John 2:11-16 sits inside this longer paragraph.
5His mother said to the servants, “Whatever he says to you, do it.” 6Now there were six water pots of stone set there after the Jews’ way of purifying, containing two or three metretes apiece. 7Jesus said to them, “Fill the water pots with water.” So they filled them up to the brim. 8He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the ruler of the feast.” So they took it. 9When the ruler of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and didn’t know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the ruler of the feast called the bridegroom 10and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when the guests have drunk freely, then that which is worse. You have kept the good wine until now!” 11This beginning of his signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
12After this, he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they stayed there a few days. 13The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14He found in the temple those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, and the changers of money sitting. 15He made a whip of cords, and threw all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen; and he poured out the changers’ money and overthrew their tables. 16To those who sold the doves, he said, “Take these things out of here! Don’t make my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will eat me up.”
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 13, 16 11. This beginning of miracles. The meaning is, that…
11. This beginning of miracles. The meaning is, that this was the first of Christ’s miracles; for when the angels announced to the shepherds that he was born in Bethlehem, (Luke 2:8,) when the star appeared to the Magi, (Matthew 2:2,) when the Holy Spirit descended on him in the shape of a dove, (Matthew 3:16; Mark 1:10; John 1:32,) though these were miracles, yet, strictly speaking, they were not performed by him; but the Evangelist now speaks of the miracles of which he was himself the Author. For it is a frivolous and absurd interpretation which some give, that this is reckoned the first among the miracles which Christ performed in Cana of Galilee; as if a place, in which we do not read that he ever was more than twice, had been selected by him for a display of his power. It was rather the design of the Evangelist to mark the order of time which Christ followed in the exercise of his power. For until he was thirty years of age, he kept himself concealed at home, like one who held no public office. Having been consecrated, at his baptism, to the discharge of his office, he then began to appear in public, and to show by clear proofs for what purpose he was sent by the Father. We need not wonder, therefore, if he delayed till this time the first proof of his Divinity. It is a high honor given to marriage, that Christ not only deigned to be present at a nuptial banquet, but honored it with his first miracle. There are some ancient Canons which forbid the clergy to attend a marriage. The reason of the prohibition was, that by being the spectators of the wickedness which was usually practiced on such occasions, they might in some measure be regarded as approving of it. But it would have been far better to carry to such places so much gravity as to restrain the licentiousness in which unprincipled and abandoned men indulge, when they are withdrawn from the eyes of others. Let us, on the contrary, take Christ’s example for our rule; and let us not suppose that any thing else than what we read that he did can be profitable to us.
And manifested his glory; that is, because he then gave a striking and illustrious proof, by which it was ascertained that he was the Son of God; for all the miracles which he exhibited to the world were so many demonstrations of his divine power. The proper time for displaying his glory was now come, when he wished to make himself known agreeably to the command of his Father. Hence, also, we learn the end of miracles; for this expression amounts to a declaration that Christ, in order to manifest his glory, performed this miracle. What, then, ought we to think of those miracles which obscure the glory of Christ?
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And his disciples believed on him. If they were disciples, they must already have possessed some faith; but as they had hitherto followed him with a faith which was not distinct and firm, they began at that time to devote themselves to him, so as to acknowledge him to be the Messiah, such as he had already been announced to them. The forbearance of Christ is great in reckoning as disciples those whose faith is so small. And indeed this doctrine extends generally to us all; for the faith which is now full grown had at first its infancy, nor is it so perfect in any as not to make it necessary that all to a man should make progress in believing. Thus, they who now believed may be said to begin to believe, so far as they daily make progress towards the end of their faith. Let those who have obtained the first-fruits of faith labor always to make progress. These words point out likewise the advantage of miracles; namely, that they ought to be viewed as intended for the confirmation and progress of faith. Whoever twists them to any other purpose corrupts and debases the whole use of them; as we see that Papists boast of their pretended miracles for no other purpose than to bury faith, and to turn away the minds of men from Christ to the creatures.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv12–14 That is, his cousins.
That is, his cousins.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv11–16 11 This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana…
11 This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.
Ver. 11. This beginning, &c.] For as for his miraculous disputation with the doctors, and fasting forty days, these were rather miracles wrought upon Christ than by him. He works his first miracle for confirmation of God the Father’s first ordinance.
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His disciples believed on him] So they did before, but now more. So 1Jn 5:13. The apostle writes to "them that believed on the name of the Son of God, that they might believe on the name of the Son of God," i.e. that they might be confirmed, continued, and increased in it. Faith is not like Jonah’s gourd that grew up in a night; or like a bullet in a mould, that is made in a moment. But as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder; and as they went up to Solomon’s throne by steps and stairs; so men proceed from faith to faith, till they come to full assurance.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv11–16 The sense is not, that this was the first…
The sense is not, that this was the first miracle which Christ wrought in Cana of Galilee; but this was the first miracle which Christ wrought after he was entered upon the public ministry, and it was wrought in that Cana which is within the confines of Galilee, either in the lot of Zebulun or Asher: yet there are some who would not have it the first miracle which Christ wrought, but the first which he wrought in that place; but there is no reason for such an interpretation; for then there had been no reason for the following words, for Christ did not manifest his glory there only; though some object those wonderful or miraculous things happening at our Saviour’s birth, of which we read, Mat 2:9; Luk 2:9. Yet as some distinguish between mira and miracula, so others give a more plain and satisfactory answer, telling us those were miraculous operations more proper to the Father and the Spirit, thereby attesting the Deity of Christ, than to Christ considered as God man. This was the first of those miraculous operations which were wrought by Christ Jesus as God man, by which he manifested his glory, the glory mentioned in Joh 1:14, as of the only begotten of the Father; his Divine majesty and power.
And his disciples, who before believed on him, Joh 1:41,45, now more firmly believed on him, Joh 14:1, as Mediator. In Scripture that is often said to be, which doth not commence, but increase from that time and occasion.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On v12 Observe here, 1. How obedient in all things Christ…
Observe here, 1. How obedient in all things Christ was to the ceremonial law. he was not naturally subject to the law, but, to fulfil all righteousness, he kept the passover yearly, according to the command of God, That all the males should appear before him Exo 23:17 in the temple at Jerusalem.
Hence it is probably concluded, that Christ came up to the passover continually during his private life; and being now come up to Jerusalem to this first passover after his baptism, and solemn entrance upon his office, his first walk was to purge and reform it from abuses, not to ruin and destroy it, because it had been abused.
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Now the abuse and profanation of the temple at that time was this: in the outward court of the Gentiles, there was a public mart or market, where were sold oxen, sheep, and doves, for sacrifice; which otherwise the people, with great labour and trouble, must have brought up along with them for sacrifice. Therefore as a pretended ease to the people, the priests ordered these things to be sold hard by the altar; the intention was commendable, but the action not justifiable. No pretence of good ends can justify that which is forbidden of God: a good end can never justify an irregular action.
Observe, 2. Our Saviour’s fervent zeal in purging and reforming his Father’s house. The sight of sin in any persons, but especially in and among professors, ought to kindle in our hearts (as it did here in Christ’s breast) a burning zeal and indignation against it. Yet was not Christ’s zeal so warm as to devote the temple to destruction, because of its abuse and profanation. Places dedicated to the worship and service of God, if idolatrously abused, must not be pulled down, but purged; not ruined, but reformed.
There is a special reverence due to the house of God, but for the Owner’s sake, and the service’s sake. Nothing but holiness becomes that place, where God is worshipped in the beauty of holiness. Christ by purging the court of the Gentiles from merchandise, not unlawful in itself, but necessary for the sacrifices which were offered in the temple, though not necessary to be brought there, did plainly insinuate, that a distinction is to be made betwixt places sacred and profane; and that what may be done as well elsewhere, ought not to be done in the house of God, the place appointed immediately for his worship.
Observe, 3. The greatness of this miracle, in the weakness of the means which Christ made use of to effect and work it: he drove the buyers and sellers before him out of the temple.
But how and with what?
St. Jerome, in Mat 21:1 and following says , That certain fiery rays or beams, darting from Christ’s eyes, drove out these merchants from this place. I dare not avouch this, but I am satisfied that Christ drove them out, unarmed with any weapons that might carry dread and terror with them, at most but with a whip of small cords; which probably might be scattered by the drovers that came thither to sell their cattle.
Behold then the weakness of the means on the one side, and consider the greatness of the opposition on the other. Here was a confluence of people to oppose Christ, this being the most solemn mart of the passover, and here were merchantmen, whose hearts were set upon gain (the world’s god) to oppose him. But neither the weakness of the means, nor the greatness of the opposition, did dismay him, or cause our Saviour to desist from the attempt of reforming what was amiss in the house of God.
Learn we hence, that it matters not how weak the means of the church-reformation is, nor how strong the opposing power is; if we engage Christ in the undertaking, the work shall certainly be accomplished.
O, how great was the work, and how weak and unlikely were the means here! a parcel of sturdy fellows, whose hearts were set upon their wealth, Christ no sooner speaks to them, and shakes his whip at them, but like a company of fearful hares they run before him. Christ, in purging of his church, will make every thing yield and give way to his power. Let it comfort the church under all unlikelihood of reformation. Who art thou, O great mountain? before our spiritual Zerubbabel, thou shalt become a plain.
I shall close my observations upon this miracle of Christ’s whipping the buyers and sellers out of the temple, which both Origen and St. Jerome do make the greatest miracle that ever Christ wrought, all circumstances considered; I shall close it with this reflection, viz. Was there such power and terror in Christ’s countenance and speech here in the temple in the days of his flesh? Oh, how terrible then will his face and his appearance be to the wicked and impenitent world at the great day! Lord! how fearful will his iron courage then be; how terrifying that voice, "Depart, depart from me, depart accursed, depart into fire: depart into everlasting fire, into a fire prepared for the punishment of apostate spirits, the devil and his angels!" God grant we may wisely consider it, and timely flee from the wrath to come.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v12 Here we have,
Here we have,
I. The short visit Christ made to Capernaum, Joh 2:12. It was a large and populous city, about a day's journey from Cana; it is called his own city (Mat 9:1), because he made it his head-quarters in Galilee, and what little rest he had was there. It was a place of concourse, and therefore Christ chose it, that the fame of his doctrine and miracles might thence spread the further. Observe,
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1. The company that attended him thither: his mother, his brethren, and his disciples. Wherever Christ went, (1.) He would not go alone, but would take those with him who had put themselves under his guidance, that he might instruct them, and that they might attest his miracles. (2.) He could not go alone, but they would follow him, because they liked the sweetness either of his doctrine or of his wine, Joh 6:26. His mother, though he had lately given her to understand that in the works of his ministry he should pay no more respect to her than to any other person, yet followed him; not to intercede with him, but to learn of him. His brethren also and relations, who were at the marriage and were wrought upon by the miracle there, and his disciples, who attended him wherever he went. It should seem, people were more affected with Christ's miracles at first than they were afterwards, when custom made them seem less strange.
2. His continuance there, which was at this time not many days, designing now only to begin the acquaintance he would afterwards improve there. Christ was still upon the remove, would not confine his usefulness to one place, because many needed him. And he would teach his followers to look upon themselves but as sojourners in this world, and his ministers to follow their opportunities, and go where their work led them. We do not now find Christ in the synagogues, but he privately instructed his friends, and thus entered upon his work by degrees. It is good for young ministers to accustom themselves to pious and edifying discourse in private, that they may with the better preparation, and greater awe, approach their public work. He did not stay long at Capernaum, because the passover was at hand, and he must attend it at Jerusalem; for every thing is beautiful in its season. The less good must give way to the greater, and all the dwellings of Jacob must give place to the gates of Zion.
II. The passover he kept at Jerusalem; it is the first after his baptism, and the evangelist takes notice of all the passovers he kept henceforward, which were four in all, the fourth that at which he suffered (three years after this), and half a year was now past since his baptism. Christ, being made under the law, observed the passover at Jerusalem; see Exo 23:17. Thus he taught us by his example a strict observance of divine institutions, and a diligent attendance on religious assemblies. He went up to Jerusalem when the passover was at hand, that he might be there with the first. It is called the Jews' passover, because it was peculiar to them (Christ is our Passover); now shortly God will no longer own it for his. Christ kept the passover at Jerusalem yearly, ever since he was twelve years old, in obedience to the law; but now that he has entered upon his public ministry we may expect something more from him than before; and two things we are here told he did there: -
1. He purged the temple, Joh 2:14-17. Observe here,
(1.) The first place we find him in at Jerusalem was the temple, and, it should seem, he did not make any public appearance till he came thither; for his presence and preaching there were that glory of the latter house which was to exceed the glory of the former, Hag 2:9. It was foretold (Mal 3:1): I will send my messenger, John Baptist; he never preached in the temple, but the Lord, whom ye seek, he shall suddenly come to his temple, suddenly after the appearing of John Baptist; so that this was the time, and the temple the place, when, and where, the Messiah was to be expected.
(2.) The first work we find him at in the temple was the purging of it; for so it was foretold there (Mal 3:2, Mal 3:3): He shall sit as a refiner and purify the sons of Levi. Now was come the time of reformation. Christ came to be the great reformer; and, according to the method of the reforming kings of Judah, he first purged out what was amiss (and that used to be passover-work too, as in Hezekiah's time, Ch2 30:14, Ch2 30:15, and Josiah's, Kg2 23:4, etc.), and then taught them to do well. First purge out the old leaven, and then keep the feast. Christ's design in coming into the world was to reform the world; and he expects that all who come to him should reform their hearts and lives, Gen 35:2. And this he has taught us by purging the temple. See here,
[1.] What were the corruptions that were to be purged out. He found a market in one of the courts of the temple, that which was called the court of the Gentiles, within the mountain of that house. There, First, They sold oxen, and sheep, and doves, for sacrifice; we will suppose, not for common use, but for the convenience of those who came out of the country, and could not bring their sacrifices in kind along with them; see Deu 14:24-26. This market perhaps had been kept by the pool of Bethesda (Joh 5:2), but was admitted into the temple by the chief priests, for filthy lucre; for, no doubt, the rents for standing there, and fees for searching the beasts sold there, and certifying that they were without blemish, would be a considerable revenue to them. Great corruptions in the church owe their rise to the love of money, Ti1 6:5, Ti1 6:10. Secondly, They changed money, for the convenience of those that were to pay a half-shekel in specie every year, by way of poll, for the service of the tabernacle (Exo 30:12), and no doubt they got by it.
[2.] What course our Lord took to purge out those corruptions. He had seen these in the temple formerly, when he was in a private station; but never went about to drive them out till now, when he had taken upon him the public character of a prophet. He did not complain to the chief priests, for he knew they countenanced those corruptions. But he himself,
First, Drove out the sheep and oxen, and those that sold them, out of the temple. He never used force to drive any into the temple, but only to drive those out that profaned it. He did not seize the sheep and oxen for himself, did not distrain and impound them, though he found them damage faissant - actual trespassers upon his Father's ground; he only drove them out, and their owners with them. He made a scourge of small cords, which probably they had led their sheep and oxen with, and thrown them away upon the ground, whence Christ gathered them. Sinners prepare the scourges with which they themselves will be driven out from the temple of the Lord. He did not make a scourge to chastise the offenders (his punishments are of another nature), but only to drive out the cattle; he aimed no further than at reformation. See Rom 13:3, Rom 13:4; Co2 10:8.
Secondly, He poured out the changers' money, to kerma - the small money - the Nummorum Famulus. In pouring out the money, he showed his contempt of it; he threw it to the ground, to the earth as it was. In overthrowing the tables, he showed his displeasure against those that make religion a matter of worldly gain. Money-changers in the temple are the scandal of it. Note, In reformation, it is good to make thorough work; he drove them all out; and not only threw out the money, but, in overturning the tables, threw out the trade too.
Thirdly, He said to them that sold doves (sacrifices for the poor), Take these things hence. The doves, though they took up less room, and were a less nuisance than the oxen and sheep, yet must not be allowed there. The sparrows and swallows were welcome, that were left to God's providence (Psa 84:3), but not the doves, that were appropriated to man's profit. God's temple must not be made a pigeon-house. But see Christ's prudence in his zeal. When he drove out the sheep and oxen, the owners might follow them; when he poured out the money, they might gather it up again; but, if he had turned the doves flying, perhaps they could not have been retrieved; therefore to them that sold doves he said, Take these things hence. Note, Discretion must always guide and govern our zeal, that we do nothing unbecoming ourselves, or mischievous to others.
Fourthly, He gave them a good reason for what he did: Make not my Father's house a house of merchandise. Reason for conviction should accompany force for correction.
a. Here is a reason why they should not profane the temple, because it was the house of God, and not to be made a house of merchandise. Merchandise is a good thing in the exchange, but not in the temple. This was, (a.) to alienate that which was dedicated to the honour of God; it was sacrilege; it was robbing God. (b.) It was to debase that which was solemn and awful, and to make it mean. (c.) It was to disturb and distract those services in which men ought to be most solemn, serious, and intent. It was particularly an affront to the sons of the stranger in their worship to be forced to herd themselves with the sheep and oxen, and to be distracted in their worship by the noise of a market, for this market was kept in the court of the Gentiles. (d.) It was to make the business of religion subservient to a secular interest; for the holiness of the place must advance the market, and promote the sale of their commodities. Those make God's house a house of merchandise, [a.] Whose minds are filled with cares about worldly business when they are attending on religious exercises, as those, Amo 8:5; Eze 33:31. [b.] Who perform divine offices for filthy lucre, and sell the gifts of the Holy Ghost, Act 8:18.
b. Here is a reason why he was concerned to purge it, because it was his Father's house. And, (a.) Therefore he had authority to purge it, for he was faithful, as a Son over his own house. Heb 3:5, Heb 3:6. In calling God his Father, he intimates that he was the Messiah, of whom it was said, He shall build a house for my name, and I will be his Father, Sa2 7:13, Sa2 7:14. (b.) Therefore he had a zeal for the purging of it: "It is my Father's house, and therefore I cannot bear to see it profaned, and him dishonoured." Note, If God be our Father in heaven, and it be therefore our desire that his name may be sanctified, it cannot but be our grief to see it polluted. Christ's purging the temple thus may justly be reckoned among his wonderful works. Inter omnia signa quae fecit Dominus, hoc mihi videtur esse mirabilius - Of all Christ's wonderful works this appears to me the most wonderful. - Hieron. Considering, [a.] That he did it without the assistance of any of his friends; probably it had been no hard matter to have raised the mob, who had a great veneration for the temple, against these profaners of it; but Christ never countenanced any thing that was tumultuous or disorderly. There was one to uphold, but his own arm did it. [b.] That he did it without the resistance of any of his enemies, either the market-people themselves, or the chief priests that gave them their licences, and had the posse templi - temple force, at their command. But the corruption was too plain to be justified; sinners' own consciences are reformers' best friends; yet that was not all, there was a divine power put forth herein, a power over the spirits of men; and in this non-resistance of theirs that scripture was fulfilled (Mal 3:2, Mal 3:3), Who shall stand when he appeareth?
Fifthly, Here is the remark which his disciples made upon it (Joh 2:17): They remembered that it was written, The Zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. They were somewhat surprised at first to see him to whom they were directed as the Lamb of God in such a heat, and him whom they believed to be the King of Israel take so little state upon him as to do this himself; but one scripture came to their thoughts, which taught them to reconcile this action both with the meekness of the Lamb of God and with the majesty of the King of Israel; for David, speaking of the Messiah, takes notice of his zeal for God's house, as so great that it even ate him up, it made him forget himself, Psa 69:9. Observe, 1. The disciples came to understand the meaning of what Christ did, by remembering the scriptures: They remembered now that it was written. Note, The word of God and the works of God do mutually explain and illustrate each other. Dark scriptures are expounded by their accomplishment in providence, and difficult providences are made easy by comparing them with the scriptures. See of what great use it is to the disciples of Christ to be ready and mighty in the scriptures, and to have their memories well stored with scripture truths, by which they will be furnished for every good work, 2. The scripture they remembered was very apposite: The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. David was in this a type of Christ that he was zealous for God's house, Psa 132:2, Psa 132:3. What he did for it was with all his might; see Ch1 29:2. The latter part of that verse (Psa 69:9) is applied to Christ (Rom 15:3), as the former part of it here. All the graces that were to be found among the Old Testament saints were eminently in Christ, and particularly this of zeal for the house of God, and in them, as they were patterns to us, so they were types of him. Observe, (1.) Jesus Christ was zealously affected to the house of God, his church: he loved it, and was always jealous for its honour and welfare. (2.) This zeal did even eat him up; it made him humble himself, and spend himself, and expose himself. My zeal has consumed me, Psa 119:139. Zeal for the house of God forbids us to consult our own credit, ease, and safety, when they come in competition with our duty and Christ's service, and sometimes carries on our souls in our duty so far and so fast that our bodies cannot keep pace with them, and makes us as deaf as our Master was to those who suggested, Spare thyself. The grievances here redressed might seem but small, and such as should have been connived at; but such was Christ's zeal that he could not bear even those that sold and bought in the temple. Si ibi ebrios inveniret quid faceret Dominus! (saith St. Austin.) If he had found drunkards in the temple, how much more would he have been displeased!
2. Christ, having thus purged the temple, gave a sign to those who demanded it to prove his authority for so doing. Observe here,
(1.) Their demand of a sign: Then answered the Jews, that is the multitude of the people, with their leaders. Being Jews, they should rather have stood by him, and assisted him to vindicate the honour of their temple; but, instead of this, they objected against it. note, Those who apply themselves in good earnest to the work of reformation must expect to meet with opposition. When they could object nothing against the thing itself, they questioned his authority to do it: "What sign showest thou unto us, to prove thyself authorized and commissioned to do these things?" It was indeed a good work to purge the temple; but what had he to do to undertake it, who was in no office there? They looked upon it as an act of jurisdiction, and that he must prove himself a prophet, yea, more than a prophet. But was not the thing itself sign enough? His ability to drive so many from their posts, without opposition, was a proof of his authority; he that was armed with such a divine power was surely armed with a divine commission. What ailed these buyers and sellers, that they fled, that they were driven back? Surely it was at the presence of the Lord (Psa 114:5, Psa 114:7), no less a presence.
(2.) Christ's answer to this demand, Joh 2:19. He did not immediately work a miracle to convince them, but gave them a sign in something to come, the truth of which must appear by the event, according to Deu 18:21, Deu 18:22.
Now, [1.] The sign that he gives them is his own death and resurrection. He refers them to that which would be, First, His last sign. If they would not be convinced by what they saw and heard, let them wait. Secondly, The great sign to prove him to be the Messiah; for concerning him it was foretold that he should be bruised (Isa 53:5), cut off (Dan 9:26), and yet that he should not see corruption, Psa 16:10. These things were fulfilled in the blessed Jesus, and therefore truly he was the Son of God, and had authority in the temple, his Father's house.
