And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter.
Ver. 22. The feast of the dedication] viz. Of the temple newly purged from the pollutions of Antiochus, that little antichrist. Εγκαινια, initialia, sive renovalia. So when the Christian temple, the Church, was purged from the Popish abominations (called the tramplings of the Gentiles, Rev 11:2), by those two witnesses, that is, by Luther and other heroical reformers, there was great joy among God's people. And in the year 1617, as the pope proclaimed a jubilee for the peace of Italy and Austria, &c., so the reformed Churches in Germany did the same, for God's mercy in restoring to them the gospel, just a hundred years before: for in the year 1517, Luther began to decry the pope's indulgences. (Bucholcer.) In like sort, at the same time, when the Greeks were busy in their Olympic games, the prophet Isaiah saw that glorious vision of God in his majesty, Isaiah 6:1,2 (as the divine chronologer observes it), singing with seraphims, that sweetest trisagion, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts." The new Jerusalem, which signifies the state of the Church in this world (saith Rev. Dr Sibbs), when it shall be refined to the utmost, is all of fine gold and precious stones, &c., to show the excellence of reformation; which golden times are yet to come, and will prove very festival.