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1. Before these words, which we are now, with the Lord's help,
to make the subject of discourse, Jesus had said, "These things
have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace;" which we
are to consider as referring, not to the later words uttered by Him
immediately before, but to all that He had addressed to them, whether
from the time that He began to account them disciples, or at least
from the time after supper when He commenced this admirable and
lengthened discourse. He gave them, indeed, such a reason for
speaking to them, that either all He ever spoke to them may with the
utmost propriety be referred to that end, or those especially, as His
last words, which He now spoke when on the eve of dying for them,
after that he who was to betray Him had quitted their company. For
He gave this as the cause of His discourse, that in Him they might
have peace, just as it is wholly on this account that we are
Christians. For this peace will have no temporal end, but will
itself be the end of every pious intention and action that are ours at
present. For its sake we are endowed with His sacraments, for its
sake we are instructed by His works and sayings, for its sake we have
received the earnest of the Spirit, for its sake we believe and hope
in Him, and according to His gracious giving are enkindled with His
love: by this peace we are comforted in all our distresses, by it we
are delivered from them all: for its sake we endure with fortitude
every tribulation, that in it we may reign in happiness without any
tribulation. Fitly therewith did He bring His words to a close,
which were proverbs to the disciples, who as yet had little
understanding, but would afterwards understand them, when He had
given them the Holy Spirit of promise, of whom He had said before:
These things have I spoken unto you being yet present with you. But
the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my
name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your
remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." Such, doubtless,
was to be the hour, wherein He promised that He would no more speak
unto them in proverbs, but show them openly of the Father. For these
same words of His, when revealed by the Holy Spirit, were no more
to be proverbs to those who had understanding. For when the Holy
Spirit was speaking in their hearts, there was not to be silence on
the part of the only-begotten Son, who had said that in that hour He
would show them plainly of the Father, which, of course, would no
longer be a proverb to them when now endowed with understanding. But
even this also, how it is that both the Son of God and the Holy
Spirit speak at once in the hearts of their spiritual ones, yea the
Trinity itself, which is ever inseparably at work, is a word to those
who have, but a proverb to those who are without, understanding.
2. When, therefore, He had told them on what account He had
spoken all things, namely, that in Him they might have peace while
having distress in the world, and had exhorted them to be of good
cheer, because He had overcome the world; having thus finished His
discourse to them, He then directed His words to the Father, and
began to pray. For so the evangelist proceeds to say: "These things
spoke Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: Father,
the hour is come; glorify Thy Son." The Lord, the
Only-begotten and coeternal with the Father, could in the form of a
servant and out of the form of a servant, if such were needful, pray
in silence; but in this other way He wished to show Himself as one
who prayed to the Father, that He might remember that He was still
our Teacher. Accordingly, the prayer which He offered for us, He
made also known to us; seeing that it is not only the delivering of
discourses to them by so great a Master, but also the praying for them
to the Father, that is a means of edification to disciples. And if
so to those who were present to hear what was said, it is certainly so
also to us who were to have the reading of it when written. Wherefore
in saying this, "Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son,"
He showed that all time, and every occasion when He did anything or
suffered anything to be done, were arranged by Him who was subject to
no time: since those things, which were individually future in point
of time, have their efficient causes in the wisdom of God, wherein
there are no distinctions of time. Let it not, then, be supposed
that this hour came through any urgency of fate, but rather by the
divine appointment. It was no necessary law of the heavenly bodies
that tied to its time the passion of Christ; for we may well shrink
from the thought that the stars should compel their own Maker to die.
It was not the time, therefore, that drove Christ to His death,
but Christ who selected the time to die: who also fixed the time,
when He was born of the Virgin, with the Father, of whom He was
born independently of time. And in accordance with this true and
salutary doctrine, the Apostle Paul also says, "But when the
fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son;" and God
declares by the prophet, "In an acceptable time have I heard Thee,
and in a day of salvation have I helped thee;" and yet again the
apostle, "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day
of salvation." He then may say, "Father, the hour is come," who
has arranged every hour with the Father: saying, as it were,
"Father, the hour," which we fixed together for the sake of men and
of my glorification among them, "is come, glorify Thy Son, that
Thy Son also may glorify Thee."
3. The glorification of the Son by the Father is understood by some
to consist in this, that He spared Him not, but delivered Him up
for us all. But if we say that He was glorified by His passion, how
much more was He so by His resurrection! For in His passion our
attention is directed more to His humility than to His glory, in
accordance with the testimony of the apostle, who says, "He humbled
Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the
cross:" and then he goes on to say of His glorification,
"Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name
which is above every name: that in the name of Jesus every knee should
bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the
earth; and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus
Christ is in the glory of God the Father." This is the
glorification of our Lord Jesus Christ, that took its commencement
from His resurrection. His humility accordingly begins in the
apostle's discourse with the passage where he says, "He emptied
Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant;" and reaches
"even to the death of the cross." But His glory begins with the
clause where he says, "Wherefore God also hath exalted Him;" and
reaches on to the words, "is in the glory of God the Father." For
even the noun itself, if the language of the Greek codices be
examined, from which the apostolic epistles have been translated into
Latin, which in the latter is read, glory, is in the former read,
doxa: whence we have the verb derived in Greek for the purpose of
saying here, doxason (glorify), which the Latin translator renders
by "clarifica" (make illustrious), although he might as well have
said "glorifica" (glorify), which is the same in meaning. And for
the same reason, in the apostle's epistle where we find "gloria,"
"claritas" might have been used; for by so doing, the meaning would
have been equally preserved. But not to depart from the sound of the
words, just as "clarificatio" (the making lustrous) is derived from
"claritas" (lustre), so is "glorificatio" (the making glorious)
from "gloria" (glory). In order, then, that the Mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, might be made lustrous
or glorious by His resurrection, He was first humbled by suffering;
for had He not died, He would not have risen from the dead.
Humility is the earning of glory; glory, the reward of humility.
This, however, was done in the form of a servant; but He was always
in the form of God, and always shall His glory continue: yea, it
was not in the past as if it were no more so in the present, nor shall
it be, as if it did not yet exist; but without beginning and without
end, His glory is everlasting. Accordingly, when He says,
"Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son," it is to be
understood as if He said, The hour is come for sowing the seed-corn
of humility, delay not the fruit of my glory. But what is the meaning
of the words that follow: "That Thy Son may glorify Thee"? Was
it that God the Father likewise endured the humiliation of the body or
of suffering, out of which He must needs be raised to glory? If
not, how then was the Son to glorify Him, whose eternal glory could
neither appear diminished through human form, nor be enlarged in the
divine? But I will not confine such a question within the present
discourse, or draw the latter out to greater length by such a
discussion.
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