Expositor's Bible: The Epistles of St. John

Ver. 19. To use the words of a once famous controversial divine, they may be said to be "of the Church presumptively in their own, and others' opinion, but not really." (Spalat., lib. vii., 10, cf. on the whole subject, St. Aug. Lib. de Bono. Persev., viii.)

"Let no one count that the good can go forth from the Church; the wind cannot carry away the wheat, nor the storm overthrow the solidly rooted tree. The light chaff is tossed by the wind, the weak trees go down before the blast. 'They went out from us, but they were not of us.'" —S. Cyp., B. de Simplic.

Ver. 24. Ye shall abide in the Son, and in the Father.] "If it be asked why the Son is put before the Father, the answer is well returned. Because the Apostle had just before inveighed against those who, though they pretended to acknowledge the Father, yet deny the Son. Though withal there may besides be a double reason assigned: the one to insinuate that the Son is not less than the Father, but that they are equal in essence and dignity. Upon this account most probable it is that the apostolical benediction beginneth with 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,' and then followeth 'the love of God the Father.' The other, because, as Beda well glosseth, No man cometh in, or continueth in, the Father but by the Son, who saith of Himself, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life.'

"To draw it up, lo, here Eximia laus doctrinæ, an high commendation of evangelical doctrine, that it leads up to Christ, and by Him to the Father. The water riseth as high as the spring from whence it floweth. No wonder if the gospel, which cometh from God through Christ, lead us back again through Christ to God; and as by hearing and believing this doctrine we are united to, so by adhering to, and persevering in it, we continue in, the Son and the Father. Suitable to this is that promise of our blessed Saviour, John xiv. 23, 'If any man love Me he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him.'" —Dean Hardy, 350.

Ver. 27. The connection of the whole section is well traced by the old divine, whose commentary closes a little below.

"If you compare these three with the eight foregoing verses, you shall find them to be a summary repetition of what is there more largely delivered. There are three hinges upon which the precedent discourse turneth, namely, the peril of antichristian doctrine, the benefit of the Spirit's unction, the duty of perseverance in the Christian faith; and these three are inculcated in these verses. Indeed, where the danger is very great, the admonition cannot be too frequent. When the benefit is of singular advantage, it would be often considered, and a duty which must be performed cannot be too much pressed. No wonder if St. John proposed them in this gemination to our second thoughts. And yet it is not a naked repetition neither, but such as hath a variation and amplification in every particular. The duty is reinforced at the eight-and-twentieth verse, but in another phrase, of 'abiding in Christ,' and with a new motive, drawn from the second coming of Christ. The benefit is reiterated, and much amplified, in the seven-and-twentieth verse, as to its excellency and energy. Finally, the danger is repeated, but with another description of those by whom they were in danger; whilst as before he had called them antichrists for their enmity against Christ, so here, for their malignity against Christians, he calleth them seducers: 'These things have I written to you concerning them that seduce you,' etc." —Dean Hardy, 357.

SECTION V

NOTESCh. ii. 29, iii. 9

III. ver. 2. "Hope fixed in Him" or "on Him."] The English reader should note the capital letter; not hope in our hearts, but hope unfastened from self. Επι σοι Κυριε ηλπισα, is the LXX. translation of Psalm xxx. 1.

Is ever purifying himself.] "See how he does not do away with freewill; for he says purifies himself. Who purifies us but God? Yet God does not purify you when you are unwilling; therefore in joining your will to God you purify yourself." (St. Augustine in loc.)

We shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.] "So then we are about to see a certain sight, excelling all beauties of the earth; the beauty of gold, silver, forest, fields – the beauty of sea and air, sun and moon – the beauty of stars – the beauty of angels. Aye, excelling all these, because all these are beautiful only for it. What, therefore, shall we be when we shall see all these? What is promised? We shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. The tongue hath spoken as it could; let the rest be thought over by the heart" (St. Augustine in loc.). Cf. 2 Cor. iii. 18. "As the whole body, face, above all eyes of those who look towards the sun are sunnied" (insolantur). —Bengel.

