John 2:13-25

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

XI.

Beginning with John 2:13, the account of the first visit of Jesus to Jerusalem is given. There can be little doubt that the five or six disciples were with Him in this visit. John 2:12 states that they went with Him from Cana to Capernaum, and that they (not He alone) remained there not many days. It is then said (John 2:13) that He went up to Jerusalem; and at the close of each story of what He did there (John 2:17; John 2:22), the relation of His words or actions to the thoughts of the disciples is referred to. When we add to this the evident design of the writer to set forth the growing faith of the disciples in their association with Jesus, the probability in the case rises almost to certainty.

There are four points of special interest connected with these verses (John 2:13-25):

1. As the miracle at Cana had by reason of the supernatural power exhibited in it confirmed their faith, two means of a different order are now employed for the same end. The driving out of the dealers is an exhibition of His prophetic zeal. It was the power of the prophet that awed and overcame those who had desecrated the sacred place. The impression made on the disciples was immediate and profound (John 2:17). The testimony comes to them in a new line. As related to the scene at Cana, however, it comes in the right order of proof. The miracle is the first σημεῖον, the prophet's work is the second. The matter recorded in John 2:18 ff. is of another character. As we see by John 2:22, it was not fully understood at the time. The scene at Cana and the one with the dealers taught their lesson at once; the disciples believed (John 2:11), and they remembered and applied what was written (John 2:17). But this scene suggested a question which they could not answer. It was a question, however, to which their minds might naturally often turn, and it was one which would lead them to the thought of the wonderful element in His person and character. It worked as a proof by reason of the strangeness belonging to it. What could be the significance of those remarkable words? What a wonderful man must He be who could utter them of Himself! The different character of the signs, as the author brings them before us, may well arrest attention.

2. In respect to the last point (John 2:18 ff.), it is said that the disciples did not come to the right apprehension of the meaning of Jesus' words until after He rose from the dead. In the following verses, persons are spoken of who were led by the signs to believe, but not to believe in such a way that Jesus could trust Himself to them. These statements show clearly that the author is marking in the progress of his narrative the development of faith. These indications, also, are of such a nature that they point us to an author contemporary with the facts as the one who gives them. They are of the simple, artless sort, which men removed from the actual scenes do not think of.

3. The signs referred to in John 2:23 are not described or related in the chapter. The inference which must be drawn is, that the writer purposely selects those things only which affected the disciples, and those even which moved them in a different way from the miracle, properly so-called, which they had witnessed at Cana.

4. We may add that, at this point, ch. 3 opens with a testimony which lies wholly within the sphere of words.

As to the questions arising in connection with these verses, which relate to the difference between this Gospel and the Synoptics, it may be said, in the first place, that both of the two things mentioned seem better suited to the beginning of the public life of Jesus than to its end. The demand for a sign, with the particular answer here given, is more easily accounted for as made on His first appearance, than at the period when, after three years of ministry, He comes to Jerusalem for the last time and enters it with a sort of triumphal procession. It will be noticed, indeed, that in the Synoptical account these words about the temple are only mentioned as what the false witnesses reported that they had heard, and that Mark says, apparently with reference to this matter (comp. Mark 14:59 with 58), that they did not agree with one another in their statements. This may most readily be explained, if the words of Jesus had been uttered two years before. As for the driving out of the traders, on the other hand, the act on the part of Jesus which is here related would seem to be just that which, in the first impulse of His mission, He would be not unlikely to do. It belongs in its character, as we might say, to first impulses, and not to the feelings of that later time when the deadly conflict with the Jewish authorities was at hand. It is, moreover, just such an act as awakening astonishment by reason of its boldness and the prophetic impulse which characterized it might naturally induce the leading Jews to ask the newly-appearing prophet what sign He had to show. The difficulty with respect to these points lies, therefore, not in the fact that this Gospel places the occurrences at the beginning of the history, but in the fact that the Synoptics (Matt. and Mk.) place them (or, rather, one of them) at the end. We may not be able to explain this difficulty, but the limitation of the Synoptic narratives may, in some way, have occasioned the representation which they give. Such questions belong, in large measure, with the comprehensive one, as to why the earliest writers confined themselves almost exclusively to the Galilean story.