72. John and the Gospel of Love

zum Heil oder zum Verderben zu erschaffen und durch freie Machtwirkung diesem Ziele zuzuführen; aber er hat sich in Betreff des christlichen Heils dieses Rechtes nur insofern bedient, als er unabhängig von allem menschlichen Thun und Verdienen nach seinem unbeschränkten Willen bestimmt, an welche Bedingung er seine Gnade knüpfen will. Die Bedingung, an welche er seine Erwählung gebunden hat, ist nun nichts anders als die Liebe zu ihm, welche er an den empfänglichen Seelen vorhererkennt. Die Erwählten aber werden berufen, indem Gott durch das Evangelium in ihnen den Glauben wirkt.”

There can be no doubt that Paul teaches an eternal election to eternal salvation by free grace, an election which is to be actualized by faith in Christ and a holy life of obedience. But he does not teach a decree of reprobation or a predestination to sin and perdition (which would indeed be a “decretum horribile,” if verum). This is a logical invention of supralapsarian theologians who deem it to be the necessary counterpart of the decree of election. But man’s logic is not God’s logic. A decree ofreprobation is now here mentioned. The term αδ οκ ιμος,disapproved,worthless,reprobate, is used five times only as a description of character (twice of things). Romans 9 is the Gibraltar of supralapsarianism, but it must be explained in connection with Rom. 10–11, which present the other aspects. The strongest passage is Rom. 9:22, where Paul speaks of σκευή οῤ γης κατηρτισμεν α εἰς ἀπώλειαν. But he significantly uses here the passive: “fitted unto destruction,” or rather (as many of the best commentators from Chrysostom to Weiss take it) the middle: “who fitted themselves for destruction,” and so deserved it; while of the vessels of mercy he says that God “before prepared” them unto glory (σκεύη ἐλέους ἃ προητοίμασεν, 9:23). He studiously avoids to say of the vessels of wrath: ἃ κατήρτισεν, which would have corresponded to ὰ προητοίμασεν, and thus he exempts God from a direct and efficient agency in sin and destruction. When in 9:17, he says of Pharaoh, that God raised him up for the very purpose (εἰς αύτὸ τουτό ἐξήγειρά σε) that he might show in him His power, he does not mean that God created him or called him into existence (which would require a different verb), but, according to the Hebrew (Ex. 9:16, the hiphil of ), that “he caused him to stand forth” as actor in the scene; and when he says with reference to the same history that God “hardens whom he will” (Rom. 9:18. ὸν δέ θέλει σκληρύνει), it must be remembered that Pharaoh had already repeatedly hardened his own heart (Ex. 8:15, 32; 9:34, 35), so that God punished him for his sin and abandoned him to its consequences. God does not cause evil, but he bends, guides, and overrules it and often punishes sin with sin. “Das ist der Fluch der bösen That, dass sie, fortzeugend, immer Böses muss gebären.” (Schiller.)

In this mysterious problem of predestination Paul likewise faithfully carries out the teaching of his Master. For in the sublime description of the final judgment, Christ says to the “blessed of my Father:” “Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34), but to those on the left hand he says, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels” (25:41). The omission of the words “of my Father,” after “ye cursed,” and of the words, for you, “and, from the foundation of the world,” is very significant, and implies that while the inheritance of the kingdom is traced to the eternal favor of God, the damnation is due to the guilt of man.

IV. The doctrine of Justification. This occupies a prominent space in Paul’s system, though by no means to the disparagement of his doctrine of sanctification, which is treated with the same fulness even in Romans (comp. Rom. 6–8 and 12–15). Luther, in conflict with Judaizing Rome, overstated the importance of justification by faith when he called it the articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiae. This can only be said of Christ (comp. Matt. 16:16; 1 Cor. 3:11; 1 John 4:2, 3). It is not even the theme of the Epistle to the Romans, as often stated (e.g., by Farrar, St. Paul, II. 181); for it is there subordinated by γάρto the broader idea of salvation (σωτηρία), which is the theme (Rom 1:16, 17). Justification by faith is the way by which salvation can be obtained.

The doctrine of justification may be thus illustrated:

Δικαιοσύνη (,)

Δικαιοσύνη του νόμου Δικαιοσύνη του θεου ἐξ ἔργων ἐκ θεου ἰδία. τη ς πίστεως ἐκ τη ς πίστεως διὰ πίστεως Χριστου.