[2.] He foretels his death and resurrection, not in plain terms, as he often did to his disciples, but in figurative expressions; as afterwards, when he gave this for a sign, he called it the sign of the prophet Jonas, so here, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Thus he spoke in parables to those who were willingly ignorant, that they might not perceive, Mat 13:13, Mat 13:14. Those that will not see shall not see. Nay, this figurative speech used here proved such a stumbling-block to them that it was produced in evidence against him at his trial to prove him a blasphemer. Mat 26:60, Mat 26:61. Had they humbly asked him the meaning of what he said, he would have told them, and it had been a savour of life unto life to them, but they were resolved to cavil, and it proved a savour of death unto death. They that would not be convinced were hardened, and the manner of expressing this prediction occasioned the accomplishment of the prediction itself. First, He foretels his death by the Jews' malice, in these words, Destroy you this temple; that is, "You will destroy it, I know you will. I will permit you to destroy it." Note, Christ, even at the beginning of his ministry, had a clear foresight of all his sufferings at the end of it, and yet went on cheerfully in it. It is good, at setting out, to expect the worst. Secondly, He foretels his resurrection by his own power: In three days I will raise it up. There were others that were raised, but Christ raised himself, resumed his own life.
[3.] He chose to express this by destroying and re-edifying the temple, First, Because he was now to justify himself in purging the temple, which they had profaned; as if he had said, "You that defile one temple will destroy another; and I will prove my authority to purge what you have defiled by raising what you will destroy." The profaning of the temple is the destroying of it, and its reformation its resurrection. Secondly, Because the death of Christ was indeed the destruction of the Jewish temple, the procuring cause of it; and his resurrection was the raising up of another temple, the gospel church, Zac 6:12. The ruins of their place and nation (Joh 11:48) were the riches of the world. See Amo 9:11; Act 15:16.
(3.) Their cavil at this answer: "Forty and six years was this temple in building, Joh 2:20. Temple work was always slow work, and canst thou make such quick work of it?" Now here, [1.] They show some knowledge; they could tell how long the temple was in building. Dr. Lightfoot computes that it was just forty-six years from the founding of Zerubbabel's temple, in the second year of Cyrus, to the complete settlement of the temple service, in the 32nd year of Artaxerxes; and the same from Herod's beginning to build this temple, in the 18th year of his reign, to this very time, when the Jews said that this as just forty-six years: ōkodomēthē - hath this temple been built. [2.] They show more ignorance, First, Of the meaning of Christ's words. Note, Men often run into gross mistakes by understanding that literally which the scripture speaks figuratively. What abundance of mischief has been done by interpreting, This is my body, after a corporal and carnal manner! Secondly, Of the almighty power of Christ, as if he could do no more than another man. Had they known that this was he who built all things in six days they would not have made it such an absurdity that he should build a temple in three days.
(4.) A vindication of Christ's answer from their cavil. The difficulty is soon solved by explaining the terms: He spoke of the temple of his body, Joh 2:21. Though Christ had discovered a great respect for the temple, in purging it, yet he will have us know that the holiness of it, which he was so jealous for, was but typical, and leads us to the consideration of another temple of which that was but a shadow, the substance being Christ, Heb 9:9; Col 2:17. Some think that when he said, Destroy this temple, he pointed to his own body, or laid his hand upon it; however, it is certain that he spoke of the temple of his body. Note, The body of Christ is the true temple, of which that at Jerusalem was a type. [1.] Like the temple, it was built by immediate divine direction: "A body hast thou prepared me," Ch1 28:19. [2.] Like the temple, it was a holy house; it is called that holy thing. [3.] It was, like the temple, the habitation of God's glory; there the eternal Word dwelt, the true shechinah. He is Emmanuel - God with us. [4.] The temple was the place and medium of intercourse between God and Israel: there God revealed himself to them; there they presented themselves and their services to him. Thus by Christ God speaks to us, and we speak to him. Worshippers looked towards that house, Kg1 8:30, Kg1 8:35. So we must worship God with an eye to Christ.
(5.) A reflection which the disciples made upon this, long after, inserted here, to illustrate the story (Joh 2:22): When he was risen from the dead, some years after, his disciples remembered that he had said this. We found them, Joh 2:17, remembering what had been written before of him, and here we find them remembering what they had heard from him. Note, The memories of Christ's disciples should be like the treasure of the good house-holder, furnished with things both new and old, Mat 13:52. Now observe,
[1.] When they remembered that saying: When he was risen from the dead. It seems, they did not at this time fully understand Christ's meaning, for they were as yet but babes in knowledge; but they laid up the saying in their hearts, and afterwards it became both intelligible and useful. Note, It is good to hear for the time to come, Isa 42:23. The juniors in years and profession should treasure up those truths of which at present they do not well understand either the meaning or the use, for they will be serviceable to them hereafter, when they come to greater proficiency. It was said of the scholars of Pythagoras that his precepts seemed to freeze in them till they were forty years old, and then they began to thaw; so this saying of Christ revived in the memories of his disciples when he was risen from the dead; and why the? First, Because then the Spirit was poured out to bring things to their remembrance which Christ had said to them, and to make them both easy and ready to them, Joh 14:26. That very day that Christ rose form the dead he opened their understandings, Luk 24:45. Secondly, Because then this saying of Christ was fulfilled. When the temple of his body had been destroyed and was raised again, and that upon the third day, then they remembered this among other words which Christ had said to this purport. Note, It contributes much to the understanding of the scripture to observe the fulfilling of the scripture. The event will expound the prophecy.
[2.] What use they made of it: They believed the scripture, and the word that Jesus had said; their belief of these was confirmed and received fresh support and vigour. They were slow of heart to believe (Luk 24:25), but they were sure. The scripture and the word of Christ are here put together. not because they concur and exactly agree together, but because they mutually illustrate and strengthen each other. When the disciples saw both what they had read in the Old Testament, and what they had heard from Christ's own mouth, fulfilled in his death and resurrection, they were the more confirmed in their belief of both.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv11–16 This beginning of miracles,.... This miracle of turning water…
This beginning of miracles,.... This miracle of turning water into wine, was the first miracle Christ ever wrought, either in public or private; for as for what miracles he is said to do in his infancy, there is no reason to give credit to them: and this he
did in Cana of Galilee; not that this was only the first he did in that place; he afterwards working another there, namely, the cure of a nobleman's son, Joh 4:46, but the first he did any where, and it was in this place; and which the Syriac and Persic versions again call Kotne of Galilee; See Gill on Joh 2:1;
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and manifested forth his glory; the glory of his deity and divine sonship, which was hid by his assumption of human nature, but broke forth and showed itself in his miraculous operations, and particularly in this:
and his disciples believed on him; the above five disciples; see Joh 2:2; whom he had called, and who were with him at this marriage, and were made acquainted with this miracle: and though they believed in him before, and had declared, and professed him to be the Messiah, Moses and the prophets spoke of, and the Son of God, and King of Israel; yet they were, by this miracle, more and more confirmed in the faith of these things: besides, others might be made his disciples at this time, and be hereby brought to believe in him.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv11, 14, 15 And his disciples believed - More steadfastly.
And his disciples believed - More steadfastly.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv11, 13, 14 Verse 11. This beginning of miracles] It was probably…
Verse 11. This beginning of miracles] It was probably the first he ever wrought:-at any rate, it was the first he wrought after his baptism, and the first he wrought publicly.
His glory] His supreme Divinity: Joh 1:14.
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His disciples believed on him.] Were more abundantly confirmed in their faith, that he was either the promised Messiah, or a most extraordinary prophet, in the fullest intercourse with the ever blessed God.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 14, 15 Joh 2:11. This beginning of miracles did Jesus, &c.…
Joh 2:11. This beginning of miracles did Jesus, &c. — Grotius supposes the meaning to be, that this was the first miracle wrought at Cana, another being afterward mentioned, Joh 4:46. But it is plain there must have been a long series of miracles wrought here to justify such a manner of speaking, which doth not at all appear to have been the case. The sense of the expression seems much rather to be, that this was the first of Christ’s public miracles; for probably the necessities of the family might sometimes have engaged him to have done something miraculous in private for its relief. And manifested forth his glory — And that in such an illustrious manner, that his fame was spread over all the neighbouring country; and his disciples believed on him — Namely, more steadfastly than before. Being the first miracle they had ever seen Jesus perform, it tended not a little to the confirmation of their faith.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv11–15 This beginning of miracles - This his first public…
This beginning of miracles - This his first public miracle. This is declared by the sacred writer to be a “miracle” - that is, an exertion of divine power, producing a change of the substance of water into wine, which no human power could do.
Manifested forth - Showed; exhibited.
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His glory - His power, and proper character as the Messiah; showed that he had divine power, and that God had certainly commissioned him. This is shown to be a real miracle by the following considerations:
Real water was placed in the vessels. This the servants believed, and there was no possibility of deception. The water was placed where it was not customary to keep wine. It could not be pretended that it was merely a mixture of water and wine. It was judged to be wine without knowing whence it came. There was no agreement between Jesus and the governor of the feast to impose on the guests. It was a change which nothing but divine power could effect. He that can change water into a substance like the juice of the grape must be clothed with divine power.
Believed on him - This does not mean that they did not believe on him beforehand, but that their faith was confirmed or strengthened. They saw a miracle, and it satisfied them that he was the Messiah. “Before this” they “believed” on the testimony of John, and from conversation with Jesus John 1:35-51; now they saw that he was invested with almighty power, and their faith was established.
From this narrative we may learn:
1. That marriage is honorable, and that Jesus, if sought, will not refuse his presence and blessing on such an occasion.
2. On such an occasion the presence and approbation of Christ should be sought. No compact formed on earth is more important; none enters so deeply into our comfort in this world; perhaps none will so much affect our destiny in the world to come. It should be entered into, then, in the fear of God.
3. On all such occasions, our conduct should be such that the presence of Jesus would be no interruption or disturbance. He is holy. He is always present in every place; and on all festival occasions our deportment should be such as that we should welcome the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. “That is not a proper stale of feeling or employment which would be interrupted by the presence of the Saviour.”
4. Jesus delighted to do good. In the very beginning of his ministry he worked a miracle to show his benevolence. This was the appropriate commencement of a life in which he was to go about doing good. He seized every opportunity of doing it; and at a marriage feast, as well as among the sick and poor, he showed the character which he always sustained - that of a benefactor of mankind.
5. An argument cannot be drawn from this instance in favor of intemperate drinking. There is no evidence that any who were present on that occasion drank too freely.
6. Nor can an argument be drawn from this case in favor even of drinking wine such as we have. The common wine of Judea was the pure juice of the grape, without any mixture of alcohol, and was harmless. It was the common drink of the people, and did not tend to produce intoxication. “Our” wines are a “mixture” of the juice of the grape and of brandy, and often of infusions of various substances to give it color and taste, and the appearance of wine. Those wines are little less injurious than brandy, and the habit of drinking them should be classed with the drinking of all other liquid fires.
The following table will show the danger of drinking the “wines” that are in common use:
Wine
Alcohol Content
Brandy has fifty-three parts and 39 hundredths in a hundred of alcohol, or
53•39 percent
Rum
53•68 percent
Whisky Scotch..
54•32 percent
Holland Gin.
51•60 percent
Port Wine, highest kind
5•83 percent
Port Wine, lowest kind
1•40 percent
Madeira, highest kind
29•42 percent
Madeira, lowest kind
9•34 percent
Lisbon
8•94 percent
Malaga
7•26 percent
Red Champagne
1•30 percent
White
2•80 percent
Currant Wine
20•25 percent
It follows that a man who drinks two glasses of most of the wines used has taken as much alcohol as if he had taken one glass of brandy or whisky, and why should he not as well drink the alcohol in the brandy as in the wine? What difference can it make in morals? What difference in its effects on his system? The experience of the world has shown that water, pure water, is the most wholesome, safe, and invigorating drink for man.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv11, 15 This was the first miracle which Jesus had performed…
This was the first miracle which Jesus had performed in public, and to manifest his glory; but Maldonatus is of opinion that he had before wrought many miracles, known to the blessed Virgin and St. Joseph; which gave her the confidence to ask one now. This opinion is no way contrary to the evangelist. His disciples believed in him. They had believed in him before or they would not have followed him. This confirmed their faith. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v12 Jesus, The Guest In Capernaum, And The Pilgrim To…
IV
Jesus, The Guest In Capernaum, And The Pilgrim To The Passover. The Purification Of The Temple, As A Prelude Of The Redeeming Purification Of The World And Reformation Of The Church. Christ The True Temple. The Sign Of Christ: The Destruction Of The Temple And The Raising It Again. The First Spread Of Faith In Israel, And Christ The Knower Of Hearts.
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Joh_2:12-25
12After this he went down to Capernaum [Kapharnaum], he, and his mother, and his39 brethren [brothers],40 and his disciples; and they continued there [and there they abode, χαὶ ἐχεῖ ἔμειναν]41 not many days.
13And the Jews’ passover [the passover of the Jews, τὸ πάσχα τῶν ’I.] was at hand 14[or, near, ἐγγίς], and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, [.] And [he] found in the temple those that sold oxen, and sheep, and doves, and the changers of money [money-changers] sitting [established]: 15And when he had made [having made, ποιήσας a scourge of small cords, he drove them [omit them] all out of the temple, and [both] the sheep, and the oxen;42 and poured out the changers’ money43 [the money of the exchangers], and overthrew the tables; 16And said unto them that [to those who] sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise 17[a market]. And his disciples remembered that it was [is] written, The zeal of [for] thine house hath eaten me up [will eat me up].44 (Psa_69:9.) 18Then answered the Jews [The Jews therefore answered] and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? 19Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up [again]. 20Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear [raise] it up in three days? 21But he spake of the temple of his body. 22When therefore lie was [had] risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them [omit unto them];45 and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had said [spoken].
23Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover in the feast day [at the feast, ἐν τῇ ἑο̣ρτῇ, many believed in hi3 name [ἐπίστευσαν, trusted in his name], when they saw the miracles [his signs, αὐτοῦ τὰ σημεῖα] which he did [wrought]. 24But Jesus did not commit himself unto them [οὐχ ἐπίστευεν αὐτύν αὐτοῖς, did not trust himself to them], because he knew all men, 25And needed not [had no need] that any [one] should testify of [concerning] man; for he [himself, αὐτύς] knew what was in man.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
[The Messianic purification of the temple was the first, and, according to the Synoptists (Mat_21:12-13; Mar_11:15-17; Luk_19:45; Luk_19:40), also the last public act of Christ in Jerusalem.46 It very appropriately opens and closes His labors in the sanctuary of the theocracy. It was foretold by the prophet Mal_3:1 ff., that immediately after the forerunner the Messiah Himself “shall suddenly come to His temple,” for the purpose of cleansing it: “He shall purify the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” The gross scandal in the Court of the Gentiles represented the general profanation and corruption of the theocracy (as Tetzel’s and Samson’s sale of indulgences revealed the secularization of the Latin Church in the 16th century). Christ commenced the reformation at the fountain-head, in Jerusalem and the temple where it was most needed. The expulsion was a judicial act of the Lord of the Sabbath and the temple. He acted here not simply as a prophet or Zealot, but as the Messiah, as the Son of God; and hence calls the temple the house of His, not our, Father (Joh_2:16). Some infidels have misrepresented it as an outburst of passion and an argument against the sinless perfection of Christ. But the result conclusively shows that it was an exhibition of superhuman power and majesty, which so overawed the profane traffickers, that, losing sight of their superiority in number and physical strength, they submitted at once, and without a murmur to the well deserved punishment.47 Their bad conscience, which always makes men cowardly, and the conceded right of prophets like Elijah, to rebuke scandulous profanations of religion, would not sufficiently account for this complete victory. A similar instance is recorded, Joh_18:6, where Judas and his band of men and officers shrunk back and fell to the ground before the defenceless Jesus.—P. S.]
Joh_2:12. After this he went down [κα̇τέβη] to Capernaum.—No doubt not directly from Cana, but from Nazareth. Not that, as Meyer says, the brethren here mentioned were not with Him at the wedding (this is not necessarily to be inferred from the silence respecting them), but that Nazareth was still the residence of Jesus and of the family of Mary, who no doubt returned home before they all went together to Capernaum, that they might thence join the nearest festival caravan for Jerusalem. He went down from the hill country towards the sea, on the coast of which Capernaum lay. On Capernaum, see the Matth. at Joh_4:13. [Am. ed. pp. 90, 91. The question of the site of Capernaum, or properly Kapharnaum (i.e., the Village of Nahum), is still unsettled between the rival claims of Tell Hûm (i.e., the hill of Nahum) and Khân (i.e., lodging-place) Minyeh (with a near fountain called Ain-et-Tin, i.e., the spring of the fig-tree), two heaps of ruins on the Western shore of the sea of Galilee about three miles apart. Robinson (Researches ΙΙ. 403 ff.) and Porter (Handbook of Syria, ΙΙ. 425) decide for Khân Minyeh, but Van de Velde, Ebrard, Thomson, and Dixon, for Tell Hûm, at the head of the Lake. For this view speaks the similarity of name. (Hûm is a mutilated נהום=ναούμ), and the far greater importance of the ruins. The English explorers, Captain Wilson and his associates, are reported to have discovered in 1866, among the ruins of Tell Hûm, a synagogue of elegant architecture dating from a time before the Christian era. See, besides Robinson, ΙΙ. 403–405, the article Capernaum, by Grove, with the additional note of Hackett, in Smith’s Dictionary, Ι. p. 382; the Land. Athenæum, Feb. 24, and Mar. 31, 1866; and an essay of Prof. Ebrard in the Studien and Kritiken, for 1867, No. IV. pp. 723–740.—P. S.]
He, and his mother, and his brothers, and his disciples,—The singular (κατέβη) is explained by the fact that Jesus was the leader of the train. That the family had already settled in Capernaum (which, according to Ewald, is here stated, according to De Wette presupposed), is contradicted by the distinct indications that this removal did not take place till after the return of Jesus from Judea, and His appearance in Nazareth (Mat_4:13; Luk_4:31; Joh_4:43); though Meyer, maintains that there also the removal is neither intimated nor supposed. But no doubt the removal had already been virtually induced by the connection with the disciples from the sea. The brothers of Jesus are distinguished from the disciples. Even though now His brothers, James, Judas, and Simon, had been called to be disciples, which is not at all probable, a separate category had still to be made, because there were yet Joses and the sisters, Mat_13:55-56. And that they had already attached themselves to the company of Jesus, shows that the usual exaggerated and extreme pressing of the statement in Joh_7:5 is false. See Hengstenberg: Das Evang. John , 1 p. 149 sqq.
[The gradual transition from Christ’s private to His public life is here indicated. At Cana and at Capernaum His earthly relations are still with Him, but in the next verse He appears alone with His disciples or spiritual relatives. As to the vexed question of the brothers of Jesus, I have given my views in full in my German work on James, the brother of Christ, Berlin, 1842, and in a note on Mat_13:55, pp. 256–260. Comp. also the notes on Mat_1:25, and Joh_7:3; Joh_7:5. Meyer, Godet (I. 368 ff.), and Alford take ἀδελφοί here in the proper sense, as brothers, i.e., sons of Joseph and Mary. Hengstenberg (in loc.) revives the R. Catholic cousin-theory which dates from Jerome in the 4th century, and owes its origin and spread mainly to an ascetic overestimate of the perpetual virginity of Mary, as expressed in the words of Augustine: Maria mater esse potuit, mulier esse non potuit. Dr. Lange’s hypothesis is an ingenious, but somewhat artificial modification of this view, and assumes that Mary, though in the full sense the wife of Joseph, could bear no children after giving birth to the Messiah, and that the brethren of the Lord were both His cousins (as the sons of Clopas, a brother of Joseph, not as the sons of a supposed sister of Mary), and His foster-brothers (having been adopted, after the death of their father, into the holy family). To my mind the only alternative lies between the Epiphanian or old Greek view, which makes them elder sons of Joseph from a former marriage, and the view held by Tertullian and Helvidius, that they were younger children of Mary and Joseph, and so half-brothers of Jesus. Ancient tradition favors the former, an unprejudiced exegesis the latter view. Prof. J. B. Lightfoot, of Cambridge (in a learned excursus on Galatians, Lond., 1866, pp. 247–281, where much use is made of my book on James), elaborately defends the Epiphanian theory, mainly on account of Joh_19:26-27, which he regards as conclusive against the Helvidian hypothesis; but if this passage is allowed to decide the controversy, it overthrows also the Epiphanian theory. It receives its true light from the peculiar intimacy of Christ with John, and the fact that His brothers were still unbelievers when He entrusted His earthly mother to the care of His bosom disciple, who was probably also His cousin according to the flesh.—P. S.]
Not many days.—Depending solely on the preparation for the approaching passover, which Jesus attended in company with His disciples, v. 23. But that during these few days Jesus wrought miracles in Capernaum, must be inferred from Luk_4:23.
Joh_2:13. And the passover of the Jews was at hand.—On the passover see the Matth., p. 459.
And Jesus went up.—Besides the attendance of Jesus at the feast when He was twelve years old, mentioned by Luke alone (John 2.), and the last attendance on the passover in the year 783, related by all the Evangelists, John gives the remaining occasions of this kind. Here the first attendance on the passover, in the year 781; then a visit to another feast, not named, most probably the feast of Purim of 782 [ch. 5]; then the feast of tabernacles [ch. 7], and the feast of the dedication [ch. Joh_10:22], in the same year. See the Introduction,§ 8.
Joh_2:14. And found in the temple.—In the fore-court of the temple. On the temple and the fore-court see the Matth. on Joh_21:12 [p. 375], and Winer, sub. v. Also Braune: Das Evangelium von Jesus Christus, p. 45, The first act of the Lord, in the confidential circle of susceptible disciples, was an act of positive glorification, coming into the place of the symbolical purification; His second act, in the bosom of the corrupted religious life of the people, was an act of negative purification, significant at the same time of His glorification. That this deed was looked upon by the better people as a miraculous sign also, and that besides this Jesus wrought other miracles in Jerusalem, may be inferred from Joh_3:2. But John relates the purging of the temple alone as the first characteristic work, the signal-miracle of the Lord on His public appearance. To him the first cleansing of the temple was more important than the second. But the fact that John mentions only this cleansing at the opening of the Lord’s official life, and the Synoptists mention only the similar act at its close, proves nothing against the truth of either or both the occurrences. See the Matth. on John 21.
