07. The Evangelist

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. BATTLE-FIELD OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. RELATION TO THE OTHER GOSPELS. CHARACTERISTICS AND CONTENTS. HOW IT IMPRESSES DIFFERENT MEN. THE PROLOGUE. EXPOSITION OF THE PROLOGUE.


S intelligent readers of the New Testament are aware, each of the four Gospels exhibits its special character in its very commencement; each, so to speak, carries a mark on its forehead: this is pre-eminently the case with the Gospel according to John. They who propose to themselves to study this Gospel must be content to take time, so that they may live into the knowledge of it. It is not possible to write anything like a "Handy Book" on it. And after the study of a whole life, there will still remain unfathomable depths into which we can only gaze with wonder and fascination.

This Gospel has been rightly described as in our day "the Battle-field of the New Testament." And the battle is not merely one in which intellect plays its part, but also the forces of passion. If the book can be proved a forgery, the citadel of the supernatural is "commanded" by its assailants.

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN.

After weighing what has been written—and so eagerly urged of late—against the Johannine origin of this Gospel, I am unable to see that the evidence in its favour has been so much as shaken. It does not however belong to my aim to deal with this question; indeed, to enter into it, even slightly, would require a separate book. The writer of the Gospel certainly professes to have been an eye-witness of the things which he records, and as good as calls himself John. In addition, the same hand that wrote the Gospel unquestionably wrote also the First Epistle (as both external and internal evidence show), in which the distinctest possible assertion is made of the writer's having been a personal witness of the manifestation. If then he was not a witness, I cannot acquit him of the worst kind of "lie," all the more abominable that it is a lie against God, the effect of which is to represent a creature as His equal; and I cannot help quoting against him—shuddering as I do it—the words of that John whom he simulates, "All liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."

This Gospel is not a mere supplement to the other three, filling in vacant spaces—such a view is both unwarranted and superficial—though, coming last, the Evangelist could not but take note of what the other three said, and did not say; nor is it an Eirenicon designed to reconcile differences within the Church; nor a controversial treatise aimed against incipient or manifested heresies (although it serves all the ends thus indicated); but is the "testimony" of one whom Jesus loved, who "leaned on His bosom," who "beheld His glory," and was "moved" to write by the Holy Spirit. In all probability it was given to the churches just when they might be sorrowfully wondering what they should do if this last of the Apostles were removed from them, and his testimony faded into a memory or a tradi-

ITS CONTENTS.

tion; their only comfort being that he might tarry till the Lord's return.*

It records the greatest of the miracles,† the longest and profoundest of the discourses, and that unfathomable prayer which preceded Gethsemane.‡ There is little of outwardness and physical action in it; in which respect it contrasts strikingly with Mark. The parabolic element, except in occasional glimpses, is almost entirely a-wanting; and we find instead the simple, profound, and profoundly-connected sayings of the Lord, the exceeding delicacy and beauty of which have been most wonderfully caught. It tells us more than the other three about the risen life. More also about the Comforter and His work, both as respects "the world" and believers. It is a well of living water, that fills again as we draw from it, and is inexhaustible.

Printed by itself, it forms but a very small volume, which

* The Apostle Paul, we know, did not write out his Epistles with his own hand, but employed an amanuensis. It is quite conceivable that the aged John, in writing, received the assistance of younger men who were associated with him in Christian service, and that the Greek in which he writes receives a tinge and character from this assistance. None the less would the book be to us the gift of the Holy Spirit.

† Seven in number, no two the same in kind.

‡ It has been objected that John could not possibly have retained these discourses in his memory, in such minuteness and fulness, for so many years. The true answer to this objection is the Lord's promise of the Spirit, to bring all things to remembrance. Subsidiary to this, however, there are various considerations that deserve to be weighed, as, e.g. :—(1.) Where writing is little used, the wonderful strength that memory attains. (2.) There is nothing incredible, or even unlikely, in the supposition of John's having used memoranda; or that the book took its final form only by a very slow process—indeed, by a process of growth. (3.) John did not, any more than the other Evangelists, act as a mere verbal reporter, but reproduced the sense livingly. (4.) The very length of time that elapsed, filled up as it was in telling of Jesus again and again, in thought and contemplation, and in deepening experience, would render it not more difficult but more easy to give his full and final testimony. Any one may find analogies within his own knowledge.

