PART VII

THE THEOLOGY OF JOHN

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

IN the chapter introductory to the study of the teaching of Jesus according to the fourth Gospel I have commented upon the advantages and disadvantages of treating the discourses apart from the other portions of the book, and have given the reasons why, in the present work, this method of separation was adopted. In this closing part of the volume, therefore, we have only to take account of the Epistles and of those parts of the Gospel which do not purport to reproduce the teaching of Jesus. Of these the most important is the prologue. While, as we have seen, the Gospel bears the impress of the author's mind throughout, yet evidence is not wanting that he distinguished his recollections of his Master's teaching from his own reflections, powerfully as the latter had shaped and colored the former. In the prologue, for example, he gives an exposition of what Jesus Christ meant to him in terms of current speech which he never puts into the mouth of Jesus. While it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the alleged words of Jesus from the statements of the evangelist, and while they should always be regarded as closely related, still the Epistles enable us to separate, for convenience, from the subject-matter of the discourses, a group of passages in which we may believe that the author was conscious of expressing his ideas in terms peculiarly his own. Let us briefly note the principal characteristics of these Johannine conceptions.

In the author's attitude towards the Old Testament, we note, on the one hand, the evidences of his own Jewish life and training, and, on the other, a certain feeling of hostility towards actual Judaism. The Old Testament is to him the word of God (x. 35);1 to be an "Israelite indeed" is an honorable distinction (i. 47); the Messianic salvation issues from Israel (iv. 22); "the law was given (edón) by Moses," he introduced or inaugurated the Old Testament system of organization and worship,— "but grace and truth came (éyéveтo) by Jesus Christ he brought with him into the world the revelation of God which is inseparable from his own person (i. 17). Thus, by right and obligation, the Jewish people were Messiah's own possession (rà idia); yet they that were his own (oi idiot) received him not (i. 11). The apostle does not repudiate his Judaism, but like Paul, he has been deeply grieved and wounded by his nation's rejection of their Messiah.

Our author shows a capacity for wide generalizations. He has a few great watchwords or maxims which summarize for him all divine truths. They are such as: “God is light,” “God is love," and "In him was life.” He carries all religious truths up into the sublime heights of God's eternal and infinite life. Revelation and redemption are regarded as expressions of God's nature, and all temporal things are viewed under the aspect of eternity. Hence revelation is coextensive with human. history, and God's gracious work of enlightening and saving men has been going on from the beginning. Christ did not first come into the world when he was born in Bethlehem, and did not commence his saving work for men in Judea and Galilee. He was the heavenly light which was coming into the world and lighting every man ; he was the light of men universally. What Christ has done in his historic manifestation is grounded for the

1 Passages from the fourth Gospel are referred to by chapter and verse only, thus: iv. 9. Passages from the Epistles are cited thus: I. iii. 1; II. 3, etc. The first numeral in large type indicates the number of the Epistle from which the citation is made.

apostle in what he essentially and eternally is. In like manner, what God does it is according to his nature to do. As the central Sun of love and truth he pours his boundless and universal light upon the whole world of souls. The character of God determines the nature and requirements of the Christian life. All duties are summed up in Godlikeness. To walk in the light as God is in the light (I. i. 7), is the sum of Christian virtue. To love is to be born of God and to know God, since love is kinship to God (I. iv. 7, 8).

The apostle John was an intuitionist and a mystic. He does not argue; he sees. To prove Christianity true. is quite remote from his purpose. He aims rather to set forth its truths in their inherent power and beauty in the hope that others will see and receive them. He assumes that Christianity carries its appeal direct to the heart. What men need is not more light, but an eye. If the spiritual nature can be aroused to desire love and purity, the message of the Gospel will find lodgement and welcome. Hence, to the apostle, knowledge was not the result of speculation or argument. It was the heart's inner certitude respecting that which met and satisfied its longings and its hopes. This knowledge was won in experience, through obedience, receptiveness, and trust. It is through such knowledge that we enter into the conscious possession of eternal life (xvii. 3). John had embraced Christ with his whole nature, and his faith in him was a passion. He had seen and handled him, but it was not a mere external touch. About his sacred person had twined the tendrils of the apostle's spirit. In Christ he had lost and found his life, and on his inimitable charms and heavenly glory he never tires of dwelling in devout contemplation.

