Expositor's Bible: The Epistles of St. John Part 14

G?af? ???, te???a, Scribo vobis, filioli, ?t? afe??ta? ??? a? quoniam remittentur ?a?t?a? d?a t? ???a vobis, peccata propter a?t??. ??af? ???, pate?e?, nomen eius. Scribo ?t? e????ate t?? vobis, patres, quoniam ap' a????. ??af? ???, cognovistis eum qui ?ea??s???, ?t? ?e?????ate ab initio est. Scribo t?? p??????. e??a?a vobis, adolescentes, ???, pa?d?a, ?t? e????ate quoniam vicistis malignum.

t?? pate?a. e??a?a Scribo vobis, ???, pate?e?, ?t? infantes, quia cognovistis e????ate t?? ap' a????. patrem. Scripsi ???a?a ???, ?ea??s???, vobis, iuvenes quia ?t? ?s????? este, ?a? fortes estis et verb.u.m ? ????? t?? Te?? e? Dei in vobis manet et ??? e?e?, ?a? ?e?????ate vicistis malignum. Nolite t?? p??????. ? a?apate diligere mundum t?? ??s??, ?de ta ne que eaquae in mundo e? t? ??s?. ea? t?? sunt. Si quis diligit a?apa t?? ??s??, ??? mundum, non est est?? ? a?ap? t?? caritas Patris in eo: pat??? e? a?t?? ?t? quoniam omne quod in pa? t? e? t? ??s?, mundo est, concupiscentia ? ep????a t?? sa???? carnis est, et ?a? ? ep????a t?? concupiscentia oculorum, ?f?a??? ?a? ? a?a????a et superbia vitae; t?? ???, ??? quae non est ex Patre, est?? e? t?? pat???, sed ex mundo est. Et a??a e? t?? ??s?? est??? mundus transibit et ?a? ? ??s?? pa?a?eta? concupiscentia eius: ?a? ? ep????a a?t??? qui autem facit voluntatem ? de p???? t? ?e??a Dei, manet in t?? Te?? e?e? e?? t?? eternum.

a???a.

AUTHORISED VERSION. REVISED VERSION.

I write unto you, I write unto you, my little children, because little children, because your sins are forgiven your sins are forgiven you for His name's you for His name's sake. I write unto sake. I write unto you, fathers, because you, fathers, because ye have known Him ye know Him that is that is from the beginning. from the beginning. I I write unto you, write unto you, young young men, because ye men, because ye have have overcome the overcome the evil one.

wicked one. I write I have written unto unto you, little children, you, little children, because because ye have ye know the known the Father. I Father. I have written have written unto you, unto you, fathers, because fathers, because ye ye know Him have known Him that which is from the is from the beginning. beginning. I have I have written unto written unto you, you, young men, because young men, because ye ye are strong, are strong, and the and the word of G.o.d word of G.o.d abideth abideth in you, and ye in you, and ye have have overcome the overcome the evil one.

wicked one. Love not Love not the world, the world, neither the neither the things that things that are in the are in the world. If world. If any man any man love the love the world, the world, the love of the love of the Father is Father is not in him.

not in him. For all For all that is in the that is in the world, world, the l.u.s.t of the the l.u.s.t of the flesh, flesh, and the l.u.s.t of and the l.u.s.t of the the eyes, and the vainglory eyes, and the pride of of life, is not of life, is not of the Father, the Father, but is of but is of the world. the world. And the And the world pa.s.seth world pa.s.seth away, away, and the l.u.s.t and the l.u.s.t thereof: thereof: but he that but he that doeth the doeth the will of G.o.d will of G.o.d abideth for abideth for ever. ever.

ANOTHER VERSION.

I am writing unto you, children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake. I am writing unto you, fathers, because ye have knowledge of Him who is from the beginning. I am writing unto you, young men, because ye are conquerors of the wicked one.

I have written unto you, little children, because ye have knowledge of the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have knowledge of Him who is from the beginning.

I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong and the word of G.o.d abideth in you, and ye are conquerors of the wicked one.

