{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"JHN","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"John","commonName":"John","introduction":"THE author of the Fourth Gospel was the younger of the two sons of Zebedee, a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, who resided at Bethsaida, where were born Peter and Andrew his brother, and Philip also. His mother's name was Salome, who, though not without her imperfections (Mat 20:20-28), was one of those dear and honored women who accompanied the Lord on one of His preaching circuits through Galilee, ministering to His bodily wants; who followed Him to the cross, and bought sweet spices to anoint Him after His burial, but, on bringing them to the grave, on the morning of the First Day of the week, found their loving services gloriously superseded by His resurrection ere they arrived. His father, Zebedee, appears to have been in good circumstances, owning a vessel of his own and having hired servants (Mar 1:20). Our Evangelist, whose occupation was that of a fisherman with his father, was beyond doubt a disciple of the Baptist, and one of the two who had the first interview with Jesus. He was called while engaged at his secular occupation (Mat 4:21-22), and again on a memorable occasion (Luk 5:1-11), and finally chosen as one of the Twelve Apostles (Mat 10:2). He was the youngest of the Twelve--the \"Benjamin,\" as DA COSTA calls him--and he and James his brother were named in the native tongue by Him who knew the heart, \"Boanerges,\" which the Evangelist Mark (Mar 3:17) explains to mean \"Sons of thunder\"; no doubt from their natural vehemence of character. They and Peter constituted that select triumvirate of whom see on Luk 9:28. But the highest honor bestowed on this disciple was his being admitted to the bosom place with his Lord at the table, as \"the disciple whom Jesus loved\" (Joh 13:23; Joh 20:2; Joh 21:7, Joh 20:24), and to have committed to him by the dying Redeemer the care of His mother (Joh 19:26-27). There can be no reasonable doubt that this distinction was due to a sympathy with His own spirit and mind on the part of John which the all-penetrating Eye of their common Master beheld in none of the rest; and although this was probably never seen either in his life or in his ministry by his fellow apostles, it is brought out wonderfully in his writings, which, in Christ-like spirituality, heavenliness, and love, surpass, we may freely say, all the other inspired writings.\n\nAfter the effusion of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, we find him in constant but silent company with Peter, the great spokesman and actor in the infant Church until the accession of Paul. While his love to the Lord Jesus drew him spontaneously to the side of His eminent servant, and his chastened vehemence made him ready to stand courageously by him, and suffer with him, in all that his testimony to Jesus might cost him, his modest humility, as the youngest of all the apostles, made him an admiring listener and faithful supporter of his brother apostle rather than a speaker or separate actor. Ecclesiastical history is uniform in testifying that John went to Asia Minor; but it is next to certain that this could not have been till after the death both of Peter and Paul; that he resided at Ephesus, whence, as from a center, he superintended the churches of that region, paying them occasional visits; and that he long survived the other apostles. Whether the mother of Jesus died before this, or went with John to Ephesus, where she died and was buried, is not agreed. One or two anecdotes of his later days have been handed down by tradition, one at least bearing marks of reasonable probability. But it is not necessary to give them here. In the reign of Domitian (A.D. 81-96) he was banished to \"the isle that is called Patmos\" (a small rocky and then almost uninhabited island in the Ægean Sea), \"for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ\" (Rev 1:9). IRENÆUS and EUSEBIUS say that this took place about the end of Domitian's reign. That he was thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, and miraculously delivered, is one of those legends which, though reported by TERTULLIAN and JEROME, is entitled to no credit. His return from exile took place during the brief but tolerant reign of Nerva; he died at Ephesus in the reign of Trajan [EUSEBIUS, Ecclesiastical History, 3.23], at an age above ninety, according to some; according to others, one hundred; and even one hundred twenty, according to others still. The intermediate number is generally regarded as probably the nearest to the truth.\n\nAs to the date of this Gospel, the arguments for its having been composed before the destruction of Jerusalem (though relied on by some superior critics) are of the slenderest nature; such as the expression in Joh 5:2, \"there is at Jerusalem, by the sheep-gate, a pool,\" &c.; there being no allusion to Peter's martyrdom as having occurred according to the prediction in Joh 21:18 --a thing too well known to require mention. That it was composed long after the destruction of Jerusalem, and after the decease of all the other apostles, is next to certain, though the precise time cannot be determined. Probably it was before his banishment, however; and if we date it between the years 90 and 94, we shall probably be close to the truth.\n\nAs to the readers for whom it was more immediately designed, that they were Gentiles we might naturally presume from the lateness of the date; but the multitude of explanations of things familiar to every Jew puts this beyond all question.