Expositor's Bible: The Epistles of St. John

Footnote_146_146

John xi. 16.

Footnote_147_147

"Qui me suit, aux anges est pareil.Quand un homme a marché tout le jour au soleilDans un chemin sans puits et sans hôtellerie,S'il ne croit pas quand vient le soir il pleure, il crie,Il est las; sur la terre il tombe haletant.S'il croit en moi, qu'il prie, il peut au même instant.Continuer sa route avec des forces triples."(Le Christ et le Tombeau.) Tom. i. 44.

Footnote_148_148

King Henry VIII., Act 2, Sc. 1. Contrast again our Lord before the council with St. Paul before that tribunal. In the case of one of the chief of saints there is the touch of human infirmity, the "something spoken in choler, ill and hasty," the angry and contemptuous "whited wall" – the confession of hasty inconsiderateness (ουκ ἡδειν – ὁτι εστιν αρχιερευς) which led to a violation of a precept of the law (Exod. xxii. 28).

Footnote_149_149

Preface to Ivanhoe.

Footnote_150_150

How the great sayings were accurately collected has not been the question before us in this discourse. But it presents little difficulty. It is not absurd to suppose (if we are required to postulate no divine assistance) that notes may have been taken in some form by certain members of the company of disciples. The profoundly thoughtful remark of Irenæus upon his own unfailing recollection of early lessons from Polycarp, would apply with indefinitely greater force to such a pupil as John, of such a teacher as Jesus. "I can thoroughly recollect things so far back better than those which have lately occurred; for lessons which have grown with us since boyhood are compacted into a unity with the very soul itself." (τη ψυχη ἑνουνται αυτη) Euseb., v. 29. But above all, whatever subordinate agency may have been employed in the preservation of those precious words, every Christian reverently acknowledges the fulfilment of the Saviour's promise – "The Comforter, the Holy Ghost, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you" (John xiv. 26).

Footnote_151_151

Duc de Broglie. Revue des deux Mondes. 15 Jan. 1882. Coxe, House of Austria, vol. iii., chap. xcix., p. 415, sqq.

Footnote_152_152

John xiii. 30, xi. 35, xix. 5, xxii. 29-35.

Footnote_153_153

Observe in the Greek the μη ἁμαρτητε, which refers to single acts, not to a continuous state – "that ye may not sin."

Footnote_154_154

1 John ii. 2. As a translation, "towards" seems too pedantic; yet προς is ad-versus rather than apud, and with the accusative signifies either the direction of motion, or the relation between two objects. (Donaldson, Greek Grammar, 524). We may fittingly call the preposition here προς pictorial.

Footnote_155_155

The various meanings of κοσμος are fully traced below on 1 John ii. 17. There is one point in which the notions of κοσμος and αιων intersect. But they may be thus distinguished. The first signifies the world projected in space, the second in time. The supposition that the form of expression at the close of our verse is elliptical, and to be filled up by the repetition of "for the sins of the whole world" "is not justified by usage, and weakens the force of the passage." (Epistles of St. John, Westcott, p. 44.)

Footnote_156_156

As to doctrine. There are three "grand circles" or "families of images" whereby Scripture approaches from different quarters, or surveys from different sides, the benefits of our Lord's meritorious death. These are represented by, are summed up in, three words – απολυτρωσις, καταλλαγη, ιλασμος. The last is found in the text and in iv. 10; nowhere else precisely in that form in the New Testament. "Ιλασμος (expiation or propitiation) and απολυτρωσις (redemption) is fundamentally one single benefit, i. e., the restitution of the lost sinner. Απολυτρωσις is in respect of enemies; καταλλαγη in respect of God. And here again the words ἱλασμ. and καταλλ. differ. Propitiation takes away offences as against God. Reconciliation has two sides. It takes away (a) God's indignation against us, 2 Cor. v. 18, 19; (b) our alienation from God, 2 Cor. v. 20." (Bengel on Rom. iii. 24. Whoever would rightly understand all that we can know on these great words must study New Testament Synonyms, Archbp. Trench, pp. 276-82.)

Footnote_157_157

Acts xvii. 27.

Footnote_158_158

Jonah i. 5.

Footnote_159_159

1 John ii. 28.

Footnote_160_160

2 John 9.

Footnote_161_161

Matt. xxiii. 15.