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the l.u.s.t of the flesh and the l.u.s.t of the eyes and the arrogancy of living, is not from the Father, but from the world is it.

And the world is drifting by, and the l.u.s.t of it: but he that is doing the will of G.o.d abideth for ever.

DISCOURSE VI.

_THE WORLD WHICH WE MUST NOT LOVE._

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the l.u.s.t of the flesh, and the l.u.s.t of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but of the world."--1 JOHN ii. 15, 16.

An adequate development of words so compressed and pregnant as these would require a separate treatise, or series of treatises.[179] But if we succeed in grasping St. John's conception of _the world_, we shall have a key that will open to us this cabinet of spiritual thought.

I.

In the writings of St. John the world is always found in one or other of four senses, as may be decided by the context. (1) It means the creation,[180] the universe. So our Lord in His High-priestly prayer--"Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world."[181] (2) It is used for the earth _locally_ as the place where man resides;[182] and whose soil the Son of G.o.d trod for awhile. "I am no more in the world, but these are in the world."[183] (3) It denotes the chief inhabitants of the earth, they to whom the counsels of G.o.d mainly point--men universally. Such a transference is common in nearly all languages. Both the inhabitants of a building and the material structure which contains them, are called "a house;" and the inhabitants are frequently bitterly blamed, while the beauty of the structure is pa.s.sionately admired. In this sense there is a magnificent width in the word _world_. We cannot but feel indignant at attempts to gird its grandeur within the narrow rim of a human system.

"The bread that I will give," said He who knew best, "is My flesh which I will give for the life of the world."[184] "He is the propitiation for the whole world," writes the Apostle at the beginning of this chapter. In this sense, if we would imitate Christ, if we would aspire to the Father's perfection, "love not the world" must be tempered by that other tender oracle--"G.o.d so loved the world."[185]

In none of these senses can the world here be understood.[186]

There remains then (4) a fourth signification, which has two allied shades of thought. World is employed to cover the whole present existence, with its blended good and evil--susceptible of elevation by grace, susceptible also of deeper depths of sin and ruin. But yet again the indifferent meaning pa.s.ses into one that is wholly evil, wholly within a region of darkness. The first creation was p.r.o.nounced by G.o.d in each department "good" collectively; when crowned by G.o.d's masterpiece in man, "very good."[187] "All things," our Apostle tells us, "were made through Him (the Word), and without Him was not any thing made that was made."[188] But as that was a world wholly good, so is this a world wholly evil. This evil world is not G.o.d's creation, drew not its origin from Him. All that is _in_ it came out _from_ it, from nothing _higher_.[189] This wholly evil world is not the material creation; if it were, we should be landed in dualism, or Manicheism.

It is not an ent.i.ty, an actual tangible thing, a creation. It is not of G.o.d's world that St. John cries in that last fierce word of abhorrence which he flings at it as he sees the shadowy thing like an evil spirit made visible in an idol's arms--"the world lieth wholly in the evil one."[190]

This anti-world, this caricature of creation, this thing of negations, is spun out of three abuses of the endowment of G.o.d's glorious gift of free-will to man; out of three n.o.ble instincts ign.o.bly used. _First_, "the l.u.s.t of the flesh"--of which flesh is the seat, and supplies the organic medium through which it works. The flesh is that softer part of the frame which by the network of the nerves is intensely susceptible of pleasurable and painful sensations; capable of heroic patient submission to the higher principles of conscience and spirit,[191] capable also of frightful rebellion. Of all theologians St. John is the least likely to fall into the exaggeration of libelling the flesh as essentially evil. Is it not he who, whether in his Gospel, or in his Epistles, delights to speak of the _flesh_ of Jesus, to record words in which He refers to it?[192]

