John 18:1-42

FOURTH PART: THE PASSION. 18:1-19:42.

The intention of the evangelist, in the following narrative, is certainly not to give a narration as complete as possible of the Passion, as if no narrative of this event existed side by side with his own. The most pronounced adversaries of the authenticity of our Gospel, Baur and Strauss, are at the present day in accord with the orthodox interpreters, Lange and Hengstenberg, on the point that the narrative of the fourth evangelist stands in constant relation to those of his three predecessors. The difference is only on the question of the end which the author proposes to himself in composing this fourth narrative. According to Baur and Strauss, the pseudo-John borrows from the Synoptics the materials which are indispensable to the end of giving some probability to his romance of Jesus-Logos. According to the commentators of the opposite side, John endeavors simply to fill up the vacancies in the earlier narrations, or to present the facts, already previously related, in their true light.

We are convinced that, as the latter writers think, the choice of materials is frequently determined by the intention of completing the accounts already current in the church. Thus, when John relates the examination of Jesus in the house of Annas, which the Synoptics omit, and omits the appearance before the Sanhedrim, which the first Gospels relate with detail, this intention seems evident. It will appear also from a multitude of other examples. But, on the other hand, the narrative of John has presented, up to this point, a too serious meditative character and too profound elaboration to allow the possibility of holding that, in the part which is to follow, it is not governed by any higher thought, and is obedient only to chance, as would be the case in a narrative which confined itself to relating that which others had not related.

In the narrative of the Passion in John, we shall find, as throughout his whole work, the triple point of view indicated in the introduction (Vol. I., p. 228f.). Jesus causes His glory to shine forth through the vail of ignominy by which it was covered, and this especially through the freedom with which He surrenders Himself to the fate which awaits Him; this is here, as always, the luminous foundation of the whole narrative. On this foundation there stands out in relief, as a dark figure, the Jewish unbelief unmasking its moral perversity by a series of odious acts and disloyal words, and, after having thus pronounced its own condemnation, reaching its consummation in the murder of the Messiah. Finally, in contrast with it, we discern the faith which is hidden in the person of the disciples gathering up the scattered rays of the glory of Jesus, and growing in silence, as plants during a storm. The second of these three features is that which prevails in the following narrative.

Three principal scenes:

1. The arrest of Jesus: John 18:1-11.

2. His double trial, ecclesiastical and civil: John 18:12 to John 19:16.

3. His punishment: John 19:17-42.