Footnote_162_162

Bouddhism, it is now said, appears to be on the wane, and the period for its disappearance is gradually approaching, according to the Boden Professor of Sanscrit at Oxford. In his opinion this creed is "one of rapidly increasing disintegration and decline," and "as a form of popular religion Bouddhism is gradually losing its vitality and hold on the vast populations once loyal to its rule." He computes the number of Bouddhists at 100,000,000; not 400,000,000 as hitherto estimated; and places Christianity numerically at the head of all religions – next Confucianism, thirdly Hinduism, then Bouddhism, and last Mohammedanism. He affirms that the capacity of Bouddhism for resistance must give way before the "mighty forces which are destined to sweep the earth."

Footnote_163_163

That modern English writers have been more than just to Mohammed is proved overwhelmingly by the living Missionary who knows Mohammedanism best. —Mohammed and Mohammedans. Dr. Koelle.

Footnote_164_164

The inner meaning of 1 John i. 8 exactly = ὑπακοη και ῥαντισμος (1 Peter i. 2). It is the obedient who are sprinkled.

Footnote_165_165

John xiv. 16, 26, xv. 26, xvi. 7.

Footnote_166_166

Aug. in loc.

Footnote_167_167

"Nomen facile supplent credentes, plenum pectus habentes memoriâ Domini." —Bengel.

Footnote_168_168

Εκεινος in our Epistle belongs to Christ in every place but one where it occurs (1 John ii. 6, iii. 3, 5, 7, 16, iv. 17; cf. John i. 18, ii. 21). It is very much equivalent to our reverent usage of printing the pronoun which refers to Christ with a capital letter.

Footnote_169_169

Matt. vi. 45.

Footnote_170_170

δοξας βλασφημουντες (2 Peter ii. 10; Jude v. 8).

Footnote_171_171

Poems by Matthew Arnold ("Rugby Chapel," Nov. 1857), vol. ii., pp. 251, 255.

Footnote_172_172

ὁς μονος συνεπαθησεν πλανωμενω κοσμω. Acta Paul. et Thec. 16, Acta. Apost. Apoc. 47. Edit. Tischendorf.

Footnote_173_173

On Liberty. John Stuart Mill (chap. iii.).

Footnote_174_174

John viii. 12-35. For Apostolic usage of the word, see Acts i. 21; Rom. vi. 4; Ephes. ii. 10; Col. iii. 7.

Footnote_175_175

John vii. 1.

Footnote_176_176

"Ambulando docebat." —Bretschneider.

Footnote_177_177

John xiii. 1-6.

Footnote_178_178

Ἱνα ποιω … και τελειωσω (John iv. 34).

Footnote_179_179

After all deductions for the lack of accurate and searching textual exegesis, perhaps Bossuet's "Traité de la concupiscence, ou Exposition de ces Paroles de Saint Jean, 1 John ii. 15-17" (Œuvres de Bossuet, Tom. vii., 380-420), remains unrivalled.

Footnote_180_180

The word κοσμος originally signified ornament (chiefly perhaps of dress); figuratively it came to denote order. It was first applied by Pythagoras to the universe, from the conception of the order, which reigns in it (Plut., de Plac. Phil., ii. 1). From schools of philosophy it passed into the language of poets and writers of elevated prose. It is somewhat singular that the Romans, possibly from Greek influence, came to apply "mundus" by the same process to the world, as it had also originally signified ornament, especially of female dress (See Richard Bentley against Boyle, Opera Philol., 347-445, and Notes, Humboldt's Cosmos, xiii.). In the LXX. κοσμος does not appear as the translation of שׂלָם its spiritual equivalent in Hebrew; but very often in the sense of "ornament" and "order." (See Tromm., Concord. Gr. in LXX., 1, 913), but it is found as world several times in the Apocrypha (Wisdom vi. 26, vii. 18, ix. 3, xi. 18, xv. 14; 2 Mac. iii. 12, vii. 9-23, viii. 18, xiii. 14).

Footnote_181_181

John xvii. 24.

Footnote_182_182

In Hebrew תֵּבֵל habitable globe; translated οικουμενη in LXX. (see Psalm lxxxix. 11).

Footnote_183_183

John v. 11.

Footnote_184_184

John vi. 31; 1 John ii. 2.