The cognate words are δικαιώ σις, δικαιώ μα, δικ αιος, δικαιοώ . The Pauline idea of righteousness is derived from the Old Testament, and is inseparable from the conception of the holy will of God and his revealed law. But the classical usage is quite consistent with it, and illustrates the biblical usage from a lower plane. The Greek words are derived from jus, right, and further back from. δίχα, or div”, two-fold, in two parts (according to Aristotle, Eth. Nic., v. 2); hence they indicate a well-pro-

256 CHAPTER XI. THEOLOGY OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH. portioned relation between parts or persons where each has his due. It may then apply to the relation between God and man, or to the relation between man and man, or to both at once. To the Greeks a righteous man was one who fulfils his obligations to God and man. It was a Greek proverb: “In righteousness all virtue is contained.”

Δικαιοσύνη( ) is an attribute of God, and a corresponding moral condition of man, i.e., man’s conformity to the will of God as expressed in his holy law. It is therefore identical with true religion, with piety and virtue, as required by God, and insures his favor and blessing. The word occurs (according to Bruder’s Concord.) sixty times in all the Pauline Epistles, namely: thirty-six times in Romans, four times in Galatians, seven times in 2 Corinthians, once in 1 Corinthians, four times in Philippians, three times in Ephesians, three times in 2 Timothy, once in 1 Timothy, and once in Titus.

Δίκαιος( ) righteous (rechtbeschaffen), is one who fulfils his duties to God and men, and is therefore well pleasing to God. It is used seventeen times by Paul (seven times in Romans), and often elsewhere in the New Testament.

Δικαίωσιςoccurs only twice in the New Test. (Rom. 4:25; 5:18). It signifies justification, or the act of God by which he puts the sinner into the possession of righteousness. Δικαιώ μα, which is fou Rom.1:32;2:26;5:16,18;8:4meansarighteousdecree,orjudgment. Aristotle (Eth. Nicom., v. 10) defines it as τὸ ἐπανόρθωμα του ἀδικήματος,the amendment of an evil deed, or a legal adjustment; and this would suit the passage in Rom. 5:16, 18.

The verb δικαιόω( , )occurs twenty-seven times in Paul, mostly in Romans, several times in the Synoptical Gospels, once in Acts, and three times in James 2:21, 24, 25. It may mean, etymologically, to make just, justificare (for the verbs in όω, derived from adjectives of the second declension, indicate the making of what the adjective denotes, e.g., δηλοώ , to make clear, φανεροώ , to reveal,τυφλόω, to blind); but in the Septuagint and the Greek Testament it hardly, ever has this meaning (“haec significatio,” says Grimm, “admodum rara, nisi prorsus dubia est”), and is used in a forensic or judicial sense: to declare one righteous (aliquem justum declarare, judicare). This justification of the sinner is, of course, not a legal fiction, but perfectly true, for it is based on the real righteousness of Christ which the sinner makes his own by faith, and must prove his own by a life of holy obedience, or good works. For further expositions see my annotations to Lange on Romans, pp. 74, 130, 136, 138; and my Com on Gal. 2:16, 17. On the imputation controversies see my essay in Lange on Romans 5:12, pp. 190–195. On the relation of Paul’s doctrine of justification to that of James, see § 69 of this vol. V. Paul’s doctrine of the Church has been stated in § 65 of this vol. But it requires more than one book to do anything like justice to the wonderful theology of this wonderful

§72. John and the Gospel of Love.

(See the Lit. in § 40 p. 405.)

General Character.

The unity of Jewish Christian and Gentile Christian theology meets us in the writings of John, who, in the closing decades of the first century, summed up the final results of the preceding struggles of the apostolic age and transmitted them to posterity. Paul had fought out the great conflict with Judaism and secured the recognition of the freedom and universality of the gospel for all time to come. John disposes of this question with one sentence: “The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”787 His theology marks the culminating height of divine knowledge in the apostolic age. It is impossible to soar higher than the eagle, which is his proper symbol.788 His views are so much identified with the words of his Lord, to whom he stood more closely related than any other disciple, that it is difficult to separate them; but the prologue to his Gospel contains his leading ideas, and his first Epistle the practical application. The theology of the Apocalypse is also essentially the same, and this goes far to confirm the identity of authorship.789 John was not a logician, but a seer; not a reasoner, but a mystic; he does not argue, but assert; he arrives at conclusions with one bound, as by direct intuition. He speaks from personal experience and testifies of that which his eyes have seen and his ears heard and his hands have handled, of the glory of the 787 John 1:17. 788 Herein Baur agrees with Neander and Schmid. He says of the Johannean type (l.c., p. 351): In ihm erreicht die neuteitamentliche Theologie ihre höchste Stufe und ihre vollendetste Form.” This admission makes it all the more impossible to attribute the fourth Gospel to a literary forger of the second century. See also some excellent remarks of Weiss, pp. 605 sqq., and the concluding chapter of Reuss on Paul and John. 789 For the theology of the Apocalypse as compared with that of the Gospel and Epistles of John, see especially Gebhardt, The Doctrine of the Apoc., transl. by Jefferson, Edinb., 1878.

