Quiet Talks on John's GospelGordon, S. D. (Samuel Dickey)
Religion
Quiet Talks on John's Gospel
Gordon, S. D. (Samuel Dickey)
Bible. John -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Then comes Jesus' faithful open offer of Himself in kingly fashion to
the nation, with the tremendous enthusiasm of the multitudes, and the
hardening of the official purpose to do the one thing that will offset
this wild-fire enthusiasm.[44]
And then comes the apparently simple, but in meaning tremendous,
incident of the inquiring Greeks. The Jew door is slamming shut, but the
outside door is opening. Here the whole world opens its door, its front
door, in these Greek representatives of the best culture the earth knew.
But Jesus' vision never blurs. He understands; He alone. The only route
to Greece and the whole outer world is the underground route, the way
through Joseph's tomb.
And as the intense spirit-struggle passes, Jesus quietly goes on with
His searching appealing talk to the crowd, and then slips away into
hiding till His hour had full come.[45] And with breaking heart John
sadly recalls Isaiah's wondrous foresight of just these days and
events.[46] These are the four incidents in this third chief group.
And so the door shuts. The wooing ceases. This bit of John's story is
done. The evidence is all in. The case is made up. The nation's door to
its King shuts. The Lover's wooing of the nation ceases. John turns to a
new chapter. No further evidence is brought forward. The case rests with
the jury. The door had been shutting for a good while. The inside
door-keepers had been pulling it hard. But the great Man outside had His
hand on the knob delaying the shutting process, in the earnest hope that
it yet might be quite stopped. Now His hand reluctantly loosens its
hold. The knob is free. The inside pull does its work. The door goes to
with a vigorous slam.
The wooing is not _wholly_ done. There is still the indirect, the tacit
wooing. There's still opportunity. All through that fateful night from
Gethsemane's gate, to the last word at Pilate's seat the Lover is
wooing. But it is wooing by action, by presence, by yielding. No
pleading word is spoken. The direct wooing is done. Tender, earnest,
insistent, patient, tremendous, irresistible in itself save to those who
willed to resist anything and everything no matter what or
whom,--wondrous wooing it has been. Now it's over. That chapter is done.
Way-marks in John's Narrative.
Out of this simple running account several things sift themselves, and
stand out to our eyes. The action of the story swings chiefly _about
Jerusalem_. The other parts seem but background to make Jerusalem stand
out big. In this John's Gospel differs radically from the other three.
They are absorbed chiefly with the tireless gracious Galilean ministry
of Jesus, till the last great events force them to Jerusalem.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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