CHARACTERISTICS.

can easily be carried in the waistcoat pocket, and read from beginning to end at a single sitting. There is nothing in it that looks like striving after effect. The sublimest truths are set forth apparently without effort. The language is extremely simple and unartificial, yet answering to the requirements of profoundest speculative thought. A wonderful serenity breathes all through. No book of the New Testament does so much to captivate the reader's affections—it is so simple, so tenderly human, so heavenly, so penetrated by the spirit of love, so satisfying to the longings that reach out toward God. There is nothing in it like the Sermon on the Mount, or the Epistle of James; there are no chapters such as we find in the writings of Paul, within which "the melting fire" burns; there is no gorgeous colouring, or strange, weird imagery, as in the Apocalypse; but beyond all other New Testament books it wins the heart. Even when we forget the words, the echo of them lingers with us, like grave, sweet melody.

The readers are presumed to be unfamiliar with the Palestine of Christ:—hence the little explanatory notes that are so often thrown in respecting names and customs, such as, "The Passover, a feast of the Jews;" "Rabboni, which is to say, Master."

The present fashion of illustrating the life of Jesus (and the lives of Peter and Paul and John) is to bring together all that can be learned respecting topography, scenery, historic associations, and the like, so as to make the narrative more vivid. We get extremely interesting reading in this way; but now and then the information supplied affords little more help to an understanding of the Christ of God than if a historian of the Peninsular war were to illustrate the career of Wellington by telling us of the geology and botany of his various battle-fields, and the plumage of the birds that are found along his lines of march. In this Gospel is none of this

ITS PURPOSES.

irrelevancy of information, for the mere sake of pictorial effect. It is the spiritual, and not the outward, all through.

The book presupposes acquaintance with the Gospel story, and therefore does not give a complete outline of the Lord's public ministry just as Peter in the house of Cornelius assumes that his hearers were acquainted with the facts that underlie the message of mercy: "The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ, *that word ye know*." It is, at the same time, an original and fresh forth setting of His Personality and Life, designed to lift our thoughts of Him to the very highest elevation. In some sense He is, in this Gospel, *transfigured before us*. It ought to be read in the light of its declared purpose, "These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life through His name;" and every commentary upon it should lie in the line of that declaration—in other words, should aim at leading men into the knowledge which is life eternal.

Jesus Christ is not here the Son of Abraham and David, as in Matthew; nor Jehovah's Servant, as in Mark; * nor the Son of Adam, as in Luke; but the Only begotten of the Father. In the very outset we are taken back into the past eternity, or, as John names it, "the Beginning," to behold "the Word" who was with God, and was God, the ground and cause of all creature-existence. In the fulness of time the Word is made flesh and dwells among us, full of grace and truth. The mystery of the Incarnation comes before us in this Gospel as in none of the others. Elsewhere we

* As indicated in the very outset, by the opening quotation, Mark's Gospel is to be connected with Isaiah's great prophecy of "the Servant of Jehovah," chaps. xl.—xlvi.

SUMMARY OF NARRATIVE.

see the Holy Child wrapped in swaddling bands and laid in a manger; angels hymn His birth; the aged Simeon takes Him in his arms as God's Salvation; the Eastern Magi offer Him their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh; the Child in the home of Nazareth grows in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man; the Boy of twelve must be about His Father's business.