Still the flesh brings us into contact with all sins which are sins that spring from, and end in, the senses. Shall we ask for a catalogue of particulars from St. John? Nay, we cannot expect that the virgin Apostle, who received the virgin Mother from the Virgin Lord upon the cross, will sully his virgin pen with words so abhorred. When he has uttered _the l.u.s.t of the flesh_ his shudder is followed by an eloquent silence. We can fill up the blank too well--drunkenness, gluttony, thoughts and motions which spring from deliberate, wilfully cherished, rebellious sensuality; which fill many of us with pain and fear, and wring cries and bitter tears from penitents, and even from saints. The _second_, abuse of free-will, the second element in this world which is not G.o.d's world, is the desire of which the eyes are the seat--"the l.u.s.t of the eyes." To the two sins which we instinctively a.s.sociate with this phrase--voluptuousness and curiosity of the senses or the soul--Scripture might seem to add _envy_, which derives so much of its aliment from sight. In this lies the Christian's warning against wilfully indulging in evil sights, bad plays, bad books, bad pictures.

He who is outwardly the spectator of these things becomes inwardly the actor of them. The eye is, so to speak, the burning-gla.s.s of the soul; it draws the rays from their evil brightness to a focus, and may kindle a raging fire in the heart. Under this department comes unregulated spiritual or intellectual curiosity. The first need not trouble us so much as it did Christians in a more believing time.

Comparatively very few are in danger from the _planchette_ or from astrology. But surely it is a rash thing for an ordinary mind, without a clear call of duty, without any adequate preparation, to place its faith within the deadly grip of some powerful adversary. People really seem to have absolutely no conscience about reading anything--the last philosophical Life of Christ, or the last romance; of which the t.i.tles might be with advantage exchanged, for the philosophical history is a light romance, and the romance is a heavy philosophy. The _third_ const.i.tuent in the evil anti-trinity of the anti-world is "the pride"

(the arrogancy, gasconade, almost swagger) "of life," of which the lower life[193] is the seat. The thought is not so much of outward pomp and ostentation as of that false pride which arises in the heart.

The arrogancy is within; the gasconade plays its "fantastic tricks before high heaven." And each of these three elements (making up as they do collectively all that is "in the world" and springing out of the world) is not a substantive thing, not an original ingredient of man's nature, or among the forms of G.o.d's world; it is the perversion of an element which had a use that was n.o.ble, or at least innocent.

For first comes "the l.u.s.t of the flesh." Take those two objects to which this l.u.s.t turns with a fierce and perverted pa.s.sion. The possession of flesh in itself leads man to crave for the necessary support to his native weakness. The mutual craving for the love of beings so like and so unlike as man and woman, if it be a weakness, has at least a most touching and exquisite side. Again, is not a yearning for beauty gratified through the eyes? Were they not given for the enjoyment, for the teaching, at once high and sweet, of Nature and of Art? Art may be a moral and spiritual discipline. The ideas of Beauty from gifted minds by cunning hands transferred to, and stamped upon, outward things, come from the ancient and uncreated Beauty, whose beauty is as perfect as His truth and strength. Still further; in the lower life, and in its lawful use, there was intended to be a something of quiet satisfaction, a certain restfulness, at times making us happy and triumphant. And lo! for all this, not moderate fare and pure love, not thoughtful curiosity and the sweet pensiveness which is the best tribute to the beautiful--not a wise humility which makes us feel that our times are in G.o.d's hands and our means His continual gift--but degraded senses, low art, evil literature, a pride which is as grovelling as it is G.o.dless.

These three typical summaries of the evil tendencies in the exercise of free-will correspond with a remarkable fulness to the two narratives of trial which give us the compendium and general outline of all human temptation.

Our Lord's three temptations answer to this division. The l.u.s.t of the flesh is in essence the rebellion of the lower appet.i.tes, inherent to creaturely dependence, against the higher principle or law. The nearest and only conceivable approach to this in the sinless Man would be in His seeking lawful support by unlawful means--procuring food by a miraculous exertion of power, which only would have become sinful, or short of the highest goodness, by some condition of its exercise at that time and in that place. An appeal to the desire for beauty and glory, with an implied hint of using them for G.o.d's greater honour, is the essence of the second temptation; the one possible approximation to the "l.u.s.t of the eyes" in that perfect character. The interior deception of some touch of pride in the visible support of angels wafting the Son of G.o.d through the air is Satan's one sinister way of insinuating to the Saviour something akin to "the pride of life."

