Tractates on the Gospel of John

^4. How, then, shall we not be with Christ where He is, when we shall be with Him in the Father in whom He is? On this, also, the apostle is not without something to say to us, although we are not yet in possession of the reality, but only cherishing the hope. For he says, “If you be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God: set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. For you have died,” he adds, “and your life is hid with Christ in God.” Here, you see, our life is meanwhile in faith and hope with Christ, where He is; because it is with Christ in God. That, you see, is as if already accomplished for which He prayed, when He said, “I will that they also be with me where I am;” but now only by faith. And when will it be accomplished by actual sight? “When Christ,” he says, “[who is] your life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory.” Then shall we appear as that which we then shall be; for it shall then be apparent that it was not without good grounds that we believed and hoped we should become so, before it actually took place. He will do this, to whom the Son, after saying, “That they may behold my glory, which You gave me,” immediately added, “For You loved me before the foundation of the world.” For in Him He loved us also before the foundation of the world, and then foreordained what He was to do in the end of the world.

5. “O righteous Father,” He says, “the world has not known You.” Just because You are righteous it has not known You. It is as that world which has been predestined to condemnation really deserved, that it has not known Him; while the world which He has reconciled unto Himself through Christ has known Him not of merit, but by grace. For what else is the knowing of Him, but eternal life which, while He undoubtedly withheld it from the condemned world, He bestowed on the reconciled. On that very account, therefore, the world has not known You, because You are righteous, and hast rendered unto it according to its deserts, that it should not know You: while on the same account the reconciled world has known You, because You are merciful, and, not for any merit of its own, but by grace, hast supplied it with the needed help to know You. And then there follows, “But I have known You.” He is the Fountain of grace, who is by nature God, and, by grace ineffable, man also of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin: and then on His own behalf, because the grace of God is through Jesus Christ our Lord, He adds, “And these have known that You have sent me.” Such is the reconciled world. But it is because You have sent me that they have known: by grace, therefore, have they known.

6. “And I have made known to them,” He says, “Your name, and will make it known.” I have made it known by faith, I will make it known by sight: I have made it known to those whose present sojourn in a strange land has its appointed end, I will make it known to those whose reign as kings shall be endless. “That the love,” He adds, wherewith [literally, which] You have loved me, may be in them, and I in them. (The form of speech is unusual, “the love, which You have loved me, may be in them, and I in them;” for the common way of speaking is, the love wherewith you have loved me. Here, of course, it is a translation from the Greek: but there are similar forms also in Latin; as we say, He served a faithful service, He served as a soldier a strenuous soldier-service; when apparently we ought to have said, He served with a faithful service, he served as a soldier with a strenuous soldier-service. But such as the form of expression is, “the love which You have loved me;” one similar to it is also used by the apostle, “I have fought a good fight;” he does not say, in a good fight, which would be the more usual and perhaps correcter form of expression.) But how else is the love wherewith the Father loved the Son in us also, but because we are His members and are loved in Him, since He is loved in the totality of His person, as both Head and members? Therefore He added, “and I in them;” as if saying, Since I am also in them. For in one sense He is in us as in His temple; but in another, because we are also Himself, seeing that, in accordance with His becoming man, that He might be our Head, we are His body. The Saviour's prayer is finished, His passion begins; let us, therefore, also finish the present discourse, that we may treat of His passion, as He grants us grace, in others to follow.