William Alexander - Expositor's Bible - The Epistles of St. John

True instinct which tells us that the Gospel of St. John was the fruit of prayer as well as of memory; that it was thought out in some valley of rest, some hush among the hills; that it came from a solemn joy which it breathed forth upon others! "These things write I unto you, that your joy may be fulfilled." Generation after generation it has been so. In the numbers numberless of the Redeemed, there can be very few who have not been brightened by the joy of that book. Still, at one funeral after another, hearts are soothed by the word in it which says – "I am the Resurrection and the Life." Still the sorrowful and the dying ask to hear again and again – "let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." A brave young officer sent to the war in Africa, from a regiment at home, where he had caused grief by his extravagance, penitent, and dying in his tent, during the fatal day of Isandula, scrawled in pencil – "dying, dear father and mother – happy – for Jesus says, 'He that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.'" Our English Communion Office, with its divine beauty, is a texture shot through and through with golden threads from the discourse at Capernaum. Still are the disciples glad when they see the Lord in that record. It is the book of the Church's smiles; it is the gladness of the saints; it is the purest fountain of joy in all the literature of earth.

The thorough connection of the Epistle with the Gospel may be made more clear by the following tabulated analysis: —

The (A) beginning and (B) the close of the Epistle contain two abstracts, longer and shorter, of the contents and bearing of the Gospel.

1. "That which was from the beginning – concerning the Word of Life" = John i. 1-15.

2. ( a ) "Which we have heard " = John i. 38, 39, 42, 47, 50, 51, ii. 4, 7, 8, 16, 19, iii. 3, 22, iv. 7, 39, 48, 50, v. 6, 47, vi. 5, 70, vii. 6, 39, viii. 7, 58, ix. 3, 41, x. 1, 39, xi. 4, 45, xii. 7, 50, xiii. 6, 38, xiv., xvii., xviii. 14, 37, xix. 11, 26, 27, 28, 30, xx. 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 23, 27, 29, xxi. 5, 6, 10, 12, 22.

( b ) "Which we have seen with our eyes " = John i. 29, 36, 39, ii. 11, vi. 2, 14, 19, ix., xi. 44, xiii. 4, 5, xvii. 1, xviii. 6, xix. 5, 17, 18, 34, 38, xx. 5, 14, 20, 25, 29, xxi. 1, 14.

( c ) "Which we gazed upon" = ibid.

( d ) "Which we have handled" = John xx. 27 (refers also to a synoptical Gospel, Luke xxiv. 39, 40).

1. "The Life was manifested" = John i. 29 – xxi. 25.

2. ( a ) "We have seen" = (A. i. 2 ( b )).

( b ) "And bear witness" = John i. 7, 19, 37, iii. 2, 27, 33, iv. 39, vi. 69, xx. 28, 30, 31, xxi. 24.

( c ) "And declare unto you" = John passim .

"The Life, the Eternal Life, which"

א "Was with the Father" = John i. 1-4.

ב "And was manifested unto us" = John passim .

Summary of the Gospel as a Gospel of witness .

1. "The Spirit beareth witness" = John i. 32, xiv., xv., xx. 22.

2. "The water beareth witness" = John i. 28, ii. 9, iii. 5, iv. 13, 14, v. 1, 9, vi. 19, vii. 37, ix. 7, xiii. 5, xix. 34, xxi. 1.

3. "The blood beareth witness" = John vi. 53, 54, 55, 56, xix. 34.

4. "The witness of men" = (A. ii. 1 ( b )) Also John i. 45, 49, iii. 2, iv. 39, vii. 46, xii. 12, 13, 17, 19, 20, 21, xviii. 38, xix. 35, xx. 28.

5. "The witness of God" =

( a ) Scripture = John i. 45, v. 39, 46, xix. 36, 37.

( b ) Christ's own = John viii. 17, 18, 46, xv. 30, xviii. 37.

( c ) His Father's = John v. 37, viii. 18, xii. 28.

( d ) His works = John v. 36, x. 25, xv. 24.

We know ( i. e. , by the Gospel) that —

1. "The Son of God is come" (ἡκεν), "has come and is here."

Note. – בָאחִי = ἡκω, LXX. Psalm xl. 7. " Venio symbolum quasi Domini Jesu fuit." (Bengel on Heb. x. 7), the Ich Dien of the Son of the Father – εγω γαρ εκ του θεου εξηλθον και ἡκω. "I came forth from God, and am here" (John viii. 4) = John i. 29 – xxi. 23 (John xiv. 18, 21, 23, xvi. 16, 22, form part of the thought "is here").

2. "And hath given us an understanding" = gift of the Spirit, John xiv., xv., xvi. (especially 13, 16).

3. "This is the very God and eternal Life" = John i. 1, 4.

The whole Gospel of St. John brings out these primary principles of the Faith, —

That the Son of God has come. That He is now and ever present with His people. That the Holy Spirit gives them a new faculty of spiritual discernment. That Christ is the very God and the Life of men.

"Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. Every spirit that confesseth not [that] Jesus Christ [is come in the flesh] is not of God." – 1 John iv. 2, 3.

A discussion (however far from technical completeness) of the polemical element in St. John's Epistle, probably seems likely to be destitute of interest or of instruction, except to ecclesiastical or philosophical antiquarians. Those who believe the Epistle to be a divine book must, however, take a different view of the matter. St. John was not merely dealing with forms of human error which were local and fortuitous. In refuting them he was enunciating principles of universal import, of almost illimitable application. Let us pass by those obscure sects, those subtle curiosities of error, which the diligence of minute research has excavated from the masses of erudition under which they have been buried; which theologians, like other antiquarians, have sometimes labelled with names at once uncouth and imaginative. Let us fix our attention upon such broad and well-defined features of heresy as credible witnesses have indelibly fixed upon the contemporaneous heretical thought of Asia Minor; and we shall see not only a great precision in St. John's words, but a radiant image of truth, which is equally adapted to enlighten us in the peculiar dangers of our age.

Controversy is the condition under which all truth must be held, which is not in necessary subject-matter – which is not either mathematical or physical. In the case of the second, controversy is active, until the fact of the physical law is established beyond the possibility of rational discussion; until self-consistent thought can only think upon the postulate of its admission. Now in these departments all the argument is on one side. We are not in a state of suspended speculation, leaning neither to affirmation nor denial, which is doubt . We are not in the position of inclining either to one side or the other, by an almost impalpable overplus of evidence, which is suspicion ; or by those additions to this slender stock, which convert suspicion into opinion . We are not merely yielding a strong adhesion to one side, while we must yet admit, to ourselves at least, that our knowledge is not perfect, nor absolutely manifest – which is the mental and moral position of belief . In necessary subject-matter, we know and see with that perfect intellectual vision for which controversy is impossible. [69] Footnote_69_69 "Proprium est credentis ut cum assensu cogitet." "The intellect of him who believes assents to the thing believed, not because he sees that thing either in itself or by logical reference to first self-evident principles; but because it is so far convinced by Divine authority as to assent to things which it does not see, and on account of the dominance of the will in setting the intellect in motion." This sentence is taken from a passage of Aquinas which appears to be of great and permanent value. Summa Theolog. 2a, 2æ quæst. i. art. 4. quæst. v. art. 2.