[The market in the Court of the Gentiles (the ἔξωθεν ἱερόν) was introduced, we know not when, from avaricious motives, in violation of the spirit of the law and to the serious injury of public worship, though it was no doubt justified or excused, as a convenience to foreign Jews for the purchase of sacrificial beasts, incense, oil, and the sacred shekel or double drachma in which the temple-tax had to be paid (Exo_30:13). Similar conveniences and nuisances, markets, lotteries and fairs, are not seldom found in connection with Christian churches. The most striking analogy is the traffic in indulgences, which made the forgiveness of sin an article of merchandise and became the occasion (not the cause) of the Reformation in Germany and Switzerland.—P. S.]
Joh_2:15. He drove all out.—Referring grammatically not to the animals, but to the men. But He drove the men out by raising the whip against their animals; precisely after the analogy of His method with the money-changers, whose tables He overthrew. To drive the men themselves, by themselves, from the temple, was not His design. Grotius: The whip, a symbol of the divine wrath.48 Meyer rejects all typical import. Yet even about the whip of an actual ox-driver there is somewhat typical; and the whip in the hand of Christ is at least a type of the punitive, reformatory office of discipline in the theocracy and the church.
And poured out the money of the exchangers, and overthrew, etc.—That is, He first dashed upon the tables hither and thither and then overturned them. The right of free motion in the temple-space, where tables of money-changers did not belong.
Joh_2:16. Unto them that sold doves.—Because the doves were in baskets, they must be carried away (Rosenmüller, Schweizer). His command now sufficed for this, after the dove-traders had seen His earnestness. Showing, that even the ox-traders also He had not driven out with the lash; and showing likewise that He intended no injury, else He would have let the doves go. De Wette: He dealt more gently with the dove-merchants, because the doves were bought by the poor. Stier: Because He saw in the dove the emblem of the Holy Ghost. Both groundless. The difference in the mode of expulsion arises simply from the nature of the articles: doves in baskets. That the dove-sellers came last, may have been determined by the modesty of their business, which generally makes also modest people. These people were doubtless not so much traders properly speaking, as they were poor farmers or farmers’ boys. As to the doves being emblems, so were also the sheep and oxen.
My Father’s house.—See Luk_2:49.49 The temple was still His Father’s house, because He was still waiting for the repentance of the people. The moment He takes His departure from the temple on account of their obduracy, He calls it: Your house, given over to desolation, Mat_23:38. Our Father’s, even a prophet might perhaps have said; My Father’s, Jesus says in the consciousness of His divine dignity and authority, as it were betraying Himself, without their understanding immediately the full sense of His word. The Pharisees, however, have doubtless already reflected upon the word as very suspicious (see John 10).
A house of merchandize.—The term here is not so strong as at the second purification. It denotes the entire secularization of the system of worship. The term “den of thieves” [σπήλειον λῃστῶν], in Mat_21:13, on the contrary, denotes the prophet-killing and spirit-killing fanaticism, into which this secularization at last ran out.
Joh_2:17. And his disciples remembered.—Olshausen: After the resurrection. Meyer, [Godet, Alford], on the contrary, rightly: At the occurrence itself. The passage is Psa_69:9, (10): “For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them, that reproached thee are fallen upon me.”50 Whether the Psalm be by David (Tholuck; comp. v. 31; Psalms 51), or by Jeremiah (Hitzig, see Joh_5:14?), or by some other theocratic sufferer, it belongs at all events, like Psalms 22., to that class of typical passages, in which the passion of Christ miraculously reflects and foreshows itself. Hence also Peter, Act_1:20, applies to Judas the words of v. 25 (“Let their habitation be desolate”), and Paul applies the Psalm several times to the conduct of the Jews towards Jesus, Rom_11:9; Rom_15:3. When Bengel, Olshausen, etc, and Luthardt refer the words: hath eaten me up, to the death of Jesus,51 and Meyer says, on the contrary, that the word is to be understood of the inward attrition of zeal (so that the disciples would mean, His zeal will yet consume Him from within), we may freely march over this difference of schools, and suppose (against Meyer) that the disciples, with anxious forebodings for the future of Christ, were smitten with the remembrance of that passage of the Psalm. For it is not necessary to suppose they had made out a clear idea of the sense of those words; any more than that Mary, with her words, meant: “Make wine!” or: “Go home!,” The school always reaches after fully expressed ideas or thoughts; actual life has also vague presentiments, anxious forebodings, dim, confused ideas; that is, life is subject to the fundamental law of gradual development. That the disciples did not connect a distinct expectation of the death of Jesus with their application of the verse of the Psalm to this action of their Lord, is proved by Joh_2:22; after Psa_22:6-8, etc., they could not confine their thoughts to an exclusively internal self-attrition; probably they did not think of it at all in the Old Testament sense, though the metaphorical use of ἐσθίειν is clear, and consuming passions too (see Meyer, with a reference to Chrysostom, Lampe, Wolf) are not wholly excluded. But here for the first time met and struck them the conflict of the spirit of Christ with the spirit of the people, the terrible life staking earnestness in the appearance of Christ, which threatened to bring incalculable dangers after it. We may no doubt further suppose that this remembrance indicates great apprehensiveness in the disciples respecting the Lord. Though the future καταφάγεται may occur in the sense of the present,52 it does not follow that, according to Tholuck, it is to be read as present here. In this case the Evangelist might better have used the κατέφαγε of the Septuagint.
Joh_2:18. Then answered the Jews.—Ἀπεκρίθησαν οὐν. Here the Jews already begin to appear in opposition to Jesus; accordingly the Pharisaic and Judaistic Jews are intended, particularly the rulers. They regarded the act of Christ as a reproach to their religious government; therefore their interruption was an answer. And from their spirit it was to be expected; hence οὖν.—What sign she wrest thou unto us?—They did not see that the majestic and successful act itself was a great moral, theocratic sign, which accredited him; they intended therefore a sign after some magical, chiliastic sort. It should be noticed that they did not venture to dispute the theocratic propriety of the act itself. The right of zealotry against theocratic abuses was legalized in the example of Num_25:7; yet the prophets were accustomed to support great acts of zealotry by special miraculous signs, 1Ki_18:23. The idea of such signs, however, particularly of the sign with which the Messiah should attest Himself, had gradually passed into the magical and monstrous. At all events, the challenge of a sign from heaven, Mat_12:38; Mat_16:1, is here already put forth.
Joh_2:19. Destroy this temple.—[One of those paradoxical and mysterious sayings which, though not understood at the time, stuck in the memory as seed thoughts for future sprouting.53 Comp. Christ’s word on the sign of Jonah, Mat_12:39-40, in which He likewise mysteriously and typologically predicts His resurrection.—P. S.]—This is the sign which He would give them. The imperative is permissive. (Glassius: est Imperat. pro Futuro permissive).54 The Jews took the words of Jesus in an entirely literal sense, as Joh_2:20 proves, yet hardly without design. From this conception gradually arose the malignant perversion, slander, and accusation: This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days, Mat_26:61; Mar_14:58; comp. Act_6:13. This conception John corrects in Joh_2:21 : He spake of the temple of his body [for His humanity]. The fathers universally acknowledge this interpretation. It has been supposed, He pointed to His body as He spoke.55 Of this there is no indication.
Since Herder, Henke, and Paulus, down to Lücke [De Wette], Bleek, Ewald (see Meyer, in loc.), it has been suggested, on the contrary, that John misunderstood the Lord; that Christ spoke of the temple as the symbol of the Jewish system of religion.56 Destroy this edifice of religion, and in three days, i.e., in a short time, proverbially (with reference to Hos_6:2) represented by three days, I will set it up again renewed.
Kuinoel, Tholuck, Meyer, and many others57 have maintained the correctness of John’s interpretation. And with all reason ; for an error of the Apostle and the whole company of disciples in respect to so important a word of the Lord is utterly inadmissible (see the several, not absolutely irrefragable arguments in Meyer).58
A third view adheres to John’s interpretation, but holds likewise an element of truth in the second view, and puts them in connection. The temple on Zion was the symbolical dwelling of God; the body of Christ was the real dwelling of God [and hence more than the temple, comp. Mat_12:6].59 The word of Christ, therefore, underneath its immediate reference to the external temple, has a deeper meaning: Destroy this temple and worship, as ye have already begun to do by your desecration,—destroy it entirely, by putting the Messiah to death, and in three days I will build it new, i.e., not only rise from the dead, but also by the resurrection establish a new theocracy (Theodore of Mopsuestia, Olshausen, Lange, Leben Jesu, I., p. 200; simultaneously Ebrard, Kritik, p. 325; later, in similar manner, Luthardt).60
This combination is supported (1) by the actual connection. The crucifixion of Christ was the desecration, the spiritual dissolution of the temple, which must be followed by its outward destruction (see Mat_23:38; Mat_27:51), because the body of Christ was the real temple of God. (2) Christ, on this account, has repeatedly represented His death and resurrection as the one great sign which was to be given to the Jews instead of the required sign from heaven (Joh_3:14; Mat_12:39; Mat_16:4), and this sign too always connected with an antecedent Old Testament type. (3) A word concerning His death, without connection with an intelligible figure, would have assuredly been as yet wholly unintelligible to the Jews. (4) John gave the inmost and ultimate significance of the expression of Christ for the sole reason, that it was the main matter, and that the figurative sense was self-evident. (5) In Mat_26:61 Christ puts in the true explanation, 2:64, immediately upon the false interpretation, besides perversion, of His utterance.
In three days, a round number, 1Sa_30:12; see the Matth. on Joh_12:40, p. 226.
I will raise it up (again).—“It is only apparently contrary to John’s explanation, that Christ, according to the New Testament doctrine, did not raise Himself, but was raised by the Father.” Meyer. And besides, the resurrection of Jesus was in one view as much His own act [Joh_10:18; Rev_5:5], as, in another view, the act of His Father, especially in its results, 1Co_15:57; Eph_4:8. That Jesus was already familiar with the thought of His death, appears from the conversation which soon followed, Joh_3:14. The explanation of Athanasius, quoted by Tholuck, is an ingenious modified form of our third: With the putting to death of the body of Christ the Jewish system of types and shadows also is dissolved, and the real church thereby (by means of the resurrection) established.
Joh_2:20. Then said the Jews.—With an οῦ̓ν; it was to be expected that they would finish their malicious misunderstanding consistently.—Forty and six years.—They mean the renovation and enlargement of the temple of Zerubbabel, which begun in the eighteenth year of Herod’s reign, 20 B. C. (Joseph. Antiq. XV. 11, 1), and was finished under Herod Agrippa II. in A. D. 64 (Joseph. Antiq. XX. 9, 7). According to Wieseler, it. appears, therefore, that in this computation of forty-six years since the work was begun, the passover of the year 781 is the occasion on which it is made (Chronol. Synops. p. 106).
Joh_2:21. The temple of his body.—Genitiv. Apposit.
Joh_2:22. His disciples remembered that he had said this.—This remembrance does not exclude former remindings; but the right remembrance came now with the right understanding of it. [Remarks like this impress upon the reports of the discourses of Christ the stamp of historical fidelity. A later falsifier would have made the reference to the resurrection much plainer.—P. S.]—And they believed the Scripture.—[Faith in Christ is the key to the understanding of the Scriptures of the O. T.; comp. Joh_7:38; Joh_7:42; Joh_10:35; Joh_13:18. The singular τῇ γραφῇ indicates the unity and harmony of the canonical books from Genesis to Malachi, which, considering the great number of authors, the long period of time, and the variety of circumstances in and under which they were composed, is a strong evidence of their divine origin.—P. S.] Comp. Luk_24:26 : “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things,” etc. As they now found the death of Christ foretold in the Old. Testament, so they found also His glorification, which included His resurrection, Psa_16:10; comp. Act_2:27; Act_13:35; 1Pe_3:19; Psa_68:18; comp. Eph_4:8; Isa_53:7; comp. Act_8:35.
[Alford: “At first sight it appears difficult to fix on any passage in which the resurrection is directly announced: but with the deeper understanding of the Scriptures which the Holy Spirit gave to the Apostles and still gives to the Christian church, such prophecies as that in Psalms 16. are recognized as belonging to Him in whom alone they are properly fulfilled: see also Hos_6:2.” This is not satisfactory. The O. T. indeed does not expressly prophesy the resurrection, as a separate fact, but very often the exaltation and glorification of the Messiah after His humiliation and suffering, and this implies the resurrection, as the intervening link or the beginning of the exaltation itself. Hence we may count here in a wider sense, with Hengstenberg (I. 171), the prophecy of Shilo as a ruler, Gen_49:10; Psalms 110, where the Messiah is represented as sitting at the right of God and ruling over all His enemies; Dan_7:13-14, where He appears at the head of a universal Kingdom; Isaiah 53, where, after His atoning death, He is raised to great glory; Zec_9:9-10, where Zion’s King appears first lowly and riding upon an ass, yea, as dying (comp. Joh_12:10; Joh_13:7), but afterwards speaking peace to the heathen and having dominion from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth; comp. also Isaiah 9; Isaiah 11; Micah 5; Psalms 16. It is quite in keeping with the character of prophecy to behold the various stages of the exaltation as one continuous panorama. It is under this view that the Scripture of the O. T. is said to have foretold the resurrection; Luk_24:26 (“to enter into His glory”); Joh_20:9; 1Co_15:4; 1Pe_1:11 (“the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow”).—P. S.]
Joh_2:23. Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover.—The Evangelist thus distinguishes the stay of Jesus in Jerusalem during the passover from His first appearance there.—On the feast.—Meyer justly says, this addition is not intended to explain the term pass over for Greek readers; that must have been done by Joh_2:13. The expression signifies participation in the celebration of the feast. We suppose the feast days themselves are set off against the day of His entrance. On the day of the symbolical castigation He wrought other miracles, probably miracles of healing; and the first surprise of the Jews was followed by a demonstration of faith on the part of many attendants of the feast. The signs.—Evidently implying a multiplicity of signs, and such as determined those people to believe. He must therefore have done many miracles in Jerusalem.
Joh_2:24. Did not commit himself unto them.—The second πιστεύειν ἑαυτόν is evidently connected with the first πιστεύειν. He believed not in their believing, to such a degree as to commit or deliver up Himself to them. Various interpretations: (1) He withheld His doctrine (Chrysostom, Kuinoel); (2) He did not yield Himself to personal intercourse with them (Meyer). Without doubt simply: He did not yet entrust Himself to them as the Messiah, did not offer Himself as the Messiah, though they seemed inclined to recognize Him as such. It is the Lord’s determination, not to appear publicly under the title of Messiah; and He follows it henceforth till the triumphal entry into Jerusalem; in full accordance with Mat_4:1-11.
Because he.—He Himself, in distinction from indirect knowledge through others. How He knew them all, is in part shown by what has preceded. He knew in general that the secular spirit predominated in them; but He also saw through each one, as He met him, with a divine physiognomic discernment. In both cases is intended not only the general prophetic illumination, but the penetrating spiritual eye of the God-Man.
Joh_2:25. And needed not.—Explanatory of αὐτός in the previous clause.—Of man.—Of man as to his sinful nature in general, and of man in particular, as He encountered each individual.—For he knew.—The positive expression for: He needed not.—What was in man.—Not only the special, miraculous, physiognomic knowledge (Meyer cites Joh_1:48; Joh_4:18; Joh_6:61; Joh_6:64; Joh_11:4; Joh_11:14; Joh_13:11; Joh_21:17), but also the general knowledge of the constitution of human nature (John 3), of the order of the universe (Joh_19:11), and of the situation of the Jewish people in particular. Result: In the familiar circle of His disciples Jesus manifested His glory; in public He preserved His mysterious anonymousness as to the Messianic office.
[Christ knows us better than we know ourselves. He sees the end from the beginning, we the beginning from the end. He, says Calvin, knows the roots of the tree, we know the tree only by its fruits.—P. S.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The different meanings of the two purifications of the temple. According to Meyer, no essential difference should be perceived between the two acts. Vet the difference between the expressions “house of merchandize” in John, and “den of thieves” in the Synoptists, “the house of My Father” (ὁ οῖ̓κος τοῦ πατρός μου) in John, and “My house” (ὁ οῖ̓κός μου) in the Synoptists, as well as the greater rigor in the second case as described by Mark (cot suffering any man to carry any vessel through the temple), is plain enough. According to Hofmann, Lichtenstein, and Luthardt, Christ in the Synoptists appears as a prophet to protect the place of prayer, in John as the Son to execute His domestic right. But this would lead to an entire reversal of the order of things in the self manifestation of the Lord. The case is just the reverse. Christ performed the first cleansing of the temple, as an anonymous prophet in the right of zealotism and the right of a prophet (see the Matth. on Joh_21:12, p. 376); the second, as the Lord of the temple, publicly introduced by the people to the holy city and temple as the Messiah.
2. The body of Christ, the most real temple of God. The crucifixion, the destruction of the temple in the strictest sense (Rom_2:22); the resurrection, the building of the eternal temple. Meaning of the sign: He who builds the eternal, essential temple, has power also to purge the symbolical. The truth, that Christ is perpetually building greater, more glorious the temple of God, which the sin of man demolishes. The centre of this truth is the death and resurrection of Christ; its first tokens, the fall of Adam and the first promise (the protevangelium), the flood and the rain-bow, etc.; its unfolding, the destruction of the theocracy and temple in Jerusalem, the rise of the church, the ruin of the mediæval church by the hierarchy, and its rebuilding in the Reformation, the inducing of the judgment of the world by anti-christianity, and the erection of a new heavens and a new earth. The wedding at Cana before the purification of the temple, the token of the transfiguration of the world before the judgment of the world.
3. The first and second purifications of the temple: when once the temple is made a house of merchandize (John 2), it has also become in effect a den of robbers or of murderers, Matthew 21. First the selling of indulgences, then persecution and reformation.
4. Christ entrusts Himself to no one in Jerusalem; i.e., He does not as yet come on the stage in His office as Messiah. Comp. the Com. on Matth. on John 4.
5. The supernatural knowledge of Christ, the source of His miracles of knowledge, and in fact everywhere divine human; i.e., on the one hand not merely divine, nor on the other merely human, but both at once; divinely immediate, humanly exercised through means and organs.
ΗOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
See Comm. on Matthew, on Joh_21:12-22, p., 377; Mark, on Joh_11:12-26; Luke, on Joh_19:41-42.—The visit of Jesus the youth to the temple, and the visit of the man matured for the execution of His Messianic office.—The first, second, and last solemn appearance of Jesus in the temple (the last, Matthew 21-23).—As the crucifixion of Christ completed the desecration of the temple, so the resurrection of Christ completed the restoration of the temple.—Out of His word of holiest zeal for the temple, they made a word of blasphemy and deadly sin against the temple.—The purification of the temple, the perpetual charter of reformation.—What sign shewest thou, etc.? The spiritual blindness which demands a sensible sign for the holiest sign of the Spirit.—How Judaism, by overdoing itself, falls back into heathenism, in asking a sign for the sense, when the sign of the Spirit gloriously stands forth.—So also the Judaism of legality in Christendom.—The scourge in the hand of Jesus, or the anger of personal gentleness itself. (1) The overpowering sign of the highest zeal (against sin); (2) the humbling sign of the highest majesty (against frivolity); (3) the ocular sign of the highest assurance (against doubt).—The Old Testament spirit in which the disciples viewed the matter, indicated by their word: The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up; the New Testament watchword of Jesus: My meat is to do the will, etc., Joh_4:34.—To the temple of a Herod the hierarchs had even a right; in the temple of Christ they found themselves utterly out of place.—The token which Christ gives the Jews for the truth of His divine mission.—This token, the token also of reformation: Commit the utmost abominations in the temple, the more gloriously will the ruined temple be restored!—The conduct of the Jews on Christ’s purifying of the temple, in its permanent import.—The destroyers of the temple would be its restorers, and the restorers must pass for destroyers.—From this first day of the public appearance of Christ, enmity calumniously laid up the word, which was to bring it to naught.—The Lord’s great word concerning His end, at the beginning of His career.—The subsequent remembrance of Christ’s words by His enemies, and the subsequent remembrance of them by His friends.—When He was at Jerusalem, many believed on Him; or, (1) festival believers, believers of festival seasons when things go grandly in the church; (2) yet festival times, also true birthdays of faith.—But Jesus did not commit Himself to them; or, secret disciples, and a secret Saviour (anonymous believers, and an anonymous Christ).—Christ, the knower of hearts.—The first sign of Christ in the pious house, and His first sign in the impious church.—The transformation of water into wine, and of the driver’s whip into a beneficent sceptre (in contrast with those who have turned the sceptre into a whip).—Christ and the hierarchs with reference to the temple of God: (1) He purifies and sanctifies it, they would make its desecrated condition its holiness; (2) He gives a moral and religious sign of the Spirit, they demand a magical, sensuous sign to accredit it; (3) He gives them for a sign the prophecy that they will kill Him, and they make of it a mortal charge against Him; (4) He announces to them a new supernatural temple, and they harden themselves in their old system to their judgment.—The first public Easter festival of Jesus, a foretokening of His future and eternal Easter.—Christ’s observance of the prescribed feasts the dawn of the free festivity of the gospel.—Christ at the feast: (1) As an Israelite, in the spirit of the patriarchs; (2) as a Jew, according to the law of Moses; (3) as a prophet, after the manner of the prophets (my Father’s house not a house of merchandize, the court of the Gentiles not a cattle-market); (4) as the Christ, introducing and indicating the course of His life and work.—Holy zeal and unholy zeal in contrast in the purification of the temple.—The open, noble indignation of Jesus, and the impure malicious reserve of His opponents.:—Jesus, here as in Cana, a man, and a sinless man.—The keeping holy the temple; (1) The house of God; (2) the body; (3) the church. The rising of the divine above the corruption and ruin of the human; the eternal divine token thereof, the luminous centre of all divine signs: the resurrection of Christ from the death of the cross.
