《Expositor’s Dictionaryof Texts- John》(William R. Nicoll)
Commentator
Sir William Robertson Nicoll CH (October 10, 1851 - May 4, 1923) was a Scottish Free Church minister, journalist, editor, and man of letters.
Nicoll was born in Lumsden, Aberdeenshire, the son of a Free Church minister. He was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and graduated MA at the University of Aberdeen in 1870, and studied for the ministry at the Free Church Divinity Hall there until 1874, when he was ordained minister of the Free Church at Dufftown, Banffshire. Three years later he moved to Kelso, and in 1884 became editor of The Expositor for Hodder & Stoughton, a position he held until his death.
In 1885 Nicoll was forced to retire from pastoral ministry after an attack of typhoid had badly damaged his lung. In 1886 he moved south to London, which became the base for the rest of his life. With the support of Hodder and Stoughton he founded the British Weekly, a Nonconformist newspaper, which also gained great influence over opinion in the churches in Scotland.
Nicoll secured many writers of exceptional talent for his paper (including Marcus Dods, J. M. Barrie, Ian Maclaren, Alexander Whyte, Alexander Maclaren, and James Denney), to which he added his own considerable talents as a contributor. He began a highly popular feature, "Correspondence of Claudius Clear", which enabled him to share his interests and his reading with his readers. He was also the founding editor of The Bookman from 1891, and acted as chief literary adviser to the publishing firm of Hodder & Stoughton.
Among his other enterprises were The Expositor's Bible and The Theological Educator. He edited The Expositor's Greek Testament (from 1897), and a series of Contemporary Writers (from 1894), and of Literary Lives (from 1904).
He projected but never wrote a history of The Victorian Era in English Literature, and edited, with T. J. Wise, two volumes of Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century. He was knighted in 1909, ostensibly for his literrary work, but in reality probably more for his long-term support for the Liberal Party. He was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in the 1921 Birthday Honours.
00 Introduction
01 Chapter 1
Verses 1-51
Agnosticism, Positivism and Materialism
John 1:1
John outstrips Genesis. He begins the record of the world anew, but starts from a deeper starting-point. In Genesis the history of the world arises out of the God of Creation. In John there is a deeper starting-point: history commences with the God of redemption.
I. This, then, is the first assertion we have to consider—Redemption is older than Creation. God the Saviour is a more fundamental fact than God the Creator. Redemption was not an incidental sequel of creation, but creation was the means to work out the eternal idea of redemption. Creation was the means of carrying out the eternal idea of redeeming love. John says in his wonderful Revelation that there stood before him the Lamb slain. Slain when? "Slain from the foundation of the world." This world was established on sacrifice.
II. The infinite reach and astounding sweep of this assertion draws our attention all the more forcibly to the uncompromising positiveness and stark dogmatism of it. There is certainly something wrong either with John or with this present generation, for the present age prides itself on being sure of as little as possible. It is typical of the age that its most pretentious system of knowledge calls itself Agnosticism, that Isaiah , "Know-nothingism". Another system that competes with this "Know-nothingism," and calls itself "Positivism," is first-cousin to it. These are the two systems that pretend to teach us the ways of wisdom. One glories in knowing nothing; the other boasts in knowing very little. And unfortunately the same spirit of Agnosticism has found its way, has ramified itself throughout the whole field of religious thought. It is the men that know that shake the world. How could John come to the knowledge of such a stupendous fact as this? John had only one way of obtaining this knowledge, namely, by revelation. Heaven revealed its message straight to the heart of this man.
III. No less noticeable than the dogmatism and positiveness of John"s assertion are the grandeur and reasonableness of it. "In the beginning was the Word." That is John"s explanation. Can you conceive a better? The difficulties of the Christian religion are as nothing compared with the difficulties of materialism, when you begin to examine it. This fountain is inexhaustible, limitless, and worlds after worlds without end may stream forth from such a source and fount as this.
IV. There is yet another marvel in John"s conception of the manifestation of this Word. Is there any further revelation of this eternal Word of which John speaks? There is ample evidence that the Old Testament prophets regarded that Word as a living personality that touched their lives. Then there came One in a form like our own, a Son of Prayer of Manasseh , One who was born, lived, suffered, and died on our earth. And man came into contact with Him, and said: "The eternal has come down to men". If that be true, and nothing is more certain in the life of man or in the history of the world, we are face to face with an astounding fact, a fact infinitely important for each one of us individually, and infinitely important for societies and nations. For this Jesus must triumph.
