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2. He next explains what He has said "of sin, and of
righteousness, and of judgment." "Of sin indeed," He says,
"because they have believed not on me." For this sin, as if it were
the only one, He has put before the others; because with the
continuance of this one, all others are retained, and in the removal
of this, the others are remitted. "But of righteousness," He
adds, "because I go to the Father, and ye shall see me no more."
And here we have to consider in the first place, if any one is rightly
reproved of sin, how he may also be rightly reproved of righteousness.
For if a sinner ought to be reproved just because he is a sinner, will
any one imagine that a righteous man is also to be reproved because he
is righteous? Surely not. For if at any time a righteous man also is
reproved, he is rightly reproved on this account, that, according to
Scripture, "There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good,
and sinneth not." And accordingly, when a righteous man is
reproved, he is reproved of sin, and not of righteousness. Since in
that divine utterance also, where we read, "Be not made righteous
over-much," there is notice taken, not of the righteousness of the
wise man, but of the pride of the presumptuous. The man, therefore,
that becomes "righteous over-much," by that very excess becomes
unrighteous. For he makes himself righteous over-much who says that
he has no sin, or who imagines that he is made righteous, not by the
grace of God, but by the sufficiency of his own will: nor is he
righteous through living righteously, but is rather self-inflated with
the imagination of being what he is not. By what means, then, is the
world to be reproved of righteousness, if not by the righteousness of
believers? Accordingly, it is convinced of sin, because it believeth
not on Christ; and it is convinced of the righteousness of those who
do believe. For the very comparison with believers is itself a
reproving of unbelievers. And this the exposition itself sufficiently
indicates. For in wishing to open up what He has said, He adds,
"Of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye shall see me
no more."
He does not say, And they shall see me no more; that is, those of
whom He had said, "because they have believed not on me." Of them
He spoke, when expounding what He denominated sin, in the words,
"because they have believed not on me;" but when expounding what He
called righteousness, whereof the world is convicted, He turned to
those to whom He was speaking, and said, "because I go to the
Father, and ye shall see me no more." Wherefore it is of its own
sins, but of others' righteousness, that the world is convicted,
just as darkness is reproved by the light: "For all things," says
the apostle, "that are reproved, are made manifest by the light."
For the magnitude of the evil chargeable on those who do not believe,
may be made apparent not only by itself, but also by the goodness of
those who do believe. And since the cry of unbelievers usually is,
How can we believe what we do not see? so the righteousness of
unbelievers just required this very definition, "Because I go to the
Father, and ye shall see me no more." For blessed are they who see
not, and yet do believe. For of those also who saw Christ, the
faith in Him that met with commendation was not that they believed what
they saw, namely, the Son of man; but that they believed what they
did not see, namely, the Son of God. But after His servant-form
was itself also withdrawn from their view, then in every respect was
the word truly fulfilled, "The just liveth by faith." For
"faith," according to the definition in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, "is the confidence of those that hope, the conviction of
things that are not seen."
3. But how are we to understand, "Ye shall see me no more"? For
He saith not, I go to the Father, and ye shall not see me, so as
to be understood as referring to the interval of time when He would not
be seen, whether short or long, but at all events terminable; but in
saying, "Ye shall see me no more," as if a truth announced
beforehand that they would never see Christ in all time coming. Is
this the righteousness we speak of, never to see Christ, and yet to
believe on Him; seeing that the faith whereby the just liveth is
commended on the very ground of believing that the Christ whom it seeth
not meanwhile, it shall see some day? Once more, in reference to
this righteousness, are we to say that the Apostle Paul was not
righteous when confessing that He had seen Christ after His ascension
into heaven, which was undoubtedly the time of which He had already
said, "Ye shall see me no more"? Was Stephen, that hero of
surpassing renown, not righteous in the spirit of this righteousness,
who, when they were stoning him, exclaimed, "Behold, I see the
heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of
God"? What, then, is meant by "I go to the Father, and ye
shall see me no more," but just this, As I am while with you now?
For at that time He was still mortal in the likeness of sinful flesh.
He could suffer hunger and thirst, be wearied, and sleep; and this
Christ, that is, Christ in such a condition, they were , no more
to see after He had passed from this e world to the Father; and
such, also, is the righteousness of faith, whereof the apostle t
says, "Though we have known Christ after f the flesh, yet now
henceforth know we Him f no more." This, then, He says, will be
your righteousness whereof the world shall be reproved, "because I go
to the Father, and ye shall see me no more:" seeing that ye shall
believe in me as in one whom ye shall not see; and when ye shall see me
as I shall be then, we shall not see me as I am while with you
meanwhile; ye shall not see me in my humility, but in my exaltation;
nor in my mortality, but in my eternity; nor at the bar, but on the
throne of judgment: and by this faith of yours, in other words, your
righteousness, the Holy Spirit will reprove an unbelieving world.
4. He will also reprove it "of judgment, because the prince of this
world is judged." Who is this, save he of whom He saith in another
place, "Behold, the prince of the world cometh, and shall find
nothing in me;" that is, nothing within his jurisdiction, nothing
belonging to him; in fact, no sin at all? For thereby is the devil
the prince of the world. For it is not of the heavens and of the
earth, and of all that is in them, that the devil is prince, in the
sense in which the world is to be understood, when it is said, "And
the world was made by Him;" but the devil is prince of that world,
whereof in the same passage He immediately afterwards subjoins the
words, "And the world knew Him not;" that is, unbelieving men,
wherewith the world through its utmost extent is filled: among whom the
believing world groaneth, which He, who made the world, chose out of
the world; and of whom He saith Himself, "The Son of man came not
to judge the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."
He is the judge by whom the world is condemned, the helper whereby the
world is saved: for just as a tree is full of foliage and fruit, or a
field of chaff and wheat, so is the world full of believers and
unbelievers. Therefore the prince of this world, that is, the prince
of the darkness thereof, or of unbelievers, out of whose hands that
world is rescued, to which it is said, "Ye were at one time
darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord:" the prince of this
world, of whom He elsewhere saith, "Now is the prince of this world
cast out," is assuredly judged, inasmuch as he is irrevocably
destined to the judgment of everlasting fire. And so of this
judgment, by which the prince of the world is judged, is the world
reproved by the Holy Spirit; for it is judged along with its prince,
whom it imitates in its own pride and impiety. "For if God," in
the words of the Apostle Peter, "spared not the angels that sinned,
but thrust them into prisons of infernal darkness, and gave them up to
be reserved for punishment in the judgment," how is the world
otherwise than reproved of this judgment by the Holy Spirit, when it
is in the Holy Spirit that the apostle so speaketh? Let men,
therefore, believe in Christ, that they be not convicted of the sin
of their own unbelief, whereby all sins are retained: let them make
their way into the number of believers, that they be not convicted of
the righteousness of those, whom, as justified, they fail to
imitate: let them beware of that future judgment, that they be not
judged with the prince of the world, whom, judged as he is, they
continue to imitate. For the unbending pride of mortals can have no
thought of being spared itself, as it is thus called to think with
terror of the punishment that overtook the pride of angels.
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