Bible Commentaries
John 3

Verses 12-21

XIII

THE SOJOURN OF JESUS AT CAPERNAUM, HIS FIRST PASSOVER DURING HIS MINISTRY AT WHICH HE CLEANSES THE TEMPLE AND INTERVIEWS NICODEMUS

Harmony pages 20-21 and John 2:12-3:21.

After the events at Cana Jesus went down to Capernaum with his kindred and early disciples and there abode a short time. Nothing further of this brief sojourn at Capernaum is known. From Capernaum he goes to Jerusalem, where two significant events take place, viz: the cleansing of the Temple and the interview with Nicodemus. It is well to note here the scenes of his early ministry: beside the Jordan, at Cana of Galilee, at Capernaum, at Jerusalem, in Judea, and in Samaria.

A remarkable deed characterized both the beginning and end of his ministry in Judea. This was the cleansing of the Temple. At this first passover in his ministry he found the money-changers and those who sold animals for sacrifice in the Temple, making the Temple a house of merchandise. He at once proceeded to drive out the animals and to overturn the tables of the money-changers, an act which the Son of God only could perform without a protest from the offended. But the majesty of our Lord here doubtless beamed forth in such splendor that they were completely overawed and dared not resist, but simply demanded a sign of his authority. To which he replied that if they should destroy the temple of his body, in three days he would raise it up. This is the first reference to his resurrection which he thus made the test of his messiahship early in his ministry and referred to it many times later, making it the test, both to his disciples and to his enemies. This cleansing of the Temple fulfilled two prophecies – Psalms 69:9 and Isaiah 56:7. Then follows a statement of the response of the people to his signs which he did: "Many believed on his name." But Jesus did not trust himself to any man because his omniscience saw what was in man.

The second great event of this visit to Jerusalem was our Lord’s interview and discourse with Nicodemus, which furnishes us our most profitable lesson on…

REGENERATION
The occasion of this discussion of our Lord was the coming to him of Nicodemus, by night at some unknown place in Jerusalem, to learn more of this great miracle worker. Our English word "regeneration," etymologically, is a compound word. Generation means the act of begetting; regeneration, the begetting anew. Theologically it means a radical change in the soul or spirit of a man by the action of the Holy Spirit. But this change does not affect the substance of the soul, or impart any new faculty. It is not limited to the intellect, or to the will or to the affections, but it applies to the soul as a unit, including all its faculties or powers – intellect, will and affection. It consists in spiritual quickening or making alive, in illuming the mind, in changing the will, in awakening new affections, and in spiritual cleansing. We say this radical change in the soul or spirit, called regeneration, is by the action of the Holy Spirit. How can the Holy Spirit of God act immediately on any other spirit, i.e., by direct impact of Spirit on spirit, or must he act mediately, i.e, by the use of means? He acts both ways, immediately and mediately. The scriptural proof that the Holy Spirit can act directly, or immediately, is as follows:

(1) On inanimate matter, Genesis 1:2; Genesis 2:7; Psalms 104:32.

(2) On beasts, Psalms 104:29-30.

(3) On babes in the womb, Jeremiah 1:5; Luke 1:41-44.

(4) In inspiration, 1 Samuel 10:10.

(5) In dreams and visions, Genesis 28:11-17; 1 Kings 3:5; Matthew 2:12.

(6) In demoniacal possessions, Acts 5:3; John 13:27.

(7) In regeneration of infants dying in infancy -implied – 2 Samuel 12:23.

(8) In the call to the ministry by impressions.

Some theologians hold that in the new birth the subject is passive and the Spirit’s power is immediate, i.e., the direct impact of Spirit on spirit. Others held that in the new birth the subject is active and that the Spirit employs the word of God as a means, but I say that there is an element of truth in both positions. Antecedent to all human effort a direct power of the Holy Spirit quickens the soul or makes it sensitive to impressions by the word. For example, "The Lord opened the heart of Lydia that she should attend to the words spoken by Paul." Now if this first touch of the Spirit is what we mean by the new birth, the first position is undoubtedly correct. But while insisting on the necessity and reality of this initial and direct power of the Spirit, if one should hold that this is not what the Scriptures call the new birth he would be able to support his view by many scriptures. This appears from the fact that when one is born into the kingdom of God he is fully a child of God. But if the subject of the hew birth is passive only – if regeneration is completed without the use of means and before the subject is penitent or believing, then we have a child of God who is yet in his sins, impenitent, without faith, and hence without Christ, which is philosophically impossible. Moreover, it is contrary to Scripture, as witness James 1:18: "Having willed it, he begat us (apekuesen)by the word of truth" (1 Peter 1:23) : "Having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of the living God. But this is the word which was announced to you" (Galatians 3:26): "For ye are all the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus." Romans 10:17: "So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God." Moreover, in John 3:9-18, when Nicodemus asks, "How can these things come to be," that is, what is the instrumental means of the new birth, Jesus explains by telling that Christ must be lifted up as an object of faith, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. Again, John 1:12-13: "But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." This teaching may be put into a syllogism, thus: Every one born of God has the right to be called a child of God. But no one has the right until he believes in Jesus. Therefore the new birth is not completed without faith.

The true scriptural position then is this: There is, first of all, a direct influence of the Holy Spirit on the passive spirit of the sinner, quickening him or making him sensitive to the preaching of the Word. In this the sinner is passive. But he is not a subject of the new birth without contrition, repentance and faith. In exercising these he is active. Yet even his contrition is but a response to the Spirit’s conviction, and the exercise of his repentance and faith are but responses to the antecedent spiritual graces of repentance and faith. To illustrate take this diagram:

Conviction – Grace of Repentance – Grace of Faith = New Birth

Contrition – Repentance – Faith

The upper or divine side represents the Spirit’s work. Then contrition, repentance, and faith are the constituent elements of the human side of regeneration.

When we say repentance and faith are fruits of regeneration we simply mean that in each case the Spirit grace above originates and works out the respective human exercise below. The following scriptures prove that repentance is a grace as well as a human exercise: Acts 5:31; Acts 11:18. That faith also is a grace, is seen from 1 Corinthians 2:4-5; 1 Corinthians 3:5; 2 Peter 1:1. The Holy Spirit then is the agent in regeneration and the instrumental means of regeneration is the Word of God, or the preaching of Christ crucified, yet the power of the Spirit does not reside in the word as inspired by him, but the agency is positive and active in the use of the word. This is illustrated by the use of the ax and the sword. We say that an ax is adapted to cutting down trees, and not that it has power to cut down a tree apart from its intelligent use by the woodsman; and we say that the sword is adapted to cut or thrust, not that it has in itself the power to kill apart from its intelligent wielding by the swordsman. So, though the Word of God is represented as "quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do," yet this Word is but the Spirit’s sword, powerful only when wielded by him.

The scriptural proof that dying infants are regenerated is constructive and inferential rather than direct. Infants partake of the fallen nature of the parents, and without a change of that nature would be unfitted for heaven. The Scripture says that we are all by nature the children of wrath, but David says with reference to his dead child, "I shall go to him, but he cannot return to me." As they cannot enter heaven without a change, and as the Spirit is the author of all the change that makes one meet for heaven, it is justly to be inferred that infants are regenerated.

While out hunting on a Western mountain I turned over a huge rock on the mountainside that seemed to be evenly balanced. Under this rock was a den of rattlesnakes, some of them very small, without rattles, and with the fangs not yet developed nor the poison secreted in the sac. These little snakes had never yet bitten any man, and yet if one of them bad been taken to a home and fed upon the milk which nourishes a child, as the snake grew the rattle would form, the fang would develop, the poison would secrete, and even if in its infancy it had been carried to heaven itself without a change of its nature, there, hard by the throne of God, it would have matured the deadly venom. The necessity for the regeneration of infants if they, when dying, are to enter heaven, is imperious. The nature vitiated through the fall of the first Adam is changed by the Spirit through the virtue of the Second Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ. In their case the Spirit’s power is immediate.

The principal passages of Scripture defining, embodying or illustrating the doctrine of regeneration are as follows: Psalms 51:2-10; Ezekiel 36:25-27; John 1:12-13; John 3:3-15; Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 2:1-10; Ephesians 4:22-24; Ephesians 5:25-27; Colossians 2:13; Colossians 3:9-10; Titus 3:5; James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23. All of these passages, and others like them, are to be carefully studied in order to a full understanding of this theme. Greek students will find it very profitable to look carefully at the original terms employed in these passages, but we may say for English students that among these terms are: "Born from above," "born again," "to make alive," "to quicken," "to raise from the dead," "to transform," "to renew," "to create," "to illumine," and "to cleanse." These terms imply supernatural power.