\n\nNo doubt was ever thrown upon the genuineness and authenticity of this Gospel till about the close of the eighteenth century; nor were these embodied in any formal attack upon it till BRETSCHNEIDER, in 1820, issued his famous treatise [Probabilia], the conclusions of which he afterwards was candid enough to admit had been satisfactorily disproved. To advert to these would be as painful as unnecessary; consisting as they mostly do of assertions regarding the Discourses of our Lord recorded in this Gospel which are revolting to every spiritual mind. The Tubingen school did their best, on their peculiar mode of reasoning, to galvanize into fresh life this theory of the post-Joannean date of the Fourth Gospel; and some Unitarian critics still cling to it. But to use the striking language of VAN OOSTERZEE regarding similar speculations on the Third Gospel, \"Behold, the feet of them that shall carry it out dead are already at the door\" (Act 5:9). Is there one mind of the least elevation of spiritual discernment that does not see in this Gospel marks of historical truth and a surpassing glory such as none of the other Gospels possess, brightly as they too attest their own verity; and who will not be ready to say that if not historically true, and true just as it stands, it never could have been by mortal man composed or conceived?\n\nOf the peculiarities of this Gospel, we note here only two. The one is its reflective character. While the others are purely narrative, the Fourth Evangelist, \"pauses, as it were, at every turn,\" as DA COSTA says [Four Witnesses, p. 234], \"at one time to give a reason, at another to fix the attention, to deduce consequences, or make applications, or to give utterance to the language of praise.\" See Joh 2:20-21, Joh 2:23-25; Joh 4:1-2; Joh 7:37-39; Joh 11:12-13, Joh 11:49-52; Joh 21:18-19, Joh 21:22-23. The other peculiarity of this Gospel is its supplementary character. By this, in the present instance, we mean something more than the studiousness with which he omits many most important particulars in our Lord's history, for no conceivable reason but that they were already familiar as household words to all his readers, through the three preceding Gospels, and his substituting in place of these an immense quantity of the richest matter not found in the other Gospels. We refer here more particularly to the nature of the additions which distinguish this Gospel; particularly the notices of the different Passovers which occurred during our Lord's public ministry, and the record of His teaching at Jerusalem, without which it is not too much to say that we could have had but a most imperfect conception either of the duration of His ministry or of the plan of it. But another feature of these additions is quite as noticeable and not less important. \"We find,\" to use again the words of DA COSTA [Four Witnesses, pp. 238, 239], slightly abridged, \"only six of our Lord's miracles recorded in this Gospel, but these are all of the most remarkable kind, and surpass the rest in depth, specialty of application, and fulness of meaning. Of these six we find only one in the other three Gospels--the multiplication of the loaves. That miracle chiefly, it would seem, on account of the important instructions of which it furnished the occasion (John 6:1-71), is here recorded anew. The five other tokens of divine power are distinguished from among the many recorded in the three other Gospels by their furnishing a still higher display of power and command over the ordinary laws and course of nature. Thus we find recorded here the first of all the miracles that Jesus wrought--the changing of water into wine (Joh 2:1-11), the cure of the nobleman's son at a distance (Joh 4:43-54); of the numerous cures of the lame and the paralytic by the word of Jesus, only one--of the man impotent for thirty and eight years (Joh 5:1-9); of the many cures of the blind, one only--of the man born blind (Joh 9:1-12); the restoration of Lazarus, not from a deathbed, like Jairus' daughter, nor from a bier, like the widow of Nain's son, but from the grave, and after lying there four days, and there sinking into corruption (John 11:1-44); and lastly, after His resurrection, the miraculous draught of fishes on the Sea of Tiberias (Joh 21:5-11). But these are all recorded chiefly to give occasion for the record of those astonishing discourses and conversations, alike with friends and with foes, with His disciples and with the multitude which they drew forth.\"\n\nOther illustrations of the peculiarities of this Gospel will occur, and other points connected with it be adverted to, in the course of the Commentary. \n\n\n\nNext: John Chapter 1\n\n","order":43,"numberOfChapters":21,"sha256":"2a03297b1e3a6f9e0b82a13c39c82e2202f9e979c173750344c480c63057d8a0","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JHN/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JHN","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":21,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JHN/21.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JHN","chapter":21},"totalNumberOfVerses":680},"chapter":{"number":21,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["Nathanael--(See on Mat 10:3).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing--(See on Luk 5:11). \n\nthat night . . . caught nothing--as at the first miraculous draught (see on Luk 5:5); no doubt so ordered that the miracle might strike them the more by contrast. The same principle is seen in operation throughout much of Christ's ministry, and is indeed a great law of God's spiritual procedure with His people.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["Jesus stood--(Compare Joh 20:19, Joh 20:26). \n\nbut the disciples knew not it was Jesus--Perhaps there had been some considerable interval since the last manifestation, and having agreed to betake themselves to their secular employment, they would be unprepared to expect Him.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["Children--This term would not necessarily identify Him, being not unusual from any superior; but when they did recognize Him, they would feel it sweetly like Himself. \n\nhave ye any meat?--provisions, supplies, meaning fish. \n\nThey answered . . . No--This was in His wonted style, making them tell their case, and so the better prepare them for what was coming.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship--no doubt, by this very specific direction, intending to reveal to them His knowledge of the deep and power over it.