For He who spoke was divine. And so, in fact, it was and is. As an experienced minister, Alistair shares his approach to preaching. It is the final setting aside of Judaism then, whose characteristic hope was the display of power and rest in the world. So we see in the attractive power, afterwards dealing with individual souls. It is not now the revelation of God meeting man either in essential nature, or as manifested in flesh; nor is it the course of dispensational dealing presented in a parenthetic as well as mysterious form, beginning with John the Baptist's testimony, and going down to the millennium in the Son, full of grace and truth. (VersesJohn 7:33-36; John 7:33-36) Jesus was returning to Him that sent Him, and the Holy Ghost would be given. But as many as received him, to them gave he power [rather, authority, right, or title] to become children of God." And while He does not hide the privilege of the Jews, He nevertheless proclaims that "the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. Matthew, Mark, and Luke start, as far as regards the public labours of the Lord, with John cast into prison. John 5:19-29), It is evident, then, that the Lord presents life in Himself as the true want of man, who was not merely infirm but dead. Christ was the true sanctuary, not that on which man had laboured so long in Jerusalem. Not only man under law has no health, but he has no strength to avail himself of the blessing that God holds out. But the Lord reproaches him, the master of Israel, with not knowing these things: that is, as a teacher, with Israel for his scholar, he ought to have known them objectively, at least, if not consciously. Then (ver. He reminds them of his previous disclaimer of any place beyond one sent before Jesus. The issue of all is, that the will of man is the real cause and spring of enmity. The author is the apostle John, "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (13:23 [see note there]; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7,20,24). Flesh and world are judged morally. Knowing God the Father is invisible should make us more Web1 John 4:19 Parallel Verses [ See commentary ] 1 John 4:19, NIV: We love because he first loved us. His aspect as thus tabernacling among the disciples was "full of grace and truth." Life out of death was wanted by man, such as he is; and this the Father is giving in the Son. John 7:25-31) He is going where they cannot come, and never guessed (for unbelief thinks of the dispersed among the Greeks of anything rather than of God). John 4:1-6; John 4:1-6) What a picture of rejection and humiliation! This is the more striking, because, as we have seen, the world and Israel, rejecting Him, are also themselves, as such, rejected from the first. Here, in suited circumstances to render the thought and way of God unmistakable, pure and boundless grace takes its own sovereign course, suitable to the love and personal glory of Christ. a toilet or bathroom. John then declared his own waning before Christ, as we have seen, the issues of whose testimony, believed or not, are eternal; and this founded on the revelation of His glorious person as man and to man here below. Indeed, it is the total eclipse, not merely of law and remedial mercies, but even of promised Messianic glory, by everlasting life and resurrection at the last day. (Verses John 5:17-18). They could not deny Him to be man Son of man. For nothing can be more observable than the way in which He becomes the centre round whom those that belong to God are gathered. Neither does the Spirit say exactly as the English Bible says "sons," but children. Pharisaic jealousy had wrought; and Jesus, wearied, sat thus at the fountain of Jacob's well in Sychar. Nevertheless, Christ did come to His own things, His proper, peculiar possession; for there were special relationships. 7 He came as a witness to testify about the Light, so that through him everyone might believe. The way you see God has everything to do with how you approach Him, how you relate to Him. It was not intended for other beings it was God's free gift to man, to the believer, of course. "But He said to them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of." As to Himself, He does not go at that time to the feast of tabernacles; but later on He goes up "not openly, but as it were in secret" (verseJohn 7:10; John 7:10), and taught. As a present fact, the Lord justifies the judicial act before their eyes by His relationship with God as His Father, and gives the Jews a sign in the temple of His body, as the witness of His resurrection power. What a witness all this to His person! Scripture is, or may be, before man always. "He came unto his own [things], and his own [people] received him not. Jesus said to her, You are right when you say you have no husband. Just as distinct and beyond comparison is His testimony who, coming from heaven and above all, testifies what He saw and heard, however it might be rejected. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. Be they who they may now, as many as receive Him become children of God. Such was Jesus in person, contrasted with all who belong to the earth. WebMatthew Henry's Commentary on 1 John 4:16-19 Commentary on 1 John 4:14-21 (Read 1 John 4:14-21) The Father sent the Son, he willed his coming into this world. For them, Israel, or the world, all is over. called also John the Baptist. WebJohn repeats that people must believe in Jesus as the Son of God in order to be saved, and that love for God is inseparable from love for Gods people (5:1). Law, means, ordinances, could not meet the need no pool, nor angel nothing but the Son working in grace, the Son quickening. He would have every soul to know assuredly how he stands for eternity as well as now. In the process of torturing Jesus, the soldiers ironically coronate him king. Nor would the rejected Christ, the Son of man; for if lifted up on the cross, instead of having the throne of David, the result would be not merely earthly blessing for His people according to prophecy, but eternal life for the believer, whoever. John 3:19; John 