It has been said that the most important passage on regeneration is the third chapter of John. Returning to that chapter, we find that Jesus and Nicodemus talk of two births, the natural and the spiritual birth. The Spirit birth is first designated as "born from above." It is next designated 8.3 ’born of water and spirit." Theologians usually refer the phrase, "born of water" to baptism, but there are certain evils of this reference, viz: The doctrine of baptismal regeneration the conditioning of salvation upon external ordinances. It is impossible to exaggerate the fearful evils that have followed this wrong interpretation of the phrase, "born of water."

It led directly to the doctrine of infant baptism. The logic would be this: If infants are lost without regeneration, and regeneration is by baptism, in order to save the infants they must be baptized. The teaching of history is very clear as to the origin of infant baptism, that it arose from the preceding doctrine of baptismal regeneration. Then there followed also historically and quite naturally a change of baptism itself into sprinkling or pouring, to meet the case of infants, though the Greek church yet practices the immersion of infants.

The phrase, "born of water," cannot be explained by baptism.

The argument is very conclusive. Christ and Nicodemus discuss but two births, the natural birth and the spiritual birth; "that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." The phrase, "born of water and Spirit," cannot mean two births, one of water and one of Spirit, because there is no article in the original before the words. Whatever it means, it is one birth. It must be either baptism or Spirit, and both terms express only one birth. Otherwise our chapter talks of three births – the natural birth, the baptism birth, and the Spirit birth, which is contrary to the context. Moreover, the context shows that the salvation involved in the third chapter of John is a salvation of grace and not of sacraments. But what is most conclusive is that our Lord rebukes Nicodemus for not understanding what he meant by "born of water and Spirit," Nicodemus being a teacher of the Old Testament. But as the Old Testament has not a word about baptism, he would not be censurable for failing to understand the meaning of this phrase, if "born of water" referred to baptism. The censure lies in the fact that what is meant by "born of water and Spirit" is clearly set forth in the Old Testament, which is so silent about baptism, and with which Nicodemus, as a master in Israel, ought to have been well acquainted.

The phrase, "born of water and Spirit," is but an expansion of the previous phrase, "born from above." It interprets and develops the first phrase, bringing out the two elements in regeneration, namely, cleansing and renewing. It is only when we lose sight of the cleansing element in regeneration that we are liable to go astray in interpreting the phrase "born of water." The matter is clearly set forth in Ezekiel 36:25-26, which declares: "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all of your filthiness and from all of your idols, will I cleanse you." This is the cleansing element of regeneration. The passage adds: "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them." And this is the renewing element. Clean water in this passage does not mean pure water or just water. It means water of cleansing, or water of purification. There was a special recipe for the compounding of this cleansing water, or water of purification.

This recipe is found in the book of Numbers, where Moses is directed to take a red heifer and burn her with red cedar wood, and to cast scarlet thread into the fire, and then to gather up the ashes and mingle them with running water, in order to put them into a liquid form, and this is the clean water, or water of purification of the Bible. It was administered by taking a bunch of hyssop and dipping it into this liquid and sprinkling it upon the one to be ceremonially cleansed. We can thus easily understand the fifty-first Psalm, in which David says, "Purge me [or cleanse me] with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow." He thus brings out in type the cleansing element in regeneration.

Now, this water of purification was a type. It was typical of the blood of Christ. Concerning this the letter to the Hebrews says, "For if the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God." So that the Old Testament idea of clean water was equal to the ashes of the heifer, and that typified the blood of Christ, applied in regeneration by the Holy Spirit. This produces the cleansing element of regeneration, and with this Nicodemus ought to have been familiar.

"Born of water and spirit" simply means "cleansed by the blood of Christ and renewed by the Holy Spirit."

The New Testament with even greater clearness brings out these two elements of regeneration. Paul writes to Titus (3:5): "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit." The same thought is presented in his letter to the Ephesians, when he says, "Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word." Here is a strange kind of washing – a washing through the Word, indicating the instrumentality of the Word in effecting regeneration, and yet showing that the washing is a figurative washing, a washing that accomplishes cleansing, and that cleansing is applied by the Holy Spirit.

So that the phrase, "born of water and Spirit" means the same as "born from above," and it means the same as the "washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit."

Christ says, "Ye must be born from above in order to see the kingdom of God," and he says, "Except a man be born of water and Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God." This language emphasizes the necessity of regeneration in the strongest possible way. Now let us clearly and forcibly state the reason or ground of this necessity. The necessity lies in the fact that man is fallen and depraved, and without the change effected by regeneration could not enjoy heaven, even if he were permitted to enter it. Therefore in any true system of theology the doctrine of human depravity is a vital and fundamental doctrine. It is a touchstone that when applied clearly defines every man’s position and shows his proper alignment. If he does not believe that man is fallen he sees no necessity for the regeneration and sanctification by the Holy Spirit.

The doctrines of depravity and regeneration irreconcilably antagonizes the modern doctrine of evolution, which teaches that man has never fallen; that he is continually ascending; and hence no full-fledged Darwinian evolutionist believes in the historic veracity of the account in Genesis of the fall of man, nor does he believe in the necessity of either regeneration by the Spirit, or sanctification by the Spirit, holding that man can be cultivated and trained into the highest possible development.

Another vital scriptural doctrine is involved in this antagonism, viz., the vicarious expiation of Christ. If spiritual cleansing, secured by the application of the blood of Christ, is an essential and integral part of regeneration, the doctrine of the vicarious expiation of Christ is necessarily involved in this antagonism, and hence, consistently, the full-fledged Darwinian evolutionist like Mr. Haeckel, boldly denies any necessity for an atonement, or any virtue in this direction in the death of Christ.

Justification comes in touch with regeneration at that point where the Spirit of God by the application of the blood of Christ, cleanses the soul. When the man accepts the Lord Jesus Christ as, his Teacher, Sacrifice, Priest, and King, and trusts in him for salvation, then God in heaven justifies the man, or declares an acquittal of him) through his faith in the blood, but the blood is applied in the cleansing part of regeneration, so that we see again from this relation between regeneration and justification how it is that regeneration cannot be complete without faith.

QUESTIONS

1. Trace Jesus in his early ministry from the banks of the Jordan to the beginning of his great ministry in Galilee.

2. What remarkable deed characterized both the beginning and the end of his ministry in Judea?

3. How do you explain this bold act of Jesus?

4. What sign of his authority did he here submit and how did he here afterward make this the test of 1) is messiahship?

5. What prophecies were fulfilled ill these two incidents of cleansing the Temple?

6. What statement here of the omniscience of Jesus?

7. What was the second great event of this visit to Jerusalem and what the great lesson from it?

8. What the occasion, time, and place of this interview with Nicodemus?

9. What the etymological meaning of the English word "regeneration"?

10. Theological meaning?

11. Does it change the substance of the soul, or impart any new faculties?

12. Is its effect limited to the intellect, or to the will, or to the affections?

13. In what then does it consist?

14. Can the Holy Spirit operate immediately on another spirit, i.e., direct impact of Spirit on spirit, or must he operate immediately, i.e., through the use of means?

15. Cite scriptural proof that the Spirit may act immediately in at least eight different cases.

16. According to theologians, does the Holy Spirit in regeneration operate mediately or immediately?

17. But what do you say?

18. While insisting on the immediate operation of the Holy Spirit how do you make it appear that the scriptural new birth is not complete without the use of means?

19. Cite the scriptural proof.

20. Put the scriptural proof of John 1:12-13 in the form of a syllogism, its human exercise.

21. What then is the true scriptural teaching?

22. Illustrate this by a diagram.

23. Explain the diagram.

24. How then may we rightly say that repentance and faith are fruits of regeneration?

25. Cite Scripture proof that the divine grace of repentance precedes

26. What is the similar proof concerning faith?

27. Who then always is the efficient agent of regeneration?

28. The instrumental means?

29. What part of the Word of God, the Law or the Gospel?

30. When we say the Spirit is the power and the Word is the means, does the Spirit power reside in the Word because inspired, or is the Spirit agency positive and active in the use of the Word?

31. Illustrate this by the ax and the sword.

32. In the case of infants dying are they saved with or without regeneration?

33. What is the constructive scriptural proof?

34. In their case is the Spirit’s operation mediate or immediate?

35. Cite the principal passages. Old Testament and New Testament, embodying the doctrine of regeneration,

36. What words are here employed to define or illustrate regeneration?

37. What do they imply?

38. Greek students cite the principal Greek words employed to define or illustrate regeneration, citing one passage in which each separate word is used, giving the inflection of the word these used (i.e., the case and number and person of the noun or the voice, mood, tense, number and person of the verb).

