Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXIMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. John -- Commentaries
The incident recorded in this appendix to John's Gospel is separated
from the other appearances of our risen Lord in respect of place, time,
and purpose. They all occurred in and about Jerusalem; this took place
in Galilee. The bulk of them happened on the day of the Resurrection,
one of them a week after. This, of course, to allow time for the
journey, must have been at a considerably later date. Their object was,
mainly, to establish the reality of the Resurrection, the identity of
Christ's physical body, and to confirm the faith of the disciples
therein. Here, these purposes retreat into the background; the object
of this incident is to reveal the permanent relations between the risen
Lord and His struggling Church.
The narrative is rich in details which might profitably occupy us, but
the whole may be gathered up in two general points of view in
considering the revelation which we have here in the participation of
Christ in His servants' work, and also the revelation which we have in
the preparation by Christ of a meal for His toiling servants. We take
this whole narrative thus regarded as our subject on this Easter
morning.
I. First we have here a revelation of the permanent relation of Jesus
Christ to His Church and to the individuals who compose it, in this,
that the risen Lord on the shore shares in the toil of His servants on
the restless sea.
The little group of whom we read in this narrative reminds us of the
other group of the first disciples in the first chapter of this Gospel.
Four out of the five persons named in our text appear there: Simon
Peter, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, James and
John. And a very natural inference is that the 'two others' unnamed
here are the two others of that chapter, viz. Andrew and Philip. If so,
we have at the end, the original little group gathered together again;
with the addition of the doubting Thomas.
Be that as it may, there they are on the shore of the sea, and Peter
characteristically takes the lead and suggests a course that they all
accept: 'I go a fishing.' 'We also go with thee.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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