III. 1. But does St. John’s teaching in his earlier writings on

the subject of our Lord’s Person harmonize with the representa- tions placed before us in the fourth Gospel? The opening words of his first Epistleb might go far to answer that question. St. John’s position in this Epistle is, that the Eternal immaterial Word of Life resident in God had become historically manifest, and that the Apostles had consciously seen, and heard, and handled Him, and were now publishing their experience to the worldi, The practical bearing of this announcement lay in the truth that ‘he that hath the Son hath the Life, and he that hath not the Son hath not the 1106. For ‘God hath given to us the Eternal Life, and this, the Life, is in His Son.’ If then the soul is to hold communion with God in the Life of Light and
(on, va γινώσκωσίν σε τὸν μόνον ἀληθινὸν Θεὸν, καὶ by ἀπέστειλας ᾿Ιησοῦν Χριστόν. But here a Socinian sense is excluded, (a) by the consideration that ‘the knowledge of Gop and a creature could not be Eternal Life’ (see Alford in loc.); (6) by the plain sense of verse 1, which places the Son and the Father on a level: ‘What creature could stand before his Creator and say, ‘‘ Glorify me, that I may glorify Thee?”’ Stier apud Alf. ; (6) by verse 5, which asserts our Lord’s pre-existent δύξα, It follows that the restrictive epithets μόνον ἀληθινόν must be held to be exclusive, not of the Son, but of false gods, or creatures external to the Divine Essence. See Estius in loc. Trench, Synonyms of Ν, T., p. 25, § viii.
© St.John iii, 14: ὑψωθῆναι δεῖ τὸν Ὑἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. Ibid. viii. 28, xi..32.
f Thid. xii. 23: ἐλήλυθεν dpa ἵνα δοξασθῇ ὃ Tids τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. Ibid. xiii. 31.
® Cf. Reuss, Théol. Chrét. ii. 456; although the statements of this writer cannot be adopted without much qualification.
h On the authorship of the three Epistles, see Alford, Gk. Test. vol. iv., Prol., chaps. 5,6, and Westcott, Epistles of St. John, p. liii. ff. See too Appendix, note F. - ἂχ St. John i. 1-3.
J Ibid. v.12: ὁ ἔχων τὸν Tidy ἔχει τὴν ζωήὴν᾽ 6 μὴ ἔχων τὸν Tidy τοῦ Θεοῦ τὴν ζωὴν οὐκ ἔχει.
Κ Tbid. ver. 11: καὶ αὕτη ἐστὶν 7 μαρτυρία (i.e. the revealed doctrine resting on a Divine authority) ὅτι ζωὴν αἰώνιον ἔδωκεν ἡμῖν ὁ Θεὸς, καὶ αὕτη ἡ Goh ἐν τῷ Ὑἱῷ αὐτοῦ ἐστιν.
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Righteousness and Love, it must be through communion with His Divine Son. Thus all practically depends upon the attitude of the soul towards the Son. Accordingly, ‘whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father!;’ while on the other hand, whosoever sincerely and in practice acknowledges the Son of God in His historical manifestation, enjoys a true communion with the Life of God. ‘Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and he in God πὶ,’
St. John constantly teaches that the Christian’s work in this state of probation is to conquer ‘the world2. It is, in other words, to fight successfully against that view of life which ignores God, against that complex system of attractive moral evil and specious intellectual falsehood, which is marshalled and organized by the great enemy of God, and which permeates and inspires non-Christianized society. The world’s force is seen especially in ‘the lust of the flesh, in the lust of the eyes, and in the pride of life. These three forms of concupiscence manifest
1 1St. John ii. 22: οὗτός ἐστιν ὃ ἀντίχριστος, ὁ ἀρνούμενος τὸν Πατέρα καὶ τὸν Υἱόν. A Humanitarian might have urged that it was possible to deny the Son, while confessing the Father. But St. John, on the ground that the Son is the Only and the Adequate Manifestation of the Father, denies this: πᾶς ὁ ἀρνούμενος τὸν Tidy οὐδὲ τὸν Πατέρα ἔχει.