But in John's Gospel all this is passed over. There is no hint referring to His childhood at all. The broad fact of the Incarnation being declared, the Evangelist proceeds at once to describe the forthshowing of His glory. This is the theme of the book. It is the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father. He is introduced by the Baptist as "One whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose;" as the "Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world;" as One "who cometh from above," and who "is above all." Immediately He begins to gather disciples by His Divine self-disclosures and graciousness, and His Messiah career proceeds. The contents of the book, from the calling of the first disciples, onward to the week preceding His crucifixion, may be indicated in a single sentence:—The miracle at Cana; the purifying of the temple; the interview with Nicodemus; the interview with the Samaritan woman; the healing of a nobleman's son; a discourse growing out of the cure of an impotent man; another growing out of the multiplying of the bread and the walking on the sea; another at the feast of tabernacles, in the middle of which is inserted the account of the woman taken in adultery; another growing out of the miracle of opening the eyes of one born blind; * another at the feast of dedication in winter; and lastly, the great miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead. It is life all through, light all through, grace all through,

* The beginning of chapter x. seems a continuation of chapter ix.

MATERIALS EMPLOYED.

truth all through, glory all through—glory which to the Apostle (after the rending of the vail of flesh) is visible from first to last, in every part of the Lord's career.

From the period marked by the raising of Lazarus from the dead, Jesus ceases to walk openly among the Jews. The remainder of the Gospel (ten chapters out of twenty-one) deals with the closing scenes, beginning "six days before the passover." We go with Him from Bethany to Jerusalem; we join the throng on the day of the Triumphal Entry; we are with Him in the upper room; we are taken through the last sufferings; we see a specimen of His risen life; and His glory shines forth throughout, even in the blackest hour of hell's seeming triumph.

There is no mention made in this Gospel of some of the great events in His life which are detailed by the other Evangelists, and with which John was intimately acquainted. He knew, for example, of the victory over the Tempter in the wilderness; he was present at the Transfiguration on the holy mount, and had a glimpse of the kingdom in its power; he saw Jairus' daughter restored to life; he knelt in the Garden of Gethsemane; he was one of the band that accompanied the Lord as far as Bethany on the day of Ascension; but he makes no direct mention of these events in his narrative.

The materials which he has actually made use of are few in number compared with the store from which he might have drawn; he omitted many things, the record of which might have over-filled the world with books; with only a few selections from his rich treasury, he shows us the glory of the Incarnate Word -as if a painter should take a bit of grey rock, a tuft of maidenhair fern growing in a crevice, some patches of grass and heather, a tree or two, a human figure, a dim-seen mountain range, the infinite blue sky, and putting these into a picture should show us the glory of God

HOW REGARDED BY ENEMIES.

in nature. His Gospel, as a whole, is the record of a glory that shone forth from first to last during the earthly manifestation of the Son of God,—a glory not for the senses, but for the heart.

The student of the Epistle to the Romans will feel that he is here addressed from another side. It depends on one's nature more than on his logical powers what he shall find in this Gospel. Very remarkable is it how little children and ripe Christians, the simplest minded and the deepest minded, all like it with so profound a liking. To the mere logician it is one of the most obscure and perplexing writings that can be taken up; to the little child and the child-hearted saint, it is one of the easiest and most delightful. As, in the twilight of a day in September, one may cast a hasty, careless glance across the sky and see only a bright star shining here and there, while if he gazes steadfastly in some one direction for a little time, world after world, at first invisible, will shine forth to him from the blue depths; so, to him who looks long and earnestly into this book, glory after glory will disclose itself, till his whole spiritual sky is one wide field of light, while at the same time a sense of infinite mystery steals over him, and a strangely mingled longing and awe.

No part of the New Testament is a more intolerable offence to some, and none is more dearly loved by others. "It is of little use," says one, "to the Christians of our day." Another speaks of it as "chilling," and "calculated to repel rather than attract the mind." The Straussian school finds it a forgery of the second century, and regards it very contemptuously as do their successors. Renan, acknowledging it to come from the Apostle John, though perhaps changed by other hands, speaks of it as "a singular production," a "strange Gospel," in which "the character of Jesus is falsified in many points,"—the apparent aim of the

HOW REGARDED BY FRIENDS.