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["that disciple whom Jesus loved, said, It is the Lord--again having the advantage of his brother in quickness of recognition (see on Joh 20:8), to be followed by an alacrity in Peter all his own. \n\nhe was naked--his vest only on, worn next the body. \n\ncast himself into the sea--the shallow part, not more than a hundred yards from the water's edge (Joh 21:8), not meaning therefore to swim, but to get sooner to Jesus than in the full boat which they could hardly draw to shore.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["the other disciples came in a little ship--by ship.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["they saw--\"see.\" \n\na fire of coals, and fish laid thereon, and bread--By comparing this with Kg1 19:6, and similar passages, the unseen agency by which Jesus made this provision will appear evident.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish ye have now caught--Observe the double supply thus provided--His and theirs. The meaning of this will perhaps appear presently.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["Peter went up--into the boat; went aboard. \n\nand drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three; and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken--The manifest reference here to the former miraculous draught (Luk 5:1-11) furnishes the key to this scene. There the draught was symbolical of the success of their future ministry: While \"Peter and all that were with him were astonished at the draught of the fishes which they had taken, Jesus said unto him, Fear not, from henceforth thou shalt catch men.\" Nay, when first called, in the act of \"casting their net into the sea, for they were fishers,\" the same symbolic reference was made to their secular occupation: \"Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men\" (Mat 4:18-19). Here, then, if but the same symbolic reference be kept in view, the design of the whole scene will, we think, be clear. The multitude and the size of the fishes they caught symbolically foreshadowed the vast success of their now fast approaching ministry, and this only as a beginning of successive draughts, through the agency of a Christian ministry, till, \"as the waters cover the sea, the earth should be full of the knowledge of the Lord.\" And whereas, at the first miraculous draught, the net \"was breaking\" through the weight of what it contained--expressive of the difficulty with which, after they had 'caught men,' they would be able to retain, or keep them from escaping back into the world--while here, \"for all they were so many, yet was not the net broken,\" are we not reminded of such sayings as these (Joh 10:28): \"I give unto My sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of My hand\" [LUTHARDT]? But it is not through the agency of a Christian ministry that all true disciples are gathered. Jesus Himself, by unseen methods, gathers some, who afterwards are recognized by the constituted fishers of men, and mingle with the fruit of their labors. And are not these symbolized by that portion of our Galilean repast which the fishers found, in some unseen way, made ready to their hand?\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["none . . . durst ask him, Who art thou, knowing it was the Lord--implying that they would have liked Him just to say, \"It is I\"; but having such convincing evidence they were afraid of being \"upbraided for their unbelief and hardness of heart\" if they ventured to put the question.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["Jesus . . . taketh bread--the bread. \n\nand giveth them, and the fish likewise--(See on Luk 24:30).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["This is the third time that Jesus showed himself--was manifested. \n\nto his disciples--His assembled disciples; for if we reckon His appearances to individual disciples, they were more.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["when they had dined, Jesus saith--Silence appears to have reigned during the meal; unbroken on His part, that by their mute observation of Him they might have their assurance of His identity the more confirmed; and on theirs, from reverential shrinking to speak till He did. \n\nSimon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?--referring lovingly to those sad words of Peter, shortly before denying his Lord, \"Though all men shall be offended because of Thee, yet will I never be offended\" (Mat 26:33), and intending by this allusion to bring the whole scene vividly before his mind and put him to shame. \n\nYea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee--He adds not, \"more than these,\" but prefixes a touching appeal to the Saviour's own omniscience for the truth of his protestation, which makes it a totally different kind of speech from his former. \n\nHe saith unto him, Feed my lambs--It is surely wrong to view this term as a mere diminutive of affection, and as meaning the same thing as \"the sheep\" [WEBSTER and WILKINSON]. It is much more according to usage to understand by the \"lambs,\" young and tender disciples, whether in age or Christian standing (Isa 40:11; Jo1 2:12-13), and by the \"sheep\" the more mature. Shall we say (with many) that Peter was here reinstated in office? Not exactly, since he was not actually excluded from it. But after such conduct as his, the deep wound which the honor of Christ had received, the stain brought on his office, the damage done to his high standing among his brethren, and even his own comfort, in prospect of the great work before him, required some such renewal of his call and re-establishment of his position as this.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["He saith to him . . . the second time . . . lovest thou me, &c.--In this repetition of the question, though the wound was meant to be reopened, the words \"more than these\" are not repeated; for Christ is a tender as well as skilful Physician, and Peter's silence on that point was confession enough of his sin and folly. On Peter's repeating his protestation in the same words, our Lord rises higher in the manifestation of His restoring grace. \n\nFeed--keep. \n\nmy sheep--It has been observed that the word here is studiously changed, from one signifying simply to feed, to one signifying to tend as a shepherd, denoting the abiding exercise of that vocation, and in its highest functions.