have said, “We are his offspring.”[c]
29 ‘Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone – an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.’
32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, ‘We want to hear you again on this subject.’ 33 At that, Paul left the Council. 34 Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.
MacArthur tells us more about the ‘Word’ and the Greek ‘logos’, which means ‘word, reason or plan’:
“The Word,” meaning Christ, “was with God” in the beginning – “was God,” as evidenced by the fact that He has made everything that exists. Again, I say this is the definitive reality of Christianity.
“The Word” – Why isn’t He called the Lord Jesus Christ? Why does John use “the Word”? Because, among the Greeks there was this very obvious idea that there was an intelligent designer. There was a power; there was a cosmic force. There was massive energy somewhere in the universe, and it was highly intelligent because of the complexity of what it made. It was highly personal because there is personality among human beings. The Greeks were way ahead of the contemporary movement called “intelligent design,” which is a kind of contemporary answer to the foibles and follies of evolution …
Well, you would be one of the Greeks who would say there’s a cosmic force, and energy, and power, and intellect out there that is massive and way beyond us; and they actually called it logos, logos. And to the Jews, logos was the Word of God, the Old Testament; and God revealed Himself through His Word. So John just borrows that term from the Greeks and the Jews and said that “the cosmic force that you talk about, the intelligent designer that you recognize out there, that is the Word, the Word.”
And the Old Testament was God speaking, and now God has spoken through the Word. And then in [John 1] verse 14, he pulls that together by saying, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” The abstract, intelligent mind, power, force that created the entire universe became a man – the Word of God, the Word of God spoken in the Old Testament. Hebrews 1, “God spoke in the past, but has in these last days spoken through His Son.” “The Word became flesh.” That’s Christianity.
Now, the word “became” is very important in verse 14: “The Word became flesh,” ginomai. What does that mean? It means that the Word was now something that it never was before – it “became.” God is immutable. God is pure, eternal being. God is not becoming anything. God does not change. He does not develop. He does not progress. He is eternal, pure being.
But all creatures are becoming. They’re in the process of becoming, changing. Even the incarnate Christ was in the womb, and then out of the womb an infant, and then a toddler, and then a child, and then a young adult, and then a full adult – “maturing in wisdom, and stature, and favor with God and man.” At that point, the second member of the Trinity, the Son of God, became something He never had been. He became something He never had been – He took on the fullness of humanity. He was always God, but He became man ... Charles Wesley’s wonderful words: “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; hail the incarnate Deity, pleased as man with man to dwell; Jesus, our Immanuel [God with us].”
Eternally, God the Son – always God – became something He was not. He became a man “and dwelt among us.” He dwelt among us – not a vision; not an apparition; not some kind of esoteric, dream-like experience. He became a man. “He was made in the likeness of man” (Philippians 2). He partook of flesh and blood. He lived here for thirty-three years on earth, fully man. That Word, pure being, became a man. The rest of the gospel of John is to tell the story of His life through the lens particularly of His divinity.
… This is why He says, “Glorify Me with the glory I had with You before the world began. Because of who I am, I am worthy to be restored to that glory.”
First of all, He speaks of His preexistence. Verse 1: “In the beginning was the Word.” Verse 2 says the same thing: “He was in the beginning with God.” What is “the beginning”? “The beginning” is “the beginning.” “The beginning” is Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
When “the beginning” began, He already was. Do you see it? “In the beginning was the Word.” Was already existing, “the Word” – not became the Word. He wasn’t part of the creation. He already existed when the creation was made – already in existence. He’s not a created being; He existed from all eternity …
Let me make it simple for you. Something must be eternal – something; and not something, but someone. Someone with massive power, someone with massive complex intelligence must be eternal. I know it’s hard to think about things that are eternal. That’s really an impossibility for our feeble minds to grasp. But reason would tell you, to say nothing of divine revelation. Something has to always be there, because whatever wasn’t always there was made by something that was always there, and that something is none other than God. If you want to literally chop the bottom out of Christianity, just deny Genesis, just deny creation, just deny God as the Creator. That is not a small issue.
Since time began at creation, you go before creation. You’re beyond time. You’re into eternity where only God exists. So “in the beginning [time] the Word already was” – eimi, the verb eimi, “being.” Had John used gínomai, then we would have to struggle with the fact that he seemed to be saying Jesus came into existence, which would make Him a created being. But John doesn’t tamper with his verbs.
And, of course, Jesus said things like this: “‘Before Abraham was, I Am.’” And He refers to Himself as the “I Am,” over and over in the gospel of John. The apostle Paul in Colossians says that “He is before all things. He was in the beginning with God.” When “the beginning” began, He was already there. This emphasizes preexistence. He didn’t become God in time. He’s not some emanation from God, some creation by God. He preexisted everything that exists. That puts Him into eternity. That puts Him into the Godhead. Only God is eternal.
Not only was He preexistent, but coexistent. Go back to verse 1. He was not only “with God,” but He “was God” – not only was “with God” at the creation, but He “was God.” He is preexistent; that is before anything else existed. When nothing existed, He existed. And He not only was there “with God,” He “was God.” This is a powerful, powerful statement.
The Greek expression means “face-to-face with God on an equal basis,” “face-to-face with God on an equal basis.” Literally, the Greek says Thes n ho Lgos, “God was the Word,” “God was the Word,” full deity, verse 14. His glory was the glory as of the prttokos from the Father, “full of grace and truth.” He had all the attributes of God because He “was God.”
So who is Jesus? He is God, preexisting all that exists, coexisting eternally with God as God. And then this remarkable third element of His nature: He is not only preexistent and coexistent with God, but He is self-existent, self-existent. Verse 3: “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life.” Really a defining, defining statement.
“All things that came into being, all things,” positive. Negative: “Nothing came into being that hasn’t come into being through Him.” Why? He was the possessor of life. Life came from Him. It wasn’t given to Him, it came from Him. He is the Creator. He is the Creator. Genesis, God is the Creator. Genesis, the Spirit is the Creator.
In John, the Son of God is equally the Creator. The triune God is the Creator, and nothing exists in the entire universe that God did not make: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Creator of everything that exists must necessarily be uncreated. Right? The Creator of everything that exists must necessarily be uncreated, and only the eternal God is uncreated, so Jesus is the eternal God. He is preexistent, He is coexistent, and He is self-existent.
Theologians call this the aseity of God, a-s-e-i-t-y, the aseity of God. Nothing gives Him life; nothing takes life from Him. He is life itself. That’s why when God gave His name, He said, “‘I Am that I Am.’” No past, no present – “‘I Am that I Am.’”
Now you know who Christ is. The proof is that in Him is life – a massive statement. Not bíos life, not biological life; z, spiritual life. He has the life in Himself.
I found that a remarkable explanation of Christ’s deity, and I hope you do, too.
The Seventh Sunday of Easter is May 20, 2023.
This particular Sunday, which comes just after Ascension Day, this past Thursday, is also known as Exaudi Sunday, more about which here. Exaudi Sunday is the last Sunday in Eastertide, which ends on the day before Pentecost.
Exaudi Sunday is so called because of the traditional Introit, taken from Psalm 17:1. The two first words in Latin are ‘Exaudi Domine’ — ‘Hear, Lord’.
Exaudi is Latin, from the verb exaudire (modern day equivalents are the French exaucer and the Italian esaudire). It has several meanings, among them: hear, understand and discern, as well as heed, obey and, where the Lord is concerned, grant. The French version of the Catholic Mass uses exaucer a lot, as do hymns: ‘grant us, Lord’.
Readings for Year A can be found here.
The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):
John 17:1-11
17:1 After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you,
17:2 since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
17:3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
17:4 I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.
17:5 So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.
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.
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
John 17 is the only record we have of any of our Lord’s prayers. He prayed often, but this is the one time we have details of what He asked of His Father.
In the first five verses, He prays that He might be glorified. In verses 6-19, He prays for the disciples. In verses 20-26, He prays for all believers then and now.
Theologians and Reformers who have studied this chapter in depth say it is one of the most powerful in the Bible. I have put certain words — those of predestination, or election — in bold to emphasise that God gives His chosen faithful to Christ, who looks after them and their souls.
John MacArthur says:
Here, we see our great High Priest. This is His mediatorial work, as the mediator between God and man. This prayer belongs to us as a gift from heaven so that we now know the content of our great High Priest’s intercession for us …
It is a prayer for glory. It is a prayer that the Father would bring Him to glory, and bring the disciples to glory, and bring all of us to glory. It is that interceding prayer that holds us until we stand before Him in heaven. It is this intercession that is the reason why nothing will ever separate us from the love of God, which is ours in Christ Jesus.
After Jesus had spoken these words — referring to John 13-16, at and after the Last Supper — He looked up to heaven and said (verse 1), ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you’.
In several places in John’s Gospel, we read that our Lord’s hour had not yet come. Now it had come and was upon Him. He was in the Garden of Gethsemane awaiting His arrest, trial, scourging and death on the cross for our redemption.
Matthew Henry’s commentary makes the following observations:
1. The time when he prayed this prayer; when he had spoken these words, had given the foregoing farewell to his disciples, he prayed this prayer in their hearing; so that, (1.) It was a prayer after a sermon; when he had spoken from God to them, he turned to speak to God for them. Note, Those we preach to we must pray for … (2.) It was a prayer after sacrament; after Christ and his disciples had eaten the passover and the Lord’s supper together, and he had given them a suitable exhortation, he closed the solemnity with this prayer, that God would preserve the good impressions of the ordinance upon them. (3.) It was a family-prayer. Christ’s disciples were his family, and, to set a good example before the masters of families, he not only, as the son of Abraham, taught his household (Gen 18 19), but, as a son of David, blessed his household (2 Sam 6 20), prayed for them and with them. (4.) It was a parting prayer. When we and our friends are parting, it is good to part with prayer, Acts 20 36. Christ was parting by death, and that parting should be sanctified and sweetened by prayer. Dying Jacob blessed the twelve patriarchs, dying Moses the twelve tribes, and so, here, dying Jesus the twelve apostles. (5.) It was a prayer that was a preface to his sacrifice, which he was now about to offer on earth, specifying the favours and blessings designed to be purchased by the merit of his death for those that were his; like a deed leading the uses of a fine, and directing to what intents and purposes it shall be levied. Christ prayed then as a priest now offering sacrifice, in the virtue of which all prayers were to be made. (6.) It was a prayer that was a specimen of his intercession, which he ever lives to make for us within the veil. Not that in his exalted state he addresses himself to his Father by way of humble petition, as when he was on earth. No, his intercession in heaven is a presenting of his merit to his Father …
This is how the Father answered the Son’s prayer for glorification on what we know as Good Friday, at the Resurrection and afterwards:
The Father glorified the Son upon earth, First, Even in his sufferings, by the signs and wonders which attended them. When they that came to take him were thunder-struck with a word,— when Judas confessed him innocent, and sealed that confession with his own guilty blood,—when the judge’s [Pilate’s] wife asleep, and the judge himself awake, pronounced him righteous,—when the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple rent, then the Father not only justified, but glorified the Son. Nay, Secondly, Even by his sufferings; when he was crucified, he was magnified, he was glorified, ch. 13 31. It was in his cross that he conquered Satan and death; his thorns were a crown, and Pilate in the inscription over his head wrote more than he thought. But, Thirdly, Much more after his sufferings. The Father glorified the Son when he raised him from the dead, showed him openly to chosen witnesses, and poured out the Spirit to support and plead his cause, and to set up his kingdom among men, then he glorified him. This he here prays for, and insists upon.
Henry says that we may also pray that we glorify God in our lives:
It being our chief end to glorify God, other things must be sought and attended to in subordination and subserviency to the Lord. “Do this and the other for thy servant, that thy servant may glorify thee. Give me health, that I may glorify thee with my body; success, that I may glorify thee with my estate,” etc. Hallowed be thy name must be our first petition …
Jesus continued, referring to Himself in the third person, saying that the Father has given Him authority over all people and — mentioning election — He has the power to give eternal life to all those the Father has given Him (verse 2).
Henry discusses our Lord’s supreme power over all things and all beings:
Now see here the power of the Mediator.
a. The origin of his power: Thou hast given him power; he has it from God, to whom all power belongs ...
b. The extent of his power: He has power over all flesh. (a.) Over all mankind. He has power in and over the world of spirits, the powers of the upper and unseen world are subject to him (1 Peter 3 22); but, being now mediating between God and man, he here pleads his power over all flesh. They were men whom he was to subdue and save; out of that race he had a remnant given him, and therefore all that rank of beings was put under his feet. (b.) Over mankind considered as corrupt and fallen, for so he is called flesh, Gen 6 3. If he had not in this sense been flesh, he had not needed a Redeemer. Over this sinful race the Lord Jesus has all power; and all judgment, concerning them, is committed to him; power to bind or loose, acquit or condemn; power on earth to forgive sins or not. Christ, as Mediator, has the government of the whole world put into his hand; he is king of nations, has power even over those that know him not, nor obey his gospel; whom he does not rule, he over-rules, Ps 22 28; 72 8; Matt 28 18; ch. 3 35.
c. The grand intention and design of this power: That he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. Here is the mystery of our salvation laid open.
(a.) Here is the Father making over the elect to the Redeemer, and giving them to him as his charge and trust; as the crown and recompence of his undertaking. He has a sovereign power over all the fallen race, but a peculiar interest in the chosen remnant; all things were put under his feet, but they were delivered into his hand.
(b.) Here is the Son undertaking to secure the happiness of those that were given him, that he would give eternal life to them. See how great the authority of the Redeemer is. He has lives and crowns to give, eternal lives that never die, immortal crowns that never fade. Now consider how great the Lord Jesus is, who has such preferments in his gift; and how gracious he is in giving eternal life to those whom he undertakes to save. [a.] He sanctifies them in this world, gives them the spiritual life which is eternal life in the bud and embryo, ch. 4 14. Grace in the soul is heaven in that soul. [b.] He will glorify them in the other world; their happiness shall be completed in the vision and fruition of God. This only is mentioned, because it supposes all the other parts of his undertaking, teaching them, satisfying for them, sanctifying them, and preparing them for that eternal life; and indeed all the other were in order to this; we are called to his kingdom and glory, and begotten to the inheritance. What is last in execution was first in intention, and that is eternal life.
(c.) Here is the subserviency of the Redeemer’s universal dominion to this: He has power over all flesh, on purpose that he might give eternal life to the select number. Note, Christ’s dominion over the children of men is in order to the salvation of the children of God. All things are for their sakes, 2 Cor 4 15. All Christ’s laws, ordinances, and promises, which are given to all, are designed effectually to convey spiritual life, and secure eternal life, to all that were given to Christ; he is head over all things to the church. The administration of the kingdoms of providence and grace are put into the same hand, that all things may be made to concur for good to the called.
Jesus said that eternal life is knowing the only true God and Himself, whom the Father has sent (verse 3).
Henry explains:
The knowledge of God and Christ leads to life eternal; this is the way in which Christ gives eternal life, by the knowledge of him that has called us (2 Peter 1 3), and this is the way in which we come to receive it. The Christian religion shows us the way to heaven, First, By directing us to God, as the author and felicity of our being; for Christ died to bring us to God. To know him as our Creator, and to love him, obey him, submit to him, and trust in him, as our owner ruler, and benefactor,—to devote ourselves to him as our sovereign Lord, depend upon him as our chief good, and direct all to his praise as our highest end,—this is life eternal. God is here called the only true God, to distinguish him from the false gods of the heathen, which were counterfeits and pretenders, not from the person of the Son, of whom it is expressly said that he is the true God and eternal life (1 John 5 20), and who in this text is proposed as the object of the same religious regard with the Father. It is certain there is but one only living and true God and the God we adore is he. He is the true God, and not a mere name or notion; the only true God, and all that ever set up as rivals with him are vanity and a lie; the service of him is the only true religion. Secondly, By directing us to Jesus Christ, as the Mediator between God and man: Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent … We are therefore concerned to know Christ as our Redeemer, by whom alone we can now have access to God; it is life eternal to believe in Christ; and this he has undertaken to give to as many as were given him. See ch. 6 39, 40. Those that are acquainted with God and Christ are already in the suburbs of life eternal.
Jesus said to His Father that He glorified Him on earth by finishing the work that God gave Him to do (verse 4).
Henry says:
This is here recorded, First, For the honour of Christ, that his life upon earth did in all respects fully answer the end of his coming into the world. Note, 1. Our Lord Jesus had work given him to do by him that sent him; he came not into the world to live at ease, but to go about doing good, and to fulfill all righteousness. His Father gave him his work, his work in the vineyard, both appointed him to it and assisted him in it. 2. The work that was given him to do he finished. Though he had not, as yet, gone through the last part of his undertaking, yet he was so near being made perfect through sufferings that he might say, I have finished it; it was as good as done, he was giving it its finishing stroke eteleiosa—I have finished. The word signifies his performing every part of his undertaking in the most complete and perfect manner. 3. Herein he glorified his Father; he pleased him, he praised him … Secondly, It is recorded for example to all, that we may follow his example. 1. We must make it our business to do the work God has appointed us to do, according to our capacity and the sphere of our activity; we must each of us do all the good we can in this world. 2. We must aim at the glory of God in all. We must glorify him on the earth, which he has given unto the children of men, demanding only this quit-rent; on the earth, where we are in a state of probation and preparation for eternity. 3. We must persevere herein to the end of our days; we must not sit down till we have finished our work, and accomplished as a hireling our day. Thirdly, It is recorded for encouragement to all those that rest upon him. If he has finished the work that was given him to do, then he is a complete Saviour, and did not do his work by the halves. And he that finished his work for us will finish it in us to the day of Christ.
Jesus ended the prayer for Himself by praying that God would restore Him to glory, the glory He had in His Father’s presence before the world existed (verse 5).
MacArthur tells us:
Somebody might say, “Well, praying for Himself?” Yes, yes … I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” That’s the nature of His prayer. It is a prayer, first of all, for His own glory. So that, having been glorified, He can then bring many sons to glory.
Somebody might suggest that there’s a selfishness in this. Jesus praying for Himself seems self-seeking; that’s because we are fallen creatures full of sin, and we understand that we have no right to ask for glory on our own merit. But Christ was not asking for something He didn’t deserve. In fact, He says, “Father, glorify You Son.” And in verse 5 says, “Just glorify Me with the glory I had with You before the world began. Just take me back to the eternal glory, which is always mine by right. It is a prayer for the glory that belongs to Him, the intrinsic glory which is His by virtue of who He is. First He says, “Father, Father.” And He repeats that down in verse 5, and verse 21, and verse 24: “Father, Father.”
Then Jesus began the prayer for His disciples, again mentioning predestination, or election.
He said that He had made the Father’s name known to those He had given Him from the world, emphasising that God gave those people — His own — to Him and that they have kept His word (verse 6).
MacArthur points out the majesty and mystery of salvation, a divine act:
All life comes from Christ – all life, including eternal life. He is the giver of eternal life. All life comes from Him. Biological life comes from Him. Spiritual life comes from Him. Eternal life comes from Him. And He says, “I give that eternal life, that is what I do, to all whom You have given Me. All that You have given Me, I give eternal life.”
I just need to stop there for a minute and say that phrase “all whom You have given Me” appears seven times in this prayer. That is a defining statement regarding believers, you and me, and all believers since the work of Christ was applied. All believers – listen – have been given to Christ from the Father.
We’ve said things about that through the years. It’s a stunning, stunning reality. What is the Father doing? The Father is gathering a bride for His Son. Through all of redemptive history, all of human history, the Father is gathering people who will make up the one bride for His Son. That’s why when you get to the end of the book of Revelation, you go to heaven. It’s a bridal city, and there’s a great bridal festival, and the whole city is adorned for a wedding. When all the saints of all the ages are gathered together in heaven, it is a marriage.
All of redemptive history is the Father gathering a bride for His Son because He loves His Son, and He wants His Son to have a bride who will serve Him forever, love Him forever, honor Him forever, glorify Him forever, and even reflect His character, so that – listen – salvation is not a whimsical thing that is designed by people, or that is even determined by individuals. If you are a believer, it is because God gave you to Christ, and He gave you because He chose you, and He chose you before the foundation of the world, the Bible says, and He wrote your name down. Seven times it refers to believers as those whom the Father gives the Son. It is completely wrong to think that that decision is left to us.
Jesus said that the disciples knew that everything given to Him comes from the Father (verse 7).
Henry rephrases the verse for us:
“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.”
Jesus elaborated, saying that the words God gave to Him He passed on to the disciples; the disciples received those words and know in truth that Jesus came from the Father and believed that the Father sent Him to them (verse 8).
Henry says that Jesus affirmed the disciples’ faith, as imperfect as it was. Jesus knew they believed:
See here, First, What it is to believe; it is to know surely, to know that it is so of a truth. The disciples were very weak and defective in knowledge; yet Christ, who knew them better than they knew themselves, passes his word for them that they did believe. Note, We may know surely that which we neither do nor can know fully; may know the certainty of the things which are not seen, though we cannot particularly describe the nature of them. We walk by faith, which knows surely, not yet by sight, which knows clearly. Secondly, What it is we are to believe: that Jesus Christ came out from God, as he is the Son of God, in his person the image of the invisible God … and therefore all the doctrines of Christ are to be received as divine truths, all his commands obeyed as divine laws, and all his promises depended upon as divine securities.
Jesus then prayed specifically for His elect, the disciples in this instance, rather than the world at large, because the disciples belonged to the Father (verse 9).
Henry explains:
I. Whom he did not pray for (v. 9): I pray not for the world. Note, There is a world of people that Jesus Christ did not pray for. It is not meant of the world of mankind general (he prays for that here, v. 21, That the world may believe that thou hast sent me); nor is it meant of the Gentiles, in distinction from the Jews; but the world is here opposed to the elect, who are given to Christ out of the world. Take the world for a heap of unwinnowed corn in the floor, and God loves it, Christ prays for it, and dies for it, for a blessing is in it; but, the Lord perfectly knowing those that are his, he eyes particularly those that were given him out of the world, extracts them; and then take the world for the remaining heap of rejected, worthless chaff, and Christ neither prays for it, nor dies for it, but abandons it, and the wind drives it away. These are called the world, because they are governed by the spirit of this world, and have their portion in it; for these Christ does not pray; not but that there are some things which he intercedes with God for on their behalf, as the dresser for the reprieve of the barren tree; but he does not pray for them in this prayer, that have not part nor lot in the blessings here prayed for. He does not say, I pray against the world, as Elias made intercession against Israel; but, I pray not for them, I pass them by, and leave them to themselves; they are not written in the Lamb’s book of life, and therefore not in the breast-plate of the great high-priest. And miserable is the condition of such, as it was of those whom the prophet was forbidden to pray for, and more so, Jer 7 16. We that know not who are chosen, and who are passed by, must pray for all men, 1 Tim 2 1, 4. While there is life, there is hope, and room for prayer. See 1 Sam 12 23.
II. 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, v. 6, 8. 2. He prays for all that should believe on him (v. 20), and it is not only the petitions that follow, but those also which went before, that must be construed to extend to all believers, in every place and every age; for he has a concern for them all, and calls things that are not as though they were.
Then Jesus spoke of His own deity, saying that all of His souls are God’s and that all of God’s souls are His and that He (Jesus) has been glorified in them (verse 10).
MacArthur says that was something only Jesus could say:
“All things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine.” Now, that is a staggering statement. That is a staggering statement. I can understand, “They’re Yours; You gave them to Me.” But, “All things that are Mine are Yours, and all things that are Yours are Mine”? That is a very, very significant statement.
What does our Lord mean by that? Well, Martin Luther said that kind of a statement is so serious that it needs consideration.
