Expositor's Bible: The Epistles of St. John Part 24

The idea of victory is almost[290] exclusively confined to St. John's writings. The idea is first expressed by Jesus--"be of good cheer: I have conquered the world."[291] The first prelusive touch in the Epistle, hints at the fulfilment of the Saviour's comfortable word in one cla.s.s of the Apostle's spiritual children. "I write unto you, young men, because ye have conquered the wicked one. I have written unto you, young men, because ye have conquered the wicked one."[292]

Next, a bolder and ampler strain--"ye are of G.o.d, little children, and have conquered them: because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world."[293] Then with a magnificent persistence, the trumpet of Christ wakens echoes to its music all down and round the defile through which the host is pa.s.sing--"all that is born of G.o.d conquereth the world: and this is the conquest that has conquered the world--the Faith which is ours."[294] When, in St. John's other great book, we pa.s.s with the seer into Patmos, the air is, indeed, "full of noises and sweet sounds." But dominant over all is a storm of triumph, a pa.s.sionate exultation of victory. Thus each epistle to each of the seven Churches closes with a promise "to him that _conquereth_."

The text promises _two_ forms of victory.

1. A victory is promised to the Church universal. "_All that_ is born of G.o.d conquereth the world." This conquest is concentrated in, almost identified with "the Faith." Primarily, in this place, the term (here alone found in our Epistle) is not the faith by _which we believe_, but the Faith _which is_ believed--as in some other places;[295] not faith subjective, but The Faith objectively.[296] Here is the dogmatic principle. The Faith involves definite knowledge of definite principles. The religious knowledge, which is not capable of being put into definite propositions, we need not trouble ourselves greatly about. But we are guarded from over-dogmatism. The word "of us" which follows "the Faith" is a mediating link between the objective and the subjective. First, we possess this Faith as a common heritage. Then, as in the Apostle's creed we begin to individualise this common possession by prefixing "I believe" to every article of it. Then the victory contained in the creed, the victory which the creed _is_ (for more truly again than of Duty may it be said of Faith, "thou who _art victory_"[297]), is made over to each who believes. Each, and each alone, who in soul is ever believing, in practice is ever victorious.

This declaration is full of promise for missionary work. There is no system of error, however ancient, subtle, or highly organised, which must not go down before the strong collective life of the regenerate.

No less encouraging is it at home. No form of sin is incapable of being overthrown. No school of anti-Christian thought is invulnerable or invincible. There are other apostates besides Julian who will cry--"Galilaee, vicisti!"

2. The second victory promised is individual, for each of us. Not only where cathedral-spires lift high the triumphant cross; on battle-fields which have added kingdoms to Christendom; by the martyr's stake, or in the arena of the Coliseum, have these words proved true. The victory comes down to us. In hospitals, in shops, in courts, in ships, in sick-rooms, they are fulfilled for us. We see their truth in the patience, sweetness, resignation, of little children, of old men, of weak women. They give a high consecration and a glorious meaning to much of the suffering that we see. What, we are sometimes tempted to cry--is _this_ Christ's Army? are these His soldiers, who can go anywhere and do anything? Poor weary ones! with white lips, and the beads of death-sweat on their faces, and the thorns of pain ringed like a crown round their foreheads; so wan, so worn, so tired, so suffering, that even our love dares not pray for them to live a little longer yet. Are these the elect of the elect, the vanguard of the regenerate, who carry the flag of the cross where its folds are waved by the storm of battle; whom St. John sees advancing up the slope with such a burst of cheers and such a swell of music that the words--"this is the conquest"--spring spontaneously from his lips? Perhaps the angels answer with a voice which we cannot hear--"whatsoever is born of G.o.d conquereth the world." May we fight so manfully that each may render if not his "pure" yet his purified

"soul unto his captain Christ, Under whose colours he hath fought so long:"

--that we may know something of the great text in the Epistle to the Romans, with its matchless translation--"we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us"[298]--that arrogance of victory which is at once so splendid and so saintly.

FOOTNOTES:

[276] This is expressed, after St. John's fashion, by the neuter, pa?

t? ?e?e???e??? e? t?? Te??. ver. 4.