Only-begotten of the Father full of grace and truth.790

John’s theology is marked by artless simplicity and spiritual depth. The highest art conceals art. As in poetry, so in religion, the most natural is the most perfect. He moves in a small circle of ideas as compared with Paul, but these ideas are fundamental and all-comprehensive. He goes back to first principles and sees the strong point without looking sideways or taking note of exceptions. Christ and Antichrist, believers and unbelievers, children of God and children of the devil, truth and falsehood, light and darkness, love and hatred, life and death: these are the great contrasts under which he views the religious world. These he sets forth again and again with majestic simplicity.

John and Paul.

John’s type of doctrine is less developed and fortified than Paul’s, but more ideal. His mind was neither so rich nor so strong, but it soared higher and anticipated the beatific vision. Although Paul was far superior to him as a scholar (and practical worker), yet the ancient Greek church saw in John the ideal theologian.791 John’s spirit and style may be compared to a calm, clear mountain-lake which reflects the image of the sun) moon, and stars, while Paul resembles the mountain-torrent that rushes over precipices and carries everything before it; yet there are trumpets of war in John, and anthems of peace in Paul. The one begins from the summit, with God and the Logos, the other from the depths of man’s sin and misery; but both meet in the God-man who brings God down to man and lifts man up to God. John is contemplative and serene, Paul is aggressive and polemical; but both unite in the victory of faith and the never-ending dominion of love. John’s theology is Christological, Paul’s soteriological; John starts from the person of Christ, Paul from his work; but their christology and soteriology are essentially agreed. John’s ideal is life eternal, Paul’s ideal is righteousness; but both derive it from the same source, the union with Christ, and find in this the highest happiness of man. John represents the church triumphant, Paul the church militant of his day and of our day, but with the full assurance of final victory even over the last enemy.

The Central Idea.

790 John 1:14 (ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτου) ; 1 John 1:1-3. 791 In the strictest sense of θεολόγος as the chief champion of the eternal deity of the Logos: John 1:1:θεός ην ὁ λόγος. So in the superscription of the Apocalypse in several cursive MSS.

John’s Christianity centres in the idea of love and life, which in their last root are identical. His dogmatics are summed up in the word: God first loved us; his ethics in the exhortation: Therefore let us love Him and the brethren. He is justly called the apostle of love. Only we must not understand this word in a sentimental, but in the highest and purest moral sense. God’s love is his self-communication to man; man’s love is a holy self-consecration to God. We may recognize—in rising stages of transformation—the same fiery spirit in the Son of Thunder who called vengeance from heaven; in the Apocalyptic seer who poured out the vials of wrath against the enemies of Christ; and in the beloved disciple who knew no middle ground, but demanded undivided loyalty and whole-souled devotion to his Master. In him the highest knowledge and the highest love coincide: knowledge is the eye of love, love the heart of knowledge; both constitute eternal life, and eternal life is the fulness of happiness.792

The central truth of John and the central fact in Christianity itself is the incarnation of the eternal

Logos as the highest manifestation of God’s love to the world. The denial of this truth is the criterion of Antichrist.793

The Principal Doctrines.

I. The doctrine of God. He is spirit (πνευμα), he is light (φως) he is love (ἀγάπη).794 These are the briefest and yet the profoundest definitions which can be given of the infinite Being of all beings. The first is put into the mouth of Christ, the second and third are from the pen of John. The first sets forth God’s metaphysical, the second his intellectual, the third his moral perfection; but they are blended in one.

God is spirit, all spirit, absolute spirit (in opposition to every materialistic conception and limitation); hence omnipresent, all-pervading, and should be worshipped, whether in Jerusalem or Gerizim or anywhere else, in spirit and in truth.