In the case of the other earlier typical trials it will be observed that while the temptations fit into the same threefold framework, they are placed in an order which exactly reverses that of St. John. For in Eden the first approach is through "pride"; the magnificent promise of elevation in the scale of being, of the knowledge that would win the wonder of the spiritual world. "For G.o.d doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as G.o.ds, knowing good and evil."[194] The next step is that which directs the curiosity both of the senses and of the aspiring mind to the object forbidden--"when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise."[195] Then seems to have come some strange and sad rebellion of the lower nature, filling their souls with shame; some bitter revelation of the law of sin in their members; some knowledge that they were contaminated by the "l.u.s.t of the flesh."[196] The order of the temptation in the narrative of Moses is historical; St. John's order is moral and spiritual, answering to the facts of life. The "l.u.s.t of the flesh" which may approach the child through childish greed, grows apace.

At first it is half unconscious; then it becomes coa.r.s.e and palpable. In the man's desire acting with unregulated curiosity, through ambition of knowledge at any price, searching out for itself books and other instruments with deliberate desire to kindle l.u.s.t, the "l.u.s.t of the eyes" ceases not its fatal influence. The crowning sin of pride with its _selfishness_, which is self apart from G.o.d as well as from the brother, finds its place in the "pride of life."

III.

We may now be in a position to see more clearly against _what_ world the Primate of early Christendom p.r.o.nounced his anathema, and launched his interdict, and why?

_What_ "world" did he denounce?

Clearly _not_ the world as the creation, the universe. Not again the earth locally. G.o.d made and ordered all things. Why should we not love them with a holy and a blameless love? Only we should not love them in themselves; we should not cling to them forgetting Him. Suppose that some husband heaped beautiful and costly presents upon his wife whom he loved. At last with the intuition of love he begins to see what is the secret of such cold imitation of love as that icy heart can give.

She loves _him_ not--his riches, not the man; his gifts, not the giver. And thus loving with that frigid love which has no heart in it, there is no true love; her heart is another's. Gifts are given that the giver may be loved in them. If it is true that "gifts are nought when givers prove unkind," it is also true that there is a sort of adultery of the heart when the taker is unkind--because the gift is valuable, not because the bestower is dear.[197] And so the world, G.o.d's beautiful world, now becomes to us an idol. If we are so lost in the procession of Nature, in the march of law, in the majestic growth, in the stars above and in the plants below, that we forget the Lawgiver, who from such humble beginnings has brought out a world of beauty and order; if with modern poets we find content, calm, happiness, purity, rest, simply in contemplating the glaciers, the waves, and the stars; then we look at the world even in this sense in a way which is a violation of St. John's rule. Yet again, the world which is now condemned is not humanity. There is no real Christianity in taking black views, and speaking bitter things, about the human society to which we belong, and the human nature of which we are partakers. No doubt Christianity believes that man "is very far gone from original righteousness;" that there is a "corruption in the nature of every man that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam." Yet the utterers of unwholesome apophthegms, the suspecters of their kind, are not Christian thinkers. The philosophic historian, whose gorge rose at the doctrine of the Fall, thought much worse of man practically than the Fathers of the Church. They bowed before martyrdom and purity, and believed in them with a child-like faith.

For Gibbon, the martyr was not quite so true, nor the virgin quite so pure, nor the saint quite so holy. He Who knew human nature best, Who has thrown that terrible ray of light into the unlit gulf of the heart when He tells us "what proceeds out of the heart of man,"[198] had yet the ear which was the first to hear the trembling of the one chord that yet kept healthful time and tune in the harlot's pa.s.sionate heart. He believed that man was recoverable; lost, but capable of being found. After all, in this sense there is something worthy of love in man. "G.o.d so _loved_" (not so _hated_) "the world, that He gave His only begotten Son." Shall we say that _we_ are to hate the world which He loved?

And now we come to that world which G.o.d never loved, never will love, never will reconcile to Himself,--which we are not to love.