—John Thomas, Myrtle Street Pulpit, vol. iii. p305.
References.—I:1.—W. Alexander, Primary Convictions, p203. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p248; ibid. (5th Series), vol. v. p303. I:1-5.—T. Gasquoine, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlviii. p126. I:1-13.—Expositor (5th Series), vol. vii. p100. I:1-14.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. John , p1. I:1-15.—Ibid. vol. x. p61. I:3.—Bishop Galloway, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lx. p168. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vi. p75.
Life and Light
John 1:4
If we were asked suddenly what we thought of life, what we thought of the world in which we lived, a good many of us would answer that we do not think much about it, and possibly that would be the truest answer that many of us could give. A little work, a little recreation, a little sleep—for some more, for others less, of each—that seems to be for us life. And yet we are not quite satisfied. There is a lurking suspicion that life means more; perhaps a self-consciousness that, many years ago, it did mean more to us. Is there not something wrong with such a conception of life? Has the best which we can conceive of in life no other meaning than the gaining of prizes such as we worked for at school, such as the few who are more fortunate can still gain? Surely the revelation of Jesus Christ throws a light across our conception of life; it makes such an idle view of it seem dwarfed and incomplete.
I. Think of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, coming to earth in the form of Prayer of Manasseh , as a servant of God. Surely there is a strange reversal of all that we have regarded as chiefly desirable in life. We raise ourselves to obtain a position which shall separate us from the common run of mankind, so that they shall look up to us and admire us. But here is One Who is really the Son of God and has all the honour and glory of God, descending to earth in the likeness, and subject to all the limitations, of humanity. Nor is even that all. He adopted the trade of a carpenter—a humble profession—while on this earth, and was obedient unto death, and that death—the death of Christ—was the death of a malefactor. Can we still say that life has lost its wonder? What, then, can life and the world in which we live mean to us in this new light? Life means the development of our capacities, and the world is the sphere in which they are developed. There has come into the sphere of our activity One Who proclaims Himself to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He says: "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." And He goes further still, for He declares that if a man keep His word he shall never see death. Is there any limit to such a possibility of development as that?
II. What must this Higher Life mean to you and to me?—It gives a new reality, a new meaning to everything we have and do and say, to all that we are.
(a) You have physical powers. Develop them not simply as a means for your own amusement, but as a means of serving God better than you have ever done before.
(b) You have intellectual powers. Develop them to that same end. Do not be content to get into a groove, so to speak, as many of us are, and stop in it. Find some other interest apart from your own daily work. It may be literature, the study of economics, or it may be music; but whatever it Isaiah , as you have opportunity, develop it to the best of your power, and you will find that it will give you an insight into the wonders of the world in which you live. It will give you comfort and support which will lead you through much drudgery and enable you to support worry and even suffering. It will open out to you countless opportunities for service to God which would otherwise be closed.
(c) There is spiritual development, the development of the capacity for a knowledge of God. All our energies and powers come from Him. Our lives are surely not without incident and interest since we commenced them in the Church of Christ. Is life so full for any one of us that we can spare no time for preparation, that we can spare no time to come to receive that gift of life which God offers us, a gift that will make our day"s work worth doing, that will make our daily prayers real and sustaining and give them a meaning which they can have in no other way, a gift that will make our sojourn here on earth the best preparation, the best training for better service, for a fuller and better life hereafter?
References.—I:4.—Brooke Herford, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvii. p147. Bishop Walters, ibid. vol. lx. p164. Newman Smyth, The Reality of Faith, p17. J. Huntley Skrine, Sermons to Pastors and Masters, p27.
Life and Light
John 1:4-5
I. A Great Conception of Jesus Christ.—"In Him was life." John is not dealing with a theory, but with a fact John had pressed very closely to Him, had leaned upon His bosom and beheld His glory. There, with a clearness which forced itself upon him, was a Divine humanity. Those who assert that the incarnation of God is impossible, are bound also to assert that such a life as that of Jesus was impossible. "In Him was life." (1) The words point to "life" as the ultimate fact in the world, the basis of all things else. John saw the secret of the world when he saw Jesus Christ The invisible God stood revealed—revealed as a throbbing life. Thus the truth came. All things were made by Him, and without Him there was not anything made that was made. (2) Then there is the other truth, that the infinite life is in intimate contact with finite life. (3) And there is yet another truth, that the whole world is governed by a moral purpose. Since Christ is its life, it must find its unity and meaning in that life.