Footnote_185_185

John iii. 16. It may be added that these are passages where the world as humanity generally passes into the darker meaning of that portion of it which is actively hostile to God. John xv. 18, 19.

Footnote_186_186

See note on ver. 16 at the end of the next Discourse.

Footnote_187_187

Gen. i. 31.

Footnote_188_188

John i. 3.

Footnote_189_189

The writer does not happen to remember any commentator who has pointed out this subtle but powerful thought, παν το εν τω κοσμω – εκ του κοσμου εστιν (1 John ii. 16).

Footnote_190_190

1 John v. 19.

Footnote_191_191

John xiv. 1; 1 John iv. 2, 3; 2 John 7.

Footnote_192_192

John vi. 51, 53-56; 1 John iv. 2, 3; 2 John 7.

Footnote_193_193

ἡ αλαζονια του βιου.

Footnote_194_194

Gen. iii. 5.

Footnote_195_195

Gen. iii. 6.

Footnote_196_196

Gen. iii. 7.

Footnote_197_197

S. Augustin., Tract. in Joann. Epist.

Footnote_198_198

Mark vii. 21.

Footnote_199_199

1 John ii. 15, 16.

Footnote_200_200

Ibid. ver. 17.

Footnote_201_201

No portion of Prof. Westcott's Commentary is more thorough or more exquisite than his exposition here. (Epistles of St. John, 66.)

Footnote_202_202

"Extirpantia verba." St. August (in loc.).

Footnote_203_203

παραγεται. It has been said that this is not the real point; that what St. John here describes is not the general attribute of the world as transitory, but its condition at the moment when the Epistle was written, in presence of the manifestation of "the kingdom of God, which was daily shining forth." But surely the world can scarcely be so completely identified with the temporary framework of the Roman Empire; and the universality of the antithesis (ὁ δε ποιων κ.τ.λ.) and its intensely individual form, lead us to take κοσμος in that universal and inclusive signification which alone is of abiding interest to every age.

Footnote_204_204

Job xiv. 1, 2. Cf. x. 20-22.

Footnote_205_205

Such seems to be the meaning of אַבְלִינָה (Ps. xxxix. 14).

Footnote_206_206

Ps. xc. 9.

Footnote_207_207

James iv. 13-17. The passage 1 Pet. i. 25 is taken from the magnificent prophecy in which the fragility of all flesh, transitory as the falling away of the flowers of grass into impalpable dust, is contrasted with the eternity of the word of God. Isa. xl. 6, 7, LXX.

Footnote_208_208

"Possessa onerant, amata inquinant, amissa cruciant." —St. Bernard.

Footnote_209_209

The view here taken of Bouddhism follows that of M. J. Barthelemy St. Hilaire. Le Bouddha et sa Réligion. Prémière partie, chap. v., pp. 141-182.

Footnote_210_210

"These populations neither deny nor affirm God. They simply ignore Him. To assert that they are atheists would be very much the same thing as to assert that they are anti-Cartesians. As they are neither for nor against Descartes, so they are neither for nor against God. They are just children. A child is neither atheist nor deist. He is nothing." – Voltaire, Dict. Phil., Art. Athêisme.

Footnote_211_211

It is noteworthy that in the collects in the English Prayer-Book, and indeed in its public formularies generally (outside the Funeral Service, and that for the Visitation of the Sick), there are but two places in which the note of the "world passeth away" is very prominently struck, viz., the Collect for the Fourth Sunday after Easter, and one portion of the prayer for "The Church Militant." One of the most wholesome and beautiful expressions of the salutary convictions arising from Christian perception of this melancholy truth is to be found in Dr. Johnson's "Prayer for the Last Day in the Year," as given in Mr. Stobart's Daily Services for Christian Households, pp. 99, 100.

Footnote_212_212

The old "Memento Mori" timepiece of Mary, Queen of Scots, is a watch in the interior of a death's-head, which opens to disclose it. Surely not a symbol likely to make any soul happier or better!

