John 13:38

John 13:38. Jesus answereth, Wilt thou lay down thy life for me? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice. For a similar repetition of Peter's own words in the answer of Jesus, comp. chap. John 21:17 and the commentary. The words of Jesus fix with solemn emphasis His disciple's attention on what He Himself had said.

Before we pass on, it may be well to ask at what point in these Chapter s we are to place the institution of the Supper. The point has been very variously fixed: at the beginning of chap, 13, at the end of chap. 14, at the end of chap, 13, between John 13:30-31; John 13:32-33, in the midst of John 13:34 of the present chapter, but these suppositions are attended with more or less improbability. We have already seen (in John 13:26) that ‘the feast,' with the institution of which the Supper was most closely connected, was then beginning; but that there is reason to think that Judas did not actually partake of it. If so, the natural inference is that it was completed between John 13:30-31, immediately after the traitor had gone out. The objection to this view, that the words of John 13:31 follow too closely upon John 13:30 to permit us to think that time was occupied between the two verses, is less weighty than at first appears. The words would follow with great appropriateness the giving of the cup which was the ‘new covenant in the blood of Jesus;' and the word ‘therefore' of John 13:31 does not necessarily imply that Jesus spoke at that moment, but only that the thoughts awakened by the departure of Judas must have remained in all their freshness when John 13:31 was uttered. This they would do even although the giving of the cup intervened, because that cup expressed in the most solemn form the exclusive intimacy of communion which now existed between Jesus and His disciples, and the existence of which is presupposed in John 13:34-36. If this explanation is not accepted, there seems no valid reason why the institution should not be placed between John 13:35-36. The latter of these need not follow the former at once. The words ‘I go away' (John 13:33), once uttered, would linger in the minds of those present as the one thought demanding explanation; and This do in remembrance of me' would deepen it.'