CHAPTER II

THE IDEA OF GOD

THE Johannine concept of God is best expressed in these terms: God is love (I. iv. 8, 16); God is light I. i. 5); God is life (I. v. 20); and God is Father I. ii. 1; iii. 1; II. 3, 4). Let us consider each of these propositions in order.

No formal definition of love can be given, nor is any required. But it may be partially described by enumerating some of its qualities. It is a personal relation, a fellowship of life. It is a union which involves mutual delight, interest, and attachment. Love is the bond of brotherhood among men. All the closest associations and endearments of earth have their basis in love. In selfishness there is only isolation; in love alone there is unity. Civilization and society are possible only on the basis of love, that is, of reciprocal interest, sympathy, and service. When, therefore, it is said that God is love, a part of the meaning must be that God is the ground of all the higher fellowships among men; that humanity is one because it is the offspring of God; that human society itself is founded in the nature of God. Love in man is a reflection of the divine nature in him. "Love is of God, and he that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God" (I. iv. 7). Love is, therefore, a self-giving, self-imparting quality. As love, God is the great giver. "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son" (iii. 16). To love is to give, to serve, to bless, to impart one's self. It is the great love of the Father which moved him to make sinful men his children (I. iii. 1). As love, God is the absolutely good Being whose nature it is to communicate himself. Man is the offspring of the divine love, and finds

his true life in fellowship with God and in the impartation of good to his fellows. By loving one another men show that God abides in them and that his love is perfected in them (I. iv. 12).

By an expressive and favorite figure of John God is defined as light: "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (I. i. 5). This truth is declared to contain the essential import of the gospel message which the apostle had heard from Christ. What aspect of the divine nature is this figure especially designed to emphasize? Some reply: The purity or holiness of God; others: His metaphysical nature; others: His revealed character; and still others His perfect goodness. In the passage just quoted it is certain that light is set in contrast to the darkness of sin. Light is a symbol for the pure and holy life as contrasted with walking in the darkness of untruthfulness and unrighteousness. But, in itself, the figure of light is well adapted to represent moral ideas besides that of purity. It might express with special appropriateness and force the conception of God's self-revealing and selfimparting goodness. As it is the nature of light to shine, so it is the nature of God to give and bless. This idea is, at least, suggested by the opening verses of the first Epistle which leads up to the passage under review. The apostle shows how God has brought the eternal life to the world through his Son (vv. 1-4), and then declares that the import of this bestowment of life is that God is light. Of course, life and light are opposed to sin, as he proceeds to show; but the affirmation: God is light, stands in primary connection with the description of God's gracious impartation of life to the world through Christ. The light is "the light of life" (viii. 12) — the light of God's self-revealing, self-communicating life. With this view agrees the language of the prologue which speaks of the life which was in the Logos and which was perpetually shining down into the world's darkness, as "the light of men" (i. 4, 5).

I conclude, then, that light is a figurative designation for love. But both terms equally include purity or

holiness. This aspect of the divine nature and of the Christian life is quite as strongly emphasized in connection with what is said about love as it is in connection with the use of the figure of light. The love of God is perfected in him who keeps God's commandments (I. ii. 5) : to love one's brother is to abide in the light; to hate a brother is to abide in darkness (vv. 9, 10). To love is to be begotten of God (I. iv. 7), and he that is begotten of God cannot live the sinful life (I. iii. 9). Love and sin are contraries. Love is holy, as light is pure. The import of both terms may best be given by saying that God is holy love. Both are terms for God's absolute, self-imparting goodness. But God's goodness is always true and real goodness and seeks the true and real good of its objects, and this good includes all that is the opposite of evil. But holiness or separateness from sin is essentially a negative concept and is quite inadequate as a definition of the divine light and love, which are positive. Love is more than holiness, and light is more than purity. They are terms for an absolute fulness, a positive perfection of life. God is the absolutely perfect One, and the Christian life is, ideally considered, Godlikeness. It is more than freedom from sin; it is the positive realization of a life like that of God.