Luther wrote this: “Everyone may say this: ‘All I have is God’s.’ You can say that. That is much different than saying, ‘All that’s God’s is mine.’” Luther said, “This is much greater to turn it around and say, ‘All that is Thine is mine.’ There is no creature able to say that before God: ‘All that is Yours is mine.’ That leaves nothing out. You’re saying you’re God.” That’s exactly what He was saying, exactly.
“Father, hear this prayer because they are true believers. Hear this prayer because they are Yours. Hear this prayer because they’re Mine, and I have been glorified in them.” What a transformation of sinners, from Satan’s kingdom of darkness: “I have been glorified in them.”
He’s not talking about heaven, He’s saying, “Already My glory is in them. Already My glory is shining through them already. They’re Mine; they’re Yours. They have obeyed. My glory is shining through them by their obedience, by their love. They are Mine.”
Jesus was already anticipating His ascension to heaven, saying that He was no longer in the world and that He was going to His Father; He asked His Father to protect those whom He had been given — the elect — so that they might be one as the Father and Son are one (verse 11).
MacArthur explains the verse and what Jesus was asking for the disciples:
“I am no longer in the world.” He’s anticipating His exodus, His own leaving. About six weeks away at this time, He would ascend into heaven and He would be gone. In just a few hours, He would be under the wrath of God. They need to be guarded while He is suffering for sin, and they need to be guarded after He’s gone, “because – ” as verse 11 says “ – they themselves are in the world.”
“I’m out of the world; they’re in it.” What is the world? It’s the system of sin that dominates this realm. It’s the corruption, the demonic power, the human power of sin that literally controls the world, under the leadership of Satan and his demons. That’s the world …
So our Lord then, beginning in verse 11, starts to ask for some specific things by way of our protection. Number One: Spiritual security. Spiritual security. “They’re in the world – ” He says “ – and I come to You.” And He’s talking, obviously, about His ascension. “I come to You. Holy Father, keep them, keep them, keep them” …
He says, “Father, Holy Father, keep them in Your name, keep them in Your name, consistent with who You are, and even beyond that, not because they deserve it, but because they belong to You. They are Yours. They are Your sons and daughters. They are Your children. They carry Your name – sons of God. They belong to You, a name which You have given Me. They’re in My name too: sons of God, Christians. They’re Yours and they’re Mine; keep them” …
Just briefly, He secondly prays for our spiritual unity. This is just briefly stated in verse 11, and it’ll come up again at the end of the chapter. We’ll just look at it here. Back in verse 11, the end of the verse, “Keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are, that they may be one even as We are.”
It is that we may be one even as the Trinity is one.
Salvation – listen – is not just a ticket to heaven. It is not just forgiveness of sins. It is not just escape from punishment. It is God, listen, pulling us into the eternal life of the Trinity. All of us who are justified literally are pulled into the life of the Trinity. We are in the Father; we are in the Son; we are in the Spirit. The Father is in us; the Son is in us; the Spirit is in us.
We’ve seen that all through this section of John. The indivisible unity of the Trinity engulfs us and we are one with Christ.
God answered our Lord’s prayer for the disciples’ protection immediately:
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 …
… 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.
Year C’s Exaudi Sunday reading covers the end of John 17, verses 20-26: our Lord’s prayer for believers. My exegesis can be found here.
May all reading this have a blessed Sunday.
Next Sunday is Pentecost, the Church’s birthday, when we celebrate the arrival of the Holy Spirit on the disciples, as Jesus promised.
The Sixth Sunday of Easter is May 14, 2023.
Readings for Year A can be found here.
The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):
John 14:15-21
14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
14:16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.
14:17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
14:18 “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.
14:19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.
14:20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
14:21 They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
This reading continues where we left off last week, the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Year A): John 14:1-14.
This is part of our Lord’s Upper Room Discourse which took place after Jesus banished Judas for betrayal and after the Last Supper.
John MacArthur describes the panic and desolation that the remaining eleven Apostles were experiencing:
He has been very clear, “I am leaving. I am leaving.”
This sets panic into their hearts. Remember, they have forsaken all to follow Him. They’ve dropped their nets, if you will. They’ve left their enterprises. They’ve followed Jesus around for a three-year period, from town-to-town and village-to-village. He has been the source of everything for them. He has been everything, and now He is leaving.
“Where is the messianic kingdom? Where are the fulfillments of all the promises given to the prophets? It hasn’t happened; none of it has happened. And now You’re leaving? What’s going on? Not only are You leaving, but You haven’t accomplished what we all assumed You would accomplish, establishing the kingdom with all the promises to Abraham and David, and through the prophets fulfilled. Where is the kingdom? How can You be the Messiah?”
This is so overwhelming that they are distraught. In fact, chapter 14, verse 1, literally says, “Stop letting your heart be troubled.” This is trouble like they hadn’t known before. This is a kind of panic that has set in that Jesus is leaving.
Matthew Henry’s commentary says:
It was not expedient that Christ should be with them for ever, for they who were designed for public service, must not always live a college-life; they must disperse …
Jesus tells the remaining Apostles that if they love Him, they will keep His commandments (verse 15).
Jesus Himself set the pattern for obedience. During His earthly ministry, He did what the Father asked, including being scourged mercilessly then being crucified for our sins.
In my early years of blogging, an older Christian commented that he had problems with obedience, therefore, that went out the window in his faith journey.
However, obeying our Lord is not like obeying a teacher or a boss, although we are obliged to obey them, too, unless they ask us to do something sinful. Obeying our Lord is obeying the One who is in heaven, our Saviour and our Hope.
MacArthur reminds us that Jesus put a lot of emphasis on obedience:
“If you love Me, you’ll keep my commandments.”
… “Why is that here?” It’s here because it defines for whom these promises are given. To whom does He make such promises – promises that, “You’ll do greater works than these because I go to the Father,” promises that, “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do,” that He’s made in the previous passage, promises that the Trinity is going to come and take up residence? To whom does He make such promises? Answer: “Those who love Me and keep my commandments.”
That is the prevailing Johannine definition of a Christian. You will see this in John’s writings everywhere. For example, if you just drop down to verse 21: “He who has My commandments and keeps them, obeys them, is the one who loves Me.” Or you could look at verse 23: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word.” And then verse 24: “He who does not love Me, does not keep My words.”
All right, let’s just make it simple. How can you tell a true Christian? A true Christian loves and obeys. Sum it up: a true Christian loves and obeys. It’s not about a profession. “Many will say unto Me, ‘Lord, Lord, I did this; I did that; I did the other thing.’ I will say to them, ‘Depart from Me, I never knew you.’”
How do you know a true Christian? A true Christian loves the Lord, and consequently obeys. Love is the motive and obedience is the action. This is the consistent, prevailing truth.
Go to chapter 15. John makes another statement that essentially says the same thing. John 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.” How do you know that Jesus loved the Father? How do you know Jesus loved the Father? Because He what? He obeyed the Father. That’s the model; that’s the pattern. That’s the model …
Look at 1 John for a moment and I’ll show you just a couple of parallels there; again, the same apostle John writing. This is an emphasis that the Holy Spirit had him make. Verse 3, 1 John 2:3, “By this we know that we have come to know Him.” How do you know that you know Him? How do you know that you know the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous? If we keep His commandments.
“The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and doesn’t keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know we are in Him.” Again, it’s love and obedience. It’s always love and obedience. John makes this point again, and again, and again.
Chapter 4 is no different. John speaks to the same issue in chapter 4, verse 19: “We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he’s a liar.” So if you say you love God and you don’t obey His commandments, you’re a liar. If you say you love God and you hate your brother, you’re a liar, because hating your brother is a violation of the second commandment: “You love your neighbor as yourself.”
It’s always the emphasis that John makes. Everyone who loves God, obeys; and obedience starts with obeying the first commandment: “Love the Lord your God, and then the second, your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus then gave His promise: He would ask the Father to give them another Advocate to be with them forever (verse 16), the Holy Spirit.
Henry tells us that this is the great promise of the New Testament for all time:
1. It is promised that they shall have another comforter. This is the great New-Testament promise (Acts 1 4), as that of the Messiah was of the Old Testament; a promise adapted to the present distress of the disciples, who were in sorrow, and needed a comforter. Observe here,
(1.) The blessing promised: allon parakleton. The word is used only here in these discourses of Christ’s, and 1 John 2 1, where we translate it an advocate ... the Greek word Paraclete; we read, Acts 9 31, of the paraklesis tou hagiou pneumatos, the comfort of the Holy Ghost, including his whole office as a paraclete. [1.] You shall have another advocate. The office of the Spirit was to be Christ’s advocate with them and others, to plead his cause, and take care of his concerns, on earth; to be vicarius Christi—Christ’s Vicar, as one of the ancients call him; and to be their advocate with their opposers. When Christ was with them he spoke for them as there was occasion; but now that he is leaving them they shall not be run down, the Spirit of the Father shall speak in them, Matt 10 19, 20. And the cause cannot miscarry that is pleaded by such an advocate. [2.] You shall have another master or teacher, another exhorter. While they had Christ with them he excited and exhorted them to their duty; but now that he is going he leaves one with them that shall do this as effectually, though silently. Jansenius thinks the most proper word to render it by is a patron, one that shall both instruct and protect you. [3.] Another comforter. Christ was expected as the consolation of Israel. One of the names of the Messiah among the Jews was Menahem—the Comforter. The Targum calls the days of the Messiah the years of consolation. Christ comforted his disciples when he was with them, and now that he was leaving them in their greatest need he promises them another.
(2.) The giver of this blessing: The Father shall give him, my Father and your Father; it includes both. The same that gave the Son to be our Saviour will give his Spirit to be our comforter, pursuant to the same design. The Son is said to send the Comforter (ch. 15 26), but the Father is the prime agent.
(3.) How this blessing is procured—by the intercession of the Lord Jesus: I will pray the Father. He said (v. 14) I will do it; here he saith, I will pray for it, to show not only that he is both God and man, but that he is both king and priest. As priest he is ordained for men to make intercession, as king he is authorized by the Father to execute judgment. When Christ saith, I will pray the Father, it does not suppose that the Father is unwilling, or must be importuned to it, but only that the gift of the Spirit is a fruit of Christ’s mediation, purchased by his merit, and taken out by his intercession.
(4.) The continuance of this blessing: That he may abide with you for ever. That is, [1.] “With you, as long as you live. You shall never know the want of a comforter, nor lament his departure, as you are now lamenting mine.” Note, It should support us under the loss of those comforts which were designed us for a time that there are everlasting consolations provided for us … [2.] “With your successors, when you are gone, to the end of time; your successors in Christianity, in the ministry.” [3.] If we take for ever in its utmost extent, the promise will be accomplished in those consolations of God which will be the eternal joy of all the saints, pleasures for ever.
Jesus said that this Advocate is the Spirit of truth whom the world — unbelievers — cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, but the Apostles knew Him because He was living in them and He would continue to live in them (verse 17).
MacArthur explains more about the Holy Spirit:
So what our Lord says is, “Not that I’m going to give you more instructions, it’s not that I’m going to give you more duties, it’s not that I’m going to give you more responsibilities. I’m going to ask the Father and He’s going to give you the Helper so that you have the internal resident power of God to do what has been commanded.” It’s personal: “I will give you,” personal, individual, relational. “I will give you the Helper. I will ask the Father.”
… the word Paraclete. That’s the transliteration in English. Greek it’s Parakltos. Kltos is a verb form of a verb kale which means to call, pará means alongside like parallel – to call somebody alongside. That’s what the word means, somebody called alongside. Very, very general.
Now notice this: “I will ask the Father and He’ll give you another.” In the Greek language, there are two words for another. In English, there’s just one. If I say, “Another something,” that doesn’t tell you anything about it. It’s just other than the one that you have in mind. No, it’s another person; or, no, it’s another event, or whatever. You don’t have anything in the word “another” that tells you anything.
That’s not true in Greek. In Greek, there’s a word heteros. Heteros means another, but it means another of a different kind from which we get heterodox or heterogeneous. It means it’s different; another of a different kind.
For example, another Jesus is heteros Isous. In Galatians 1, “If anybody preaches another Jesus, let him be damned.” So that word means another of a different kind.
Then they have the word állos. Állos is used here. It means another of the exact same kind; and Jesus uses that: “I will give you állos Parakltos. I will give you another exactly like I am, which is to say that I’m going to send you a Helper exactly like the Helper that I have been,” and that defines for you the ministry of the Holy Spirit …
And then verse 17: “He is the Spirit of truth.” Of course, He is, because God is truth. And Jesus said earlier in the chapter, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. He will be what I was to you; and I am the truth, and He is the truth; and everything He tells you will be the truth. By the way, whom the world cannot receive because it doesn’t see Him or know Him. But you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” So much to say about that.
Let me have you focus on this: “He abides, but you will know Him. You already know Him. The world doesn’t know Him. The world doesn’t know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you.”
What is that about? How did the Holy Spirit abide with them? Listen, in the person of Christ, in the person of Christ. That is the primary point of that statement. “He abides with you.”
Who was it that gave life in the womb of Mary? It was the Holy Spirit, right, who conceived in her womb. It was the Holy Spirit who moved in the fetus in the womb. It was the Holy Spirit who was at the baptism of Jesus, and descended from heaven, and rested upon Him. And the Holy Spirit led Him into ministry, and the Holy Spirit led Him into the wilderness to be tempted, and the Holy Spirit empowered Him and enabled Him; and Jesus committed all the credit for His ministry to the Holy Spirit.
You remember how Matthew 12, the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders said He does what He does by the power of whom? Beelzebub, the Devil, hell. That’s proof that the world cannot receive the Holy Spirit because it doesn’t see Him or know Him. The Holy Spirit was there three years, working through Christ, and they couldn’t recognize the Holy Spirit at all, and they attributed His work to the Devil.
That’s how blind the world is. “But you know Him because He abides with you. The Holy Spirit’s been here, doing His work in Me.” That’s why Jesus said to those who said He did what He did by the power of Satan, “You have blasphemed, not Me; you’ve blasphemed the Holy Spirit.”
“The Spirit of truth has been with you in Me. It is better for Me to go so that He can move from being with you in Me to being in you.” What an incredible promise. What an astonishing reality that is: stunning.
Now why is He called the Spirit of truth? Because He’s going to have an initial task. He’s called the Spirit of truth. Why? Just quickly in the last few minutes, verse 26: “The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name,” here’s why He’s called the Spirit of truth, “He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” He’s called the Spirit of truth because He is going to bring the truth to them.
MacArthur discusses the Bible, which is inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth:
All Scripture is God-breathed through the Spirit, not from any human mind. So if you attack the inerrancy of Scripture, you have made an assault on the Trinity, you have assaulted the Trinity. The God of truth revealed His truth perfectly in His Son. His Son then sent the Spirit to reveal His truth perfectly in the Scripture.
Jesus told the Apostles that He would not leave them orphaned; He was coming to them (verse 18).
Henry explains the multiple meanings here:
I will come to you, erchomai—I do come; that is, (1.) “I will come speedily to you at my resurrection, I will not be long away, but will be with you again in a little time.” He had often said, The third day I will rise again. (2.) “I will be coming daily to you in my Spirit;” in the tokens of his love, and visits of his grace, he is still coming. (3.) “I will come certainly at the end of time; surely I will come quickly to introduce you into the joy of your Lord.” Note, The consideration of Christ’s coming to us saves us from being comfortless in his removals from us; for, if he depart for a season, it is that we may receive him for ever. Let this moderate our grief, The Lord is at hand.
Jesus said that, in a short while, meaning after His death and resurrection, the world — unbelievers — would no longer see Him, but the Apostles and disciples would see Him; because He lives, they (and we) will live (verse 19).
Henry says:
After his death, the world saw him no more, for, though he rose to life, he never showed himself to all the people, Acts 10 41. The malignant world thought they had seen enough of him, and cried, Away with him; crucify him; and so shall their doom be; they shall see him no more. Those only that see Christ with an eye of faith shall see him for ever. The world sees him no more till his second coming; but his disciples have communion with him in his absence …
Note, The life of Christians is bound up in the life of Christ; as sure and as long as he lives, those that by faith are united to him shall live also; they shall live spiritually, a divine life in communion with God. This life is hid with Christ; if the head and root live, the members and branches live also. They shall live eternally; their bodies shall rise in the virtue of Christ’s resurrection; it will be well with them in the world to come. It cannot but be well with all that are his, Isa 26 19.
Jesus said that ‘on that day’ we will know that He is in His Father, we are in the Lord and He is in us (verse 20).
Henry tells us:
Note, First, Union with Christ is the life of believers; and their relation to him, and to God through him, is their felicity. Secondly, The knowledge of this union is their unspeakable joy and satisfaction; they were now in Christ, and he in them, but he speaks of it as a further act of grace that they should know it, and have the comfort of it. An interest in Christ and the knowledge of it are sometimes separated.
Jesus returned to the importance of obedience, saying that those who have received His commandments and keep them are those who love Him; and those who love Him will be loved by the Father, and our Lord will love them and reveal Himself to them (verse 21).
Henry says:
By this Christ shows that the kind things he here said to his disciples were intended not for those only that were now his followers, but for all that should believe in him through their word.
In closing, MacArthur says this about heaven and our relationship with the Holy Trinity:
… heaven is a place, and heaven is a place where there will be activity. But if that’s all you think about heaven, then you miss the main event, you miss the main point. Heaven is primarily a fulfilled relationship. When you think about heaven, I want you to think about it that way. It is the full presence of the triune God; the full, glorious presence of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We will be in the full, complete, transcendent relationship with the Trinity. That will define our existence.
So primarily – listen – heaven is a relationship. It is a relationship. It is communion. It is fellowship at its purest and highest level. That’s what heaven is.
All of our praise is response to the relationship. All of our service is in view of the relationship. We praise because of that relationship. We serve because of that relationship.
The dominant reality is the relationship. We will have a relationship with God that is absolutely perfect and complete, as full and complete as is possible in an eternally perfected human being. This is what heaven is. It is a relationship brought to its absolute perfect fulfillment. It is defined as peace and joy because that is drawn out of that relationship. That’s what your inheritance is. To put it simply, heaven is the presence of the triune God. Your inheritance is God; your inheritance is the Son; your inheritance is the Holy Spirit. The triune God is your inheritance.
Now, why am I pressing this? Because in the text before us in John 14, our Lord promises to grant to us a preview of this full presence, a preview of this full presence. We now, as believers, possess a down payment on the full presence of the Trinity that we will experience in heaven. Now, again, I can’t go beyond saying that because we can’t comprehend what that would be like. But we do know this: we in the current form that we are in, in this current form, we are not fitted for that kind of full relationship. We need a different body because this one can’t function in eternity. This is a dying body. From the day that you were born, you began to die. It’s only a question of when you do.
Life is really death. It’s just a constant, inexorable movement toward leaving this world. These are bodies that die; and along the way, they are troubled, and sick, and injured, and wounded, and inept, and inadequate, and disabled, and et cetera, et cetera. We struggle not only with the physical part of our bodies, but the mental part as well. We have limits to our understanding, our capacity.
We struggle emotionally. We struggle in terms of sin and temptation. So we not only need a different outside, we need a different inside. If we’re going to be in the full Trinitarian presence of God forever, in perfect righteousness, joy, and peace, we’ve got to swap this for another one. That is the promise of Scripture, that when a believer dies, there is a complete transformation; that believer’s spirit enters heaven. And one day, there will be a resurrection of a new and glorified body like the resurrection body of Christ, to join that spirit and to become that eternal being to enjoy the full presence of the triune God. So when you think about heaven, think about a relationship: perfect, fulfilling relationship with the Father; perfect, fulfilling relationship with the Son; perfect, fulfilling relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Now all of that to say this: in the text in front of you, our Lord promises to give His disciples, including us, a preview of this full presence – a down payment, if you will – on the eternal heavenly celestial communion with God, and give it to us here and now, here and now, so that as a believer right now, you are in complete communion – to the degree that it’s possible in the form we’re in – you’re in complete, personal communion with the Trinity.
I don’t know if you think of your Christian life that way, but that is reality, and we don’t feel that He’s far off from us, but that He’s near. We are called upon to call on Him.
May all reading this have a blessed Sunday.
The Fifth Sunday of Easter is May 7, 2023.
Readings for Year A can be found here.
The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):
John 14:1-14
14:1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.
14:2 In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
14:3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.
14:4 And you know the way to the place where I am going.”
14:5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
14:7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
14:8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”
14:9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
14:10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.
14:11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.
14:12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.
14:13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14:14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
Jesus and the eleven remaining Apostles had finished their final Passover meal together. John 13 through John 16 comprise the Upper Room Discourse. John 17 has our Lord’s prayers before His arrest.
Matthew Henry’s commentary states:
When he had convicted and discarded Judas, he set himself to comfort the rest, who were full of sorrow upon what he had said of leaving them, and a great many good words and comfortable words he here speaks to them. The discourse in interlocutory; as Peter in the foregoing chapter, so Thomas, and Philip, and Jude, in this interposed their thoughts upon what he said, according to the liberty he was pleased to allow them. Free conferences are as instructive as solemn speeches, and more so.
Jesus told the Eleven to not let their hearts be troubled; they were to believe in God and also in Him (verse 1).
Henry has a lengthy and moving analysis of the first part of the verse about troubled hearts. Excerpts follow:
They now began to be troubled, were entering into this temptation …
1. How Christ took notice of it. Perhaps it was apparent in their looks; it was said (ch. 13 22), They looked one upon another with anxiety and concern, and Christ looked upon them all, and observed it; at least, it was intelligible to the Lord Jesus, who is acquainted with all our secret undiscovered sorrows, with the wound that bleeds inwardly; he knows not only how we are afflicted, but how we stand affected under our afflictions, and how near they lie to our hearts; he takes cognizance of all the trouble which his people are at any time in danger of being overwhelmed with; he knows our souls in adversity. Many things concurred to trouble the disciples now.
(1.) Christ had just told them of the unkindness he should receive from some of them, and this troubled them all. Peter, no doubt, looked very sorrowful upon what Christ said to him, and all the rest were sorry for him and for themselves too, not knowing whose turn it should be to be told next of some ill thing or other they should do …
(2.) He had just told them of his own departure from them, that he should not only go away, but go away in a cloud of sufferings. They must shortly hear him loaded with reproaches, and these will be as a sword in their bones; they must see him barbarously abused and put to death, and this also will be a sword piercing through their own souls, for they had loved him, and chosen him, and left all to follow him. When we now look upon Christ pierced, we cannot but mourn and be in bitterness, though we see the glorious issue and fruit of it; much more grievous must the sight be to them, who could then look no further … Now, in reference to all these, Let not your heart be troubled. Here are three words, upon any of which the emphasis may significantly be laid. First, Upon the word troubled, me tarassestho. Be not so troubled as to be put into a hurry and confusion, like the troubled sea when it cannot rest. He does not say, “Let not your hearts be sensible of the griefs, or sad because of them” but, “Be not ruffled and discomposed, be not cast down and disquieted,” Ps 42 5. Secondly, Upon the word heart: “Though the nation and city be troubled, though your little family and flock be troubled, yet let not your heart be troubled. Keep possession of your own souls when you can keep possession of nothing else.” The heart is the main fort; whatever you do, keep trouble from this, keep this with all diligence. The spirit must sustain the infirmity, therefore, see that this be not wounded. Thirdly, Upon the word your: “You that are my disciples and followers, my redeemed, chosen, sanctified ones, however others are overwhelmed with the sorrows of this present time, be not you so, for you know better; let the sinners in Zion tremble, but let the sons of Zion be joyful in their king.” Herein Christ’s disciples should do more than others, should keep their minds quiet, when every thing else is unquiet.