m Jbid. iv. 15: ὃς ἂν ὁμολογήσῃ ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἐστιν 6 Ὑἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ, ὁ Θεὸς ἐν αὐτῷ μένει, καὶ αὐτὸς ἐν τῷ Θεῷ.
n Tbid. ii, 15: ἐάν τις ἀγαπᾷ τὸν κόσμον, οὐκ ἔστιν ἣ ἀγάπη τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐν αὐτῷ. Compare Martensen, Christl. Dogmat. ὃ 96: ‘If we consider the effects of the Fall upon the course of historical development, not only in the case of individuals but of the race collectively, the term ‘‘ world” (κόσμος) bears a special meaning different from that which it would have, were the development of humanity normal. The cosmical principle having been emancipated by the Fall from its due subjection to the Spirit, and invested with a false independence, and the universe of creation having obtained with man a higher importance than really attaches to it, the historical development of the world has become one in which the advance of the kingdom of God is retarded and hindered. The created universe has, in a relative sense, life in itself, including, as it does, a system of powers, ideas, anil aims, which possess a relative value. This relative indepen- dence, which ought to be subservient to the kingdom of God, has become a fallen “ world-autonomy.” Hence arises the scriptural expression “this world” (6 κόσμος οὗτος). By this expression the Bible conveys the idea that it regards the world not only ontologically but in its definite and actual state, the state in which it has been since the Fall. ‘This world” means the world content with itself, in its own independence, its own glory; the world which disowns its dependence on God as its Creator. ‘This world” regards itself, not as the κτίσις, but only as the κόσμος, as a system of glory and beauty which has life in itself, and can give life. The historical embodiment of “this world” is heathendom, which honoureth not God as God.’
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242 Christology of St. Fohn’s First Epistle,
the inner life of the world®; if the Christian would resist and beat them back, he must have a strong faith, a faith in a Divine Saviour. ‘Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of GodP?’ This faith, which introduces the soul to communion with God in Light, attained through communion with His Blessed Son, exhibits the world in its true colours. The soul spurns the world as she clings believingly to the Divine Son.
St. John’s picture of Christ’s work in this first Epistle, and especially his pointed and earnest opposition to the specific heresy of Cerinthus4, leads us up to the culminating statement that Jesus Himself is the true God and the Eternal Life'. Throughout this Epistle the Apostle has been writing to those ‘who believe on the Name of the Son of God,’ that is to say, on the Divine Nature of Jesus which the verbal symbol guards and
° 1 St.John ii, 16: πᾶν τὸ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ, ἣ ἐπιθυμία τῆς σαρκὸς, καὶ ἣ ἐπιθυμία τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν, καὶ ἡ ἀλαζονεία τοῦ βίου, οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς, ἀλλ᾽ ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου ἐστί.