[277] ? p?st?? ???, ver. 4.

[278] ? ????? t?? ??s??, ? p?ste???, ver. 5.

[279] 1 John ii. 29.

[280] 1 John iv. 7.

[281] John iii. 5.

[282] sf?d?a a????at?d?? ?a? s??te???? e???e???. Euseb.

[283]

??????????? ???. Ver. 4.

???????????? ??????? ?????. Ver. 5.

??????????? ???. Ver. 6. Psalm lx.x.xvii.

[284]

"Both they who sing and they who dance, With sacred song are there; In thee fresh brooks and soft streams glance, And all my fountains clear."

MILTON, Paraphrase Ps. lx.x.xvii. 7.

This, on the whole, seems to be considered the most tenable interpretation.

[285] S? e? ? d?das?a??? t?? ?s?a??; John iii. 10.

[286] John i. 26, ii. 6, 9, iii. 5-22, iv. 6-16, v. 3, vii. 37, 39, ix. 7, xiii. 1-5, xix. 34.

[287] Hooker, _E. P._, V. lix. (4).

[288] So the perfect is used throughout. ?e?e???ta?. ii. 29, iii. 9, iv. 7. pa? t? ?e?e???e???. v. 4. Very remarkably below, pa? ?

?e?e???e???--a??a ? ?e????e?? e? t?? Te??; the first of the regenerate man who continues in that condition of grace, the second of the Begotten Son of G.o.d who keeps His servant. 1 John v. 18.

[289] _Training of children; or How to Make the Children into Saints and Soldiers of Jesus Christ._ By the General of the Salvation Army.

London: Salvation Army Book Stores, pp. 162, 163.

[290] Not quite, cf. Rom. viii. 37, xii, 21; 1 Cor. xv. 55, 57. The substantive ???? occurs only 1 John v. 4. A slightly different form (?????) is in Matt. xii. 20; 1 Cor. xv. 54, 55, 57.

[291] John xvi. 33.

[292] John ii. 13, 14.

[293] 1 John iv. 4.

[294] It does not seem possible to convey to the English reader the fourfold harping upon the word (1 John v. 4, 5) by any other rendering.

"The _victory_ that hath _overcome_ the world" (R.V.) fails in this. The n.o.ble translation of ?pe?????e? (Rom. viii. 37), happily retained by the Revisers, is rendered consistent by the translation here proposed.

[295] Apoc. ii. 13, xiv. 12.

[296] Fides _quae creditur_, not _qua creditur_.

[297]

"Thou who art victory!" WORDSWORTH, _Ode to Duty_.

[298] ?pe?????e?. Rom. viii. 37.

DISCOURSE XII.

_THE GOSPEL AS A GOSPEL OF WITNESS; THE THREE WITNESSES._

"It is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear witness, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of G.o.d is greater, for this is the witness of G.o.d which He hath testified of His Son. He that believeth on the Son of G.o.d hath the witness in himself."--1 JOHN v. 6-10.

It has been said that Apostles and apostolic men were as far as possible removed from common-sense, and have no conception of evidence in our acceptation of the word. About this statement there is scarcely even superficial plausibility. Common-sense is the measure of ordinary human tact among palpable realities. In relation to human existence it is the balance of the estimative faculties; the instinctive summary of inductions which makes us rightly credulous and rightly incredulous, which teaches us the supreme lesson of life, when to say "yes," and when to say "no." Uncommon sense is superhuman tact among no less real but at present impalpable realities; the spiritual faculty of forming spiritual inductions aright. So St. John among the three great canons of primary truth with which he closes his Epistle writes--"we know that the Son of G.o.d hath come and is present, and hath given us understanding, that we know Him who is true."[299] So with _evidences_. Apostles did not draw them out with the same logical precision, or rather not in the same logical form, which the modern spirit demands. Yet they rested their conclusions upon the same abiding principle of evidence, the primary axiom of our entire social life--that there is a degree of human evidence which practically cannot deceive. "If we receive the witness of men." The form of expression implies that we certainly do.[300]

Peculiar difficulty has been felt in understanding the paragraph. And one portion of it remains difficult after any explanation. But we shall succeed in apprehending it as a whole only upon condition of taking one guiding principle of interpretation with us.

