204 THE KING’S give the Spirit in all His fulness. While thè weight of textual author ity seems to be in favor of the omis sion of “God*’, in this clause and the substitution of “He,” the He refers to God and while the words “unto Him” referring to Jesus, thè One sent of God, do not occur in the Greek, from thè Conhèctidn the words must mean that it is unto Him that the Father gives the Spirit “not by measure” but in His fulness. So the. change in the text in the R. V. makes no change in thè sense. Probably thè word “God” crept into the text from a gloss in the margin of some MSS. but the gloss is one that gives the true, sense of the text. The thought hère is closely akin to that in Hebrews 1 :1, 2 where wè are told . that “God having of old times spoken Unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days ,spoken unto us iwi-His Son.” It is also close ly akin to the thought in Collosians 1:19, where we are told “It was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him (i. e. in Jesus Christ) should all the fulness dwell.” Others had received the Spirit and had-been in spired of God by measure but the Lord Jesus, received the Spirit with out méaëure in all His absolute ful ness. It was in His earthly life and ministry that our Lord Jésus thus re ceived, the Spirit. He thus became an absolutely inerrant teacher, every word that He uttered was God’s own word, just as much, as if God had sooken audibly from heaven. John the Baptizer must have had in min 1 when he spoke these words what he had seen at our Lord’s baptism as recorded in chapter 1:32 where we, read, “John bare witness saying, 7 have beheld the Spirit descending at a dove out of heaven ; and it abode ùpòn Him. And I knew . Him pot :
BUSINESS but He that sent me to baptize in water, He said unto me, Upon whom soever thou shalt see the Spirit de scending and abiding upon Him, the same is He that baptizeth in the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and . have borne witness that this is the Son of God.” Here we have another indica tion that the words recorded here in the 34th verse were spoken by John the Baptizer and are not merely the comment of John the Evangelist. By the Spirit’s descending upon Him as recorded in the passage just referred to, our Lord Jesus did not receive a measure of the Spirit’s power but the Spirit Himself in His living personal totality. Here again we have words Of such deep significance that we cannot grasp their significance- in any fulness by merely reading comments upon them. We must stop for deep and prolonged meditation upon them. V.,35. “The Father- loveth the Son, and hath given, all things into ( rather, in) His Hand.” This is the explana tion and extension of the preceding words. It is because of the Father’s love, for the Son and His consequent giving all .things into His, hand that He spoke the words of God, and that God gave the Spirit not by' measure but in His fulness unto Him. There áre infinite depths in the Father’s love of the Son that we cannot fathom until we, no longer see through d glass darkly, but face. to face and know • fully even as we are fully known (1 Cor.. 13 :12). Yet as, won derful and, incomprehensible, passing all possibilities of .our present knowl edge, as the love of the Father to the Son is, the Son Himself declares that the .Father loves those, who are in Him. even as He loves Him (ch. 17: L3V These.words also,.“The,Father loveth the Son,” are uttered by John in recollection of what He .had heard
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