Ver. 3. The ample stores of English divinity contain two sermons, one excellent, one beautiful, upon this verse. The first is by Paley; it is founded upon the leading thought, which he expresses with his usual manly common sense. "There are a class of Christians to whom the admonition of the text is peculiarly necessary. Finding it an easier thing to do good than to expel sins which cleave to their hearts, their affections, or their imaginations; they set their endeavours more towards beneficence than purity. Doing good is not the whole of our duty, nor the most difficult part of it. In particular it is not that part of it which is insisted upon in our text." (Paley, Sermon XLIII.) But the second sermon is perhaps the finest which ever came from the pen of South, and he throws into it the full power of his heart and intellect. The bare analysis is this: —

Is it indeed possible for a man to "purify himself"? There is a twofold work of purification. (1) The infusing of the habit of purity into the soul (regeneration or conversion). In this respect, no man can purify himself. (2) The other work of purification is exercising that habit or grace of purity. "God who made, and since new made us, without ourselves, will not yet save us without ourselves." But again, how can a man purify himself to that degree even as Christ is pure? Even as denotes similitude of kind, not equality of degree. We are to purify ourselves from the power of sin, and from the guilt of sin. Purification from the power of sin consists in these things. (1) A continually renewed repentance. Every day, every hour, may afford matter for penitential sorrow. "A fountain of sin may well require a fountain of sorrow." Converting repentance must be followed by daily repentance. (2) Purifying ourselves consists in vigilant prevention of acts of sin for the future. The means of effecting this are these. (a) Opposing the very first risings of the heart to sin. "The bees may be at work, and very busy within, though we see none of them fly abroad." (b) Severe mortifying duties, such as watchings and fastings. (c) Frequent and fervent prayer. "A praying heart naturally turns into a purified heart." We are to purify ourselves, also, from the guilt of sin. (1) Negatively. No duty or work within our power to perform can take away the guilt of sin. Those who think so, understand neither "the fiery strictness of the law, nor the spirituality of the Gospel." (2) That which alone can purify us from the guilt of sin is applying the virtue of the blood of Christ to the soul by renewed acts of faith. "It is that alone that is able to wash away the deep stain, and to change the hue of the spiritual Ethiopian." The last consideration is – how the life of heaven and future glory has such a sovereign influence upon this work? [This portion of the sermon falls far below the high standard of the rest, and entirely loses the spirit of St. John's thought.] South's Sermons. (Sermon 72, pp. 594-616.)

Ver. 6. That He might destroy the works of the devil.] The word here used for Satan (διαβολος) is found in John vii. 70, viii. 44, xiii. 2; Apoc. ii. 10, xii. 9, 12, xx. 2, 10. One class of miracles is not specifically recorded by St. John in his Gospel – the dispossession of demoniacs. Probably this terrible affliction was less common in Jerusalem than in Galilee. But the idea of possession is not foreign to his mode of thought. John vi. 70, viii. 44, 48, x. 20, xiii. 27. He here points to the dispossessions, so many of which are recorded by the Synoptics.