God is light, all light without a spot of darkness, and the fountain of all light, that is of truth, purity, and holiness.

792 John 17 3; 15:11; 16:24; 1 John 1:4. 793 Comp. John 1:14; 3:16; 1 John 4:1-3. 794 John 4:24; 1 John 1:5; 4:8, 16. The first definition or oracle is from Christ’s dialogue with the woman of Samaria, who could, of course, not grasp the full meaning, but understood sufficiently its immediate practical application to the question of dispute between the Samaritans and the Jews concerning the worship on Gerizim or Jerusalem

258 CHAPTER XI. THEOLOGY OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH.

God is love; this John repeats twice, looking upon love as the inmost moral essence of God, which animates, directs, and holds together all other attributes; it is the motive power of his revelations or self-communications, the beginning and the end of his ways and works, the core of his manifestation in Christ.

II. The doctrine of Christ’s Person. He is the eternal and the incarnate Logos or Revealer of God. No man has ever yet seen God (θεόν, without the article, God’s nature, or God as God); the only-begotten Son (or God only-begotten),795 who is in the bosom796 of the Father, he 795 There is a remarkable variation of reading in John 1:18 between μονογενής θεός ,one who is God only-begotten, andὁ μονογενής υἱός ,the only-begotten Son. (A third reading: ὁ μονογενὴς θεός ,”the only-begotten God,” found in ’ and 33, arose simply from a combination of the two readings, the article being improperly transferred from the second to the first.) The two readings are of equal antiquity; θεός is supported by the oldest Greek MSS., nearly all Alexandrian or Egyptian ( * BC*L, also the Peshitto Syr.);υἱός by the oldest versions (Itala Vulg., Curet. Syr., also by the secondary uncials and all known cursives except 33). The usual abbreviations in the uncial MS., Θο-for θεός and ΥΟ for υἱός ,may easily be confounded. The connection of μονογενής withθεόςis less natural than with υἱὸς although John undoubtedly could call the Son θεός (not ὁ θεός), and did so in 1:1. Μονογενής θεόςsimply combines the two attributes of the Logos, θεός 1:1, and μονογενής, 1:14. For a learned and ingenious defence of θεός see Hort’s Dissertations (Cambridge, 1877), Westcott on St. John (p. 71), and Westcott and Hort’s Gr. Test. Introd. and Append., p. 74. Tischendorf and nearly all the German commentators (except Weiss) adopt υἱός, and Dr. Abbot, of Cambridge, Mass., has written two very able papers in favor of this reading, one in the Bibliotheca Sacra for 1861, pp. 840872, and another in the “ Unitarian Review” for June, 1875. The Westminster Revision first adopted “ God” in the text, but afterwards put it on the margin. Both readings are intrinsically unobjectionable, and the sense is essentially the same. Μονογενής does not necessarily convey the Nicene idea of eternal generation, but simply the unique character and superiority of the eternal and uncreated sonship of Christ over the sonship of believers which is a gift of grace. It shows his intimate relation to the Father, as the Pauline πρωτότοκος his sovereign relation to the world. 796 Lit.”towards the bosom” (εἰς τὸν κόλπον), i.e., leaning on, and moving to the bosom. It expresses the union of motion and rest and the closest and tenderest intimacy, as between mother and child, like the German term Schoosskind, bosom-child. Comp. πρός τὸν θεόν John 1:1 and Prov. 8:30, where Wisdom (the Logos) says: “I was near Him as one brought up with Him, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him.” and he alone (εκεινος) declared him and brought to light, once and forever, the hidden mystery of his being.797 This perfect knowledge of the Father, Christ claims himself in that remarkable passage in Matthew 11:27, which strikingly confirms the essential harmony of the Johannean and Synoptical representations of Christ. John (and he alone) calls Christ the “Logos” of God, i.e., the embodiment of God and the organ of all his revelations.798 As the human reason or thought is expressed in word, and as the word is the medium of making our thoughts known to others, so God is known to himself and to the world in and through Christ as the personal Word. While “Logos” designates the metaphysical and intellectual relation, the term “Son” designates the moral relation of Christ to God, as a relation of love, and the epithet “only-begotten” or “only-born” (μονογενής) raises his sonship as entirely unique above every other sonship, which is only a reflection of it. It is a blessed relation of infinite knowledge and infinite love. The Logos is eternal, he is personal, he is divine.799 He was in the 797 With this sentence the Prologue returns to the beginning and suggests the best reason why Christ is called Logos. He is the Exegete, the Expounder, the Interpreter of the hidden being, of God. “The word ἐξηγήσατο used by classical writers of the interpretation of divine mysteries. The absence of the object in the original is remarkable. Thus the literal rendering is simply, he made declaration (Vulg. ipse enarravit). Comp. Acts 15: 4. Westcott, in loc. See the classical parallels in Wetstein. 798 John 1:1, 14:1 John 1:1; Rev. 19:13. The Logos theory of John is the fruitful germ of the speculations of the Greek church on the mysteries of the incarnation and the trinity. See my ed. of Lange’s Com. on John, pp. 51 and 55 sqq., where also the literature is given. On the latest discussions see Weiss in the sixth ed. of Meyer’s Com. on John (1880), pp. 49 sqq. Λόγος means both ratio and oratio reason and speech, which are inseparably connected. “ Logos,” being masculine in Greek, is better fitted. 799 These three ideas are contained in the first verse of the Gospel, which has stimulated and puzzled the profoundest minds from Origen and Augustin to Schelling and Goethe. Mark the unique union of transparent simplicity and inexhaustible depth, and the symmetry of the three clauses. The subject (λογ ος) and the verb (ην ) are three times repeated. “ The three clauses contain all that it is possible for man to realize as to the essential nature of the Word in relation to time and mode of being and character: He was (1) in the beginning: He was (2) with God: He was (3) God. At the same time these three clauses answer to the three great moments of the Incarnation of the Word declared in John 1:14. He who ’was God,’ became flesh: He who