39. Of how many births do Nicodemus and Jesus talk?

40. How is the Spirit birth first designated?

41. How the second time?

42. To what do theologians generally refer "born of water"?

43. What the evils of the doctrine?

44. Show why it cannot be so explained.

45. What then does it mean?

46. Christ says, "Ye must be born from above to see the kingdom of God . . . Except a man be born of water and Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God." State clearly and forcibly the reason, or ground, of this necessity.

47. What then is the position of the doctrine of depravity?

48. How do the doctrines of depravity and regeneration irreconcilably antagonize the modern doctrine of evolution?

49. What other vital scriptural doctrine is involved in this antagonism?

50. At what point in regeneration does justification come in touch with it?

Verse 8

XXIV

THE EVIDENCES OF THE SPIRIT IN THE NEW BIRTH AND THE MEANS BY WHICH THE NEW BIRTH IS ACCOMPLISHED

Harmony page 81 and John 3:8.

Following the line of thought discussed in the preceding chapter, we take up the verities of the Christian experience as stated by Jesus in John 3:8: "So is every one that is born of the Spirit." The "so" refers to the preceding statement that the wind blows where it pleases. We can hear the wind, but we cannot tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth.

The first thought presented is that there are inscrutable mysteries in both nature and grace. No man has ever been able to thoroughly understand any of the mysteries of either. He is just as much staggered when he tries to explain the source of the life of the plant as he is about the life of a Christian. Both are beyond him. He reaches the limit of his investigation. He gets to a point where he has to say, "Here I don’t know. I see the demonstration; the fact is manifest, but if you ask me to explain, I cannot explain. I do not know enough." Most striking is the mystery in that most wonderful of all events that takes place upon this earth – the conversion of a sinner. Those whose attention has been most earnestly and most persistently devoted to the study of that subject all their lives, fall as far short of a real and comprehensive explanation as one who has never given the matter any attention. It is therefore of no more practical use for one to urge the mystery of it as an objection against the teaching of the Bible on the conversion of the soul by the power of the Spirit, than to foolishly scorn the botanist who cannot explain just how the flowers are colored.

One proposition of the context, however, finds ready acceptance wherever there is common sense: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." It goes back to a fundamental law of being as developed in the creation, when God said that every seed should bear after its kind. These boundaries have never been crossed. A man may, by care and attention, bring about varieties, but he cannot cross the line of species. It has never been done. Each seed bears after its kind. In full accord with that law, our Saviour says to Nicodemus, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." And whoever comprehends the kingdom of God, whoever is able to see it, to get in touch with it, must do so spiritually, because it is a spiritual kingdom. He must be the subject of divine influence. The carnal man cannot understand it. Paul’s proposition is self-evident: "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." The criticisms of carnal men, however wise in other things, on conversion, revivals of religion, clearly evince that the supernatural is utterly incomprehensible by them.

How often have we seen even such a case as this: One who has been a warmhearted Christian finds that after awhile his love waxes cold; his fervor leaves him. When we talk to him about it, it appears that he recognizes the decadence as readily as we do, and deplores it a great deal more. But no effort of mere will on his part can restore what has been. He will open the Book and read its consolations and promises, and say: "I know that this is true. I know that by my past experience, but I cannot get hold of it now as I once did. I did not go down to my business today without first getting down on my knees and asking God’s blessing upon me, that is, I went through the form of prayer, but without being able to explain it, I do know that it is different in its effect upon me, upon my own feelings, from the prayers I once offered. Under different or similar circumstances I miss the power of prayer. The Spirit of God is not now resting upon me."

This isolated individual experience is not so remarkable as another well-known historical fact, that every now and then in the history of the world there comes over Christians, not in one little range of country, not in one community, but over the whole sweep of the world, what may be called a declension in spiritual religion. People begin to talk about how it used to be, and mourn for the joys of other days. They begin to compare experiences with one another and inquire what is the matter. "Why is it that I cannot take hold of such matters now like I did at a certain time?" What are we going to do about it? And insensibly as this spiritual power declines, they begin to reach out for and rely upon fleshly counsels and means for manufacturing power and are all the time conscious of the fact that their efforts do not touch the main question; that flesh has failed to do anything in the premises. And arguing from such failures, directly there are men who rise up and say, "It is quite evident that religion is becoming a back number. Science is spreading its light over the world and men are turning to science and turning away from religion, and if this thing goes on awhile longer there will be no Christian religion."

It is one of the most curious things in history, the number of times men otherwise intelligent, in such a state of spiritual declension, have preached the funeral of the Christian religion, and maybe within one week of the time that pious hearts were failing them, and the enemy was triumphing and gloating over the seemingly rapid decay of that religion which had rebuked their immorality, and which had made such demands upon them for purity and integrity of life – inside of one week – no one could tell where it came from, any more than we can trace the lines of the wind – but suddenly here, there, yonder, over all parts of the country, men are becoming earnest upon the subject of religion. Sinners are inquiring the way of life; Christians are meeting together and talking to one another; little meetings are appointed in private houses, then in the church; soon what is called a revival of religion of tremendous power has come upon the people, and perhaps in one month’s time a complete revolution has been brought about, and we stand there and look upon the phenomena and begin to philosophize about the forces, so far as we are able to see them, so far as they are tangible to us. If we begin to try to account for these things by the natural forces that are in sight, we are struck with this thought: The instrumentalities in sight are utterly inadequate. They are weak things; some of them are just nothing; and yet these instrumentalities under this condition of affairs, have become as potent as Omnipotence itself, in revolutionizing a county, a state, a nation, a large section of the world. We take up the Bible and its words are just as plain as can be that it is the work of the Spirit; that it was not because Paul planted and Apollos watered; it was God that gave the increase; that it did not grow out of any will of man; it did not come from blood, from human blood; it was from heaven; it was from that sovereign Spirit of God that breathes where he pleases and when he likes, that has brought about this strange state of affairs.

Now, to make the application: What can we do, in view of such a state of facts? What can Christians do? What can ministers do? There is one thing that can always be done; one thing that has not merely the command of God, but the promise of God, and ten thousand confirmations of the wisdom of its application; and that is, feeling human helplessness, feeling the inadequacy of any means without our power to bring about a different state of affairs, realizing our own worthlessness in the sight of God, we can pray, we can kneel down and say, "Our Heavenly Father, thou giver of every good and precious gift, give us thy Spirit, so that our cold hearts may be melted; so that our inattentive minds may be fixed on heavenly things and fired with old-time zeal in our religious duties; so that when we speak the hearer’s ear will be opened and his attention gained, and so that the Word of God can run and not be hindered."

The prayers of God’s people, so it seems to me from the teachings of the Bible, are the appointed means, the means which he has designated – clearly and unmistakably designated – for bringing about revivals of religion. And yet even here we confront an insuperable difficulty if we leave out God’s absolute sovereignty. The difficulty can be best stated by an illustration: Water from above must be poured down a pump long dry before it can pump up water from below. We work the pump handle in vain. We go through the motion, but it will not draw. So a drought comes into the soul. Our graces languish. We try to pray and are conscious of failure. In one scripture it is stated as a reason why such weak instrumentalities are employed that no flesh shall glory in God’s presence, that it should become manifest to angels in heaven and devils in hell and men on earth that power belongeth to God; that the Lord, he is mighty and no other is great. It is with God, and with God alone.

I cannot describe – have never been able to describe – the processes of my own mind by which from time to time over again, and every time just as fresh as if it had never happened before, comes the realization of all these things. I go back and compare the present with past experiences, and I find that these coincide exactly with those. And I ask myself why it is that I cannot at my option, whenever and wherever I choose, bring about this state of mind within myself. And then some day, some hour) all at once, I feel overpowered with the sense of God’s presence. The Bible becomes a different book to me; the Scriptures, which had seemed to lose their edge and force and light, become full of light, full of power. My courage rises, my spirit rouses itself. I instantly feel led and impelled to undertake things that I would not have had the courage to undertake except under the impulse of this Spirit of God within me. Every Christian knows these things.

Now I want to add, especially, this: The exhortation needs to be continually repeated. It is one of the things that should forever be kept before the people. Always, if we expect to accomplish anything that shall redound to the glory of God and the good of man, we must come out solely and wholly in the strength of the Spirit of God, and if we are not endued with that power we should seek to be so endued. We should come with our empty hand and empty heart and knock and ask and seek and never forego our petitions until we realize that God has heard and answered the prayer, and that with us has commenced the work that we so ardently hope to see carried throughout the whole community.

