Expositor's Bible: The Epistles of St. John Part 13

It will ill.u.s.trate this idea for us if we think of the difference between the outside and the inside of a church.

Outside on some high spire we see the light just lingering far up, while the shadows are coldly gathering in the streets below; and we know that it is winter. Again the evening falls warm and golden on the churchyard, and we recognise the touch of summer. But inside it is always G.o.d's weather; it is Christ all the year long. Now the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, or circ.u.mcised with the knife of the law, manifested to the Gentiles, or manifesting Himself with a glory that breaks through the veil; now the Man tempted in the wilderness; now the victim dying on the cross; now the Victor risen, ascended, sending the Holy Spirit; now for twenty-five Sundays worshipped as the Everlasting Word with the Father and the Holy Ghost. In this mystical following of Christ also, the one perpetual lesson is--"he that saith he abideth in Him, ought himself also so to walk even as He walked."

NOTES.

Ch. ii. 3-11.

Ver. 4. _A liar._] There are many things which the "sayer" says by the language of his life rather than by his lips to others: many things which he says to himself. "We lead ourselves astray" (i. 8). We "say"

I have knowledge of Him, while yet we observe not His commandments.

Strange that we can lie to the one being who knows the truth thoroughly--_self_; and having lied, can get the lie believed,--

"Like one, Who having, unto truth, by telling of it, Made such a sinner of his memory, To credit his own lie."

_Tempest_, Act I. Sc. 2.

Ver. 7. _Fresh._] There are two quite different words alike translated new in A. V.: one of these is the word used here (?a????); the other (?e??). The first always signifies _new_ in quality--intellectual, ethical, spiritual _novelty_--that which is opposed to, which replaces and supersedes, the antiquated, inferior, outworn; _new_ in the world of thought. (Heb. viii. 13 states this with perfect precision.) It may sometimes not inadequately be rendered _fresh_ ("youngly,"

Shakespeare, _Coriola.n.u.s_). The other term (?e??) is simply _recent_; _new_ chronologically in the world of time.

_Which ye heard from the beginning._] Probably a recognition of St.

Paul's teaching at Ephesus, and of his Epistle to the Ephesians.

Ver. 8. To many commentators this verse seems almost of insoluble difficulty. Surely, however, the meaning is clear enough for those who will place themselves within the atmosphere of St. John's thought.

"Again a fresh commandment I am writing to you" [this commandment, charity, is no unreal and therefore delusive standard of duty]. Taken as one great whole (?) it is true, matter of observable historical fact, because it is realised in Him who gave the commandment; capable of realisation, and even in measure realised in you. [And this can be actually done by Christians, and recognised more and more by others], "because the shadow is drifting by from the landscape even of the world, and the light, the very light, enlighteneth by a new ideal and a new example."

Ver. 10. _Scandal._] In Greek is the rendering of two Hebrew words.

(1) That against which we trip and stumble, a stumbling-block; (2) A hook or snare.

Ver. 11. The terrible force of this truly Hebraistic parallelism should be noted.

1. He that hateth his brother _is_ in darkness.

2. " " " walketh in darkness.

3. " " " knoweth not where he goeth.

4. " " " darkness has blinded his eyes.

The third beat of the parallelism contains an allusion to that Cain among the nations, the Jewish people in our Lord's time. (John xii. 35.)

In ill.u.s.tration of the powerful expression, ("darkness has blinded his eyes") the present writer quoted a striking pa.s.sage from Professor Drummond, who adduces a parallel for the Christian's loss of the spiritual faculty, by the atrophy of organs which takes place in moles, and in the fish in dark caverns. (_Speaker's Commentary, in loc._) But as regards the mole at least, a great observer of Nature entirely denies the alleged atrophy. Mr. Buckland quotes Dr. Lee in a paper, in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, where he says,--"the eye of the mole presents us with an instance of an organ which is rudimentary, not by arrest of development, but through disuse, aided perhaps by natural selection." But Mr. Buckland a.s.serts that "the same great Wisdom who made the mole's teeth the most beautiful set of insectivorous teeth among animals, also made its eye fit for the work it has to do. The mole has been designed to prey upon earthworms; they will not come up to the surface to him, so he must go down into the earth to them. For this purpose his eyes are fitted." (_Life of F.

Buckland_, pp. 247, 248).

FOOTNOTES:

[167] "Nomen facile supplent credentes, plenum pectus habentes memoria Domini."--_Bengel_.

