Expositor's Bible: The Epistles of St. John - William Alexander

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i. 2.

      1. "The Life was manifested" = John i. 29—xxi. 25.

      2. (a) "We have seen" = (A. i. 2 (b)).

      (b) "And bear witness" = John i. 7, 19, 37, iii. 2, 27, 33, iv. 39, vi. 69, xx. 28, 30, 31, xxi. 24.

      (c) "And declare unto you" = John passim.

      "The Life, the Eternal Life, which"

      א "Was with the Father" = John i. 1–4.

      ב "And was manifested unto us" = John passim.

      B.

      i.—1 John v. 6–10.

      Summary of the Gospel as a Gospel of witness.

      1. "The Spirit beareth witness" = John i. 32, xiv., xv., xx. 22.

      2. "The water beareth witness" = John i. 28, ii. 9, iii. 5, iv. 13, 14, v. 1, 9, vi. 19, vii. 37, ix. 7, xiii. 5, xix. 34, xxi. 1.

      3. "The blood beareth witness" = John vi. 53, 54, 55, 56, xix. 34.

      4. "The witness of men" = (A. ii. 1 (b)) Also John i. 45, 49, iii. 2, iv. 39, vii. 46, xii. 12, 13, 17, 19, 20, 21, xviii. 38, xix. 35, xx. 28.

      5. "The witness of God" =

      (a) Scripture = John i. 45, v. 39, 46, xix. 36, 37.

      (b) Christ's own = John viii. 17, 18, 46, xv. 30, xviii. 37.

      (c) His Father's = John v. 37, viii. 18, xii. 28.

      (d) His works = John v. 36, x. 25, xv. 24.

      ii.—1 John v. 20.

      We know (i.e., by the Gospel) that—

      1. "The Son of God is come" (ἡκεν), "has come and is here."

      Note.—בָאחִי = ἡκω, LXX. Psalm xl. 7. "Venio symbolum quasi Domini Jesu fuit." (Bengel on Heb. x. 7), the Ich Dien of the Son of the Father—εγω γαρ εκ του θεου εξηλθον και ἡκω. "I came forth from God, and am here" (John viii. 4) = John i. 29—xxi. 23 (John xiv. 18, 21, 23, xvi. 16, 22, form part of the thought "is here").

      2. "And hath given us an understanding" = gift of the Spirit, John xiv., xv., xvi. (especially 13, 16).

      3. "This is the very God and eternal Life" = John i. 1, 4.

      The whole Gospel of St. John brings out these primary principles of the Faith—

      That the Son of God has come. That He is now and ever present with His people. That the Holy Spirit gives them a new faculty of spiritual discernment. That Christ is the very God and the Life of men.

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

      "Dum Magistri super pectus

       Fontem haurit intellectûs

       Et doctrinæ flumina,

       Fiunt, ipso situ loci,

       Verbo fides, auris voci,

       Mens Deo contermina.

      "Unde mentis per excessus,

       Carnis, sensûs super gressus,

       Errorumque nubila, Contra veri solis lumen Visum cordis et acumen Figit velut aquila." Adam of St. Victor, Seq. xxxii.

      "Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. Every spirit that confesseth not [that] Jesus Christ [is come in the flesh] is not of God."—1 John iv. 2, 3.

      A discussion (however far from technical completeness) of the polemical element in St. John's Epistle, probably seems likely to be destitute of interest or of instruction, except to ecclesiastical or philosophical antiquarians. Those who believe the Epistle to be a divine book must, however, take a different view of the matter. St. John was not merely dealing with forms of human error which were local and fortuitous. In refuting them he was enunciating principles of universal import, of almost illimitable application. Let us pass by those obscure sects, those subtle curiosities of error, which the diligence of minute research has excavated from the masses of erudition under which they have been buried; which theologians, like other antiquarians, have sometimes labelled with names at once uncouth and imaginative. Let us fix our attention upon such broad and well-defined features of heresy as credible witnesses have indelibly fixed upon the contemporaneous heretical thought of Asia Minor; and we shall see not only a great precision in St. John's words, but a radiant image of truth, which is equally adapted to enlighten us in the peculiar dangers of our age.

      Controversy is the condition under which all truth must be held, which is not in necessary subject-matter—which is not either mathematical or physical. In the case of the second, controversy is active, until the fact of the physical law is established beyond the possibility of rational discussion; until self-consistent thought can only think upon the postulate of its admission. Now in these departments all the argument is on one side. We are not in a state of suspended speculation, leaning neither to affirmation nor denial, which is doubt. We are not in the position of inclining either to one side or the other, by an almost impalpable overplus of evidence, which is suspicion; or by those additions to this slender stock, which convert suspicion into opinion. We are not merely yielding a strong adhesion to one side, while we must yet admit, to ourselves at least, that our knowledge is not perfect, nor absolutely manifest—which is the mental and moral position of belief. In necessary subject-matter, we know and see with that perfect intellectual vision for which controversy is impossible.[69]

      The region of belief must therefore, in our present condition, be a region from which controversy cannot be excluded.

      Religious controversialists may be divided into three classes, for each of which we may find an emblem in the animal creation. The first are the nuisances, at times the numerous nuisances, of Churches. These controversialists delight in showing that the convictions of persons whom they happen to dislike, can, more or less plausibly, be pressed to unpopular conclusions. They are incessant fault-finders. Some of them, if they had an opportunity, might delight in finding the sun guilty in his daily worship of the many-coloured ritualism of the western clouds. Controversialists of this class, if minute are venomous, and capable of inflicting a degree of pain quite out of proportion to their strength. Their emblem may be found somewhere in the range of "every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." The second class of controversialists is of a much higher nature. Their emblem is the hawk with his bright eye, with the forward throw of his pinions, his rushing flight along the woodland skirt, his unerring stroke. Such hawks of the Churches, whose delight is in pouncing upon fallacies, fulfil an important function. They rid us of tribes of mischievous winged errors. The third class of controversialists is that which embraces St. John supremely—such minds also as Augustine's in his loftiest and most inspired moments, such as those which have endowed the Church with the Nicene Creed. Of such the eagle is the emblem. Over the grosser atmosphere of earthly anger or imperfect motives, over the clouds of error, poised in the light of the True Sun, with the eagle's upward wing and the eagle's sunward eye, St. John looks upon the truth. He is indeed the eagle of the four Evangelists, the eagle of God. If the eagle could speak with our language, his style would have something of the purity of the sky and of the brightness of the light. He would warn his nestlings against losing their way in the banks of clouds that lie below him so far. At times he might show that there is a danger or an error whose position he might indicate by the sweep of his wing, or by descending for a moment to strike.

      There

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