In connection with this is the strange use of his Word. Times without number have I repeated that passage of the prophet, that "as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven and returneth not thither until it has watered the earth and caused it to bring forth seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so shall my Word be that goeth forth out of my mouth." And contemporaneously with this influence of the revival of the Spirit of God in the community is the revival of reliance upon the plain and simple statements of God’s Word. Men will instantly lay aside the stilted method of presenting things; they stand upon a solitary passage of God’s Word, presented in the simplest form, and themselves expect developments from its presentation that they never in their hearts expected from all the appliances that worldly men would bring to bear upon the accomplishment of a sentence.

Right here, then, on these two points, is the hope of the church and the hope of the world – it is that there shall be cultivated in our hearts and in our lives a profounder reverence, day by day, for the Word of God in its simplicity. The truth itself – take that, and always count it hazardous, always consider that it is the part of danger to depart even in little things from what God’s Word teaches. We should feel in our souls that every jot and every tittle of the Word is as certain to be fulfilled as that God himself lives, and that we could with more reason expect to get up some morning and see the heavens rolled together as a scroll, and feel the foundations of the solid earth give way, than to expect any promise in that Book to fail, any threat in that Book to become powerless of accomplishment, any passage in it to lose the force with which God has clothed it. Now, just to the extent that we have this feeling about the Book and its teachings, and have the spirit of prayer for the Holy Spirit to be with us and in us, and to clothe us with power and strip ourselves of self, to take all of our conceit and pride and vanity and selfishness out of us, and make us humble, and as little children come into the presence of God, and say, "Lord, restore not only the joy of salvation, but give back to us the power, the conscious power, that God is with us, will the world be impressed by our lives and by our doctrine." It is perfectly idle to stand back on account of its mysteries. Its mysteries no man can explain, but the fact is there, and being there it is no part of wisdom for us to disregard the methods which God prescribes by which we shall be brought back into touch with him, and by which being in touch with him we shall reach the souls of the people that give us so much concern.

What led me to this thought was a singular case, a case of a remarkable kind where there had been after an interview with the man, a total change in the conditions of the case. Here was the same man that before, with good humor, but without ever being moved by anything on the earth that I could say to him on the subject of religion, now with his heart as tender as a little child. Arguments that I presented before with much greater force than I now present them, and which before had no effect upon him at all, now at a word he seems to comprehend and his whole soul seems to realize how perfectly plain and simple is the path that leads to God and forgiveness and heaven. "It shall come to pass," saith the Lord, "in the last days, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and until my Spirit is poured out the land shall be full of thorns and brambles, but when I pour out my Spirit the desert shall blossom as a garden." The hope of the world is, in this promise of God. We, as Christian people, desirous before God to do our part of Christian duty in the battle of life that is before us, ought to get our faces like a flint against any reliance whatever upon any mere human power. And we ought also to keep it before us as a truth that needs to be reaffirmed and kept all the time bright and shining, that if we are to do any good in reaching men, in impressing men, it must come from our being in touch with God’s Spirit, and that means a continuous call to prayer.

Let us now consider the means by which the new birth is accomplished. This we find in John 3:14-21. No event of the past, no matter how stupendous a transaction it was at the time, is worthy of being recorded, or is worthy of remembrance, except it has some bearing, practical and profitable, on the affairs of the present. As strange an incident as ever did occur in the history of the world, and as strange a method of deliverance from a great affliction, was the incident of the brazen serpent. Moses lifted up the brazen serpent in the wilderness that those bitten by the fiery serpents might look upon that symbol, and looking, be healed of the bite of the serpent. Now, if that was written for our admonition, it becomes us to address ourselves mainly to the New Testament lesson on the subject, and hence John 3:14-21: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God sent not the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through him. He that believeth on him is not judged; be that believeth not hath been judged already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, lest his works should be reproved. But he that doeth the truth cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, that they have been wrought in God."

The first thought impressed upon my own mind concerns the origin of all divine movements or remedies looking to the relief of man from the troubles which have come upon him through his own sin. The source or foundation from which flow all streams of mercy to man is expressed in these words: "For God so loved the world." The love of God prompted every step ever taken under God’s direction for the redemption of man. And the word "world" is here used in its broadest sense, in its most universal significance. It means the entire race of man, not in one generation but in all generations, and it looks upon the whole family of man as in a ruined condition, brought about by man’s own sin. And it says that God so loved the world – the sinful, erring, fallen, lost world – that he inagu- rated and put in motion a scheme of redemption. The value of this thought consists in this, that it gives us an insight into the mind of God: it reveals his attitude toward a sinner. It reveals him to us in his gracious and merciful character. It shows that man’s ordinary conception of him is a slanderous one. God loves the sinner; salvation is of grace: it arises from no original movement of the sinner, but solely and wholly from the heart of God.

The next thought that impresses itself most on my mind is that until a sinner is brought into very serious trouble by his sins, his mind and heart revolt from any presentation of the subject of religion. As those Israelites said, "We loathe this light bread," the bread that God had provided for their nourishment. So now the carnal mind – the mind of man in his natural state – turns away in loathing from spiritual religion. It indicates this, that as the stomach and taste of a man corrupted by a luxurious diet revolt as simple, nourishing and wholesome food and call for more highly spiced, pungent food, so the soul that has become corrupted through indulgence in vices and sin loathes any kind of reading that does not minister to a morbid appetite for highly spiced things. There might be held a convention of ten thousand people, solely for the purpose of devising ways and means of having the religion of Jesus Christ presented to a lost world, and it would not attract half the attention nor excite one-tenth part of the comment in the secular press, that a prize fight would. The question was asked a leading journalist, the editor of one of the largest dailies of the South, "Why is it that you continually put such matter in your paper? Why is it that you rake the world over for every startling incident, every sensational item, items of murder, items of lust, items of horrible tragedy? Why do you do this?" "Because it pays. The people generally loathe any other kind of reading. That is what they want. They call for that." Approach a sinner, before the afflicting hand of God is laid upon him, with spiritual food and he loathes it. He turns away from it.

But here is the important question, one that ought to concern us more than any other. When a man is in a desperate condition; when the things upon which he had relied heretofore have failed; when the serpent is in the camp and biting; when death is ensuing from the bite, or when his hold upon life relaxes and its landscapes recede from the vision of his blurred eyes, and when the sands of time upon which he stands are crumbling under his feet, and eternity looms up before him, the supreme question in such an hour is, "What shall we hold up before that man?" To what shall he look? Here this statement intervenes, that as, under circumstances of dreadful affliction upon the children of Israel, when on account of their sins they were bitten by fiery serpents and were dying, Moses lifted up the brazen serpent, even so must the Son of man be lifted up so that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life.

The world has seen many a procession of this kind. In our minds let us behold a plague-stricken city. The people are dying like sheep with the rot. A remedy is announced. A procession is appointed to move through the principal street. There the crowds gather, pressing against one another, filling both sidewalks. Their hungry eyes are full of expectation. The procession comes bearing aloft some holy object of sight. The people prostrate themselves and adore. What is lifted up? It appears to be a piece of bread. But the priest assures the people that by his consecrating act it has been converted into the veritable body and blood of Jesus Christ; that by that act of consecration he had created God, and hence, notwithstanding the testimony of the senses, what is lifted up is Jesus Christ. It does not look like him; it looks like bread. But that is lifted up and as it moves along through the street the people bow down before it, prostrate themselves before it, and this is what is called adoring the mass.

If, indeed, that was Jesus Christ; if that is what this scripture means, "Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up," then it was a proper thing to do and it was a proper thing to prostrate one’s self before it, look to it, and trust in it. But I venture to say that this was not even accorded to the symbol, that the typical serpent was not lifted up for such an object. There did come a time when men looked upon that brazen serpent as God. There did come a time when the priest filled his censer with incense, and kindling it, came before that brazen serpent and waved his censer as in the presence of God himself, and men worshiped him. But when that took place, God’s servant, Hezekiah, though that relic had been preserved seven hundred years from the time that it was first exhibited in the wilderness, brake it in pieces and said nehushtan, "it is just a piece of brass."

Let us turn to the Second Commandment. Let us listen to it again, as familiar as it may seem to our mind. We read it from Exodus 20: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." Well, but Moses made the likeness of a serpent; did he violate that law? Evidently not, because I have not given the whole of the Commandment. Listen again, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them." That is, the Commandment does not forbid all sculpture and painting. It was not intended to prevent us from painting the picture of a bird or carving the likeness of a lion or erecting a statue of a man; that was not its object. "But thou shalt not make unto thee any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or on earth beneath, to bow down before it, as an object of worship." And when it is proposed to make any likeness an object of worship, then the law of the Second Commandment becomes operative, and therefore the brazen serpent was destroyed by Hezekiah. The thought is this – that nothing on the earth cognizable by natural sight can supply a remedy for sin, and it was not the fact that they saw that brazen serpent with the natural eye that delivered them. It was the faith in their hearts that looked to God, their true deliverer, that delivered them.