[168] ??e???? 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 p.r.o.noun which refers to Christ with a capital letter.

[169] Matt. vi. 45.

[170] d??a? ?asf????te? (2 Peter ii. 10; Jude v. 8).

[171] _Poems by Matthew Arnold_ ("Rugby Chapel," Nov. 1857), vol. ii., pp. 251, 255.

[172] ?? ???? s??epa??se? p?a??e?? ??s?. _Acta Paul. et Thec._ 16, _Acta. Apost. Apoc._ 47. Edit. Tischendorf.

[173] _On Liberty._ John Stuart Mill (chap. iii.).

[174] John viii. 12-35. For Apostolic usage of the word, see Acts i.

21; Rom. vi. 4; Ephes. ii. 10; Col. iii. 7.

[175] John vii. 1.

[176] "Ambulando docebat."--_Bretschneider_.

[177] John xiii. 1-6.

[178] ??a p??? ... ?a? te?e??s? (John iv. 34).

SECTION III. (2)

GREEK. LATIN.

??ap?t??, ??? e?t???? Carissimi non mandatum ?a???? ??af? ???, a??' novum scribo e?t???? pa?a?a? ?? vobis, sed mandatum e??ete ap' a????? ? vetus quod habuistis e?t??? ? pa?a?a est?? ab initio: mandatum ? ????? ?? ????sate. vetus est verb.u.m quod pa??? e?t???? ?a???? audistis. Iterum mandatum ??af? ???, ? est?? novum scribo a???e? e? a?t? ?a? vobis, quod est verum e? ???, ?t? ? s??a et in ipso et in vobis, pa?a?eta? ?a? t? f?? quoniam tenebrae transierunt t? a??????? ?d? fa??e?. et lumen verum ? ?e??? e? t? f?t? jam lucet. Qui dicit e??a? ?a? t?? ade?f?? se in luce esse et fratrem a?t?? ?s?? e? t? suum odit, in s??t?a est?? ??? a?t?. tenebris est usque a?ap?? t?? ade?f?? adhuc. Qui diligit a?t?? e? t? f?t? e?e?. f ratrem suum in lumine ?a? s?a?da??? e? a?t? manet, et scandalum ??? est??. ? de ?s?? in eo non est: qui t?? ade?f?? a?t?? e? autem odit fratrem t? s??t?a est?? ?a? e? suum, in tenebris est, t? s??t?a pe??pate?, ?a? et in tenebris ambulat ??? ??de p?? ?pa?e?, et nescit quo eat, ?t? ? s??t?a et?f??se? quoniam tenebrae obcaecaverunt t??? ?f?a???? a?t??. oculos eius.

AUTHORISED VERSION. REVISED VERSION.

Brethren, I write Beloved, no new no new commandment commandment write I unto you, but an old unto you, but an old commandment which commandment which ye had from the beginning. ye had from the beginning: The old commandment the old commandment is the word is the word which ye have heard which ye heard. Again, from the beginning. a new commandment Again, a new commandment write I unto you, which I write unto thing is true in Him you, which thing is and in you: because true in Him and in the darkness is pa.s.sing you: because the darkness away, and the true is past, and the light already shineth.

true light now shineth. He that saith he is in He that saith he the light, and hateth is in the light, and his brother, is in the hateth his brother, is darkness even until in darkness even until now. He that loveth now. He that loveth his brother abideth in his brother abideth in the light, and there is the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling none occasion of stumbling in him. But he in him. But he that hateth his brother that hateth his brother is in the darkness, and is in darkness, and walketh in the darkness, walketh in darkness, and knoweth not and knoweth not whither whither he goeth, because he goeth, because the darkness that darkness hath hath blinded his eyes.

blinded his eyes.

ANOTHER VERSION.

Beloved, no fresh commandment I am writing unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The commandment, the old commandment, is the word which ye heard. Again, a fresh commandment I am writing unto you, which thing [_as a whole_]

is true in Him and in you: because the shadow is drifting by, and the light, the very _light_, is already enlightening.

He that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother, in the darkness is he hitherto. He that loveth his brother in the light abideth he, and scandal in him there is not. But he that hateth his brother in the darkness is he, and in the darkness walketh he, and he knoweth not whither he goeth because the darkness hath blinded his eyes.

SECTION III. (3)

GREEK. LATIN.