The Gospel of St. John. Joseph MacRory
See Ezech. xxxvi. 25; Zach. xiii. 1.
| 11. Amen, amen, dico tibi, quia quod scimus loquimur, et quod vidimus testamur, et testimonium nostrum non accipitis. | 11. Amen, amen I say to thee, that we speak what we know, and we testify what we have seen, and you receive not our testimony. |
11. Christ continues using the solemn form of asseveration. [pg 065] What we know. The plural is used not of Himself and the Holy Spirit, nor of Himself and the Prophets, nor of all born of the Spirit, nor of the Three Persons of the Trinity, but simply as a plural of majesty. What we have seen. Sight, says St. Chrys. on this verse, we consider the most certain of all the senses, so that when we say we saw such a thing with our eyes, we seem to compel men to believe us. In like manner, Christ, speaking after the manner of men, does not indeed mean that He has seen actually with the bodily eye the mysteries He reveals, but it is manifest that He means He has the most certain and absolute (and we may add, immediate: see above on i. 18) knowledge of them. In these words, then, Christ insists upon His authority to teach, and His claim to be believed.
| 12. Si terrena dixi vobis, et non creditis: quomodo, si dixero vobis coelestia, credetis? | 12. If I have spoken to you earthly things, and you believe not: how will you believe if I shall speak to you heavenly things? |
12. If you will not believe Me when I teach you the comparatively elementary doctrine of Baptism, which regards the regeneration of man here on earth, how shall you believe if I go on to speak of truths more sublime, more removed from the realms of sense and human comprehension? The spiritual vision of Nicodemus was hardly able to bear the first ray of truth; how then was it to bear the full flood of the light of higher revelation?
| 13. Et nemo ascendit in coelum, nisi qui descendit de coelo, Filius hominis, qui est in coelo. | 13. And no man hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended from heaven, the son of man who is in heaven. |
13. The meaning is: No one was in heaven except Him who has descended from heaven, and now speaks to you; namely, the Son of Man, who still remains in heaven. In this view, which is that of St. Thomas, Toletus, and Beelen, Christ speaks of Himself as having ascended into heaven only to accommodate His language to human ideas, which conceive of ascent to heaven as necessary, in order to our being there. The Son of Man, as Son of God, had, of course, been there from all eternity [pg 066] and needed not to ascend. Some think that Christ here begins to explain the “heavenly things” referred to in the preceding verse; but a more probable connection is the following:—He had said: how shall you believe heavenly things from Me since you question even the elementary truths which I tell you? And yet from Me alone you must learn such things, for no one else has been in heaven, so as to know and be able to teach you the mysteries of God.
| 14. Et sicut Moyses exaltavit serpentem in deserto, ita exaltarioportet Filium hominis: | 14. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the son of man be lifted up: |
| 15. Ut omnis, qui credit in ipsum, non pereat, sed habeat vitam aeternam. | 15. That whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. |
14, 15. Christ now goes on to speak of some of the more sublime doctrines. As Moses raised up the serpent, upon which whosoever looked was healed (Numbers xxi. 4-9), so must Christ be lifted up on the cross (see John viii. 28; xii. 32-34), to save those who believe in Him. The best supported Greek reading of verse 15 would be rendered:—That everyone who believes may, through him, have eternal life; μὴ ἀπόληται αλλ᾽ (may not perish, but) not being genuine, and ἐν αὐτώ standing instead of εἰς αὐτόν. Though faith is the only condition to salvation which is mentioned in verse 15, others are supposed, as is evident from verse 5:—“Unless a man be born again.” &c. Faith, however, is often specially referred to, because as the Council of Trent (Sess. vi., c. 8) says:—“Fides est humanae salutis initium, fundamentum, et radix omnis justificationis.”
| 16. Sic enim Deus dilexit mundum, ut Filium suum unigenitum daret: ut omnis, qui credit in eum, non pereat, sed habeat vitam aeternam. | 16. For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. |
16. Some commentators, following Erasmus, hold that what follows to the end of verse 21, is not the language of Christ, but a comment of the Evangelist; but more probably Christ still continues. The boundless love of God for the world, and not merely for the elect, is declared to be the cause of the incarnation, and the world's salvation its object. It was this love that made God give His only-begotten Son to suffer for men and save them.
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| 17. Non enim misit Deus Filium suum in mundum, ut iudicet mundum, sed ut salvetur mundus per ipsum. | 17. For God sent not his Son, into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him. |
17. For it was to save, not to judge the world, that the Son of God came at His first coming. Hereafter in His second coming He will come to judge and to condemn (the context proves there is question of the judgment of condemnation).
| 18. Qui credit in eum, non iudicatur: qui autem non credit, iam iudicatus est, quia non credit in nomine unigeniti Filii Dei. | 18. He that believeth in him is not judged. But he that doth not believe is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God. |
18. He who believeth in Christ escapes the judgment of condemnation; but he who believeth not is already condemned, because, inasmuch as he has not believed, “the wrath of God,” i.e., original sin (Eph. ii. 3) and its effects in actual sin, remain upon him (verse 36); and he has rejected the only means whereby he could be delivered from them. It is as it a physician were sent to the sick, says St. Augustine, they who come to him are cured; they who come not, perish; not through him, however, but because of their disease.
| 19. Hoc est autem iudicium: quia lux venit in mundum, et dilexerunt homines magis tenebras quam lucem: erant enim eorum mala opera. | 19. And this is the judgment: because the light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil. |
19. This is the reason of the condemnation, namely, that men do not come to the light, but rather shrink from it, through the fear of being forced by an awakened conscience to abandon sin.
| 20. Omnis enim qui male agit, odit lucem, et non venit ad lucem, ut non arguantur opera eius: | 20. For every one that doth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, that his works may not be reproved: |
20. For every one that doth evil, and, as St. Chrys. explains determines to remain in his wickedness, hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, that his works may not be reproved.
| 21. Qui autem facit veritatem, venit ad lucem, ut manifestentur opera eius, quia in Deo sunt facta. | 21. But he that doth truth, cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, because they are done in God. |
21. But he that doth the [pg 068]truth; that is to say, what truth directs, or rather the practical truth of good works, for right action is the realization of true thought, cometh to the light, by accepting the faith of Christ, by believing (v. 18). That his works may be made manifest. Just as he who does evil, and intends to persist in it, shuns the light, in order that his works may not be reproved (v. 20), so he who does good, and means to persevere in it, comes to the light and believes, in order that his works may be approved. The antithesis between this and the preceding verse, shows that the manifestation of which there is question here is equivalent to approval; and indeed, from the nature of the case, the manifestation of such works in the light of Christian truth would be necessarily followed by their approval, not only by God, but also by the enlightened judgment of him who wrought them.
Because (ὅτι) they are done (Gr. have been done) in God. These words may be differently connected. They may give the reason why he who does good, readily comes to the light, namely, because his works have been good, and he is not afraid to have them tested. Or, they might be understood to give the reason why such a one's works are approved, namely because they are done in God. Or again, ὅτι