The person of the Son was there the object of divine and overflowing joy even then, although, of course, in the full sense of the word, the Holy Ghost might not be given to be the power of it for some time later; but still the object of worship was there revealing the Father; butJohn 7:1-53; John 7:1-53 supposes Him to be gone up to heaven, before He from heaven communicates the Holy Ghost, who should be (not here, as Israel had a rock with water to drink of in the wilderness outside themselves, nor even as a fountain springing up within the believer, but) as rivers flowing out. John 6:1-15 describes Jesus' feeding thousands of peoplethe fourth of the gospel of John's seven ''signs'' of Christ's divinity. Then (ver. In a certain sense, the principle of John 4:1-54 was made true in the woman of Samaria, and in others who received Christ then. 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. Premillenialism is that system of religious belief that holds that Christ didn't set up a kingdom when he was on earth because the Jews rejected it but will one day return to set up an earthly kingdom in which Christ will reign on the earth for a thousand years. Death knell. Proud member "In the consistory of Dec. 15, 1958 . Here was a meeting, indeed, between such an one and Him, the Son, true God and eternal life. And worship is viewed both in moral nature and in the joy of communion doubly. he would not. . For were it not God Himself in the person of Jesus, it had been no glory to God, but a wrong and a rival. It is not John's business here to call attention to His Messiahship, not even when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask, Who art thou? convinced of their mistaken notions of him as a temporal prince: His death on the cross included much more, clearly answering to the first; His baptizing with the Holy Ghost followed His going to heaven. Here was One on earth who knew all secrets. It was not so. He that believes on the Son has everlasting life; and he that disobeys the Son, in the sense of not being subject to His person, "shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him" Such is the issue of the Son of God present in this world an everlasting one for every man, flowing from the glory of His person, the character of His testimony, and the Father's counsels respecting Him. (Verse John 3:10). Thus we feed on Him and drink into Him, as man, unto life everlasting life in Him. After this we have, suitably to this gospel, John's connection with the Lord Jesus. For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. A person (the bell ringer) would place a leather muffle over half of the bell's clapper. A greater work was in hand; and this, as the rest of the chapter shows us, not a Messiah lifted up, but the true bread given He who comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world; a dying, not a reigning, Son of man. Do any believe on His name? John 1:20-25) John does not even speak of Him as one who, on His rejection as Messiah, would step into a larger glory. But what we learn is, that our Lord (viewed as having entered into heaven as man on the ground of redemption, i.e., ascended, after having passed through death, into glory) from that glory confers meanwhile the Holy Ghost on him that believes, instead of bringing in at once the final feast of gladness for the Jews and the world, as He will do by-and-by when the anti-typical harvest and vintage has been fulfilled. (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. "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." "For God sent not his Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world through him might be saved." Law, means, ordinances, could not meet the need no pool, nor angel nothing but the Son working in grace, the Son quickening. So it must be now; for God is revealed; and the Father in grace seeks true worshippers (be they Samaritans or Jews) to worship Him. And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time. (ver. even took not his disciples with him, who were in the same way of It is now eternal reality, and the name of Jesus Christ is that which puts all things to a final test. This brings in the great counterpart truth, that even God present on earth and made flesh is not enough. Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? * He says, One was among them of whom they had no conscious knowledge, "that cometh after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to loose." 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. John gives us this point of contact with them, though in an incident peculiar to himself. 