company-therefore must He now speak freely of the traitor. When He had thus spoken, remarks the Evangelist, He was troubled in spirit, and testified-solemnly-and said, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray Me.' Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom He spake. -Which bears witness to a noble guilelessness, but also to the greatness of their false confidence in Judas; at the same time to a general feeling of guilt, in the consciousness of the want of perfect faithfulness.-Now there was lying on Jesus' bosom— on the right hand of Jesus, for one supported himself on the left, and sat towards the right side-one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it was of whom He spake. He then, leaning on Jesus' breast-in the confident familiarity of love, and of an untroubled conscience-said unto Him, 'Lord, who is it?' Jesus answered, He it is to whom I-even now-having dipped a morsel, shall give it.' And He dipped the morsel-into the sauce charoseth, as was customary-and gave it to Judas Iscariot. And after the morsel Satan entered into him.

6

At the feast in Bethany his obduracy in sin had begun; at the feast in Jerusalem it was finally sealed. There he had received the thought of the betrayal, and with it Satan, into his soul; now this thought overpowered him with demoniacal force, and thereby he had become a passive instrument of Satan.

The Lord observed the dire change which had taken place, and said unto him, 'That thou doest, do quickly.'

In these words lay the completion of His terrible conflict with Judas, and with the whole world of treachery in His Church, nay, with Satan himself, and his kingdom; and with the completion of the contest came also victory. The simplicity of these words, their calmness and composedness, their justice and wisdom, especially their heavenly, bright, spirit-like character, in contrast to the dark, hellish spirit manifested in Judas,1 bear witness to this glorious victory of the Lord, the result of a strong inward agitation, which the most of the disciples but little remarked. Now, no one at the table, observes the Evangelist, knew for what intent He spake this unto him.-A proof how little the most of them surmised the truth, lies in the circumstance, that some of them even (Tivès yáp, K.T.λ.) thought, be'See vol. iv. p. 171.

cause Judas carried the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, 'Buy those things that we have need of for the feast, or that he should give something to the poor.1

If, however, a considerable time had still to elapse between this hour and the commencement of the feast, as those assume who make the supper, according to John, to have taken place a whole day before the paschal feast, the words of Jesus, spoken so late in the evening, could hardly have suggested to any of the 'disciples the thought referred to, as still one day, and in a case of necessity two, remained over for the needful purchases. Only on the supposition that it was already high time to attend to this matter, could this interpretation have come into their minds.

Judas, however, knew well what His words pointed to. When therefore he had taken the morsel, he went immediately out. And it was night.

Judas went out into the boundless night. The Lord had removed him from the company of the disciples in the way of free intercommunication with him, without violence, without reproaches, without noise, by the spiritual and spirit-like power of the perfect life; or rather, Judas had executed on himself the judgment of his own self-banishment. This was the last, the highest and most subtle separation between light and darkness; the last typical pattern of the general judgment, which shall be ushered in by the revelation of the light of the world.

At the feast of the Dedication, the proper separations took their commencement. We see here the typical temple-dedication in the light of the real. Jesus announces in the temple His divinity, His oneness with the Father: that is the true consecration of the temple. The Jews wish to stone Him within the temple space; they profane the temple in the highest degree: that is the end of typical temple-dedications in their corruption. On this occasion we become acquainted, in its whole strength, with the frightful egotism concealed in chiliastic enthusiasms, and in the homage they render to honoured names, and how it is ready, every moment, to turn into hatred and contempt. At the same time, we learn how a golden thread of the coming

I They could well enough have had this thought suggested to them on the Passover evening, as it was now necessary to lose no time; and yet the thing was still possible, for the strictness of the paschal celebration seems to have been confined to the Sabbath (vide Luke xxiii. 56; comp. Mark xvi. 1).

incarnation of God, and of the doctrine of it, runs through the Old Testament—the typical 'gods' precede the true Son of God. Once more there falls a ray of Christ's light on the two different points of view from which faith emanates; one of which proceeds from the works of Christ to a knowledge of His person, whilst the other immediately recognises Him in His personality, and then also, in the light of it, His works. The journey of Christ to Perea shows us in a clear light the general fruitfulness of the ministry of the Baptist; an indication of the fact, that the Lord makes manifest at the right time the more or less concealed results of the labour of His servants. It is also a type of the later flight of the disciples to Perea, and a symbol of the blessing which attends every pure and well-grounded flight and emigration of God's faithful witnesses. The mourning family at Bethany presents to us the Christian household in its day of sorrow, and the glory which is thrown around it by fellowship with Christ, in contrast to the Christian household in its time of gladness, as exhibited in the narrative of the marriage-feast at Cana. In the delay of Christ to leave Perea for Bethany, we see how the great trials of believers, especially of those most loved of the Lord, although they have also their own proper end in themselves, are often dependent on the circumstance, that the Lord has great and special works to perform, beyond their individual sphere. On the way to Bethany the disciples give us examples again of their pre-pentecostal exegesis of the words of the Lord, in which the inability to understand, and the unwillingness to understand, oftentimes correspond. In the expression used by Thomas, we hear the complaining tone of the nobler form of melancholic depression. In the words of Martha, the difference is clearly brought out, between a more external hope of a future resurrection of the dead, and an energetic hope of the resurrection from the dead, already given to us with Christ. We then become acquainted in the light of Christ with the true character of outward condolences and lamentations, as likewise with the world's unmeasured and gloomy mourning for the dead. In contrast to it appears the holy mourning of the Lord, maintaining the calm confidence of life in the midst of death's sorrow. Beside it there is presented to our view, in the frame of Mary, the beautiful trembling sorrow of those souls which are outwardly still entangled in the sadness

