Joseph MacRory

“ The Latin fathers understand the sense to be; I have glorified Thee from all eternity, and will glorify Thee again as God-man after Thy ascension. In favour of this view is the prayer of Christ: “And now glorify Thou Me, O Father, with Thyself, with the glory which I had before the world was, with Thee” (John xvii. 5) . The Greek fathers, on the other hand, all take the sense to be: I have already glorified Thee by many miracles, and will again glorify Thee in the miracles to be wrought at Thy death, resurrection, and ascension, and afterwards by Thy followers in Thy name. ”

“ That He alone looked into the sepulchre, is incredible; for we may be sure that the natural curiosity of the crowd assembled, led many of them to look into the sepulchre. Is it likely too, that if Jesus on looking into the sepulchre saw His friend alive, He would coolly begin to return thanks to God, and then quietly tell Lazarus to come out? He should have been more than man, which our adversaries will not admit Him to have been, to preserve such coolness in such circumstances. ”

“ The world saw in the sanctity of the Christian religion, in the miracles wrought by Christ's followers, in the power of the Apostles and their successors over devils and those possessed by devils, what ought to have convinced it of Christ's Divinity, and of its own sin and inevitable condemnation. ”

“ Time does not wear it away; use does not consume it; unless it be expelled, it never departs: “He that drinks ... shall not thirst for ever.”
14. But so far from thirsting, he shall have that within him, that is, the Holy Ghost and His graces, which will conduct him to eternal life. In this beautiful metaphor, the spiritual water of grace is represented as finding its own level; coming from heaven, it will return thither in those [pg 079] whom it has saved. The mention of eternal life ought to have made it clear that Christ spoke of supernatural and spiritual water. ”

“ But why should the disciples imagine that the man might have been born blind on account of his own sins? Some think that the disciples may have been imbued with the false notions of the Jews regarding the transmigration of souls, and have thought that this man's soul had sinned in some previous state of existence, and been therefore imprisoned in a blind body. But it is unlikely that the disciples at this time, the third year of our Lord's public life, were still in such ignorance.70 Others think that the question means: was he born blind for some sin which it was foreseen he would commit? ”

“ From the teaching of Christ, then, or by inspiration, or in both ways, our Evangelist received the sublime doctrine regarding the λόγος with which his Gospel opens.
Having now inquired into the origin of the term λόγος as applied to the Son of God, and having learned the source whence St. John derived his doctrine regarding this Divine Word, let us try to understand how it is that the Son of God could be appropriately referred to as the Word (ὁ λόγος) . Many answers have been given, but we will confine ourselves to the one that seems to us most satisfactory. ”

“ Thou hast well said, I have no husband, or rather, husband I have not, with an emphasis on husband, which is marked in the Greek by its position in the sentence, as reproduced by Christ.
Thou hast had five husbands. Though St. Chrys. and Mald. think that there is question, not of husbands, but of paramours, the common opinion, and certainly the obvious one, is that husbands are spoken of. It is not necessary to suppose that the husbands made room for one another by death, for she may have been divorced by several of them. ”

“ Share with My Apostles the glory which Thou art about to bestow upon Me because from all eternity Thou hast loved Me, and predestined Me as man for this glory. In this view the love of the Father for Christ as man is the reason why He glorifies Christ's humanity.
The phrase before the creation of the world, or more accurately, “before the foundation of the world,” denotes that the world is not eternal; while Christ's claim to have been loved by the Father before creation, is a claim to personal existence before the world began, and indirectly, therefore, a claim to an eternal Personality. ”

“ Doubtless the Apostles did not yet know much about the mystery of the Divine procession; still they could gather from these words that the new Comforter was to announce to them the truth, as Christ's legate, and this was enough.
But what things soever he shall hear, he shall speak. A Divine Person [pg 284] (unless He were possessed of two natures, like Jesus Christ) cannot be conceived to acquire anything except in His procession; for once He is a Divine Person He is infinite, and can receive nothing that He does not already possess. ”

“ Christ's human will had, strictly speaking, the power of resisting the will of God, and of sinning, and was therefore free: consequently, His human will was free in accepting the command to die, because, strictly speaking, it had the power to resist. No doubt this power could never be reduced to act in our Divine Lord, for the Second Divine Person, in virtue of its hypostatic union with Christ's humanity, was bound to preserve His human will from sin by the operation of grace. ”

“ It is admitted by all that the reference in these words is to the general resurrection, and the Jews are told not to be surprised at the spiritual resurrection, inasmuch as the resurrection of all flesh shall come to pass at the word of the same Son of God. The words of this verse imply that the spiritual resurrection excites less wonder than the corporal; and this indeed is true, for though the spiritual resurrection is, in fact, the greater miracle, and in itself more wonderful, yet it is not sensible, and cannot excite our wonder so much as the raising of even one dead body to life. ”