The Johannine tradition of the Lord's words represents Jesus as speaking of the Father as the absolutely living One (o Cv Tατýρ, vi. 57), and, therefore, as the source of all spiritual life. The Father who "has life in himself" (v. 26) sent the Son into the world to communicate the divine life to men. Quite in accord with these expressions we read in the first Epistle: "We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we know him that is true [God], and we are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This one [God] is the true God, and eternal life" (I. v. 20). By this last statement is meant that God is the source and ground of eternal life—a form of thought common in John, as in the words: "I am the resurrection and the life" (xi. 25), that is, the power of resurrection and the bestower of life.

Now life is the opposite of death, and death is defined as lovelessness: "We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth hot, abideth in death” (I. iii. 14). Thus we see that life, like light, is regarded as an ethical conception. Both are terms for that absolute goodness, that perfect blessedness and disposition to bless, which the apostle searches for words to describe. They are synonyms of love, expressing certain aspects of God's perfection. No sharp distinction should be made between them. Christ called himself

both life and light. God is love, light, and life-perfect, self-communicating goodness, the source of all purity, joy, and inspiration. The writer, in these descriptions, is simply straining and bending human language to the utmost in order to make it convey some idea of the transcendent perfection of God.

The apostle also employs Jesus' favorite designation for God-that of Father. We have seen that in both the Synoptic and Johannine tradition of our Lord's teaching God is regarded as the Father of all men. This is the view which is taken in the Epistles. God is "the Father" without definition or limitation: "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God” (I. iii. 1). While it is true that in the Epistles, as in the Gospel, the fatherhood of God is most frequently applied to the relation of God to his Son Jesus Christ, it is certain that there are several passages in the former in which the application cannot be maintained (e.g. ii. 1, 13, 15, 16; II. 4; cf. Jn. iv. 23). We find here nothing inconsistent with the conclusions already reached in the study of Jesus' doctrine of the divine fatherhood. God is the Father of all men; he is the source of their being, and has made them kindred in nature to himself and capable of blessed fellowship with himself. But, on their part, men have not realized that relation and therefore do not in fact fulfil their ideal as sons of God, as he always fulfils his idea of fatherhood. Hence we read: "As many as received him, to them

1 See pp. 69-73; 179–182.

gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his (Christ's) name" (i. 12). The sonship of men to God, in its true, ideal meaning, has been forfeited by sin. The relation denoted by it must be reconstituted by a spiritual renewal or transformation. The apostle John gives to this idea a special emphasis by employing the term "children" (Tékva) instead of "sons" (vioí). The latter word (characteristic of Paul) is a more legal, the former a more personal, term. The latter suggests a certain privilege or status; the former a close fellowship and affectionate intimacy.1

Quite in keeping with the teaching which we have reviewed, God is declared to be invisible and spiritual in his nature. "No man hath seen God at any time" (i. 18). Yet he dwells in those who are kindred in disposition to himself. The life of love brings the soul into conscious union with God. "If we love one another, God abideth in us, and his love is perfected in us" (I. iv. 12). God reveals himself to the inner life; he is seen by the eye of the heart. "He that loveth, knoweth God" (I. iv. 7). But there is also a sense in which God has visibly revealed himself in the human life of his Son. His grace and truth have come to concrete expression In Christ (i. 17). In him God was, as we may say, transated into terms of human action and experience. "The only begotten Son has interpreted (èğeyýσaro) the Father" i. 18). In him the voice of God which spoke in Jewish history and prophecy (v. 37) has attained an unexampled clearness. Through him the eternal life which was with the Father has been clearly manifested, so that men may enter into the fellowship and power of it (I. i. 2, 3).

In contrast to idols and heathen divinities God is "the true God" (ó aλnoivòs Oεós, I. v. 20). He alone correἀληθινὸς θεός, sponds to a worthy idea of Deity. Hence all God's revelation is a revelation of divine truth, because it is his self-disclosure. Through Christ the truths of God - the

1 "Nach Paulus bekommen wir um Christi willen Kindesrecht, nach Johannes durch Christum Kindeswesen." Haupt, Der erste Brief des Johannes, p. 133.