John 13:31-33

Second Section: 13:31-16:33. The Discourses.

Jesus has just taken leave of Judas, an eternal leavetaking: Do what thou hast to do! He turns now towards His own, and the farewell which He addresses to them is an: until we meet again (Gess). The departure of Judas has restored to His restrained feeling all its freedom. He can henceforth, during the short time which remains to Him, pour forth His feelings, partly in conversations called out by their questions, partly in teachings which come spontaneously from His heart and which end by revealing to His disciples what He is for them. Softened as they are by the love of which He has just borne witness, humbled as they have never been, even by His humility, the apostles are now well prepared to receive and to appropriate to themselves His last revelations.

A series of short dialogues (comp. the questions of Peter, Thomas, Philip and Judas) opens these communications of an entirely familiar character. The subject of these conversations is naturally the approaching separation, with regard to which Jesus seeks to reassure them (chap. 14). John 13:31 of this chapter, by the external fact which is indicated in it, separates these conversations from the following discourses. In the latter, Jesus transports Himself in thought to the period when His disciples will have to continue His work and to labor in His name for the salvation of the world, and He promises them His aid in view of this task. It is the idea of His spiritual union with them which forms the basis of these teachings (John 15:1 to John 16:15). Finally, the thought returns to its starting-point, the impending separation. The dialogue-form reappears and Jesus then finds the decisive words which inspire them with the strength of which they have need at this sorrowful moment: John 16:16-33. Thus a dying father, after having gathered his family about him, begins by speaking to them of his end; then, their future career opens itself before his eyes: he shows them what they will have to do here on earth and what the earth will be to them. After which, returning to the present situation, he draws from the depths of his paternal heart a last word which alleviates the final farewell.

This progress is so natural that we are obliged to say that, if this situation existed and if Jesus spoke at this moment, He must have spoken in this way. The discourse is constantly elevated, simple, tender, on the level of the situation; there reigns in it a deep but repressed emotion. The logical connection is not for an instant broken, but it is never made conspicuous. Distinctness of intuition is united with inwardness of feeling, and we yield ourselves easily to the gentle undulation of the thought which results from the movement of the heart. We know of only two passages in our sacred books which offer any analogy to this one, and both of them owe their origin to analogous situations. They are the last discourses of Moses, in Deuteronomy, where the legislator takes leave of his people, and the second part of Isaiah, where the prophet, transporting himself in spirit beyond the future ruin and rising again of Israel, describes its work in the midst of the world. Hilgenfeld establishes an opposition between these discourses and the last teachings, of an eschatological character, which the Synoptics have handed down to us (Matthew 24; Mark 13). The evangelist with his lofty spiritualism substituted, according to his view, for the visible return at the Parousia the spiritual coming of Jesus. But the notion of the coming and work of the Spirit is by no means wanting in the Synoptics; it is at the foundation of the parables of the talents and the pounds, in Matthew and Luke; of that of the virgins, in Matthew; comp. also the promises Matthew 28:18-20; Luke 24:48-49, etc. And, on the other hand, the idea of the outward and visible consummation is not wanting in John, as we have seen (John 13:28-29; John 6:39-40; John 6:44; John 6:54; John 12:48; comp. 1Jn 2:28). The kingdom of the Spirit and the selection which results from it, to the view of John, only prepare for the kingdom of Christ and the final judgment.