only, that life which he saw was embodied in one supreme Personality, whose life was the light of men. ९९ Hence the life of Jesus is in this gospel portrayed not as common and bewildered men first saw it, or as it appears from a matter-of-fact level, but as a man of intuitive genius came to realize its inner and perfected meanings. Beyond other Scripture books this retold story, with its pendant the First Epistle of John, is the great summarizer, the great definer of terms. It begins by introducing Jesus not as a child nor as a consecrated minister but as the Word," which from the beginning expressed the thought and spirit of God; which created all things; which becoming flesh and dwelling among men was the light of their true life and gave them power to become sons of God. From the moment he is thus transcendently introduced, however, the events of his ministry are narrated not allegorically but in such realistic terms as connote the observation of an eyewitness, yet with such simple sublimity as beseems the divine personality and wisdom and power. No other gospel is made up so uniformly of Jesus' words and acts in divine character; yet in none is the manhood more self-consistent and homogeneous in the realistic sense of its derivation from the divine. As we have seen, the certificate which at the end of the gospel identifies the disciple whom Jesus loved with the one Its Author's who "beareth witness of these things and wrote Personality these things" adds the words, "we know that his witness is true" (John xxi, 24). How did the writers of this affidavit know? It does not seem likely that they were aged contemporaries of his, themselves eyewitnesses of the gospel facts; rather, it would seem, there was something in his personality, and perhaps in his experience, which was an absolute voucher for the truth of his statements. The question is important because of the well-meant but impersonal criticism which the book has encountered. Its style is so different from that of the synoptics, and bears the marks of so much maturer thought, that it did not seem, on critical grounds, to deal with the actual words and deeds of the Jesus whom the synoptists portray. The difficulty is a real one; but to meet it negatively raises a problem greater than it solves. If the words and works of Jesus here recorded are not substantially authentic (and the criticism hinges on this), we must needs find an author who could have invented them and he must have a mind and personality of the Christ caliber. The spirit of the book is utterly inconsistent with being a literary tour de force manufactured either out of some writer's head or out of an evolved Christian consciousness. The intrinsic character of the words and acts makes them the despair of literary invention. The line of least resistance, it seems, is to accept, as the certificate does, a personality specially gifted and prepared, who could so remember and assimilate the deeper and diviner elements of Jesus' revelation of himself as to reproduce them accurately and adequately. It is to the unnamed author's personality that we must look, to his exceptional spiritual and intuitional endowments. What these endowments were, or at least their spring and impulsion, he himself reticently intimates in his characterization of himself as "one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved" (John xiii, 23). It was by love that the Master's inmost heart was revealed to him; it was by an answering love (for love is a reciprocal thing) that he could absorb and retain the things of Christ which went so much deeper than others could see. The Master had said, on his last meeting with his disciples, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now (John xvi, 12); . he had also said of the Spirit of truth whom he would send, "He shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you (vs. 14). This disciple it was who remembered these words, who impressed them on a heart bound by a peculiar love to that of Jesus, and who when men could best bear them and most needed them was spared to give them to the world. It was the world's greatest example of what Carlyle has noted of an English biographer, "inspired only by love, and the recognition and vision which love can lend." And the result we may put also in Carlyle's words, except that we must heighten his idea of nature: "That . . . Work of his is as a picture by one of Nature's own Artists; the best possible resemblance of a Reality; like the very image thereof in a clear mirror. Which indeed it was: let but the mirror be clear, this is the great point; the picture must and will be genuine." 1 Thus, while the author of the fourth gospel has endeavored to efface his personality, so far as self-assertion is concerned, the wonderful insight of it and its realistic vision of the divine are evident in every line, molding it by the mind of Christ. Other traits there are also, pointing to a still more intimate sharing of the Master's purpose and thought; which, however, we will not go into here.2. III The "Postscript Commendatory." This designation, which has been given by Bishop Lightfoot to the First Epistle of John, fits its character and purpose well. It is a kind of companion piece to the fourth gospel, but whether written before or after is not quite apparent, and couched in words such as a very old man, full of wonderful memories and the ideas of life derived therefrom, would write to friends and disciples so much younger that they are regarded as "little children" (cf. I John ii, 1, 12, 13, 18, etc.) needing guidance in the simplest but at the same time the largest and most vital values. It starts from the same realistic sense of Jesus' divine nature which we have noted in the 1 Carlyle's Essay on Boswell's Johnson, Works, Vol. XXVIII, p. 75. 2 Connected with the "New Surmise"; see preceding, p. 644. gospel; labors, indeed, to express it in the most explicit terms: "That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life, and the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us" (1 John i, 1, 2). As the object of the gospel was to induce belief (John xx, 31), the object of this "postscript commendatory" is to induce fellowship in the Father and the Son, and the communal joy that results therefrom." That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us; yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ; and these things we write, that our joy may be made full” (1 John i, 3, 4). It is as if the "disciple whom Jesus loved," who had received such unusual access of divine light and truth, were minded to make every man a sharer with him in the same, and so unite the world of Christian believers in one spirit and fellowship. "If we walk in the light," he says, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another" (i, 7). ་་ NOTE. Its Occasion. As a modern description of its occasion, we may again quote the words of Browning, who puts the epistles of John after the Apocalypse (which he ascribes to him; see next chapter) and before his gospel but, like the gospel, in his old age: Then, for my time grew brief, no message more, No call to write again, I found a way, And, reasoning from my knowledge, merely taught Men should, for love's sake, in love's strength believe; Or I would pen a letter to a friend And urge the same as friend, nor less nor more: These words have in mind not only the first epistle of John but the "the elect lady second and third, written by " the elder " respectively to and her children " (2 John 1), and to "Gaius the beloved" (3 John 1); but the description applies equally to this first epistle. Though anonymous, the epistle leaves no reasonable doubt that it is by the author of the gospel. As a kind of circular Substance of writing intended for the same readers as the gosits Message pel, it does not have occasion for the conventional epistolary address and salutation. Its background is the truth brought to light in the gospel story, and it is written as if the author were fresh from his intimate conversance with the life of Jesus and its deep meanings. This epistle uses the substance of the gospel truth in two ways as an antidote to certain false teachings that are creeping into the churches and as a summary of all that is requisite for eternal life. It is thus controversial — in its absolute way as well as interpretative. I. Two heresies were endangering the purity of the church in the aged disciple's day. One was that of the Nicolaitans (mentioned by name in Rev. ii, 6, 14, 15), who from a false idea of the sinlessness of Christians and the vileness of the flesh were allowing themselves to indulge in unrestrained licentiousness, as if it were of no moral significance. Against this heresy, which was rampant in Asia Minor, his condemnation is emphatic and unsparing (see i, 5; ii, 6, 15, 17; iii, 3-10). Equally so is his condemnation of another heresy, introduced by Cerinthus (the name does not occur in Scripture), whom he designates as Antichrist. This man had a theory which denied the divine nature of Jesus, distinguishing the historical Jesus from the transcendent Christ, and thus dissolving his personality in philosophic speculation. Against this the writer, fresh from his memories of the Master, opposes strenuous opposition, insisting on the truth that Jesus is the Christ, who has come in the flesh (see ii, 18-23; iv, 1-6; 13-15; V, I-12). It may be seen how eminently fitting, at the late day when the epistle was written, this testimony of the beloved disciple who had seen and heard and touched Jesus was, in order· to meet the newer needs. |