Now, let me apply this. In the illustrated histories of the world (and we have a great many of them) we may see marvelous pictures of great battles. Here has been planted a battery; yonder is its path of death. Here charges a column of cavalry. There passes a division of infantry with fixed bayonets, and in the track of all of these columns of death men are prone in the dust. They are bleeding; they are dying and some are dead. And on that battlefield, over which the breath of war has breathed and its storm has swept, we see the picture of a man in a long robe. As he walks along he looks to see who is dead, who is yet living. There lies a man not yet dead. He is nearly dead. His head is lifted up, that dying man. What does the long-robed man hold up before him? The priest lifts up right before his eyes a cross on which is the likeness of Christ. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so shall the Son of man be lifted up. Now, is it meant that there shall be lifted up before the eyes of that dying man any likeness of Jesus Christ or any likeness of the cross upon which he died, that his natural eye shall see, and from seeing shall put his heart in contact with the love of God? That is the question.

I will answer that question. It is a very important one because it settles the whole question of the work of the church. If in lifting up Jesus Christ before the world we fulfill our mission by lifting up a picture of him – if we accomplish the work which was given us by our Saviour himself when we hold up before the sick and dying, bread that is said to be transmuted into God, or a likeness of Jesus Christ upon the cross, or if we put into the lips of a dying man a wafer that is said to be God – if that is our mission, then we ought to know it, and we ought to address ourselves to that method of lifting up Jesus Christ.

How is he to be lifted up? The Bible answers it with remarkable clearness. I will give it to you first in prophecy and then in the fulfilment of that prophecy. I quote from Zechariah 12: "And it shall come to pass in that day, . . . And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him." Does that mean that they shall look upon a picture of him? Does that mean that they shall look upon his actual flesh and blood, either in its natural state or as it is claimed when transmuted into such from the bread of the communion? Notice the reading of it: "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced." Now they must see the pierced One. That is conceded, and the seeing of the pierced One is to bring about the good effect. That is conceded. But the question is, in what guise or shape or form is the pierced One to come within the range of their vision? In what way is he to be lifted up before the sight? That is the question.

I turn to Acts 2, where the prophecy was fulfilled, according to the record of God himself. The marvelous effect described in Zechariah 12 did not occur on the day that Christ was crucified, when men beheld his actual body on the cross, but it did take place fifty days later on the day of Pentecost. In what way on that Pentecost was Christ lifted up? In what way did they see him whom they had pierced? We have only to read to find out. The Spirit of God was poured out on that day – poured out in enduing power upon the apostles – poured out in convicting power upon the sinner. Now, when the apostle, endued with power, lifted up Christ, and the sinner, convicted by the Spirit, looked upon Christ that was lifted up, the question recurs, "How was he lifted up?" Here is the answer to it:

"Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know; him being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands were crucified and slain: whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it. For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face; for he is on my right hand that I should not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice and my tongue was glad; moreover, also, my flesh shall rest in hope; because Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.

"Men and brethren, let me speak freely unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcre is with us unto this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne: he seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore) being by the right band of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear."

"Being by the right hand of God exalted. [What does that word "exalted" mean? Lifted up.] "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." How did he make him Lord as well as Christ? He made him Lord by exaltation, by lifting him up, by lifting him up from the grave, by lifting him up above the clouds and the stars to the throne of power and the majesty of might. Jesus Christ was lifted up before the people, not actually in the flesh, but he was lifted up through the preaching of Peter. Peter states the facts of the life of Christ and the object of his coming into the world, and of his death, and his resurrection. He addresses the sight, but not the natural sight. He addresses the eye of the soul. He says, "I will lift up something, not before your natural eye, not something that you can touch with your finger, not something that you can see, that is of material likeness, but I hold up before the eye of your soul Jesus Christ. Look at that." Now, what was the result of their looking upon Jesus Christ so lifted up? The result was that three thousand souls were converted in one day.

Consider another scripture. I quote from Galatians 3: “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?" These Galatians saw Jesus Christ lifted up, but they did not see him lifted up in the flesh. They were not witnesses of the transaction that took place in Judea when he was really nailed to the cross. This incident, here recorded as historical, was long subsequent to the crucifixion. The question is, Who set forth before their eyes Jesus Christ? Paul did. Did he set forth Jesus Christ in a likeness that such likeness might become an object of worship? No. How did he hold up Jesus Christ before these Galatians? He did it by going among the people and preaching the gospel, relating to them Christ’s coming into the world, and why he came into the world, and calling upon them with the eyes of their minds, of their understanding, of their souls, to look upon Jesus Christ and to be saved by that look.

I submit only one other Scripture, and then we come to the application of it all. I quote from Romans 10, which tells us how it is – that is, in what manner, through what means, through what process faith comes. Now, as it is said that whosoever believeth on him that is lifted up, shall not perish; but shall have everlasting life – how did they believe on him? What things are done in order that faith may come? "So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed, and how shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach except they be sent?"

Here is explained to us how we get at the real vision of Jesus Christ. We take hold of him, not by natural sight, but by faith, and that this faith comes from hearing the Word of God preached, and because it comes in that way, God sent forth men to do what? Preach. Did he send forth carvers in wood and stone? Did he send forth painters to make a likeness of Jesus Christ and hold it up before the people? On the day of his departure from the earth he said, "All power in heaven and on earth is given unto me, therefore go make disciples of all nations." How? "Go preach the gospel to every creature." Now, in that way he is to be lifted up, by telling of Jesus, by preaching Jesus. Men who live subsequently to the actual crucifixion, sinners who live until his second coming, do see the real risen body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and do with the natural eye look upon him whom they have pierced, but they see him on the judgment seat – see him with mourning that hath no repentance in it and with tears that do not fall in mercy’s sight.

We come now to the application. Here is a man for whom we have been praying. When he was well and strong he had little thought on the subject of religion. His soul loathed this light food. But when his steps draw near to the river of death; when the earth recedes from his sight; when his hold on time and things of time relaxes its grasp, what can we hold up before him, and how shall we lift it up? Those who visit him see him in as wretched a condition as that of the snakebitten Israelites in the desert. It is no time for mockery. It is no time for delusion or experiment. Something before the glazing eyes of the dying must be lifted up. Something efficacious must be set forth before him. Something with speedy power to secure the remission of sins and make him feel in his own soul that God has blotted out his iniquities and washed him whiter than snow. 0, may heaven forbid that any visitant to a sick couch shall lift up anything before such a one but Jesus Christ and him crucified, and may heaven forbid that he shall lift up before him Jesus Christ in any other way than in the way which God prescribed when he told his church to go out and publish these good tidings.

Now, the last point of the application. There are times when Christ is preached and men hear the preaching and yet no such effect follows as is described in the prophecy of Zechariah. They hear, but it seems to be a profitless hearing. There is a preaching, but it seems to be a profitless preaching. Here is a secret – an open one. There never has been a failure from the true lifting up of Jesus down to the present time. The true effect, as presented in Zechariah, follows the true lifting up of Jesus Christ.

No matter how many exceptions there may seem to be, I declare here, without any fear of successful contradiction, that Jesus Christ has never been lifted up in vain if lifted up as that prophecy prescribes.

I mean that "as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall God’s Word be that goeth out of his mouth; it shall not return unto him void, but it shall accomplish that which he pleases and it shall prosper in the thing whereto he sent it."

I mean that God’s true minister today, as Paul in his time, may exclaim: "Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?"

And when the gracious effect does not follow, there is some defect in either the lifting up by the preacher or in the looking by the sinner. Now, what is that defect on the part of the church? When he commanded the preacher to go out and preach Jesus Christ, he was required to have more than a tongue that could talk, and physical strength to move about. He said to these men before he sent them out: "Wait until you are endued with power from on high." What does Zechariah say? "And it shall come to pass in that day that I will pour out upon the house of David the spirit of grace and of supplication." And in that marvelous example recorded in Acts 2 the element of power is manifest – power on the preacher and power on the hearer.

And it is so till this day that whoever will go in the power of the Spirit and tell the story of the cross to a dying man whose heart is convicted by the Spirit of God, will be the means of salvation in every instance. There never will be any failure, and the whole effect upon us as far as this application goes may be summed up in just two things: We are to concern ourselves in lifting Christ up by the gospel, and we are to lift him in reliance upon the Spirit of God which makes the sight of him efficacious to the sinner’s eye.