beginning before creation or from eternity. He is, on the one hand, distinct from God and in the closest communion with him (πρὸς τὸν θεόν); on the other hand he is himself essentially divine, and therefore called “God” (θεός, but not ὁ θεός).828

This pre-existent Logos is the agent of the creation of all things visible and invisible.829 He is the fulness and fountain of life (ἡ ζωη, the true, immortal life, as distinct from βίος, the natural, mortal life), and light (τὸ φως,which includes intellectual and moral truth, reason and conscience) to all men. Whatever elements of truth, goodness, and beauty may be found shining like stars and meteors in the darkness of heathendom, must be traced to the Logos, the universal Life-giver and Illuminator.

Here Paul and John meet again; both teach the agency of Christ in the creation, but John more clearly connects him with all the preparatory revelations before the incarnation. This extension of the Logos revelation explains the high estimate which some of the Greek fathers, (Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen) put upon the Hellenic, especially the Platonic philosophy, as a training-school of the heathen mind for Christ.

The Logos revealed himself to every man, but in a special manner to his own chosen people; and this revelation culminated in John the Baptist, who summed up in himself the meaning of the law and the prophets, and pointed to Jesus of Nazareth as “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” as a designation of Christ than our neuter “ Word.” Hence Ewald, in defiance of German grammar, renders it “der Wort.”On the apocalyptic designation ὁ λογος του θυου and on the christology of the Apocalypse, see Gebhardt, l.c., 94 and 333 sqq. On Philo’s idea of the Logos I refer to Schürer, Neutestam. Zeitgeschichte, pp. 648 sqq., and the works of Gfrörer, Zeller, Frankel, etc., there quoted.

Here we have the germ (but the germ only) of the orthodox distinction between unity of essence and trinity of persons or hypostases; also of the distinction between an immanent, eternal trinity, and an economical trinity, which is revealed in time (in the works of creation, redemption, and sanctification). A Hebrew monotheist could not conceive of an eternal and independent being

’was with God,’ tabernacled among us (comp. 1 John 1:2): He who ’was in the beginning,’ became (in time).” Westcott (in Speaker’s Com.).

A similar interpretation is given by Lange. The personality of the Logos is denied by Beyschlag. See Notes (in text at end of § 72). of a different essence (ἑτεροούσις) existing besides the one God. This would be dualism.

John 1:3, with a probable allusion to Gen. 1:3, “God said,” as ἐν αρχῃ refers to bereshith, Gen. 1:1. The negative repetition οὐδὲ έν, prorsus nihil, not even one thing (stronger than οὐδέν nihil), excludes every form of dualism (against the Gnostics), and makes the παν τα absolutely unlimited. The Socinian interpretation,which confines it to the moral creation, is grammatically impossible.

