And this perfecting should become the foundation of their perfected oneness: that, namely, they should so become one, as the Father and the Son are one, as the Son is in them, as the Father is in the Son, that thus, by the perfecting of their individual life, they might, as perfect men, form one perfect unity. And this should be the effect: the world should knownow know that the Father had sent Him, and that the Father loves believers, even as He hath loved the Son.

The third request is the following: that they should be where the Son is, His partners in the glory of heaven. They should with their own eyes see the glory which the Father hath given Him, because He loved Him before the foundation of the world. They should thus see in His glory, in the perfected glorification of His name, the full revelation of the love of God, and the full execution of His purpose: this should be their inheritance.

In the conclusion of the prayer, Jesus gives expression to the weighty import of the present moment, in which He takes leave of the disciples. His present position in the world is glorified in it.

The Father now presents Himself to His view as the Righteous One.

The Father must reveal His righteousness, for the world knows Him not.

But Jesus must feel the rigour of His righteousness towards the world, for He knows it.

And the disciples have come to the knowledge that the Father has sent Him; therefore must they be thoroughly furnished to become His messengers to the world.

From this position follows what still remains for Him to do, or rather to suffer. He has made known to them the name of the Father in His life, and will make them still more fully acquainted with this name in His death and in His resurrection, that the love with which the Father has loved Him may be also in them, nay, that He Himself also may be in them—and thus Christ remain in them here in the world, in the constant announcement of the fulness of the love of God, until the work of His glorification be completed.

The fundamental feature of the whole section is the glorifying of the last acts of the ministry of Christ on earth, as He

lingers among His disciples, and completes the foundation, laid in their heart, for the glorifying of His name.

The glorifying of the name of Jesus, however, is no egotistical self-glorification. It is rather the pure result of His having glorified, and still continuing to glorify, the name of the Father, with perfect self-abnegation, amidst all the contempt and contumely of the world. But, because this glorifying of Christ proceeds from the glorifying of the name of the Father, it is at the same time a glorifying of the whole of life, of all mankind, of the whole creation, through the glorifying of the Church of God. In the first place, the farewell of Christ is glorified: in its individual elements, in the decisive act by which it is finally brought about, His spiritual triumph over Judas; then, in the relationship which is established by Him between the earthly and the heavenly life, and in the institution which is appointed to fill up the chasm between them, the holy Supper; further, in the disciples' remaining meanwhile here, the necessity of which is implied in their want of Christian ripeness, and is illustrated by the weakness of Peter, nay, even in the fall of Peter, considered in the light of his repentance, which Christ prophetically intimates in the announcement of the cock-crowing. The departure of Jesus into the heavenly world is then exhibited to us in the glory that attends it, and with this the glory of the heavenly world itself. Creation becomes for us the house of a Father, the starry heavens, signs of the many mansions prepared for us; the departure of Christ is a travelling hither and thither, to prepare there an abode for His people, and to fetch them home from here. In the return of Christ to His home, the certainty of immortality for us is also glorified: Christ appears as the living, faithful pledge of the continued existence of His people, of their journey home, and of their heaven. He then places in its true light the much misunderstood starting point for the hope of His people: He glorifies the way, heavenwards, and the end of the way-heaven itself. The highest security for the heaven above appears in the hidden heaven below, the revelation of the Father in Him. The mysterious hidden nature also of this Christian hope, as likewise the hopeless and Christless state of the world, are explained. With this glorifying of the other world, the three chief grounds of offence contained in the doctrine of the heavenly inheritance, as these are here repre

sented in the persons of Thomas, Philip, and Judas Lebbeus, are also placed in their true light. The Lord then glorifies His own farewell salutation, in contrast to the farewell of the world, which His salutation illustrates and explains: His farewell is a salutation of meeting again; His going is turned into a coming; His departure out of the world, into a revelation of Himself to the world; His voluntary submission to death, into a completion of the work which the Father has commanded Him to do. Thus also His passage through death is glorified; it is a return to the highest life.