Evangelist being to gratify his personal dislike by running down Judas, and his personal jealousy by exposing Peter; while "perfect good faith was not always his rule." John Stuart Mill finds in it a good deal of "poor stuff."

On the other hand, the affection and admiration expressed towards it by others are almost unbounded. One has called it "the heart of Christ;" another, "the gospel of the Spirit;" another says, "It is written by the hand of an angel;" another, "It is the chief of the Gospels, and one can understand it only by reclining on the bosom of Jesus;" another, "It is sweeter and more charming, and endowed with more power to attract, than all the harmonies of music;" another, "It speaks a language to which no parallel whatever is to be found in the whole compass of literature;" another, "It is a deep and tranquil lake, in which are reflected the pleasant shores around, and the pure, clear sky, with sun, moon, and stars above;" another, "The simplicity is that of a seraph, and the love such as blossoms around the eternal throne of the blessed Son of God;" another, "It breathes the loftiest spiritual tone;" and another, "It stands out from the other three as the Sabbath among the days of the week, as the office of the priesthood among the functions of the sons of Levi, or like the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim, which was better than the vintage of Abiezer."

Very striking are the words of Matthias Claudius: "I love best of all to read in St. John. There is in him something so perfectly wonderful—dusk and night, and the quick lightning throbbing through them: the soft clouds of evening, and behind the mass the big full moon bodily; something so sad, so high, so full of presage, that one can never weary of it! In reading John, it always seems to me that I see him before me, reclining at the Last Supper on the bosom of the Lord, as if his angel held the light for me,

THE PROLOGUE.

and at certain parts would place his arm around me, and whisper something in my ear. I am far from understanding all I read, yet often John's idea seems to hover before me in the distance; and even when I look into a place that is entirely dark, I have a presension of a great, glorious meaning, which I shall some day understand, and hence I catch so eagerly at every new exposition of the Gospel of John." •

The best "Introduction" to this Gospel is the introduction written by the Evangelist himself. It is comprised in a paragraph of eighteen verses, and exhibits in a condensed form the whole significance, scope, and intent of the book. It runs as follows:—

"In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the Beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was Life; and the Life was the Light of men. And the Light shineth in the Darkness; and the Darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John: the same came for witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not the Light, but [was sent] to bear witness of the Light. The true Light was, which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own (inheritance or possessions), and His own (people) received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become sons of God, even to them that believe in His name; who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld

• As an analogy to the difference between the Christ of the earlier Evangelists and of John—the difference between the Socrates of Xenophon and the Socrates of Plato has been pointed out a thousand times.

AFFINITY TO GENESIS I.

His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father,) full of grace and truth. John beareth witness of Him and hath cried, saying, This was He of whom I spake, He that cometh after me has become [has taken His place] before me : for He was before me. For of His fulness all we received, and grace for grace. For the Law was given through Moses ; Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ. No man hath seen God at any time : the Only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He declared Him."

§ 1.

The most obvious peculiarity of this Introduction is its extreme child-like simplicity, combined with its riches and depth of thought. It is not, as at first might seem, chronological, sweeping over the period from creation to redemption, or (as has been said) "a history of the several gradually advancing forms of manifestation of the Word." In the outset I reject this view of the structure as untenable : I am satisfied that all attempts to read it as a succession of chronological statements do violence at some point or other to the language. So far as I can make out, we have in it an orderly and profoundly connected series of thoughts, each preparing the mind for that which follows, each making a fresh and farther revelation of Divine truth, and, when all taken together, exhibiting the *gist* of the narrative that follows. The order will be apparent when we have studied the whole.

The first thing that strikes one on examining the paragraph is a certain subtle affinity to the first chapter of Genesis, which is an introduction to the story of the first man, as this is an introduction to the story of the second Man, the Lord from heaven. The great words are the same in both cases, though they have evidently deepened in their later use—the Beginning, God, the Word ("God Said"), All Things, Light, Darkness, Life, to Be, to Become.

