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1. After the promise of the Holy Spirit, lest any should suppose
that the Lord was to give Him, as it were, in place of Himself, in
any such way as that He Himself would not likewise be with them, He
added the words: "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to
you." Orphani [Greek] are pupilli [parent-less children] in
Latin. The one is the Greek, the other the Latin name of the same
thing: for in the psalm where we read, "Thou art the helper of the
fatherless" [in the Latin version, pupillo], the Greek has
orphano. Accordingly, although it was not the Son of God that
adopted sons to His Father, or willed that we should have by grace
that same Father, who is His Father by nature, yet in a sense it is
paternal feelings toward us that He Himself displays, when He
declares, "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you." In
the same way He calls us also he children of the bridegroom, when He
says, "The time will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away
from them, and then shall the children of the bridegroom fast." And
who is the bridegroom, but Christ the Lord?
2. He then goes on to say, "Yet a little while, and the world
seeth me no more." How so? the world saw Him then; for under the
name of the world are to be understood those of whom He spoke above,
when saying of the Holy Spirit, "Whom the world cannot receive,
because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him." He was plainly
visible to the carnal eyes of the world, while manifest in the flesh;
but it saw not the Word that lay hid in the flesh: it saw the man,
but it saw not God: it saw the covering, but not the Being within.
But as, after the resurrection, even His very flesh, which He
exhibited both to the sight and to the handling of His own, He
refused to exhibit to others, we may in this way perhaps understand the
meaning of the words, "Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no
more; but ye shall see me: because I live, ye shall live also."
3. What is meant by the words, "Because I live, ye shall live
also"? Why did He speak in the present tense of His own living,
and in the future of theirs, but just by way of promise that the life
also of the resurrection-body, as it preceded in His own case, would
certainly follow in theirs? And as His own resurrection was in the
immediate future, He put the word in the present tense to signify its
speedy approach: but of theirs, as delayed till the end of the world,
He said not, ye live; but, "ye shall live." With elegance and
brevity, therefore, by means of two words, one of them in the present
tense and the other in the future, He gave the promise of two
resurrections, to wit, His own in the immediate future, and ours as
yet to come in the end of the world. "Because I live," He says,
"ye shall live also:" because He liveth, therefore shall we live
also. For as by man is death, by man also is the resurrection of the
dead, For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive. As it is only through the former that every one is liable to
death, it is only through Christ that any one can attain unto life.
Because we did not live, we are dead; because He lived, we shall
live also. We were dead to Him, when we lived to ourselves; but,
because He died in our behalf, He liveth both for Himself and for
us. For, because He liveth, we shall live also. For while we were
able of ourselves to attain unto death, it is not of ourselves also
that life can come into our possession.
4. "In that day," He says, "ye shall know that I am in my
Father, and ye in me, and I in you." In what day, but in that
whereof He said, "Ye shall live also"? For then will it be that
we can see what we believe. For even now is He in us, and we in
Him: this we believe now, but then shall we also know it; although
what we know even now by faith, we shall know then by actual vision.
For as long as we are in the body, as it now is, to wit,
corruptible, and encumbering to the soul, we live at a distance from
the Lord; for we walk by faith, not by sight. Then accordingly it
will be by sight, for we shall see Him as He is. For if Christ
were not even now in us, the apostle would not say, "And if Christ
be in you, the body is dead indeed because of sin; but the spirit is
life because of righteousness." But that we are also in Him even
then, He makes sufficiently clear, when He says, "I am the vine,
ye are the branches." Accordingly in that day, when we shall be
living the life, whereby death shall be swallowed up, we shall know
that He is in the Father, and we in Him, and He in us; for then
shall be completed that very state which is already in the present begun
by Him, that He should be in us, and we in Him.
5. "He that hath my commmandments," He adds, "and keepeth
them, he it is that loveth me." He that hath [them] in his
memory, and keepeth them in his life; who hath them orally, and
keepeth them morally; who hath them in the ear, and keepeth them in
deed; or who hath them in deed, and keepeth them by perseverance;
"he it is," He says, "that loveth me." By works is love made
manifest as no fruitless application of a name. "And he that loveth
me," He says, "shall be loved of my Father, and I will love
him, and will manifest myself to him." But what is this, "I will
love"? Is it as if He were then only to love, and loveth not at
present? Surely not. For how could the Father love us apart from
the Son, or the Son apart from the Father? Working as They do
inseparably, how can They love apart? But He said, "I will love
him," in reference to that which follows, "and I will manifest
myself to him." "I will love, and will manifest;" that is, I
will love to the very extent of manifesting. For this has been the
present aim of His love, that we may believe, and keep hold of the
commandment of faith; but then His love will have this for its
object, that we may see, and get that very sight as the reward of our
faith: for we also love now, by believing in that which we shall see
hereafter; but then shall we love in the sight of that which now we
believe.
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