There now follows the glorifying of His return to this earthly world, which is a glorifying of the earthly world itself. The mystical tree of the Church of Christ must here be brought to view in all its significance, with its roots in the depths of heaven, with its branches and fruits covering the earth. The symbolical meaning of the vine appears in its strongest light. The providence of God is seen in all its ideality, as a faithful providing for the kingdom of God. The strokes of fortune are nothing but delicate applications of the pruning-knife in a master's hand. The true branches which remain in their ideal connection with the vine are only purged; the rude branches, which have broken their connection with the ideal vine, are only cut off, that the vine may be preserved. The judgment on these apostates is shown us in its inward necessity, in its consistent termination, by the idealization of the sacred nocturnal fires of Easter, or in the figure of flaming garden fires. We are then made acquainted with the characteristics of true disciples-their new life in relation to the Father, to Christ, to the world, and to one another. We are further made rightly to understand the hatred of the world against the disciples of Christ in the light of the life and of the Spirit of Christ, and to appreciate it in its criminality, and likewise in its consistency. We see the martyrdoms, the tortures of the Inquisition, the auto da fes, illuminated by a ray from His throne. We learn the cause why the earthly Church does not desire and obtain further disclosures regarding the heavenly world, namely, because usually a cloud of sorrow obscures her view of the departure of Christ, and likewise generally overhangs the passage into the other world. All such manifestations of despondency in the Church, however, are counteracted by her eye being pointed to the sun of the Spirit, to the coming

of the Holy Ghost. He appears here more especially in His witnessing, rebuking, judicial operations, as with regal power He casts down the powerful and menacing world before the face of the distressed disciples; yet we see also how He glorifies, in the eyes of the world, the saving righteousness of Christ, and the judgment against the ancient prince of this world, Satan. The work of the Holy Spirit, and the developments of the Church under His operation, are shown here in their true light, namely, as the eternal unity between the perfected faithfulness of the Church to the word of Christ, and her perfected freedom in the unfolding of her life. Whilst thus, however, we are made acquainted with the administration of the Spirit, and the character of the Church, the disciples also are presented to us as princes, victorious over the world in the spiritual power of their new life. In the word of Christ: A little while, there is brought before our contemplation the significance of the decisive turning point in His life, and thus also in the life of His people. In the figure of the labouring woman, we recognise the symbolical meaning of the pangs of child-birth; we learn the glorious end of all birth-pangs in Christ, in the disciples, in the church; nay, we learn how all sorrows have for their end, as birth-pangs, to announce new life, and new joys. Further, we are made acquainted with the great significance of the resurrection of Christ: the festivals of Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, and generally New Testament times to the end of the world, appear in their unity as a great festival of His resurrection glory. After the Lord has in this manner shown the disciples how His name, and in His name the whole of life, must be glorified, He deposits the germ of this glorification in their heart, by communicating to them the watchword of His life. He can now show them their approaching dispersion and flight in the light of His compassion, and generally, the temptations which they shall have to undergo in the world. He likewise shows them the great isolation which awaits Himself, and how it is glorified by the faithfulness of the Father.

Having seen the future work of glorification depicted in the great farewell discourse of the Lord, and having then seen, in His last words regarding His earthly life, how He called into being the first beginning of this future glorification in the hearts of the disciples, we now see, finally, how in His high-priestly

intercession He already, in the spirit, accomplishes the great work of glorification by commending it to the Father's heart.

The glorifying of His name here unfolds itself in the glorifying of His work.

The glorifying of His work becomes a glorifying of the company of His disciples.

The glorifying of the apostles has for its effect the glorifying of the Church. The latter is glorified in its first stage as the one Church, the medium of faith to the world. It unfolds itself in the second stage as the spiritually glorious Church, the medium of knowledge to the world. It appears, finally, in the third stage, as the Church exalted into heaven: the world, however, has disappeared before the radiance of the glory of Christ.

In conclusion, the Lord permits us to see His own heart in the light of His high-priestly intercession: how He penetrates and apprehends the character of the spiritual powers from which His sufferings proceed; and how He offers Himself in voluntary obedience, in order fully to reveal to His people the name of the Father.

From a general point of view, however, there is presented to us in the high-priestly prayer, the glory of the inward life of Christ, the fidelity of His intercession His eternal and true high-priestly intercession-which must have as its result the accomplishment of the salvation of the world.

The farewell discourse, regarded as a whole, glorifies the name of the Son in the name of the Father; in the name of both, the name of the Holy Spirit; in this name, the disciples, 1 the future Church, and heaven and earth itself.

NOTES.

1. It follows from the preceding delineation, that we cannot agree with the judgment of Tholuck (Comment. on John, p. 330) regarding the character of the discourse chap. xiv.-xvi., according to which its prominent features are its childlike spirit, and a certain ethereal dissolving quality in its mode of representation, so far at least as the latter designation is concerned.

2. Fromman, in his book Johanneischer Lehr-begriff, p. 365, gives forth the opinion, Thus the veûμa does not present itself as a special, third personal existence by the side of the Father and the Logos, as also, generally, it is nowhere in the