Both our commentators reword the second half of the verse, concerning belief, to make the meaning clearer.
Henry says:
2. The remedy he prescribes against this trouble of mind, which he saw ready to prevail over them; in general, believe—pisteuete. (1.) Some read it in both parts imperatively, “Believe in God, and his perfections and providence, believe also in me, and my mediation. Build with confidence upon the great acknowledged principles of natural religion: that there is a God, that he is most holy, wise, powerful, and good; that he is the governor of the world, and has the sovereign disposal of all events; and comfort yourselves likewise with the peculiar doctrines of that holy religion which I have taught you.” But, (2.) We read the former as an acknowledgment that they did believe in God, for which he commends them: “But, if you would effectually provide against a stormy day, believe also in me.“ Through Christ we are brought into covenant with God, and become interested in his favour and promise, which otherwise as sinners we must despair of, and the remembrance of God would have been our trouble; but, by believing in Christ as the Mediator between God and man, our belief in God becomes comfortable; and this is the will of God, that all men should honour the Son as they honour the Father, by believing in the Son as they believe in the Father. Those that rightly believe in God will believe in Jesus Christ, whom he has made known to them; and believing in God through Jesus Christ is an excellent means of keeping trouble from the heart. The joy of faith is the best remedy against the griefs of sense; it is a remedy with a promise annexed to it; the just shall live by faith; a remedy with a probatum est annexed to it. I had fainted unless I had believed.
John MacArthur says:
Maybe a better way to read it would be, “Do not let your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in Me.” Or even a better way, “Stop letting your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in Me.” He’s not saying don’t begin to be troubled, He’s saying, “Stop; stop. No more; no longer” …
This is the plea: “You believe in God,” I take it as an indicative. “You believe in God,” then an imperative, “believe also in Me.” So you start with this idea of comfort with God, right, who is called the God, in the Bible, of all comfort. You start there with God all-knowing, all-wise, all-powerful, all-ruling, all-caring, all-sufficient, having all resources, all provision. “You trust God, you believe in God; you don’t have any trouble with that, so believe also in Me.”
Again, this certainly is a claim to deity isn’t that? “You believe in God, so believe in Me.” John all the way through his gospel makes the case that Jesus is God, but they are one in nature. That’s the whole point of this entire gospel that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, John 20:31. We’ve gone through that chapter after chapter after chapter, presentations of His deity. But the book begins by saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
So you believe in God, what’s the point of this? Well, the point is simply this: “You believe in God whom you cannot see.” You believe in God whom you cannot see. God is invisible. No one can see God. God is a spirit; He is an invisible spirit.
None of them had ever seen God, but they believed in God. He’s declaring, “You believe in God.” In a sense, He’s stating that they are true believers. In a sense, they are sort of old covenant believers, they believe in God. They believe in God and they believe in the revelation of God in the Son of God, and that’s why they said, “You’re the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And that’s why they said, “We know that You’re the Holy One and You have the words of life” …
The apostles again had already by divine regeneration and illumination recognized that Jesus is the one who has come from God. He is the Holy One of God, the Holy One from heaven. But then they have seem Him, and heard Him, and watched Him do His miracles and His works. They have seen and believed. They did believe in the invisible God, and now they believe also in the visible Christ. But they need to believe in Him when He’s gone the same way they believe in the invisible God. Their faith at this point is a kind of Thomas faith.
You remember, Thomas wasn’t in the room when the Lord showed up the first time after the resurrection and the disciples said, “We’ve seen the Lord.” And he said, “I will not believe unless I,” what? “Unless I see.” It’s a Thomas kind of faith.
But He was about to be removed from them. So He was saying, “You must believe completely in Me when I’m invisible the way you believe in God who is invisible.”
Jesus said that in His Father’s house there are many dwelling places — ‘mansions’ in older translations — and, if that were not so, would He have told them that He was going to prepare a place for them (verse 2).
Henry explains:
See under what notion the happiness of heaven is here represented: as mansions, many mansions in Christ’s Father’s house. [1.] Heaven is a house, not a tent or tabernacle; it is a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. [2.] It is a Father’s house: my Father’s house; and his Father is our Father, to whom he was now ascending; so that in right of their elder brother all true believers shall be welcome to that happiness as to their home. It is his house who is King of kings and Lord of lords, dwells in light, and inhabits eternity. [3.] There are mansions there; that is, First, Distinct dwellings, an apartment for each. Perhaps there is an allusion to the priests’ chambers that were about the temple. In heaven there are accommodations for particular saints; though all shall be swallowed up in God, yet our individuality shall not be lost there; every Israelite had his lot in Canaan, and every elder a seat, Rev 4 4. Secondly, Durable dwellings. Monai, from mneio, maneo, abiding places. The house itself is lasting; our estate in it is not for a term of years, but a perpetuity … [4.] There are many mansions, for there are many sons to be brought to glory, and Christ exactly knows their number, nor will be straitened for room by the coming of more company than he expects …
Note, Christ’s good-will to us is a great encouragement to our hope in him. He loves us too well, and means us too well, to disappoint the expectations of his own raising, or to leave those to be of all men most miserable who have been of him most observant.
MacArthur surmises that Jesus was saying that, as grand as the temple in Jerusalem was, it was but a copy of heaven:
It was the Father’s house in the sense that it was a copy of the Father’s house which is heaven. Christ came and I guess you could say cleansed the Father’s house that had been turned, as Luke says, into a den of robbers. He cleansed the Father’s house on earth and then He destroyed the copy so that He might gather His people and take them into a place prepared for them that was reality in heaven.
The temple at Jerusalem is called the Father’s house, but it’s just a copy. God had designed it so it was His. He had laid out the prescription as to its architecture and design, and the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies, and the sacrifices and everything, and it was to symbolize His presence among His people. And there He was to be honored and adored, and there He was to be worshipped by His people.
But that worship had become apostate; it was perverted, it was corrupted. The temple was a criminal enterprise, it was a den of robbers, and He sent His Son at the beginning of His ministry to attack it. And then He sent His Son at the end of His ministry to attack it again. And then He sent the Romans in 70 AD to smash it to bits. And there is now, even today, no longer any earthly copy. So when our Lord Jesus says, “In My Father’s house,” He’s not talking about the copy, He’s talking about heaven, heaven.
Jesus then spoke of His coming again in glory by saying that if He goes to prepare a place for them — and us — He will come again and take them (and us) to Himself, so that where He is we may be also (verse 3).
Henry tells us to be reassured by those words:
Now these are comfortable words indeed. (1.) That Jesus Christ will come again; erchomai—I do come, intimating the certainty of it, that he will come and that he is daily coming. We say, We are coming, when we are busy in preparing for our coming, and so he is; all he does has a reference and tendency to his second coming. Note, The belief of Christ’s second coming, of which he has given us the assurance, is an excellent preservative against trouble of heart, Phil 4 5; James 5 8. (2.) That he will come again to receive all his faithful followers to himself. He sends for them privately at death, and gathers them one by one; but they are to make their public entry in solemn state all together at the last day, and then Christ himself will come to receive them, to conduct them in the abundance of his grace, and to welcome them in the abundance of his love. He will hereby testify the utmost respect and endearment imaginable. The coming of Christ is in order to our gathering together unto him, 2 Thess 2 1. (3.) That where he is there they shall be also. This intimates, what many other scriptures declare, that the quintessence of heaven’s happiness is being with Christ there, ch. 17 24; Phil 1 23; 1 Thess 4 17.
Jesus told the Apostles that they knew the way to the place where He was going (verse 4).
Henry explains:
Christ, having set the happiness of heaven before them as the end, here shows them himself as the way to it, and tells them that they were better acquainted both with the end they were to aim at and with the way they were to walk in than they thought they were: You know, that is, 1. “You may know; it is none of the secret things which belong not to you, but one of the things revealed; you need not ascend into heaven, nor go down into the deep, for the word is nigh you (Rom 10 6-8), level to you.” 2. “You do know; you know that which is the home and which is the way, though perhaps not as the home and as the way. You have been told it, and cannot but know, if you would recollect and consider it.” Note, Jesus Christ is willing to make the best of his people’s knowledge, though they are weak and defective in it. He knows the good that is in them better than they do themselves, and is certain that they have that knowledge, and faith, and love, of which they themselves are not sensible, or not certain.
However, Thomas said that they did not know where He was going and asked how they could know the way (verse 5).
Henry says that the Apostles expected Him to be going to an earthly destination, hence their incapacity to understand He meant His heavenly home:
They knew not whither Christ went, because they dreamed of a temporal kingdom in external pomp and power, and doted upon this, notwithstanding what he had said again and again to the contrary. Hence it was that, when Christ spoke of going away and their following him, their fancy ran upon his going to some remarkable city or other, Bethlehem, or Nazareth, or Capernaum, or some of the cities of the Gentiles, as David to Hebron, there to be anointed king, and to restore the kingdom to Israel; and which way this place lay, where these castles in the air were to be built, east, west, north, or south, they could not tell, and therefore knew not the way. Thus still we think ourselves more in the dark than we need be concerning the future state of the church, because we expect its worldly prosperity, whereas it is spiritual advancement that the promise points at. Had Thomas understood, as he might have done, that Christ was going to the invisible world, the world of spirits, to which spiritual things only have a reference, he would not have said, Lord, we do not know the way.
Jesus responded, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’ (verse 6).
MacArthur provides this analysis:
… this is the sixth “I am” in John’s gospel. The seventh one is in the fifteenth chapter …
He is saying, “I am the only way to God.” I told you that in chapter 10 when I told you I was the door. “I am the truth about God.” John says in chapter 1, verse 14, He was full of grace and truth. “I am the life of God. In Him was life,” John writes, chapter 1, verse 4.
He is life itself, chapter 11. This is the positive statement: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” That’s the positive statement. It’s followed by a negative, very important negative: “No one comes to the Father but through Me.”
Jesus alone revealed God. Jesus alone was God’s chosen sacrifice. Jesus alone is God’s Savior. Faith in Jesus is the only way of salvation. Jesus said you’ll die in your sins earlier in John, and “Where I go, you’ll never come because you believe not on Me.”
Did you get that? That’s why there’s a Great Commission, folks. There has to be a Great Commission to take the Word to every creature in the world because there’s no other way to saved. That’s why the gospels end with those Great Commissions.
Christianity actually became known as “the way” because of its exclusivity. Christianity became known as “the way.” Six times in the book of Acts it’s called “the way, the way, the way.”
It would be good to get that back, wouldn’t it, to be known as “the way, the only way, no other way”? And that’s what’s behind the necessity of going into all the world and preaching the gospel to every creature. This is always the Great Commission mandate. Jesus is the way to God, the truth about God, and the life of God; and no one can come to the Father, to the Father’s house, except through Him.
We might have forgotten about that verse. Theologians have certainly twisted its meaning:
The modern church has created a new wave of heresy related to this foundational truth that people somehow can be saved and welcomed into heaven when they die, or even taken up to heaven when Christ comes who never had a Bible, never heard about the true God, never heard about Jesus Christ. They’ve even come up with some names for it. They call it “later light” or they call it “natural theology.” “Man can reach God by natural reason which can lead him to live a good life. And if he lives a good life, he’ll be acceptable to God” …
Peter Kreeft in the book Ecumenical Jihad has all kinds of different religions sending people to heaven into the Father’s house. Some would say if you’re monotheistic you’re really okay because you’ve hooked onto the idea of one god.
Larry King said to me one time off television, “I’m going to be okay. A very well-known evangelist told me because I’m Jewish I’m going to be okay.” Really? An evangelist told you that?
There’s even a view called “transdispensational salvation” which means that people who never heard about Christ will be treated by God as if they lived in another dispensation before Christ ever came. So we can call all the missionaries home, leave them to their natural reason, or leave them to some wider mercy, or leave them to some other dispensation. But the Bible says, “Go preach the gospel to every creature because no one can get to heaven without believing in Christ, no one.”
Man’s reason is so depraved he suppresses the truth in righteousness. Man’s religion is so depraved that he worships demons that are named gods. Man is so depraved in his reason that by wisdom he cannot know God. The natural man can’t even understand the things of God. He is so depraved that there’s only salvation through Christ and Christ alone, and that by a divine miracle.
So to wrap it up with the powerful words of the apostle Paul, listen to this: “When Christ does come from heaven with His mighty angels and flaming fire,” 2 Thessalonians 1, “He will deal out retribution,” to who? “Those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction.”
It’s great to know this; it’s more important to understand that that means we’ve got to get busy with the gospel.
Jesus said that if they knew Him, they would also know His Father, adding that, from now on, they did know him and had seen Him (verse 7).
It’s actually better in the King James Version because of the verb tenses:
If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
Henry reminds us that Jesus said the words in the first part of the verse to the Jews in John 8:
Here is, [1.] A tacit rebuke to them for their dulness and carelessness in not acquainting themselves with Jesus Christ, though they had been his constant followers and associates: If you had known me—. They knew him, and yet did not know him so well as they might and should have known him. They knew him to be the Christ, but did not follow on to know God in him. Christ had said to the Jews (ch. 8 19): If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; and here the same to his disciples; for it is hard to say which is more strange, the wilful ignorance of those that are enemies to the light, or the defects and mistakes of the children of light, that have had such opportunities of knowledge. If they had known Christ aright, they would have known that his kingdom is spiritual, and not of this world; that he came down from heaven, and therefore must return to heaven; and then they would have known his Father also, would have known whither he designed to go, when he said, I go to the Father, to a glory in the other world, not in this.
The second half of the verse shows that our Lord excused their ignorance:
A favourable intimation that he was well satisfied concerning their sincerity, notwithstanding the weakness of their understanding: “And henceforth, from my giving you this hint, which will serve as a key to all the instructions I have given you hitherto, let me tell you, you know him, and have seen him, inasmuch as you know me, and have seen me;” for in the face of Christ we see the glory of God, as we see a father in his son that resembles him. Christ tells his disciples that they were not so ignorant as they seemed to be; for, though little children, yet they had known the Father, 1 John 2 13.
Then Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father and they would be satisfied (verse 8).
Recall what Philip said early on three years previously (John 1:43-45):
43 The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, ‘Follow me.’
44 Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. 45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, ‘We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’
MacArthur says:
This is disappointing; this is very disappointing. Shallow, faithless question.
By the way, it’s we. Don’t lay all this blame on Philip. He’s talking for the rest of these guys who are having the same problem: “Show us the Father. Show us the Father.” Sounds like a sort of pre-charismatic charismatic: “I need a vision.”
… I think he’s just saying, “Look, I don’t think we can do this thing by faith. I really don’t think we can do this by faith. God’s going to have to show up. God is going to have to show up. You’re handing us off here and we’re used to having You in our grip.”
Disappointing as it must have been for Jesus to hear Philip dictate terms to him, Henry reminds us of the desire of all faithful people — the sight of God:
In the knowledge of God the understanding rests, and is at the summit of its ambition; in the knowledge of God as our Father the soul is satisfied; a sight of the Father is a heaven upon earth, fills us with joy unspeakable.
I also think there was an aspect of none of them, apart from Judas, who had left earlier, being able to think straight. Finding out that Judas had betrayed Christ must have stunned them to the core, in addition to knowing that He was leaving them.
Jesus asked how Philip could not know Him after spending all that time with Him and still asking to see the Father, stating that whoever had seen Him had seen the Father (verse 9).
Henry discusses the reproof, which we might have occasion to apply to ourselves:
He reproves him for two things: First, For not improving his acquaintance with Christ, as he might have done, to a clear and distinct knowledge of him: “Hast thou not known me, Philip, whom thou hast followed so long, and conversed with so much?” Philip, the first day he came to him, declared that he knew him to be the Messiah (ch. 1 45), and yet to this day did not know the Father in him. Many that have good knowledge in the scripture and divine things fall short of the attainments justly expected from them, for want of compounding the ideas they have, and going on to perfection. Many know Christ, who yet do not know what they might know of him, nor see what they should see in him. That which aggravated Philip’s dulness was that he had so long an opportunity of improvement: I have been so long time with thee. Note, The longer we enjoy the means of knowledge and grace, the more inexcusable we are if we be found defective in grace and knowledge. Christ expects that our proficiency should be in some measure according to our standing, that we should not be always babes. Let us thus reason with ourselves: “Have I been so long a hearer of sermons, a student in the scripture, a scholar in the school of Christ, and yet so weak in the knowledge of Christ, and so unskilful in the word of righteousness?” Secondly, He reproves him for his infirmity in the prayer made, Show us the Father. Note, Herein appears much of the weakness of Christ’s disciples that they know not what to pray for as they ought (Rom 8 26), but often ask amiss (Jam 4 3), for that which either is not promised or is already bestowed in the sense of the promise, as here.
In the next three verses, Jesus made a point of using the verb ‘believe’.
He asked whether Philip did not believe that He is in the Father and the Father in Him; furthermore, He said that His words were not His own but the Father’s, the Father who dwells in Him and does His works (verse 10).
Jesus told Philip — and the other Apostles — to believe that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him; however, if they could not do that, they should believe because of the works themselves (verse 11).
Henry explains:
[1.] See here what it is which we are to believe: That I am in the Father, and the Father in me; that is, as he had said (ch. 10 30), I and my Father are one. He speaks of the Father and himself as two persons, and yet so one as never any two were or can be. In knowing Christ as God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, and as being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, we know the Father; and in seeing him thus we see the Father. In Christ we behold more of the glory of God than Moses did at Mount Horeb.
[2.] See here what inducements we have to believe this; and they are two:—We must believe it, First, For his word’s sake: The words that I speak to you, I speak not of myself. See ch. 7 16, My doctrine is not mine. What he said seemed to them careless as the word of man, speaking his own thought at his own pleasure; but really it was the wisdom of God that indited it and the will of God that enforced it. He spoke not of himself only, but the mind of God according to the eternal counsels. Secondly, For his works’ sake: The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth them; and therefore believe me for their sake. Observe, 1. The Father is said to dwell in him ho en emoi menon—he abideth in me, by the inseparable union of the divine and human nature: never had God such a temple to dwell in on earth as the body of the Lord Jesus, ch. 2 21. Here was the true Shechinah, of which that in the tabernacle was but a type. The fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily, Col 2 9. The Father so dwells in Christ that in him he may be found, as a man where he dwells. Seek ye the Lord, seek him in Christ, and he will be found, for in him he dwells. 2. He doeth the works. Many words of power, and works of mercy, Christ did, and the Father did them in him; and the work of redemption in general was God’s own work. 3. We are bound to believe this, for the very works’ sake. As we are to believe the being and perfections of God for the sake of the works of creation, which declare his glory; so we are to believe the revelation of God to man in Jesus Christ for the sake of the works of the Redeemer, those mighty works which, by showing forth themselves (Matt 14 2), Show forth him, and God in him. Note, Christ’s miracles are proofs of his divine mission, not only for the conviction of infidels, but for the confirmation of the faith of his own disciples, ch. 2 11; 5 36; 10 37.
MacArthur says:
So this is the revelation of His person meant to comfort them to know that He is one with the Father, and it will have an unfolding kind of reality that will eventually grip their hearts and anchor them down.
By beginning His next sentence with ‘Very truly’, Jesus impressed upon them the importance of the Apostles’ belief in Him, which would enable them to do the same works as He — even greater works — as He was going to the Father (verse 12).
Henry says:
This does not weaken the argument Christ had taken from his works, to prove himself one with the Father (that others should do as great works), but rather strengthens it; for the miracles which the apostles wrought were wrought in his name, and by faith in him; and this magnifies his power more than any thing, that he not only wrought miracles himself, but gave power to others to do so too.
MacArthur tells us:
… there’s a second revelation, the revelation of His power; not just His person, but His power. Look at verse 12: “Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes in Me – ” again, it’s about believing “ – the works that I do, he will do also; and greater than these he will do because I go to the Father.”
What is that? What is that? First of all, the primary interpretation to the apostles, 11 apostles, “You who believe in Me, you’re going to do what I have done. You’re going to do also what I have done.”
What does that mean? “You’re going to do miracles.” Read the book of Acts. Read the opening of the book of Acts. The apostles, the associates of the apostles had that miraculous power. They used their miracle power to do the very same miracles that Jesus did – miracles over disease, miracles over demons, miracles over death. That power was extended beyond Jesus, so in a sense, it’s greater in extent.
It was Jesus; and you remember, He delegated those powers to the apostles, but we don’t see illustrations of the apostles doing miracles. In fact, sometimes they come back and report, “We tried, but we couldn’t pull it off.” And now all of a sudden that’s going to change, and not greater in kind because you couldn’t do greater in kind or nature of miracles, you couldn’t do greater miracles in terms of what they actually were, but greater in extent.
“This is going to spread through all 11 of you and those associated with you,” even someone like Philip. So He says, “Greater things are going to happen. As this is multiplied, miracle power is multiplied through you starting on the Day of Pentecost.”
In Acts 2, you read how it flows through the Apostolic Age. This is the power given to the apostles. It’s defined for us clearly in 2 Corinthians 12:12, the signs and wonders, and miracles of an apostle. And it’s in Hebrews 2:4 where it says that the message the apostles preached was confirmed by signs and wonders and mighty deeds done by the apostles.
Before the Scripture was written, the way God validated those preachers was by miracles. They’re not going to do greater in kind. What’s greater than a healing, a resurrection, casting out demons? Nothing. But greater in extent, greater in extent. This is primarily to the apostles. But when that Apostolic Era ended, by the way, there’s still a sense in which greater works are being done.
Jesus left them with an important message for the Apostles and for us. He said He will do whatever we ask in His name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son (verse 13).
Now, it should be a request worthy of His name.
Henry says:
It is to aim at his glory and to seek this as our highest end in all our prayers.
If we ask our Lord for anything, He will do it (verse 14).
Henry concludes:
By faith in his name we may have what we will for the asking …
For what reason their prayers should speed so well: That the Father may be glorified in the Son …
This they ought to aim at, and have their eye upon, in asking. In this all our desires and prayers should meet as in their centre; to this they must all be directed, that God in Christ may be honoured by our services, and in our salvation. Hallowed be thy name is an answered prayer, and is put first, because, if the heart be sincere in this, it does in a manner consecrate all the other petitions.
MacArthur concludes:
But what does His name mean? Consistent with His identity, consistent with His person. That is it’s as if you’re standing in His place. It’s as if when He says, “I’m sending the Spirit in the Father’s name, I’m sending the Spirit because that’s the Father’s will.” If He says, “The Father sends the Spirit in My name, it means that the Father is sending the Spirit because that’s My will. So if you say, ‘If you ask anything in My name,’ it means in consistency with My will.”
First John 5:14, we have this confidence that we ask anything according to His will, we know that He hears it, and we have the petition we ask of Him consistent with His person, will, His purposes, what He’s attempting to do in the world when we pray for what is consistent with His nature, consistent with His purpose, consistent with His perfections, consistent with His glory.
We’ve been taught to pray: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done as it is in heaven.” We ask God for anything that is consistent with His person, His purpose, and His perfection, “And I’ll do it. I will do it; personal promise. I will do it.”
He doesn’t say it’ll happen like in some passive form. “I will do it. I’m going to be working for you through the Holy Spirit. The Father’s working for you through the Holy Spirit. The whole of the Trinity is on your side providing everything you could ever need.”
May all reading this have a blessed Sunday.
The Fourth Sunday of Easter is April 30, 2023.
Readings for Year A can be found here.
The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):
John 10:1-10
10:1 Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit.
10:2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.
10:3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
10:4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.
10:5 They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.”
10:6 Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
10:7 So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.
10:8 All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them.
10:9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.