The word _witness_ is St. John's central thought here. He is determined to beat it into the minds of his readers by the most unsparing iteration. He repeats it ten times over, as substantive or verb, in six verses.[301] His object is to turn our attention to his Gospel, and to this distinguishing feature of it--its being from beginning to end a Gospel of _witness_. This witness he declares to be fivefold. (1) The witness of the Spirit, of which the fourth Gospel is pre-eminently full. (2) The witness of the Divine Humanity, of the G.o.d-Man who is not man deified, but G.o.d humanified. This verse is no doubt partly polemical, against heretics of the day, who would clip the great picture of the Gospel, and force it into the petty frame of their theory. This is He (the Apostle urges) who came on the stage of the world's and the Church's history[302] as the Messiah, under the condition, so to speak, of water and blood;[303] bringing with Him, accompanied by, not the water only, but the water and the blood.[304]

Cerinthus separated the Christ, the divine aeon, from Jesus the holy but mortal man. The two, the divine potency and the human existence, met at the waters of Jordan, on the day of the Baptism, when the Christ united Himself to Jesus. But the union was brief and unessential. Before the crucifixion, the divine ideal Christ withdrew.

The man suffered. The impa.s.sible immortal potency was far away in heaven. St. John denies the fortuitous juxta-position of two accidentally-united existences. We worship one Lord Jesus Christ, attested not only by Baptism in Jordan, the witness of water, but by the death on Calvary, the witness of blood. He came by water and blood, as the means by which His office was manifested; but with the water and with the blood, as the sphere in which He exercises that office. When we turn to the Gospel, and look at the pierced side, we read of blood and water, the order of actual history and physiological fact. But here St. John takes the ideal, mystical, sacramental order, water and blood--cleansing and redemption--and the sacraments which perpetually symbolise and convey them. Thus we have Spirit, water, blood. Three are they who are ever witnessing.[305] These are three great centres round which St. John's Gospel turns.[306] These are the three genuine witnesses, the trinity of witness, the shadow of the Trinity in heaven. (3) Again the fourth Gospel is a Gospel of human witness, a tissue woven out of many lines of human attestation. It records the cries of human souls overheard and noted down at the supreme crisis-moment of life, from the Baptist, Philip, and Nathanael, to the everlasting spontaneous creed of Christendom on its knees before Jesus, the cry of Thomas ever rushing molten from a heart of fire--"my Lord and my G.o.d." (4) But if we receive, as we a.s.suredly must and do receive, the overpowering and soul-subduing ma.s.s of attesting human evidence, how much more must we receive the Divine witness, the witness of G.o.d so conspicuously exhibited in the Gospel of St. John! "The witness of G.o.d is greater, because _this_" (even the history in the pages to which he adverts) "is the witness; because" (I say with triumphant reiteration) "He hath witnessed concerning His Son."[307] This witness of G.o.d in the last Gospel is given in four forms--by Scripture,[308] by the Father,[309] by the Son Himself,[310]

by His works.[311] (5) This great volume of witness is consummated and brought home by another. He who not merely coldly a.s.sents to the word of Christ, but lifts the whole burden of his belief on to the Son of G.o.d,[312] hath the witness in him. That which was logical and external becomes internal and experimental.

In this ever-memorable pa.s.sage, all scholars know that an interpolation has taken place. The words--"in heaven the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth"--are a gloss. A great sentence of one of the first of critics may well rea.s.sure any weak believers who dread the candour of Christian criticism, or suppose that it has impaired the evidence for the great dogma of the Trinity. "If the fourth century knew that text, let it come in, in G.o.d's name; but if that age did not know it, then Arianism in its height was beaten down without the help of that verse; and, let the _fact_ prove as it will, the _doctrine_ is unshaken."[313] The human material with which they have been clamped should not blind us to the value of the heavenly jewels which seemed to be marred by their earthly setting.