Starke: Majus: Though the word and works of God are not bound to place, yet it is right, after the example of Christ, to observe proprieties of place and time.—Osiander: Christ, the Lord of the law, submitted Himself to it, that He might redeem men from it.—Cramer: Christ, not a secular king, but Lord of the temple; therefore He comes into the temple, and there begins His public function, Hag_2:3; Hag_2:18.—Hedinger: What has the abomination of usury to do in the temple of God? What the indulgence-monger in the sanctuary?—Ah, our churches to this day are sufficiently profaned by sinful garrulity, proud display of dress, etc. (even by unsanctified discourses).—Nova Bibl. Tub.: The abuses which have crept into the church must be scourged and banished. How much more must traditional abuses call forth our zeal! Hos_12:8; Zec_14:21.—It is incumbent on all Christians, particularly on ministers, to be zealous for the house of God; yet should every one take good heed lest it be not according to knowledge.—Osiander: He who diligently pursues his calling, may fear no danger. The protection of God will be with him.—Majus: The works of God need no miraculous attestation. They shine so brightly upon the eye, that God and His divine glory may be sufficiently recognized in them.—Hedinger: Unbelief demands miracles and signs.—Zeisius: Where we have to do with false, malicious men, we are not called upon to make the truth so clear and bright, to their greater condemnation (dark words for dark men).—A mind occupied only with the earthly, cannot perceive the mysteries of God.—Instruction often serves more for others in the future, than for those to whom it is given at the time.—Ibid: Fulfilment yields the best interpretation.—Quesnel: Truth brings forth its fruits in their season.—Ibid.: Christian prudence requires that we do not lightly judge and condemn any, yet that we do not easily trust ourselves to any who present a good appearance.
Gerlach: “As Christ’s kingdom is not a sword, how is it that He deals so hardly and harshly here with the priests of the temple, and concerns Himself with what properly belongs to the secular power? Because the Lord at that time stood between the Old Testament and the New, between what Moses had established in Israel, and what Christ was to establish after His death through His Holy Spirit and the preaching of the gospel; and He shows thereby that He is a Lord who holds both dispensations in His hand” (Luther).—Lisco: A picture of the reformation of a temple-desecration which had arisen from an abuse of Deu_14:24-26.—Heubner: How much is contained in completely trusting one!—We must judge not, yet not hastily open and surrender ourselves to any. The more perfect and noble a man is, the more true and open (and yet the more is he, again, a higher mystery).—Schleiermacher: What a zeal for His Father’s house did the Lord Himself sanctify, in doing that!—But there afterwards came a time, when even the Christian church was a house of merchandize.—Then He again gathered a whip; Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and all the reformers.—It was not the whip that effected what the Redeemer did, but the spiritual power, of which that was only a sign and seal.—Our failure to act in many cases as the Redeemer acted here, is the cause of many evils in the Christian church and in all human affairs. That one is always putting upon another the performance of works well pleasing to God, and no one maintains a fresh and free consciousness of the power which God the Lord has given him, and does all he can do to promote truth and goodness and prevent wickedness,—this is the reason why so many disorders are daily renewed in the smaller and larger relations of men.—Besser: The Saviour (because they stifle the voice of conscience) draws back from them, and veils in a holy riddle the sign which they demand, and flame which was intended to be given them as the sign of all signs, the proper sign of Christ.—From every defeat a victory unfolds to the church; from every shame a glory.—When therefore He was risen, etc. Chemnitz presents the disciples, in their relation to the discourse of Jesus to them, as an example for all Bible-readers: They should not at once despise and reject everything in the Holy Scriptures which they cannot at first glance understand; nor must they despair of understanding, if they cannot at once penetrate the deep mysteries of the word. For the Spirit of knowledge leads us into the truth by degrees.—Christ’s power of trying spirits (Isa_11:3. comp. with 1Sa_16:7 ; 1Ti_5:22).
Footnotes:
[39]Joh_2:12. [αὐτοῦ after οἱ ἀδελφοί, is omitted by B. L., Treg., Westcott and Hort, but supported by א. A. al and retained by Tischend and Alf. (the latter in brackets). Westcott and Hort bracket καὶ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ. The false view about the ἀδελφοί of Christ may have had some influence on these variations.—P. S.]
[40]Joh_2:12. [As ”brethren” is now almost exclusively used in the spiritual sense, it is better to substitute “brothers,” where, as here, kinsmen, i. e., either cousins, or more probably half-brothers of Jesus, are intended. In the Scriptures the term denotes either (1) actual brotherhood, or (2) kinsmanship (cousins), or (3) common nationality, or (4) friendship and sympathy. Where there are no obvious objections, the first sense, being the most natural, must always be preferred, especially when the term, as here, occurs in connection with mother. See the Exeg. Notes.—P. S.]
[41]Joh_2:12. [The singular ἔμεινεν (instead of the plural ἔμειναν) in A. F. G. was occasioned by the preceding κατέβη and the succeeding ἀνέβη.—P. S.]
[42]Joh_2:15. [The words to τά τέ πρόβατα καὶ τοὺς βόας, “the sheep as well as the oxen,” are merely epexegetical of πάντας (masc. on account of βόας), and imply that the φραγέλλιον was used on the beasts only, although it scared the men away likewise. The them and and of the E. V. convey a false impression.—P. S.]
[43]Joh_2:15.—B. L. X., etc. [Alford, Tregelles] read:τά κέρματα [moneys, small change, instead of the singular, τὸ κέρμα (text rec. Tischend). Greek writers generally use the plural. The singular is here collective.—P. S.]
[44]Joh_2:17.—The reading of the Recepta [κατέφαγε] is conformed to the Septuagint. The most important codd., particularly א. A. B. R. besides Origen, etc., read καταφάγεται [the future, contracted from καταφαγήσεται, will consume me, in the Sent, and the Apocrypha.—P. S.]
[45]Joh_2:22.—The addition αὐτοῖς is very feebly accredited. [Omitted by all the modern critical ed.]
[46][The double purgation of the temple is rightly defended by all the older commentators, and by Schleiermacher, Olshausen, Tholuck, Ebrard, Meyer, Lange, Hengstenberg, Godet, Alford. Among those who admit only one, Strauss, Baur and Schenkel defend the report of the Synoptists, while Lüke, De Wette, Ewald decide in favor of John].
[47][Hieronymus: Igneum quiddam et sidereum radiabat ex occulis ejus et divinitatis majestas lucebat in facie. Comp. the remarks of Godet, I. p. 379, who attributes the effect chiefly to the imposing majesty of Christ’s appearance, and the irresistible force of His consciousness of supernatural power.—P. S.]
[48][So also Godet: a sign of authority and judgment. If Christ had intended physical punishment, the instrument would have been disproportionate to the end.—P. S.]
[49][Alford: The coincidence with Luk_2:49 is remarkable. By this expression thus publicly used, our Lord openly announces His Mossiahship.—P. S.]
[50][Sept.: “Ὅτι ὁ ζῆλος τοῦ οἴκου σου κατέφαγέν με (Vulg.: comedit me), καὶ οὶ ὸνειδισμοὶ τῶν ὀνειδιζόντων σεἐπέπεσον ἐπ’ἐμέ.—P. S.]
[51][“The καταφάγειν spoken of in that passion Psalm, was the marring and wasting of the Saviour’s frame by His zeal for God and God’s Church, which resulted in the buffeting, the scourging, the Cross.” Alford].
[52][So also Tholuck, Hengstenberg, Godet, but Meyer contends that καταφάγεται (=καταφαγήσεται) is only used in the sense of the future.—P. S.]
[53][Renan (Vie de Jésus, p. 354) can see in this profound enigma of our Lord only “an imprudent word spoken in bad humor” (“Un jour sa mauvaise humeur contre le temple lui arracha un mot imprudent)”! Godet, I. 387, well remarks: “La methode de Jesus est de jeter une enigme et de ne révéler la vérité qu’en la voilunt sous un divin paradoxe, qui ne peut êlre compris qu’en changeant de cæur. C‘est là un secret de la profonde pédagogies”—P. S.]
[54][Meyer, with his usual and at times pedantic philological strictness, takes the imperative λύσατε as strictly provocative, and explains it from a painful excitement of feeling in view of the opposition already manifesting itself. But the apparent harshness is softened by the prophetic character of the word and the double reference to the temple and the person. Joh_13:27, where Christ calls upon Judas to do quickly what he intended to do, furnishes a parallel. If the fruit is once matured, it must fall.—P. S.]
[55][So Bengel (nutu gestuve) and Meyer. But in the fifth ed., p. 144, note, M. gives up this reference. Such pointing would have been the solution of the riddle, contrary to its intention; but neither the Jews nor the disciples understood Him at the time. The Jews on this and the second purgation referred τὸν ναὸν τοῦτον to the temple, Joh_2:20; Mat_26:61; Mat_27:40. Meyer now assumes that Christ pointed to the temple (this temple before you), but meant His body as the antitype of the temple and the true dwelling of God, and thus put the image in the place of the thing typified, “so dass diese scharfen lebendigen, ohne Auslegung hingeworfenen Bildzüge wie in einem Bilderräthsel eine symbolisch prophretische Vorhersagung seiner Auferstehung enthalten, wie Mat_12:39; Mat_16:4.”—P. S.]
[56](See Heubner, p. 242. Henke was not the first to take this view, but Zinzendorf has it in his Homil. über die Wundenlitanei, p. 160.)
[57][Olshausen, Stier, Brückner (versus De Wette), Alford, Godet.—P. S.]
[58][Meyer, pp. 145–147, raises seven objections against this view. It is plainly irreconcilable with apostolic inspiration. In my Lectures on the Gospel of John, written at Berlin, 1842, I find the remark: “It involves an immense presumption on the part of theologians of the nineteenth century, however respectable, if they imagine that they understand Christ better than His favorite disciple and bosom-friend to whom He revealed the future struggles and triumphs of His Kingdom.” Alford also justly protests against such liberty of interpretation. For we have here not a chronological statement, but a doctrinal exposition of a most important declaration of Christ.—P. S.]
[59][This idea John expresses in ἐσκήνωσεν, Joh_1:14 (see notes on pp. 71, 73), and Paul when he says that the whole fulness of the Godhead dwelled in Christ bodily. Col_2:9.—P. S.]
[60][Comp. also Hengstenberg, I:165. He thinks that no justice can be done to this holy enigma which Christ proposed to the Jews, unless we recognize the essential identity of the temple, the appearance of Christ in the flesh and the church of the N. T. He explains: “If ye once destroy the temple of my body, and with it this external temple, the symbol and pledge of the kingdom of God among you, I shall rebuild in three days the temple of My body and with it at the same time the substance of the eternal temple, the kingdom of God.” The crucifixion of Christ involved as a necessary consequence the destruction of the temple and the O. T. worship; the re surrection of Christ the creation of the Christian church, and worship, of which the temple was the type and shadow. Godet explains: “Destroy this your temple, by killing Me, the Messiah.”—P. S.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 14, 15, 16 manifested forth his glory--Nothing in the least like this…
manifested forth his glory--Nothing in the least like this is said of the miracles of prophet or apostle, nor could without manifest blasphemy be said of any mere creature. Observe, (1) At a marriage Christ made His first public appearance in any company, and at a marriage He wrought His first miracle--the noblest sanction that could be given to that God-given institution. (2) As the miracle did not make bad good, but good better, so Christianity only redeems, sanctifies, and ennobles the beneficent but abused institution of marriage; and Christ's whole work only turns the water of earth into the wine of heaven. Thus "this beginning of miracles" exhibited the character and "manifested forth the glory" of His entire Mission. (3) As Christ countenanced our seasons of festivity, so also that greater fulness which befits such; so far was He from encouraging that asceticism which has since been so often put for all religion. (4) The character and authority ascribed by Romanists to the Virgin is directly in the teeth of this and other scriptures.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv11–16 11. Beginning of miracles—”The Infancy of Jesus,” a book…
11. Beginning of miracles—”The Infancy of Jesus,” a book so called, written very anciently, but later than the Apostolic age, relates previous actions or miracles said to have been performed by Jesus in his childhood. They are of the most fantastic character. These compositions show, by their very nature, their vast inferiority, and the true divinity of the Gospels.
Manifested forth his glory—Glory is God’s own attribute; and Jesus, in putting forth the divine power resident in him, manifested forth his true, indwelling, divine glory.
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His disciples believed on him—Believed on him, as he now manifested himself, as possessed of creative power. See note on Joh_2:22.
On this miracle we may remark:
(1.) It confers a divine honour on the institution of marriage. Dr. Clarke says that “it was the first Christian marriage that ever took place; that Christ, his apostles, his mother, the purest of virgins and most holy of witnesses, were all present.” Every wedding should be such as such company might attend. Ministers should be careful that the wedding ceremony be not hastily or irreverently performed, but with a solemn impressiveness. Nor is any place so suitable for such a ceremony as the sanctuary of God.
(2.) Our Lord’s attendance and miracle at this wedding, with its festivity of wine, were public proof that he had not, as some sceptics have maintained, any origin from, or connection with, the sect of Essenes. See note on Mat_3:7. Jesus was no model for anchorites, shakers, or dervizes, but a perfect example of serene, social, every-day piety.
(3.) As long ago as Augustine, it was said that Jesus in this miracle did rapidly what the God of nature does slowly every autumn. Christ only accelerated the process of nature in making water into wine. Olshausen adopts the idea; but Strauss replies that Jesus professedly did more than accelerate nature. He put to the water something besides the water. True. Still the vine does slowly what Jesus here does rapidly; namely, blends with the water those ingredients, collected from the surrounding elements, which constitute the wine. There is, therefore, evidently nothing impossible to divine power in selecting and putting together these elements, which amount to the desired vinous compound.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv11–16 11. This beginning, &c.] Better, this, as a beginning…
11. This beginning, &c.] Better, this, as a beginning of His signs, did Jesus in Cana; i.e. it is the first miracle of all, not merely the first at Cana. Thus S. John agrees with the Synoptists in representing the Messianic career as beginning in Galilee. This verse is conclusive against the miracles of Christ’s childhood recorded in the Aprocryphal Gospels. See on Joh_4:48. Our translators often in this Gospel, though very rarely in the other three, turn ‘signs’ into ‘miracles.’
manifested] The same Greek word occurs in connexion with His last miracle, Joh_21:1; Joh_21:14, and the same English word should be used in all the passages. Comp. Joh_7:4 and see on Joh_1:31.
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his glory] This is the final cause of Christ’s ‘signs,’ His own and His Father’s glory (Joh_11:4), and these two are one.
and his disciples believed on him] What a strange remark for a writer in the second century to make! His disciples believed on Him? Of course they did. Assume that a disciple himself is the writer, and all is explained: he well remembers how his own imperfect faith was confirmed by the miracle. A forger would rather have given us the effect on the guests. Three times in this chapter does S. John give us the disciples’ point of view, here, Joh_2:17 and Joh_2:22; very natural in a disciple, not natural in a later writer. See on Joh_11:15 and Joh_21:12.
Two objections have been made to this miracle (1) on rationalistic, (2) on ‘Temperance’ grounds. (1) It is said that it is a wasteful miracle, a parade of power, unworthy of a Divine Agent: a tenth of the quantity of wine would have been ample. But the surplus was not wasted any more than the twelve baskets of fragments (Joh_6:13); it would be a valuable present to a bridal pair. (2) It is urged that Christ would not have supplied the means for gross excess; and to avoid this supposed difficulty it is suggested that the wine made was not intoxicating, i.e. was not wine at all. But in all His dealings with men God allows the possibility of a temptation to excess. All His gifts may be thus abused. The 5000 might have been gluttonous over the loaves and fishes.
Christ’s honouring a marriage-feast with His first miracle gives His sanction (1) to marriage, (2) to times of festivity.
Four hundred years had elapsed since the Jews had seen a miracle. The era of Daniel was the last age of Jewish miracles. Since the three children walked in the burning fiery furnace, and Daniel had remained unhurt in the lions’ den, and had read the hand-writing on the wall, no miracle is recorded in the history of the Jews until Jesus made this beginning of His ‘signs’ at Cana of Galilee. No wonder therefore, that the almost simultaneous appearance of a Prophet like John and a worker of miracles like Jesus attracted the attention of all classes.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 13, 15, 16 (11) This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana…
(11) This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, or, more exactly, This did Jesus in Cana of Galilee as the beginning of His signs. The form of the sentence makes it certain that it is the absolutely first and not the first in Cana which is meant.
It is important to note here that St. John uses only once, and that in our Lord’s test of the courtier, and connected with “sign” (Joh_4:48), the word which represents “miracle,” “wonder,” “portent,” and that he nowhere uses the word which represents “powers” or “mighty works.” For him they are simply “works,” and these “works” are “signs.” He thinks of our Lord as the agent in all creation, and the source of all life (Joh_1:2-3); but this being so, no display of power impresses him, and no wonder startles him. All is the natural “work” of the divine worker; but like Himself, every work is also a word. It speaks to him who hath ears to hear. It is a “sign” to him who can spiritually interpret. That at His will water became wine, is as natural as that, by that will, the rain passing through earth and vine and grape should become wine. From his point of view both are equally explicable; from any other, both are in ultimate analysis equally inexplicable. “Voici le vin qui tombe du ciel!” is the French peasant’s expression for the one (comp. Trench’s note).
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“The conscious water saw its God, and blushed,”
[“Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit”]
is the English poet’s expression for the other.
This gives the key, then, to the selection of “miracles” by St. John, and to their interpretation. He gives those which mark stages of fuller teaching. They are “signs” of a new revelation, and lead to a higher faith. What was the fuller teaching in this first sign? The heart must seek to read it. Words can only seek to guide. Would not those Jews remember the first miracle of Moses, and later, if not then, see here the contrast between the Law which came by Moses, and the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ (Joh_1:17)? Would not those exact observers of traditional rites see a living principle growing out of the rite practised at every meal (comp. Mar_7:3, Note), and feel that it is the letter which killeth, it is the Spirit which giveth life? Would not those who thought of Him as the Messianic King of Israel read in His presence at the festal tide of family life the meaning of the claim to be Son of Humanity? Would not the followers of the hermit John learn that Christianity’s message is not for the wilderness, but for the hearts of men; and that its life is not one of seclusion from the world, but of moral power in it (Joh_17:15)? Would not those who had heard the Baptist’s record, and had felt and uttered their own convictions, hear now the secret voice of Nature joining in the witness? Some such thoughts as these came to them in a fulness of power they had not known before. It was to them as a new manifestation of His glory, and the disciples again believed.
The other signs recorded in this Gospel are, the Healing of the ruler’s son (Joh_4:46-54); and of the impotent man at Bethesda (Joh_5:1-9); the Feeding of the five thousand (Joh_6:5-59); the Walking on the sea (Joh_6:15-21); the Giving of sight to the man born blind (Joh_9:1-7); the Raising of Lazarus (John 11); the Draught of Fishes (Joh_21:1-8) See Notes on these passages, and on Joh_20:30.
[(3) JESUS MANIFESTS HIMSELF PUBLICLY (Joh_2:12 to Joh_4:54):
(a) In Jerusalem—the Temple (Joh_2:12-22);
(b) In Jerusalem—the city (Joh_2:23 to Joh_3:21);
Nicodemus: The new birth (Joh_2:1-8);
Belief (Joh_2:9-15);
Judgment (Joh_2:16-21);
(c) In Judœa (Joh_3:22-36). The Baptist.]
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 14, 15, 16 Jesus made this beginning of signs in Cana of…
Jesus made this beginning of signs in Cana of Galilee, and manifested his glory. The beginning, the earliest of the tokens which he gave of his higher nature and lofty claims and faculties. The word shmeia , corresponding with the Hebrew twOa, is generally, in the Acts as well as in the LXX, associated with terata , or "portents;" when it occurs in the synoptists it is translated "signs." The word by itself does not connote miraculous energies, but any event, natural or human, which becomes a token or witness to unseen or Divine energies. When Christ"s wonderful actions (often called dunameiv by the synoptists) are referred to by John, he calls them simply erga ; so that operations which, if wrought by other persons, might have been portents, miracles, or marvels, are to him perfectly normal, and are called simply "works." Weiss leaves.the question of the manner in which this supply of wine was provided entirely unsettled, but declares that, whether by some fortunate providential opportunity, by the forecast of the mother, or by concealed methods of meeting the exigency, this great gift was brought about by the Son of Mary, the effect was the same as if it had been wrought by the Creator"s hand. The glory of his power and love and sympathy was manifested. This appears to us utterly inconsistent with the intention or idea of the evangelist. The impression previously made upon John the Baptist was of his supreme submission to the Divine will, his sacrificial yielding to that will for the taking away of sin; further, that in some sense he was Son of God, and Minister and Organ for the dispensation of the Spirit of God. The few disciples admitted that, by his penetration of their character and hidden inner life, his wisdom was of a different kind from that of men. Now, however, they see a manifestation of his glory as power. He has unlimited resources at his disposal, and his disciples believed on him to that extent. This expression asserts the truth of the selective and discriminating force of the mission of Christ, and the negative fact that the company assembled received no religious impression beyond the most superficial one. "The disciples" who came with him "believed" more than they had done before. It may be that they, especially John and Nathanael of Cana, were among the honorary diakonoi who were alone fully conscious of what happened on the occasion. They apprehend the "glory," and entirely trust themselves eiv auton , to him, and follow him with an added momentum. There are new and wonderful suggestions made in this passage which unveil the glory of the Divine love and power now wrought in man. A point of connection with the synoptic Gospels is that they too record Christ"s own description of the contrast between the austere prophet and the Son of man (Mat_11:18, Mat_11:19) in terms almost taken from this very scene. Compare also the mode in which Christ vindicated his own social freedom from Pharisaic exclusiveness, and the conduct of his own disciples from that of John the Baptist"s disciples in the matter of ceremonial purifications, by his parable of the old wine skins bursting with the new and potent fluid put into them. (Mat_9:14-17 and parallel passages) John gives here a deeper apprehension of the mystery, a keynote to a whole cycle of instructions, on the "glory" of his love. By manifesting his Divine sympathy with marriage, with human life and fellowship, with innocent gladness, he proves himself to be the same Christ of whom the synoptic tradition speaks, the same Jesus who took the children to his arms, and constituted a "marriage supper" the great type of the eternal union between God and man in the gospel of his love. (cf. Mat_22:2, etc.) But this same evangelist is filled with the same imagery dating back to experiences of Caua, when he describes the final victory of the "Lamb of God". (Rev_19:7 Rev_21:2)
"This beginning of his signs.
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All that a man does may be regarded as significant of his character and aims in life. How far more obviously and instructively is this the case with the actions of the Son of God! Yet, though whatever Jesus did may be regarded thus, there are certain works of his which the evangelist notes especially as being signs. Of these works, the deed performed at Cana is remarked to be the first in point of time.
I WHAT THESE SIGNS WERE IN THEMSELVES.
1. They were works, and mighty works; such as implied great power on the part of the Worker; such as were not wrought by ordinary men.
2. They were wonders, or miracles, fitted to arrest the attention, awaken the inquiry, excite the surprise, of beholders.
3. As in this instance, they were deeds authoritative over nature, its elements, processes, and laws.
II OF WHAT THESE SIGNS WERE SIGNIFICANT. That they did speak to the minds and hearts of those who beheld them, is clear; they compelled the inquiry, "What manner of man is this?" The works led the witnesses to ask concerning the Worker; for they testified of him.