III. ver. 9. His seed abideth in him.] Of these words only two interpretations appear to be fairly possible. (1) The first would understand "His seed" as "God's seed," the stock or family of His children who are the true זֶרצ אֱלהִים, seed of God (Mal. ii. 15). In favour of this interpretation it may be urged: first, that "seed" in the sense of "children, posterity, any one's entire stock and filiation," in perhaps nearly two hundred passages of the LXX., is the Greek rendering of many different Hebrew words. (See σπερμα in Num. xxiv. 20; Deut. xxv. 1; Jer. l. 16; Gen. iii. 15; Isa. xiv. 20, 30, xv. 9; Num. xxiii. 10; 2 Chron. xiv. 27.) Secondly, no inapt meaning is given in the present text by so understanding the word. "He is unable to go on in sin, for God's true stock and family (they who are true to the majesty of their birth) abide in Him." (2) But a second meaning appears preferable. "Seed" (σπερμα) would then be understood as a metaphorical application of the grain in the vegetable world which contains the possible germ of the future plant or tree; and would signify the possibility, or germinal principle, given by the Holy Spirit to the soul in regeneration. For this signification in our passage there is a strong argument, which we have not seen adverted to, in St. John's mode of language and of thought. "His seed abideth in him" (σπερμα αυτου εν αυτω μενει) is really a quotation from the LXX. (ου το σπερμα αυτου εν αυτω – note the repetition of the words Gen. i. 11, 12). Now the Book of Genesis seems to have been the part of the Old Testament which (with the Psalms) was chiefly in St. John's mind in the Epistle. (Cf. 1 John i. 1, Gen. i. 1. – iii. 8, Gen. ii. – iii. 12, Gen. iv. 8 – iii. 15, Gen. xxvii. 41.) St. John, also, connects the new birth of the sons of God, as did our Lord, with the birth of the creation, whose first germ was "the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the waters" (Gen. i. 2; John iii. 5). This parallel between the first creation and the second, between creation and regeneration, has always commended itself to profound Christian exegesis as being deeply set in the mind of Scripture. Witness the magnificent lines.

Plebs ut sacra renascatur,Per Hunc unda consecratur,Cui super ferebaturIn rerum exordium.Fons, origo pietatis,Fons emundans a peccatis,Fons de fonte Deitatis,Fons sacrator fontium!Adam of St. Victor, Seq. xx., Pentecoste.

It is instructive, to study the treatment of our Lord's words (John iii. 5) by a commentator so little mystical as Professor Westcott. St. John, then, might point at this as another hint of regeneration in the parable of creation, viewed spiritually. The world of vegetation in Genesis is divided into two classes. (1) Herbs צֵשֶׂב = all grasses and plants which "yield seed." (2) Trees צֵץ מְּרִי = shrubs and arboreous plants which have their seed enclosed in their fruit (Gen. i. 11, 12) Such are the plants of God's planting in His garden. Of each the "seed" from which he sprung, and which he will reproduce unless he becomes barren and blighted, "is in him." "He cannot sin." It is against the basis of his new nature. Of the new creation as of the old, the law is – "his seed is in him."

The rest of this verse is interpreted in the Discourse upon 1 John v. 4.

SECTION VI

DISCOURSE IX.

LOFTY IDEALS PERILOUS UNLESS APPLIED

"Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down, our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth." – 1 John iii. 16-18.

Even the world sees that the Incarnation of Jesus Christ has very practical results. Even the Christmas which the world keeps is fruitful in two of these results – forgiving and giving. How many of the multitudinous letters at that season contain one or other of these things – either the kindly gift, or the tender of reconciliation; the confession "I was wrong," or the gentle advance "we were both wrong."

Love, charity (as we rather prefer to say), in its effects upon all our relations to others, is the beautiful subject of this section of our Epistle. It begins with the message of love[230] itself – yet another asterisk referring to the Gospel,[231] to the very substance of the teaching which the believers of Ephesus had first received from St. Paul,[232] and which had been emphasized by St. John. This message is announced not merely as a sounding sentiment, but for the purpose of being carried out into action. As in moral subjects virtues and vices are best illustrated by their contraries;[233] so, beside the bright picture of the Son of God, the Apostle points to the sinister likeness of Cain.[234] After some brief and parenthetic words of pathetic consolation, he states as the mark of the great transition from death to life, the existence of love as a pervading spirit effectual in operation.[235] The dark opposite of this is then delineated[236] in consonance with the mode of representation just above.[237] But two such pictures of darkness must not shadow the sunlit gallery of love. There is another – the fairest and brightest. Our love can only be estimated by likeness to it; it is imperfect unless it is conformed to the print of the wounds, unless it can be measured by the standard of the great Self-sacrifice.[238] But if this may be claimed as the one real proof of conformity to Christ, much more is the limited partial sacrifice of "this world's good" required.[239] This spirit, and the conduct which it requires in the long run, will be found to be the test of all solid spiritual comfort,[240] of all true self-condemnation or self-acquittal.[241]

We may say of the verses prefixed to this discourse, that they bring before us charity in its idea, in its example, in its characteristics– in theory, in action, in life.