P Ibid. v. 4, 5: αὕτη ἐστὶν ἣ νίκη ἣ νικήσασα τὸν κόσμον, ἣ πίστις ἡμῶν" τίς ἐστιν 6 νικῶν τὸν κόσμον, εἰ μὴ ὃ πιστεύων ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἐστιν ὁ Ὑἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ;
4 Specially 1 St. John iv. 2, 3, where the Apostle’s words contain a double antithesis to the Cerinthian gnosis, which taught that the A%on Christ entered into the Man Jesus at His baptism, and remained with Him until His Passion. See pp. 223, 224. St. John asserts in oppo- sition (1) that Jesus and the Christ are one and the same Person, (2) that the one Lord Jesus Christ came ‘in’ not ‘into the flesh” He did not descend into an already existing man, but He appeared clothed in Human Nature. See the exhaustive note of Ebrard, Die Briefe Jo- hannis, in loc. ;
τα St. John v. 20: οὗτός ἐστιν ὃ ἀληθινὸς Θεὸς, καὶ 7 ζωὴ αἰώνιος. After having distinguished the ἀληθινός from His Υἱός, St. John, by a characteristic turn, simply identifies the Son with the ἀληθινὸς Θεός. To refer this sen- tence to the Father, Who has been twice called ὁ ἀληθινός, would be un- meaning repetition. Moreover the previous sentence declared, not that we are in God as Father, Son, and Spirit, but that we are in God as being in His Son Jesus Christ. This statement is justified when οὗτος is referred to ‘Tig. As to the article before ἀληθινός, it has the effect of stating, not merely What, but Who our Lord is; it says not, Christ is Divine, but, Christ is God. This does not really go beyond what the Apostle has already said about the Adyos at the beginning of this Epistle. To object with Diisterdieck that this interpretation obscures the distinction between the Father and the Son, is inaccurate; St. John does not say, This is the Father, but, This is the true God. ‘O ἀληθινὸς Θεός is the Divine Essence, in opposition to all creatures. The Apostle does not enter upon the question of the Son’s relation to the Father within the Divine Essence. Our being in the true God depends upon our being in Christ, and St. John clenches this assertion by saying that Christ is the true God Himself. See St. Ath. Or. c. Ar. iii. 19; iv. 26; St. Cyril. Tes. p. 302; Waterland, Wks., Ὃ 130.
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Onion of tenderness with decision in St. Fohn. 243
suggests. Throughout this Epistle St. John’s object has been to convince believers that by that faith they had the Eternal Life, and to force them to be true to Its,
In each of St. John’s Epistlest we encounter that special temper, at once so tender and so peremptory, which is an ethical corollary to belief in an Incarnate God. St. John has been named the Apostle of the Absolute. Those who would concede to Christianity no higher dignity than that of teaching a relative and provisional truth, will fail to find any countenance for their doctrine in the New Testament Scriptures. But nowhere will they meet with a more earnest opposition to it than in the pages of the writer who is pre-eminently the Apostle of charity. St. John preaches the Christian creed as the one absolute cer- tainty. The Christian faith might have been only relatively true, if it had reposed upon the word of a human messenger. But St. John specially insists upon the fact that God has re- vealed Himself, not merely through, but in, Christ. The Abso- lute Religion is introduced by a Self-revelation of the Absolute Being Himself. God has appeared, God has spoken; and the Christian faith is the result. St. John then does not treat Christianity as a phase in the history even of true religion, nor as a religion containing elements of truth, even though it were more true than any religion which had preceded it. St. John proclaims that ‘we “Christians” are in Him that is True.’ Not to admit that Jesus Christ has come in the Flesh, is to be a de- ceiver and an antichrist. St. John presents Christianity to the soul.as a religion which must be its all, if it is not really to be worse than nothing®. The opposition between truth and error, between the friends and the foes of Christ, is for St. John as sharp and trenchant a thing as the contrast between light and
Βα St. John v. 13: ταῦτα ἔγραψα ὑμῖν [τοῖς πιστεύουσιν eis τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Ὑἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ, Rec.| ἵνα εἰδῆτε ὅτι ζωὴν ἔχετε αἰώνιον, καὶ ἵνα πιστεύητε [οἱ πιστεύοντες, Tisch. ] εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Ὑἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ.
* In St. John’s second Epistle observe (1) the association of Christ with the Father as the source of χάρις, ἔλεος, and εἰρήνη (ver. 3); (2) the denunciation of the Cerinthian doctrine as anti-Christian (ver. 7); (3) the significant statement that a false progress (6 προάγων, A.B., not as rec. 6 παραβαίνων) which did not rest in the true Apostolic διδαχὴ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, would forfeit all communion with God. We know Him only in Christ Σ Blessed Son, and to reject Christianity is to reject the only true Theism
vers. 8, 9). .
aI Sts ohn ii, 21: οὐκ ἔγραψα ὑμῖν ὅτι οὐκ οἴδατε Thy ἀλήθειαν, ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι οἴδατε αὐτὴν, καὶ ὅτι πᾶν ψεῦδος ἐκ τῆς ἀληθείας οὐκ ἔστι. Ibid. v. 103 6 μὴ πιστεύων τῷ Θεῷ ψεύστην πεποίηκεν αὐτόν.