These two prescriptions contain in themselves, however, two proscriptions, that as it is our concern to lift up Jesus before the dying, it means that we are to lift nothing else up; that we ourselves are not to put any dependence upon anything else; we are not to seek out for dependence something sensational and startling. I venture to say that if it were published in the city papers that there would be enacted The Passion Play, promising that if the people would come they should see a drama representing the betrayal of Christ by Judas and his crucifixion on the cross, that every seat in the house would be occupied. They would come to look at a likeness. They would come to take hold of something with the natural eye. They would say, "How beautiful one sight; how horrible another sight!" What artistic skill in the representations! What a Judas! Every single motion of his body and play of his features and tone of his voice indicates a master actor, representing a likeness of a reality. But there would be no saving power in it. It would not convert anybody. It would be a disgrace to the congregation, and it would convict the church of going into the picture business, the likeness business, in contravention of the express command of God in Exodus 20.

And that applies equally to the sensational preaching and singing and praying. Whatever of it is devoid of the Spirit of God is contrary to the duty which is enjoined upon us as a church in lifting up Jesus Christ. I say that we cannot lift him up so a dying man can see him, by art, by declamation, by anything that appeals to the natural sight, anything sensual, anything that takes hold of the animal part of our nature. Christ is not so lifted up nor so preserved.

God lives in a song that makes melody in the heart, that comes from the prompting of the Spirit and that soars as a skylark soars, and mounts up as the incense mounted when it arose ascending to the throne of the Lord.

So is the song that converts and prayer that converts, and the sermon that converts. Now, "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life."

QUESTIONS

1. What is the import of John 3:8 and what is the force of the word "so" in this verse?

2. What can you say of the mysteries in both nature and religion?

3. What one proposition of the context here finds ready acceptance, and to what fundamental law does it refer?

4. What is Paul’s statement of this same truth?

5. How does this discussion of the work of the Holy Spirit apply to a backslider?

6. What historical fact is cited and how does the case apply here?

7. What is the danger which accompanies a spiritual dearth?

8. What one remedy offered for this condition? Illustrate by the case of the dry pump.

9. What are the effects of the enduement of the Spirit on the life?

10. What is our dependence for power in our work?

11. What means does the Spirit use and upon what rests the hope of the church?

12. What observation of the author led him into an appreciation of this fact?

13. What is the means by which the new birth is accomplished as taught by Jesus in this passage?

14. What is the origin of the remedy for the relief of man from his Bin and what the breadth of its application?

15. What special value of this thought?

16. What preparation by the Holy Spirit on the part of the sinner for this remedy and why? Illustrate.

17. What important question arises in this connection and what is the answer?

18. What modern procession is here described, with what ancient idolatrous movement is it in line, what commandment does it violate and how?

19. How is Jesus to be lifted up? Cite scriptural proof.

20. Illustrate the application of this principle.

21. Is the preaching of Christ always accompanied with success? Ex plain.

22. What two prescriptions for success here and what two proscriptions contained in them.

Verses 16-45

XXV

THE GUILT OF SIN STATED AND THE REMEDY FOR SIN ILLUSTRATED

Harmony pages 21-24 and John 3:16-4:45.

Continuing the study of the discourse of our Lord to Nicodemus, in John 3:16-21, with John 5:40; John 7:17, we have the guilt of unbelief and the reasonableness of its punishment. John 3:16-21 shows the condemnation because of the rejection of Christ and the light which he brought, and also their love of darkness rather than light: "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God." John 3:19-21; John 5:40; John 7:17; John 18:37 show the state of the will: "Ye will not come to me that ye may have life. If any man willeth to do his will he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." To these scriptures may be added others which show intellectual pride, viz.: Matthew 11:25: "Hid from the wise and prudent and revealed it unto babes." Romans 1:21 f: "When they knew him they glorified him not as God. Professing themselves to be wise they became fools." 1 Corinthians 1:18-21: "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish, foolishness; but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." (For a detailed analysis of Sec. 22 of the Harmony see chapter XXII of this volume of the Interpretation.)

In John 3:22-23 the contemporaneous ministries of John and Jesus approach each other. John 4:1-2 shows the identity of their process of discipling. A certain brother once wrote me, who was troubled over John 4:2, which reads, "Though Jesus himself baptizeth not, but his disciples." This brother’s trouble was a novel one. He not only held to the theory shared by some other people – that the apostles were neither baptized themselves, but he said they never baptized others, nor ever preached a sermon before the Pentecost in Acts 2. This text, John 4:2, as commonly interpreted being in the way of his theory, he wanted to know if it might not be construed to mean that the baptism through the disciples took place after Pentecost. His suggested construction is quite impossible. This would be to wrest the Scriptures from their meaning rather than to interpret them. It is better to give up an unscriptural theory, than resort to such great violence to God’s Word. No commentator of any denomination would dare to put such a meaning on John 4:2. Let us consider in this connection, John 3:22-23; John 4:2. The connected reading is: "After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judea, and there he tarried with them and baptized, and John also was baptizing in Aenon, near to Salim, because there was much water there. When, therefore, the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself baptizeth not, but his disciples)." From this fairly connected reading the following things are evident:

(1) The ministries of John and Jesus were here simultaneous.

(2) John made disciples and baptized them.

(3) Jesus also at the same time made disciples and baptized them, only he made and baptized more disciples than John.

(4) Yet Jesus did not personally administer baptism as John did. His baptisms were performed through his disciples.

(5) The imperfect tense in John 4:2 shows continuous action, that Jesus was accustomed to make and baptize disciples.

This is all so plain it would seem impossible to misunderstand it. It is just as plain as that "Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures." The brother’s unfortunate theory is wrong on every other point. It is difficult to understand how he could say that Christ’s apostles never preached a sermon before the Pentecost of Acts 2. In reply to this theory let us consider Matthew 10:5-42 and Mark 6:12-13; Mark 6:20. Here after Jesus had personally instructed his apostles in the things of the kingdom, he sends them out charging them, "As ye go, preach. What I tell you in the darkness, speak ye in the light, and what ye hear in the ear, proclaim upon the housetops." Mark says, "And they went out and preached that men should repent." Then he tells how, later, they returned and reported to Jesus, "Whatsoever they had done, and whatsoever they had taught." This commission, and the preaching done under it, and the report made of it, may be compared with the commission of the seventy and their report (see Luke 10:1-24). The brother contended also that it was only after his resurrection that he gave them a commission and commanded them to baptize. He is again mistaken. The commission to the twelve in Matthew 10, and to the seventy in Luke 10, are as clean-cut commissions as the later ones in Matthew 28 and Mark 16. The chief difference between the earlier commissions and the later ones is that the former were limited to the Jews (Matthew 10:5-6), and the latter was to all nations (Matthew 28:19). The passages cited from John 3-4 show that they made disciples and baptized them as regularly under the former commission, when preaching to Jews as under the latter commission, when preaching to all nations, The command in each case is precisely the same. In John 4 they made and baptized disciples. In Matthew 28 they are commanded to make and baptize disciples. While executing the first commission Jesus himself was their power, he being on earth. In executing the latter commission Jesus is to be yet with them, for he says, "Lo I I am with you all the days even unto the end of the world." Only in this case he was not to be present in person, but in the Holy Spirit, the other Paraclete. In the ministry limited to the Jews during Christ’s lifetime, whether conducted by John the Baptist (Acts 19:4), or by Jesus himself (Mark 1:15), or by the twelve apostles and the seventy (Mark 6:12), the duties commanded were the same – repentance toward God, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and baptism upon the profession of that faith, just as Peter on the day of Pentecost and later (Acts 2:38; Acts 3:19) and Paul (Acts 20:21). Peter himself baptized sometimes through other disciples (Acts 10:47-48), as did also Paul (1 Corinthians 1:14-17).

The design of John’s Gospel (John 20:31) was (1) to prove that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, and (2) that, believing on him, one might have everlasting life. This is beautifully illustrated in the incident of the Samaritan woman by which the gospel was introduced into Samaria. But this involves the history of the Samaritans as a background of the story. In 975 B.C. Jeroboam revolted and carried with him the ten tribes of Israel who afterward established their capital at Samaria, but in 721 B.C. the ten tribes were all led away captive to Assyria, except a small remnant of the very poorest of the population. The Assyrian government drafted a population from the heathen nations to fill the vacancy caused by this removal and then sent a priest to teach them of God, but they feared the Lord and served other gods. The descendants of this mixed population of Jews and heathen constituted the Samaritans of Christ’s day. In 588 B.C. Judah was captured and carried away to Babylon, upon which the poor was left in the land as in the case of Israel, but in 536 B.C. Judah returned under Zerubbabel and Joshua, after which the hierarchy was established by Ezra. When they went to build the Temple the Samaritans asked to help, but they were refused with scorn. Here the hostilities between the Jews and Samaritans commenced. The Samaritans built a temple on Mount Gerizirn to which the woman referred in her conversation with Christ. They also preserved the Pentateuch, with some corruptions, as their Scriptures. The hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans lasted till Christ’s day. The Samaritans would not receive the Jews into their homes if they were going toward Jerusalem, but they were more hospitable to those going north, or away from Jerusalem, This accounts for their reception of Christ and his disciples on their way to Galilee, as recorded in John 4.