I

We have here love in its idea, "hereby know we love." Rather "hereby know we The Love."[242]

Here the idea of charity in us runs parallel with that in Christ. It is a subtle but true remark,[243] that there is here no logical inferential particle. "Because He laid down His life for us," is not followed by its natural correlative "therefore we," but by a simple connective "and we." The reason is this, that our duty herein is not a mere cold logical deduction. It is all of one piece with The Love. "We know The Love because He laid down His life for us; and we are in duty bound for the brethren to lay down our lives."

Here, then, is the idea of love, as capable of realisation in us. It is continuous unselfishness, to be crowned by voluntary death, if death is necessary. The beautiful old Church tradition shows that this language was the language of St. John's life. Who has forgotten how the Apostle in his old age is said to have gone on a journey to find the young man who had fled from Ephesus and joined a band of robbers; and to have appealed to the fugitive in words which are the pathetic echo of these – "if needs be I would die for thee as He for us?"

II

The idea of charity is then practically illustrated by an incident of its opposite. "But whoso hath this world's good, and gazes upon his brother in need, and shuts up his heart against him, how doth the love of God abide in him?"[244] The reason for this descent in thought is wise and sound. High abstract ideas expressed in lofty and transcendent language, are at once necessary and dangerous for creatures like us. They are necessary, because without these grand conceptions our moral language and our moral life would be wanting in dignity, in amplitude, in the inspiration and impulse which are often necessary for duty and always for restoration. But they are dangerous in proportion to their grandeur. Men are apt to mistake the emotion awakened by the very sound of these magnificent expressions of duty for the discharge of the duty itself. Hypocrisy delights in sublime speculations, because it has no intention of their costing anything. Some of the most abject creatures embodied by the masters of romance never fail to parade their sonorous generalizations. One of such characters, as the world will long remember, proclaims that sympathy is one of the holiest principles of our common nature, while he shakes his fist at a beggar.[245]

Every large speculative ideal then is liable to this danger; and he who contemplates it requires to be brought down from his transcendental region to the test of some commonplace duty. This is the latent link of connection in this passage. The ideal of love to which St. John points is the loftiest of all the moral and spiritual emotions which belong to the sentiments of man. Its archetype is in the bosom of God, in the eternal relations of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. "God is love." Its home in humanity is Christ's heart of fire and flesh; its example is the Incarnation ending in the Cross.

Now of course the question for all but one in thousands is not the attainment of this lofty ideal – laying down his life for the brethren. Now and then, indeed, the physician pays with his own death for the heroic rashness of drawing out from his patient the fatal matter. Sometimes the pastor is cut off by fever contracted in ministering to the sick, or by voluntarily living and working in an unwholesome atmosphere. Once or twice in a decade some heart is as finely touched by the spirit of love as Father Damien, facing the certainty of death from a long slow putrefaction, that a congregation of lepers may enjoy the consolations of faith. St. John here reminds us that the ordinary test of charity is much more commonplace. It is helpful compassion to a brother who is known to be in need, manifested by giving to him something of this world's "good" – of the "living"[246] of this world which he possesses.

III

We have next the characteristics of love in action. "My sons; let us not love in word nor with the tongue; but in work and truth." There is love in its energy and reality; in its effort and sincerity – active and honest, without indolence and without pretence. We may well be reminded here of another familiar story of St. John at Ephesus. When too old to walk himself to the assembly of the Church, he was carried there. The Apostle who had lain upon the breast of Jesus; who had derived from direct communication with Him those words and thoughts which are the life of the elect; was expected to address the faithful. The light of the Ephesian summer fell upon his white hair; perhaps glittered upon the mitre which tradition has assigned to him. But when he had risen to speak, he only repeated – "little children, love one another." Modern hearers are sometimes tempted to envy the primitive Christians of the Ephesian Church, if for nothing else, yet for the privilege of listening to the shortest sermon upon record in the annals of Christianity. When Christian preachers have behind them the same long series of virgin years, within them the same love of Christ and knowledge of His mysteries; when their very presence evinces the same sad, tender, smiling, weeping, all-embracing sympathy with the wants and sorrows of humanity; they may perhaps venture upon the perilous experiment of contracting their sermons within the same span as St. John's. And when some, who like the hearers at Ephesus, are not prepared for the repetition of an utterance so brief, begin to ask – "why are you always saying this?" – the answer may well be in the spirit of the reply which the aged Apostle is said to have made – "because it is the commandment of the Lord, and sufficient, if it only be fulfilled indeed."

