EXPOSITION XXVI.

THE NEW COMMANDMENT.

JOHN XIII. 33-35.—"Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you. A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."

THE sublime, mysterious words which immediately precede the subject of our exposition, and the holy exultation of our Lord in uttering them, so strikingly contrasted with that trouble of spirit which so lately had overwhelmed him, must have made a deep impression on the minds of the disciples: "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him." Very imperfectly understood as they must have been by them, these words, spoken by one in whose perfect truthfulness they had the most implicit confidence, were fitted to calm their apprehensions and to re-assure their hopes. They spoke of triumph, glorious triumph, glorious triumph just at hand. It was meant by their master that these words should support their sinking hearts; but knowing how apt, with their very limited and even incorrect views of the design of his mission and the nature of his kingdom, the declaration he had made was to excite false expectations in their minds, the disappointment of which would not only pain their feelings but shake their faith, he immediately proceeds to prepare them for that temporary separation from him, which, though really most "expedient," indeed necessary, both for him and them, they, notwithstanding the many hints he had given them-some of them to us very plain ones-never seem to have been able to realize to themselves as an event not only certain, but just at hand.

"Little children," said he, regarding them with a look of the tenderest pity,-"Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you." The meaning of the words is, 'We must soon part: when I go as I will straightway, in a very short time-to the Father, to be "glorified by him in himself," in consequence of my having glorified him on earth,

John xiii. 33.

you are not to go along with me,-you are to remain for a season on the earth, deprived of that kind of intercourse with me which, since you became my disciples, you have constantly enjoyed.' This is the communication he means to make to them.

To them he well knew it must be a most painful one, but he equally knew that it was a most necessary one. He loved them too well to allow them to indulge hopes which he knew must be disappointed; but he makes the painful communication in the way least fitted to distress them. Before he speaks of his leaving them, he speaks of the glory into which he is to enter, and throws into the shade, or rather covers with a veil of glory, the intervening sufferings. He addresses them in the language of the most endearing affection. He calls them "children-little children," his own little children; and his look and tone, when he uttered these words, must have told their hearts that the pity which a father has for his little child, when in distress or danger, was but a faint emblem of the compassionate love with which he regarded them. And instead of saying 'We must soon part,' he says 'I am yet to be with you for a little while;'-in which words he refers to the period which was to elapse before his ascension to heaven. When that little while was elapsed, then he was to leave them. If they sought him on earth they would not find him; and into the heaven of heavens, which was henceforth to be the place of his abode, they were not to be immediately admitted.

Perfect happiness is not to be expected in this world. It is too full of sin to be free of sorrow. The disciples, amid many pri vations and trials, had yet derived much happiness from their connection with their Master. His presence and conversation had been the life of their life. But of these they were now to be deprived. His continuance with them during the whole course of their lives would not have comported with the accomplishment of the great and gracious purposes for which he had been sent into this world by his Father, and for which he had chosen them from among their countrymen. He had work to perform, and sufferings to endure, which required that the endearing intercourse, which, as a man with his friends, he had had with his disciples, should terminate; and THEY had work to do which could not be done till he had left them, and till, having opened a channel for the influences of the Spirit by his expiatory suffering, he from his throne in the heavens, poured these forth abundantly, to qualify them for its successful performance. The world could not be saved but by the shedding of his blood; the world could not be converted but by their preaching his Gospel; and the Gospel could not be preached with success without his communicating and their receiving his Spirit. It was expedient for the apostles-it was expedient for mankind-that the Saviour should go away.

And as it was necessary that he should leave them, so it was necessary they should be made aware of this. It was something

they were not counting on. They had hoped that he, being the Messiah, would remain for ever with them. His departure, had they not been made aware of it, would have been a shock to their faith as well as to their feelings; and the knowledge that it was but "a little while" he was to be with them, was calculated to induce them to improve to the utmost all opportunities of advantage from intercourse with him during that short season.

Many of the privileges of Christians in the present state, like the Saviour's bodily presence with the disciples, are precarious and transient; and it is of great importance that they should be habitually aware of this, that they may escape the shock of being suddenly and unexpectedly deprived of them, and that, by a careful improvement of them while they continue, they may be saved from the pangs of fruitless regrets when they are taken from them. Communion with our Lord, in the truest, widest, best sense of that word, is a privilege of which, if we are really Christians, we never can be deprived; but there is a kind of sensible fellowship with him, analogous to the bodily intercourse the disciples had with him, which cannot be enjoyed without interruption in the present state. Who that has ever properly entered into the spirit of Christian worship, has not occasionally experienced a sense of the nearness and excellence of the Saviour which was very delightful, and which has induced a wish that we could be constantly engaged in such exercises, if we could but constantly realize such feelings? But in the present state it must not so be; we must live by faith on an absent and unseen Lord. Where he is, while we tabernacle in flesh on earth, we cannot come; but if we are really his, ere long we shall be where he is, and see his face, and dwell in his presence, enjoying, without interruption and without end, an intimacy of sensible intercourse with him, and a delight in that intercourse, of which at present we can form no adequate conception.

Our Lord, in speaking of that interruption of bodily intercourse which was to be the result of his leaving his disciples and going to the Father, refers to language which he had formerly employed in speaking to the unbelieving Jews,-" As I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you." The conversations referred to are recorded in the seventh and eighth chapters of this gospel. The state into which our Lord was about to pass was one which would equally render it impossible for his enemies on the earth to do him personal injury, and for his friends on the earth to have the same kind of intercourse with him which the disciples had been accustomed to enjoy.