"THE BEGINNING."

While the Evangelist begins with creation, he goes very far beyond, and consequently uses many words that were not needed in the book of Genesis, but are indispensable to his purpose—such as these—Law, Grace, Truth, Faith, Sons of God, and so on.

As in the opening of Genesis, "God" is taken for granted. There is no attempt to prove that He is, by argument either a priori or a posteriori. There is no parley or discussion with the atheist. There is no notice taken—not even a side-glance—of any denial that has ever been made of the Divine existence. With a grand daring of disregard, all such denials, together with the speculations on which they are based or by which they profess to be justified, are silently passed by, as if there never had been, and never could be, any controversy on such a subject; and the paragraph proceeds on the assumption that He is, as beyond question, like a postulate or axiom.

We are at once placed in thought by the Evangelist in "the Beginning." In every new generation, science is carrying us back into a more remote antiquity, but has done nothing whatever to help us to conceive of a past eternity. The Evangelist does not call us to form any such conception—which indeed the human mind is incapable of doing. But he takes us back till we are behind creation—ere sun or moon or star existed—behind protoplasm or whatever other name may be used; and that timeless Past, "before the world was," "before the foundation of the world," he calls "the Beginning."

"In the Beginning was"—God? We are prepared for such a statement; we almost expect it; if it be a truism, it is a glorious one, and underlies all religion. But it is another thing that the Evangelist tells us. "In the Beginning," he says, "was the Word." The Word: who or what can this Word be? Is it a new name—the Christian-

“THE WORD.”

philosophic name for God? Or had God a companion in the bygone eternity? Is Dualism taught here? and is this Word a second God? Or have we here a name for God’s first-born creature, called into being before all worlds? Or does the term belong to some system of philosophic speculation, relating to the nature and action of God? Such questions would almost certainly, in some shape or other, spring up in the mind of a heathen reader into whose hands this Gospel might fall. The Evangelist will answer them all, if we have patience, and will give us the true knowledge of the Word, even as the Apostle Paul declared the Unknown God to the Athenians.

Without noticing even in outline any of the learned inquiries and discussions as to where the Evangelist found this name, and in what sense he meant it, it is enough to say that it was already in use at the time he wrote, and probably long before. In particular it had been woven into elaborate religious speculations by the Jews living in Alexandria. Just as our modern scientific culture, or the scientific spirit, as it is called, is exerting a wide influence in the domain of religious thought to-day, so did Greek philosophy, particularly that of Plato, among these Jews. Taking the writings of the Old Testament as the Divine source of spiritual knowledge, and rejecting mere verbal literalism of interpretation, they endeavoured to give philosophic expression to the truths they apprehended, and to build them into a philosophic system. Under such conditions the doctrine of the Word (the *Logos*) took shape in the school represented by Philo, and no doubt soon became widely known. There is no ground, however, for supposing that the Evangelist borrowed the name from Philo; it was in far wider and older use, having its origin as far back as the first chapter of Genesis, which I have no doubt was vividly present in his mind as he wrote. “And God *Said*,”

"THE WORD WAS WITH GOD."

"and God Made": so it runs throughout that chapter, preparing for the utterance of the Psalmist, "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth."

A word is a thought, or emotion, or volition, expressed in sound, and abiding where it is lodged after the sound has passed away. You put yourself into your word, if it is a true word—your own mind, your own heart, your own will. In telling us that the Word was in the beginning, does the Evangelist then simply mean—that God spake and called things into being by the word of His power? and that it was not "holy light" (as Milton sings), but voice or sound, that was the "offspring of heaven first-born"? And is the voice of God here personified, as His "wisdom" is personified in the Book of Proverbs? Shall we say that God's word in the beginning called the heavens and the earth into existence—that it afterwards came forth, generation after generation, to the children of men through the prophets—that in the fulness of time it came forth as a living and holy humanity—that God's final word to men is a Man, even the Man Christ Jesus, who is the truth of God, the wisdom of God, and the power of God? We might be inclined to answer, Yes, it is but a strongly figurative way of telling us this, were it not that the marks of personality are so numerous and decisive, not merely in separate expressions, but in the whole scope of the paragraph. The English version is right in naming the Word He and not It; He, the person—not It, the voice.