Footnote_213_213

The ουν in ver. 24 is not recognised by the R. V. nor adopted in Professor Westcott's text. One uncial (A), however, inserts it in 1 John iv. 19. It occurs in 3 John 8. This inferential particle is found with unusual frequency in St. John's Gospel. It does not seem satisfactory to account for this by calling it "one of the beginnings of modern Greek." (B. de Xivrey.) By St. John as an historian, the frequent therefore is the spontaneous recognition of a Divine logic of events; of the necessary yet natural sequence of every incident in the life of the "Word made Flesh." The ουν expresses something more than continuity of narrative. It indicates a connection of events so interlinked that each springs from, and is joined with, the preceding, as if it were a conclusion which followed from the premiss of the Divine argument. Now a mind which views history in this light is just the mind which will be dogmatic in theology. The inspired dogmatic theologian will necessarily write in a style different from that of the theologian of the Schools. The style of the former will be oracular; that of the latter will be scholastic, i.e., inferential, a concatenation of syllogisms. The syllogistic ουν is then naturally absent from St. John's Epistles. The one undoubted exception is 3 John 8, where a practical inference is drawn from an historical statement in ver. 7. The writer may be allowed to refer to The Speaker's Commentary, iv., 381.

Footnote_214_214

Jer. xxxi. 34.

Footnote_215_215

Vers. 18, 22.

Footnote_216_216

The last hour is not a date arbitrarily chosen and written down as a man might mark a day for an engagement in a calendar. It is determined by history – by the sum-total of the product of the actions of men who are not the slaves of fatality, who possess free-will, and are not forced to act in a particular way. It is supposed to derogate from the Divine mission of the Apostles if we admit that they might be mistaken as to the chronology of the closing hour of time. But to know that supreme instant would involve a knowledge of the whole plan of God and the whole predetermining motives in the appointment of that day, i. e., it would constructively involve omniscience. Cf. Mark xiii. 32, and our Lord's profound saying, Acts i. 7.

Footnote_217_217

John v. 43.

Footnote_218_218

1 John ii. 22, iv. 2, 3; 2 John 7-9.

Footnote_219_219

Ver. 19.

Footnote_220_220

Bingham's Antiquities, i., 462-524, 565.

Footnote_221_221

For other instances of this characteristic, see a subject introduced ii. 29, expanded iii. 9 – another subject introduced iii. 21, expanded v. 14.

Footnote_222_222

το αυτου χρισμα, ver. 27, not το αυτο ("the same anointing," A. V.) "This most unusual order throws a strong emphasis on the pronoun." (Prof. Westcott.) The writer thankfully quotes this as it seems to him to bring out the dogmatic significance of the word, emphasised as it is by this unusual order – the chrism, the Spirit of Him.

Footnote_223_223

1 John iii. 24.

Footnote_224_224

The reading of the A. V. is received into Tischendorf's text and adopted by the R. V. Another reading omits και and substitutes παντες for παντα so that the passage would run thus, "Ye have an unction from the Holy One. Ye all know (I have not written unto you because ye know not) the truth." As far as the difficulty of παντα is concerned, nothing is gained by the change, as the statement recurs in a slightly varied form in ver. 27.

Footnote_225_225

John xiv. 26.

Footnote_226_226

"Let that abide in you which ye heard from the beginning," 1 John ii. 24. Cf. "Testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand," 1 Pet. v. 12. "Even as our beloved brother Paul has written unto you," 2 Pet. iii. 15. St. Paul has thus the attestation of St. John as well as of St. Peter.

Footnote_227_227

Ver. 27

Footnote_228_228

διδασκει – εδιδαξεν.

Footnote_229_229

1 Cor. xi. 29.

Footnote_230_230

Ver. 11.

Footnote_231_231

John xv. 12-17. See also the stress laid upon the unity of believers; surely including love as well as doctrine in the great High-Priestly prayer, John xvii. 21-23.

Footnote_232_232

"The message that ye heard from the beginning," conf. 1 John ii. 24.

Footnote_233_233

"Contrariorum eadem est scientia."

Footnote_234_234

This is one of the few references to the Old Testament history in St. John's Epistle (Gen. iv. 1-8). To the theology of the Old Testament there are many references; e. g., light and life. 1 John i. 1-5; John i. 4; Ps. xxxvi. 9. There is, however, another historical reference a few verses above (1 John iii. 8) – a passage of primary importance because it recognises the whole narrative of the Fall in Genesis, and affords a commentary upon the words of Christ (John viii. 44). The writer has somewhere seen an interesting suggestion that ver. 12 may contain some allusion to the visit of Apollonius of Tyana to Ephesus. Apollonius incited the mob to kill a beggar-man for the purpose of placing himself on a level with Chalcas and others who caused the sacrifice of human victims. The date of this incident would apparently coincide with the closing years of St. John's life (Philostrat. vita Apollon., Act. ii., S. 5).

