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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - John 14:18 - 14:18
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Joh_14:18. Development of the consolatory element in this promised communication of the Spirit, onwards to Joh_14:21.
οὐκ ἀφήσω ὑμ . ὀρφ .] I will not leave you behind, as those who (after my departure) are to be orphans (Joh_14:27; Mar_12:19; Tob_11:2; Sir_6:2; 1Ma_12:41; Soph. Aj. 491; Phil. 484). The expression itself (comp. τεκνία , Joh_13:33) is that of the πατρικὴ εὐσπλαγχνία (Euth. Zigabenus).
ἔρχομαι πρὸς ὑμᾶς ] Without mediatory particle ( γάρ ) in the intensity of the emotional affection. That Jesus means by this coming, i.e. according to the connection coming again (see on Joh_4:16), not the final historical Parousia (Augustine, Beda, Maldonatus, Paulus, Luthardt, Hofmann), is shown by the whole of the following context (quite otherwise, Joh_14:3). See, especially, Joh_14:19, where it is not the world, but the disciples who are to see Him, which is as little appropriate to the Parousia as the ἔτι μικρόν ;[150] further, Joh_14:20-21, where spiritual fellowship is spoken of, the knowledge of which cannot first begin with the Parousia, and Joh_14:23, where μονὴν παρʼ αὐτῷ ποιησ . is not in harmony with the idea of the Parousia, since in this the disciples take up their abode with God (Joh_14:3, comp. 2Co_5:8), not God with them, which takes place through the communication of the Spirit. Most of the older expositors refer to the Resurrection of Christ, and to the new union with the Risen One. So Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Ruperti, Erasmus, Grotius, and many others, and again Kaeuffer, Hilgenfeld, Weiss, and, with a spiritualizing view of the resurrection, Ewald. But opposed to this are Joh_14:20-21; Joh_14:23; Joh_16:16; Joh_16:22-23, expressions all of which equally point to a higher spiritual fellowship,[151] as the οὐκ ἀφ . ὑμ . ὀρφ . also already presupposes a new abiding union. Justly, therefore, have most of the moderns (Lücke, Tholuck, Olshausen, B. Crusius, Frommann, Köstlin, Reuss, Maier, Baeumlein, Godet, Scholten, but also already Calvin and several others) understood by the Paraclete the spiritual coming of Christ, in which He Himself, only in another form of existence, came to the disciples. It is not yet, indeed, the consummation of the reunion; this latter first takes place at the Parousia, and therefore up to that time the state of orphanage still relatively continues, the community seeks its Lord (Joh_13:33), and waits for Him; and believers have to regard themselves as ἐκδημοῦντες ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου (2Co_5:6), whose life in Him with God is not yet revealed (Col_3:1-4) (in answer to Luthardt’s objections). Others explain it in a twofold sense, so that Christ intended His Resurrection, and at the same time His spiritual return. So Luther, Beza, Lampe, Bengel, Kuinoel, De Wette, Brückner, Lange, Ebrard; where De Wette, with this interpretation, assigns the first place to the spiritual thought, as also Hengstenberg. But the bodily ἔρχεσθαι is not indicated at all (as, if so, it would have been, in opposition to the mission of the Paraclete, by the addition of an ἐγὼ αὐτός ), and the entire promise of the Paraclete, of which the present passage is an integral part, transports to a time in which the Resurrection of Christ had long passed. Generally, however, to maintain a twofold sense can only be justified by evidence from the connection.
[150] Without ground, 1Jn_2:18, Rev_22:7; Rev_22:12, are appealed to for the setting aside of this shortness of time. How much later were these passages written than our ἔτι μικρόν was spoken!
[151] Which historically took its beginning, not with the appearances of the Risen One, so enigmatic to the disciples themselves, removed and estranged from the old confidential relations, but first with the outpouring of the Spirit. Thence-forward Christ lived in them, and His heart beat in them, and out of them He spake.
OBSERVATION.
That Jesus, according to John, does not speak at all in express terms of His resurrection, but only in allusions like Joh_2:19, Joh_10:17-18, is in entire harmony with the spiritual character of the Gospel, according to which the return of the Paraclete was the principal thing on which the hopes of the disciples had to fix themselves. From death to the δόξα , out of which Jesus had to send the Spirit, the resurrection formed only the transition. But that He also cannot have in reality predicted His resurrection with such definiteness as it is related in the Synoptics, is clear from the whole behaviour of the disciples before and after the occurrence of the resurrection, so that in this point also the preference belongs to the Johannean account. See on Mat_16:21.