Teaching

262 CHAPTER XI. THEOLOGY OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH. birth compared with the old, a birth “from God,” as compared with that from man, a birth from the Holy “Spirit,” in distinction from carnal birth, a birth “from heaven,” as opposed to earthly birth. The life of the believer does not descend through the channels of fallen nature, but requires a creative act of the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the gospel. The life of the regenerate is free from the principle and power of sin. “Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin, because his seed abideth in him; and he cannot sin because he is begotten of God.”821 Over him the devil has no power.

The new life is the life of Christ in the soul. It is eternal intrinsically and as to duration. Eternal life in man consists in the knowledge of the only true God and of Jesus Christ—a knowledge which implies full sympathy and communion of love.822 It begins here in faith; hence the oft-repeated declaration that he who believes in Christ has (έχει) eternal life.823 But it will not appear in its full development till the time of his glorious manifestation, when we shall be like him and see him even as classical section on the new birth is Christ’s discourse with Nicodemus, 3:1-15. The terms γεννηθηναι άνωθεν, to be born anew, afresh, or from above, i. e., from heaven, Comp. 3:31; 19:11 (the reference is not to a repetition, again, a second time, παλ ιν, δευτ ερον, but to an analogous process); 3: 6, 7; γεν ηθην αι εξ υδ ατος –ϊκαὶ–ιϊπνεύματος of water (baptism) and spirit, 3:5;ἐκ θεου, of God, ἐκ του οὐρανουf rom heaven, are equivalent. John himself most frequently uses ἐκ θεου,1:13; 1 John 2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1, 4, 18. He does not use ἀναγεννάομαι , to be begotten or born again (but it occurs in Justin Martyr’s quotation, Apol. I. 61; also in 1 Pet. 1:23, ἄαγεννημένοι ... διὰ λόγου ζωντος θεου,and 1 Pet. 1:3, ἀναγεννήσας ἡμας είς ἐλπίδα), and the noun ἀναγέννησις, regeneration, is not found at all in the Greek Test. (though often in the Greek fathers); but the analogous παλιγγενεσία occurs once in connection with baptism, Tit. 3:5 (έσωσεν ἡμας δαὶ λουτρου παλιγγενεσίας καὶ ἀνακαινώσεως πνεύματος ἁγίου), and once in a more comprehensive sense of the final restitution and consummation of all things, Matt. 19:18. Paul speaks of the new creature in Christ (καινὴ κτίσις , 2 Cor. 5:17) and of the new (καινὸς ἄνθρωπος ,Eph. 4:24). In the Rabbinical theology regeneration meant simply the change of the external status of a proselyte to Judaism. 821 1 John 3:9; comp. 5:18. But 5:16 implies that a “brother” may sin, though not “unto death,” and 1:10 also excludes the idea of absolute freedom from sin in the present state 822 John 17:3, words of our Lord in the sacerdotal prayer. 823 1 John 5:12, 13: ὁ ἔχων τὸν υἱὸν έχει τὴν ζωὴν ... ζωὴν ἔχετε αἰώνιον. Comp. the words of Christ, John 3:36; 5:24; 6:47, 54; and of the Evangelist, 20:31. he is.824 Faith is the medium of communication, the bond of union with Christ. Faith is the victory over the world, already here in principle.825 John’s idea of life eternal takes the place of Paul’s idea of righteousness, but both agree in the high conception of faith as the one indispensable condition of securing it by uniting us to Christ, who is both righteousness and life eternal.826 The life of the Christian, moreover, is a communion with Christ and with the Father in the Holy Spirit. Our Lord prayed before his passion that the believers of that and all future ages might be one with him, even as he is one with the Father, and that they may enjoy his glory. John writes his first Epistle for the purpose that his readers may have “fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ, and that thus their joy may be made full.”827 This fellowship is only another word for love, and love to God is inseparable from love to the brethren. “If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” “God is love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God and God abideth in him.” Love to the brethren is the true test of practical Christianity.828 This brotherly fellowship is the true essence of the Church, which is nowhere even mentioned in John’s Gospel and First Epistle.829 Love to God and to the brethren is no mere sentiment, but an active power, and manifests itself in the keeping of God’s commandments.830 Here again John and Paul meet in the idea of love, as the highest of the Christian graces which abides forever 824 1 John 3:2: οἱδαμεν ότι ἐὰν φανέρωθῃ (he, or it), ὅμοιοι αὐτῳ ἐσόμεθα, ότι οψόμεθα αὐτὸν καθώς ἐστιν. 825 1 John 5:4: αύτη ἐστὶν ἡ νικήσασα τὸν κόσμον, ἡ πίστις ἡμων. 826 John uses the term δικαιοσύνη, but never δικαίωσις orδικαιόω. A striking example of religious agreement and theological difference. 827 John 17:22-24; 1 John 1:3, 4. 828 1 John 3:11, 23; 4:7, 11; comp. John 13:34, 35; 15:12, 17. 829 The word ἐκκλησία occurs in the third Epistle, but in the sense of a local congregation. Of the external organization of the church John is silent; he does not even report the institution of the sacraments, though he speaks of the spiritual meaning of baptism (John 3:5), and indirectly of the spiritual meaning of the Lord’s Supper (6:53-56). 830 1 John 2:3, 4; 3:22, 24; 4:7, 11; 5:2, 3; 2 John 6; comp. the Gospel, John 14:15, 21: “If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments,” etc.

