(Continued from page 232.)
The links of the epistles of John with his Gospel are very close; so close, that an apprehension of the doctrine of the Gospel as to eternal life is essential to a right understanding of the epistles. Before we enter on our detailed study of John's first epistle, therefore, let us as briefly as possible outline the teaching of his Gospel as to life-the life eternal.
First, the teaching of John's Gospel is that life- essential, underived, unchangeable and eternal- dwells in the Son of God. In Him who was with God as the eternal, divine Word, was life (i:4). Living in divine community of life, He was personally the absolute expression of what God is, in essence, nature and character. He, in whom the life thus essentially dwelt, was the light-the truth-the Source of it to man. It is important to remark here that none of the living creatures created by Him had community of life and light with Him. Those that became living beings by the word of His power, cease to be also by the same Word. Man became a living being, not by the word of His power, but by an impartation, not of the divine, eternal life, but of the spirit-nature; so that as being by creation a living soul having spirit, a spirit-nature, he was in the image and likeness of God. But if man thus lives and moves and has his being in God by creation (Acts 17:28), that is not living in community with the divine eternal life of God-the life that is in the Son of God. Even if man had not sinned, a special work of God in his soul would have been necessary for him to possess life in community with God, to have become a participator in the divine, the eternal life.
But man sinned, and his mind became darkened. Sin alienated him from God and rendered him incapable of finding out God, or of understanding Him, or of discerning and receiving the things of God. Hence, from the garden of Eden to the present time, men have not apprehended the life and light dwelling in the Son of God. Whether it be the partial manifestations since Eden, or the full shining forth of the light in Himself become a Man and tabernacling among men, the light of eternal life in Him has not been perceived by man naturally.
Nay, more:the Gospel of John tells us when the Son of God was upon earth the testimony given of God to Him was rejected. There was adequate testimony-of John the Baptist, of the works wrought by the Son, of the Father's testimony and seal of the Holy Spirit; that of the Old Testament Scriptures also, and of the Son Himself-yet the world does not recognize Him ; even His own earthly nation does not receive Him (i :1:) Man's mind is darkness, under the power of unbelief.
It is true that from Eden until now individuals have received Him, have discerned His personal and divine glory, have waited for Him, have welcomed Him, have bowed the knee to Him; but these, according to John's Gospel, have all been subjects of a work of God in the soul. They have been born of God by faith; they have been laid hold of by the testimony of God in the power of the Spirit (i:12, 13). They have been born of water and the Spirit (chap. 3:5). But until the Son came into the world, in full revelation of the Father, such were not given the privilege of taking, in the full reality of it, their place as children with the Father. That could not be until the place and the work to fit us for that place were fully revealed, and while, as we learn elsewhere, the children were being treated as servants. But the place of the children is now made known by the Son sent by the Father, and the right of the children to take it is divinely authorized (i:12). Even while our Lord was on earth He granted to faith this privilege, as John's Gospel abundantly shows (8:19; 12:44, 45; 14:7-9).
In chapter 3 the universal need of new birth is pressed (vers. 3-7). Everywhere, even in Israel, there was necessity that the testimony of God should lay hold of the soul in the power of the Spirit. This is needed no less in order to share in the earthly things of the kingdom of God than in the heavenly; both alike are subjects of divine revelation and testimony. The Lord was but insisting on a need the Old Testament Scriptures affirmed. The refusal to submit to this necessity is as fatal in connection with the earthly things as it is in connection with the heavenly. The Lord is not teaching that new birth is an earthly thing, but that it is essential to participating in either the earthly or heavenly things of the kingdom of God.
But how can new birth, giving that new life and nature which constitutes those upon whom it is conferred children of God, be bestowed upon sinners ? The Cross is the answer. The basis on which God ever gave life-life eternal-is the sacrificial death of the Son of Man. The Son of God became Man to die under man's penalty, that life might righteously, though in grace, be communicated to those deserving the death eternal. So earnestly does God desire men to live in the life that is eternal, and not abide in eternal death, that He gave His own Son, to become Son of Man to provide a righteous basis for the communication of divine, eternal life (vers. 14-16). The one that believes on Him, the object of divine testimony, receives the life-the eternal life that is in the Son; the rejecter of Him does not see life, but abides in death and under the wrath of God (vers. 36). This statement is absolute truth-true for all ages and dispensations, those preceding the Cross as well as since. Believers before the Cross believed on the Object of divine testimony. Such and only such were then born of God; and it is such and only such that are born of God now.
