John 13:31-33 - Exposition

(1) The glorification of the Son of man, and of the Father in the Son .

With John 13:31 the solemn valedictory discourse of our Lord commences—a veritable evangelium in evangelio, and by the aid of which we come more closely to the heart of Jesus. "Here," as Olshausen says, "we are entering the holy of holies in the Passion-history." We have, indeed, come through the courts of the temple, we have left the courts of the Gentiles, of the women, of the priests behind us, and have been waiting in the holy place of sacrifice and incense and ablution; now we follow our great High Priest to the veil over the holiest of all, and he prepares us to listen to the intercession that he makes before the unveiled majesty of the Father's love. The first section, extending from Jn 13:31-14:31, reports a series of questions by Peter, Thomas, Philip, Jude, which all turn more or less on the anticipated separation which he teaches them to regard as a veritable glorification of the Son of man, and also as a higher revelation to them of the nature of his own Person and of those relations between "the Son" and "the Father" which are imaged and shadowed forth in those between" the Son of man" and "God," which they could more readily understand. This prepares the way for the discourse and prayer which followed, in which the future spiritual union between the victorious Lord and his own disciples, between a sanctified humanity and the eternal Godhead, is exhibited, distinguished by wonderful blending of intuitive insight and supernatural revelation. The discourse is consistent with the stupendous conception which the evangelist had formed of the Person of Christ. Hilgenfeld and ethers regard this address as utterly incompatible with the valedictory discourses of Matthew 24:1-51 ., 25., and Mark 13:1-37 . We have already seen that they are but different aspects of the same mysterious and wonderful Personage; that the synoptists are not silent concerning the spiritual presence of Christ in and with his disciples till the end of the world; and, on the other hand, that the fourth evangelist is perfectly alive to the reality of his kingdom in the world and to the true nature of his second coming.