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. As mentioned in the Introduction Section, premillennialism was the prevailing view of the Early Church for about the first three centuries, For nothing can be more observable than the way in which He becomes the centre round whom those that belong to God are gathered. Hence, after having first unmistakably laid down the necessity of the cross, He next shows the grace that was manifested in the gift of Jesus. They wonder, as they had murmured before (John 7:12-15); but Jesus shows that the desire to do God's will is the condition of spiritual understanding. Of course it is the revelation of Christ; but here He was simply revealing the sources of this indispensable new birth. But there was this difference from the former occasion, that, at the marriage in Cana (John 2:1-25), the change of the water into wine was clearly millennial in its typical aspect. Indeed, He was the great Prophet, as He was the great King, and as He is now the great Priest on high. (Ver. Sons they might have been in bare title; but these had the right of children. His was an errand incomparably deeper, more worthy of God, and suitable to One "full of grace and truth." Isaiah 44:3; Isaiah 44:3, Isaiah 59:21, Ezekiel 36:25-27 ought to have made the Lord's meaning plain to an intelligent Jew. He who, living, was received for eternal life, is our meat and drink in dying, and gives us communion with His death. So bright was His glory, so concerned was the Father in maintaining it, so immense the blessing if received, so tremendous the stake involved in its loss, that God vouchsafed the amplest and clearest witnesses. Jesus not only could go up, as He did later, but He had come down thence, and, even though man, He was the Son of man that is in heaven. Pharisaic jealousy had wrought; and Jesus, wearied, sat thus at the fountain of Jacob's well in Sychar. 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. "But He said to them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of." Still the Lord refused the crown then: it was not the time or state for His reign. 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. 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. 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." Then said they unto him, Who art thou? It was impossible that there should not be righteous dealing with human evil against God, in its sources and its streams. All rights reserved. (Ver. And they which were sent were of the Pharisees. And in this He is sovereign. It is not merely or most of all a great prophet or witness: He is the Son; and the Father has given all things to be in His hand. "For God," He says, "so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." John 6:15. If He judges, it is not without full warning. Christ did not wait till the time was fully come for the old things to pass away, and all to be made new. and the two disciples leave John for Jesus. Nevertheless the Son had taken the place of being the sent One, the place of subordination in the earth, in which He would say, "My Father is greater than I." Man is morally judged. The Father did not judge, but committed all judgment into the hands of the Son, because He is the Son of man. One must be born again for God's kingdom a Jew for what was promised him, like another. John 6:16. Augustine believed God's purposes were always being fulfilled, the gospel was always advancing into "the nations at the four corners of the earth." The saints who had been spiritually raised to. The resurrection of the Lord is not more truly a demonstration of His power and glory, than the only deliverance for disciples from the thraldom of Jewish influence. But all that is historically related of the Lord Jesus inJohn 1:1-51; John 1:1-51; John 2:1-25; John 3:1-36; John 4:1-54. was before the imprisonment of the Baptist. "What is premillennialism?" Premillennialism is the view that Christ's second coming will occur prior to His millennial kingdom, and that . His earthly rights are just where they should be; but not here, where the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father has His appropriate place. As the Lamb of God (of the Father it is not said), He has to do with the world. This is indispensable; for God is a Spirit, and so it cannot but be. 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. for he knew He was the Christ. (VerseJohn 4:10; John 4:10) Infinite grace! 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. 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. This He does in verses 16-19. And he answered, No. (Ver. God never left Himself without witness; He did not even among the Gentiles, surely yet less in Israel. And he saith, I am not. It is the final setting aside of Judaism then, whose characteristic hope was the display of power and rest in the world. Here (John 5:1-47) the first view given of Christ is His person in contrast with the law. He saw him under the fig tree. 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. His exaltation there is not without notice in the gospel, but exceptionally. Still the eternal day alone will show out the full virtue of that which belongs to Jesus as the Lamb of God, who takes away the world's sin. (Ver. This gives occasion to Jesus to teach us the lesson that conscience must be reached, and sense of sin produced, before grace is understood and brings forth fruit. Nobody had gone up to heaven: God had taken more than one; but no one had gone there as of right. 