“ In my Father's house there are many mansions. Here He puts before them the first motive of consolation; namely, that there is room for them as well as for Him in heaven, in that house of God, the eternal antitype of the Jewish Temple (ii. 16) , wherein He exercised the rights of a Son. “Mansions” renders the Vulgate “mansiones,” which were resting-places or stations along the highways, where travellers found refreshments. The Greek word μονή is found in the New Testament only here and in verse 23. ”

“ No two men will think alike on all the difficult and intricate questions arising out of the Gospel of St. John; and while I should feel it my duty, if lecturing on the work of another, to impose upon the students of my class the necessity of taking notes, I have hope that the present work will to a large extent obviate such a necessity. His Grace's work will, no doubt, continue to be used by many of our students in preference to mine, and with all of them it will still hold its place as a useful book of reference. ”

“ In the end of verse 23 and in this verse Christ goes on to give the reasons why this worship, which is primarily spiritual, is to exist in the new and more perfect dispensation— (1) . It is the Father's will. (2) It is meet that such should be the worship paid to Him who is Himself a Spirit. It is hardly necessary to point out that Calvin's interpretation of adoration by faith alone cannot be admitted. Were that sufficient, the devils themselves would be true adorers, for “the devils also believe and tremble” (James ii. 19) . ”

“ From the nature of the case, Baptism, being a new birth, is absolutely necessary for all who are to live the new spiritual life; and as many as are born, must be born again in order to live the higher life; but the Blessed Eucharist is not the introduction to a new life, but a means of nourishing the life already acquired. ”

“ The spirit is the spirit of man elevated and ennobled by grace; the flesh, the corrupt dispositions and weak thoughts of human nature unaided by grace (see Rom. viii. 5, 6) ; and the meaning of the verse is; it is the mind illumined by grace that quickeneth to faith and to a proper understanding of My words; the mind or human nature by itself is of no avail in such matters; the words which I have spoken to you are to be understood by the mind quickened and illumined by grace. So St. Chrys., Teoph., Wisem., Perr., M'Ev. ”

“ To Christ's promise that the truth should make them free, some of the crowd who remained incredulous, replied that they were never slaves, to which Christ makes answer that they are the slaves of sin: and only when the Son of God shall free them, shall they be truly free. Verse 35 is an illustration drawn from ordinary life. As slaves who displease their masters may be sold, or expelled from the household, so you who, instead of serving God, are the slaves of sin, are, and shall remain, excluded from the household of God here and hereafter. ”

“ This opinion, considered equally probable with the preceding by Maldonatus, and held by Beelen and Corluy, we prefer; for in verse 24, the fact that God is a Spirit (it is not stated that He is also Truth) is given as the reason why He should be worshipped in both spirit and truth.
The distinguishing features of true Christian worship, indicated in verses 21, 23, are that it is to be universal, not restricted, like the Jewish or Samaritan, to Jerusalem or Garizim; and spiritual, offered with hearts animated by faith and grace, and not consisting merely in external rites. ”

“ The Lord of heaven weeps over the grave of His departed friend. In no other part of the Gospels are the human and Divine sides of our Blessed Lord's character more clearly brought out than in this beautiful story of the raising of Lazarus. ”

“ The darkness is man shrouded in unbelief. See Luke i. 79, Eph. v. 8.
And the darkness did not comprehend it.24 As we have just said, the meaning is, that unbelieving men refused to be enlightened. Ordinarily, indeed, light cannot shine in darkness without dispelling it; but in this case the darkness was man, a free agent, capable of rejecting the light of faith through which the Eternal Word was shining. ”

“ Christ is said to have been full of grace and truth, not merely in Himself, but also, as the following verses prove, in reference to men with whom He freely shared them. Kuinoel, followed by Patrizzi, understands by “grace and truth” true grace or true benefits. But it is more natural to take grace and truth as two distinct things, seeing that they are again mentioned separately (ἡ χάρις καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια) in verse 17. Grace may be understood in its widest sense; for not only had Christ the “gratia unionis,” as it is called, whereby His humanity was hypostatically united to the Divinity ”

“ The Pasch (Heb. pesach, פסח) , beginning at evening on the 14th, and ending at evening on the 21st of Nisan,35 was the greatest festival of the Jews. The word “pasch” means the passing over (from pasach, פסח, to pass or leap over) , and the name was given to this festival as commemorating the passing over of the houses of the Israelites when the destroying angel slew the first-born in the land of Egypt (see Exod xii. 11, 12) .
And Jesus went up to Jerusalem. At the three principal feasts: Pasch, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, all the male adults were bound to go up to the temple at Jerusalem. ”