This was a statement which, in any form, must have been very unpalatable to the disciples, with their confused and imperfect ideas, and which was not likely to be the more agreeable to them that it was couched in the same language as that addressed to the unbelieving Jews. There is little doubt that they thought

2 John vii. 34; viii. 21.

it a hard saying; but it was needful for them to hear it, and the best form in which it could be made to them was that which was most likely to fix it deep in their minds. Their desire to live by sense, and not by faith, required a check. They needed. to be taught that they were not always to "know Christ after the flesh," but to place their happiness, while here, in spiritual intercourse with him, and in the hopes of being for ever, both in body and spirit, with him, and like him, in a better world.

The same words may sometimes be said by Christ to believers and unbelievers the same things may sometimes be done by him to believers and unbelievers; but when we look a little more closely, we shall be disposed to say, 'Though there is apparent identity, there is real difference.' It is said equally to the unbelieving Jew and to the believing disciple, "Ye shall seek me, -whither I go, ye cannot come;" but to the first that means, 'You will seek to injure me, but I shall be completely beyond your reach, and to that place of perfect holy security and happiness you can never come;'-to the second it means, 'You will earnestly desire that personal intercourse you once had with me, but that is impossible in the meantime: yet a little while, and where I am, there shall ye be; you cannot follow me now, but you shall follow me afterwards.'

And it is not an arbitrary arrangement that they cannot go to where he is now going. There were good and sufficient reasons for it. They were not yet fit for the "much tribulation through which they must enter the kingdom." They had not yet finished the work given them to do on the earth for the glory of God and the good of mankind. They had not yet obtained that measure of excellence which was to make them "meet for the inheritance of the saints in light." It has been justly said, 'As there "is a time for every purpose under the sun," so there is a time for the translation of believers to those regions which are above the sun; and God's time for everything are the fittest times, and are to be waited for patiently by us.'

There is emphasis in the word "now." "As I said unto the Jews, so now I say to you." When he said, "Ye shall seek me," and "whither I go ye cannot come," to the Jews, he had not said it to the disciples. He deferred a painful but necessary statement till it became seasonable. He never needlessly spoke disagreeable truth. He never caused his disciples unnecessary sorrow, nor afflicted them with needful sorrows before the time. Much depends both on deeds and words being well timed. It is said the wise man's heart discerneth both time and judg ment." In this department of wisdom, as in every other, he whose name is "the Counsellor" has the pre-eminence; he has "the tongue of the learned," to "speak a word in season.' It is not impossible that the word now might be intended to suggest the idea-which we know is the truth-that though now he said, 'Ye cannot come whither I go,' he would not always say

Eccles. iii. 1

Eccles. viii. 5.

5 Isa. 1. 4

so. In a very short while he said to them, in answer to Peter's question, "Ye cannot follow me now; but ye shall follow me afterwards." "A little while, and ye shall not see me and again a little while, and ye shall see me; because I go to the Father." "If I go"-"I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also." Instead of saying, as he does now, "Ye cannot come where I am," then he will say, "Come up hither."

Sensible bodily intercourse between the disciples and their Master was soon to be interrupted, but that was but an additional reason why spiritual intercourse between them should be maintained; and our Lord points out one of the best ways in which this desirable object is to be gained,-by their cherishing towards each other that affection which he cherished towards them all: "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." The meaning of these words will be made more evident, by a slight transposition, which the usage of the language admits, and the course of thought requires: "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; that as I have loved you, ye also should love one another." The second clause is explanatory of the first. Our Lord's command is, not only that his disciples should love one another, but that they should love one another, even as-in the same way that he had loved them all. It is the will of Christ that all men should love all men. It is his will that his people should love all men. But it is not the love that every man owes to every man-that every Christian is bound to cherish to every man-which is here enjoined. It is the love which a Christian owes to a Christian as a Christian, because he is a Christian. It is the love of the brotherhood, as distinguished from the love of the species. It is "brotherly kindness," as distinguished from "charity."

The affection, the cultivation and expression of which our Lord here enjoins, originates in the possession of a peculiar mode of thinking and feeling, produced in the mind by the Holy Spirit, through the knowledge and belief of christian truth, which naturally leads those who are thus distinguished to a sympathy of mind and heart, of thought and affection, with all who, under the same influence, have been led to entertain the same views, and to cherish the same dispositions. It is "love in the truth for the truth's sake,""" to those in whom the truth dwells. It includes good-will in the highest degree; but to this it adds moral esteem, complacential delight, tender sympathy.. Its end is the happiness of its object, as a christian man-his deliverance from ignorance, and error, and sin, in all their forms and degrees

John xiii. 36; xvi. 16-19; xiv. 3.

7 John xiii. 34.

8 “ ἀγαπᾶτε-ἀγαπᾶτε, Sermo bis ponitur, primum simpliciter, deinde cum epitasi. Tale illud pacem, pacem meam. Chap. xiv. 27. Conf. Gen. xlviii. 5 Psal. xxvii. 14; xxxvii. 20; xvii. 7· lxviii. 25; cxviii. 15. Ezek. vii. 2."BENGEL 3 John i.

92 Pet. i. 7.

10 2 John i. 2.