1. Of a Divine presence and power among men. The signs were as the cry of a herald, as a trumpet call summoning the attention of all who were capable of understanding. They spake in plainest language, and their voice and utterance was this: "The King of nature and the Lord of man is here!
2. Of Divine compassion and mercy. Observe the contrast between the mediators of the old covenant and the new. The first sign which Moses wrought was to turn water into blood; the first which Jesus presented to men was to turn water into wine. We see pity in its varying grades excited by human want and. misery, manifesting itself in the exercise of authority prompted and guided by love.
3. Of Divine adaptation to special needs of men. There was vast variety in the miraculous ministrations of Immanuel. The first sign proves that the same Lord who supplies the most urgent wants is not unmindful of the social pleasures and comforts of men. There is delicate discrimination and thoughtful adaptation and suitability in the marvels which Jesus wrought. Bread for the hungry, healing for the sick; yet also wine for the joyful and the festive.
III TO WHOM THESE SIGNS APPEALED.
1. Not primarily to unbelievers. Whether there were any such in the happy circle in whose midst and for whose benefit the first of the signs was exhibited, we do not know; probably all were friendly and receptive, and none more than partially enlightened. Jesus did not go into public and perform a wonder to amaze a multitude.
2. But to his disciples. There was no sign from heaven for the unspiritual, but for the believing and affectionate there were proofs given that their confidence and love were not misplaced. "His disciples believed on him," i.e. all the more as they saw more of the might of his word and the tenderness of his heart. T.
"Jesus... manifested forth his glory.
Does it seem to the reader of this simple narrative that this language is somewhat strained is pitched rather too high? An obscure village, a homely festival, a peasants" party; are these suggestive of, harmonious with, this great word "glory"? Ah! let us not be deceived by outward, appearances; but rather remember that, as the world judges, there was no glory in Jesus any more than in his surroundings, his associates. Be it ours to form a wiser, juster, truer judgment.
I GLORY WAS MANIFESTED IN CHRIST"S COMMAND AND CONTROL OF NATURE.
II GLORY WAS SHOWN FORTH IN THE REVELATION OF CHRIST"S OWN LOVE AND GRACE. To the purged vision of evangelists and apostles there was a higher glory in the pity of the Redeemer than could have been displayed by any sign from heaven. "They beheld his glory...full of grace and truth.
III GLORY WAS REFLECTED UPON THE COUNTENANCES AND THE HEARTS OF THE ASSEMBLED COMPANY. The master of the feast, the bride and the bridegroom, may little have known who and what manner of person they had invited and were entertaining in Jesus of Nazareth. But henceforth! surely henceforth he must have been to them the Divine Friend and Lord. Whosoever will welcome Jesus to his home and to his heart shall learn the mystery alike of his majesty and of his love.
IV GLORY WAS REVEALED TO CHRIST"S OWN DISCIPLES. These five newly found companions and pupils were soon privileged with intimations of the unique character and power of their Master. It was a lesson memorable and precious as being the first among many. They who learn from Jesus lessons of love and pity, lessons of wisdom and power, learn at the same time a lesson of moral splendour and majesty which shall prepare them for renewed manifestations in a long, an infinite series.
V GLORY WAS, THROUGH THIS RECORD, RADIATED TO ALL TIME AND TO THE WHOLE UNIVERSE, REVEALING THE CHARACTER AND THE MINISTRY OF IMMANUEL. T.
"His disciples believed on him.
There is singular simplicity and beauty in this statement, coming where it does at the close of this narrative.
I OF WHOM IS THIS BELIEF ASSENTED? Not, as might perhaps have been expected, of strangers, who witnessed the mighty work and sign, but of five men here named "the disciples" of Jesus.
II WHAT WAS THEIR PREPARATION FOR THIS BELIEF? Undoubtedly their admiration and affection for Jesus, who had sought them or welcomed them, and shown them the friendliness of his heart.
III WHAT WAS THE OCCASION OF THIS RELIEF? It was the "sign" they witnessed, the moral glory which they discerned in the Master"s sympathetic and gracious action. Coming to hearts so prepared, the wonder did its work effectually.
IV WHAT WERE THE RESULTS OF THIS BELIEF?
1. The satisfaction, rest, and joy of their own minds.
2. The resolve and ability to publish the Saviour"s fame, and bring men to behold his glory. T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv11–13 This beginning of miracles
Joh_2:11
This beginning of miracles
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The miracles of Christ
Miracles are not only a proof but a part of revelation, and carry their own weight of truth quite independent of their testimony to the authority of the whole.
Christs miracles
I. IDENTIFY THE GOD OF NATURE WITH THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPEL, and show that the Word was God, and that all things were made by Him. Believers in Christ do not need their witness, but should follow up their teaching, and study in nature the wisdom and power and goodness of Christ.
II. ILLUSTRATE THE WIDE BENEFICENCE OF THE GOSPEL. They would have been equally cogent as proofs of His Divine authority if there had been no element of mercy in them; and it is humiliating to reflect that had they been miracles of judgment the people would have been more willing to listen to His words. As it was, they were the outcome of the wealth of compassion that filled His heart, and teach us something of the present range of His love.
III. PROVE THE ILLIMITABLE POWER BY WHICH EVERY GOSPEL PURPOSE WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED. The words, the promise, and the power that performs are eternally linked together. No power, therefore, can prevent the accomplishment of the great purposes of salvation. All fears, then, should be banished. There is no danger that the miracles of Christ do not prove to be under His control.
IV. SHOW THE DIVINE EARNESTNESS WITH WHICH GOD PRESSES UPON THE ATTENTION OF SINFUL MEN THE CLAIMS AND MERCY OF HIS GOSPEL. (W. H. King.)
The miracles of nature
Men cry out for signs, but we may see miracles enough every day. I read that Aarons rod budded, and I am astonished. But last spring I saw a cause of greater astonishment--thousands of bare rods budding and blooming blossoms in the hedges. I saw no one do it, and yet the trees were being daily clothed with thicker foliage. Was not that wonderful? I read that the manna came down daily from heaven to the wilderness, and I am amazed. But I see a cause of greater amazement every year: I see your bread coming, not down from heaven, but up from the earth, a much more unlikely place, every day in the spring. Is not that wonderful? I read that Elijah, hiding by the brook Cherith, was daily fed by two carnivorous ravens, and I am filled with wonder. But there is a cause of much greater wonderment in the fact that millions upon millions are daily fed with abundance of bread and meat, without a single raven under Gods sun to cater for them. I read that Jesus Christ multiplied the loaves and fishes, and that the fragments that remained filled twelve baskets full--there was more at the end of the meal than at the beginning. But thisyear I witnessed a greater miracle: I saw the barley and the wheat increasing, some thirty, some sixty, and some a hundred fold; and the loaves and the fishes, notwithstanding the enormous consumption, are more numerous to-day than they have ever been before. Nature is a standing miracle. (J. C. Jones, D. D.)
The beginning of miracles
There are five reasons why this should be the first.
1. As marriage was the first institution ordained by God, so at a marriage was Christs first miracle.
2. As Christ had showed Himself miraculous a little while ago by a fast, so He cloth now by an extraordinary provision at a feast. When He would not makes stones bread, it was not because He could not.
3. He would not make stones into bread to satisfy Satan, but He was willing to turn water into wine to show forth His glory.
4. The first miracle wrought in the world by man was transformation Exo_7:9), and the first miracle wrought by the Son of Man was of the same nature.
5. The first time you hear of John the Baptist, you hear of his strict diet, and so the first time you hear of Christ in His public ministry, you hear of Him at a marriage feast. (Lightfoot.)
This miracle cannot but have a representative character. We may observe
I. ITS ESSENTIAL CHARACTER. A sign of sovereign power wrought on inorganic nature, not on a living body.
II. ITS CIRCUMSTANTIAL CHARACTER. The change of the simpler to the richer element. In this respect it may be contrasted with the first public miracle of Moses, which commences the record of Old Testament miracles.
III. ITS MORAL CHARACTER.
1. The answer of love to faith.
2. Ministering to human joy in one of its simplest and most natural forms (cf. Mat_11:18-19)
.
In each respect the character of the sign answers to the general character of Christ as
1. A new creation.
2. A transfiguration of the ceremonial law into a spiritual gospel.
3. An ennobling of the whole life. In addition, notice that the scene of the sign--a marriage feast--is that under which the accomplishment of Christs work is most characteristically prefigured (Joh_3:29; Mat_22:2; Mat_25:1; Rev_19:7; Rev_21:2). (Bishop Westcott.)
The water made wine
Let us now look at the FACT, the mode, and the motive of this miraculous act. That it was a miracle, a creation-miracle, the turning of water into wine, stands on the face of the record. Every attempt to reconcile belief in the record with an evasion of the creative act implied in it has been a failure. Such suppositions as that the spiritual elevation of the guests under the power of the Lords discourse made them think that to be wine which was only water (Ewald)
, or that He gave to that which still remained water the force and sap of wine (Neander)
or even that this was a supply of wine produced in the ordinary way and providentially arriving in the nick of time at the believing prayer or omniscient foresight of the Saviour (Weiss)
, will not satisfy the fact, nor the plain and honest meaning of the recording Evangelist, an eye-witness of the wonder. Some of those who rest in the fact of the miracle and regard it as creative have vainly attempted to conceive and describe the MODE in which it was wrought. It has long been usual to suggest that this act may be thought of on the analogy of natures work; that what was done here in a moment was the same thing which is done in countless vineyards year by year. The essence of the miracle, says Olshausen, consists in divinely effecting the acceleration of the natural process. So also Augustine long ago. The analogy is tempting, but we gain nothing by it as an explanation. Indeed, it is impossible, and after all inept. There is no real parallel. We can trace these processes in nature; but here we can trace no process. We should have to imagine not only accelerated processes of nature, but also those artificial changes, anticipated and condensed, by which the fruit of the vine becomes a beverage--the ripening of the wine as well as of the grape.
There are no natural laws by which water in a well or in a jar will change into wine. Nature never would do this, however long time you gave her. Finally, for the PURPOSE. One of the main difficulties, according to some expositors, is the absence of sufficient motive. This is a miracle, they say, without a moral end. It is placed at the outset of the Fourth Gospel, with the evident intention of showing
1. That Jesus struck a key-note to His ministry so entirely contrasted with that of the Baptist, whose disciples these first followers of Jesus had originally been.
2. Nor can the objection about the triviality of the occasion justify itself, as if it were the mere relieving of a dinner-table dilemma. Rather the reverse is the true inference. The gracious Lord has sympathy with all needs, the finer as well as the commoner. He who multiplied the loaves for the relief of a hungry congregation might increase the store of wine for the resolving of a social perplexity. The minor graces and courtesies of life are taken account of, in Christianity, as well as the stern realities.
3. But, indeed, to search for an exact necessity as motive here is to miss the whole point. These wedding guests could have done without more and better wine. It is a miracle of superfluity if you will. The well-spring of grace and truth in Jesus Christ overflows at the first onset. He is come to give life, and more abundant. It is placed in the front of the miracle-record not merely to point a contrast between the Saviours ministry and that of the Baptist, but to show how the new economy surpasses the old. This whole transaction reveals His glory as the Bringer of the final and highest dispensation. In Jesus Christ, God has kept His best till last. In fine, it is plainly meant that we should see in this work an epitome of the Lords entire miraculous activity. In it, all His glory is His grace and love. In the Nature miracles we are to note how always He is not ministered unto, but ministers. (J. Laidlaw, D. D.)
The beginning of miracles
All beginnings have a wonderful interest to us. There is a peculiar pleasure in tracing a broad deep river, that bears upon its bosom the commerce of a nation, to its source far up among the mountains, in a little well whose overflowing waters a childs hand could stop; or in going back to the origin of a mighty nation like the Roman, in the drifting ashore, at the foot of the Palatine Hill, of the ark that contained the infant founders. Institutions, social or benevolent, that have been established for ages, derive a fresh charm from the consideration of their first feeble commencement, and the contrast between what they were then and what they are now. There is a mystery about a cloud coming all at once into the blue sky, a star appearing suddenly amid the twilight shades, a spring welling up in the midst of a sandy plain. It seems as if something new were being created before our eyes. A sense of awe comes over us, as if brought into contact with another world. I have had this curious feeling when coming unexpectedly upon the habitat of a very rare plant. This peculiar charm of novelty belongs especially to the origin of sacred institutions-to the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the performance of the first miracle, the formation of the Christian Church, and the production of the New Testament writings. The thought that there was a time when these things had no existence, that for thirty years Jesus wrought no miracle, that the first believers in the gospel in Judea, Corinth, and Rome had no New Testament, gives a vividness to the feelings with which we regard them, brings back the freshness that has evaporated with long familiarity. The miracle of Cana comes into the midst of the previous natural life of Jesus like a star out of the blue profound, like a well out of the dry mountain side, like a rare, unknown flower appearing among the common indigenous plants of a spot. It brings us out of the narrow wall that hems us round, to the verge of Gods infinity, where we can look over into the fathomless gulf. It is the first act of the new creation, in which a new life-potency entered into what at the time existed, and called forth a new development. It gave to the stream of the worlds course a new motion and a new direction, without which it would have become a stagnant bog--a dead sea. It is the base of that wonderful miracle structure of the gospel, of which the resurrection is the pinnacle. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)
The first miracle
How well fitted this miracle is, in its character, to introduce the train which succeeded it; to open the wonderful order of instructions, doctrines, and works which was afterwards developed; to be, as it was, the first miracle. The glory of the natural day is not manifested forth in the morning by a blaze of meridian splendour. The light is mild and soft which first peeps from behind the hill-tops, or flushes from the bed of ocean. So it was with the glorious gospel of the blessed God. Its first manifestation by miracle was like the spreading dawn. It blended with the joyous accompaniments of a festive occasion and the kind sympathies of domestic life: It came like a nuptial blessing to a young pair who were just commencing the journey of life together. By-and-by we shall see it among the sick, the maimed, and the blind, healing infirmities, and restoring the lost faculties of sense. By-and-by we shall see it in the dark death chamber and the darker tomb, dispelling the darkness and raising the dead. Then we shall find no want of elevation. Then our minds will be filled and overpowered by its sublimity. But now let us do justice to its loveliness, and admire its first approach to the children of men. (F. W. P. Greenwood, D. D.)
Christs first miracle
The first of a series gives the key to the whole. The first animals or plants have been combining types, i.e, have united in themselves the characters of several familes now widely separated. So the earliest human lives were typical. The first notes of a song suggest all that is necessary to make the harmony. And the first miracle enters into all the other miracles that Jesus did, and combines in itself the elements of them all.
1. It is a work of mercy.
2. It is an emblem of a higher spiritual blessing.
3. It is a prophecy of the new genesis.
Like an illuminated initial letter, which contains in itself an illustrated epitome of the contents of the whole chronicle, it appropiately begins the series of Christs beneficent works by a beautiful picture of the nature and design of them all.
I. IT LINKS THE WORK OF THE SECOND ADAM WITH THAT OF THE FIRST. Adams disobedience turned paradise into a wilderness. Christs obedience turns the wilderness into paradise.
II. IT SHOWS THE RESTORATION OF NATURE AS WELL AS HUMANITY. Mans sin brought barrenness: Christs work restores fruitfulness. And as nature shared the effects of the fall with man, it will participate also in the effects of redemption. This miracle is the first step in the process.
III. IT COMBINES THE GOSPEL WITH THE PRECEDING DISPENSATIONS. Moses could only sweeten the waters of Marsh--only ameliorate the bitter spring of human sin, and reform men. Jesus turns the water into wine and regenerates men.
IV. THE OCCASION WAS ONE OF TRANSCENDENT IMPORTANCE. In this respect it is the first in order of rank as well as time.
1. As a human institution marriage stands at the head of all others, originating in paradise and surviving the wreck of the fall.
2. As a type of heavenly mystery it stands first in importance and significance.
(1) The union of those attributes of love and power in God, from which creation had its birth and has its continuance.
(2) The union of Divine influences and human experiences in the soul which forms the kingdom of heaven within.
(3) The union of the Saviour and the Church.
V. THE MIRACLE WAS THE MOST DIFFICULT OF ALL, if any gradation can be allowed. There was here no co-operation of faith. It was not the purification and assistance of a natural function, but a creation de novo. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
The miracle as a sign
I. OF CHRISTS MISSION. It was none the less significant because wrought for a temporary purpose. Mans need of Christ appears in trifling as well as conspicuous ways. Food is common-place, but it is an universal need.
1. The act was significant of the joyous and abundant feast He was about to spread for all people.
2. The moment in which it was wrought, when the wine had failed, is a sign of the fact that Christ waits till mans own powers are exhausted before giving His grace. Hence He delayed His advent till the world was exhausted with its efforts to find peace and holiness. The pagan religions were exhausted. Philosophy had failed to solve the problems of life. So we do not receive the fuiness of Christ till convinced of our helplessness and ready to depend on Divine grace.
3. The nature of the miracle, the creation of the wine out of water, not out of nothing, is a sign that
(1) He had come not to create a new world, but to transform the old;
(2) Not to establish a new religion, but to transform Judaism;
(3) Not to produce new characters, but to regenerate stoners. He has poor material to work upon. Human nature is as weak and cold as water. But as He made good and warming wine, so He will strengthen our humanity and fill it with the love of God.
II. OF THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST.
1. Of His grace and glory (Joh_1:14; Joh_1:17).
2. Of His naturalness. He was thoroughly at home, and revealed the natural union of a pure humanity with a Divine life; sympathizing with human joys, as at Bethany with human griefs. Religion does not break the sweet ties which God has formed between man and man.
3. Of His mindfulness of His great object. We see this in His conversation with His mother, which shows us to remember in society that the chief end of man is to glorify God, and that no earthly joy or work must be allowed to unfit us for that. (G. T. Purves.)
The miracle as a sign
In respect of
I. NATURE.
1. It was a miracle in itself, apart from all surrounding circumstances. What is an everyday occurrence in one climate may be a rare wonder in another. To an inhabitant of the tropic the freezing of water would be a miracle. The feats of a chemist would pass for supernatural in the first, but be put down as strictly natural in the nineteenth century. But Christs miracles are miracles all the world over and all the ages through.
2. The miracle was not performed till nature was exhausted. His hour did not come till the wine had actually failed. This always characterizes His interpositions. All He cured were incurable. This is a sign that we may calculate on His presence in extremity. When your earthly wine is all gone, He will come to your relief.
3. This miracle in its results is repeated every year. Miracles are explanatory notes revealing the secret processes of material phenomena, signs of the power that is everywhere and always at work. He turned the water into wine once; He does so still.
II. SOCIETY.
1. It was performed in a wedding. John the Baptist was an ascetic; will Christ be one? The Jews looked for a king; will Christ then claim the throne? Christ was not an ascetic, for He went to a wedding. He was not a dignitary, for it was a wedding of ordinary people. This was a sign then that He belonged to Society.
2. The miracle was performed at the feast. Jesus was always the antagonist of suffering and the source of joy. The thing here signified is that if there is a time to weep there is also a time to rejoice.
3. It was performed at a marriage feast for the purpose of beneficence, to point out the difference between the Old Testament miracles and those of the New, and to show the different character of the two dispensations.
4. It was a miracle of luxury. Wine was not needful to maintain life; loaves and fishes were. This is a sign then that man does not live by bread alone, but is permitted to go after the beautiful in every form. Is it sinful to have pictures whilst the heathen be unreclaimed? There is no reason why Englishmen should be half-civilized because Kaffirs are altogether barbarous. Because the potato is the more useful plant of the two, that is not to say that the rose is unnecessary.
5. The miracle is a sign that self-restraint should be practiced in the midst of abundance.
III. CHRISTS PERSON.
1. He had not to acquire glory, bat only to manifest it. He manifested it here as the Sovereign of nature.
2. As a consequence His disciples believed in Him. They did so before. This confirmed them. Miracles cannot convince unbelievers. It was the disciples, not the guests, who believed. (J. Cynddylan Jones, D. D.)
The first miracle of Christ the sneaking expression of His life and work
I. OF HIS PERSON, in which the earthly human nature becomes a heavenly: the essential, genuine Vine (Joh_15:1).
II. OF THE POWER OF HIS LOVE which transformed the water of earthly need into the wine of heavenly joy: brings forth judgment unto victory, makes blessedness out of Divine sorrow.
III. OF HIS DIVINE WORKS, in which is everywhere reflected His main work of bringing to pass the new birth of mankind from the earthly kingdom into the heavenly.
IV. OF HIS LAST WORK The glorification of the world. (J. P. Lange.)
The beginning of signs: or the sacredness of common life
I. CHRISTS SYMPATHY WITH THE RELATIONSHIPS AND GLADNESS OF MANS LIFE. That was a new thing in the world, the sign of a new spirit that was to pervade mankind. There is a strong tendency in human nature to associate lofty morality with rigorous sternness of life: the prophets; John the Baptist; monks. But here Christ mingles with the gladness of a wedding feast, and exerts His supernatural power to supply a festive need. This implied
1. That earthly life was to be glorified by the heavenly.
2. That human love is not to be carnalized, but made Divine.
3. That human relationships do not clash with the love of God, but are to become powerful instruments for aiding it.
4. That no sphere is too common for Christ to sanctify.
II. CHRIST BESTOWED ON COMMON THINGS A HIGHER POWER IN ORDER TO AWAKEN HUMAN GLADNESS. This signifies the elevation by Him of the natural into the Divine, of the common into the uncommon. Here again was a new thing to the world. To Christs eye nothing was commonplace; not the lowest man nor the plainest life. His mission was to glorify the old and familiar.
III. Combining these two features, we see that LIFE IN ALL ITS COMMON RELATIONSHIPS AND COMMON TOILS IS TO BE A MANIFESTATION AND SERVICE OF CHRIST. In human friendship we are to serve Christ, and in our daily work to glorify Him. Life throughout, with its joys and sorrows, is to be transformed. How is this to be done? Notice
1. That the character of a mans deeds is determined by their inner motive, not by their outward form.
2. This sanctity is attained through the power of Christs love.
IV. THE RESULTS WHICH WOULD FLOW FROM THE ATTAINMENT OF THIS.
1. Life would become a constant manifestation of Christ.
2. Life would be a constant education for the heavenly.
3. It would give us the assurance of eternal fellowship. (E. L. Hull, B. A.)
Miracles as signs
The term sign denotes in its simplest usage
1. A means of identification (Luk_2:12; 2Th_3:17).
2. A proof or evidence furnished by one set of facts to the reality and genuineness of another (2Co_12:12).
3. A symbol or emblem (Eze_4:3). Now the miracles of Christ were signs in all these three senses. They identified Him as the Messiah foretold in prophecy; they authenticated Him as the Son of God, and furnished evidence of the truth of the claims which He put forth; and they were emblems in the material sphere of the blessings which He came to bestow in the spiritual, and of the manner in which they were to be received by those whom He designed to benefit. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Manifested forth His glory
The first miracle an Epiphany of Christ
This glory is undoubtedly Christs Divine glory full of grace and truth; the effulgence of His perfections translated so as to bring them within the reach of sense. And when John says that Christ manifested forth His glory he implies that although it had been almost entirely hidden for years, yet, like the sun behind the clouds, it had all along been lying below the surface. The miracle rolled away the clouds from the face of the sun.