Footnote_235_235

Ver. 14.

Footnote_236_236

Vers. 14, 15.

Footnote_237_237

Ver. 12.

Footnote_238_238

Ver. 16.

Footnote_239_239

Ver. 17.

Footnote_240_240

Vers. 18, 19.

Footnote_241_241

Vers. 20, 21.

Footnote_242_242

"For The Love I rather beseech thee" (Phil. v. 9). The addition in the A.V. (of God) rather impairs the sweetness and power, the reverential reserve of the original.

Footnote_243_243

Of Prof. Westcott.

Footnote_244_244

Ver. 17.

Footnote_245_245

It is suggestive that on Quinquagesima Sunday, when 1 Cor. xiii. is the Epistle, St. Luke xviii. 31 sqq., is the Gospel. The lyric of love is joined with a fragment of its epic. That fragment tells us of a love which not only proclaimed itself ready to be sacrificed (Luke xviii. 31-33), but condescended individually to the blind importunate mendicant who sat by the wayside begging (vers. 35-43).

Footnote_246_246

The word here is βιος not ζωη. "Βιος period of life; hence the means by which it is sustained, means of life." (Archbp. Trench.) It is to be wished that the R. V. had either kept "the good" of the A. V., or adopted the word "living" – the translation of βιος in Mark xii. 44; Luke xxi. 4.

Footnote_247_247

2 John 3.

Footnote_248_248

1 John i. 4, ii. 28, iii. 21, iv. 17, v. 14, iii. 19.

Footnote_249_249

1 John i. 4.

Footnote_250_250

τα σπλαγχνα (ver. 17). This however is the only occurrence of the word in St. John's writings. The substantive σπλαγχνα = emotions, is found in classical poets. But the verb σπλαγχνιζομαι occurs only in LXX. and New Testament – and thus, like αγαπη, is almost born within the circle of revealed truth. The new dispensation so rich in the mercy of God (Luke i. 78), so fruitful in mercy from man to man, may well claim a new vocabulary in the department of tenderness and pity.

Footnote_251_251

1 John v. 6, conf. John xix. 34.

Footnote_252_252

θεωρη, ver. 17.

Footnote_253_253

"The love of which God is at once the object, and the author, and the pattern." (Prof. Westcott.)

Footnote_254_254

1 John iv. 19.

Footnote_255_255

Lord Meath.

Footnote_256_256

Apoc. xx. 12, 13.

Footnote_257_257

1 John ii. 28.

Footnote_258_258

αισχυνθωμεν απ' αυτου, see Jerem. xii. 13 (for בּושׁ מִן). Prof. Westcott happily quotes, "as a guilty thing surprised."

Footnote_259_259

Coming, εν τη παρουσια αυτου. The word is not found elsewhere in the Johannic group of writings. But by his use of it here, St. John falls into line with the whole array of apostolic witnesses – with St. Matthew (xxiv. 3-27, 37, 39); with St. Paul (passim); with St. James (v. 7, 8); with St. Peter (2 Peter i. 16, iii. 4-12). This fact may well warn critics of the precarious character of theories founded upon "the negative phenomena of the books of the New Testament." (See Professor Westcott's excellent note, The Epistles of St. John, 80.)

Footnote_260_260

(εν τη ἡμερα της κρισεως) – "in the Day of the Judgment" – cf. Apoc. xiv. 7. We have "in THE Judgment" (Matt. xii. 41, 42; Luke x. 14, xi. 31, 32) – the indefinite "day of judgment" (Matt. x. 15, xi. 22, 24; Mark vi. 11).

Footnote_261_261

2 Pet. ii. 9, iii. 7 – but "The Day of The Judgment," here only.

Footnote_262_262

Cf. our Lord's words – "henceforth (απ' αρτι) ye shall see the Son of Man coming." (Matt. xxvi. 64.)

Footnote_263_263

John v. 21, 29.

Footnote_264_264

Ver. 21.

Footnote_265_265

Ver. 26.

Footnote_266_266

Ver. 24.