31. But that the world may know that I love the Father, &c.--The
sense must be completed thus: "But to the Prince of the world, though he
has nothing in Me, I shall yield Myself up even unto death, that the
world may know that I love and obey the Father, whose commandment it is
that I give My life a ransom for many."
Arise, let us go hence--Did they then, at this stage of the discourse,
leave the supper room, as some able interpreters conclude? If so, we
think our Evangelist would have mentioned it: see
Joh 18:1,
which seems clearly to intimate that they then only left the upper
room. But what do the words mean if not this? We think it was the
dictate of that saying of earlier date, "I have a baptism to be
baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be
accomplished!"--a spontaneous and irrepressible expression of the
deep eagerness of His spirit to get into the conflict, and that if, as
is likely, it was responded to somewhat too literally by the guests who
hung on His lips, in the way of a movement to depart, a wave of His
hand, would be enough to show that He had yet more to say ere they
broke up; and that disciple, whose pen was dipped in a love to his
Master which made their movements of small consequence save when
essential to the illustration of His words, would record this
little outburst of the Lamb hastening to the slaughter, in the very
midst of His lofty discourse; while the effect of it, if any, upon His
hearers, as of no consequence, would naturally enough be passed
over.
JFB.
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