10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
John 10 continues the events of John 9, wherein Jesus healed the blind man and the Pharisees took issue with Him:
Fourth Sunday in Lent, Laetare Sunday — Year A — exegesis on the Gospel, John 9:1-41 — part 1
Fourth Sunday in Lent, Laetare Sunday — Year A — exegesis on the Gospel, John 9:1-41 — part 2
John 9 ends with these verses:
39 Jesus said,[a] ‘For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.’
40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, ‘What? Are we blind too?’
41 Jesus said, ‘If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.
That might sound harsh, especially in our non-judgemental era, but Jesus came to save the Jews from the Pharisaical system.
In order to illustrate His point to the Pharisees, he used a figure of speech.
John MacArthur says that Jesus was speaking of salvation:
Just summing it up, the Messiah comes, the Savior comes, He comes to the fold of Judaism and the fold of the Gentile world. His sheep are already known to Him because the Father has identified them and given them a name and written it down before the foundation of the world. He knows who they are. He enters the door because He has full authority and right to do so. And out of the world and out of Judaism, He selects His own, calls them by name. This is irresistible grace. This is the effectual call. This is a call unto life. This is regeneration. They follow.
They follow because this is a supernatural work of God that draws them out of sin and death and darkness and blindness. They follow. They know His voice. They follow Him. They go through Him, He alone being the door. They come out and then they roam the world and enjoy all the rich provision and protection that their shepherd provides for them. This is salvation … Unfortunately, false shepherds and false teachers destroy people.
Jesus began by emphasising His figure of speech with ‘Very truly’, meaning that the Pharisees should give His words their full attention. He said that anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in through another way is a thief and a bandit (verse 1).
That part of the world had many shepherds and even those who lived in Jerusalem understood how tending sheep worked. A village would have any number of shepherds, each of whom tended his own flock.
At the end of a day of grazing, the shepherds brought the sheep back to a walled pen — the sheepfold — for the night.
MacArthur explains how this worked:
Each village would have in the village or right adjacent to the village a sheepfold, simply a pen. In each village, that pen would be a place where the sheep were brought at night to be safe. They would be out on the fields, out grazing during the day, and then at night the shepherd would lead them – sheep follow – the shepherd would lead them, and he would lead them into the fold. And there’s a lot of history about this. The shepherd would bring them, each shepherd in the village would bring his sheep and all the village shepherds would put their sheep in one fold. That was the place of protection. So there were sheep in the fold that belonged to different shepherds.
But they would enter one at a time and the shepherd would stop each sheep with his rod and check each one out for wounds, perhaps, or some other thing that might be of disturbance or concern to him. He would check them over from front to back, and particularly the back because they have so much lanolin in their wool that they’re easily plugged up and they can die. It was a messy and sometimes very dirty job, but that was the shepherd’s role. And he would let them through one by one. He would drop his rod over the next one, and then when he had examined, let him in. That’s why Ezekiel 20 tells us someday God will cause His people to pass under His rod, Ezekiel 20:37-38. He’ll let them in one by one.
So the simple enclosure was surrounded by a wall, and when night came, all the sheep would come into that enclosure, and they would be let in one at a time so each shepherd could examine his sheep. Villages had many shepherds, and shepherds had some sheep. They weren’t wealthy, generally speaking. They didn’t have massive amounts of sheep. They knew their sheep. They knew their sheep. They would then hire a porter. The shepherds would go to rest and sleep after a day in the fields, and a hired hand – you’ll notice down in verse 12, it refers to “a hired hand, and not a shepherd” – that’s the same as the doorkeeper in verse 3, and his job was to close the door at night when all the sheep were in and the shepherds went to their place of rest. And he was the guard for the night. He had the night shift to guard the sheep. That was his job.
Jesus said that the one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep (verse 2).
MacArthur says:
In the morning, as the sun came up, the shepherds would reappear and they would call their sheep. They would call their sheep out of the fold and lead them back out to pasture. Only the shepherds were allowed to get by the porter, by the gatekeeper. Thieves and robbers, if they came in the night, had to climb over the wall, and that’s what you have here. You have the robbers who “climb up some other way” in verse 1.
Jesus said that the gatekeeper opens the gate to the shepherd, and the sheep hear his voice; he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out (verse 3).
MacArthur explains our Lord’s deeper meaning here:
You say, “What is the sheepfold?” In this case, it is Israel. It is Israel. It is Judaism. The sheepfold is Judaism. The sheep are the Jewish people. The great Shepherd, the good Shepherd, the true Shepherd comes to the fold of Israel as the true Messiah and calls his own sheep out of Judaism.
And not only that, go down to verse 16. And this is consistent with what we read in Ezekiel. “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold.” Who is that? Another fold? “I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.” There’s the one Shepherd. What’s the other fold? Gentiles, nations, countries of the world, Jew and Gentile, just as Ezekiel promised that God would gather his flock from all of the nations and all the countries. The fold, then, is whatever holds temporarily the sheep that belong to God: Judaism or the world.
What is the door? The shepherd enters, verse 2 says, “by the door.” The shepherd of the sheep is allowed to come in the door. What is that? That’s privilege, right, authority, ownership. The guard is not going to let anybody but the shepherd in. And this is to indicate to us that Christ is the rightful Shepherd of His sheep. He has the privilege to come in and call His sheep and take them out. He has fulfilled all Messianic prophecy. He has demonstrated by words and works that He is the Messiah, the Son of God.
When the shepherd has brought out his own sheep from the pen, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow, because they know his voice (verse 4).
Matthew Henry’s commentary says:
The care he takes and the provision he makes for his sheep. The sheep hear his voice, when he speaks familiarly to them, when they come into the fold, as men now do to their dogs and horses; and, which is more, he calls his own sheep by name, so exact is the notice he takes of them, the account he keeps of them; and he leads them our from the fold to the green pastures; and (v. 4, 5) when he turns them out to graze he does not drive them, but (such was the custom in those times) he goes before them, to prevent any mischief or danger that might meet them, and they, being used to it, follow him, and are safe.
The sheep will not follow a stranger but will run from him because they do not recognise his voice (verse 5).
Henry cites Ezekiel in explaining this verse:
(5.) The strange attendance of the sheep upon the shepherd: They know his voice, so as to discern his mind by it, and to distinguish it from that of a stranger (for the ox knows his owner, Isa 1 3), and a stranger will they not follow, but, as suspecting some ill design, will flee from him, not knowing his voice, but that it is not the voice of their own shepherd. This is the parable; we have the key to it, Ezek 34 31: You my flock are men, and I am your God.
John tells us that the Pharisees did not understand our Lord’s figure of speech (verse 6).
It is no wonder they could not understand it. They were spiritually blind and hardened in that blindness.
Henry tells us:
The Pharisees had a great conceit of their own knowledge, and could not bear that it should be questioned, and yet they had not sense enough to understand the things that Jesus spoke of; they were above their capacity. Frequently the greatest pretenders to knowledge are most ignorant in the things of God.
Because they did not understand, Jesus repeated His message, emphasising it (verse 7): ‘Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep’.
MacArthur explains:
… like that shepherd in Israel, the great shepherd knows His sheep, too. He knows their name because their names have been written in the Lamb’s Book of Life from before the foundation of the world. He knows who they are. The picture here is really stunning. The true Shepherd has come to call Jewish people out of Judaism, to call Gentile people out of the folds of false religion and judgment across the world. He knows who they are. He calls them by name. They know His voice, and He leads them out …
This is one of the “I Am’s” of the gospel of John.
Jesus told the Pharisees that all who came before Him were thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them (verse 8).
MacArthur tells us:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” I want you to see the picture here. Here’s a second metaphor. He’s not only the Shepherd that comes in to take His sheep. He’s the door. He’s the only way out. It’s not about going in, it’s about going out. And the idea of going in and out means moving with freedom when He leads you out of that fold. And it’s only through Him. He alone is the door.
Jesus said the He is the gate; whoever enters by Him will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture (verse 9).
MacArthur says:
He repeated again down in verse 9. He leads you out and there is a freedom from bondage.
If anyone goes literally through me, passes through me, he will be saved. Mark that word, underline it, draw a circle around it. That’s the first time you move from the word picture, from the metaphor to reality, to the theological statement of fact. This is about what? This is about being saved. This is about salvation. This is the saving shepherd. “He’ll be saved, and – ” then he’s free to “ – go in and out and find pasture.”
Jesus said that the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; by contrast, He came so that His flock may have life and have it abundantly (verse 10).
MacArthur explains:
The contrast ends in verse 10 and it’s stark. False shepherds come to “steal and kill and destroy.” I think all of us, and certainly me, have been vilified by people for exposing false doctrine. But I could not be a faithful shepherd before my own Shepherd if I didn’t do my part to protect the sheep. If I say something against anything, it usually shows up in some headline in such an outrageous form that it incites anger and hostility. But it’s really not about me being angry. It’s about me trying to discharge a compassionate responsibility to those who are being victimized by false shepherds who want nothing but to strip them of everything they have and then eat them.
The thief comes to kill the sheep. There’s some interesting stories. If a thief came at night and climbed the wall, he would have a difficulty getting the sheep out willingly because the sheep don’t know his voice. And so very often, they would slit the throat of the sheep in the fold and throw it over the wall. They knew that. They knew the kind of work that robbers did. They would take the wool and then eat the sheep. The thief comes to kill, comes to destroy after he has stolen. On the other hand, “I come that they may have life, and have it perissos, over the top.”
Henry has more:
“The scribes, and Pharisees, and chief priests, all, even as many as have come before me, that have endeavoured to forestal my interest, and to prevent my gaining any room in the minds of people, by prepossessing them with prejudices against me, they are thieves and robbers, and steal those hearts which they have no title to, defrauding the right owner of his property.” They condemned our Saviour as a thief and a robber, because he did not come in by them as the door, nor take out a license from them; but he shows that they ought to have received their commission from him, to have been admitted by him, and to have come after him, and because they did not, but stepped before him, they were thieves and robbers. They would not come in as his disciples, and therefore were condemned as usurpers, and their pretended commissions vacated and superseded. Note, Rivals with Christ are robbers of his church, however they pretend to be shepherds, nay, shepherds of shepherds. Secondly, The care taken to preserve the sheep from them: But the sheep did not hear them. Those that had a true savour of piety, that were spiritual and heavenly, and sincerely devoted to God and godliness, could by no means approve of the traditions of the elders, nor relish their formalities. Christ’s disciples, without any particular instructions from their Master, made no conscience of eating with unwashen hands, or plucking the ears of corn on the sabbath day; for nothing is more opposite to true Christianity than Pharisaism is, nor any thing more disrelishing to a soul truly devout than their hypocritical devotions.
Henry closes with this message for us:
Here are, First, Plain directions how to come into the fold: we must come in by Jesus Christ as the door. By faith in him, as the great Mediator between God and man, we come into covenant and communion with God. There is no entering into God’s church but by coming into Christ’s church; nor are any looked upon as members of the kingdom of God among men but those that are willing to submit to the grace and government of the Redeemer. We must now enter by the door of faith (Acts 14 27), since the door of innocency is shut against us, and that pass become unpassable, Gen 3 24. Secondly, Precious promises to those who observe this direction. 1. They shall be saved hereafter; this is the privilege of their home. These sheep shall be saved from being distrained and impounded by divine justice for trespass done, satisfaction being made for the damage by their great Shepherd, saved from being a prey to the roaring lion; they shall be for ever happy. 2. In the mean time they shall go in and out and find pasture; this is the privilege of their way. They shall have their conversation in the world by the grace of Christ, shall be in his fold as a man at his own house, where he has free ingress, egress, and regress. True believers are at home in Christ; when they go out, they are not shut out as strangers, but have liberty to come in again; when they come in, they are not shut in as trespassers, but have liberty to go out. They go out to the field in the morning, they come into the fold at night; and in both the Shepherd leads and keeps them, and they find pasture in both: grass in the field, fodder in the fold. In public, in private, they have the word of God to converse with, by which their spiritual life is supported and nourished, and out of which their gracious desires are satisfied; they are replenished with the goodness of God’s house.
The readings for Years B and C continue with John 10:
Fourth Sunday of Easter — Year B — exegesis on the Gospel: John 10:11-18 (2021, the Good Shepherd)
Fourth Sunday of Easter — Year C — exegesis on the Gospel, John 10:22-30
May all reading this have a blessed Sunday.
The Fifth Sunday in Lent, Passion Sunday, is March 26, 2023.
Traditionally, the Fifth Sunday in Lent — Passion Sunday — begins a two-week season called Passiontide, which encompasses Palm Sunday (next week) and Holy Week.
Some traditionalist churches cover crosses and images with dark or black cloth from this Sunday throughout most of Holy Week. Crosses and crucifixes can be uncovered after Good Friday services. Statues remain covered until the Easter Vigil Mass takes place on Holy Saturday.
Readings for Year A can be found here.
The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):
John 11:1-45
11:1 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
11:2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill.
11:3 So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”
11:4 But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
11:5 Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus,
11:6 after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
11:7 Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.”
11:8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?”
11:9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world.
11:10 But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.”
11:11 After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.”
11:12 The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.”
11:13 Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep.
11:14 Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.
11:15 For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
11:16 Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
11:17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.
11:18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away,
11:19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother.
11:20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home.
11:21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
11:22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”
11:23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
11:24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
11:25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,
11:26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
11:27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
11:28 When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”
11:29 And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him.
11:30 Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him.
11:31 The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there.
11:32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
11:33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.
11:34 He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”
11:35 Jesus began to weep.
11:36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
11:37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
11:38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.
11:39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.”
11:40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
11:41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me.
11:42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.”
11:43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
11:44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
11:45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
Part 1 of this exegesis covers the first 19 verses.
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet Him; Mary stayed at home (verse 20).
John MacArthur describes what it was like at home during this time of grief and mourning:
Let me give you kind of a picture. When someone died, as I said, they put them in the ground right away. Burial followed death immediately. As a result of the death, people would be notified. They would come to the house. There would be a procession, a procession to wherever they were going to place the body. They’re not necessarily digging a hole, but like Jesus who was buried in a cave. There were many caves in the Bethany area as well as around Jerusalem. Many believers were buried this way all over the ancient world around the Mediterranean.
So it’s very likely they put Him in some kind of cave on some kind of shelf, which is typically what they did in catacombs kind of places. He would be placed there. The procession would then go back to the house and mourners would stay for seven days, seven days. This is how long the initial part of the funeral lasted. For seven days, people would be sitting in the house. Now, they couldn’t eat until the body was taken to be buried. They didn’t want any kind of levity. They didn’t want any kind of joy being expressed. They didn’t want any kind of normalcy until the body had been buried, and then they would serve a meal. They actually had designed a meal of bread, hard-boiled eggs and lentils, kind of a traditional meal to feed the people who were going to stay.
Then they would continue to have to care for those people or others would bring food as the mourners stayed for seven days. What they did was not just sit quietly like Job’s friends and say nothing. They wailed out loud. They mourned. They wailed loudly. Women led this, so it was kind of a screaming, wailing situation. They saw this as comfort because of the sympathy behind it. It was traditional. They expected it. For seven days, this wailing went on.
So when Jesus comes and Lazarus has been dead four days, this is still in full bloom. Sympathy was everybody’s duty. It was really a beautiful custom. By the way, at the end of the seven days, the wailing, sort of the formal wailing – and by the way, there were hired mourners as well, people who were professional wailers who sort of led the rest. They embraced that family for seven days, and then after the seven days of really intense wailing, they would also carry on mourning for 30 days. There would be some expressions openly, publicly of mourning for 30 days as those friends and those people came around. During the time of wailing and mourning, there would be reminiscences and eulogies and remembrances. There would be the sharing of stories and whatever was necessary to comfort. It really was a beautiful custom.
MacArthur offers possibilities on how Martha would have heard Jesus was there:
… maybe the messenger who came with them ran ahead. Do you remember the messenger who went to tell Jesus that Lazarus was sick? He must have come back with them. Maybe he waited the two days they waited, and then came back with them and maybe ran ahead a little bit. We can’t be certain about that, but somebody informed her that Jesus was near, but not quite at the village.
She heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet Him, but Mary stayed at the house. Now, here we come to these two sisters again, and they perform kind of according to their personality and their temperament. If you go back to Luke 10 for a minute, this is where we meet them earlier in the ministry of Jesus, quite a bit earlier in the ministry of Jesus. Jesus and His disciples are traveling along and He enters a village. By the way, it’s Bethany, that same village, and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. She knew about Him, must have known about Him. We don’t know at this point how much. She welcomed Him into her home. “She had a sister called Mary who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word.”
… And she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister had left me to do all the serving alone?” I mean that’s a pretty bold lady. “Then tell her to help me.” Whoa. “But the Lord answered and said to her, ‘Martha, Martha.”
You know, when anybody repeats your name twice, you know you’re in trouble? My mother was just, “Johnny, Johnny.” “Martha, Martha, you’re worried and bothered about so many things.” They don’t matter. “Only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” No way I’m going to tell her to go to the kitchen and fuss around. She’s chosen the right thing. So there’s the initial characterization. Mary is the pensive, thoughtful, inward, melancholy kind of personality and Martha is the busy one, the active one, the aggressive one. So we see that again.
Go back to John 11. The word comes. She gets the word that the Savior is on the way, and as soon as she gets the word that He’s on the way, she charges in that direction. Verse 20, Mary stays back. She’s melancholy. She’s broken hearted. She’s sad. She’s pensive, in deep sorrow. She doesn’t even know Jesus is coming. She doesn’t even know that because she doesn’t find it out until verse 28 when Martha comes back and tells her. She’s just caught up in the loss of her brother, the agonizing loss of this brother that she loved.
Martha said to Jesus that, if He had been there, Lazarus would not have died (verse 21).
MacArthur thinks that that thought was going around in Martha’s head since Lazarus died:
… as Martha reached Jesus, the thought that had no doubt plagued her brain and she had shared it with Mary for the four days, was that Jesus should have been there; and if Jesus hadn’t left, this wouldn’t have happened … “If you had been here my brother would not have died.” Here she is telling Him what to do again. This is definitely her. This is her. The first time she said anything to Him, she told Him what to do. The second time, she scolds Him again and tells Him if He’d had done what He should have been doing, He would have been there, and this never would have happened.
Even so, she said, she knew that God would give Jesus whatever He asked of Him (verse 22).
MacArthur says:
This lady got a solid Christology while she was in the kitchen overhearing what He was saying to Mary. She got it. By the way, Jesus no doubt stayed at their home Many times, but somehow with all that she knew, there was this pain that testifies to a faith that comes short of believing His power to raise the dead. She says, “I know you can ask the Father and you can do that now, and God will give you if it’s His will.”
Matthew Henry’s commentary says much the same:
How weak her faith was. She should have said, “Lord, thou canst do whatsoever thou wilt;” but she only says, “Thou canst obtain whatsoever thou prayest for.” She had forgotten that the Son had life in himself, that he wrought miracles by his own power.
Jesus told Martha that her brother would rise again (verse 23).
Martha took that to mean that he would rise again in resurrection on the last day (verse 24).
Henry explains, linking those verses to today’s first reading, Ezekiel 37:1-14, about the resurrection of the dry bones into an army:
Thy brother shall rise again. First, This was true of Lazarus in a sense peculiar to him: he was now presently to be raised; but Christ speaks of it in general as a thing to be done, not which he himself would do, so humbly did our Lord Jesus speak of what he did. He also expresses it ambiguously, leaving her uncertain at first whether he would raise him presently or not till the last day, that he might try her faith and patience. Secondly, It is applicable to all the saints, and their resurrection at the last day. Note, It is a matter of comfort to us, when we have buried our godly friends and relations, to think that they shall rise again. As the soul at death is not lost, but gone before, so the body is not lost, but laid up. Think you hear Christ saying, “Thy parent, thy child, thy yoke-fellow, shall rise again; these dry bones shall live.”
… As bone shall return to his bone in that day, so friend to his friend.
Jesus stated that He is the resurrection and the life; those who believe in Him, even though they die will live (verse 25) and everyone who lives and believes in Him will never die. Then He asked Martha if she believed that (verse 26).
MacArthur says:
I just want to affirm to you, folks, there will be a resurrection. This is not a misinterpretation of Scripture because Martha got the same thing from Jesus. It is the truth. You will rise to life or damnation. You will receive a body for eternity. Then our Lord says, “Martha, look, I am the resurrection and the life.” Listen, not, “I will be.” I – what? “I am.” This is the fifth of seven I ams in the gospel of John.
I AM\\\am. That’s the Tetragrammaton, the name of God. I am the resurrection and the life. He doesn’t say, “I can raise the dead.” I am the resurrection. I can pray the Father to give life. I am life. “He who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” So here is this great claim, this claim to be the I am, to be the one who is the source of life. I am the embodiment of life. I am the life.
Just as in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Not in the future, “I will be.” In the present, “I am.” Here is the I am. Jesus is the life itself. He is everlasting life. That everlasting life, by the way, that resurrected life in heaven is for anyone who believes. Do you believe? That’s the compelling question. Do you believe? If you do not believe, you are without excuse. If you do not believe that He is the resurrection and the life, you are without excuse. Why? You must believe He is the life. He created everything that lives. You must believe He is the resurrection because He not only raised the dead, but He himself was raised from the dead; and because He lives, we live also.
Martha affirmed her own faith, saying, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world’ (verse 27). That is what the Old Testament teaches.
MacArthur says:
She didn’t even know about the cross yet because He hadn’t died. She didn’t know about His resurrection yet because it hadn’t happened, but she believed everything that had been revealed up to that point. She is an Old Testament saint. She is an Old Testament believer. I do believe. I do believe.
After Martha professed her belief in Jesus, she went back to the house to fetch her sister Mary, telling her privately, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you’ (verse 28).
Henry says:
[2.] She called her secretly, and whispered it in her ear, because there was company by, Jews, who were no friends to Christ. The saints are called into the fellowship of Jesus Christ by an invitation that is secret and distinguishing, given to them and not to others; they have meat to eat that the world knows not of, joy that a stranger does not intermeddle with. [3.] She called her by order from Christ; he bade her go call her sister. This call that is effectual, whoever brings it, is sent by Christ. The Master is come, and calleth for thee. First, She calls Christ the Master, didaskalos, a teaching master; by that title he was commonly called and known among them. Mr. George Herbert took pleasure in calling Christ, my Master. Secondly, She triumphs in his arrival: The Master is come. He whom we have long wished and waited for, he is come, he is come; this was the best cordial in the present distress. “Lazarus is gone, and our comfort in him is gone; but the Master is come, who is better than the dearest friend, and has that in him which will abundantly make up all our losses. He is come who is our teacher, who will teach us how to get good by our sorrow (Ps 94 12), who will teach, and so comfort.”
When Mary heard what Martha said, she rose quickly to go to Him (verse 29).
Jesus was still not in the village at that point, but at the place where Martha had met Him (verse 30).
The Jews who were in the house consoling Mary saw her get up quickly and leave; they followed her because they thought she was going to her brother’s tomb to weep there (verse 31). In other words, they wanted to be available to console her at the tomb and not leave her on her own.
Now we have a body of witnesses for the upcoming miracle.
Henry says:
Those Jews that followed Mary were thereby led to Christ, and became the witnesses of one of his most glorious miracles. It is good cleaving to Christ’s friends in their sorrows, for thereby we may come to know him better.
Note that Mary says the same thing to Jesus as had Martha in verse 21, the big difference being that Mary knelt at His feet when she spoke those words (verse 32).