of the world, but yet in faith make haste to meet the Lord. The grave of the disciple now opens before our gaze: we observe how the relationships subsisting between him and his kindred and the Lord of life form a medium, to which the miraculous lifegiving power attaches its operation. The quickening power of Christ appears in its most glorious manifestation; and by His invocation of the Father, the miracle obtains the special significance of a great divine testimony, with which His mission from the Father is sealed. Thus the time of greatest tribulation becomes for Jesus the richest period of His life; a symbol realized in the experience of all Christians. In the twofold course taken by the witnesses of the resurrection of Lazarus, we see anew the double effect of the Gospel, that it becomes to some a savour of life, to others a savour of death. In the discussion of the high council we discover again the desperate shifts of worldly policy, more particularly of a secular church policy; and the typical high-priesthood exhibits itself finally in the act of committing spiritual suicide. The oracular declaration of Caiaphas, in its twofold meaning, is made a symbol of the glory, with which God, in the execution of His own purpose, gives a holy direction, for the benefit of His people, to all destructive resolutions and corrupt decisions of the great ones of the earth, more especially in the government of His Church. The Jews in the temple deliberating together and conversing about Jesus, while engaged in their temple-purifications, present a striking picture of the contrast between the old which is dying away and the new which is budding into life, in connection with which the ineffectiveness of the edict of the council comes especially into account. In the anointing at Bethany, the murmuring of a hypocritical community of goods, and pretended regard for the poor, is met and rebuked by the picture there exhibited of holy possession, and of a holy ideally beautiful expenditure. The entry of Jesus into Jerusalem is exalted into a symbol of His perfect triumph over all His enemies: all the types of Holy Scripture are fulfilled, the witnesses of His deeds raise their voices in loud chorus, His opposers must fold their hands in despair. On this the glory of the Gentile world thirsting for salvation appears in view; more especially, the typical idealism of the Grecian spirit is placed in its true light by the real idealism of Christianity. The significance of the high festive occasions

of the Christian life in the present world, is then unfolded for our contemplation; they are the emblems of its future and everlasting glory, but therefore also the forerunners of new and more earnest struggles with death, which must be encountered previous to that consummation. At the same moment, the Lord, in the figure of the corn of wheat, throws a ray of glory on the dark, night-aspect of nature, on death and corruption, as symbols of resignation to God, and of the path that conducts to a blessed resurrection. The different interpretations put on the voice from heaven, which Christ hears in the temple, give us an explanation of the relation subsisting between the objective revelation of God, and the subjective apprehension of it on the part of men. The obduracy of the people is then illustrated and made luminous in the light of the divine judgment: we see how the old judgments proceed in their course onwards to their consummation. Over against this obduracy, with its unholy causes, the life and administration of Christ appears in its perfect divine purity and ideal glory. The washing of the disciples' feet exhibits the common services of the household, and all services of love, in the light of their higher meaning and end; and at the same time, it is given us as an emblem of ideal preparation for the communion, and likewise of voluntary, selfimposed excommunication. Finally, in the designation of the traitor, and in his removal by the power of the Spirit of Christ, it is made manifest how the Prince of light, in the full consciousness of His power, visibly and victoriously baffles all the projects of darkness, and even the satanic stirrings of apostasy within the Church. All the separations together, which reach their consummation in this final breach, represent in concrete delineation, the grand, true, and universal judgment which Christ, by His appearance and ministry on earth, introduces and completes.

NOTE.

Between this section and the previous one occurs the last sojourn of Jesus in Galilee and His first in Perea, which John has omitted: see vol. iii. 350. Stier (as referred to above) has merely asserted, that Jesus remained from the feast of Tabernacles to the feast of the Dedication in Jerusalem, without refuting the grounds urged in favour of the opposite conclusion.

VOL. VI.

2 B 6