We will now take up the incident of Christ winning the woman at the well of Sychar. He had walked all the way from Judea and was weary and hungry. Thus he sat by the well. It was about noon and while he was there alone (the disciples having gone to Sychar to buy food) there came a woman to the well to draw water. Christ at once sets himself to the task of winning her. Let us note here the method of Jesus. First, he secured her attention by asking her for a drink. Second, he directed the thought from the matter in hand. Third, he attracted her by speaking where she did not expect it: "Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans." Fourth, he at once introduced the spiritual correspondent to the thing in her mind: "If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that speaketh with thee, thou wouldest have asked of him and he would have given thee living water." But her mind clings to the earthly: "Nothing to draw with; the well is deep; art thou greater than Jacob?" "But," says Jesus "the water which I give is living water and quenches thirst forever." It is living (1) because it is eternal. The water in the well was temporary. (2) Because it symbolized the Holy Spirit’s work. (3) Because it was not local and immovable but in him. (4) Because it ends in eternal life. All this seta forth the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration. But she is still earthly in mind: "That I may come hither no more to draw."

Our Lord then sets himself to the task of convicting her of her sin: "Go call thy husband," upon which she makes her confession. Building upon that, Christ reveals her heart and her life to her by telling her of her sins, to which she at once responded with an element of faith: "I perceive that thou art a prophet." The light is coming to her gradually, but just here a difficulty arises, the place of worship: "Is it Jerusalem or Gerizirn?" This is a subtle scheme of the devil to defeat the honest inquirer: "There are so many denominations, and so many conflicting claims, what can I do?" Christ’s answer is to the point. He demands more faith: "Believe me," and then proceeds to lead her away from the limitations of fame and place in worship and to reveal both the nature of God and the characteristics of his true worshipers: "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in Spirit and truth." Augustine said: "If, by chance, you seek some high place, some holy place, within thee erect a temple to God." The poet has expressed it thus: Once for prayer and lonely thought, Fitting time and place I sought; Now in heart, I always pray, Am alone where’er I stray.

Upon this she expresses her faith in the coming Messiah, her as that Promised One: "I that speak unto thee am he." Faith was consummated and the work was done. The Messiah was found and the impulse to tell it to others finds expression. The water pot is left and the city of Sychar hears the glad news of the promised Messiah. But the disciples, returning in time to witness a part of the conversation, wondered that he was speaking to a woman, especially a Samaritan woman, but they did not have the courage to express their surprise to him. At once the crowds were flocking from the little city to see the Lord for themselves and in the midst of these things his disciples plead with him to eat, but his meat was spiritual and more invigorating than temporal food. This furnishes the occasion for our Lord to call the attention of the disciples to the ready harvest of missionary work opened up by the conversion of this one soul. He exhorts them to look at the fields, to expect immediate results, to enter into the harvest, not of their own sowing. Here is emphasized the blessed truth that the various laborers in the kingdom should not only labor together, but they shall rejoice together. After all this he abode there two days and many of the Samaritans believed on him because of the testimony of the woman, but many more believed because of his own word. This distinction in faith is that of the distinction between hearing of the sun and feeling the sun.

After these two days he went on into Galilee and had a warm reception there, because the Galileans had witnessed what he did at the feast in Jerusalem.

It will be noted that Jesus "in His early ministry allowed himself to be regarded as the Messiah by his first disciples, and personally declared that He was the Messiah to the woman at the well, which many other Samaritans also personally believed. He never declared this to the Jewish rulers at Jerusalem till the very end, doubtless because such an avowal would lead them to kill Him, and so must not be made until His work in teaching the people and training His disciples should be completed." – Broadus, Harmony p. 24.

QUESTIONS

1. Show the guilt and reasonableness of the punishment of sin.

2. Where, in the history, do the contemporaneous ministries of Jesus and John approach each other?

3. What sentence of John’s Gospel shows the identity of their process of discipling?

4. What was a certain brother’s trouble and theory about John 4:27

5. What was the reply to his theory that the apostles were not baptized and did not baptize others?

6. What things are evident from John 3:22-23; John 4:2?

7. What was the reply to his contention that Christ’s apostles never preached a sermon before Pentecost?

8. What was the reply to his contention that Christ gave his com mission to them only after his resurrection?

9. What is the chief difference between the earlier commissions and the later ones?

10. What, from John 3-4, is evident as to these commissions?

11. What is the difference as to the power to execute under the commissions?

12. What were the specific duties commanded in all Christ’s commissions?

13. What is the purpose of John’s Gospel (John 20:31)?

14. By what personal incident was the gospel introduced into Samaria?

15. Give a brief historical account of the Samaritans.

16. What were the issues between them and the Jews?

17. Why would Samaritans receive Jews going north more kindly than when going south?

18. Give the story leading up to the incident of the woman.

19. What four elements in Jesus’ method here noted?

20. Why was the water which he offered the woman "living water"?

21. How did Jesus convict her of sin?

22. What was the first manifestation of her faith?

23. What difficulty did she here suggest?

24. What was Christ’s answer to this difficulty; How does demand more faith?

25. What remarkable declaration from Jesus concerning the nature and disposition of God and the consequent nature and place of worship?

26. What said Augustine on this point?

27. What said the poet?

28. What was the next step in the development of her faith and what the response of Jesus?

29. At what point was she converted and how did she manifest it?

30. At what part of the incident did the disciples marvel and why?

31. Describe the results of this conversion.

32. What is the encouraging teaching from Jesus resulting from this incident?

33. What of the reception of Jesus into Galilee and why?

34. Why did Jesus allow his early disciples to regard him as the Messiah and so announce himself here to the woman, but never declared this to the Jews at Jerusalem till the end of his ministry?

Verses 22-36

XIX

THE CULMINATION OF JOHN’S MINISTRY

In the preceding chapter we have considered the first part of the culmination of John’s ministry, to wit: his baptism of the Messiah, in which, by a divine sign, and the Father’s attestation, he was able to identify Jesus of Nazareth as the person of the Messiah. There remains for consideration in this chapter his testimony to the person so identified, and his presentation of him to Israel in all his messianic offices as the supreme object of faith. Thus as he was the first to preach evangelical repentance, so now must he be the first to preach evangelical faith. His continuation of his ministry after the baptism of the Messiah, was to afford opportunity of this completion of his testimony.

All of this testimony of John the Baptist, after the baptism of Jesus, comes to us through one historian, the apostle John, himself a disciple of John the Baptist. There are four distinct occasions and one general reference, doubtless identical with one of the four. Three of these occasions come in three successive days, certainly full forty days after the baptism, for the forty days of the temptation of Jesus intervene.

The first (and doubtless the second) is John’s reply to a deputation from Jerusalem (John 1:19-28). The second is the following day when he sees Jesus the first time since the baptism (John 1:29-34). The third is the morrow after when he identifies him to two of his own disciples (John 1:35-36). The fourth occurred in the early Judean ministry of Jesus after his first Passover in Jerusalem since his baptism (John 3:22-30). The general reference of John 1:15 applies to the second of these four.

It was impossible for the ecclesiastical authority at Jerusalem to ignore the ministry of John. The whole nation was stirred. The people generally accepted him as a reformer and prophet. And yet his ministry was entirely independent of the Sanhedrin, and of Jerusalem, and of the Temple ritual. Questions were arising in men’s minds, Is this the Messiah, or is it Elijah who precedes the Messiah (Malachi 4:5), or is it the great prophet whose coming was predicted by Moses, (Deuteronomy 18:15-18), what signs accredit him, who sent him, what is the source of his authority, and what is his mission?

