A new paragraph is commenced here. The conversation with Nicodemus is prefaced by a very remarkable summary of facts, and a hint of principles of action, which are intended to throw light on the great discourse, which hears the same kind of relation to St. John's Gospel that the sermon on the mount does to St. Matthew's Gospel. It is a compendium of the Christian faith. The very fulness and sufficiency of it suggests the doubt of its authenticity. Is not the Lord's reticence on other occasions, and even his enigmatic, parabolic methods of teaching, in decided contrast with the abundance of the revelations with which Nicodemus was favoured? We are tempted to ask—What was the evangelist's source of information? The only reply that seems to me rational is that John himself was the auditor of this discourse, and has preserved it for the edification and solace of the world. The disciple whom Jesus loved never left him, but was perpetually drinking in his words, and, with a genuine Hebrew retentiveness, preserved them intact; at all events, he so reproduced the leading ideas of the conversation. This is, we maintain, a far more scientific treatment of the authorities than the hypothesis of a Johannist of the second century having gathered up and idealized the synoptic records of the scribes, who, by sundry questions, brought forth from the Lord some of his most characteristic teaching. Thoma urges that we have hero a spiritual rechauffe of "the rich young man," of "the lawyer," and of the story of Paul, himself a Pharisee, when finally convinced that he needed a new creation and a spiritual life! First of all, then, we have the place, general period, and specific time referred to: Now when he was in Jerusalem—not the temple, but in the houses and streets, and perhaps suburbs, of Jerusalem ( ἱερουσαλύμοις the plural form used generally in the Gospel, while ἱερουσαλήμ is used in the Revelation in symbolic sense)—at the Passover; a period generally covering nine or ten days of celebration, extending from the first purifying of the houses from all leaven and the drawing of pure water on the thirteenth Nisan, the paschal meal on the fourteenth Nisan, the feasts in the evenings of the great days of convocation, fifteenth and twenty-first of the month, and the ceremonies of the intervening six days. In the feast must refer to one or ether of the great days of convocation, worship, and feasting. Many believed on his Name; i.e. on his Messiahship, rather than on himself, as their Prophet, Purifier, self-sacrificing Priest, or than on himself as Lamb of God or Son of God. They accepted on easy terms, with a fickle and perhaps eager fanaticism, the first impression produced by him when they saw the signs which he was making of his heavenly mission and nature. We must conclude, therefore, that he did in many ways partially unveil himself. Nicodemus heard of these "signs," and referred them to a Divine commission. John does not here, nor elsewhere, say what these signs were—whether they consisted of effects produced on nature or on men, whether they were deeds of healing, or of moral compulsion, or repression, or reformation. Great expectations with reference to a coming Christ had been excited in the breasts of tens of thousands by John the Baptist's fiery ministry. The result was that men now flocked to Jesus in greater numbers than they had done to him (John 3:26). The faith that they exercised was neither deep nor appreciative, yet it was worthy of the name of faith.
But Jesus did not (imperfect) trust himself to them; not even to those who had "trusted on his Name." This remarkable expression corresponds with many actions and methods of Jesus. When he was offered the homage of devils, he forbade them to speak. When those who had been simply healed of bodily disease began garrulously to proclaim his praises, he silenced them. He had no faith in their faith, and consequently did not open to them more of his nature; still less did he assume, as they would have liked him to do, an immediate and outward Messiahship of political revolt. He did not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax, and often made use of the smallest remnant of spiritual apprehension; but even in Galilee, when they would by force have made him a king, "he sent the multitudes away." The apparently arbitrary permission given to others to proclaim his Name (as, e.g., to the healed demoniac of Gergesa, Luke 8:39; cf. Luke 9:57-62) suggests the precise inquiry which John had felt from the first Jerusalem visit, and which, with profound insight, he thus meets: "He did not trust himself to them," owing to the fact that he knew—( γινώσκειν by apperceptive and continuous processes)—all (men) persons. He penetrated their thoughts, discerned their character, saw the meaning of their faith, the burden of their wishes, the regal passions that consumed them—he knew all. And also because he had no need that any should testify what was in (the) man; for he himself—without such aid—knew what was in (the) man. The definite articles here may either restrict the meaning to the men who happened one by one to come under his searching glance (John 7:51; Meyer), or it may mean "man" generically, "human nature" in all its peril, weakness, and self-deception. Geikie gives a novel, though entirely indefensible, translation: "He needed not that any should bear witness respecting him as man." The better and more accurate translation is the first; but since his glance is universal and contact with souls continuous—man by man—the statement thus embraces even more than is involved in the generic sense. The knowledge of man (homo) "generically" would not embrace his individualities—would leave out the specialities of each ease. The particularism of Christ's penetrative glance gives the stronger and better explanation of the reserve of Christ in dealing with these half-believers, than the generic or rather universal knowledge which is supposed to be involved. N.B.—
HOMILETICS