Note 171 — TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Preliminary Note.—The 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th chapters of John are the Holy of Holies of the Bible. Christ is about to depart from his disciples; the cloud of the coming trouble casts its shadow on their hearts; he sees clearly, they feel vaguely the impending tragedy. They are to behold their Master spit upon, abused, execrated; they are to see him suffering the tortures of a lingering death upon the cross; they are to be utterly unable to interfere for his succor or even for his relief; they are to see all the hopes which they had built on him extinguished in his death. It is that he may prepare them for this experience, that he may prepare his disciples throughout all time (ch. 17:20) for similar experiences of world-sorrow (ch. 16:33), and that he may point out to them and to the church universal the source of their hope, their peace, their joy, and their life—moral and spiritual—that he speaks to the twelve, and through them to his discipleship in all ages, in these chapters, and finally offers for them and for us that prayer which we may well accept as the disclosure of his eternal intercession for his followers. The discourse is sympathetic, not philosophical or critical; it is addressed to sympathetic friends, not to a cold or critical audience; and it is to be interpreted rather by the sympathies and the spiritual experience than by a philosophical analysis. It sets forth the source of all comfort, strength, guidance and spiritual well-being in the truth of the direct personal presence of a seemingly absent but really present, a seemingly slain but really living, a seemingly defeated but really victorious Lord and Master. This truth appears and reappears in various forms in these chapters, like the theme in a sublime symphony. Now it is plainly stated, “I will come to you” (ch. 14:18); now it is interpreted by a metaphor, “Ye are the vine, I am the branches” (ch. 15:5); now it is a promise of the Spirit’s presence, now of Christ’s, now of the Father’s (ch. 14:16, 18, 21, 23); now the disciples are bid to turn their thoughts toward this spiritual presence, this Divine Immanence, for their own sake (ch. 16:7), now they are appealed to by the love they bear the Master (ch. 14:28). The conditions of this personal experience of the unseen spiritual presence of their God and Saviour is declared to be obedience in the daily life to the law of love (ch. 14:21, 23; 15:10); the result is declared to be a constant growth in the knowledge of divine truth (ch. 14:26; 16:12, 13); a sacred peace and joy (ch. 14:27; 15:11); a supernatural strength in sorrow (16:20-22). These truths are not logically arranged; the structure of the discourse is not that of a sermon, but that of a confidential conversation, in which in different forms the same essential truth is repeated and re-repeated, because the heart is so full that a single utterance does not suffice, and the truth is so transcendent that no logical statement is adequate. After the conversation is closed and the disciples rise to depart, Christ recurs to the theme in a new form, and continues the discourse, while the disciples wait standing for a new signal to go out (ch. 14:31; ch. 15, Prel. Note); and, finally, when for a second time he draws his discourse to a close, he re-embodies the same consolatory and inspiring truth in a prayer, breathing the aspiration that the reward and secret and source of his own power may be given to his disciples, sent into the world to complete the mission which he has but inaugurated (ch. 17:18). Thus these chapters of John contain a disclosure of the very heart of Christianity, the personal knowledge of a living God by direct communion with him, as a teacher, a comforter, an inspirer, the one and only true source of faith, hope, love. The commentator must point out the connection of the verses and the meaning of the words; his work must be in a measure critical and cold; but only the devout heart, which knows by experience that love of Christ which passes the knowledge of the intellect, can interpret the spiritual meaning of the truth, since the condition of understanding it is not a critical knowledge of words or an intellectual apprehension of theology, but a love for Christ that keeps Christ’s words, that recognizes Christ’s mission to be also the mission of the Christian, and that abides in Christ in the spirit that it may follow Christ in the life. Without this spirit the student in vain addresses himself to the study of this “wisdom of God in a mystery,” hidden except to the soul to whom God hath revealed it by his Spirit (1 Cor. 2:7-10).