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244 St. Fohn's temper a product of his doctrine.
darkness, between life and death*. This is the temper of a man who will not enter the public baths along with the heretic who has dishonoured his Lordy. This is the spirit of the teacher who warns his flock to beware of eating with a propagator of false doctrine, and of bidding him God speed, lest they should partake of his ‘evil deeds%” Yet this is also the writer whose pages, beyond any other in the New Testament, beam with the purest, tenderest love of humanity. Side by side with this _ resolute antagonism to dogmatic error, St. John exhibits and inculcates an enthusiastic affection for humankind as such, which our professed philanthropists could not rival®. The man who loves not his brother man, whatever be his spiritual estimate of himself, abideth in death». No divorce is practically possible between the first and the second parts of charity: the man who loves his God must love his brother also*. Love is the moral counterpart of intellectual light 4.
It is a modern fashion to represent these two tempers, the dogmatic and the philanthropic, as necessarily opposed. This representation indeed is not even in harmony with modern ex- perience; but in St. John it meets with a most energetic con- tradiction. St.John is at once earnestly dogmatic and earnestly philanthropic; for the Incarnation has taught him both the preciousness of man and the preciousness of truth. The Eternal Word, incarnate and dying for the truth, inspires St. John to
χ 1St. John ii. 15: ἐάν τις ἀγαπᾷ τὸν κόσμον οὐκ ἔστιν ἣ ἀγάπη τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐν αὐτῷ. Ibid. ver. το : ἐξ ἡμῶν ἐξῆλθον [scil. οἱ ἀντίχριστοι] ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἦσαν ἐξ ἡμῶν" εἰ γὰρ ἦσαν ἐξ ἡμῶν, μεμενήκεισαν ἂν μεθ᾽ ἡμῶν" GAN ἵνα φανερωθῶσιν ὅτι οὐκ εἰσὶ πάντες ἐξ ἡμῶν. Tbid. ver. 22: οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ἀντίχριστος, ὃ ἀρνούμενος τὸν Πατέρα καὶ τὸν Ὑἱόν. ,
Υ St. Irenzus, adv. Her. iii. 3, 4: καὶ εἰσὶν of ἀκηκοότες αὐτοῦ (τοῦ ἸΠολυ- κάρπου) ὅτι ᾿Ιωάννης ὁ τοῦ Κυρίου μαθητὴς, ἐν τῇ ᾿Εφέσῳ πορευθεὶς λούσασθαι, καὶ ἰδὼν ἔσω Κήρινθον, ἐξήλατο τοῦ βαλανείου μὴ λουσάμενος ἄλλ᾽ ἐπειπὼν, “Φύγωμεν, μὴ καὶ τὸ βαλανεῖον συμπέσῃ, ἔνδον ὄντος Κηρίνθου, τοῦ τῆς ἀληθείας ἐχθροῦ. Cf. Eus. Hist. Eccl. iii. 28.
* 2 St.John 10, 11: εἴ τις ἔρχεται πρὸς ὑμᾶς, καὶ ταύτην τὴν διδαχὴν οὐ φέρει, μὴ λαμβάνετε αὐτὸν εἰς οἰκίαν, καὶ χαίρειν αὐτῷ μὴ λέγετε" ὁ γὰρ λέγων αὐτῷ χαίρειν, κοινωνεῖ τοῖς ἔργοις αὐτοῦ τοῖς πονηροῖς.
Δα St. John iii. 11.
> Ibid. ver. 14: ἡμεῖς οἴδαμεν ὅτι μεταβεβήκαμεν ἐκ τοῦ θανάτου εἰς τὴν ζωὴν, ὅτι ἀγαπῶμεν τοὺς ἀδελφούς" ὃ μὴ ἀγαπῶν τὸν ἀδελφὸν μένει ἐν τῷ θανάτῳ.