The measure of revelation and testimony has nothing to do with the matter of the communication of life. It is not at all the amount of revelation laid hold of; it is the laying hold of the Object of revelation and testimony. Wherever and whenever the object of divine testimony is laid hold of in the power of the Spirit, there is a child of God-one born of water and the Spirit; there is one to whom the life eternal that is in the Son of God is imparted.
In chapter 4 the imparted life is shown to be a spring of refreshment and satisfaction within the one to whom it is given. The possessor of this spring is independent of the world through which he is passing, since the spring within him rises up to the sphere of the abiding and eternal realities. Linked with these by the life and nature bestowed on him, he has capacity for their enjoyment; the measure of the enjoyment being, of course, according to the measure of the revelation and the energy of faith in the apprehension of it.
Chapter 5 insists that the eternal life that dwelt underivatively in the Son of the Father before the world began, dwells underivatively also in Him as the Son become Man; that thus He has the sovereign and divine right to be both the Life-giver and the Judge; and further, that His communication of life, divine and eternal, absolutely frees those that receive it from judgment; they pass out of death into life. It is eternal life they have passed into. Resurrection to life is thus guaranteed to all who have died in faith, from whatever age or dispensation.
Chapter 6 shows the Giver of life-the Quickener -to be also the abiding Bread of life, its sustainment, its nourishment. The life develops and expands as it feeds on Him. This explains the various degrees of growth in the divine life found among the children of God. If the life by -which we live is a common life-the life that is in the Son of God- the practical, experimental life, the life lived, varies in the different dispensations on account of the varying measures of the revelation, and in the same dispensation also on account of the varying degrees of the energy of faith.
We are instructed in chapter 7 that it is through drinking of the fulness that is in the Son that the possessor of life eternal becomes a filled vessel, the overflow of which the Spirit uses to bless and refresh others. He who drinks in the things of Christ as the Spirit has taught them, is in turn the Spirit's channel of these things to others.
Chapters 8, g and 10 show that the portion of those whom He quickens-those born of water and the Spirit-is communion with Himself. Life in the Son of God communicated to the believer, implies communion with the Son, after the pattern of the communion of the Son with the Father(10:14, 15). This communion in its full blessedness necessarily waited its full revelation. Those having life before the full revelation enjoyed communion in a partial measure, but after its full revelation, the communion is life abundant-fulness of joy.
In chapters n and 12 we are shown that the life with which we are quickened in new birth, given as it is by Him who in His own person is the annul merit of death and judgment, and on the basis of His own death and resurrection as grace for men, is a life that links its possessors with the sphere of life beyond death. Hence the certainty of the resurrection of all dying in faith in Old Testament times, while death is no more death for the believer in this New Testament age. Its power is annulled for those for whom life and incorruption have been illuminated (2 Tim. i:10). The quickened from the beginning are all the fruit of the Corn of Wheat that fell into the ground and died. It has risen. He is the manifested Living One, and all that receive life from Him, of whatever age, are by that life forever linked with Him in the sphere of life to which He belongs.
The Son of God, then, is the Source and Fountain of life. He is that as a divine Person; He is that as become Man. It is His right to give life, to quicken. Divine testimony deposited in the soul in the power of the Spirit is His way of imparting life, and life imparted thus is life of the same nature as life in its Giver. It is life in identification with the life eternal in the Son. It is a divinely bestowed capacity for the knowledge and enjoyment of God. It is that in every age; the measure of the knowledge and enjoyment depending on the measure of the revelation; the full revelation expanding the enjoyment into fulness of joy-life abundant.
The above statement of the doctrine of life, as taught in the Gospel of John, is very brief-too brief if we were engaged in the study of that Gospel; but it may suffice as presenting what needs to be kept in mind while studying the first epistle. As we proceed with the epistle in course, there will be frequent need of referring to the Gospel.
The Gospel record is for the purpose of showing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that they who believe the record may have life through His name (chap. 20:31), for life is communicated on the principle of faith.
This life, being a derived, dependent life in those to whom it is communicated, has those characteristics seen in the earthly life of the Son of God. This is what the first epistle insists on. He that says "he abides in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked."
We will now take up the epistle in detail. C. Crain
(To be continued.)