At last the Logos became flesh.800 He completed his revelation by uniting himself with man once and forever in all things, except sin.801 The Hebraizing term “flesh” best expresses his condescension to our fallen condition and the complete reality of his humanity as an object of sense, visible and tangible, in strong contrast with his immaterial divinity. It includes not only the body (σωμα), but also a human soul ( ) and a rational spirit (νους, πνευμα); for John ascribes them all to Christ. To use a later terminology, the incarnation (ἐνσάρκωσις, incarnatio) is only a stronger term for the assumption of humanity (εν ανθρωπ ησις, Menschwerdung).The Logos became man—not partially but totally, not apparently but really, not transiently but permanently, not by ceasing to be divine, nor by being changed into a man, but by an abiding, personal union with man. He is henceforth the Godman. He tabernacled on earth as the true Shekinah, and manifested to his disciples the glory of the only begotten which shone from the veil of his humanity.802

800 John 1:14: ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο a sentence of immeasurable import, the leading idea not only of the Prologue, but of the Christian religion and of the history of mankind. It marks the close of the preparation for Christianity and the beginning of its introduction into the human race. Bengel calls attention to the threefold antithetic correspondence between 1:1 and 1:14:

The Logos

was (ην) in the beginning became (ἐγένετο)

God, flesh, with God. and dwelt among us. 801 Paul expresses the same idea: God sent his Son “in the likeness of the flesh of sin,” Rom. 8:3; comp. Heb. 2:17; 4:15. See the note at the close of the section. 802 John 1:14: ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμιν, in allusion to the indwelling of Jehovah in the holy of holies of the tabernacle (σκηνη) and the temple. The humanity of Christ is now the tabernacle of God, and the believers are the spectators of that

260 CHAPTER XI. THEOLOGY OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH. This is the divine-human glory in the state of humiliation as distinct from the divine glory in his preexistent state, and from the final and perfect manifestation of his glory in the state of exaltation in which his disciples shall share.803

The fourth Gospel is a commentary on the ideas of the Prologue. It was written for the purpose that the readers may believe “that Jesus is the Christ (the promised Messiah), the Son of God (in the sense of the only begotten and eternal Son), and that believing they may have life in his name.”804 III. The Work of Christ (Soteriology). This implies the conquest over sin and Satan, and the procurement of eternal life. Christ appeared without sin, to the end that he might destroy the works of the devil, who was a liar and murderer from the beginning of history, who first fell away from the truth and then brought sin and death into mankind.805 Christ laid down his life and shed his blood for his sheep. By this self-consecration in death he became the propitiation (ἱλασμός) for the sins of believers and for the sins of the whole world.806 His blood cleanses from all the guilt and contamination of sin. He is (in the language of the Baptist) the Lamb of God that bears and takes away the sin of the world; and (in the unconscious prophecy of Caiaphas) he died for the people.807 He was priest and sacrifice in one person. And he continues his priestly functions, being our Advocate in Heaven and ready to forgive us when we sin and come to him in true repentance.808 This is the negative part of Christ’s work, the removal of the obstruction which separated us from God. The positive part consists in the revelation of the Father, and in the communication of eternal life, which includes eternal happiness. He is himself the Life and the Light of the world.809 He glory. Comp. Rev. 7:15; 21:3 803 John 17:5, 24; 1 John 3:2. 