© Thid. iv. 20, 21 : 6 μὴ ἀγαπῶν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ ὃν ἑώρακε, τὸν Θεὸν ὃν οὐχ ἑώρακε πῶς δύναται ἀγαπᾶν ; καὶ ταύτην τὴν ἐντολὴν ἔχομεν ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ, ἵνα ὃ ἀγαπῶν τὸν Θεὸν ἀγαπᾷ καὶ τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ.
4 Thid. ii. 9, 10: 6 λέγων ἐν τῷ φωτὶ εἶναι, καὶ τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ μισῶν, ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ ἐστὶν ἕως ἄρτι. ὁ ἀγαπῶν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ φωτὶ find
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Divinity of Fesus Christ in the Apocalypse. 245
guard it with apostolic chivalry; but also, this revelation of the Heart of God melts him into tenderness towards the race which Jesus has loved so welle. To St. John a lack of love for men seems sheer dishonour to the love of Christ. And the heresy which mutilates the Person or denies the work of Christ, does not present itself to St. John as purely speculative misfortune, as clumsy negation of fact, as barren intellectual error. Heresy is with this Apostle a crime against charity; not only because heresy breeds divisions among brethren, but yet more because it kills out from the souls of men that blessed and prolific Truth, which, when sincerely believed, cannot but fill the heart with love to God and to man. St. John writes as one whose eyes had looked upon and whose hands had handled the sensibly present form of Light and Love. That elose contact with the Absolute Truth Incarnate had kindled in him a holy impatience of an- tagonist error; that felt glow of the Infinite Charity of God had shed over his whole character and teaching the beauty and pathos of a tenderness, which, as our hearts tell us while we read his pages, is not of this world.
2. This ethical reflection of the doctrine of God manifest in the flesh is perhaps mainly characteristic of St. John’s first Epistle ; but it is not wanting in the Apocalypse’. The repre- sentation of the Person of our Saviour in the Apocalyse is independent of any indistinctness that may attach to the in- terpretation of the historical imagery of that wonderful book 8, In the Apocalypse, Christ is the First and the Last; He is the Alpha and the Omega; He is the Eternal; He is the Almighty 4, He possesses the seven spirits or perfections of
e 1 St. Johniii. 16: ἐν τούτῳ ἐγνώκαμεν τὴν ἀγάπην (i. 6. absolute charity), ὅτι ἐκεῖνος ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἔθηκε" Kal ἡμεῖς ὀφείλομεν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀδελφῶν τὰς ψυχὰς τιθέναι. Ibid. iv. 9: ἐν τούτῳ ἐφανερώθη ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐν ἡμῖν, ὅτι τὸν Ὑἱὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ ἀπέσταλκεν 6 Θεὸς εἰς τὸν κόσμον, ἵνα ζήσωμεν 80 αὐτοῦ.
‘ On the Johannean authorship of the Apocalypse, see Alford, Gk. Test. vol. iv. pp. 198-229; Wait’s remarks in the pref. to Hug’s Introduction, pp. 145-177; Schaff, Apost. Church, ii. 89; Leathes, Witness of St. John to Christ, pp. 134, 352.
® In the Epistles to the Angels of the Seven Churches, the language used by our Lord is morally inconsistent with any conception of His Person but the highest: Rev. ii. 1-7, 8-11, 12, 13,-14, 16, 19, 20, 21-26, 28, iii. 1-5, 7-13, 14-22. Of. also the allusion to the ὀργὴ τοῦ ἀρνίου, vi. 16, with Ps. vi. 4, vii. 6, xxi.g; Is. ix. 19, li. 17; Jer. iv. 8, 26, xii. 13; Lam. i. 12; Rom. i. 18, etc.
h Rev. i. 8, ἐγώ εἰμι τὸ A καὶ τὸ Ω : Ibid. ὁ dy, καὶ ὃ ἣν, καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος, ὁ παντοκράτωρ: xxi, 0, xxii. 13, ἀρχὴ καὶ τέλος.
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246 Divinity of Fesus Christ in the Apocalypse.