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said the third time, &c.--This was the Physician's deepest incision into the wound, while yet smarting under the two former probings. Not till now would Peter discern the object of this succession of thrusts. The third time reveals it all, bringing up such a rush of dreadful recollections before his view, of his \"thrice denying that he knew Him,\" that he feels it to the quick. It was fitting that he should; it was meant that he should. But this accomplished, the painful dialogue concludes with a delightful \"Feed My sheep\"; as if He should say, \"Now, Simon, the last speck of the cloud which overhung thee since that night of nights is dispelled: Henceforth thou art to Me and to My work as if no such scene had ever happened.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["When thou wast young--embracing the whole period of life to the verge of old age. \n\nthou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest--wast thine own master. \n\nwhen . . . old thou shalt stretch forth thine hands--to be bound for execution, though not necessarily meaning on a cross. There is no reason, however, to doubt the very early tradition that Peter's death was by crucifixion.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God--not, therefore, a mere prediction of the manner of his death, but of the honor to be conferred upon him by dying for his Master. And, indeed, beyond doubt, this prediction was intended to follow up his triple restoration:--\"Yes, Simon, thou shall not only feed My lambs, and feed My sheep, but after a long career of such service, shalt be counted worthy to die for the name of the Lord Jesus.\" \n\nAnd when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me--By thus connecting the utterance of this prediction with the invitation to follow Him, the Evangelist would indicate the deeper sense in which the call was understood, not merely to go along with Him at that moment, but to come after Him, \"taking up his cross.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["Peter, turning about--showing that he followed immediately as directed. \n\nseeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on Jesus' breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?--The Evangelist makes these allusions to the peculiar familiarity to which he had been admitted on the most memorable of all occasions, perhaps lovingly to account for Peter's somewhat forward question about him to Jesus; which is the rather probable, as it was at Peter's suggestion that he put the question about the traitor which he here recalls (Joh 13:24-25).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["Peter . . . saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?--What of this man? or, How shall it fare with him?\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["Jesus saith to him, If I will that he tarry fill I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me--From the fact that John alone of the Twelve survived the destruction of Jerusalem, and so witnessed the commencement of that series of events which belongs to \"the last days,\" many good interpreters think that this is a virtual prediction of fact, and not a mere supposition. But this is very doubtful, and it seems more natural to consider our Lord as intending to give no positive indication of John's fate at all, but to signify that this was a matter which belonged to the Master of both, who would disclose or conceal it as He thought proper, and that Peter's part was to mind his own affairs. Accordingly, in \"follow thou Me,\" the word \"thou\" is emphatic. Observe the absolute disposal of human life which Christ claims: \"If I will that he tarry till I come,\" &c.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die--into which they the more easily fell from the prevalent expectation that Christ's second coming was then near at hand. \n\nyet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die--The Evangelist is jealous for His Master's honor, which his death might be thought to compromise if such a misunderstanding should not be corrected.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["FINAL CLOSE OF THIS GOSPEL. (Joh 21:24-25)\n\nThis is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things--thus identifying the author of this book with all that it says of this disciple. \n\nwe know that his testimony is true--(Compare Joh 19:35).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["And there are many other things which Jesus did--(Compare Joh 20:30-31). \n\nif . . . written every one, I suppose--an expression used to show that what follows is not to be pressed too far. \n\neven the world itself would not hold the books, &c.--not a mere hyperbolical expression, unlike the sublime simplicity of this writer, but intended to let his reader know that, even now that he had done, he felt his materials so far from being exhausted, that he was still running over, and could multiply \"Gospels\" to almost any extent within the strict limits of what \"Jesus did.\" But in the limitation of these matchless histories, in point of number, there is as much of that divine wisdom which has presided over and pervades the living oracles, as in their variety and fulness.\n\n\n\n\n\nNext: Acts Introduction\n\n"]}],"introduction":"SUPPLEMENTARY PARTICULARS. (John 21:1-23)\n\nJesus showed himself again--manifested himself again. \n\nand on this wise he manifested himself--This way of speaking shows that after His resurrection He appeared to them but occasionally, unexpectedly, and in a way quite unearthly, though yet really and corporeally.\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JHN/21.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JHN","chapter":21},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ACT/1.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ACT","chapter":1},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JHN/20.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JHN","chapter":20},"numberOfVerses":24}