804 John 20:31. 805 1 John 3:5, 8; comp. the words of Christ, John 8:44. 806 John 6:52-58; 10:11, 15; 1 John 2:2: αὐτὸς ἱλασμός ἐστιν περὶ των ἁμαρτιων ἡμων, οὐ περὶ των ἡμετέρων δὲ μόνον, αλλὰ καὶ περὶ ὸλου του κόσμου.. The universality of the atonement could not be more clearly expressed; but there is a difference between universal sufficiency and universal efficiency. 807 808 1 John 2:1: ἐὰν τις ἁμάρτῃ, παράκλητον έχομεν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα Ιησουν Χριστὸν δίκαιον. 809 1 John 1:2: ἡ ζωὴ ἐφανερώθη, καὶ ἑωράκαμεν καὶ μαρτυρουμεν καὶ ἀπαγγέλλομεν ὑμιντην ζωήν τὴν αἰώνιον ήτις ην πρὸς τὸν πατέρα καὶ ἐφανερώθη ἡμιν. Comp. John 1:4; 5; 26; 14:6. The passage 1 John 5:20: οὑτός ἐστιν ὁ ἀλιθινὸς calls himself the Way, the Truth, and the Life. In him the true, the eternal life, which was from the beginning with the Father, appeared personally in human form. He came to communicate it to men. He is the bread of life from heaven, and feeds the believers everywhere spiritually without diminishing, as He fed the five thousand physically with five loaves. That miracle is continued in the mystical self-communication of Christ to his people. Whosoever believes in him has eternal life, which begins here in the new birth and will be completed in the resurrection of the body.810 Herein also the Apocalypse well agrees with the Gospel and Epistles of John. Christ is represented as the victor of the devil.811 He is the conquering Lion of the tribe of Judah, but also the suffering Lamb slain for us. The figure of the lamb, whether it be referred to the paschal lamb, or to the lamb in the Messianic passage of Isaiah 53:7, expresses the idea of atoning sacrifice which is fully realized in the death of Christ. He “washed” (or, according to another reading, he “loosed”) “us from our sins by his blood;” he redeemed men “of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and made them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests.” The countless multitude of the redeemed “washed their robes and made them white (bright and shining) in the blood of the Lamb.” This implies both purification and sanctification; white garments being the symbols of holiness.812 Love was the motive which prompted him to give his life for his people.813 Great stress is laid on the resurrection, as in the Gospel, where he is called the Resurrection and the Life. The exalted θεὸς καὶ ζωὴ αἰώνιος , is of doubtful application. The natural connection of ουτοςwith the immediately preceding Ιησου Χριστῳ, and the parallel passages where Christ is called “ life,” favor the reference to Christ; while the words ὁ ἀληθινὸς θεός suit better for the Father. See Braune, Huther, Ebrard, Haupt, Rothe, in loc. 810 John 6:47; and the whole mysterious discourse which explains the spiritual meaning of the preceding miracle. 811 Apoc. 12:1-12; 20:2. Comp. with 1 John 3:8; John 8:44; 12:31, 13:2, 27; 14 30; 16:11. 812 Apoc. 1:6; 5:6, 9, 12, 13;7: 14, etc. Comp. John 1:29; 17:19; 19:36; 1 John 1:7; 2:2; 5:6. The apocalyptic diminutive ἀρνιον(agnellus, lambkin, pet-lamb) for ἀμνός is used to sharpen the contrast with the Lion. Paul Gerhardt has reproduced it in his beautiful passion hymn: “Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld.” 800 Apoc. 1:5: “Unto him that loveth us,” etc.; comp. John 15:13; 1 John 3:16.