3:19) Other things, the merest trifles, may serve to indicate a man's condition; but a new responsibility is created by this infinite display of divine goodness in Christ, and the evidence is decisive and final, that the unbeliever is already judged before God. God does not here condescend to call it His, though, of course, it was His and holy, just, and good, both in itself and in its use, if used lawfully. For The Baltimore Sun. It is here we learn in what condition of His person God was to be revealed and the work done; not what He was in nature, but what He became. But this is not the question of grace: not what she was, but what He is who was there to win and bless her, manifesting God and the Father withal, practically and in detail. (Verses John 1:44-51). Here the Lord was really owned by the multitudes as the great Prophet that should come; and this in consequence of His works, especially that one which Scripture itself had connected with the Son of David. He could have healed the man without the smallest outward act to shock their zeal for the law. Thus we all not only receive of His fulness, (and what fulness illimitable was there not in Him!) (See Hebrews 12:2, Hebrews 13:11-13) Again, let me just remark in passing, that although, no doubt, we may in a general way speak of those who partake of the new nature as having that life, yet the Holy Ghost refrains from predicating of any saints the full character of eternal life as a present thing until we have the cross of Christ laid (at least doctrinally) as the ground of it. In this podcast we refer to Being Disciples by Rowan Williams, a terrific sermon by Rev Dr 17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no changing or bettering the old man; and, thanks be to God, the new does not degenerate or pass away. "No man hath seen God at any time: the only-begotten Son," etc. One must be born again for God's kingdom a Jew for what was promised him, like another. Now, it is the Holy Ghost in the power that gives rivers of living water flowing out, and this bound up with, and consequent on, His being man in glory. Here (John 5:1-47) the first view given of Christ is His person in contrast with the law. God is love. This will be displayed in the millennium, when the marriage will be celebrated, as well as the judgment executed (Jerusalem and its temple being the central point then). But here it was not God's purpose to record it. Then He rebukes the carnality of His brethren. Just as in John 4:1-54, so here it is a question of power in the Holy Ghost, and not simply of Christ's person. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours." Mark what, as such, He does declare Him. Thus it is not the Spirit of God simply giving a new nature; neither is it the Holy Ghost given as the power of worship and communion with His God and Father. John 7:6-8) They belonged to the world. Art thou that prophet? Web1. Thus a despised Christ is not merely a crucified Son of man, and given Son of God, as in John 3:1-36, but Himself a divine giver in communion with the Father, and in the power of the Holy Ghost who is given to the believer, the source of worship, as their God and Father is its object for the worshippers in spirit and truth (though surely not to the exclusion of the Son, Hebrews 1:1-14). It was worldliness in its worst shape, even to the point of turning the glory of Christ to a present account. There is the need of another nature, and the only way in which this nature is communicated is by being born of water and the Spirit the employment of the word of God in the quickening energy of the Holy Ghost. Realizing that the woman would have to see her personal sin before she could see her spiritual need, Jesus began to speak of her marital affairs. We love him, because he first loved us. The healing of the courtier's son, sick and ready to die, is witness of what the Lord was actually doing among the despised of Israel. As this chapter sets forth the Lord Jesus with singular fulness of glory, on the side both of His Godhead and of His manhood, so it closes with the most varied and remarkable testimonies God has given to us, that there may be no excuse. God the Father forms a new family in, by, and for Christ. He *said to her, "Go, call your husband and come here. For the astonishing thought is, not merely that Jesus receives the Holy Ghost without measure, but that God gives the Spirit also, and not by measure, through Him to others. How, indeed, could it be stayed within narrow limits? John 19 Jesus Is Crucified A. Jesus is condemned to crucifixion. 1. (1-4) Pilate hopes to satisfy the mob by having Jesus whipped and mocked. So then Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him. (Ver. Jesus saw the man, and knowing that he was long thus, prompts the desire of healing, but brings out the despondency of unbelief. He tells Philip to follow Him. They had no common thoughts, feelings, or ways with the Father and the Son. Man is morally judged. And herein is that true saying, One soweth, and another reapeth. 18 There is no 3. This, of course, supposes the setting aside of Jerusalem, its people and house, as they now are, and is justified by the great fact of Christ's death and resurrection, which is the key to all, though not yet intelligible even to the disciples. What you have just said is quite true.. There is but one unfailing test the Son of God God's testimony to Him. They were not to wonder then at what He says and does now; for an hour was coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; those that have done good to resurrection of life, and those that have done evil to resurrection of judgment. For this, therefore, the Jews sought the more to kill Him; because He added the greater offence of making Himself equal with God, by saying that God was His own Father. Thus in one way or the other all must honour the Son. "For God sent not his Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world through him might be saved." It is found also in the omissions of all the material of the Synoptics down to the passion. Jesus is crowned, clothed, and proclaimed