Henry points out:
Now here, [1.] Her posture is very humble and submissive: She fell down at his feet, which was more than Martha did, who had a greater command of her passions. She fell down not as a sinking mourner, but fell down at his feet as a humble petitioner. This she did in presence of the Jews that attended her, who, though friends to her and her family, yet were bitter enemies to Christ; yet in their sight she fell at Christ’s feet, as one that was neither ashamed to own the veneration she had for Christ nor afraid of disobliging her friends and neighbours by it. Let them resent it as they pleased, she falls at his feet; and, if this be to be vile, she will be yet more vile; see Cant 8 1. We serve a Master of whom we have no reason to be ashamed, and whose acceptance of our services is sufficient to balance the reproach of men and all their revilings. [2.] Her address is very pathetic: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. Christ’s delay was designed for the best, and proved so; yet both the sisters very indecently cast the same in his teeth, and in effect charge him with the death of their brother.
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping, He was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved (verse 33).
Both our commentators say that Jesus experienced a deep, groaning inner pain. In today’s secular world, we would call it an existential pain in the truest sense of the word: a yawning chasm of sorrow.
MacArthur tells us:
“He was deeply moved,” deeply moved. Literally weeping is klaiō in the Greek. It means to sob. And when He sees all this sobbing, He was deeply moved. That is a very interesting word, deeply moved. It can mean being emotional. It can mean being angry. It can mean being indignant. It can mean groaning, feeling inner pain and turmoil. This is deep emotion. This is a word that sort of grabs everything. There is sorrow, sadness, indigence, anger, suffering. It’s just every emotion grips Him in His spirit, in His inner person, His person, and He was troubled, reflexive verb, troubled in Himself or He allowed Himself to feel the trouble. He let Himself feel everything.
This is like what Hebrews says, “He is in all points tempted like as we are.” He’s been touched with the feelings of our infirmities as our great High Priest. He’s sad because He’s lost His friends. Now, He loved Lazarus. It says that back in verse 3, and it’s phileō. It’s, He had an affection for him, human. He lost His friend.
He loved Mary and Martha. There’s no question that He loved them. Everybody recognized how much He loved them. But there’s more there than that. It’s not just the pain that He feels in the loss of a friend. It’s not just the pain that He feels as He identifies with these two sisters. He feels a far more transcendent pain. He feels a cosmic pain. He understands that He is surrounded by unbelievers, who are representative of a nation of unbelievers who are all being catapulted into eternal judgment because they will not receive Him. He understands that looking down through human history. He understands the pain and suffering of all humanity that faces the same inevitable hour of human loss. He understands that how severe this loss is when you know you’re losing one to hell forever.
I mean this is a massive moment of agony. Maybe a little bit like His agony in the garden as He anticipates the sin-bearing. He deeply enters in, not only to the wounded hearts and sorrows of people who are broken because they’ve lost the one they love; but He sees way more than that. He understands what sin has done to the world and what unbelief has done to these people who are gathered around Him.
Henry offers this analysis:
… Christ not only seemed concerned, but he groaned in the spirit; he was inwardly and sincerely affected with the case. David’s pretended friends counterfeited sympathy, to disguise their enmity (Ps 41 6); but we must learn of Christ to have our love and sympathy without dissimulation. Christ’s was a deep and hearty sigh.
[2.] He was troubled. He troubled himself; so the phrase is, very significantly. He had all the passions and affections of the human nature, for in all things he must be like to his brethren; but he had a perfect command of them, so that they were never up, but when and as they were called; he was never troubled, but when he troubled himself, as he saw cause. He often composed himself to trouble, but was never discomposed or disordered by it. He was voluntary both in his passion and in his compassion. He had power to lay down his grief, and power to take it again.
Jesus asked where they had placed Lazarus, and the mourners replied, ‘Lord, come and see’ (verse 34).
Jesus began to weep (verse 35).
It’s even better in the King James Bible, which gives us the shortest sentence in Scripture:
35 Jesus wept.
Henry tells us:
A very short verse, but it affords many useful instructions. [1.] That Jesus Christ was really and truly man, and partook with the children, not only of flesh and blood, but of a human soul, susceptible of the impressions of joy, and grief, and other affections. Christ gave this proof of his humanity, in both senses of the word; that, as a man, he could weep, and, as a merciful man, he would weep, before he gave this proof of his divinity. [2.] That he was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, as was foretold, Isa 53 3. We never read that he laughed, but more than once we have him in tears. Thus he shows not only that a mournful state will consist with the love of God, but that those who sow to the Spirit must sow in tears. [3.] Tears of compassion well become Christians, and make them most to resemble Christ. It is a relief to those who are in sorrow to have their friends sympathize with them, especially such a friend as their Lord Jesus.
The Jews said (verse 36), ‘See how he loved him!’
But some of them asked (verse 37), ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’
Henry rightly calls this remark ‘sly’:
Here it is slyly insinuated, First, That the death of Lazarus being (as it seemed by his tears) a great grief to him, if he could have prevented it he would, and therefore because he did not they incline to think that he could not; as, when he was dying, they concluded that he could not, because he did not, save himself, and come down from the cross; not considering that divine power is always directed in its operations by divine wisdom, not merely according to his will, but according to the counsel of his will, wherein it becomes us to acquiesce. If Christ’s friends, whom he loves, die,—if his church, whom he loves, be persecuted and afflicted,—we must not impute it to any defect either in his power or love, but conclude that it is because he sees it for the best. Secondly, That therefore it might justly be questioned whether he did indeed open the eyes of the blind, that is, whether it was not a sham. His not working this miracle they thought enough to invalidate the former; at least, it should seem that he had limited power, and therefore not a divine one. Christ soon convinced these whisperers, by raising Lazarus from the dead, which was the greater work, that he could have prevented his death, but therefore did not because he would glorify himself the more.
Serendipitously, we had the reading of Christ curing the blind man last week in the reading for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, Laetare Sunday, Year A (2023) here and here.
Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb, which was a cave with a stone lying against it (verse 38).
Henry explains why our Lord was disturbed:
Christ repeats his groans upon his coming near the grave (v. 38): Again groaning in himself, he comes to the grave: he groaned, (1.) Being displeased at the unbelief of those who spoke doubtingly of his power, and blamed him for not preventing the death of Lazarus; he was grieved for the hardness of their hearts. He never groaned so much for his own pains and sufferings as for the sins and follies of men, particularly Jerusalem’s, Matt 23 37. (2.) Being affected with the fresh lamentations which, it is likely, the mourning sisters made when they came near the grave, more passionately and pathetically than before, his tender spirit was sensibly touched with their wailings. (3.) Some think that he groaned in spirit because, to gratify the desire of his friends, he was to bring Lazarus again into this sinful troublesome world, from that rest into which he was newly entered; it would be a kindness to Martha and Mary, but it would be to him like thrusting one out to a stormy sea again who was newly got into a safe and quiet harbour. If Lazarus had been let alone, Christ would quickly have gone to him into the other world; but, being restored to life, Christ quickly left him behind in this world. (4.) Christ groaned as one that would affect himself with the calamitous state of the human nature, as subject to death, from which he was now about to redeem Lazarus.
Then we come to another famous verse — the previous one being verse 35 — one which I have also committed to memory in the King James Version.
Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone’, and Martha said that, after four days, there was a stench (verse 39).
The King James Version is far superior:
39 Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.
It was a very typical thing of Martha, a practical woman, to say.
Henry explains why she said it:
Probably Martha perceived the body to smell, as they were removing the stone, and therefore cried out thus …
It is not so easy to say what was Martha’s design in saying this. [1.] Some think she said it in a due tenderness, and such as decency teaches to the dead body; now that it began to putrefy, she did not care it should be thus publicly shown and made a spectacle of. [2.] Others think she said it out of a concern for Christ, lest the smell of the dead body should be offensive to him. That which is very noisome is compared to an open sepulchre, Ps 5 9. If there were any thing noisome she would not have her Master near it; but he was none of those tender and delicate ones that cannot bear as ill smell; if he had, he would not have visited the world of mankind, which sin had made a perfect dunghill, altogether noisome, Ps 14 3. [3.] It should seem, by Christ’s answer, that it was the language of her unbelief and distrust: “Lord, it is too late now to attempt any kindness to him; his body begins to rot, and it is impossible that this putrid carcase should live.“ She gives up his case as helpless and hopeless, there having been no instances, either of late or formerly, of any raised to life after they had begun to see corruption. When our bones are dried, we are ready to say, Our hope is lost. Yet this distrustful word of hers served to make the miracle both the more evident and the more illustrious; by this it appeared that he was truly dead, and not in a trance; for, though the posture of a dead body might be counterfeited, the smell could not. Her suggesting that it could not be done puts the more honour upon him that did it.
Henry also tells us why Jesus asked for the stone to be moved:
He would have this stone removed that all the standersby might see the body lie dead in the sepulchre, and that way might be made for its coming out, and it might appear to be a true body, and not a ghost or spectre. He would have some of the servants to remove it, that they might be witnesses, by the smell of the putrefaction of the body, and that therefore it was truly dead. It is a good step towards the raising of a soul to spiritual life when the stone is taken away, when prejudices are removed and got over, and way made for the word to the heart, that it may do its work there, and say what it has to say.
Jesus perceived Martha’s doubt because He reminded her (verse 40), ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’
MacArthur makes an excellent observation:
You say you believe. If you believe, you’re going to see the glory. Get your eyes off the corpse and on the Christ. Set your heart on the Lord. Wait to see the glory revealed. We need to live in that kind of expectancy. We’re not looking for miracles, but I will tell you this, folks. When you really believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you see Him display His glory throughout all of your life. I tell people all the time: I live in the middle of a glory display all the time. I’ve never seen a miracle, but I live in the middle of a glory display by the amazing, astounding, incomprehensible providence of God by which He orders every circumstance, every day of my life to reveal His purposes and His will. The complexity of it is more staggering than if He interrupted natural law and did a single miracle. How many miracles does it take to create a complex reality out of all kinds of contingencies of the non-miraculous? It’s what He does every day.
My whole life is a glory display. I just go from one day to the next, to the next, to the next. And if you’re looking and believing, you will see the same thing. You will see God in your life. You will see God in circumstances. You will see God working His purposes. That’s what He called upon her to look for.
So they took away the stone and, looking upward, Jesus prayed, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me’ (verse 41)’; ‘I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me’ (verse 42).
Henry says:
Thus he stirred up himself to take hold on God in the prayer he was to make, that he might offer it up with strong crying, Heb 5 7. Ministers, when they are sent by the preaching of the gospel to raise dead souls, should be much affected with the deplorable condition of those they preach to and pray for, and groan in themselves to think of it …
1. He applies himself to his living Father in heaven, so he had called him (ch. 6 17), and so eyes him here.
(1.) The gesture he used was very significant: He lifted up his eyes, an outward expression of the elevation of his mind, and to show those who stood by whence he derived his power; also to set us an example; this outward sign is hereby recommended to our practice; see ch. 17 1. Look how those will answer it who profanely ridicule it; but that which is especially charged upon us hereby is to lift up our hearts to God in the heavens; what is prayer, but the ascent of the soul to God, and the directing of its affections and motions heavenward? …
(2.) His address to God was with great assurance, and such a confidence as became him: Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
[1.] He has here taught us, by his own example, First, In prayer to call God Father, and to draw nigh to him as children to a father, with a humble reverence, and yet with a holy boldness. Secondly, In our prayers to praise him, and, when we come to beg for further mercy, thankfully to acknowledge former favours. Thanksgivings, which bespeak God’s glory (not our own, like the Pharisee’s God, I thank thee), are decent forms into which to put our supplications.
[2.] But our Saviour’s thanksgiving here was intended to express the unshaken assurance he had of the effecting of this miracle, which he had in his own power to do in concurrence with his Father: “Father, I thank thee that my will and thine are in this matter, as always, the same.” Elijah and Elisha raised the dead, as servants, by entreaty; but Christ, as a Son, by authority, having life in himself, and power to quicken whom he would; and he speaks of this as his own act (v. 11): I go, that I may awake him; yet he speaks of it as what he had obtained by prayer, for his Father heard him: probably he put up the prayer for it when he groaned in spirit once and again (v. 33, 38), in a mental prayer, with groanings which could not be uttered.
When He had said that prayer, Jesus cried with a loud voice (verse 43), ‘Lazarus, come out!’
MacArthur gives us the emphasis from the original manuscript:
If you were reading this in the original language, it would read like this: “He yelled in a loud voice with a loud voice.” Why the double statement? He is literally at the pinnacle of His voice, and He had a powerful voice, you can be certain. He was a teacher. He taught every day. He taught in the open air, no amplification, except that which was natural. He could speak to crowds of 20,000 people and be heard. A powerful voice. I’m convinced that probably was the most melodious voice ever created. How could it be anything less than that. And with that loud, commanding voice, maybe like the voice of many waters in the imagery of Revelation chapter 1, He yells at the top of His voice without distorting His words and says, “Lazarus, come forth.”
The dead man then came out, his hands and feet bound in strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth; Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go’ (verse 44).
I envision Lazarus wrapped like a mummy.
Henry tells us that this resurrection miracle not only recalls Ezekiel 37 but also our Lord’s resurrection and his Second Coming, when we shall be joined with our bodies once more for eternity:
By his word, he saith to souls, Live, yea, he saith to them, Live, Ezek 16 6. Arise from the dead, Eph 5 14. The spirit of life from God entered into those that had been dead and dry bones, when Ezekiel prophesied over them, Ezek 37 10. Those who infer from the commands of the word to turn and live that man has a power of his own to convert and regenerate himself might as well infer from this call to Lazarus that he had a power to raise himself to life. Secondly, Of the sound of the archangel’s trumpet at the last day, with which they that sleep in the dust shall be awakened and summoned before the great tribunal, when Christ shall descend with a shout, a call, or command, like this here, Come forth, Ps 50 4. He shall call both to the heavens for their souls, and to the earth for their bodies, that he may judge his people.
Many of the Jews who had accompanied Mary to Lazarus’s tomb and had seen what Jesus did believed in Him (verse 45).
MacArthur says that Lazarus might have lived another 30 years:
Tradition says he lived another 30 years. Maybe that’s true. Certainly, he lived for a while. This was not a temporary resurrection in that sense, in a human sense. We don’t know anything about the reunion of Mary and Martha. We don’t know anything about the shock and awe that must have just literally roared through the mourners. We don’t know anything about that. We don’t know anything about the conversations that Lazarus had after this.
Wikipedia states that the Eastern Orthodox tradition says that:
Mary’s brother Lazarus was cast out of Jerusalem in the persecution against the Jerusalem Church following the martyrdom of St. Stephen. His sisters Mary and Martha fled Judea with him, assisting him in the proclaiming of the Gospel in various lands.[17] According to Cyprian tradition, the three later moved to Cyprus, where Lazarus became the first Bishop of Kition (modern Larnaca).[18] All three died in Cyprus.[citation needed]
Whatever happened, the main point is, as MacArthur says:
All we’re interested in is the glory of the Son, and when He said, “Lazarus, come out,” and in a moment Lazarus was standing there, that’s the point of the story. The rest is irrelevant. In fact, in verse 40, Jesus says to Martha, “Didn’t I say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” and they did. The purpose of this was to bring glory to God, and glory to God incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Ending on verse 45, how many are the ‘many’ that believed in Jesus?
MacArthur says:
I don’t know what the number is. Maybe it’s dozens. Maybe it’s multiple of 20. Maybe it’s 100 or more. I don’t know what the “many” is, but many mourners came, and they have been there now four days already, filling up the first seven days when everybody would be there. Now the resurrection has happened, and the mourners are still there. They have known the family. They have known Lazarus. They know he was dead. They know he’s been in the grave four days. They know what that means because Jews don’t embalm. They get it …
They believed and they were given the right to become children of God. Their sins were forgiven. They were redeemed. They became the children of God. They ceased being the children of the devil. They are the believing many, many in a relative sense. Many of the number that were there; not many of the nation. Many of the number that were there. They believed.
However, not everyone believed. John 11:46 says:
46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
A few verses later we read:
53 So from that day on they planned to put him to death.
54 Jesus therefore no longer walked about openly among the Jews but went from there to a town called Ephraim in the region near the wilderness, and he remained there with the disciples.
His hour had come.
The Fifth Sunday in Lent, Passion Sunday, is March 26, 2023.
Traditionally, the Fifth Sunday in Lent — Passion Sunday — begins a two-week season called Passiontide, which encompasses Palm Sunday (next week) and Holy Week.
Some traditionalist churches cover crosses and images with dark or black cloth from this Sunday throughout most of Holy Week. Crosses and crucifixes can be uncovered after Good Friday services. Statues remain covered until the Easter Vigil Mass takes place on Holy Saturday.
Readings for Year A can be found here.
The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):
John 11:1-45
11:1 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
11:2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill.
11:3 So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”
11:4 But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
11:5 Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus,
11:6 after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
11:7 Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.”
11:8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?”
11:9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world.
11:10 But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.”
11:11 After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.”
11:12 The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.”
11:13 Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep.
11:14 Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.
11:15 For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
11:16 Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
11:17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.
11:18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away,
11:19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother.
11:20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home.
11:21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
11:22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”
11:23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
11:24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
11:25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,
11:26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
11:27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
11:28 When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”
11:29 And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him.
11:30 Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him.
11:31 The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there.
11:32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
11:33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.
11:34 He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”
11:35 Jesus began to weep.
11:36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
11:37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
11:38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.
11:39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.”
11:40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
11:41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me.
11:42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.”
11:43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
11:44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
11:45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
As this is most of John 11, I will write this in multiple posts.
This last great miracle of resurrection was late in our Lord’s ministry and was His final truly public miracle. His last miracle was healing the Roman soldier’s ear in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before He was crucified.
John’s Gospel is the only one that has the story of Lazarus’s resurrection.
Matthew Henry’s commentary explains possible reasons for that:
In this chapter we have the history of that illustrious miracle which Christ wrought a little before his death—the raising of Lazarus to life, which is recorded only by this evangelist; for the other three confine themselves to what Christ did in Galilee, where he resided most, and scarcely ever carried their history into Jerusalem till the passion-week: whereas John’s memoirs relate chiefly to what passed at Jerusalem; this passage therefore was reserved for his pen. Some suggest that, when the other evangelists wrote, Lazarus was alive, and it would not well agree either with his safety or with his humility to have it recorded till now, when it is supposed he was dead. It is more largely recorded than any other of Christ’s miracles, not only because there are many circumstances of it so very instructive and the miracle of itself so great a proof of Christ’s mission, but because it was an earnest of that which was to be the crowning proof of all—Christ’s own resurrection.
John MacArthur says:
It was J.C. Ryle, the English cleric, who looked at this chapter and wrote these words, “For grandeur and simplicity, for pathos and solemnity, nothing was ever written like it.” It’s a pretty amazing statement from a man such as he was. This is an amazing chapter. It is the account of the miracle of our Lord raising Lazarus from the dead. And while the story, of course, in short is very familiar to us, in its detail, it is much more rich. So we want to make sure that we cover the detail. This is the climactic, culminating, fitting sign to end John’s list of signs in this gospel that point to the deity of Christ.
John’s purpose, we all know that, is to present Jesus Christ so that you might believe that He is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you might have life in His name. He has an apologetic purpose that you might believe Jesus is the Christ, and he has an evangelistic purpose that in believing you might receive eternal life, but it’s all about Christ. It’s all about Christ. Here, in chapter 11, we come to the last and most monumental public miracle that Jesus did. It’s the climactic one for John. There is one later miracle, but it’s in the dark and very private because of how it happened. It’s in the garden and it was Jesus reaching over and giving Malchus a new ear after Peter had hacked it off. But apart from that miracle in the dark, this is the last great public miracle that Jesus did …
If you look at verse 15 in this passage, Jesus says about not being there when he died, “I’m glad for your sakes, I was not there so that you may believe.” This miracle not only is an undeniable permanent evidence of the deity of Christ. It was for the purpose of producing greater faith in the disciples.
A certain man, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha, was ill (verse 1).
This is not the same Lazarus of Luke 16, whom the rich man in hell saw nestled in Abraham’s bosom. Nonetheless, our commentators find it of interest that Jesus chose the name Lazarus for that parable.
MacArthur says:
His name, Lazarus, not to be confused with the Lazarus in the beggar story, but an interesting parallel, isn’t it? That it was an issue of resurrection that was brought up in that story about that other Lazarus. That was a fictional Lazarus in the story that Jesus invented. But why two named Lazarus? It was a very common name, a very common name from the Old Testament name, Eleazar, Eleazar, a very familiar Old Testament Hebrew name. It means, whom God helps, whom God helps.
Henry explains how the name Lazarus evolved out of Eleazar:
… his Hebrew name probably was Eleazar, which being contracted, and a Greek termination put to it, is made Lazarus. Perhaps in prospect of this history our Saviour made use of the name of Lazarus in that parable wherein he designed to set forth the blessedness of the righteous in the bosom of Abraham immediately after death, Luke 16 22.
Our commentators have a few notes on Bethany.
Henry says:
They lived at Bethany, a village nor far from Jerusalem, where Christ usually lodged when he came up to the feasts. It is here called the town of Mary and Martha, that is, the town where they dwelt, as Bethsaida is called the city of Andrew and Peter, ch. 1 44.
MacArthur says there were two villages named Bethany:
They lived in the village of Bethany. That’s another interesting note because at the time that Jesus gets this message, He’s in another Bethany. The tenth chapter ends in verse 40. “He went away again beyond the Jordan to the place where John was first baptizing and was staying there.” That place, according to 1:28 of John was also called Bethany. So there was a Bethany beyond Jordan a day away from the Bethany of Lazarus and his two sisters.
Bethany is a small village. It means, house of the poor, house of poverty. That would be characteristic of that village. Perhaps that’s characteristic of the other village where Jesus was currently ministering. And by the way, many were coming and believing in Him. That’s how chapter 10 ends. Once He got out of Jerusalem, and out beyond the Jordan back where John started to minister, He began to reap the harvest of what John had planted in proclaiming Him. And the people out there said everything John said about Him is true, and they came to believe. That’s how chapter 10 ends …
Bethany, two miles from the eastern wall of Jerusalem, down the back slope of the eastern wall, across the Kidron brook, up the Mount of Olives around the bend and you’re in this little village of Bethany …
I can remember many years ago when Patricia and I were there and a number of times visiting there myself, but Patricia and I were there. I would say when we were there to find the traditional site of the grave of Lazarus and to go down the deep stairs into what is traditional said to be the place where he was entombed. I remember it was an Arab village at the time. There were Arabic women living there, Palestinian women living there, and we had the very bizarre occasion – Patricia will remember this – of having a lady offering us the opportunity to purchase her baby.
Now, I don’t know whether that was something she used as a device, but we were not interested in buying her baby. But that village, to this very day, is in Arabic named after Lazarus. So that’s the little village, and it is as nondescript, the last time I was there perhaps as it was even in ancient times.
Mary was the one who anointed our Lord with perfume; her brother Lazarus was ill (verse 2).
Was she Mary, the fallen woman who anointed His feet similarly at the Pharisee’s house?
Henry does not think so:
Here were two sisters, Martha and Mary, who seem to have been the housekeepers, and to have managed the affairs of the family, while perhaps Lazarus lived a retired life, and gave himself to study and contemplation. Here was a decent, happy, well-ordered family, and a family that Christ was very much conversant with, where yet there was neither husband nor wife (for aught that appears), but the house kept by a brother, and his sisters dwelling together in unity.
One of the sisters is particularly described to be that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, v. 2. Some think she was that woman that we read of, Luke 7 37, 38, who had been a sinner, a bad woman. I rather think it refers to that anointing of Christ which this evangelist relates (ch. 12 3); for the evangelists do never refer one to another, but John frequently refers in one place of his gospel to another. Extraordinary acts of piety and devotion, that come from an honest principle of love to Christ, will not only find acceptance with him, but gain reputation in the church, Matt 26 13.
Henry refers to Luke 7:36-50.