I. CHRISTS GLORY WAS SEEN IN HIS ENTIRE CONTROL OVER NATURE. Power over nature always excites our admiration. But why is it that the man of science, whose genius can tame or discipline steam or electricity, wins so deep and universal an enthusiasm? Not because the feat has the charm of novelty, nor because it is an enrichment of mans life and an addition to his comfort, but because there is in him, at an immeasurable distance, an approximation to God. And yet we can explain it by natural causes which fall within the range of experience. But a miracle passes that line. And since we know that order is a principle which belongs to the very life of the Creator as well as to His administration, we conclude that He will not depart from His ordinary rules without some reason, and that no one but Himself can dispense with them. And thus in a miracle God is actively present, not as authorizing anarchy, but suspending some lower law to give play to some higher. The outward miracle arrests mans reason and imagination to behold in it the manifested glory of the Lord of Nature. Had we witnessed it, should we have recognized it as what it was? Yes, if we can say with the Te Deum that earth as well as heaven is full of the majesty of Gods glory. No, if we see in nature only the operation of self-existent laws.
II. THE GLORY OF SPIRITUAL TRUTH, an unveiling of the laws whereby the King of the new spiritual empire would govern His subjects.
1. Nature is ever being silently changed into something higher and better than when Christ found it. What is Holy Scripture but the water of what might have been a human literature changed by the Spirit of Christ into the inspired Word of God? That which was mere good-nature becomes Divine charity by grace: that which was only well-exercised reason or farsighted judgment becomes faith: all the natural virtues are transformed into the spiritual. So it was at the first. The Sanhedrim were perplexed at the intellectual and moral power of the illiterate apostles. The Roman proconsuls were bewildered at the majestic constancy of poor men and weak women and children. And so it is now.
2. The law of continuous improvement from good to better and from better to best. The real Giver of the good wine does not fascinate by the charm of His earliest gifts and then give to the jaded faculties His poorer graces. In His service the spiritual senses do not follow the law of bodily decay, they gain with advancing years, and require and receive higher nutriment.
III. THE GLORY OF HIS CONDESCENDING AND TENDER CHARITY.
1. Christ here began that life of condescension before men which was involved in His incarnation, and which He followed heedless of slander and misconstruction.
2. Christ here shot forth a ray of that glorious love which redeemed the world. His whole action is marked with tender consideration; He saves this poor couple from the disappointment of being unable to entertain their friends; He adds to their store, but in such a manner as to lay them under no embarrassing obligation to Himself. So God bestows His blessings so unobtrusively that we forget the Giver, but here, as ever, would teach us to imitate Him when we bestow ours. (Canon Liddon.)
The lesson of Epiphany--peace and plenty through Christ
Consider this miracle in the light of the service for the Second Sunday in Epiphany.
I. THE COLLECT, which is a prayer for peace. The Collects are supposed to collect the subject of the Gospel and Epistle. But the gospel is a miracle of plenty, a contrasted idea to that of peace. There may be lavish plenty when there is no peace--there may be deep peace when there is little plenty. And yet in the deepest, truest sense of the terms they are one. Their separation is only temporary and accidental. For what is peace? Perfectly satisfied desire. Disquiet is want of satisfaction. But in spiritual and intelligent creatures there must be the satisfaction of the whole nature. If man be body, spirit, and soul, if any one of these be unsatisfied, he cannot be at rest. In vain you satisfy animal appetite and intellectual craving, if the hunger of the spirit be unappeased. And men are not at peace, because of the first great mistake that man made in his first sin when he withdrew the food for his soul. This food is God. Mans sin was the determination to have the feast of body and mind without this spiritual element, and the sin and misery of man ever since has been to sit down to a banquet from which he has banished God. And God forbid that without Him there should ever be peace: because it is the lack of this plenty disquieting his soul that leads him to God. God teaches this truth in
1. His Word.
2. His providence. Lest man should lose himself in sensual delights God drove him from Eden. Sometimes God shows us how poor the gift is without the Giver; sometimes how blessed the Giver is without the gift, and better by giving Himself with the gift. This is the highest of all states, even heaven itself. This the true peace and plenty our Father meant us to have. It is our sin that has set them in antagonism.
II. Now turn to the Gospel. We see Christ giving back to men the lacking plenty of their feasts. The wine had run low. He renews it in lavish abundance that He may tell as in symbol that for the renovated man the amplest enjoyment of Gods gift is consistent with perfect peace. Christ has come to tell us that we need Him and may have Him in all our joys.
III. THE EPISTLE teaches us that there is an Epiphany amongst men as there was once an Epiphany to men. In the Gospel Christ gave Himself and His best gift to us. In the Epistle Christ calls upon us to show Him forth to men by giving ourselves and our gifts to others. That is the very reason He gave Himself to us. Freely ye have received; freely gird; fill to the brim the means of helping anothers need: your material, intellectual, and spiritual wealth. (Bp. Magee.)
The glory of the Virgin Mother
1. For thirty years Christ had done no miracle: which is itself worthy to be called a miracle. He was content to live in obscurity till His hour was come. This is true greatness. In all the works of God there is a conspicuous absence of haste. Six slow days and nights of creative force before man was made. Two thousand years to discipline and form a Jewish people: four thousand years of darkness, ignorance, and crime before the fulness of the time. Whatever contradicts the Divine plan must pay the price of haste--brief duration.
2. St. Paul speaks of the glory of woman as distinct from that of man. Their provinces are not the same, and the qualities which are prominent and beautiful in the one are the reverse in the other. The glory of her who was highly favoured among women was different from that of her Son in degree--the one was human, the other was more: in order the one manifesting the grace of womanhood, the other the majesty and wisdom of manhood in which God dwelt. The glory of the Virgin consisted in
I. HER CONSIDERATENESS. There is gentle womanly tact in the words They have no wine. Unselfish thoughtfulness about others comforts; delicate anxiety to save a straitened family from the exposure of their poverty. So in old times, with thoughtful hospitality, Rebekah offered water to Abrahams wayworn servant. So Martha showed her devotion even to excess. So the women ministered of their substance.
II. SUBMISSION. Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it. Here is the true spirit of obedience. Not slavishness, but loyalty to and trust in a person whom we reverence. Submission at the outset of the Bible is revealed as womans lot and destiny. The curse of obedience, as that of labour, transformed by Christ into a blessing. This blessing twofold.
1. Freedom from doubt. Mary felt no perplexity at the rebuke. A more masculine mind would have been made sullen and sceptical. Mary could not understand, but she could trust and wait. So with the Syro-Phoenician woman, Mental doubt rarely touches women. Soldiers and sailors do not doubt. Prompt, unquestioning obedience is the soil for faith.
2. Prevailing power with God. The Saviours look promised, probably, more than His words. Prayer is a deep mystery to the masculine intellect. How, says Logic, can mans will modify the will of God? Where, then, lies the use of it? But there is something mightier than intellect, truer than logic--the faith that works by love.
III. PURITY OF HEART AND LIFE.
1. Gradually the recognition of this became idolatry. Why? Before Christ the qualities honoured as Divine were probably masculine--Courage, Wisdom, Truth, Strength. But Christ proclaimed Meekness, Obedience, Affection, Purity--graces distinctly feminine. Men sought to give these new ideas embodiment, and they found them embodied in the Virgin Mother.
2. The only corrective for this idolatry is the perfect humanity of Jesus Christ. His heart had in it the blended qualities of both sexes, and when we have learned that in Christ there is all that is manly and all that is womanly, we are safe from Mariolatry. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
The glory of the Divine Son
I. THIS GLORY DID NOT BEGIN WITH THE MIRACLE, THE, MIRACLE ONLY MANIFESTED IT. And if instead of rousing men to see the glory of Christ the miracle merely fastened attention on itself, the whole intention of a miracle is lost. To the wise man the lightning only manifests the electric force which is everywhere, and which for one moment has become visible. As often as he sees it it reminds him that the lightning Slumbers in the dewdrop, in the mist, and in the cloud, and binds together every atom of water that he uses in daily life. But to the vulgar mind the lightning is unique, a something which has no existence until it appears. So to the half-believer a miracle is the one solitary evidence of God. But to the true disciple a miracle only manifests the power and love which are at work everywhere. It is not more glory, but only glory more manifested when water at His bidding passes at once into wine. And if you do not feel as David felt, Gods presence in the annual miracle, and that it is God which in the vintage causeth wine to make glad the heart of man, this miracle would not have given you conviction of His presence. If you hear not Moses and the prophets, etc. This deep truth of miracles most men miss. They believe that Jesus was Divine because He worked miracles. But it is by power less Divine that the same Being bears witness to truth, forgives His enemies, makes it His meat and drink to do His Fathers will?
II. IT WAS THE GLORY OF CHRIST TO DECLARE THE SACREDNESS OF ALL THINGS NATURAL.
1. All natural relationships. John the Baptists was the highest form of religious life known to Israel. His was a life of solitariness. Christ goes to a marriage to declare the sacredness of feelings which had been reckoned carnal and low. For it is through our human affections that the soul first yearns after God, and it is to them that the Infinite reveals Himself: and by an earthly relationship God has typified to us the only true espousal--the marriage of the soul to her eternal Lord.
2. The sacredness of all natural enjoyments. To say that this was a religious ceremony is sophistry; and to say that although Christ was there it would not be safe for us to go, is to overlook the fact that His disciples were there. No! the temptation was past, the ministry of John was over; and now the Bridegroom comes into She world in the true glory of the Messiah--not in a life of asceticism, but in a life of godliness; not separating from life, but consecrating it. The ascetic life is more striking, easier, add more reputable. But the life of Him who was called a man gluttonous and a wine bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners was far harder, but it was heavenlier. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
The manifestation of Christs glory
I. The manifestation of Jesus Christ is the only true essence of our Christianity.
II. The manifestation of Jesus Christ is the true evidence of our Christianity.
III. The manifestation of Christ to others is the one great evangelistic duty of the Christian and of the Church. (Bishop Barry.)
The peculiar glory of Christ
Moses was not said to manifest his glory when he turned water into blood; nor Paul, nor Peter, nor any of the apostles, to manifest their glory in the miracles which they wrought. Why this peculiarity of language in the ease of Christ? Was it not from the peculiarity of His person--God as well as man? (J. Fawcett, M. A.)
The glory of conquest
As the first ray of the morning reveals the glorious light which is soon to flood heaven and earth, so the first miracle of Jesus revealed the glory of Him who had come to subdue all things unto Himself. (G. T. Purves.)
Christ at a wedding
You nowhere read of His being at a funeral. Why? Because marriage belongs to the primeval order of creation, but funerals do not. Marriage is a part of the original programme of the universe, but death is an intrusion. He, therefore, went to a marriage to vindicate the Divine order; He did not attend funerals because they are incursions upon that order. He was the Everlasting Life, and consequently could not join in the procession of death. Indeed, each time He met death in His sojourn through the world, He could not but grapple with him and compel him to give up his prey. (J. C. Jones.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v12 Chapter 6
Chapter 6
THE CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE.
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After this He went down to Capernaum, He, and His mother, and His brethren, and His disciples: and there they abode not many days. And the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: and He made a scourge of cords, and cast all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the changers money, and overthrew their tables; and to them that sold the doves He said, Take these things hence; make not My Fathers house a house of merchandise. His disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of Thine house shall eat me up. The Jews therefore answered and said unto Him, What sign showest Thou unto us, seeing that Thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews therefore said, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt Thou raise it up in three days? But He spake of the temple of His body. When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He spake this; and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.- Joh_2:12-22.
Whether the Nazareth family returned from Cana to their own town before going down to Capernaum, John does not inform us. Neither are we told why they went to Capernaum at all at this time. It may have been in order to join one of the larger caravans going up to Jerusalem for the approaching Feast. Not only the disciples, some of whom had their homes on the lake-side, accompanied Jesus, but also His mother and His brothers. The manner in which the brothers are spoken of in connection with His mother suggests that He and they bore to her the same relation. They remained in Capernaum not many days, because the Passover was at hand. Having come to Jerusalem, and appearing there for the first time since His baptism, He performed several miracles. These John omits, and selects as more significant and worthy of record one authoritative act.
The circumstances which occasioned this act were familiar to the Jerusalem Jew. The exigencies of Temple worship had bred a flagrant abuse. Worshippers coming from remote parts of the Holy Land, and from countries beyond, found it a convenience to be able to purchase on the spot the animals used in sacrifice, and the material for various offerings-salt, meal, oil, frankincense. Traders were not slow to supply this demand, and vying with one another they crept nearer and nearer to the sacred precincts, until some, under pretence perhaps of driving in an animal for sacrifice, made a sale within the outer court. This court had an area of about fourteen acres, and was separated from the inner court by a wall breast high, and bearing intimations which forbade the encroachment of Gentiles on pain of death. Round this outer court ran marble colonnades, richly ornamented and supported by four rows of pillars, and roofed with cedar, affording ample shade to the traders.
There were not only cattle-dealers and sellers of pigeons, but also money-changers; for every Jew had to pay to the Temple treasury an annual tax of half a shekel, and this tax could be paid only in the sacred currency. No foreign coin, with its emblem of submission to an alien king, was allowed to pollute the Temple. Thus there came to be need of money-changers, not only for the Jew who had come up to the feast from a remote part of the empire, but even for the inhabitant of Palestine, as the Roman coinage had displaced the shekel in ordinary use.
There might seem, therefore, to be room to say much in favour of this convenient custom. At any rate, it was one of those abuses which, while they may shock a fresh and unsophisticated mind, are allowed both because they contribute to public convenience and because they have a large pecuniary interest at their back. In point of fact, however, the practice gave rise to lamentable consequences. Cattle-dealers and money-changers have always been notorious for making more than their own out of their bargains, and facts enough are on record to justify our Lord calling this particular market a den of thieves. The poor were shamefully cheated, and the worship of God was hindered and impoverished instead of being facilitated and enriched. And even although this traffic had been carried on under careful supervision, and on unimpeachable principles, still it was unseemly that the worshipper who came to the Temple seeking quiet and fellowship with God should have to push his way through the touts of the dealers, and have his devotional temper dissipated by the wrangling and shouting of a cattle market. Yet although many must have lamented this, no one had been bold enough to rebuke and abolish the glaring profanation.
Jesus on entering the Temple finds Himself in the midst of this incongruous scene-the sounds and movements of a market, the loud and eager exclamations of competing traders, the bustle of selecting one animal out of a flock, the loud talk and laughter of the idle groups of onlookers. Jesus cannot stand it. Zeal for the honour of His Fathers house possesses Him. The Temple claims Him as its vindicator from abuse. Nowhere can He more appropriately assert His authority as Messiah. Out of the cords lying about He quickly knots together a formidable scourge, and silently, leaving the public conscience to justify His action, He proceeds single-handed to drive out cattle and traders together. A scene of violence ensued,-the cattle rushing hither and thither, the owners trying to preserve their property, the money-changers holding their tables as Jesus went from one to another upsetting them, the scattered coin scrambled for; and over all the threatening scourge and the commanding eye of the Stranger. Never on any other occasion did our Lord use violence.
The audacity of the act has few parallels. To interfere in the very Temple with any of its recognized customs was in itself a claim to be King in Israel. Were a stranger suddenly to appear in the lobby of the House of Commons, and by sheer dignity of demeanour, and the force of integrity, to rectify an abuse of old standing involving the interests of a wealthy and privileged class, it could not create a greater sensation. The Baptist might be with Him, cowing the truculent with his commanding eye; but there was no need of the Baptist: the action of Christ awakening conscience in the men themselves was enough to quell resistance.
No doubt Jesus began His work at the house of God because He knew that the Temple was the real heart of the nation; that it was belief in God which was their strength and hope, and that the loss of that belief, and the consequent irreverence and worldliness, were the most dangerous features of Jewish society. The state of matters He found in the Temple could not have been tolerated had the people really believed God was present in the Temple.
Such an act could not pass without being criticised. It would be keenly discussed that evening in Jerusalem. At every table it would be the topic of conversation, and a most serious one wherever men in authority were meeting. Many would condemn it as a piece of pharisaic ostentation. If He is a reformer, why does He not turn His attention to the licentiousness of the people? Why show such extravagant and unseemly zeal about so innocent a custom when flagrant immoralities abound? Why not spend His zeal in clearing out from the land the polluting foreigner? Such charges are easy. No man can do everything, least of all can he do everything at once. And yet the advocate of temperance is twitted with his negligence of other causes which are perhaps as necessary; and he who pleads for foreign missions is reminded that we have heathen at home. These are the carping criticisms of habitual fault-finders, and of men who have no hearty desire for the advancement of what is good.
Others, again, who approved the act could not reconcile themselves to the manner of it. Might it not have been enough to have pointed out the abuse, and to have made a strong representation to the authorities? Was it fair to step in and usurp the authority of the Sanhedrim or Temple officials? Was it consistent with prophetic dignity to drive out the offenders with His own hand? Even those most friendly to Him may have felt a little jarred as they saw Him with uplifted scourge and flaming eyes violently driving before Him men and beasts. But they remembered that it was written, The zeal of Thine house will consume Me. They remembered perhaps how the most popular king of Israel had danced before the ark, to the scandal indeed of dull-souled conventionalists, but with the approval of all clear-seeing and spiritually-judging men. They might also have remembered how the last of their prophecies had said, Behold, the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to His temple. But who may abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand when He appeareth?
This zeal at once explained and justified His action. Some abuses may be reformed by appeal to the constituted authorities; others can be abolished only by the blazing indignation of a righteous soul who cannot longer endure the sight. This zeal, conquering all consideration of consequences and regard to appearances, acts as a cleansing fire, sweeping before it what is offensive. It has always its own risks to run: the authorities at Jerusalem never forgave Jesus this first interference. By reforming an abuse they should never have allowed, He damaged them in the eyes of the people, and they could never forget it. Zeal also runs the risk of acting indiscreetly and taking too much upon it. In itself zeal is a good thing, but it does not exist in itself. It exists in a certain character, and where the character is imperfect or dangerous the zeal is imperfect or dangerous. The zeal of the proud or selfish man is mischievous, the zeal of the ignorant fraught with disaster. Still, with all risks, give us by all means rather the man who is eaten up, possessed and carried away, by a passionate sympathy with the oppressed and neglected, or with unquenchable zeal for rectitude and honourable dealing or for the glory of God, than the man who can stand and be a spectator of wrong because it is no business of his to see that injustice be withstood, who can connive at unrighteous practices because their correction is troublesome, invidious, hazardous. He who lays a sudden hand on wrong-doing may have no legal authority to plead in his defence when challenged, but to all good men such an act justifies itself. It was a similar zeal which at all times governed Christ. He could not stand by and wash His hands of other mens sins. It was this which brought Him to the cross, this which in the first place brought Him to this world at all. He had to interfere. Zeal for His fathers glory, zeal for God and man, possessed Him.
It was therefore no concern of Jesus to make Himself very intelligible to those who could not understand the action itself and demanded a sign. They did not understand His answer; and it was not intended they should. Frequently our Lords answers are enigmatical. Men have opportunity to stumble over them, if they will. For frequently they asked foolish questions, which admitted only of such answers. The present question, What sign showest Thou unto us, seeing that Thou doest these things? was absurd. It was to ask for a light to see light with, a sign of a sign. His zeal for God that carried the crowd before it, and swept Gods house clean of the profane, was the best proof of His authority and Messiahship. But there was one sign which He could promise them without violating His principle to do no miracle merely for the sake of convincing reluctant minds. There was one sign which formed an integral part of His work; a sign which He must work, irrespective of its effect on their opinion of Him-the sign of His own Resurrection. And therefore, when they ask Him for a sign of His authority to reform the abuses of the Temple, He promises them this sign, that He will raise the Temple again when they destroy it. If He can give them a Temple He has authority in it. Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
What did He mean by this enigmatical saying, which not even His disciples understood till long afterwards? We cannot doubt that in their resistance to His first public act, righteous and necessary, and welcome to all right-hearted men, as it was, He plainly saw the symptom of a deep-seated hatred of all reform, which would lead them on to reject His whole work. He had meditated much on the tone of the authorities, on the religious state of His country-what young man of thirty with anything in him has not done so? He had made up His mind that He would meet with opposition at every point, and that while a faithful few would stand by Him, the leaders of the people would certainly resist and destroy Him. Here in His very first act He is met by the spirit of hatred, and jealousy, and godlessness which was at last to compass His death. But His rejection He also knew was to be the signal for the downfall of the nation. In destroying Him He knew they were destroying themselves, their city, their Temple. As Daniel had long ago said, The Messiah shall be cut off ... and the people of a prince who shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.
To Himself therefore His words had a very definite meaning: Destroy this Temple, as you certainly will by disowning My authority and resisting My acts of reform, and at length crucifying Me, and in three days I will raise it. As by denying My authority and crucifying My Person you destroy this house of My Father, so by My resurrection will I put men in possession of Gods true dwelling-place, and introduce a new and spiritual worship. It is in Christs person this great drama is enacted. The Messiah perishes: the Temple falls. The Messiah lives again: the true Temple rises on the ruins of the symbolical temple. For in the kingdom of God there is no simple restoration. Every revival is at the same time an advance (Godet). A living Temple is better than a Temple of stone. Human nature itself, possessed and inspired by the Divine, that is the true Temple of God.
This sign was in two years given to them. As Jesus drew His last breath on the cross the veil of the Temple was rent. There was no longer anything to veil; the unapproachable glory was for ever gone. The Temple in which God had so long dwelt was now but a shell, mocking and pathetic in the extreme, as the clothes of a departed friend, or as the familiar dwelling that remains itself the same but changed to us for ever. The Jews in crucifying the Messiah had effectually destroyed their Temple. A few years more and it was in ruins, and has been so ever since. That building which had once the singular, wonderful dignity of being the spot where God was specially to be found and to be worshipped, and where He dwelt upon earth in a way apprehensible by men, was from the hour of Christs death doomed to vacuity and destruction.
