John 14:30,31

“ I will no more speak much with you; for the prince of this world is coming, and he has nothing in me. 31. But that the world may know that I love my Father and that I act according as the Father has commanded me, arise, let us go hence. ”

Jesus feels the approach of His invisible enemy. There is here not merely the presentiment of the near arrival of Judas, but also of the conflict which He will have to undergo with Satan in Gethsemane.

Two quite different explanations of these verses may be given, the result of which, however, is fundamentally the same. Either the and, καί, before ἐν ἐμοί, is understood in a concessive sense: “ He comes, and [in truth] he has nothing in me which can be a reason for his power over me;” then Jesus adds: “ but (ἀλλά) in order that the world may know the love which I have for my Father, I yield myself to him freely. Arise! ” Or this καί, and, may be taken in the adversative sense, as so frequently in John: “He is coming; but he has no hold upon me; nevertheless (ἀλλά), in order that the world may know,... arise and let us go hence, and that I may be delivered to this enemy!” This second meaning seems to me to present a clearer thought; καί is frequently adversative in John, and we have explained the reason of it; comp. e.g. John 6:36 and John 15:24. “ No more speak much ” does not exclude the few discoursings which are still to follow. The prince of this world, see John 12:31. Nothing in me: nothing which appertains to his domain and which gives him a right and power over me, the object of his hatred. These words imply in Him who utters them the consciousness of the most perfect innocence. The in order that has often been made dependent on ποιῶ, I do; “In order that the world may know...my love for my Father,...I am going to do according to what He has commanded me.” But the καί, before καθώς, does not allow this construction. Or the ἵνα has been made to depend on a verb understood:

“ This happens thus in order that the world may know that I love my Father, and that I do what he has commanded me;” so Tischendorf; and this would be better. But how much more lively is a third construction, which makes the in order that depend on the two following imperatives: “In order that the world may know,...arise, let us go hence!” This way of speaking is absolutely the same with that triumphant apostrophe of Jesus, which is preserved by the three Synoptics (Matthew 9:6 and parallels): “ That you may know...arise and walk!”

To arise in order to go to Gethsemane was indeed to yield Himself voluntarily to the perfidy of Judas, who was to seek Him in that place well known by him, and to the power of Satan, who was preparing there for Jesus a last decisive conflict, the complement of that in the desert. Jesus knew well that they would not come to seize Him in the midst of the city, in the room where He was at this moment.

The imperatives: arise, let us go, may not have been immediately followed by a result; this is what Meyer, Luthardt, Weiss, Keil and Reuss think, who suppose that Jesus still remained in the room until after the sacerdotal prayer. They rest upon the He went out in John 18:1, and on the solemn prayer of ch. 17, which cannot have been made outside. We shall see that these reasons are not decisive. On the other hand, we do not understand why John should have mentioned so expressly the order to depart, if it had not been followed by a result; or at least why did he not, in this case, indicate the delay by a word of explanation, as in John 11:6 ? Gess says rightly: “Since Jesus, by the order of John 14:31, gave the signal for departing, we must represent to ourselves the following discourses, chs. 15, 16, as uttered on the way to Gethsemane.”