king by Roman soldiers. It is the revelation of God yea, of the Father and the Son, and not merely the detecter of man. After this we have, suitably to this gospel, John's connection with the Lord Jesus. This He does in verses 16-19. Accordingly there is a four-fold testimony to Jesus: the testimony of John the Baptist; the Lord's own works; the voice of the Father from heaven; and finally, the written word which the Jews had in their own hands. Nevertheless, the heavenly part is little dwelt on, as John's gospel displays our Lord more as the expression of God revealed on earth, than as Man ascended to heaven, which fell far more to the province of the apostle of the Gentiles. Here, then, we have a remarkable display of that which preceded His Galilean ministry, or public manifestation. The same God who did not leave Himself without witness among the heathen, doing good, and giving from heaven rain and fruitful seasons, did not fail, in the low estate of the Jews, to work by providential power at intervals; and, by the troubled waters of Bethesda, invited the sick, and healed the first who stepped in of whatever disease he had. No such sounds, no such realities were ever heard or known in Israel. The Word, in order to accomplish these infinite things, "was made. (Verses John 3:1-6), But the Lord goes farther, and bids Nicodemus not wonder at His insisting on this need. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. (Ver. Hence the Son, being in this ineffable nearness of love, has declared not God only, but the Father. 17 This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we're free of worry on Judgment Day - our standing in the world is identical with Christ's. Further, John attests that he saw the Spirit descending like a dove, and abiding on Him the appointed token that He it is who baptizes with the Holy Ghost even the Son of God. If he receives Him, it is everlasting life, and Christ is thus honoured by him; if not, judgment remains which will compel the honour of Christ, but to his own ruin for ever. Without sign, prodigy, or miracle, in this village of Samaria Jesus was heard, known, confessed as truly the Saviour of the world ("the Christ" being absent in the best authorities, ver. Lastly, closing this part, we have another most remarkable contrast. It passes over all question of dispensations, until it accomplishes, in all its extent, that purpose for which He thus died. That is an average increase of $1.49 trillion per year. It was meet that so it should be; for, as a question of right, none could claim; and grace surpasses all expectation or thought of man, most of all of men accustomed to a round of religious ceremonial. In Him was life for this scene of death; and it is of faith that it might be by grace. The disciples come; the woman goes into the city, leaving her waterpot, but carrying with her the unspeakable gift of God. Till then the Holy Ghost could not be so given only when Jesus was glorified, after redemption was a fact. And worship is viewed both in moral nature and in the joy of communion doubly. The refusal of His precious blood will, on the contrary, make their case incomparably worse than that of the heathen who never heard the good news. Thus the Holy Ghost, given by the Son in humiliation (according to God, not acting on law, but according to the gift of grace in the gospel), was fully set forth; but the woman, though interested, and asking, only apprehended a boon for this life to save herself trouble here below. Web40 One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. This brings in the great counterpart truth, that even God present on earth and made flesh is not enough. The disciples of John dispute with a Jew about purification; but John himself renders a bright witness to the glory of the Lord Jesus. John gives us this point of contact with them, though in an incident peculiar to himself. "He that believeth on him is not judged: but he that believeth not is judged already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." As the new birth for the kingdom of God, so the cross is absolutely necessary for eternal life. It is there that we found the Lord, in the other synoptic gospels, fulfilling His ordinary ministry. As there is an absolute necessity on God's part that man should be thus born anew, so He lets him know there is an active grace of the Spirit, as the wind blows where it will, unknown and uncontrolled by man, for every one that is born of the Spirit, who is sovereign in operation. For if, on the one side, God has taken care to let us see already the glory of the Son, and the grace of which He was full, on the other side, all shines out the more marvellously when we know how He dealt with a woman of Samaria, sinful and degraded. This only secures His honour in those that believe God's testimony to Him, the Son of God; and to these He gives life, everlasting life now, and exemption from judgment, in this acting in communion with the Father. (Verses John 1:41-44), On the morrow Jesus begins, directly and indirectly, to call others to follow Himself. Thus we have here the other side of the truth: not merely what God is in life and light, in grace and truth, as revealed in Christ coming down to man; but man is now judged in the very root of his nature, and proved to be entirely incapable, in his best state, of seeing or entering the kingdom of God. Here, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." Her life is laid before her by His voice, and she confesses to Him that God Himself spoke to her in His words: "Sir [said she], I perceive that thou art a prophet." Further, it is connected intimately with the evidence of man's ruin by sin. All is fitly closed by the declaration, that "the Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand." , , . Johns answer goes down to the depths, for his notion of love is the response of the believing soul to the love of God which was manifested on the Cross of Calvary. Resurrection will be the proof; the two-fold rising of the dead, not one, but two resurrections. 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