“ The Pharisees themselves disagree as to the character of Christ, and ask the man who had been cured (note how he is still spoken of as blind, just as in the Blessed Eucharist (vi. 52) the flesh of Christ is spoken of as bread, not because it is any longer bread, but because of what it is known to have been shortly before) what he thought of Him who cured him. His reply is that Christ is a prophet (προφητής without the article) , a man sent by God; not the Prophet, for he did not yet recognise Christ as the Messias. ”

“ He means to justify his original statement: “I and the Father are one” (verse 30) ; but these statements are synonymous, and the one justifies the other only when there is question of natural Sonship. No merely adopted son of God could say that He is one with the Father.
Any of these answers solves the objection drawn from these verses against Christ's Divinity; but we prefer the last, and hold, therefore, that Christ first proves against the Pharisees that He has a right to call Himself God, and then goes on to show in what sense He is God. ”

“ Augustine is generally supposed to have understood this text in reference to the preachers of the New Testament, “ascending” when they preach the more sublime, “descending,” when they preach the more elementary doctrines of religion. If St. Augustine meant this as a literal interpretation of the passage, as he [pg 046] certainly seems to do in Tract vii. on this Gospel, we cannot accept it. Surely, something stranger and more striking is promised here, after the opening of the heavens, than the sight of preachers! ”

“ For the Jewish sacrifices and ceremonies were only shadows and types of the realities in the New Law. “For the law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image (reality) of the things: by the selfsame sacrifices which they offer continually every year, can never make the comers thereunto perfect” (Heb. x. 1) , Mald., who favours next opinion also.
(3) “In spirit” and “in truth” are synonymous, and signify true supernatural worship, springing from faith and grace, and hence opposed to all imperfect or false worship. ”

“ We think it very probable that the charism of miracles is here promised not merely to the Apostles, but to the Church, in which it still resides; for it is promised to whoever believeth. Of course, not every faith is sufficient that we may work miracles; a specially strong, unwavering faith is necessary. ”

“ Christ explains why the agent of the regeneration of which He speaks must be the Holy Ghost. What is born of man (flesh here is taken for human nature without grace) , is merely human; what is born of the Holy Ghost, is spiritual, and partakes of the Divine (2 Pet. i. 4) . Since, then, the new life to which a man must be born again is spiritual, a spiritual and supernatural principle is required. ”

“ John here declares the motive of Judas. It was not love for the poor, as he pretended, but because, being purse-bearer, for our Lord and the disciples, he was always anxious to receive money, that he might have an opportunity of filching some of it for himself. Whether with our Rhemish Version we give ἐβάσταζεν the meaning of “carried,” or, as others prefer, “made away with,” at all events, it is plain from the verse, in which Judas is declared a thief, that he sometimes appropriated to his own uses money from the common purse. ”

“ The meaning of the whole passage, then, we take to be the following:—And when the Holy Ghost is come, He will clearly prove to the unbelieving world, principally through your preaching and miracles, its own sin, My justice, and its own condemnation. Its own sin of incredulity, which is proved by the fact that the children of this wicked world did not believe in Me (verse 9) ; My justice, which is proved by the fact that I go to God to reign with Him for ever, so that men shall see Me no more ”

“ That there is not question merely of a barren faith, is proved by the comparison in [pg 182] the next verse between this knowledge and Christ's. If it be objected that all Christians do not love Christ, we reply that, as far as in Him lies, they do; and the purpose of the parable is to show Christ's love and solicitude for His sheep, to show forth what He does for them, not what they do for Him. He knows them, gathers them into His one fold, saves them by His grace here, and conducts them to heaven hereafter. ”

“ Others, as Maldonatus and Patrizzi, hold that the Evangelist is here adding to his own testimony, and that of the Baptist, the testimony of our Lord Himself, in favour of all that he has said regarding our Lord in this sublime prologue; the meaning being: What I have said regarding the eternity, personality, and Divinity of the Word, regarding His power as creator and regenerator, and regarding His incarnation, I have neither seen with my own eyes, nor learned from anyone who saw, for “no man hath seen God at any time,” but Jesus Christ Himself explained these things to me. ”

“ It is absurd, however, to seek in this miracle of our Divine Lord any excuse for intemperance. As well might God be accused of conniving at intemperance, because He fills the grape each year with the moisture of earth and heaven, and then transmutes this into the nobler juices which He knows man will convert into wine. ”