Notes on John 20:30-31

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Has the evangelist, as on occasion is his manner, interrupts for a moment the thread of the divine tale to say a few words on the gracious way of the Savior in the affluence of signs or significant miracles which studded His ministry here below, as well as on the purpose of blessing the Holy Ghost had in view, in selecting from that countless crowd such as were most suitable for permanent testimony to God's grace. Two objects are set out: first, and pre-eminently, the glory of the Lord's person, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; secondly, that the believer may have life in His name.
“Many other1 signs therefore did Jesus in the presence of the2 disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in his name.” (Chap. 20: 30, 31.)
No doubt this was a fitting moment here to pause and thus to speak. The unbelief of a believer, yea of an apostle, furnished the material, where the Lord had stooped to meet and receive His erring servant by the visible tokens and the tangible proofs he had insisted on in his folly, and to his hurt irreparable, if grace had not intervened as we have seen. It was a priceless favor to have seen the things the disciples saw. It is better still to believe without seeing. And grace would provide for those who in the nature of things could not see that they might hear and live. Hence the writing of this precious book. It was to be in witness of Jesus; it was to be known and read of all men. Not that scripture ever exhausts its wondrous theme, whatever it may be; and here above all it is as infinite in the person described, as the blessing is eternal for those who believe. God graciously selects some signs out of many, in the considerate goodness which knows precisely what we can bear; for if scripture be His word, it is given to man, even to us who believe, to the end of our enjoying that blessing in His Son, indeed the deepest which He could bestow, the communication of that nature which, as it comes from God, ever goes to Him, yea yields fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
And as the supreme and crucial test now is the person of Jesus Christ come in the flesh (1 John 4:2, 32Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: 3And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. (1 John 4:2‑3)), so connected with it is the divinely given and guarded testimony to God's grace and Christ's glory, by which the family of God, weak as they are, overcome the adverse might of the world and its prince; because greater is He that is in them than he that is in the world. And those who are of God turn a deaf ear to such as are of the world and speak as of the world whom the world hears; but have they none especially to hear? Thanks be to God, they know God and hear those who are of God, His chosen witnesses, whom the Holy Ghost was to lead and did lead into all the truth, and who in due time wrote “this book,” as did others no less inspired for the work than John. On the other hand those who are not of God do not hear the apostles, preferring the thoughts of themselves or of other men to their irremediable ruin. “By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”
After this brief but worthy and gracious interruption the Evangelist turns to “the third” of the great manifestations of the risen Jesus which it was his task to describe, before he closes with the respective and peculiar places the Lord would give Peter and John in their service here below. How any men of intelligence could say that our two verses which conclude chapter 20 are a formal close of the Gospel might have been viewed as inconceivable, if it was not positive fact. Grotius seems to have been the first man of mark who gave expression and currency to a supposition irreconcilable with the plain connection of the two first days of the week in chapter 20 with the scene which follows in chapter 21, and irreconcilable just in proportion to one's real understanding of the Gospel as a whole. Modern Germany took up this and other injurious notions of that learned Dutchman, not only Ewald, Lucke, Sanday, and Tholuck, but even Meyer, Neander, and Stier. It is painful to add that Alford, Scrivener, Westcott, &c. have yielded to the uncalled-for theory that John 20 originally ended the Gospel, and that chapter 21 is a later appendix from the apostle's own hand, though many go farther and deny it to him.
When we enter on the details of the concluding chapter we may be enabled to show more clearly how unfounded is this thought.
Meanwhile it suffices here to point out briefly the mistake of regarding as a true end the two verses which have been now occupying us. In fact, they are an instructive comment by the way, not without a glance at the signs wrought by the Lord all through, but with special declaration of God's aim for the glory of Christ and the blessing of the faithful suggested by the case of Thomas, yet delicately avoiding any needlessly direct allusion to one so honored of the Lord. It would indeed be as true to say that the Evangelist began more than once in chapter i. as to admit more than one ending in chapters 20, 21. Indeed if men are to reason thus from superficial appearances, it would be snore plausible to infer at least two if not three supplements to the Epistle to the Romans. Nor is authority wanting which transports the doxology from the end of chapter xvi. to that of chapter xiv. Yet it is to be doubted if the hypothesis there be so unnatural as it would be here to sever the third manifestation of the Lord in resurrection from the two which preceded it, or even to admit the former as a later addition, since it is necessary to the completeness of the picture. It is the true complement. In no way is it, as men have thought, a mere supplement, since it forms an essential part of one organic whole; just as John 2:1-221And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there: 2And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. 3And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. 4Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. 5His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. 6And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. 7Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. 8And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. 9When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, 10And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now. 11This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him. 12After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and they continued there not many days. 13And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, 14And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: 15And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; 16And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise. 17And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. 18Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? 19Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. 20Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? 21But he spake of the temple of his body. 22When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said. (John 2:1‑22) pertains as a sequel to John 1 and never could be justly dislocated from it, as an afterthought supplied at a later date even by the same hand.