CHAPTER XII when faith shall have passed into sight, and hope into fruition.831

Notes.

The incarnation is expressed by John briefly and tersely in the phrase “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14).

I. The meaning of σάρξ. Apollinaris confined “flesh” to the body, including the animal soul, and taught that the Logos occupied the place of the rational soul or spirit (νους, πνευμα) in Christ; that consequently he was not a full man, but a sort of middle being between God and man, half divine and haIf human, not wholly divine and wholly human. This view was condemned as heretical by the Nicene church, but renewed substantially by the Tübingen school, as being the doctrine of John. According to Baur (l.c., p. 363) σάρξ ἐγενετοis not equivalent to (ἄνθρωπος ἐγένετο, but means that the Logos assumed a human body and continued otherwise the same. The incarnation was only an incidental phenomenon in the unchanging personality of the Logos. Moreover the flesh of Christ was not like that of other men, but almost immaterial, so at; to be able to walk on the lake (John 6:16; Comp. 7:10, 15; 8:59 10:39). To this exegesis we object: 1. John expressly ascribes to Christ a soul, John 10:11, 15, 17; 12:27 (ἡ ψυχῃ μου τετάρακται), and a spirit, 11:33 (εν εβριμησ ατο τῳ πνευμ ατι); 13:21 (ετ αραχθη τῳ πνευμ ατι); 19:30 (παρεδ ωκεν τὸ πνευμα). It may be said that pneu’ma is here nothing more than the animal soul, because the same affection is attributed to both, and because it was surrendered in death. But Christ calls himself in John frequently”the Son of man”1:51,etc.), and once ‘‘a man”(αν θρωπος, 8:40),which certainly must include the more important intellectual and spiritual part as well as the body. 2. “Flesh” is often used in the Old and New Testament for the whole man, as in the phrase “all flesh” (πασα σάρξ, every mortal man), or μία σαρξ(John 17:2; Rom. 3:20; 1 Cor. 1:29; Gal. 2:16). In this passage it suited John’s idea better than άνθρωπος,because it more strongly expresses the condescension of the Logos to the human nature in its present condition, with its weakness, trials, temptations, and sufferings. He completely identified himself with our earthly lot, and became homogeneous with us, even to the likeness, though not the essence, of sin (Rom. 8:3; comp. Heb. 2:14; 5:8, 9). “Flesh” then, when ascribed to Christ, has the same comprehensive meaning in John as it has in Paul (comp. also 1 Tim. 3:16). It is animated flesh, and the soul of that flesh contains the spiritual as 831 Rom. 13:7-10; 1 Cor. 13:1-13. well as the physical life.

II. Another difficulty is presented by the verb ἐγένετο. The champions of the modern Kenosis theory (Thomasius, Gess, Ebrard, Godet, etc.), while differing from the Apollinarian substitution of the Logos for a rational human soul in Christ, assert that the Logos himself because a human soul by voluntary transformation; and so they explain ejgevneto and the famous Pauline phrase ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν, μορφὴν δούλου λαβών(Phil. 2:7). As the water was changed into wine at Cana (John 2:9: Τὸ ύδωρ οἱνον γεγενημένον), so the Logos in infinite self-denial changed his divine being into a human being during the state of his humiliation, and thus led a single life, not a double life (as the Chalcedonian theory of two complete natures simultaneously coexisting in the same person from the manger to the cross seems to imply). But 1. The verb ἐγένετο must be understood in agreement with the parallel passages:, “he came in the flesh,” 1 John 4:2 (ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα); 2 John 7 (ἐρχόμενον ἐν σαρκι) , with this difference, that “became” indicates the realness of Christ’s manhood, “came” the continuance of his godhood. Compare also Paul’s expression, ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκι, 1 Tim. 3:16. 2. Whatever may be the objections to the Chalcedonian dyophysitism, they cannot be removed by running the Kenosis to the extent of a self-suspension of the Logos or an actual surrender of his essential attributes; for this is a metaphysical impossibility, and inconsistent with the unchangeableness of God and the intertrinitarian process. The Logos did not cease to be God when he entered into the human state of existence, nor did he cease to be man when he returned to the state of divine glory which he had with the Father before the foundation of the world.

III. Beyschlag (Die Christologie des N. T, p. 168) denies the identity of the Logos with Christ, and resolves the Logos into a divine principle, instead of a person. “Der Logos ist nicht die Person Christi ... sondern er ist das gottheitliche Princip dieser menschlichen Persönlichkeit.” He assumes a gradual unfolding of the Logos principle in the human person of Christ. But the personality of the Logos is taught in John 1:1–3, and ἐγένετοdenotes a completed act. We must remember, however, that personality in the trinity and personality of the Logos are different from personality of man. Human speech is inadequate to express the distinction.

§ 73. Heretical Perversions of the Apostolic Teaching.

(Comp. my Hist. of the Ap. Ch., pp. 649–674.)

The three types of doctrine which we have briefly