Godi. He has a mysterious Name which no man knows save He Himselfi. His Name is written on the foreheads of the faithfulk; He is the giver of grace and victory! In the Apocalypse, His Name is called the Word of God™; as in the first Epistle He is the Word of Life, and in the Gospel the Word in the beginning. As He rides through heaven on His errand of triumph and of judgment, a Name is written on His vesture and on His thigh; He is ‘ King of kings, and Lord of lords.’ St. John had leaned upon His breast at supper in the familiarity of trusted friendship. St.John sees Him but for a moment in His supramundane glory, and forthwith falls at His feet as dead®. In the Apocalypse especially we are confronted with the startling truth that the Lord of the unseen world is none other than the Crucified One?. The armies of heaven follow Him, clothed as He is in a vesture dipped in blood, at once the symbol of His Passion and of His victory%. But of all the teachings of the Apocalypse on this subject, perhaps none is so full of significance as the representation of Christ in His wounded Humanity upon the throne of the Most High. The Lamb, as It had been slain, is in the very centre of the court of heaven'; He receives the prostrate adoration of the highest intelligences around the throne®; and as the Object of that solemn, uninterrupted, awful worship *, He is associated with the Father, as being in truth one with the Almighty, Uncreated, Supreme God α,
1 Rev. iii. 1: 6 ἔχων τὰ ἑπτὰ πνεύματα τοῦ Θεοῦ.
J Ibid. xix. 12: ἔχων ὄνομα γεγραμμένον ὃ οὐδεὶς οἶδεν εἰ μὴ αὐτός.
® Ibid. iii. 12, where τὸ ὄνομά μου is paralleled with τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Θεοῦ μου, although our Lord is speaking as Man, Cf. ii. 17.
1 Tbid. xxii, 21, iii, 21.
τὰ Tbid. xix. 13: καλεῖται τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ὁ Λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ.
n Tbid. ver. 16: ἔχει ἐπὶ τὸ ἱμάτιον καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν μηρὸν αὐτοῦ τὸ ὄνομα γε- γραμμένον, Βασιλεὺς βασιλέων nad Κύριος κυρίων. Cf. τ Tim. vi. 15.
© Ibid. i. 17: ὅτε εἶδον αὐτὸν, ἔπεσα πρὸς τοῦς πόδας αὐτοῦ ὡς νεκρός.
P Ibid. xii. 10: 4 ἐξουσία τοῦ Χριστοῦ. Ibid. xiii. 8: τὸ βίβλιον τῆς ζωῆς τοῦ ἀρνίου τοῦ ἐσφαγμένου.
« Τρ, xix. 13, 14. Cf. Is. lxiii. 1.
τ Rev. v. 6: ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ θρόνου... ᾿Αρνίον ἑστηκὸς ὧς ἐσφαγμένον.
5 Ibid. ν. 8: τὰ τέσσαρα (ζῶα καὶ οἱ εἰκοσιτέσσαρες πρεσβύτεροι ἔπεσον ἐνώπιον τοῦ ᾿Αρνίου. ΟἿ, 1.1: τοῦ ἀγγέλου αὐτοῦ. The Angel was His property ; cf. xxii, 16. 7
* Tbid. ver. 12: ἄξιόν ἐστι τὸ ᾿Αρνίον τὸ ἐσφαγμένον λαβεῖν Thy δύναμιν καὶ πλοῦτον καὶ σοφίαν καὶ ἰσχὺν καὶ τιμὴν καὶ δόξαν καὶ εὐλογίαν.
ἃ Ibid. v. 13: τῷ καθημένῳ ἐπὶ τοῦ θρόνου καὶ τῷ ᾿Αρνίῳ ἣ εὐλογία καὶ ἣ τιμὴ καὶ ἡ δόξα καὶ τὸ κράτος εἰς τοὺς αἰώνας τῶν αἰώνων. Cf. Ibid. xvii. 14: τὸ ᾿Αρνίον νικήσει αὐτοὺς, ὅτι Κύριος κυρίων ἐστὶ καὶ Βασιλεὺς αν ἢ See
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