Logos-Messiah has the keys of death and Hades.814 He is a sharer in the universal government of God; he is the mediatorial ruler of the world, “the Prince of the kings of the earth” “King of kings and Lord of lords.”815 The apocalyptic seer likewise brings in the idea of life in its highest sense as a reward of faith in Christ to those who overcome and are faithful unto death, Christ will give “a crown of life,” and a seat on his throne. He “shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life; and

God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.”816

IV. The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Pneumatology). This is most fully set forth in the farewell discourser, of our Lord, which are reported by John exclusively. The Spirit whom Christ promised to send after his return to the Father, is called the Paraclete, i.e., the Advocate or Counsellor, Helper, who pleads the cause of the believers, directs, supports, and comforts them.817 He is “another Advocate”(αλ λοςπαρακ λητος),Christ himself being the first Advocate who intercedes forbelievers at the throne of the Father, as their eternal High priest. The Spirit proceeds (eternally) from the Father, and was sent by the Father and the Son on the day of Pentecost.818 He reveals Christ to the heart and glorifies him 814 Apoc. 1:5, 17, 18 2:8; comp. John 5:21, 25; 6:39, 40 –11:25. 815 Apoc. 1:5; 3:21; 17:14; 19:16. 816 Apoc. 2:10; 3:21; 7:17; 14:1-5; 21:6, 7; 22:1-5. Comp. Gebhardt, l.c., 106-128, 343-353. 817 John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7. Comp. also 1 John 2:1, where Christ is likewise called παράκλητος. He is our Advocate objectively at the throne of the Father, the Holy Spirit is our Advocate subjectively in our spiritual experience. The E. V. renders the word in all these passages,except the last,by”Comforter”(Consolator),which rests on a confusion of the passive παρακ λητος with the active παρακλήτωρ. See my notes in Lange’s Com. on John, pp. 440 sqq., 468 sqq. 818 There is a distinction between the eternal procession (εκ πορ ευσις)of the Spirit from the Father (παρὰ του Πατρος εκ πορευέ ται, procedit, John 15:26), and the temporal mission (πέμψις) of the Spirit from the Father and the Son (15:26, where Christ says of the Spirit: ὸν ἐγὼ πέμψω, to, and 14:26, where he says: ὸ πέμψει ὁ πατὴρ ἐν τῳ ὀνόματί μου). The Greek church to this day strongly insists on this distinction, and teaches an eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father alone, and a temporal mission of the Spirit by the Father and the Son. The difference between the present ἐκπορεύεται and the future πέμψω seems to favor such a distinction, but the exclusive alone (μόνον) in regard to the procession is an addition of the Greek church as much as the Filioque is an addition of the Latin church to the original Nicene Creed. It is doubtful whether John meant to make a metaphysical dis(ἐμὲ δοξάσει]; ηε βεαρς ωιτνεσς το ηιμ [μαρτυρήσει περὶ ἐμου]; ηε χαλλς τορεμεμβρανχεανδεξπλαινςηιςτεαχηινγ [υμ ας διδαξ ειπαν τακαὶυπ ομνησ ειυμ ας παν ταάειπ ον ὑμιν ἐγω) ; he leads the disciples into the whole truth (ὁδηγήσει ὑμας εἰς τὴν ἀλήθειαν πασαν]; ηε τακες ουτ οφ τηε φυλνεσς οφ Χηριστ ανδ σηοως ιτ το τηεμ [ἐκ του ἐμου λαμβάνει καὶ ἀναγγελει ὑμιν ]. Τηε Ηολψ Σπιριτ ις τηε Μεδιατορ ανδ Ιντερχεσσορ βετωεεν Χηριστ ανδ τηε βελιέερ, ας Χηριστ ις τηε Μεδιατορ βετωεεν Γοδ ανδ τηε ωορλδ. Ηε ις τηε Σπιριτ οφ τρυτη ανδ οφ ηολινεσς. Ηε χονιχτς [ἐλέγχει] τηε ωορλδ, τηατ ις αλλ μεν ωηο χομε υνδερ ηις ινφλυενχε, ιν ρεσπεχτ οφ σιν[περὶαμ αρτιά ς],οφριγητεουσνεσς[δικαιοσυν ης],ανδοφὐ δγμεντ[κρισ εως];ανδτηιςχονίχτιον ωιλλ ρεσυλτ ειτηερ ιν τηε χονερσιον, ορ ιν τηε ιμπενιτενχε οφ τηε σιννερ. Τηε οπερατιον οφ τηε Σπιριτ αχχομπανιες τηε πρεαχηινγ οφ τηε ωορδ, ανδ ις αλωαψς ιντερναλ ιν τηε σπηερε οφ τηε ηεαρτ ανδ χονσχιενχε. Ηε ις ονε οφ τηε τηρεε ωιτνεσσες ανδ γίες εφφιχαχψ το τηε οτηερ τωο ωιτνεσσες οφ Χηριστ ον εαρτη, τηε βαπτισμ [τὸ ὺδωρ), and the atoning death (τὸ αιμα) of Christ.819

V. Christian Life. It begins with a new birth from above or from the Holy Spirit. Believers are children of God who are “born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”820 It is a “new” tinction between procession and mission. But the distinction between the eternal trinity of the divine being and the temporal trinity of the divine revelation has an exegetical basis in the pre-existence of the Logos and the Spirit. The trinitarian revelation reflects the trinitarian essence; in other words, God reveals himself as he is, as Father, Son, and Spirit. We have a right to reason from the revelation of God to his nature, but with proper reverence and modesty; for who can exhaust the ocean of the Deity! 819 1 John 5:8. There are different interpretations of water and blood: 1st, reference to the miraculous flow of blood and water from the wounded side of Christ, John 19:34; 2d, Christ’s baptism, and Christ’s atoning death; 3d, the two sacraments which he instituted as perpetual memorials. I would adopt the last view, if it were not for τὸ αἰμα, which nowhere designates the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and more naturally refers to the blood of Christ shed for the remission of sins. The passage on the three heavenly witnesses in 5:7, formerly quoted as a proof text for the doctrine of the trinity, is now generally given up as a mediaeval interpolation, and must be rejected on internal as well as external grounds; for John would never have written: “the Father, the Word, and the Spirit,” but either “the Father, the Son, and the Spirit,” or God, the Word (Logos), and the Spirit.”