There can be no greater mistake than to regard our author's Christology as a product of abstruse speculation. Even in the prologue he does not lose sight of the historical Christ. It is the Word which became flesh and dwelt among men which furnishes his starting-point and remains his dominant thought. True, he traces the existence of the light-bearing Logos back into eternity, but

this is not for him a flight of speculation, since he is sure that Jesus taught his own preëxistence and eternity. The author's view of Christ is eminently historical and practical. His Gospel is a portrait which the historical Christ mirrored upon the impressionable spirit of his beloved disciple. It is the product of a mind which was under the captivating spell of Jesus; and when all due allowance is made for its subjective factors, it is still seen to be no speculative romance, but a historical picture of an all-mastering personality. On this account his mysticism never becomes extravagant and fanciful. It does not desert the solid ground of reality and experience. It never falls into indifference to history. It never becomes a mere projection of the writer's own moods and feelings, but always remains true to the idea of an objective revelation of God. He does not lay chief stress upon the inner light of man's own spirit, but upon the Light from heaven, which shines in the world's darkness and illumines the human soul with its radiance.

It is quite true, however, that our author's mind spiritualizes everything which it touches. He sees the matchless Life which he describes not so much on its outer as on its inner side. His method is to seek the soul of truth in all the events whereby God is revealed. The failure. to do this is the great fault of the Jewish people, who have not heard the voice of God which has been speaking in their own history. Hence the apostle's interpretation. of religion is intensely ethical and spiritual. God in his revelation has, indeed, shown men what to do, but that is because he has shown them what they are and what he is. God's revelation is his self-revelation. All the duties and demands of religion strike their roots back into the nature of God, and into the nature of man as a son of God. Hence [religion is, above all things, fellowship with God and moral likeness to him in heart and life. John's teaching is at the farthest possible remove from the popular Jewish theory of piety which made it a round of observances and ceremonies. His elevated spiritualism has little concern for the outward forms of religion. True worship is from

the heart, and may be offered with equal advantage anywhere. The apostle has nothing to say, in either the Gospel or the Epistles, of the institutions of religion. The sacraments, even, are only incidentally alluded to (e.g. iii. 5). We need not attribute this silence to indifference to the forms of Christian organization and ritual; but that it reveals, on the part of the apostle, an overmastering sense of the inwardness of the Christian life there can be no doubt.

On the other hand, the Johannine type of doctrine is not wanting in emphasis upon practical duties. The requirement that the Christian should lead a holy life is nowhere more strongly urged than in the first Epistle of John. Men must do righteousness and keep God's commandments if they will lay claim to the Christian name. They must walk in the truth and submit to its demands. He who professes love to God and does not love his fellowmen is self-deceived. Christians must love and serve one another. Christ's own life was the pattern of service. He took a towel and girded himself and washed the disciples' feet, and this he did because he knew that he came forth from God and was going again to God. It was the consciousness of divinity out of which sprang his desire and effort to perform this act of lowly service. Hence to serve thus is truly Godlike. As Christ does what he sees the Father doing, so his disciples are to take up the life of sympathetic and helpful love among men. As the Father sent the Son into the world on a mission of mercy to the sins and sorrows of men, so does he send his disciples into the world to repeat and multiply his life and its beneficent ministries. No! our author does not lose himself in vague raptures. If, as his legend describes him, he soars like the eagle into the sun, it is not to be lost to earth, but to bring down something of heaven's light and love into the struggles and sorrows of our daily life and common experience.