IV

This passage supplies an argument (capable, as we have seen in the Introduction, of much larger expansion from the Epistle as a whole) against mutilated views, fragmentary versions of the Christian life.

There are four such views which are widely prevalent at the present time.

(1) The first of these is emotionalism; which makes the entire Christian life consist in a series or bundle of emotions. Its origin is the desire of having the feelings touched, partly from sheer love of excitement; partly from an idea that if and when we have worked up certain emotions to a fixed point we are saved and safe. This reliance upon feelings is in the last analysis reliance upon self. It is a form of salvation by works; for feelings are inward actions. It is an unhappy anachronism which inverts the order of Scripture; which substitutes peace and grace (the compendious dogma of the heresy of the emotions) for grace and peace, the only order known to St. Paul and St. John.[247] The only spiritual emotions spoken of in this Epistle are joy, confidence, "assuring our hearts before Him":[248] the first as the result of receiving the history of Jesus in the Gospel, the Incarnation, and the blessed communion with God and the Church which it involves; the second as tried by tests of a most practical kind.

(2) The second of these mutilated views of the Christian life is doctrinalism– which makes it consist of a series or bundle of doctrines apprehended and expressed correctly, at least according to certain formulas, generally of a narrow and unauthorised character. According to this view the question to be answered is – has one quite correctly understood, can one verbally formulate certain almost scholastic distinctions in the doctrine of justification? The well-known standard – "the Bible only" – must be reduced by the excision of all within the Bible except the writings of St. Paul; and even in this selected portion faith must be entirely guided by certain portions more selected still, so that the question finally may be reduced to this shape – "am I a great deal sounder than St. John and St. James, a little sounder than an unexpurgated St. Paul, as sound as a carefully expurgated edition of the Pauline Epistles?"

(3) The third mutilated view of the Christian life is humanitarianism– which makes it a series or bundle of philanthropic actions.

There are some who work for hospitals, or try to bring more light and sweetness into crowded dwelling-houses. Their lives are pure and noble. But the one article of their creed is humanity. Altruism is their highest duty. Their object, so far as they have any object apart from the supreme rule of doing right, is to lay hold on subjective immortality by living on in the recollection of those whom they have helped, whose existence has been soothed and sweetened by their sympathy. With others the case is different. Certain forms of this busy helpfulness – especially in the laudable provision of recreations for the poor – are an innocent interlude in fashionable life; sometimes, alas! a kind of work of supererogation, to atone for the want of devotion or of purity – possibly an untheological survival of a belief in justification by works.

(4) The fourth fragmentary view of the Christian life is observationism, which makes it to consist in a bundle or series of observances. Frequent services and communions, perhaps with exquisite forms and in beautifully decorated churches, have their dangers as well as their blessings. However closely linked these observances may be, there must still in every life be interstices between them. How are these filled up? What spirit within connects together, vivifies and unifies, this series of external acts of devotion? They are means to an end. What if the means come to interpose between us and the end – just as a great political thinker has observed that with legal minds the forms of business frequently overshadow the substance of business, which is their end, and for which they were called into existence. And what is the end of our Christian calling? A life pardoned; in process of purification; growing in faith, in love of God and man, in quiet joyful service. Certainly a "rage for ceremonials and statistics," a long list of observances, does not infallibly secure such a life, though it may often be not alone the delighted and continuous expression, but the constant food and support of such a life. But assuredly if men trust in any of these things – in their emotions, in their favourite formulas, in their philanthropic works, in their religious observances – in anything but Christ, they greatly need to go back to the simple text – "His name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins."