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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - John 6:71 - 6:71
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
71. Ἰσκαριώτου for Ἰσκαριώτην, with the earlier MSS. and best copies of the Vulgate.
We see more and more as we go on, that this Gospel makes no attempt to be a complete or connected whole. There are large gaps in the chronology. The Evangelist gives us not a biography, but a series of typical scenes, very carefully selected, and painted with great accuracy and minuteness, but not closely connected. As to what guided him in his selection, we know no more than the general purpose stated Joh 20:31, and it is sufficient for us. Those words and works of Jesus, which seemed most calculated to convince men that He ‘is the Christ, the Son of God,’ were recorded by the beloved Apostle. And the fact that they had already been recorded by one or more of the first Evangelists did not deter him from insisting on them again; although he naturally more often chose what they had omitted. In this chapter we have a notable instance of readiness to go over old ground in order to work out his own purpose. The miracle of feeding the Five Thousand is recorded by all four Evangelists, the only miracle that is so. Moreover, it is outside the Judaean ministry; so that for this reason also we might have expected S. John to omit it. But he needs it as a text for the great discourse on the Bread of Life; and this though spoken in Galilee was in a great measure addressed to Jews from Jerusalem; so that both text and discourse fall naturally within the range of S. John’s plan. Moreover by producing an outburst of popular enthusiasm (Joh 6:15) it shewed how utterly the current ideas about the Messiah were at variance with Christ’s work.
As in chap. 5. Christ is set forth as the Source of Life, so in this chapter He is set forth as the Support of Life. In the one the main idea is the Son’s relation to the Father, in the other it is the Son’s relation to the believer.