But in three days a new and better Temple was raised in Christs body, glorified by the presence of the indwelling God. Forty and six years had the Jews spent in rearing the magnificent pile that astonished and awed their conquerors. They had thus themselves rebuilt more splendidly the Temple of Solomon. But to rebuild the Temple they destroyed in crucifying the Lord was beyond them. The sign of rebuilding their Temple of marble, which they scouted as a ridiculous extravagance, was really a far less stupendous and infinitely less significant sign than that which He actually gave them in rising from the dead. If it was impossible to rear that magnificent fabric in three days, yet something might be done towards it: but towards the raising of the dead body of Christ nothing could be done by human skill, diligence, or power.
But it is not the stupendous difficulty of this sign which should chiefly engage our attention. It is rather its significance. Christ rose from the dead, not to startle godless and truth-hating men into faith, but to furnish all mankind with a new and better Temple, with the means of spiritual worship and constant fellowship with God. There was a necessity for the resurrection. Those who became intimately acquainted with Christ slowly but surely became aware that they found more of God in Him than ever they had found in the Temple. Gradually they acquired new thoughts about God; and instead of thinking of Him as a Sovereign veiled from the popular gaze in the hidden Holy of holies, and receiving through consecrated hands the gifts and offering of the people, they learned to think of Him as a Father, to whom no condescension was too deep, no familiarity with men too close. Unconsciously to themselves, apparently, they began to think of Christ as the true Revealer of God, as the living Temple who at all hours gave them access to the living God. But not till the Resurrection was this transference complete-nay, so fixed had their hearts been, in common with all Jewish hearts, upon the Temple, that not until the Temple was destroyed did they wholly grasp what was given them in the Resurrection of Jesus. It was the Resurrection which confirmed their wavering belief in Him as the Son of God. As Paul says, it was the resurrection which declared Him to be the Son of God with power. Being the Son of God, it was impossible He should be held by death. He had come to the Temple calling it by an unheard-of name, My Fathers house. Not Moses, not Solomon, not Ezra, not the holiest of high priests, would have dreamt of so identifying himself with God as to speak of the Temple, not even as our Fathers house or your Fathers house, but my Fathers house. And it was the Resurrection which finally justified His doing so, declaring Him to be, in a sense no other was, the Son of God.
But it was not in the body of Christ that God found His permanent dwelling among men. This sacred presence was withdrawn in order to facilitate the end God has from the first had in view, the full indwelling and possession of each and all men by His Spirit. This intimate fellowship with all men, this free communication of Himself to all, this inhabitation of all souls by the ever-living God, was the end aimed at by all that God has done among men. His dwelling among men in the Temple at Jerusalem, His dwelling among men in the living Person of Christ, were preliminary and preparatory to His dwelling in men individually. Ye, says Paul, are built up a spiritual house. Ye are builded together for a habitation of God. Ye are the temple of the living God. This is the great reality towards which men have been led by symbol-the complete pervasion of all intelligence and of all moral beings by the Spirit of God.
For us this cleansing of the Temple is a sign. It is a sign that Christ really means to do thoroughly the great work He has taken in hand. Long ago had it been said, Behold the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His Temple; and He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. He was to come where holiness was professed, and to sift the true from the false, the worldly and greedy religious from the devoted and spiritual. He was not to make pretence of doing so, but actually to accomplish the separation. To reform abuses such as this marketing in the Temple was no pleasant task. He had to meet the gaze and defy the vindictiveness of an exasperated mob; He had to make enemies of a powerful class in the community. But He does what is called for by the circumstances: and this is but a part and a sample of the work He does always. Always He makes thorough, real work. He does not blink the requirements of the case. We shrug our shoulders and pass by where matters are difficult to mend; we let the flood take its course rather than risk being carried away in attempting to stem it. Not so Christ. The Temple was shortly to be destroyed, and it might seem to matter little what practices were allowed in it; but the sounds of bargaining and the greedy eye of trade could not be suffered by Him in His Fathers house: how much more shall He burn as a consuming fire when He cleanses that Church for which He gave Himself that it might be without spot or blemish. He will cleanse it. We may yield ourselves with gladness to His sanctifying power, or we may rebelliously question His authority; but cleansed the house of God must be.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv11–16 11. Manifested forth his glory. This was the first…
11. Manifested forth his glory. This was the first supernatural manifestation of his divine power; that he by whom all things were made controlled the powers of nature. His disciples believed on him. They already believed, but their faith was made firmer.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v13 Joh_2:12. Capernaum.—Cod. א, B, read καφαρ ναούμ, i.e. the…
EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL NOTES
Joh_2:12. Capernaum.—Cod. א, B, read καφαρ ναούμ, i.e. the kaphar or village of Nahum. Two sites especially have been fixed upon as the best representatives of the ancient Capernaum. The ruins at Tell Hûm are now considered to have the best claim to represent the Saviour’s city. His brethren.—The controversies which have raged round this subject have centred on the question of the perpetual virginity of Mary. Setting aside the conjecture of Jerome, that these brethren were in reality first cousins, children of Mary (the wife of Cleophas, Joh_19:25), sister of our Lord’s mother, as incapable of being sufficiently proved, there are two positions which should be noted:
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(1) that of Helvidius, that the brethren are actual brothers, the sons of Joseph and Mary; and
(2) that of Epiphanius, that these brethren were children of Joseph by a former marriage. But as the latter position rests for its proof only on the statement of an apocryphal gospel, those who do not feel it necessary to maintain the somewhat sentimental notion of Mary’s perpetual virginity will be shut up to accept the position of Helvidius. Indeed in this casual mention of our Lord’s brethren may be found an indirect confirmation of His recognition of the sanctity of lawful marriage. Dr. Reynolds well says: “Christ, who honoured marriage by His first display of miraculous power, and this at the suggestion of His own mother, and in the society of those who passed undoubtedly as His brothers, would not feel that the faintest shadow of a shade fell on the lofty purity of His mother by this hypothesis.” (But see Hom. Note on Joh_7:3.)
Joh_2:12-13. These verses furnish us, in connection with Joh_2:20-21, an important time-note (vide in loc.). It was the first year of our Lord’s public ministry, i.e., according to the best authorities, A.D. 28, and in that year the 15th Nisan fell on March 30th. Caspari gives the following dates: Baptism by John, February 1st (about); return to Bethania, forty days later (about March 12th); Cana, March 15th; Capernaum, March 17th; Jerusalem, March 29th (14th Nisan).
Joh_2:14-16. “The same or a similar fact is narrated by the Synoptists on the occasion of the last passover (Mat_21:12-16, etc.). Here, then, there are three cases possible: either the Lord performed the cleansing of the sanctuary twice, or He did so only once at the beginning of His ministry; or, finally, only once, but at the end of His ministry. No slight grounds may be adduced in favour of the repetition. The cleansing of the sanctuary was a symbolical act, by which our Lord represented that which He desired, and at which He aimed; it was thus entirely in place at the very outset of His public ministry, and equally so at the close of His labours.” Probably John and Andrew alone accompanied our Lord to Jerusalem on this occasion, the other disciples remaining in Galilee until their final call (Luk_6:13). Thus we can understand why John alone narrates this first cleansing, and the Synoptists only the second. A reason why John especially accompanied Him on this occasion may be found in Joh_18:15 (vide Introduction). At these great feasts a stock-market was held in the court of the Gentiles; and it may be that the moneychangers were driven even into the court of the people of Israel, which was held to be almost as sacred as the sanctuary. Changers of money, who exchanged current and foreign moneys for the sacred half-shekel, in which alone the customary annual temple tax required from every adult Israelite could be paid. A scourge of small cords.—σχοινίον = a cord made of bulrushes—from the litter scattered about the court. And He said to those who sold doves, etc.—Our Lord did not wish to cause the traders any loss. This traffic was necessary; but it was not to be carried on in His Father’s house. The reason why our Lord was not interfered with in this striking and bold action was the fact that all the pious, and even the ceremonial Israelites, secretly acknowledged that He was right. Temple here = ἱερόν, i.e. especially the outer courts, not ναός, the sanctuary.
Joh_2:17. “The zeal of Thine house shall eat Me up” (Psa_69:9).—Westcott points out here, “on the occasion of the first public act of Christ, as throughout St. John, the double effect of the act on those who already believed, and on those who were resolutely unbelieving.” It is written.—γεγραμμένον ἐστίν—instead of the simpler γέγραπται. Καταφάγεταί με—not in reference to Christ’s passion, but to His present burning, consuming desire for His Father’s honour, and the honour of His Father’s house.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Joh_2:13-17
The cleansing of the temple.—The incident recorded in these verses occurred on the first visit of the Redeemer (during His public ministry) to Jerusalem at the passover feast. Hitherto His teaching had been confined to the rural district of Galilee. Among the quiet Galilean villages, or at most in some of the towns situated on the margin of the inland lake, He had preached the word of the kingdom gently and lovingly to those who had “ears to hear,” and had “manifested His glory” in miracle, so that the faith of His disciples was strengthened and confirmed. But the passover was nigh, and, in accordance with the customs of the law, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And there in this incident He began to unfold the spiritual nature of His office and work, experiencing in consequence the first open symptoms of antagonism from the rulers of the Jewish people.
Consider, first, the incident itself, and then its general and individual lessons.
I. The incident.—On reaching the holy city the Saviour’s steps were soon directed to the temple; and there He found a state of things utterly intolerable. The temple area appears to have been divided into three enclosures or courts. In the inner enclosure lay the temple building itself, with the court of the priests surrounding it; beyond that was the court of the people; and then, divided off from that by what was known as the middle wall of partition, lay the court of the Gentiles. It was in the last of these enclosures that the traffic which led to this incident was carried on. It was no doubt meant for the convenience of the people. At the passovertide tens of thousands of Jews from every country almost in the then known world thronged the holy city. It was necessary for them to exchange their foreign moneys for current coin, etc.; hence the tables of the money-changers. Then, considering the immense number of sacrifices offered at the feast, in addition to those required for the daily and ordinary sacrifices, the necessity for a kind of stock market was undoubted. But it certainly showed how little real reverence the Jewish leaders had for the worship of God when they permitted all this to go on within the enclosures of the temple area. And it needs only a slight acquaintance with exchanges and cattle markets to conceive how every sight and sound, how the turmoil within the sacred precincts, must have hindered the worship of God’s house. Then all this was done in the court of the Gentiles—the nearest point to the temple the Gentiles could reach. Thus not only was their space curtailed, but what must have been the feeling of earnest men among them when they observed this buying and selling, chaffering and trading, in the courts of that house which was to be an house of prayer for all nations? The Gentiles were admitted to the court named after them so that they might become attracted to the religion and worship of Jehovah. But what was there in that clamouring, chaffering crowd, bleating of sheep, etc., to lift their thoughts heavenward? What likelihood was there that in that scene of traffic the prayer of Psalms 67. would be answered? We do not wonder, then, that Jesus, consumed with the zeal of His Father’s house, should have acted as He did. Making a scourge—probably of materials lying scattered about—He drove the animals out of the court, overturned the tables of the money-changers, producing silence and order where formerly noise and confusion had prevailed. Notice should be taken of the language used by the Saviour in doing this action. When a boy in that same temple, while sitting among the doctors, hearing, etc. (Luk_2:46), He had declared that He was about His Father’s business. In this incident He showed the source of His authority in asserting that the temple was His Father’s house. Here we have His distinct and clear claim from the beginning of His ministry to be the divine Son and the Messiah. The Jewish leaders well knew He meant to assert this claim. Hence their demand for a sign, some miraculous or extraordinary manifestation of the power He professed to wield. In this question we seem anew to detect Satan, the adversary, attacking Christ as he did before on the pinnacle of the temple: “If Thou be the Son of God,” etc. (Mat_4:6), give an evident sign of your divine Sonship, and the people will believe and follow. But in this very incident, had they not been blinded, those Jews might have found the sign they desired. The Messiah had suddenly appeared in His temple to be “as a refiner and purifier,” etc. (Mal_3:3). And the rejection by those men of such comings in mercy, etc., ushered in the day when His judgments were made manifest in the withdrawal of their privileges as a race.
II. The spiritual meaning of the incident.—The ministry of our Lord was not ended at His ascension. His work on earth was in a great measure the opening and typical prelude of His work as mediator in heaven. He still
‘Pursues in heaven His mighty plan,
The Saviour and the Friend of man.”
He still sits as a refiner and purifier of silver; still the prophetic promise holds good that He shall come suddenly to His temple to purge and purify. He has done so, and will do so until the end. See how true this is in the history of the Church. It was not long after His ascension that the warning voice again was heard. In the case of the Church at Laodicea, and others of the Churches in Roman Asia, we hear Him saying, “Take these things hence.” Then those who disregarded the warning voice had their light as Christian Churches quenched, just as the Jewish temple and worship were destroyed and the disobedient people scattered. Later in the Church’s history, when new empires had risen on fallen Rome’s broad foundations, there followed for the Church a long period of outward prosperity. But along with this much of evil was mingled. The world and the world’s traffic and pleasure penetrated even to the inner sanctuary, whilst the noise and clamour of it all drowned the voice of praise and prayer, crushed down the aspirations of devotion and worship. Therefore the great Purifier again appeared, and in the turmoil and overturning of the Reformation period He swept away much of the worldliness and materialism which was hindering the Church’s spiritual life, awakening men to a higher spiritual life and purer worship. He is ever watchful. He has the same zeal now for the purity of His Father’s spiritual temple. “His fan is in His hand,” etc. (Mat_3:12). When Churches become selfish, material, worldly, forgetting their true mission, let them beware! To-day outward success is greatly sought—increasing numbers, overflowing coffers. The world is stealing in on the Church in many ways. There is much danger of the spiritual life being neglected through men being engrossed in this material progress. Then the Lord may have to come in judgment to purify before He can come to bless.
III. Lessons of the incident.—This incident brings personal and individual lessons. “There is but one temple in the universe,” says Novalis, “and that is the body of man.” “Ye are the temple of God” (2Co_6:16), said St. Paul. In these bodies of ours, when our life has been yielded to Christ, God’s Holy Spirit dwells. Let Christian people beware lest they fall into the careless and irreverent conduct of the Jewish priests, and permit the sacred precincts to become a mart of business, a den of thieves, of sinful thoughts, feelings, etc., so that the noise of the world’s voices overpowers the accents of devotion. Into our churches—those places sacred to worship—no sounds of the world’s business, etc., should be permitted to come. So should it be with Christian people as with reverent hearts they bow in God’s holy house of prayer. Their public and private worship should be as far as possible free from the inroads of the business of life. Our Redeemer in this also gave us an example that we should follow in His steps (Joh_4:15; Mat_14:23, etc.). But how often is the worship of God’s house profaned with worldly thoughts, vain imaginations, etc., and prayer stifled in its very inception! And is not the heart—the temple of God for the individual—often so crowded with other things that the sounds of the world predominate, and the voice of God is unheard and unheeded in the multitudinous roar? There is no true holy of holies in such hearts. To those in such case spiritual worship is unknown. They are immersed in the traffic of the market-place, warehouse, etc. The sights and sounds of places of amusement are oftener before them than the sanctities of worship. Let Christian people be jealous for the honour of God’s spiritual house, the Church; and let that temple be not profaned which He hath chosen to dwell in—the temple of “a broken and contrite heart,” etc.
HOMILETIC NOTES
Joh_2:15. On the peace-breakers lies the burden of war.—
1. Shall we consider the superficial objection as to whether it was right or not to disturb the honest trade of those people, since animals for the temple sacrifices were indispensable, and to “pour out” the exchangers’ money without concern as to whether any of the pieces should be lost? Or shall we reply to the opinion that the indignation seen in Christ’s eye and the scourge in His hand seem to indicate the presence of passionateness?
2. If a breach of the peace took place, the blame lay on the shoulders of the temple authorities. If the order of the house was to be maintained, who could better carry out the doing of it than the Son in the Father’s name? Here certainly there is no passionateness, but on the contrary holiness, and a merciful, sympathetic heart for souls in danger. Here we find reformative action in the footsteps of Jeremiah the prophet (Jer_7:2-11). Here is the angel of the covenant foretold by Malachi (Mal_3:1-5). Here is the obedience that eighteen years previously had asked, “Must I not be about My Father’s business?” (Luk_2:49).—Dr. R. Kögel.
Joh_2:17. “The zeal of Thine house.”—The disciples who heard Jesus had also heard Him speak of the heavenly ladder—Himself—on which the angels of God should ascend and descend. They had been witnesses of the wondrous change of water into wine at His command. Thus so little were they perplexed at the action of our Lord, that they saw in it the fulfilment of the Psalmist’s words, “The zeal of Thine house,” etc. (Psa_69:9).
Joh_2:15-17. The distinction of this incident from the similar incident recorded in the Synoptists.—I. The Synoptists narrate a cleansing of the temple as having taken place on the day of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem before the last passover (Mat_21:12; Mar_11:15 ff.; Luk_19:45). Of such an incident there is no trace in St. John (Joh_12:12 ff.), and curiously the Synoptists have no trace of an earlier cleansing. It has been supposed that the event has been transposed in the synoptic narratives owing to the fact that they give no account of the Lord’s ministry at Jerusalem before the last journey; but a comparison of the two narratives is against the identification.
1. The exact connection of the event is in each case given in detail.
2. There is a significant difference in the words used to justify the acts (Joh_2:16; Mar_11:17).
3. In the record of the later incident there is no reference to the remarkable words (Joh_2:19) which give its colour to the narrative of St. John, though the Synoptists show that they were not unacquainted with those words (Mat_26:61; Mar_14:58).
II.
1. There is no improbability in the repetition of such an incident. Both were connected with the revelation of Jesus as Messiah—first when He claimed His royal power at the entrance of His work, and again at the close.
2. In the interval He had fulfilled the office of a simple prophet. In the first case, so to speak, the incident was doubtful; in the second it was decided. Hence the difference in details, e.g. the force of the addition “a house of prayer for allnations” in prospect of the Passion and His rejection by the Jews, which has no place in the first incident, when He enters as a son His Father’s house. Again, the words a house of merchandise are in the second incident represented by its last issue: “a den of thieves.” John records the incident which occurs at the beginning of Christ’s ministry, because it was the first crisis in the separation of faith and unbelief. The Synoptists, from the construction of their narratives, included the later incident; and as the latter was virtually included in the former, St. John does not give it.—A bridged from Westcott.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Joh_2:14-15. Christ cleansing His Church.—For us this cleansing of the temple is a sign. It is a sign that Christ really means to do thoroughly the great work He has taken in hand. Long ago had it been said, “Behold, the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple; and He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.” He was to come to sift the true from the false, the worldly and greedy from the devoted and spiritual. He was not to make pretence of doing so, but actually to accomplish the separation. To reform abuses such as this marketing in the temple was no pleasant task. He had to meet the gaze and defy the vindictiveness of an exasperated mob; He had to make enemies of a powerful class in the community. But He does what is called for by the circumstances: and this is but a part and a sample of the work He does always. Always He makes thorough, real work. He does not blink the requirements of the case. We shrug our shoulders and pass by where matters are difficult to mend; we let the flood take its course rather than risk being carried away in attempting to stem it. Not so Christ. The temple was shortly to be destroyed, and it might seem to matter little what practices were allowed in it; but the sounds of bargaining and the greedy eye of trade could not be suffered by Him in His Father’s house: how much more shall He burn as a consuming fire when He cleanses that Church for which he gave Himself that it might be without spot or blemish? He will cleanse it. We may yield ourselves with gladness to His sanctifying power, or we may rebelliously question His authority; but cleansed the house of God must be.—Dr. Marcus Dods.
Joh_2:17. True zeal.—Let us take heed we do not sometimes call that zeal for God and His gospel which is nothing else but our own tempestuous and stormy passion. True zeal is a sweet, heavenly, and gentle flame, which maketh us active for God, but always within the sphere of love. It never calls for fire from heaven to consume those that differ a little from us in their apprehensions. It is like that kind of lightning (which the philosophers speak of) that melts the sword within, but singeth not the scabbard; it strives to save the soul, but hurteth not the body. True zeal is a loving thing, and makes us always active to edification, and not to destruction. If we keep the fire of zeal within the chimney, in its own proper place, it never doth any hurt—it only warmeth, quickeneth, and enliveneth us; but if once we let it break out, and catch hold of the thatch of our flesh, and kindle our corrupt nature, and set the house of our body on fire, it is no longer zeal, it is no heavenly fire—it is a most destructive and devouring thing. True zeal is an ignis lambens, a soft and gentle flame, that will not scorch one’s hand; it is no predatory or voracious thing: but carnal or fleshly zeal is like the spirit of gunpowder set on fire, that tears and blows up all that stands before it. True zeal is like the vital heat in us that we live upon, which we never feel to be angry or troublesome; but though it gently feeds upon the radial oil within us, that sweet balsam of our natural moisture, yet it lives lovingly with it, and maintains that by which it is fed; but that other furious and distempered zeal is nothing else but a fever in the soul.—R. Cudworth.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On v13 Joh 2:13-25. “And the Passover of the Jews was…
PURIFICATION 0F THE TEMPLE
Joh 2:13-25. “And the Passover of the Jews was nigh, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” The Passover began April 14th, through all the ages of Israel, celebrating the exodus out of Egypt, when the destroying angel slew the first-born in every Egyptian home, and passed over the houses of Israel because he saw the blood of the slain lamb — which vividly typified the blood of Christ shed on Calvary — sprinkled on the doorposts and lintels of their houses. As this great Passover festival, to which the myriads of Israel gathered annually and spent eight days, typified the atonement Christ came into the world to make, it plays a most conspicuous part in our Lord’s ministry, marking the inauguration and the conclusion; as our Savior’s ministry occupied three years, beginning at a Passover, and winding up at another, and including two in the interim. You will find the division of our Lord’s ministry by these four Passovers a great convenience in studying the Gospels. The prophets had predicted that Christ would come at once to the temple, and purify it at the very beginning of His ministry (Mal 3:2-3); as you remember, He told His mother at Cana that His time to preach and work miracles had not yet come, contemplating entering upon His ministry at the Passover, which speedily followed.
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14. “And He found in the temple those selling oxen, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers sitting.” Many and magnificent buildings at that time stood on the great and beautiful Temple Campus, containing thirty-five acres, in order to accommodate the thousands of Israel assembling at their great periodical feasts. These pollutions were not in the temple proper, but in those other buildings which stood on the whole ground, and were consequently included in the dedication to God. The end in view was to keep on hand a supply of sacrificial animals, ready to sell to the pilgrims, who came from afar to worship the God of Israel, the more wealthy purchasing an ox; the middling class, a sheep; and the poor, a dove. As all these foreign pilgrims brought Greek and Roman money, or that of some other nation, they had to exchange it for the Jewish half-shekel, the temple offering prescribed in the law, foreign money being rejected.