Nor does MacArthur:
What’s going on here? That story doesn’t come until chapter 12. But listen, that’s okay because that story had already been told in detail in Matthew and already told in detail in Mark and Matthew and Mark had been circulating for a very long time by the year 90 in the first century when John writes this gospel. And so even though he hasn’t yet given his account of it, he knows they know that that Mary is the one he’s talking about.
And so he literally builds his comment on the knowledge of Matthew and Mark, gospels written very much earlier.
MacArthur is referring to Matthew 26 and Mark 14, when Mary anointed our Lord in the house of Simon the leper.
Mary — Miriam — was as common a name then as it is now, so the Mary of Luke 7 is probably not the same as the Mary of John 11 and 12, Matthew 26 and Mark 14.
In any event, the Catholic, Episcopal and Lutheran churches’ feast day for Mary, Martha and Lazarus is July 29.
Mary and Martha sent a message to Jesus that Lazarus — ‘he whom you love’ — was ill (verse 3).
In Henry’s and MacArthur’s Bible translations the verse is as follows:
3 Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.
MacArthur looks at ‘behold’:
So this is going to take a day, a day to get from Bethany one to Bethany two. The message is very cryptic, very short. “Lord,” they acknowledge He is Lord. “Behold,” which means, this is urgent; this is sudden; this demands immediate response. “He whom you love is sick.” That’s the whole message. “He whom you love is sick.”
Since Jesus had left back in verse 40 of chapter 10 some weeks earlier, this man had become sick.
Henry elaborates on ‘he whom you love’:
His sisters knew where Jesus was, a great way off beyond Jordan, and they sent a special messenger to him, to acquaint him with the affliction of their family … The message they sent was very short, not petitioning, much less prescribing or pressing, but barely relating the case with the tender insinuation of a powerful plea, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. They do not say, He whom we love, but he whom thou lovest. Our greatest encouragements in prayer are fetched from God himself and from his grace. They do not say, Lord, behold, he who loveth thee, but he whom thou lovest; for herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us. Our love to him is not worth speaking of, but his to us can never be enough spoken of.
MacArthur explains the word ‘love’ in that verse:
They talk only of Jesus’s love for Lazarus. They think that will catch His heart, and here’s a very important insight: “He whom you love.” The word love here is not agapaō, not divine love. This is phileō, the love of a friend, personal affection, human love. Jesus loved this man as a friend. He had personal affection for him. It’s obvious that as God, He loves the world, that as God He loves His own who are in the world, and He loves them to perfection. He will tell them that in the upper room, but that’s not the thought here. That thought comes later. The thought here is this is a man for whom Jesus had deep affection. This is a man who filled a need in his own life for a friend.
When Jesus heard the message, He said that Lazarus’s illness would not lead to death but rather to God’s glory, in that the Son of God would be glorified through it (verse 4).
Henry says that this refers to the upcoming miracle:
It was for the glory of God, for it was that the Son of God might be glorified thereby, as it gave him occasion to work that glorious miracle, the raising of him from the dead. As, before, the man was born blind that Christ might have the honour of curing him (ch. 9 3), so Lazarus must be sick and die, that Christ may be glorified as the Lord of life.
Serendipitously, we had the reading of Christ curing the blind man last week in the reading for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, Laetare Sunday, Year A (2023) here and here.
John says that Jesus loved Martha, her sister and Lazarus (verse 5).
MacArthur points out that the Greek word for ‘love’ here is different to that in verse 3:
This time the word changes. This is agapaō. This is divine love. He loved this man Lazarus, about which we don’t know anything. He loved an obscure man like a man loves a friends. But he also loved this whole family with a divine love because they belonged to Him spiritually, like He loves His own who are in the world even to the maximum. So much love. He loves with a divine love and He loves with a human love.
MacArthur has an observation on our Lord’s humanity:
I know we talk about the humanity of Jesus and we have to, and He’s fully human. But almost all the time you hear someone talk about the humanity of Jesus they say, “Well, He lived and He hungered, and He thirsted, and He slept, and He was weary, and He died.” And all of those are human things, but what makes humans unique is relationships, and this is explains why when He gets to the grave, He cries. He cries at the thought that His friend is dead. This is a beautiful insight into the full humanity of Jesus. He is a man and like every person, He requires a friend, somebody who cares about Him. A perfect man with all the needs of a man.
You see, this is part of what makes Him such a merciful, faithful High Priest able to be touched with all the feelings of our infirmities because some of our infirmities have nothing to do with physical well-being. They had to do with relationships, right? Right? I mean isn’t the worst of it all? Isn’t that where the most pain comes from? You could probably take the cancer if all the relationships were what they should be, but His sympathy extends to understanding relationships. He’s been there. His friend that He had great affection for was sick, seriously sick.
After hearing that Lazarus was ill, Jesus stayed two days longer in the place where he was (verse 6).
I never understood why until I read Henry’s and MacArthur’s reasons for the delay. It was to bolster the Apostles’ faith, as we see later on.
In verse 4, John uses the word ‘accordingly’ — ‘as such’. He inserted parenthetical information about our Lord’s love for the three. Then comes verse 5, stating the delay: ‘Accordingly … Jesus stayed two days longer in the place where he was’.
Henry explains:
Now one would think it should follow, When he heard therefore that he was sick he made all the haste that he could to him; if he loved them, now was a time to show it by hastening to them, for he knew they impatiently expected him. But he took the contrary way to show his love: it is not said, He loved them and yet he lingered; but he loved them and therefore he lingered; when he heard that his friend was sick, instead of coming post to him, he abode two days still in the same place where he was … If Christ had come presently, and cured the sickness of Lazarus, he had done no more than he did for many; if he had raised him to life when newly dead, no more than he had done for some: but, deferring his relief so long, he had an opportunity of doing more for him than for any. Note, God hath gracious intentions even in seeming delays, Isa 54 7, 8; 49 14, etc. Christ’s friends at Bethany were not out of his thoughts, though, when he heard of their distress, he made no haste to them. When the work of deliverance, temporal or spiritual, public or personal, stands at a stay, it does but stay the time, and every thing is beautiful in its season.
Christ had raised two people from the dead soon after they died: Jairus’s daughter and the son of the widow of Nain. The raising of Lazarus would be even greater because he had been dead for four days.
After the two days had elapsed, Jesus said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again’ (verse 7).
The disciples countered, no doubt bewildered, asking why He would want to go to Judea again when the Pharisees had only recently tried to stone Him (verse 8). That is recorded in John 8:59.
Jesus responded, asking them if there were not 12 hours of daylight, therefore, those who walk during the day do not stumble because they see the light of this world (verse 9), but those who walk at night stumble because the light is not in them (verse 10).
MacArthur explains those two verses:
He answers with a very interesting Proverb. Verses 9 and 10, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he doesn’t stumble. That is, nothing bad happens to him because he is in the light and he can see what he is doing and where he is going. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles. Bad things happen because the light is not in him.” What is the point of that sort of strange introduction?
Well, at this point we are now moving from the man, the critical man and the concerned sisters to the disciples. Now, they are puzzles. Why would you step back into this and here’s His answer. It’s a proverb, and the proverb is simple, very simple proverb. You can’t lengthen the daylight. You can’t shorten the daylight, right? Nothing any friend can do can lengthen the daylight. Nothing any enemy can do can shorten the daylight. It is what it is and it is fixed by God, and so is my life. No enemy can shorten it. No friend can lengthen it. It is what it is. And in that light of life which God has ordained for me, I will not stumble. That is to say, nothing will happen to me that is outside the plan. I’m not going in the dark. I’m going in the light of God’s divine day. A day can’t finish before it’s ordained end.
The time allotted to me to accomplish my earthly ministry is fixed. It’s fixed by God …
Jesus knew that His hour was coming, but it hadn’t come yet, and many times He’d said, “My hour hasn’t come. My hour hasn’t come.” And He escaped all of the plots and all of the mob violence. This has great application for us I think to realize that if you’re walking in the Spirit and serving the Lord, you have your day. Being a coward and taking all kinds of precautionary steps and not being faithful isn’t going to lengthen it; and being bold in the face of enemies isn’t going to shorten it because it is what God has ordained it to be.
Jesus then told the disciples that ‘our friend’ — meaning that they all knew him — Lazarus had fallen asleep, but He was going there to awaken him (verse 11).
The disciples took Jesus literally, because they said, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right’ (verse 12).
Jesus had been speaking about Lazarus’s death (verse 13). He then told the disciples plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead’ (verse 14).
Then He added, ‘For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him’ (verse 15).
That verse seems puzzling, but Jesus meant that the disciples’ faith would not have been increased had He been in Bethany and raised Lazarus from the dead sooner.
Henry says:
If he had been there time enough, he would have healed his disease and prevented his death, which would have been much for the comfort of Lazarus’s friends, but then his disciples would have seen no further proof of his power than what they had often seen, and, consequently, their faith had received no improvement; but now that he went and raised him from the dead, as there were many brought to believe on him who before did no (v. 45), so there was much done towards the perfecting of what was lacking in the faith of those that did, which Christ aimed at: To the intent that you may believe.
MacArthur adds:
The disciples were always struggling with faith, weren’t they? “O ye of little faith, O ye of little faith, O ye of little faith. Why don’t you believe?”
Yes, they believed in Him. Yes, they had affirmed that He was the Christ, the Son of God, but they needed faith to be strengthened and strengthened and strengthened. I mean it wasn’t just that they would believe, but that Mary and Martha would have their faith strengthened. And then down in verse 45, many Jews who came to Mary and got the whole story of the resurrection first hand, and were eyewitnesses of the living brother, believed in Him. This is a glory display that’ll produce faith, and it’ll also produce hostility that drives Him to the cross right on schedule.
Referring back to verses 7 and 8 about the return to Judea despite the dangers there, Thomas the Twin — Didymus — said to his fellow disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him’, meaning Jesus (verse 16).
Henry’s Bible phrases the verse as follows:
16 Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.
MacArthur says:
He gets a lot of bad press for that, but just think about this. This is a courageous pessimist. This is not a cowardly pessimist. He didn’t say, “Let’s get out of here or we will all die with Him.” He said, “Let’s go and die with Him.” This man has great faith, and this man knows what Luke 9:23 means. “If you want to come after Me, deny yourself. Take up your – “what? “ – cross.” It might cost us our lives, men. Let’s go.
Henry explains the names Thomas and Didymus:
Thomas in Hebrew and Didymus in Greek signify a twin; it is said of Rebekah (Gen 25 24) that there were twins in her womb; the word is Thomim. Probably Thomas was a twin.
When Jesus arrived in the Bethany of Lazarus and his sisters, He found that his friend had been in the tomb for four days (verse 17).
Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away (verse 18).
MacArthur gives us the timeline:
And so they go, and when they arrive he’s been dead four days; the day the messenger came, the two days, the day back, four days.
Henry has more:
When he came near the town, probably by the burying-place belonging to the town, he was told by the neighbours, or some persons whom he met, that Lazarus had been four days buried. Some think that Lazarus died the same day that the messenger came to Jesus with the tidings of his sickness, and so reckon two days for his abode in the same place and two days for his journey. I rather think that Lazarus died at the very instant that Jesus, “Our friend sleepeth, he is now newly fallen asleep;” and that the time between his death and burial (which among the Jews was but short), with the four days of his lying in the grave, was taken up in this journey …
MacArthur tells us what happens to the human body once it has been dead for four days:
Some might argue that since there was no way to be certain someone was dead, perhaps this was just a resuscitation of someone who was temporarily in that condition. But in the case of Lazarus, that’s not possible because this is someone who’s been dead four days, four days. Now, that really does matter. I mean it matters a lot.
And just to help you know how much that matters, I did a little research this week to find out what happens to a body in four days. Very interesting. This was not a theological resource, but as I opened up some research material, I was amazed to find out that all of the bad stuff happens by 72 hours. What happens in four days?
The Jews did not embalm. The Jews did nothing to stop the decay. They wrapped the body and sprinkled spices on it to mitigate the smell. That’s it. Here’s what happens in four days, pretty grisly stuff. The heart has stopped beating. The body cells are then deprived of oxygen, and they begin to die. Blood drains from throughout the circulatory system and pools in the low places. Muscles begin to stiffen in what is known commonly by the Latin, rigor mortis. That sets in after three hours.
By 24 hours, the body has lost all its heat. The muscles then lose their rigor mortis in 36 hours, and by 72 hours rigor mortis has vanished. All stiffness is gone and the body is soft. Looking a little bit deeper, as cells begin to die, bacteria go to work. Your body is filled with bacteria, but that’s another subject. The bacteria in the body of a dead person begin to attack, breaking the cells down. The decomposing tissue takes on a horrific look and smell and emits green liquids by the 72nd hour. The tissue releases hydrogen sulfide and methane as well as other gases. A horrible smell is emitted. Insects and animals will consume parts of the body if they can get at it.
Meet Lazarus. That’s the condition he’s in when Jesus arrives. That’s important. Everyone knows he is dead. As Martha says in verse 39, “Lord, by this time there will be a stench,” or as the King James said, “He stinketh,” because he’s been dead four days.
Look, they lived in a world of death. They didn’t live in a sterile world of mortuaries and undertakers and embalming fluids and all of that where the body disappears and you never see anything but somebody in a casket who looks like the horizontal member of a cocktail party with a suit and tie and dressed up and make up.
People lived with death. They lived with the realities of death. They lived with the horrors of death. That’s very important. It’s also very important to understand that there was a certain expectation, and it became a reality in this case of what a funeral was like. When someone died, family, friends, neighbors, even connected strangers poured into their life. Everybody showed up.
As such, many of the Jews went to Martha and Mary to console them about the loss of their brother (verse 19).
This exegesis concludes with part 2.
The Fourth Sunday in Lent, Laetare Sunday, is March 19, 2023.
Readings for Year A, including an explanation of Laetare Sunday — the joyful Sunday in Lent — can be found here.
The Gospel reading is as follows (emphases mine):
John 9:1-41
9:1 As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.
9:2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
9:3 Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.
9:4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.
9:5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
9:6 When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes,
9:7 saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.
9:8 The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?”
9:9 Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.”
9:10 But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?”
9:11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.”
9:12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”
9:13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.
9:14 Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.
9:15 Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.”
9:16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided.
9:17 So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”
9:18 The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight
9:19 and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?”
9:20 His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind;
9:21 but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.”
9:22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.
9:23 Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
9:24 So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.”
9:25 He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
9:26 They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
9:27 He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?”
9:28 Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.
9:29 We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.”
9:30 The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.
9:31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will.
9:32 Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind.
9:33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
9:34 They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.
9:35 Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
9:36 He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.”
9:37 Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.”
9:38 He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him.
9:39 Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.”
9:40 Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?”
9:41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
This is the second of a two-part series. You can read Part 1 here. That said, this is also a long post as there is much to cover.
The Pharisees asked the man once more what Jesus did to him and how He opened his eyes (verse 26).
John MacArthur points out the irony here:
Well, this is pretty significant, folks, because now they just admitted what? That he was healed. They’ve just admitted that he was blind, and his eyes were opened. What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes? Maybe they were probing for some trick. Who knows?
The man said that he had already told them once before and that they would not listen; he asked them why they wanted to hear his answer again and if they wanted to become His disciples (verse 27).
MacArthur points out the man’s righteous sarcasm:
This is an outcast talking to the in-crowd. “Why do you want to hear it again? You don’t want to become His disciples too, do you?” Sarcasm. He just nails their sarcasm, their hypocrisy. This is a man who’s feeling the joy, feeling the confidence, feeling the strength of the conviction that he knows he’s dealing with a man who is from God, who is a prophet. And as the story goes, he comes to fully believe in Him for salvation …
Then the Pharisees came out with one of their favourite attacks, saying that he was one of Christ’s disciples, yet they, the notional religious grandees, were disciples of Moses (verse 28).
They added that they knew God had spoken to Moses but, as for ‘this man’ — Jesus — they knew not from whence He came (verse 29).
The Pharisees created the chasm between Judaism and Christianity that still exists today:
There’s that breach again. Moses and Christ, the church and the synagogue, Judaism and Christianity. Still at odds. We know this man is a sinner. We are from Moses … I think they knew He was from Nazareth, Galilee. They should’ve known where He was from in John 6 when He preached the sermon on the bread of life, He said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven. I have come down from heaven to give My life for the world.” He had said again, and again, and again, “I come from heaven.” He even mocked them by saying, “You think you know where I’ve come from.” Chapter 7. “But you really don’t know My heavenly origin.” When they said, “We don’t know where He’s from,” they simply meant, not so much the town, but we don’t know the origin of this man. We’re unwilling to say it’s God. In fact, they were convinced that He was satanic. Satanic.
I mean, this is the character of unbelief.
The man answered back, saying that what they were saying was astonishing; they did not know where He came from, yet He healed him (verse 30).
Henry elaborates on ‘an astonishing thing’:
First, He wonders at their obstinate infidelity (v. 30); not at all daunted by their frowns, nor shaken by their confidence, he bravely answered, “Why, herein is a marvelous thing, the strangest instance of wilful ignorance that ever was heard of among men that pretend to sense, that you know not whence he is, and yet he has opened mine eyes.” Two things he wonders at:—1. That they should be strangers to a man so famous. He that could open the eyes of the blind must certainly be a considerable man, and worth taking notice of. The Pharisees were inquisitive men, had a large correspondence and acquaintance, thought themselves the eyes of the church and its watchmen, and yet that they should talk as if they thought it below them to take cognizance of such a man as this, and have conversation with him, this is a strange thing indeed. There are many who pass for learned and knowing men, who understand business, and can talk sensibly in other things, who yet are ignorant, to a wonder, of the doctrine of Christ, who have no concern, no, not so much as a curiosity, to acquaint themselves with that which the angels desire to look into. 2. That they should question the divine mission of one that had undoubtedly wrought a divine miracle. When they said, We know not whence he is, they meant, “We know not any proof that his doctrine and ministry are from heaven.” “Now this is strange,” saith the poor man, “that the miracle wrought upon me has not convinced you, and put the matter out of doubt,—that you, whose education and studies give you advantages above others of discerning the things of God, should thus shut your eyes against the light.” It is a marvelous work and wonder, when the wisdom of the wise thus perisheth (Isa 29 14), that they deny the truth of that of which they cannot gainsay the evidence. Note, (1.) The unbelief of those who enjoy the means of knowledge and conviction is indeed a marvelous thing, Mark 6 6. (2.) Those who have themselves experienced the power and grace of the Lord Jesus do especially wonder at the wilfulness of those who reject him, and, having such good thoughts of him themselves, are amazed that others have not. Had Christ opened the eyes of the Pharisees, they would not have doubted his being a prophet.
The man continued, in all boldness. He said that God does not listen to sinners, but He does listen to those who obey His will (verse 31).
He went further, saying that, never since the world began had anyone been cured of blindness (verse 32), therefore, if this man were not from God, He would not have been able to do anything (verse 33), meaning effecting a miracle.
This man is a role model in the way he attacks the wilful ignorance of the religious authorities.
MacArthur says:
So, he’s become the preacher. He’s taken over the meeting. He’s talking to the leaders. First, he’s sarcastic, and now he’s specific, and clear-headed, and clear-minded, and faithful to the Old Testament, and even referring to the Old Testament that God doesn’t hear the prayers of sinners. He’s giving them an explanation of reality, a sensible, reasonable, logical explanation.
Henry analyses these verses in full:
a. He argues here, (a.) With great knowledge. Though he could not read a letter of the book, he was well acquainted with the scripture and the things of God; he had wanted the sense of seeing, yet had well improved that of hearing, by which faith cometh; yet this would not have served him if he had not had an extraordinary presence of God with him, and special aids of his Spirit, upon this occasion. (b.) With great zeal for the honour of Christ, whom he could not endure to hear run down, and evil spoken of. (c.) With great boldness, and courage, and undauntedness, not terrified by the proudest of his adversaries. Those that are ambitious of the favours of God must not be afraid of the frowns of men. “See here,” saith Dr. Whitby, “a blind man and unlearned judging more rightly of divine things than the whole learned council of the Pharisees, whence we learn that we are not always to be led by the authority of councils, popes, or bishops; and that it is not absurd for laymen sometimes to vary from their opinions, these overseers being sometimes guilty of great oversights.”
b. His argument may be reduced into form, somewhat like that of David, Ps 66 18-20. The proposition in David’s argument is, If I regard iniquity in my heart, God will not hear me; here it is to the same purport, God heareth not sinners: the assumption there is, But verily God hath heard me; here it is, Verily God hath heard Jesus, he hath been honoured with the doing of that which was never done before: the conclusion there is to the honour, Blessed be God; here to the honour of the Lord Jesus, He is of God.
(a.) He lays it down for an undoubted truth that none but good men are the favourites of heaven (v. 31): Now we know, you know it as well as I, that God heareth not sinners; but if any man be a worshipper of God, and does his will, him he heareth. Here,
[a.] The assertions, rightly understood, are true. First, Be it spoken to the terror of the wicked, God heareth not sinners, that is, such sinners as the Pharisees meant when they said of Christ, He is a sinner, one that, under the shelter of God’s name, advanced the devil’s interest. This bespeaks no discouragement to repenting returning sinners, but to those that go on still in their trespasses, that make their prayers not only consistent with, but subservient to, their sins, as the hypocrites do; God will not hear them, he will not own them, nor give an answer of peace to their prayers. Secondly, Be it spoken to the comfort of the righteous, If any man be a worshipper of God, and does his will, him he heareth. Here is, 1. The complete character of a good man: he is one that worships God, and does his will; he is constant in his devotions at set times, and regular in his conversation at all times. He is one that makes it his business to glorify his Creator by the solemn adoration of his name and a sincere obedience to his will and law; both must go together. 2. The unspeakable comfort of such a man: him God hears; hears his complaints, and relieves him; hears his appeals, and rights him; hears his praises, and accepts them; hears his prayers, and answers them, Ps 34 15.
[b.] The application of these truths is very pertinent to prove that he, at whose word such a divine power was put forth as cured one born blind, was not a bad man, but, having manifestly such an interest in the holy God as that he heard him always (ch. 9 31, 32), was certainly a holy one.
(b.) He magnifies the miracles which Christ had wrought, to strengthen the argument the more (v. 32): Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. This is to show either, [a.] That it was a true miracle, and above the power of nature; it was never heard that any man, by the use of natural means, had cured one that was born blind; no doubt, this man and his parents had been very inquisitive into cases of this nature, whether any such had been helped, and could hear of none, which enabled him to speak this with the more assurance. Or, [b.] That it was an extraordinary miracle, and beyond the precedents of former miracles; neither Moses nor any of the prophets, though they did great things, ever did such things as this, wherein divine power and divine goodness seem to strive which should outshine. Moses wrought miraculous plagues, but Christ wrought miraculous cures. Note, First, The wondrous works of the Lord Jesus were such as the like had never been done before. Secondly, It becomes those who have received mercy from God to magnify the mercies they have received, and to speak honourably of them; not that thereby glory may redound to themselves, and they may seem to be extraordinary favourites of Heaven, but that God may have so much the more glory.
(c.) He therefore concludes, If this man were not of God, he could do nothing, that is, nothing extraordinary, no such thing as this; and therefore, no doubt, he is of God, notwithstanding his nonconformity to your traditions in the business of the sabbath day. Note, What Christ did on earth sufficiently demonstrated what he was in heaven; for, if he had not been sent of God, he could not have wrought such miracles. It is true the man of sin comes with lying wonders, but not with real miracles; it is likewise supposed that a false prophet might, by divine permission, give a sign or a wonder (Deut 13 1, 2), yet the case is so put as that it would carry with it its own confutation, for it is to enforce a temptation to serve other gods, which was to set God against himself. It is true, likewise, that many wicked people have in Christ’s name done many wonderful works, which did not prove those that wrought them to be of God, but him in whose name they were wrought. We may each of us know by this whether we are of God or no: What do we? What do we for God, for our souls, in working out our salvation? What do we more than others?