This is most important to see; for there is always a danger in setting out with a stricter standard than Christ's, a narrower road than the narrow one which leads to heaven. Experience proves that they who begin with standards of duty which are impossibly high end with standards of duty which are sometimes sadly low. Such men have tried the impracticable, and failed; the practicable seems to be too hard for them ever afterwards. They who begin by anathematising the world in things innocent, indifferent, or even laudable, not rarely end by a reaction of thought which believes that the world is nothing and nowhere.

But there is such a thing as the world in St. John's sense--an evil world brought into existence by the abuse of our free-will; filled by the anti-trinity, by "the l.u.s.t of the flesh, the l.u.s.t of the eyes, and the pride of life."

Let us not confuse "the world" with the earth, with the whole race of man, with general society, with any particular set, however much some sets are to be avoided. Look at the thing fairly. Two people, we will say, go to London, to live there. One, from circ.u.mstances of life and position, naturally falls into the highest social circle. Another has introductions to a smaller set, with an apparently more serious connection. Follow the first some evening. He drives to a great gathering. The room which he enters is ablaze with light; jewelled orders sparkle upon men's coats, and fair women move in exquisite dresses. We look at the scene and we say--"what worldly society has the man fallen into!" Perhaps so, in a sense. But about the same time the other walks to a little room with humbler adjuncts, where a grave and apparently serious circle meet together. We are able to look in there also, and we exclaim--"this is serious society, unworldly society." Perhaps so again. Yet let us read the letters of Mary G.o.dolphin. She bore a life unspotted by the world in the dissolute court of Charles II., because the love of the Father was in her. In small serious circles are there no hidden l.u.s.ts which blaze up in scandals? Is there no vanity, no pride, no hatred? In the world of Charles II.'s court Mary G.o.dolphin lived out of the world which G.o.d hated; in the religious world not a few, certainly, live in the world which is not G.o.d's. For once more, the world is not so much a place--though at times its power seems to have been drawn into one intense focus, as in the empire of which Rome was the centre, and which may have been in the Apostle's thought in the following verse.

In the truest and deepest sense the world consists of our own spiritual surrounding; it is the place which we make for our own souls. No walls that ever were reared can shut out the world from us; the "Nun of Kenmare" found that it followed her into the seemingly spiritual retreat of a severe Order. The world in its essence is subtler and thinner than the most infinitesimal of the bacterian germs in the air. They can be strained off by the exquisite apparatus of a man of science. At a certain height they cease to exist. But the world may be wherever we are; we carry it with us wherever we go, it lasts while our lives last. No consecration can utterly banish it even from within the church's walls; it dares to be round us while we kneel, and follows us into the presence of G.o.d.

(2) Why does G.o.d hate this "world"--the world in this sense? St. John tells us. "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." Deep in every heart must be one or other of two loves. There is no room for two master-pa.s.sions. There is an expulsive power in all true affection. What tenderness and pathos, how much of expostulation, more potent because reserved--"the love of the Father is not in him"!

He has told all his "little ones" that he has written to them because they "know the Father." St. John does not use sacred names at random.

Even Voltaire felt that there was something almost awful in hearing Newton p.r.o.nounce the name of G.o.d. Such in an incomparably higher degree is the spirit of St. John. In this section he writes of "the love of the _Father_,"[199] and of the "will of _G.o.d_."[200] The first t.i.tle has more sweetness than majesty; the second more majesty than sweetness.[201] He would throw into his plea some of the winningness of one who uses this as a resistless argument with a tempted but loving child--an argument often successful when every other fails. "If you do this, your Father will not love you; you will not be His child." We have but to read this with the hearts of G.o.d's dear children. Then we shall find that if the "love not" of this verse contains "words of extirpation;"[202] it ends with others which are intended to draw us with cords of a man, and with bands of love.

FOOTNOTES:

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

[180] The word ??s?? 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 pa.s.sed 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. ??s??

does not appear as the translation of ????? 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).

[181] John xvii. 24.

[182] In Hebrew ?????? habitable globe; translated ?????e?? in LXX.

(see Psalm lx.x.xix. 11).

[183] John v. 11.

[184] John vi. 31; 1 John ii. 2.