“Having made a whip of rushes, He cast them all out of the temple, both sheep and oxen, and poured out the money of the exchangers, and overturned their tables, and said to those selling the doves, Take these away; do not make the house of My Father a house of merchandise.” The conclusion that He used the whip on the people is not sustained by the original. The long, nimble rushes were lying in quantities on the floor for the animals to lie down on. Taking some of these, He plaited them into a whip, and drove all the animals out, pouring out the money of the exchangers and turning over their tables. We see here a very obvious manifestation of His Divinity, as no other man in the world, ranking simply as a private volunteer, would have been permitted thus to interfere with all of those people in their business transactions. A Divine awe settling down on them held them, in a semi-paralytic suspense; astounded and lost in wonder, they are incompetent to interfere and prevent the expurgation which they see so strangely going on around them, through the intervention of this total stranger, their own acquiescence and non- intervention turning out to them even a greater surprise than the astounding invasion of the uninitiated Young Man, who is thus paradoxically exercising so much authority.
“His disciples remembered that it has been written, The zeal of Thine house doth eat me up.” (Psa 64:9.)
Oikos here means, not simply house, but family. Jesus is our Paragon. He was literally carried away and consumed with zeal for the promotion of God’s family in the earth. Lord, help us to walk in Thy footprints, sacrificing everything, “spending and being spent,” in the interest of God’s family and for the upbuilding of His kingdom in every nation!
“Then the Jews responded and said to Him, What sign do you show us, that You do these things? Jesus responded and said to them, Destroy this temple, and I will build it in three days.” The authority by which He was purifying the temple was simply the fact of His Christhood, as that temple did not belong to man, but to God alone. Therefore His Messiahship, identifying Him with very and eternal God, actually gave Him personal charge of God’s house. Now, in view of the fact that His Christhood was confirmed and demonstrated by His death and resurrection, He points them to these great salient facts of His ministry as a demonstrative proof of His right to control the temple. “Then the Jews said, Forty and six years was this temple being built, and dost Thou rear it up in three days? But He spoke concerning the temple of His body. Then when He was risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this, and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus said.” The Jews had even a superstitious veneration for the temple, running into idolatry in that way. Consequently they held this declaration against Him, clamoring over it ever and anon, and even founding on it a charge of blasphemy, for which, having hounded Him the three years of His ministry, on the day of His death they hideously howled for His blood; yet all this time having stupidly misapprehended His words, applying them to the temple edifice, while He meant the temple of His body, thus beautifully affirming His resurrection as the indubitable confirmation of His Messiahship. At that time, forty-six years had rolled away while building the beautiful and magnificent temple, under the patronage of King Herod, who ascended the throne sixty-eight years previously to that date, amid great political perturbations and much opposition, which, under Roman support, he, in a few years, exterminated in blood, thus centralizing and consolidating his kingdom, he devotes the balance of his thirty-eight years on the throne to rebuilding the temple in greater magnificence than any of his predecessors since Solomon. At the time of this record the temple was not yet entirely finished. So they continued the work, reaching its final completion A.D. 64. In A.D. 66, Gallus Cestius, the Roman general, laid siege to Jerusalem at the head of a great army, followed, in 68, by the Emperor Vespasian, who continued it two years, being succeeded by his son, the Emperor Titus, who consummated the destruction of the temple, the city, and the desolation of the land, in A.D. 73. As Jesus predicted that one stone would not be left on another, the Roman soldiers utterly demolished it, taking up the very foundation, hunting for the hidden treasures.
“And when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed on His name, seeing His miracles which He was doing. But Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, because He knows all people, and He has no need that any one would witness concerning man; for He knew what was in man.” He is our only Exemplar. From His verdict and procedure here, we should learn a most important lesson; i.e., never to put confidence in a human being. They are all fallible, mutatious, and unreliable. More human woe, wreck, disappointment, and ruin come in that way than any other. We should have no faith in man, but all in God, who never disappoints. Here our Savior inculcates a glorious lesson on entire sanctification, which throws a total eclipse over all the world, so we wear it like a loose garment, ready to drop it off at a moment’s warning; meanwhile, the true and genuine experience of full salvation sinks us away into God.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v13 Subdivision 6. (Joh 2:13-22.)
Subdivision 6. (Joh 2:13-22.)
The purging out of evil.
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There follows, at Jerusalem, upon the occasion of the "Jews, passover," as John characteristically calls it, a first purging of the temple by Him, which He repeats, as we have seen in other Gospels, after His presentation to them openly as their King. It is given as one of the features of millennial blessing by the prophet Zechariah, that "there shall be no more a Canaanite" -or "trafficker" -"in the house of the Lord of hosts" (Zec 14:21). The profanation of that which, till he finally leaves it, He always calls His Father’s house stirs within Him the zeal for it which, as the psalmist is cited here as saying, consumed Him. How much did that house, God’s dwelling-place among men, mean for Him whose great work was to establish it! In His own Person God had come down, and in such a way as implied no mere temporary visitation. His Name Emmanuel had told that out. Wisdom’s delights were with the sons of men; yet with iniquity He could not dwell. The precious blood shed for their sins could only make their persistence in them after this more hideous and more hateful. Thus the house must be purged in which God is to dwell; and the glory of God and the blessing of man required its purgation.
As Son of God, therefore, Christ casts out the defilement, taking openly a place of authority which none dare openly dispute. The shadow of future judgment falls upon them and scatters them. The Jews ask what sign He can show that the authority He claims belongs to Him. He answers them with a challenge to "destroy this temple and in three days He would raise it up" -referring to His death and resurrection: a parable which they could not interpret, and applied falsely to Herod’s building, still unfinished; while even the disciples understood it only when it was fulfilled. The eyes of those held by externalism were not on Him; while as yet it held even those of true disciples. Thus the blow had to fall even upon the temple itself which left not even one stone upon another, and scattered its worshippers also far and wide over the earth; while the new temple of His humanity, glorified by the out-breaking of the glory that was within, becomes in heaven an open sanctuary, whence the divine Light shall irradiate the earth.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv11, 16
John
JESUS THE JOY-BRINGER
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THE FIRST MIRACLE IN CANA - THE WATER MADE WINE
Joh 2:11.
The keynote of this Gospel was struck in the earlier verses of the first chapter in the great words, ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, full of grace and truth.’ To these words there is an evident reference in this language. The Evangelist regards Christ’s first miracle as the first ray of that forth-flashing glory of the Incarnate Word. To this Evangelist all miracles are especially important as being signs, which is the word he generally employs to designate them. They are not mere portents, but significant revelations as well as wonders. It is not, I think, accidental that there are just seven miracles of our Lord’s, before His crucifixion, recorded by John, and one of the Risen Lord.
These signs are all set forth by the Evangelist as manifestations of various aspects of that one white light, of uncreated glory which rays from Christ. They are, if I may so say, the sevenfold colours into which the one beam is analysed. Each of them might be looked at in turn as presenting some fresh thought of what the ‘glory . . . full of grace and truth’ is.
I begin with the first of the series. What, then, is the ‘glory of the only Begotten Son’ which flashes forth upon us from the miracle? My object is simply to try to answer that question for you.
I. First, then, we see here the revelation of His creative power.
It is very noteworthy that the miraculous fact is veiled entirely in the narrative. Not a word is said of the method of operation, it is not even said that the miracle was wrought; we are only told what preceded it, and what followed it. Itself is shrouded in deep silence. The servants fill the water-pots.-’Draw out now,’ and they draw, ‘and bear it to the governor of the feast.’ Where the miraculous act comes in we do not know; what was its nature we cannot tell. How far it extended is left obscure. Was all the large quantity of water in these six great vessels of stone transformed into wine, or was the change effected in the moment when the portion that was wanted was drawn from them and on that portion only? We cannot answer the question. Probably, I think, the latter; but at all events a veil is dropped over the fact.
Only this, we see that in this miracle, even more conspicuously than in any other of our Lord’s, there are no means at all employed. Sometimes He used material vehicles, anointing a man’s eyes with clay, or moistening the ear with the spittle; sometimes sending a man to bathe in the Pool of Siloam; sometimes laying His hand on the sick; sometimes healing from a distance by the mere utterance of His word. But here there is not even a word; no means of any kind employed, but the silent forth-putting of His will, which, without token, without visible audible indication of any sort, passes with sovereign power into the midst of material things and there works according to His own purpose. Is not this the signature of divinity, that without means the mere forth-putting of the will is all that is wanted to mould matter as plastic to His command? It is not even, ‘He spake and it was done,’ but silently He willed, and ‘the conscious water knew its Lord, and blushed.’ This is the glory of the Incarnate Word.
Now that was no interruption of the order of things established in the Creation. There was no suspension of natural laws here. What happened was only this, that the power which generally works through mediating links came into immediate connection with the effect. What does it matter whether your engine transmits its powers through half a dozen cranks, or two or three less? What does it matter whether the chain be longer or shorter? Some parenthetical links are dropped here, that is all that is unusual. For in all ordinary natural operations, as we call them, the profound prologue of this Gospel teaches us to believe that Christ, the Eternal Word, works according to His will. He was the Agent of creation. He is the Agent of that preservation which is only a continual creation. In Him is life, and all living things live because of the continual presence and operation upon them of His divine power. And again I say, what is phenomenal and unusual in this miracle is but the suppression of two or three of the connecting links between the continual cause of all creatural existences, and its effect. So let us learn that whether through a long chain of so-called causes, or whether close up against the effect, without the intervention of these parenthetical and transmitting media, the divine power works. The power is one, and the reason for the effect is one, that Christ ever works in the world, and is that Eternal Word, ‘without whom was not anything made that was made.’ ‘This beginning of miracles did Christ . . . and manifested His glory.’
II. Then, again, we see here, I think, the revelation of one great purpose of our Lord’s coming, to hallow all common, and especially all family, life.
What a strange contrast there is between the simple gladness of the rustic village wedding and the tremendous scene of the Temptation in the wilderness, which preceded it only by a few days! What a strange contrast there is between the sublime heights of the first chapter and the homely incident which opens the ministry! What a contrast between the rigid asceticism of the Forerunner, ‘who came neither eating nor drinking,’ and the Son of Man, who enters thus freely and cheerfully into the common joys and relationships of human nature! How unlike the scene at the marriage-feast must have been to the anticipations of the half-dozen disciples that had gathered round Him, all a-tingling with expectation as to what would be the first manifestation of His Messianic power! The last thing they would have dreamed of would have been to find Him in the humble home in Cana of Galilee. Some people say ‘this miracle is unworthy of Him, for it was wrought upon such a trivial occasion.’ And was it a trivial occasion that prompted Him thus to commence His career, not by some high and strained and remote exhibition of more than human saintliness or power, but by entering like a Brother into the midst of common, homespun, earthly joys, and showing how His presence ennobled and sanctified these? Surely the world has gained from Him, among the many gifts that He has given to it, few that have been the fountain of more sacred sweetness and blessedness than is opened in that fact that the first manifestation of His glory had for its result the hallowing of the marriage tie.
And is it not in accordance with the whole meaning and spirit of His works that ‘forasmuch as the brethren were partakers of’ anything, ‘He Himself likewise should take part of the same,’ and sanctify every incident of life by His sharing of it? So He protests against that faithless and wicked division of life into sacred and secular, which has wrought such harm both in the sacred and in the secular regions. So He protests against the notion that religion has to do with another world rather than with this. So He protests against the narrowing conception of His work which would remove from its influence anything that interests humanity. So He says, as it were, at the very beginning of His career, ‘I am a Man, and nothing that is human do I reckon foreign to Myself.’
Brethren! let us learn the lesson that all life is the region of His Kingdom; that the sphere of His rule is everything which a man can do or feel or think. Let us learn that where His footsteps have trod is hallowed ground. If a prince shares for a few moments in the festivities of his gathered people on some great occasion, how ennobled the feast seems! If he joins in their sports or in their occupations for a while as an act of condescension, how they return to them with renewed vigour! And so we. We have had our King in the midst of all our family life, in the midst of all our common duties; therefore are they consecrated. Let us learn that all things done with the consciousness of His presence are sacred. He has hallowed every corner of human life by His presence; and the consecration, like some pungent and perennial perfume, lingers for us yet in the else scentless air of daily life, if we follow His footsteps.
Sanctity is not singularity. There is no need to withdraw from any region of human activity and human interest in order to develop the whitest saintliness, the most Christlike purity. The saint is to be in the world, but not of it; like the Master, who went straight from the wilderness and its temptations to the homely gladness of the rustic marriage.
III. Still further, we have here a symbol of Christ’s glory as the ennobler and heightener of all earthly joys.
That may be taken with perhaps a permissible play of fancy as one meaning, at any rate, of the transformation of water into wine; the less savoury and fragrant and powerful liquid into the more so. Wine, in the Old Testament especially, is the symbol of gladness, and though it received a deeper and a sacreder meaning in the New Testament as being the emblem of His blood shed for us, it is the Old Testament point of view that prevails here. And therefore, I say, we may read in the incident the symbol of His transforming power. He comes, the Man of Sorrows, with the gift of joy in His hand. It is not an unworthy object-not unworthy, I mean, of a divine sacrifice-to make men glad. It is worth His while to come from Heaven to agonise and to die, in order that He may sprinkle some drops of incorruptible and everlasting joy over the weary and sorrowful hearts of earth. We do not always give its true importance to gladness in the economy of our lives, because we are so accustomed to draw our joys from ignoble sources that in most of our joys there is something not altogether creditable or lofty. But Christ came to bring gladness, and to transform its earthly sources into heavenly fountains; and so to change all the less sweet, satisfying, and potent draughts which we take from earth’s cisterns into the wine of the Kingdom; the new wine, strong and invigorating, ‘making glad the heart of man.’
Our commonest blessings, our commonest joys, if only they be not foul and filthy, are capable of this transformation. Link them with Christ; be glad in Him. Bring Him into your mirth, and it will change its character. Like a taper plunged into a jar of oxygen, it will blaze up more brightly. Earth, at its best and highest, without Him is like some fair landscape lying in the shadow; and when He comes to it, it is like the same scene when the sun blazes out upon it, flashes from every bend of the rippling river, brings beauty into many a shady corner, opens all the flowering petals and sets all the birds singing in the sky. The whole scene changes when a beam of light from Him falls upon earthly joys. He will transform them and ennoble them and make them perpetual. Do not meddle with mirth over which you cannot make the sign of the Cross and ask Him to bless it; and do not keep Him out of your gladness, or it will leave bitterness on your lips, howsoever sweet it tastes at first.
Ay! and not only can this Master transform the water at the marriage feast into the wine of gladness, but the cups that we all carry, into which our tears have dropped-upon these too He can lay His hand and change them into cups of blessing and of salvation.
‘Blessed are they . . . who, passing through the valley of weeping, gather their tears into a well; the rain also covereth it with blessings.’ So the old Psalm put the thought that sorrow may be turned into a solemn joy, and may lie at the foundation of our most flowery fruitfulness. And the same lesson we may learn from this symbol. The Christ who transforms the water of earthly gladness into the wine of heavenly blessedness, can do the same thing for the bitter waters of sorrow, and can make them the occasions of solemn joy. When the leaves drop we see through the bare branches. Shivering and cold they may look, but we see the stars beyond, and that is better. ‘This beginning of miracles’ will Jesus repeat in every sad heart that trusts itself to Him.
IV. And last of all, we have here a token of His glory as supplying the deficiencies of earthly sources.
‘His mother saith unto Him, “They have no wine.”‘ The world’s banquet runs out, Christ supplies an infinite gift. These great water-pots that stood there, if the whole contents of them were changed, as is possible, contained far more than sufficient for the modest wants of the little company. The water that flowed from each of them, in obedience to the touch of the servant’s hand, if the change were effected then, as is possible, would flow on so long as any thirsted or any asked. And Christ gives to each of us, if we choose, a fountain that will spring unto life eternal. And when the world’s platters are empty, and the world’s cups are all drained dry, He will feed and satisfy the immortal hunger and the blessed thirst of every spirit that longs for Him.
The rude speech of the governor of the feast may lend itself to another aspect of this same thought. He said, in jesting surprise, ‘Thou hast kept the good wine until now,’ whereas the world gives its best first, and when the palate is dulled and the appetite diminished, then ‘that which is worse.’ How true that is; how tragically true in some of our lives! In the individual the early days of hope and vigour, when all things were fresh and wondrous, when everything was apparelled in the glory of a dream, contrast miserably with the bitter experiences of life that most of us have made. Habit comes, and takes the edge off everything. We drag remembrance, like a lengthening chain, through all our life; and with remembrance come remorse and regret. ‘The vision splendid’ no more attends men, as they plod on their way through the weariness of middle life, or pass down into the deepening shadows of advancing and solitary old age. The best comes first, for the men who have no good but this world’s. And some of you have got nothing in your cups but dregs that you scarcely care to drink.
But Jesus Christ keeps the best till the last. His gifts become sweeter every day. No time can cloy them. Advancing years make them more precious and more necessary. The end is better in this course than the beginning. And when life is over, and we pass into the heavens, the word will come to our lips, with surprise and with thankfulness, as we find how much better it all is than we had ever dreamed it should be: ‘Thou hast kept the good wine until now.’
Oh, my brother! do not touch that cup that is offered to you by the harlot world, spiced and fragrant and foaming; ‘at the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.’ But take the pure joys which the Christ, loved, trusted, obeyed, summoned to your feast and welcomed in your heart, will bring to you; and these shall grow and greaten until the perfection of the Heavens.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv12–13 J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XXIII. First Residence…
J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XXIII. First Residence at Capernaum].
XXIII. JESUS' FIRST RESIDENCE AT CAPERNAUM. dJOHN II. 12.
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d12 After this he went down to Capernaum [The site of Capernaum is generally conceded to be marked by the ruins now called Tel-Hum. Jesus is said to have gone "down" because Cana is among the hills, and Capernaum was by the Lake of Galilee, about six hundred feet below sea level], he, and his mother, and i his brethren, and his disciples [There is much dispute as to what the New Testament writers mean by the phrase the "brethren of the Lord." This phrase, found in any other than a Jewish book, would be taken to mean either the full or half brothers of Jesus, and it has probably that meaning here. The Catholic Church, contending for the perpetual virginity of our Lord's mother, has argued that his brethren were either the sons of Joseph by a former marriage, or that they were sons of Alphæus (also called Clopas) and a sister of our Lord's mother, who, like her, was also called Mary ( Joh_19:25). This latter view is based upon the fact that two of the sons of Alphæus bear the same names as those borne by two of our Lord's brethren, which is far more conclusive, since the names James and Judas were extremely common. Moreover, we learn from Joh_7:5, that the Lord's brethren did not believe on him, and [119] harmonists place the time of this unbelief late in our Lord's ministry, when the sons of Alphæus were not only believers, but some of them even apostles. Our Lord's brethren are mentioned nine times in the New Testament, and a study of these references will give us some light. Three of them, viz.: Joh_7:3, Joh_7:5, Joh_7:10, 1Co_9:5, Gal_1:19, are rather noncommittal. The other six ( Mat_12:46, Mat_13:55, Mar_3:32, Mar_6:3, Luk_8:19, Luk_8:20, Joh_2:12) speak of his brethren in connection with his mother, and strongly indicate that Jesus was the first-born son of Mary, and that she had at least four other sons, besides daughters. These brethren of Jesus are constantly represented as attending his mother, without a hint that they were not her children. Against this conclusion there is but one argument which has any force; namely, that our Lord committed his mother into the keeping of the apostle John, rather than to his brethren ( Joh_19:25-27), but this fact may be easily accounted for. Many mothers are but scantily and grudgingly supported by their sons]; and there they abode not many days. [Because the passover was at hand, and he went up to Jerusalem. This notice of the brief sojourn of Jesus at Capernaum throws light on several things: 1. It shows where Jesus spent most of his time between his baptism and the first passover. 2. It helps to explain how the nobleman, who afterwards sought him at Cana, became acquainted with him. 3. It prepares us to look for his first visit to Nazareth at a later period. 4. It also explains why Jesus sought Capernaum as his place of residence after leaving Nazareth. Moreover, it shows that the natural ties of kindred were not immediately snapped by Christ. Until he went up to the first passover, he abode with his mother and his brethren.] [120]
[FFG 119-120]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv12–13 The First Purging of the Temple and Its Results.
The First Purging of the Temple and Its Results.
A brief stay at Capernaum:
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v. 12. After this He went down to Capernaum, He, and His mother, and His brethren, and His disciples; and they continued there not many days.
John, in accordance with his purpose of supplementing the account of the first three gospels, has only brief references to the Galilean ministry of Jesus, narrating here only the important point that Jesus made Capernaum His second home. The location of this city on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, on the chief caravan road between Damascus and the Mediterranean Sea, made it a distributing center, a nucleus for all Galilee. The Apostle Paul followed Jesus in this, that he made the chief cities the centers of influence for his missionary work. Jesus was not alone on this trip. His mother Mary accompanied Him, as also the few disciples whom He had gained in Judea, who at this time, or shortly after, returned to their former occupation. His brothers are here mentioned with great definiteness. See Mat 12:46; Mat 1:25. "Here people are concerned how Christ the Lord could have had brothers, since He was the only son of Mary, and the Virgin Mary was not the mother of any more children. Therefore some say that Joseph, before he married Mary, had a wife, of whom he begot children, who were afterwards called brothers of Christ the Lord; or that Joseph had another wife in addition to Mary, which was permitted to the Jews that they had two wives at the same time... Since, then, these were begotten of Joseph and the other woman, they would be half-brothers of Jesus. This some have alleged; but I prefer to take the part of those that say that brothers here means cousins; for the Jews and the Scripture call cousins brothers. But let this be as it may be, not much depends upon it; it gives nothing to faith, nor does it take anything from faith, whether they were cousins or brothers, begotten of Joseph; they went down with Him to Capernaum."
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv11, 12, 13, 15 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
This verse is not part of the main story line, but rather it gives a comment about the story. (See: Introduction of a New Event)
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Cana
This is a place name. (See: How to Translate Names)
revealed his glory
Here "his glory" refers to the mighty power of Jesus. AT: "showed his power"
translationWords
miracle
Galilee
reveal
glory
disciple
believe
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv11, 13, 14 2:11 Jesus had offered his first miraculous sign. In…
2:11 Jesus had offered his first miraculous sign. In it, he revealed the glory of God (see also 1:14; 11:4, 40).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.