The Pharisees were offended, saying that a man born entirely in sins, a reference to their belief that disability was a divine curse, was trying to teach them, the notional experts; with that, they threw him out (verse 34).
MacArthur picks up what he said earlier about unbelief often resulting in violence:
That’s the disdain of it all. So, it gets physical. They threw him out. Be prepared to face this when unbelief investigates a miracle. This is how it acts. This will be a disappointment. It has been a disappointment already in your life, I’m sure. Major disappointment through the years to any of us who walked with Christ for a long time. We accumulate this kind of disappointment.
What can we do except to pray for lost souls? MacArthur tells us:
What is there to do about this? How can it change? Well, the only answer is where Jesus went in John 6, three times. He said this: “All that the Father gives to Me will come to Me. No man comes to Me unless the Father draws him.” And then, verse 64 of John 6, He summarized it again. “For this reason I have said to you, no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” The only way an unbeliever can be released and delivered from this kind of bizarre captivity and bondage to what is evil, and irascible, and intolerant, and irrational; the only way an unbeliever can be delivered from this is by the power of God. So, what do we do? We plead with God to be gracious, don’t we? We plead with the sinner to believe, and we plead with God to be gracious. Because the natural man, Paul says, understands not the things of God. To him, they’re foolishness, because they’re spiritually appraised, and he’s spiritually dead.
So, we don’t go out to evangelize with any hope, really, that we have the power in our reason or the power in our facts or the power in our truth to shatter the blindness and the darkness and the bondage of unbelief. We go with the truth, and we cry out to God to draw the sinner out of this bondage of unbelief.
MacArthur points out the transition that takes place at this point:
Verses 1 through 34 are about physical light, physical sight. But also, there are overtones of spiritual blindness and spiritual darkness manifest by the Pharisees. When we come to verses 35 to 41, the subject changes from physical sight and light, completely, to spiritual sight and light, and spiritual blindness and darkness.
Now, as we look at these just brief verses, straightforward and simple, I just want to break them into two sections: spiritual sight, verses 35 to 38, that’s the beggar; spiritual blindness, verses 39 to 41, that’s the Pharisees. You have here a comparison build on this miracle, between spiritual sight, which the beggar receives, and spiritual darkness, in which the Pharisees remain.
Now, let’s look at the spiritual sight and the beggar, the opening verses 35 to 38. Just to give you a little bit of a pattern to follow, four things define this spiritual sight, okay? Four things. He’s going to be an illustration of one who not only sees physically for the first time, but who will see spiritually for the first time. There are four elements. First of all, and this is very important. The first element is: spiritual sight requires divine initiative. Spiritual sight requires divine initiative. This man doesn’t have any capability to make himself see physically, nor does he have any capability to make himself see spiritually. That’s why this transition is made, because it’s such a graphic illustration. He can’t do anything to help himself. There’s no such thing in those ancient times as a surgeon who can fix something in his eye and enable him to see. There’s no way that he can have spiritual sight on his own. It can’t happen. Humanly speaking, it can’t happen on a temporal, physical, natural level. If he is going to see, heaven has to come down and find him, locate him, and that’s exactly what happens.
Jesus heard that the Pharisees had driven the man out of their midst, and when He found him, he asked (verse 35), ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’
In Henry’s translation, the verse reads:
Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?
Henry calls our attention to the fact that Jesus sought the man who had given Him such a bold defence as the author of the healing miracle:
I. The tender care which our Lord Jesus took of this poor man (v. 35): When Jesus heard that they had cast him out (for it is likely the town rang of it, and everybody cried out shame upon them for it), then he found him, which implies his seeking him and looking after him, that he might encourage and comfort him, 1. Because he had, to the best of his knowledge, spoken so very well, so bravely, so boldly, in defence of the Lord Jesus. Note, Jesus Christ will be sure to stand by his witnesses, and own those that own him and his truth and ways. Earthly princes neither do, nor can, take cognizance of all that vindicate them and their government and administration; but our Lord Jesus knows and observes all the faithful testimonies we bear to him at any time, and a book of remembrance is written, and it shall redound not only to our credit hereafter, but our comfort now. 2. Because the Pharisees had cast him out and abused him. Besides the common regard which the righteous Judge of the world has to those who suffer wrongfully (Ps 103 6), there is a particular notice taken of those that suffer in the cause of Christ and for the testimony of a good conscience. Here was one poor man suffering for Christ, and he took care that as his afflictions abounded his consolations should much more abound. Note, (1.) Though persecutors may exclude good men from their communion, yet they cannot exclude them from communion with Christ, nor put them out of the way of his visits. Happy are they who have a friend from whom men cannot debar them. (2.) Jesus Christ will graciously find and receive those who for his sake are unjustly rejected and cast out by men. He will be a hiding place to his outcasts, and appear, to the joy of those whom their brethren hated and cast out.
II. The comfortable converse Christ had with him, wherein he brings him acquainted with the consolation of Israel. He had well improved the knowledge he had, and now Christ gives him further instruction; for he that is faithful in a little shall be entrusted with more, Matt 13 12.
1. Our Lord Jesus examines his faith: “Dost thou believe on the Son of God? Dost thou give credit to the promises of the Messiah? Dost thou expect his coming, and art thou ready to receive and embrace him when he is manifested to thee?” This was that faith of the Son of God by which the saints lived before his manifestation. Observe, (1.) The Messiah is here called the Son of God, and so the Jews had learned to call him from the prophecies, Ps 2 7; 89 27. See ch. 1 49, Thou art the Son of God, that is, the true Messiah. Those that expected the temporal kingdom of the Messiah delighted rather in calling him the Son of David, which gave more countenance to that expectation, Matt 22 42. But Christ, that he might give us an idea of his kingdom, as purely spiritual and divine, calls himself the Son of God, and rather Son of man in general than of David in particular. (2.) The desires and expectations of the Messiah, which the Old-Testament saints had, guided by and grounded upon the promise, were graciously interpreted and accepted as their believing on the Son of God. This faith Christ here enquires after: Dost thou believe? Note, The great thing which is now required of us (1 John 3 23), and which will shortly be enquired after concerning us, is our believing on the Son of God, and by this we must stand or fall for ever.
MacArthur continues reinforcing the idea that heaven had to find the man:
Verse 35. The buzz around the temple area and wherever it was that this interrogation took place is still going on, so Jesus hears that they had put him out. And I love this. “And finding him.” This is parallel. You remember back in chapter 5, the man at the Pool of Bethesda picked up his bed and walked, ran into the Pharisees, the same kind of interrogation, the same kind of encounter. And it says there in that same chapter, chapter 5, and I think it’s verse 14, “Jesus found him.” Jesus found him. This is how you receive spiritual sight. It all started in a divine initiative. It all started by a sovereign purpose in the mind of God. Luke 19:10. Jesus says the Son of Man is come to seek and save that which was lost. Not just the saving, but the seeking. Romans 3, no man seeks after God. We wouldn’t know where to go, wouldn’t know who to look for. So he’s the seeker. He says to His apostles in John 15:16, “You have not chosen Me. I have chosen you.” Matthew 18, “The Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.” That’s why He came. He’s the finder. He’s the one who is seeking us …
And so, Jesus finds the man. This is where spiritual sight begins. This is a powerful illustration of it, a very powerful illustration, because this is a helpless, hopeless man, and so is every sinner. So is every sinner.
So He finds him, and He initiates a conversation. Very short. This, again, is cryptic. These accounts in the New Testament are condensed. We don’t think the conversation was limited to this, but this is the essence that God has revealed to us. He says, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
MacArthur tells us that this Messianic title came from the prophet Daniel:
Listen to what Daniel chapter 7 says. Daniel is given a vision, and it’s in the night. Chapter 7:13. I kept looking in the night visions, and behold with the clouds of heaven, one like a Son of Man was coming. That’s a Messianic title. This introduces the coming of Messiah to establish His kingdom. He came up to the ancient of days, that’s God the Father, was presented before him, to Him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. And this is not God, because this is one who comes to God. This is one to whom God gives this eternal, everlasting universal kingdom. It is the Messiah, and He is the Son of Man, which is a prophecy that He will be incarnate.
But the Jews all understood the Messianic title, the Son of Man. By the way, it appears 13 times in the gospel of John because it’s familiar in the conversation of the Jews because they know Daniel 7 is referring to the Messiah. So, our Lord says to him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” Do you believe in the Messiah? Do you believe in Messianic theology? Do you believe the Messiah is coming to establish His kingdom? Do you believe that?
The man answered Jesus, asking him (verse 36), ‘And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him’.
Henry’s verse 36 reads as follows:
He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him?
The man could not see who cured him, so he thought that Jesus was one of the Messiah’s disciples.
MacArthur says:
The second thing that I want you to see here in this case of spiritual sight, is that spiritual sight not only begins in divine initiative, but it requires faith. It requires faith, verse 36. This is just an amazing statement. He answered, “Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?” What an amazing statement. Here is a man who is ready to believe. He just wants to know who to believe in. I wish I had the time to develop that as a theology, because what you’re seeing here is the essence of the doctrine of regeneration at work. This man is ready to believe. He just wants to know what to believe. This is not easily understood. It is not because of what we say that people believe. It is because of what God has done to open them to believing that they respond to what we say. This is an amazing thing. Here is a man who is saying, “I’m ready to believe. Who do I believe in? Show me who to believe in.” That’s a prepared heart. That’s good soil.
MacArthur discusses the title of address in this verse:
See the word Lord there, and it’s lower-case sense, sir? He doesn’t know who He is, so he’s not calling Jesus Lord in the upper-case sense. The word kyrie can be used at “sir,” like you would see it in an Old English, the lords and ladies kind of idea. So, here, I think he is still using it in the common sense. Who is He, sir, that I may believe in Him? Something has been happening in his heart. This divine initiative is not only physical, not only Jesus finding him, but God, by the power of the Holy Spirit is opening his heart to believe, and all he needs. It’s like Lydia, whose heart the Lord opened. Remember in the Book of Acts? The man’s heart is opened. All he wants to knowis: who?
Jesus said to the man (verse 37), ‘You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he’.
MacArthur brings in a third element of spiritual sight:
There’s a third feature in spiritual sight. It starts in divine initiative. It requires faith. Thirdly, spiritual sight confesses Jesus as Lord. Where there is the miracle of spiritual sight, there will be a confession of Jesus as Lord.
Notice verse 37. Jesus said to him, he’s saying, who do I believe in? “You have both seen Him.” You’ve seen Him. You’re looking at Him, “and He’s the one who is talking with you.” Wow. It’s interesting to me that I don’t know how much this man had heard Jesus teach. Certainly, he hadn’t seen any miracles. Something, there were lots of people who saw miracles. The whole population saw miracles. Couldn’t overcome spiritual darkness. But God is overcoming his spiritual darkness by giving him faith. And all he wants to know is who he’s supposed to put that faith in. Jesus says, “You’ve seen Him, and He’s the one talking with you.” It is I. Remember back in chapter 4 when the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman said, well, we know that the Christ is going to come, and Jesus responds by saying, “I who speak to you am He.” I’m the One. And she believed, and the whole village of Sychar believed.
The Samaritan woman’s conversion was last week’s — Year A’s — reading for the Third Sunday in Lent in 2023: John 4:5-42 (parts 1 and 2).
The man replied to Jesus saying, ‘Lord, I believe’, and he worshipped Him (verse 38).
MacArthur looks at the title the man uses here:
And he said, “Lord, I believe.” And now, Lord gets an upper-case. It’s Kyrie in the upper-case. He’s gone from sir, to the Lord of lords.
This is Lord in its fullest and most lofty and elevated sense. Lord, I believe. And even though the word is the same, there’s a huge difference. When he says “Lord” in verse 36, he’s asking a question. Who do I believe in? Now, he believes, and he says “Lord” in a completely different sense because he immediately does what? Worships.
How do you know when spiritual sight comes to someone? Well, it’s initiated by God, the heart is prepared, the heart opens up to accept the truth and confesses Jesus as Lord. It’s just an astounding and marvelous miracle, like the miracle of physical sight.
MacArthur recaps the episodes in Christ’s ministry that John has given us thus far:
We’re starting to accumulate a little roll call here of believers, aren’t we? Back when we began the gospel of John, it was Peter and Andrew, and Philip and Nathaniel. And then, Nicodemus showed up, and maybe not a believer yet, but he’s on the way. And eventually becomes a believer, shows up in the burial of our Lord. But as of now, we’d have to limit it to Peter, Andrew, Philip, Nathaniel, and then that Samaritan woman in chapter 4, and then the folks from the village of Sychar. And then some true disciples in chapter 6. And now we can add the blind man to our little roll call of true believers. Every one of them is a divine and supernatural miracle.
Interestingly, Year A (2023) has had some of these Gospel readings. I gave you the one of the Samaritan woman a few paragraphs ago. Peter, Andrew and John’s conversion was the reading for the Second Sunday after Epiphany (John 1:19-42). Nicodemus’s story was the one for the Second Sunday in Lent (John 3:1-17).
I love serendipity, especially when it involves the Bible. We can really make proper connections then.
Our Lord’s discourse with the man concludes at this point. Henry says:
None but God is to be worshipped; so that in worshipping Jesus he owned him to be God. Note, True faith will show itself in a humble adoration of the Lord Jesus. Those who believe in him will see all the reason in the world to worship him. We never read any more of this man; but, it is very likely, from henceforth he became a constant follower of Christ.
Jesus then directed His thoughts elsewhere, saying that He came into this world for judgement, so that those who do not see may see and those who do see may become blind (verse 39).
He spoke of the Pharisees in the second half of the verse. They were wilfully blind to Him.
MacArthur says:
Obviously a play on words on this whole concept of blindness, which is, as I said, is all over the Scripture. When Jesus sees this man worshiping Him, He compares this humble, confiding, trusting, believing heart of the beggar with the hostile, stubborn hatred of the Pharisees. And He admits: this is how it’s going to be in my coming. Even though the Son of Man is come to seek and to save the lost, even though He doesn’t come for judgment, as He says in John 3, He didn’t come to judge the world but to save the world.
MacArthur reminds us that Simeon prophesied similarly when the infant Jesus was presented at the temple 40 days after His birth (Luke 2:22-32 and Luke 2:33-40). We remember this day on February 2, the feast of Candlemas:
34And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed 35(and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”
MacArthur tells us that salvation becomes division:
… even though He came in His incarnation to save, His salvation in itself becomes a dividing reality. There is a judgment bound up in it. Like Simeon said, “This child is for the rising and the falling of many.” He’s the divider. This is not final judgment. This is a kind of immediate judgment that happens at the point at which the gospel is introduced, at which Christ is introduced. There is a dividing that takes place between the believer and the unbeliever. Yes, He didn’t come to judge in the sense of final judgment. He came to save. He came to be humbled, and go to the cross, and rise from the dead to save. But even that is a judgment rendered. In fact, in John 3, He says, “If you reject Him, you judge yourself.” You judge yourself. You’re already judged. If a person sees in Jesus who died on the cross for salvation, nothing desirable, nothing that that person wants, that is a judgment on that person. That’s a self-condemnation.
If a sinner sees in Jesus nothing to desire, nothing to long for, nothing to want, nothing to put trust in, that’s a self-condemnation. That’s the Pharisees. They didn’t need anything. They could see clearly. They saw it all. They knew God. They knew the truth. They knew that Jesus was a vile sinner, a satanic, demonic, insane man. Because they thought they see, they are totally blind. So that’s the point of verse 39.
Some of the Pharisees heard Jesus and said to him (verse 40), ‘Surely we are not blind, are we?’
Whether they scoffed at Jesus or scorned Him, they resented His words.
Henry rewords the text to give it fuller meaning:
“Now,” say they, “we know that the common people are blind; but are we blind also? What we? The rabbin, the doctors, the learned in the laws, the graduates in the schools, are we blind too?” This is scandalum magnatum—a libel on the great. Note, Frequently those that need reproof most, and deserve it best, though they have wit enough to discern a tacit one, have not grace enough to bear a just one. These Pharisees took this reproof for a reproach, as those lawyers (Luke 11 45): “Are we blind also? Darest thou say that we are blind, whose judgment every one has such a veneration for, values, and yields to?” Note, Nothing fortifies men’s corrupt hearts more against the convictions of the word, nor more effectually repels them, than the good opinion, especially if it be a high opinion, which others have of them; as if all that had gained applause with men must needs obtain acceptance with God, than which nothing is more false and deceitful, for God sees not as man sees.
MacArthur tells us about spiritual blindness:
The first thing then, about spiritual blindness is: spiritual blindness brings judgment. Spiritual blindness brings judgment. Tragic. Judgment. Now, and in the future. Spiritual blindness, secondly, is stubborn, verse 40. “Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, ‘We’re not blind too, are we?’“ Again, speaking metaphorically, they refused to admit their blindness. We’re not blind in the sense that, they say this with disdain, and arrogance, and scorn. You’re not saying we, the most learned, erudite, righteous, holy, virtuous, representatives of God, you’re not saying we’re blind, are You? Well, that’s exactly what He was saying. This man was spiritually blind, but now he can see, spiritually. You think you can see spiritually, which simply demonstrates that you are spiritually blind. Blindness, the idea of spiritual blindness to them is a joke.
Jesus replied, saying that, if they were blind, they would not have sin; however, now that they say they see, their sin remains (verse 41).
Henry explains:
This very thing which they gloried in, Christ here tells them, was their shame and ruin. For,
1. If you were blind, you would have no sin. (1.) “If you had been really ignorant, your sin had not been so deeply aggravated, nor would you have had so much sin to answer for as now you have. If you were blind, as the poor Gentiles are, and many of your own poor subjects, from whom you have taken the key of knowledge, you would have had comparatively no sin.” The times of ignorance God winked at; invincible ignorance, though it does not justify sin, excuses it, and lessens the guilt. It will be more tolerable with those that perish for lack of vision than with those that rebel against the light. (2.) “If you had been sensible of your own blindness, if when you would see nothing else you could have seen the need of one to lead you, you would soon have accepted Christ as your guide, and then you would have had no sin, you would have submitted to an evangelical righteousness, and have been put into a justified state.” Note, Those that are convinced of their disease are in a fair way to be cured, for there is not a greater hindrance to the salvation of souls than self-sufficiency.
2. “But now you say, We see; now that you have knowledge, and are instructed out of the law, your sin is highly aggravated; and now that you have a conceit of that knowledge, and think you see your way better than any body can show it you, therefore your sin remains, your case is desperate, and your disease incurable.” And as those are most blind who will not see, so their blindness is most dangerous who fancy they do see. No patients are so hardly managed as those in a frenzy who say that they are well, and nothing ails them. The sin of those who are self-conceited and self-confident remains, for they reject the gospel of grace, and therefore the guilt of their sin remains unpardoned; and they forfeit the Spirit of grace, and therefore the power of their sin remains unbroken. Seest thou a wise man in his own conceit? Hearest thou the Pharisees say, We see? There is more hope of a fool, of a publican and a harlot, than of such.
MacArthur contrasts the way Jesus uses blindness in verse 40 with verse 41:
This is continuing this little play on words on the notion of blindness. But Jesus is using the term in a completely different way. In verse 40, you are blind. You are blind, in the sense that you don’t see your sin. You are blind. You are blind. But in verse 41, you’re not blind. How do you do that? You’re not blind. “If you were blind, you would have no sin.” What does that mean? You are not blind as to the truth. If you were blind to the truth, if you had no knowledge of the truth, no revelation of the truth, if you didn’t have the Scripture, didn’t have the Old Testament, the law, all the prophets and holy writings, didn’t have Me, didn’t have all the demonstration of who I am, your sin would not be so severe. This would be like the times of the past when God overlooked people’s sin because the revelation was incomplete. There’s less punishment, a less severe judgment falls on those who have no knowledge. But you’re not blind. You are blind in the sense that you don’t see your own sin. You are not blind in the sense that you have been exposed to the truth. You have the law, the prophets, the covenants, everything. The promises, the Old Testament. You’ve had Me. You’ve heard My words. You’ve seen the miracles. You have no excuse. Yes, blind to your own sin; no, not blind to the truth.
Spiritual blindness then, receives judgment, refuses to admit its blindness, rejects the offer of light and sight when it’s given, such as they had received. Finally, results in doom, end of verse 41. “But since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”
You’re doomed. You are accepting the condition you’re in, of spiritual blindness, as spiritual sight. You are doomed. You are hopeless. If you think you can see, you’re doomed. Amazing play on words. Your sin remains. Finality. So, the light shines in the darkness. The darkness cannot extinguish it. The darkness cannot put it out, but the darkness rejects it. Came to His own, His own received Him not. He’s in the world. The world was made by Him. The world knew Him not.
They are the religious elite. They are in the darkness. And a blind beggar, who’s a total outcast, sees physically; more importantly, sees spiritually.
MacArthur gives us something to consider as we contrast the blind beggar with the Pharisees:
How do you know when someone’s a believer? Because he becomes a what? Worshiper. How do you know you’re Christian? Not because you prayed a prayer. Not because you asked the Lord to do something for you. Not because you got emotionally moved in a meeting and felt sentimental about Jesus. How do you know you’re a believer? How do you know you’ve been transformed? Because you have become a worshiper, a worshiper. That’s why I said to you earlier: this narcissistic, sentimental, self-centered approach to the gospel creates an endless dependency that the system that offered originally the answer to what everybody wants keep giving that person what that person wants. It’s relentless. How do you turn that person into one who is a totally selfless worshiper?
This man falls on his knees in adoration. The opposite, back in verse 59 of chapter 8, when Jesus declared who He was to the Pharisees, they picked up stones to stone Him. That’s what spiritual blindness produces. This is what spiritual sight produces. So, if you’re asking the question: how do I know if I’m saved? Ask yourself if you love Christ, if you love God, if you love the Holy Spirit, if you desire to be obedient, if you desire to honor, to please the Lord, if you’re a worshiper. We were talking in the elder’s meeting the other night about some few people who don’t come to church, and when we contact them, they give all kinds of kind of lame, well, you know, I’ve got other things, and so and so bothers me, and blah, blah, blah. The bottom line is: those people, very likely, aren’t believers, because believers worship. That’s the priority of their life. And I’m not saying that the only place you worship is in the collective assembly of the church. That’s not. But this is what lifts you up and strengthens you and encourages you for the rest of those hours when you worship as an independent person. This is critical. This fulfills the longing of our heart, to honor the Lord, to hear from the Lord, to exalt the Lord, to praise the Lord. Worshipers.
May all reading this (far!) have a blessed day.
Forbidden Bible Verses returns tomorrow
The Fourth Sunday in Lent, Laetare Sunday, is March 19, 2023.
Readings for Year A, including an explanation of Laetare Sunday — the joyful Sunday in Lent — can be found here.
The Gospel reading is as follows (emphases mine):
John 9:1-41
9:1 As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.
9:2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
9:3 Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.
9:4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.
9:5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
9:6 When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes,
9:7 saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.
9:8 The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?”
9:9 Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.”
9:10 But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?”
9:11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.”
9:12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”
9:13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.
9:14 Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.
9:15 Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.”
9:16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided.
9:17 So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”
9:18 The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight
9:19 and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?”
9:20 His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind;
9:21 but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.”
9:22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.
9:23 Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
9:24 So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.”
9:25 He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
9:26 They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
9:27 He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?”
9:28 Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.
9:29 We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.”
9:30 The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.
9:31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will.
9:32 Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind.
