108 THE REV. PROFESSOR A. S. GEDEN, M.A., D.D., 



sustenance in the wilderness and the rapidly vanishing manna, 

 which melted away in the morning's sunshine (Ex. xvi. 21). 

 So also the language of the declaration or prophecy of Jesus that 

 lifted up from the earth He would draw all men unto Him (xii. 32) 

 would possibly convey to his hearers a clearer appreciation of 

 their meaning as their thought was carried back to the serpent 

 of brass, at the sight of which the stricken Israelites were healed 

 (cp. iii. 14, " as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness "). 

 So again the Lamb of God (o a^vo^; rov OeoO, i. 29) is a fitting 

 emblem or type of the Christ not only or chiefly because of the 

 nature of the symbol chosen, but because of its associations in 

 the mind of every Jew with the atoning sacrifices of the old 

 covenant in the Temple. 



There are, further, two occasions at least on which Christ 

 Himself or the Evangehst adds a word of explanation, as though 

 there were danger of the metaphor being misunderstood or mis- 

 apphed. To us these appear so familiar and easy that we are 

 apt, I think, to underrate the difficulty which they must have 

 presented to those who heard the words for the first time, and to 

 whom this method of conveying instruction was apparently 

 strange. "Destroy this temple" (ii. 19) is Christ's answer to 

 the demand of the Jews for a sign, " and in three days I will 

 raise it." The writer of the Gospel adds the note that He was 

 speaking concerning the temple of His body (ver. 21); that He 

 meant by " this temple " not the pride of the city in marble 

 and stone that cost so many years' labour in building, but His 

 own body, the earthly temple of the Son of God. And the 

 Evangelist significantly adds that after His Resurrection the 

 disciples remembered the saying and their faith in Him and in 

 His word was strengthened (ver. 22) 



The other occasion was one of the rare instances in which 

 Christ illustrated and enforced His teaching by symbolic act as 

 well as by figurative speech. He himself explains His action as 

 a vTToBeiyfjia (xiii. 15), a pattern or ensample — the only place in 

 which the word occurs in the Gospels — but the vTroBeLj/jua 

 conveys and was intended to convey more than Hes upon the 

 surface. The writer of this Gospel never records an incident for 

 the purpose merely of narrating historical fact. His interest 

 is in the concealed and spiritual m.eaning. For the disciples 

 physically to wash one another's feet was no fulfilment of their 

 Master's command. We never read that they so misconstrued 

 His intention and thought. And the Hteral obedience formally 



