1912 143 While scripture as a whole forms a complete circle of truth, a single verse may present, as it were, a "perfect round." Notably is it so with the passage under consideration.
After commending His disciples for having believed that He came forth from beside (para) God, or the Father, as some give it, our Lord enlarges the statement and utters the wondrous words, "I came out (ek) from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go unto the Father." The whole of the Saviour's work on earth is thus divinely summarised, and the wheel, if I may be permitted the expression, comes full circle. Let us note one or two points of contrast. There is, to begin with, the well-known antithesis of the Father and the world, not less absolute and vivid than that of the Son and the devil, the Holy Spirit and the flesh. The Lord says, "I leave (aphiemi) the world, a word that certainly suggests the abandoning of that which had so utterly failed to appreciate Him. So in John 14:19, the Lord says, "The world seeth me no more."
Next, we have the identity of essence of the Father and the Son in the expression "out of the Father" (ek tou Patros) in marked contrast with the para tou Patros or para tou Theou of the previous verse. This last, of course, implies the session of the Son at God's right hand, to which He returns. "I go to the Father" (pros ton Patera). Again, the tense (exelthon) employed to describe where our Lord came from, denotes the act of coming forth, while in the statement, "I have come" ('elelutha) abiding results are as clearly thrown into strong relief. The Lord has come into this world, and so the world can never be as if He had not come. Momentous are the consequences for believer and unbeliever. And, lastly, we have in "I go" (poreuomai) a word suggestive of solemn, ordered, and stately progress back to the Father. R.B.
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1912 132 It has been said of some that they wrought, of others that they wrote or spoke better than they knew. Doubtless even Abraham only vaguely entered into the far-reaching, mysterious import of the words with which he calmed the anxiety of Isaac with regard to a sacrificial lamb. God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering" (Gen. 22:8).
How these words have echoed down the ages, and what a striking exemplification we have here of the admirable saying of St. Augustine that the Old Testament enfolds what the New unfolds! So do nicely adjusted mirrors with their opposing beams materially enhance each other's radiance.
Next, we may note the remarkable way in which the Patriarch enters into God's side of the question. "God will provide himself a lamb. So Simeon, "Mine eyes have seen thy salvation." Sometimes we think too exclusively of our salvation, though doubtless the sinner must begin with the sin-offering. But God's portion, so to speak, must come first, as we learn in the opening of Leviticus. And in beautiful accord are these worts of Abraham. R.B.
1 John 2:6
1912 192 "He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk even as he walked." The italicised pronoun is in the original Greek a word of vivid force. The English reader naturally is unaware of any special emphasis. But it is there, and that in a marked degree. Several times indeed St. John uses it in this Epistle in reference to our Lord. And it has been beautifully observed by the late Archbishop Alexander that the thought of his Lord, and of the perfect life which he himself had pourtrayed in the Fourth Gospel, the scroll of which, may be, was beside him as he wrote, half hushes the apostle's voice, and so instead of mentioning the revered name, which all who loved it would easily supply, he consequently merely says "that One" (ekeinos), that great, that adorable One. This comment is as just and well-warranted as it is exquisitely beautiful.
"He that says he abides in him." Have we not here in brief the concentrated doctrine of John 15:1-7 And then the tense in which the apostle refers to the Saviour's walk sums it all up, as it were. It is the aorist (periepatese), and presents that spotless life as a perfect whole. Contrariwise, and most appropriately, in the admonition to the professor he enforces the necessity of ever walking as He walked. In short it is the present infinitive, peripatein.
What endless beauties, "lights and perfections "(may one not say?) are to be found by the reverent student of the holy word! R.B.
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1912 192 In Enoch translated to heaven before the deluge, and in Noah preserved through it, we have typically the rapture to heaven of the church previous to the Apocalyptic judgments through which a people is preserved for the earth.
"Bearing Twelve Fruits"
Revelation 22:2
1913 352 Although the precise force of the original be doubtful, i.e., whether we should interpret the words that literally signify "bearing twelve fruits," as meaning merely fresh fruits, or, as we would fain take it, if not too precarious a conclusion, twelve manner of fruits, as the Authorised Version gives it, in either case a wonderful richness of Divine blessing is promised for the millennial day. Undoubtedly there will be perennial freshness, but it would be only in keeping with what we know, each in our measure, of God's lavish largess, may we say, to His children, if the words (poioun karpous dodeka) point to a full circle, as it were — a most opulent variety in the spiritual food that will be administered on the renovated earth. And, if so, or, rather, since it is so, how much greater will be the fulness of fruition in the heavenly scene! Truly, as one has said, it will be, "Taste after taste, upheld with kindlier change." But indeed the very fact of the almost bewildering variety of flower and fruit, with which the goodness of Providence has blest even this transitory scene of human life, points to at least as great bounty for the millennium, and, as we have said, how much more for the consummation of that which is heavenly. R.B.