9:33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
9:34 They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.
9:35 Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
9:36 He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.”
9:37 Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.”
9:38 He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him.
9:39 Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.”
9:40 Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?”
9:41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
This is the first of a two-part series. That said, this is a long post as there is much to cover.
In John 7 and John 8, we see the stubbornness of the Jewish hierarchy.
In John 8, they insult Jesus and try to stone Him:
48 The Jews answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?”
49 “I am not possessed by a demon,” said Jesus, “but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. 50 I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. 51 Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.”
… 57 “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”
58 “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” 59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
Still near the temple in Jerusalem, Jesus walked along and saw a man blind from birth (verse 1).
John MacArthur has more:
Jesus is in Jerusalem. He’s going through one of the temple entrances, temple gates. And He comes across a blind man who has been born blind. He’s never seen. He has some kind of congenital blindness. He is reduced to being a beggar. So, he sits there with the rest of the beggars at the temple entrance because that’s where most people come and go who are concerned about honoring God, and who may be more sensitive to doing what they should do, doing right, and giving alms to beggars. And so, those entrances and exits were occupied by beggars. Jesus comes across this man who is blind, who obviously can’t see Him.
Our Lord’s disciples asked Him whether the blind man had sinned or his parents had sinned, hence his disability (verse 2).
Any Jew with a disability was an outcast, because they considered it a sign of serious sin.
MacArthur explains the issue with blindness:
… the greatest ancient contributor to blindness was gonorrhea. And since there was no treatment for that, when a mother had gonorrhea, a baby passing through the birth canal could come out blind, essentially. This was epidemic. Even in the modern world, where in third-world countries, there is no remedy for that. Silver nitrate, or whatever is used; there’s no remedy for that. Blindness is multiplied.
There was a time not many years ago, according to one source I read, where 90 percent of the blind, born blind, were from venereal disease. And again, even today in countries where they don’t have the ability to care for that, blindness is increased. So were they saying something about the sin of the mother or the father? Something about a transmitted disease? Maybe that was in their mind, but probably more likely it was theological, rather than physiological.
The rabbis were convinced that the sins of the parents were visited upon the children. Where did they get that? They got that because they misinterpreted Exodus 20 ... But they believed that parents’ sins could show up in children’s guilt and punishment.
Jesus, in His omniscience, answered them saying that neither the man nor his parents had sinned; he had been born blind so that God’s works could be revealed in him (verse 3).
God’s ways are not our ways.
Matthew Henry’s commentary says:
This man was born blind, and it was worth while for him to be so, and to continue thus long dark, that the works of God might be manifest in him. That is, First, That the attributes of God might be made manifest in him: his justice in making sinful man liable to such grievous calamities; his ordinary power and goodness in supporting a poor man under such a grievous and tedious affliction, especially that his extraordinary power and goodness might be manifested in curing him. Note, The difficulties of providence, otherwise unaccountable, may be resolved into this—God intends in them to show himself, to declare his glory, to make himself to be taken notice of ... Secondly, That the counsels of God concerning the Redeemer might be manifested in him. He was born blind that our Lord Jesus might have the honour of curing him, and might therein prove himself sent of God to be the true light to the world. Thus the fall of man was permitted, and the blindness that followed it, that the works of God might be manifest in opening the eyes of the blind. It was now a great while since this man was born blind, and yet it never appeared till now why he was so. Note, The intentions of Providence commonly do not appear till a great while after the event, perhaps many years after. The sentences in the book of providence are sometimes long, and you must read a great way before you can apprehend the sense of them.
Jesus said that He — and we — must work the works of the Father who sent Him while it is day, as night is coming when no one can work (verse 4).
Henry looks at this in a literal and practical way, of that 24-hour day and of our obligations as believers:
[2.] Now was his opportunity: I must work while it is day, while the time lasts which is appointed to work in, and while the light lasts which is given to work by. Christ himself had his day. First, All the business of the mediatorial kingdom was to be done within the limits of time, and in this world; for at the end of the world, when time shall be no more, the kingdom shall be delivered up to God, even the Father, and the mystery of God finished. Secondly, all the work he had to do in his own person here on earth was to be done before his death; the time of his living in this world is the day here spoken of. Note, The time of our life is our day, in which it concerns us to do the work of the day. Day-time is the proper season for work (Ps 104 22, 23); during the day of life we must be busy, not waste day-time, nor play by day-light; it will be time enough to rest when our day is done, for it is but a day.
[3.] The period of his opportunity was at hand, and therefore he would be busy; The night comes when no man can work. Note, The consideration of our death approaching should quicken us to improve all the opportunities of life, both for doing and getting good. The night comes, it will come certainly, may come suddenly, is coming nearer and nearer. We cannot compute how nigh our sun is, it may go down at noon; nor can we promise ourselves a twilight between the day of life and the night of death. When the night comes we cannot work, because the light afforded us to work by is extinguished; the grave is a land of darkness, and our work cannot be done in the dark. And, besides, our time allotted us for our work will then have expired; when our Master tied us to duty he tied us to time too; when night comes, call the labourers; we must then show our work, and receive according to the things done. In the world of retribution we are no longer probationers; it is too late to bid when the inch of candle is dropped. Christ uses this as an argument with himself to be diligent, though he had no opposition from within to struggle with; much more need have we to work upon our hearts these and the like considerations to quicken us.
Jesus said, ‘As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world’ (verse 5).
Henry tells us:
He had said this before, ch. 8 12. He is the Sun of righteousness, that has not only light in his wings for those that can see, but healing in his wings, or beams, for those that are blind and cannot see, therein far exceeding in virtue that great light which rules by day. Christ would cure this blind man, the representative of a blind world, because he came to be the light of the world, not only to give light, but to give sight. Now this gives us, First, A great encouragement to come to him, as a guiding, quickening, refreshing light. To whom should we look but to him? Which way should we turn our eyes, but to the light? We partake of the sun’s light, and so we may of Christ’s grace, without money and without price. Secondly, A good example of usefulness in the world. What Christ saith of himself, he saith of his disciples: You are lights in the world, and, if so, Let your light shine. What were candles made for but to burn?
Before we get to this healing miracle, MacArthur tells us about the miracles in the Old Testament, which were few and far between:
… if you go to the Old Testament, these corrupt influences falling on physical life are so dominating and so normal, and so unabated and uninterrupted, that throughout the entire Old Testament, miraculous healing is so rare, it is virtually non-existent.
There was the healing of Naaman the leper, who was a border terrorist attacking the Jews. That’s in 1 Kings. And then, there was King Hezekiah who had a terminal illness, and God spared him and cured him of that terminal illness. That’s 2 Kings. And then, in Numbers 21, God sent snakes that bit the children of Israel with a deadly poison. They would’ve died, except the Lord was merciful to them, and healed their snakebites …
And as far as an outright individual healing, very, very rare and unusual. When you come into the New Testament, as the New Testament begins, there are a couple of other physical miracles of healing. One happens to Elizabeth so that she who has been barren all her life is enabled to have a baby, John the Baptist. That is a healing miracle. And then, there of course is Mary, and Mary’s is not a healing, but Mary is given the right, and the privilege, and the power to bear a child without a father, a human father, the virgin birth. But when you look at the Old Testament, you’ve got six occasions where an actual, physical miracle brought about a change in someone’s physiology.
In the Old Testament, you have three resurrections. That’s all. Three. The widow’s son in 1 Kings 17, the Shunammite widow’s son in 2 Kings 4, and the man in Elijah’s grave in 2 Kings 13. Three resurrections. That’s it. Very, very rare through the entire history, from the Fall, to the arrival of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And by the way, you say, well, that’s just the Old Testament. Yes, but if you just took the Old Testament, that would be religion central, wouldn’t it be? That would be where God is most active. That would be where God is working, God is acting through the fathers, through the prophets, through the history of Israel, the nation of Israel. And in all of that period of history where God is acting, miracles don’t happen except on extremely rare occasions, miracles of healing.
Until Jesus shows up. And when Jesus showed up, miracles explode in every direction throughout His three-year ministry. By the way, He did no miracles for the first 30 years of His life. None. Because, when He reached the age of 30 and He went to a wedding in Cana, and turned water into wine, the Bible says this is the first miracle Jesus did. So, these nonsense, gnostic, false gospels that have Jesus doing miracles as a boy are nothing but foolish. We just don’t have healings in history. You don’t have miraculous reversing of disease and deformity. You don’t have resurrections. You don’t have people coming back from the dead. This is a very rare occasion.
Then you come into the life and ministry of Christ, and healings are happening virtually on a daily basis. This is an explosion intended to demonstrate that the Messiah, the Son of God, God in human flesh, has arrived in the world. Matthew 12:15 says He was healing all. He was healing all. So, He was healing all the people in all the places. That’s why I’ve said many times that He banished illness, essentially, from the land of Israel.
Returning to today’s reading, Jesus spat on the ground, made mud with His saliva and spread the mud on the blind man’s eyes (verse 6).
Henry says:
1. The preparation of the eye-salve … He made clay of his own spittle, because there was no water near; and he would teach us not to be nice or curious, but, when we have at any time occasion, to be willing to take up with that which is next hand, if it will but serve the turn. Why should we go about for that which may as well be had and done a nearer way? Christ’s making use of his own spittle intimates that there is healing virtue in every thing that belongs to Christ; clay made of Christ’s spittle was much more precious than the balm of Gilead.
2. The application of it to the place: He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. Or, as the margin reads it, He spread (epechrise), he daubed the clay upon the eyes of the blind man, like a tender physician; he did it himself with his own hand, though the patient was a beggar. Now Christ did this, (1.) To magnify his power in making a blind man to see by that method which one would think more likely to make a seeing man blind. Daubing clay on the eyes would close them up, but never open them. Note, The power of God often works by contraries; and he makes men feel their own blindness before he gives them sight. (2.) To give an intimation that it was his mighty hand, the very same that at first made man out of the clay; for by him God made the worlds, both the great world, and man the little world. Man was formed out of the clay, and moulded like the clay, and here Christ used the same materials to give sight to the body that at first he used to give being to it. (3.) To represent and typify the healing and opening of the eyes of the mind by the grace of Jesus Christ. The design of the gospel is to open men’s eyes, Acts 26 18. Now the eye-salve that does the work is of Christ’s preparing; it is made up, not as this, of his spittle, but of his blood, the blood and water that came out of his pierced side; we must come to Christ for the eye-salve, Rev 3 18. He only is able, and he only is appointed, to make it up, Luke 4 18. The means used in this work are very weak and unlikely, and are made effectual only by the power of Christ; when a dark world was to be enlightened, and nations of blind souls were to have their eyes opened, God chose the foolish things, and weak, and despised, for the doing of it. And the method Christ takes is first to make men feel themselves blind, as this poor man did whose eyes were daubed with clay, and then to give them sight. Paul in his conversion was struck blind for three days, and then the scales fell from his eyes. The way prescribed for getting spiritual wisdom is, Let a man become a fool, that he may be wise, 1 Cor 3 18. We must be made uneasy with our blindness, as this man here, and then healed.
Jesus told the man to wash in the pool of Siloam, which means Sent; the man went, washed and came back able to see (verse 7).
Both our commentators tell us about the significance of the pool of Siloam.
Henry says:
Concerning the pool of Siloam observe, [1.] That it was supplied with water from mount Zion, so that these were the waters of the sanctuary (Ps 46 4), living waters, which were healing, Ezek 47 9. [2.] That the waters of Siloam had of old signified the throne and kingdom of the house of David, pointing at the Messiah (Isa 8 6), and the Jews who refused the waters of Shiloah, Christ’s doctrine and law, and rejoiced in the tradition of the elders. Christ would try this man, whether he would cleave to the waters of Siloam or no. [3.] The evangelist takes notice of the signification of the name, its being interpreted sent. Christ is often called the sent of God, the Messenger of the covenant (Mal 3 1); so that when Christ sent him to the pool of Siloam he did in effect send him to himself; for Christ is all in all to the healing of souls. Christ as a prophet directs us to himself as a priest. Go, wash in the fountain opened, a fountain of life, not a pool.
Last week, in Year A’s reading for the Third Sunday in Lent, we had the reading about Christ’s conversion of the Samaritan woman, that of living waters in John 4:5-42 (parts 1 and 2).
Of the waters of Siloam, MacArthur adds this:
So, this spoke of God’s provision. It spoke of God’s cleansing, spoke of the water of life. It’s really a beautiful picture, and it was water sent into the city, another wonderful symbol. The waters flow from the temple hill and are regarded, even in the Old Testament, as symbolic of spiritual blessing. Isaiah 8 talks about that.
So when a man went to wash at Siloam, there was an analogy there. He was going to the one who was the true Siloam, the spring of life water from God. Christ is the true Siloam. That, He even said back in chapter 7 verse 37. “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.” Beautiful imagery, beautiful analogies.
This is how salvation works in this analogy. Sovereign grace confronts a blind and helpless, hopeless begging sinner. He can’t see, can’t see God, can’t see Christ. But sovereign grace comes to him, places His glorious, merciful hand on his sightless soul, asks only a response of simple faith, prompts that response. He finds his way to the cleansing waters, which is an emblem of Messianic salvation in Isaiah, and he comes back, and he can see, spiritually. It’s really a beautiful picture.
The people’s reaction is interesting. They asked whether the healed beggar was the same man they had seen before (verse 8). Some said it was; others said it was someone who looked like him, so the beggar spoke up and kept saying that he was that man (verse 9).
That poor man. He must have been so exhiliarated at being able to see everything around him, and yet people doubted that he was the one who begged at the temple gates.
The people asked him how he was able to see, how his eyes had been opened (verse 10), an interesting choice of words, implying to us that a spiritual opening had also taken place.
Henry says:
We may apply it spiritually; it is strange that blind eyes should be opened, but more strange when we consider how they are opened; how weak the means are that are used, and how strong the opposition that is conquered.
The man replied, sticking to the facts: the man called Jesus made mud, spread it on his eyes and told him to wash in the waters of Siloam, which he did, and he then received his sight (verse 11).
MacArthur says that the rest of the story concerns unbelief, which we have already seen in verse 9, with some doubting it was the same man:
First of all, I want you to see that unbelief is inimical, inimical. You probably haven’t used that word today or any day for that matter. But it’s a really good word, and it means “hostile.” It means adverse, it means pernicious, ill-disposed. It could even be dangerous. Unbelief is not benign. You need to understand that. When you’re dealing with unbelievers, you’re not dealing with some benign reality. This is an aggressive attitude to take. When you don’t believe in the Gospel, and you don’t believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you inevitably are hostile toward that. That is why it is unbelievers who ultimately persecute Christians …
It starts intellectual, becomes emotional, then becomes verbal, and ends up physical. That’s what’ll happen in the story. It starts as a discussion about facts. It then becomes emotional. And the man starts sarcastically firing away at them. And then it becomes them firing at him, reviling then, and eventually physically, they throw Him out. Those are the sequences of conflict. And unbelief, if pressed, can go down that path pretty fast …
Secondly, verses 17 to 24, we’re going to work through this quickly. Unbelief is intractable. And what does intractable mean? Will not bend. Cannot be convinced. The blind man told him exactly what happened. I was blind. I can see. Jesus came, he names Jesus in the first testimony back in verse 11. He came, He told me to go to the pool. I went to the pool. I washed the mud out of my eyes, and I see. And he is literally staring at them, and they at him, as he gives this testimony. And there are all kinds of people around affirming the reality of this. But it is the nature of determined, willful unbelief that it wants more evidence, but never wants to do anything with it. It’s really on a mad search to discredit. It keeps probing, not because it seeks the truth, but because it seeks justification for its conclusion. In Deuteronomy 32 and verse 20, Moses called apostates “children in whom is no faith.” Children in whom is no belief.
… and thirdly, unbelief is irrational. With … facts, if you come to a wrong conclusion, you’re irrational. Unbelief is irrational. You face this all the time in trying to proclaim the Gospel to people. You give them the facts; you lay out the facts systematically like Peter did on the day of Pentecost. People reject it, because unbelief is irrational.
The people asked the man where Jesus was, and he said he did not know (verse 12).
Henry tells us why they asked that question:
Where is he? Some perhaps asked this question out of curiosity. “Where is he, that we may see him?” A man that did such cures as these might well be a show, which one would go a good way for the sight of. Others, perhaps, asked out of ill-will. “Where is he, that we may seize him?” There was a proclamation out for the discovering and apprehending of him (ch. 11 57); and the unthinking crowd, in spite of all reason and equity, will have ill thoughts of those that are put into an ill name. Some, we hope, asked this question out of good-will. “Where is he, that we may be acquainted with him? Where is he, that we may come to him, and share in the favours he is so free of?” In answer to this, he could say nothing: I know not. As soon as Christ had sent him to the pool of Siloam, it should seem, he withdrew immediately (as he did, ch. 5 13), and did not stay till the man returned, as if he either doubted of the effect or waited for the man’s thanks … Thus in the work of grace wrought upon the soul we see the change, but see not the hand that makes it; for the way of the Spirit is like that of the wind, which thou hearest the sound of, but canst not tell whence it comes nor whither it goes.
The people took the man to the Pharisees (verse 13).
When I read that verse, I thought of Luke 17:11-19, which is the Gospel for the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity in Year C. Jesus healed ten lepers, and told them to visit the priest (Luke 17:14). Henry’s commentary states:
As the ceremonial law was yet in force, Christ took care that it should be observed, and the reputation of it kept up, and due honour paid to the priests in things pertaining to their function; but, probably, he had here a further design, which was to have the priest’s judgment of, and testimony to, the perfectness of the cure; and that the priest might be awakened, and others by him, to enquire after one that had such a commanding power over bodily diseases.
Perhaps some of the people had that in mind, too. However, John tells us that it was the Sabbath (verse 14), when no work was to be done. So, there was undoubtedly on the part of some in the crowd a malicious intent in bringing the man before the Pharisees so that they could further condemn Christ.
The Pharisees asked the man how he obtained his sight; the man responded with the facts, saying that He put mud on his eyes, then he washed and then he could see (verse 15).
Henry expresses the mood perfectly. His thoughts mirror those of MacArthur’s with regard to unbelief:
So much passion, prejudice, and ill-humour, and so little reason, appear here, that the discourse is nothing but crossing questions. One would think, when a man in these circumstances was brought before them, they would have been so taken up in admiring the miracle, and congratulating the happiness of the poor man, that they could not have been peevish with him. But their enmity to Christ had divested them of all manner of humanity, and divinity too. Let us see how they teased this man.
The Pharisees were divided (verse 16), as they were in John 7:
45 Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”
46 “No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied.
47 “You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted. 48 “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? 49 No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.”
50 Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, 51 “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”
52 They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”
Returning to today’s reading, the Pharisees asked the man what he thought of ‘him’, meaning Jesus; the man stated, ‘He is a prophet’ (verse 17).
MacArthur says:
… he was right. He knew his Old Testament. There’s not one single healing of a blind man in the entire Old Testament. It was unheard of. He knew that …
So this man has caught the wind of this man, Jesus. He knows His name from verse 11. He knows He’s a prophet. He now believes He’s a prophet from God because of His miracle power. And so, He gives them a straightforward, sensible answer, which should’ve been the end of the investigation. Here’s the man. He can see. This must reveal Jesus as a Prophet.
This hardened the Pharisees against the man who then refused to believe that he had ever been blind, so they called in his parents (verse 18). The Pharisees asked the parents whether the man was their son who was born blind and, if so, how it was that he could see (verse 19).
MacArthur says:
Now remember, they’ve heard from the man, and the man is surrounded by all the strangers and neighbors who knew him and brought him and all that testimony collectively. And they still don’t believe because again, unbelief is intractable. I’m telling you this because you need to understand this is what you’re going to face when you give the Gospel. Most of the people are going to reject what you tell them about the Gospel, throughout your whole life of ministry and evangelism, most people will not accept what you say. Then, there is an element of hostility toward the Gospel, and there’s an element of being intractable and immovable against the Gospel. This is what we face. The way is narrow. Few there be that find it.
So, this is the predisposed viewpoint. They say look, we’re going to dig deeper into this, because they will not give up the notion that this man is a sinner and he is not from God. So, there must be something about the story that they’re not seeing yet. There’s some kind of cover-up here. There’s some kind of lie. There’s some kind of deception. We’ve got to get to the bottom of this.
Henry has more:
This they did in hopes to disprove the miracle. These parents were poor and timorous, and if they had said that they could not be sure that this was their son, or that it was only some weakness or dimness in his sight that he had been born with, which if they had been able to get help for him might have been cured long since, or had otherwise prevaricated, for fear of the court, the Pharisees had gained their point, had robbed Christ of the honour of this miracle, which would have lessened the reputation of all the rest. But God so ordered and overruled this counsel of theirs that it turned to the more effectual proof of the miracle, and left them under a necessity of being either convinced or confounded.
The questions that were put to them (v. 19): They asked them in an imperious threatening way, “Is this your son? Dare you swear to it? Do you say he was born blind? Are you sure of it? Or did he but pretend to be so, to have an excuse for his begging? How then doth he now see? That is impossible, and therefore you had better unsay it.” Those who cannot bear the light of truth do all they can to eclipse it, and hinder the discovery of it. Thus the managers of evidence, or mismanagers rather, lead witnesses out of the way, and teach them how to conceal or disguise the truth, and so involve themselves in a double guilt, like that of Jeroboam, who sinned, and made Israel to sin.
The parents affirmed that the man was their son and that he had been born blind (verse 20).
They said they did not know how he came to see, nor by whom, so they told the Pharisees to ask him themselves, as he was an adult and could speak for himself (verse 21).
Our commentators point to the cowardice of the parents, but, we discover that they were afraid of the Jews, who had already agreed that anyone who confessed that Jesus was Messiah would be thrown out of the synagogue (verse 22). Therefore, his parents said, ‘He is of age; ask him’ (verse 23).
MacArthur explains why the parents said that:
They knew what it was to be thrown out of the synagogue, by the way, because their son had lived outside the synagogue. They knew what the ban was, what the curse was, with all its implications. They knew what being an outcast was, and they didn’t want that.
… Can’t throw him out of the synagogue. He’s not in the synagogue.
MacArthur also explains how awful being thrown out of the synagogue was for worshippers. Essentially, you lost not only your fellowship of worshippers but all of your social contacts. The synagogue was every practising Jew’s meeting place:
Now, being thrown out of the synagogue was a big deal. A very big deal. If you were in Jewish society and you weren’t in the synagogue, you were like a leper. There were three kinds of excommunication, but each of them had social implications, economic implications, and religious implications. The first, according to the Talmud, there were three kinds of Shamatha, which means destruction. That’s considered destruction, when you’re thrown out of the synagogue, cut off from God, the life of the country. There is Nezifah, which was 7 days to 30 days. 7 days to 30 days, a week to a month. You were out of the synagogue. You were a pariah for those days. Second, there was Niddui. 30 days and up. That could last a long time. Months, maybe years, depending on the crime. And if you died under that ban, you had no funeral. You were seriously dishonored. The worst was Herem, which was an indefinite, permanent ban. The rabbis used to say that being banned was far worse than being flogged, ‘cause of its implication socially and economically, as well as religiously.
So, they didn’t want to get anywhere near having to experience what he experienced. And since they couldn’t throw him out, they said, “Ask him; he’s of age.”
The Pharisees called the man in again and asked him to recant giving Jesus the credit for his sight, which is why they said, ‘Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner’ (verse 24).
The man wisely answered that he did not know whether the one who healed him was a sinner, only that he was blind and now he can see (verse 25).
That verse was the inspiration for Amazing Grace, the fascinating story of which I will relate in a future post.
My exegesis concludes here.
Churchmouse Campanologist 