II. The Great Purpose of the Work of Jesus Christ.—"And the life was the light of men." It might seem at first sight as if there were a sudden descent, a weakening of the expression, in the transition from "life" to "light". This feeling arises partly from failing to realise what a large thought the idea of "light" is in the mind of the Apostle John. (1) In his writings it alternates with "love" as an adequate designation of the rich complexity and immaculate purity of God"s moral nature. When applied to man it denotes participation in the moral nature of God. (2) Then again, light takes it natural place with John as the product of life. Christ came to save men from their sins, to reconstruct the ruined nature of Prayer of Manasseh , to seek and to save that which was lost; and His mightiest miracles were but fringes on the border of His real work. The life was the light of men.
III. The Great Opposition to the Work of Jesus Christ.—"And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not." A strong claim is put forward in favour of the translation, "And the darkness overcame it not". The best English word that I can think of to express this comprehensive meaning is the verb "To master". The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness mastered it not The Church may have to pass through many a Gethsemane and many a Calvary yet before the purging hosts of darkness disappear. But all is well. They know not the secret place of our power, they cannot touch the Divinity which is the life of our life.
—John Thomas, Myrtle Street Pulpit, vol. ii. p85.
Reference.—I:4-18.—Expositor (5th Series), vol. v. p229.
John 1:5
Judging from the main portion of the history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy, peace walks amid hourly pitfalls, and of slavery, misery, meanness, the craft of tyrants, and the credulity of the populace in some of their protean forms, no voice can at any time say, They are not. The clouds break a little, and the sun shines out—but soon and certain the lowering darkness falls again, as if to last for ever. Yet is there an immortal courage and prophecy in every sane soul that cannot, must not, under any circumstances, capitulate.
—Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas.
References.—I:5.—H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. iii. p1. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p322.
God-sent Men
John 1:6
The Lord has given to every man something which distinguishes him from every other man; find out that something; that is your business. You are not one of a mob, you have a soul, an identity, a personality of your own; you can do what nobody else can do just in the same way and in the same measure; find out what that Isaiah , and do it. That is life. You are afraid of yourself. You are very self-specialising when you are perfectly sure that nobody is within a mile of you, but the moment the next man comes near you so easily drop into cowardice, and further still drop into practical nothingness.
I. There was a man sent from God, and his name was Sympathy. It is almost a woman"s name; but the true man is male and female, man and woman, brother and sister, and the more woman there is in him the better for everybody. There was a man sent from God whose radiant, gentle, womanly name was Sympathy. He said as he approached our sorrow and our solitude, The Lord hath given me the tongue of the learned that I might speak a word in season to him that is weary. Cannot everybody speak a word to that man? No; sympathy is a gift; sympathy is a music carved out of a special gamut and set to vital strain and expression by the king"s son.
II. There was a man sent from God whose name was Encouragement, Comfort. This man has a double name, and yet both the names mean the same thing. We mistake the etymology and the religious application of the word comfort. Hardly a man in a thousand can tell us what comfort really means. He is a comforting preacher who says, Arise, shine, for thy light is come; awake, awake! get thee up into the high mountains! and who, making these grand trumpet announcements, says, For the Lord is thy strength, and the Holy One of Israel the unfailing river on whose waters of grace thou mayest evermore rely. It is a very disastrous thing to take away these passages from people who have been over-fondling them for half a century, without having the faintest idea of their real meaning. It is very sad when everybody begins to interpret without having been told to do so by Him who wrought the Word mystery, the Logos of redeeming passion.
III. There was a man sent from God whose name was Insight. The difference between one man and another is that one man can do it and the other cannot. That is all. I would to God that were realised in the Church, in statesmanship, in literature, in the whole range of civilisation. The man who cannot do it may be most industrious and most painstaking and most conscientious, but he always sets the thing that he is setting upside down. It has to be set the other way, but all the philosophers since philosophy was born can never drive it into his head that his way is the wrong way. Yet he is most conscientious, and he is known in his own neighbourhood as a good Prayer of Manasseh , and so amiable. Some men can see and other men cannot see.
Now when a man feels that he is sent of God he is fearless. A man who is sent from God has no anxiety about resources. The true preacher never wonders what he will preach about this day month; we have nothing to do even with tomorrow. How will the work be done? By the living God. How do you know that all the world shall be covered with the knowledge of the Lord? Because the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. There is an oath at stake, and it is God"s oath.