Finally, at the instance of the Pharisees, whom he had denounced as the offspring of vipers, a deputation from the Sanhedrin, consisting of priests and Levites, were sent to press him for a definite answer on these points. They found him at the fords of the Jordan (Bethany or Bethabara), but sharp and curt in replying to their inquisition. He disclaimed promptly being either the Messiah, or Elijah, or the Moses prophet. For himself he was only the voice of one crying in the wilderness as predicted by Isaiah. To their questions, "why baptizeth thou, then, and what sign showest thou," and by whose authority he acted, he returned no definite reply the first day, but bore this testimony: "In the midst of you standeth one whom ye know not, even he that cometh after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose."

The next day, however, the deputation doubtless yet with him, he seeth Jesus returning from the temptation, and answers more particularly, pointing to him: "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man who is before me; for he was before me. And I knew him not; but that he should be made manifest to Israel, for this cause I came baptizing in water. And John bare witness saying, I have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven; and it abode upon him, and I knew him not; but he that sent me to baptize in water, he said unto me, Upon whomsoever thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and abiding upon him, the same is he that baptizeth in the Holy Spirit. And I have seen, and have borne witness that this is the Son of God."

This is his great testimony: "Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. I saw him anointed by the Holy Spirit. I heard the Father’s attestation. This is the Lamb of God that penally bears the sin of the world – the great expiatory sacrifice – this is the Son of God – this is he that baptizeth in the Holy Spirit." Prophets, priests, and kings are anointed with the holy anointing oil whose recipe was prescribed by Moses (Exodus 30:22-23). With this was Aaron anointed (Psalms 103:2); and David (Psalms 89:20); and Elisha (1 Kings 19:16). Messiah means the Anointed One. In the case of Jesus he was anointed with the Spirit, which the holy oil symbolized. To two of his disciples he repeats on the morrow: "Behold the Lamb of God!"

The account of John’s last testimony to Jesus is a singular bit of history: "After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized. And John also was baptizing in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there; and they came and were baptized. For John was not yet cast into prison. There arose therefore a questioning on the part of John’s disciples with a Jew about purifying. And they came unto John and said to him, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond the Jordan, to whom thou hast borne witness, behold, the same baptizeth and all men come to him. John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it have been given him from heaven. Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, that standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is made full. He must increase, but I must decrease." "He that cometh from above is above all; he that is of the earth is of the earth, and of the earth he speaketh; he that cometh from heaven is above all. What he hath seen and heard, of that he beareth witness; and no man receiveth his witness. He that hath received his witness hath set his seal to this, that God is true. For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God; for he giveth not the Spirit by measure. The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life; but he that obeyeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." "When therefore the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples), he left Judea and departed again into Galilee" (John 3:22; John 4:3).

The first thought suggested by this narrative is the concurrent ministry of Jesus and John brought near together. The time was when Jesus was closing his early Judean ministry, having just left Jerusalem, where he attended the first Passover after his baptism, where he purified the Temple according to Malachi 3:1-2, wrought many signs and was visited by Nicodemus.

Jesus was on the northern line of Judea, for the record says that when he left for Galilee "He must needs go through Samaria." John was close at hand at a place called Aenon, near to Salim, where was much water or many waters. The site has not been thoroughly settled. Dr. Barclay locates it in a valley five miles northeast of Jerusalem (City of the Great King, pp. 558-570). Robertson (Biblical Researches, Vol. Ill, p. 333) conjectures "Salim over against Nabulus." C. R. Conder (TEnt Work in Palestine, Vol. I, p. 91f) locates it: "Salim near the Shechem." Professor McGarvey, one of the best writers on the Holy Land, thinks he found the identical site in a beautiful valley of the Wady Farra, about one mile wide and three miles long, where were abundant places for baptism in which he saw "swarms of brown-skin boys, both large and small, bathing at different places." (Cited in "Hovey on John’s Gospel," from Journal and Messenger, September 10, 1879.) My own mind is impressed that Professor McGarvey found the Aenon of our text.

Some suggest this rendering of John 3:23: "And John was holding a camp meeting at Aenon, near to Salim, because there was much water there for the campers, their camels and other beasts, and they came and were baptized."

A significant fact about the work of both appears from John 4:1, viz.: Both made disciples before baptizing them and they both made disciples in the same way, by leading them to repentance and faith. Proof for John, Matthew 3:2; Acts 19:4. Proof for Jesus, Mark 1:15. Another fact is disclosed by John 4:1, viz.: By this time Jesus was increasing and John was decreasing, since Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John. But the Pharisees discovered and made use of this fact to make a breach between John and Jesus. When Jesus heard of this meanness, he prudently left Judea, where his work was close enough to John for enemies to make invidious comparison, and passed on into Samaria.

The insidious trouble was brought to John’s disciples at Aenon by a Jew, doubtless a Pharisee, who taunted John’s disciples with the increase of Jesus and the decrease of John. The matter arose this way: "Therefore [referring to the increase of one and the decrease of the other] there arose a questioning about purifying between John’s disciples and a Jew." The following may be inferred from its being made a question of purifying:

(1) That the law and its traditions already, and by real authority, provided for purifying ablutions of the body (See "divers washings" (Greek, baptize) at Hebrews 9:10, and "bathe themselves" and "washings" at Mark 7:4 (Greek, baptize).

(2) That, therefore, a Pharisee would contend, denying that John or Jesus had authority to institute an ordinance, particularly in John’s case, since Jesus by his baptizing more was supplanting him.

John’s disciples, jealous for their leader against Jesus, felt it keenly, hence they say to John, in bitterness, "Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond the Jordan, to whom thou hast borne witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to him" (John 3:26).

The greatness of John’s reply in the last testimony to Jesus is seen from the following items:

(1) He was entitled to nothing more than had been given him.

(2) He reminded them that he had already borne witness that he was not the Messiah, but only his forerunner.

(3) That Jesus was the Messiah and hence, as he had already borne witness, must increase while he decreased.

(4) That Jesus was the bridegroom, entitled to the bride, while he was only the friend of the bridegroom.

(5) That what depressed them was John’s fullness of joy.

(6) That Jesus, being sent from heaven, and having the Spirit given him without measure, must be above any earthly man, and would speak the words of God.

(7) That Jesus, as the Son of the Father, was beloved of the Father and had rightly all things given to him.

(8) Therefore "He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life; but he that obeyeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:36). This is his last and sublimest testimony.

John should have gone on with his work after he baptized Jesus, as has already been said, to have opportunity to complete his testimony and to present Jesus in all his messianic offices as the supreme object of faith.

A singular book of the baptismal controversy arose from this passage, setting forth two points:

(1) Dr. Edward Beecher, son of Dr. Lyman Beecher and brother of Henry Ward Beecher, followed the Jew-Pharisee in contending that baptism was only a question of purifying.

(2) And as purifying among the Jews was a general term, some purifying done by sprinkling, some by pouring, and some by dipping, it was immaterial which of the three ways should be employed in baptizing.

The great fallacy of his book is that only purifying by immersion was involved in this question. But regarding this last testimony of John we cannot be sure that John 3:31-36 are the words of John the Baptist and therefore we cannot be dogmatic about it. The historian John does not always make it clear where his quotation stops and where he resumes his narrative. In this case, if the words be the evangelist’s, he is only filling out the conclusions of John’s testimony. He leaves us in the same doubt at John 1:15-18.

QUESTIONS

1. From which historian cornea all John’s testimony concerning Jesus after his baptism?

2. What four occasions?

3. To which of the four belongs the general reference in John 1:15?

4. What makes the first occasion very important, and how did it naturally arise?

5. What was the sum of John’s testimony the first day?

6. Was the deputation present the next day, and why do you think so?

7. What of the sum of the testimony this time?

8. What part of this testimony repeated to two of his disciples the third day?

9. What does "Messiah" mean?

10. Where do you find Moses’ recipe for the holy anointing oil?

11. What high officers were anointed with it, and what one case each?

12. In the case of Jesus, how anointed?

13. What is the account of John’s last testimony to Jesus?

14. What is the first thought suggested by this narrative?

15. What is the time?

16. Explain their proximity.

17. What is the matter with the rendering of John 3:23 as suggested by some?

18. What fact about the work of both appears from John 4:1?

19. What scriptures show that both made disciples in the same way?

20. What other fact disclosed by John 4:1?

21. Who discovered and made use of this fact to make a breach between John and Jesus?

22. When Jesus heard of this meanness what did he do?

23. How was the insidious trouble brought to John’s disciples at Aenon?

24. In what form did the matter arise?

25. What may be inferred from its being made a question of purifying?

26. How did this affect John’s disciples?

27. What of the greatness of John’s reply in the last testimony to Jesus?

28. Why should John have gone on with his work after he baptized Jesus?

29. What singular book of the baptismal controversy arose from this passage, what its points and what its great fallacy?

30. May we be sure that John 3:31-36 is the testimony of John the Baptist?