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. They had no common thoughts, feelings, or ways with the Father and the Son. It is His person as incarnate first, then in redemption giving His flesh to be eaten and His blood to be drank. (Ver. So rich and transparently divine was the grace: not some souls, more meritorious than the rest, rewarded according to a graduated scale of honour, but "of his fulness have all we received." (Ver. The Lord, in the latter part of the chapter (verses John 6:27-58), contrasts the presentation of the truth of God in His person and work with all that pertained to the promises of Messiah. This is grace and truth. and proclaim him the King Messiah; place him at the head of them, Not Jacob was there, but the Son of God in nothing but grace; and thus to the Samaritan woman, not to the teachers of Israel, are made those wonderful communications which unfold to us with incomparable depth and beauty the real source, power, and character of that worship which supersedes, not merely schismatic and rebellious Samaria, but Judaism at its best. As the new birth for the kingdom of God, so the cross is absolutely necessary for eternal life. But there was a man who had been infirm for thirty and eight years. "John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This is he of whom I spake: He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before me." From the very first, man, being a sinner, was wholly lost. And Jesus went up on the mountain, and there He sat with His disciples. For them, Israel, or the world, all is over. It would not suit God, if it would suit man, that He, seeing all, should just pronounce on man's corruption, and then forthwith let him off with a bare pardon. 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. 15 When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone. 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. 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. - Jesus therefore knowing (having found, perceived (), by ominous movements in the crowd, or in any other way still more explicit) that they were about to come and by violence, or force, seize him in order that they might make him King. Nor will the full force of this expression be witnessed till the glorious result of His blood shedding sweep away the last trace of sin in the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. "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." There is no changing or bettering the old man; and, thanks be to God, the new does not degenerate or pass away. 1. His aspect as thus tabernacling among the disciples was "full of grace and truth." that we may give an answer to them that sent us. I do not mean by this all individuals, but creation; for nothing can be more certain, than that those who do not receive the Son of God are so much the worse for having heard the gospel. The Jews, then, who could not help, and pitied not their fellow in his long infirmity and disappointment, are scandalized to see him, safe and sound, carrying his couch on that day. Beholding Him as He walked, he says, Behold the Lamb of God! Salem Media Group. It is not a question of the law, but of hearing Christ's word, and believing Him who sent Christ: he that does so has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment; but is passed from death unto life. On this basisJohn 7:1-53; John 7:1-53 proceeds. In John He is One who could be described as Son of man who is in heaven; but He belonged to heaven, because He was divine. and they might the rather be induced to take such a step, since, This closes the various aspects of the Lord Jesus, completely blotting out Judaism, viewed as resting in a system of law and ordinances, as looking to a Messiah with present ease, and as hoping for the display of Messianic glory then in the world. How, indeed, could it be stayed within narrow limits? Meanwhile, for Christian worship, the hour was coming and in principle come, because He was there; and He who vindicated salvation as of the Jews, proves that it is now for Samaritans, or any who believed on account of His word. he departed again into a mountain, himself It was but preliminary, of course; still it was a deep reality, the then present grace in the person of the Son, the Saviour of the world, who filled their once dark hearts with light and joy. The great fact of the incarnation is brought before us "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father"). Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. Nathanael's call is just as clearly typical of Israel in the latter day. A second and wholly new man appears the bread of God, not of man, but for men. Read full chapter. Still, such is the effect on man under law, that he could not take advantage of an adequate remedy. and the more manifest from His lips to one who was a real impersonation of sin, misery, blindness, degradation. This is all perfectly true, of course; and we have it elsewhere. Remark, too, the extent of the work involved in verse 29. Man, dead in sins, was the object of His grace; but then man's state was such, that it would have been derogatory to God had that life been communicated without the cross of Christ: the Son of man lifted up on it was the One in whom God dealt judicially with the evil estate of man, for the, full consequences of which He made Himself responsible. The premillennial concept is the result of literalizing a few symbolic verses in the book of Revelation, coupled with a considerable disregard for scores of Bible passages of clearest import. Why should He not show Himself to the world? The question really is, whether man would trust God. A second and wholly new man appears the bread of God ( of the work involved verse!, Behold the Lamb of God, not of man, unto life everlasting life in Him man... Rest in the gospel, but exceptionally were of the bell & # x27 ; clapper! Was `` full of grace and truth. Son of man, being a sinner, was lost! 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