In the beginning the Word "was with God." At first glance the phraseology seems of the simplest kind. To be with one, we say, is to be his companion, or associate, or fellow. The original marks intimacy even more decisively than does the English translation. We are not to regard the Word as sundered or separated from God; there is dis-

"THE WORD WAS GOD."

tinctness in some sense, but no apartness or away-ness. The phraseology is not singular in the writings of John : we find it in such instances as the following : "That Eternal Life which was *with* the Father ;" "We have confidence *toward* God ;" "We have an Advocate *with* the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." When it is said, "He was with God," this is antithetic to what is said afterwards, that He was made flesh and "dwelt among us." The manner of the fellowship with God indicated by "*with*" is in no way explained by the Evangelist, and we must be content to leave it undefined. Taken by itself, apart from the doctrine that God is one, we should find no greater difficulty in the statement, "*The Word was with God*," than in the question of the people respecting Jesus, "Are not His brethren with us?"

The Evangelist adds in the same breath, "And the Word *was God*." It is not that He "was a god," or that He "was of God," or that "God was the Word," but beyond contradiction, as the English version gives it : "The Word was God." The Evangelist may be put out of court as a witness ; his testimony may be regarded as worthless ; but it is not possible to make anything of it but that "the Word was God." Standing by itself, the statement is quite intelligible. That "*was*" makes the Word Divine. Whatever is to be affirmed concerning God is to be affirmed concerning *Him*.

No language could be simpler, clearer, more definite, than the language we have been considering. Each separate statement—as a statement—is intelligible to a child. But when we put the statements together, and try to harmonize them, our intellects are absolutely baffled. He *was with* God ; He *was* God : how can both statements hold? Unless the name "God" be used in a double sense, the second statement seems to negative the first. If one is *with* another, how can he *be* that other? If the Word was *with* God,

"ALL THINGS MADE BY HIM."

how can He be God? The difficulty does not lie in the obscurity of the statements made to us, but within the Divine nature itself. We shall not clear it away by supposing an "impartation" of Godhead to Him—as a child inherits the humanity of his parents, or as believers are "made partakers of Divine nature." He did not "become"; He "was." And then too, "The same was in the beginning with God." Nothing that has taken place within the limits of time can explain the mystery. His Past and God's Past, if such expressions be permissible, are one and the same. He was with God and was God, all in the Beginning.

§ 2.

Next, the creation of all things is ascribed to the Word: "All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made." The first clause might have sufficed; but, to place the meaning beyond question, the second is added, which is not a mere redundancy, a mere repetition or variation of the first clause, after the manner of Hebrew parallelism, but formally negatives and excludes the supposition that in some corner or far-off realm of space there may have been some other Being at work independently. The "all things" (all without exception) must be taken as equivalent to "the heavens and the earth" of Genesis, or, as we say, the universe: it is impossible to regard them as equivalent to "the spiritual creation" or "new moral world" introduced by the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. What the Evangelist as a man knew concerning the extent of the universe does not require to come into consideration, any more than what we know, or what David knew when he penned the eighth Psalm; but whatever its extent, the whole is here included—both the things themselves and the laws which rule them.

To an English ear the expression "was made" naturally

THE CREATION.

suggests the idea of work or labour. Not so, however, the term which the Evangelist employs in the original. That term is simply “became :” “all things became (came to be) by Him.” It answers to the term which occurs so often in the first chapter of Genesis, “And it was so” (translated in the Septuagint, “It became so”). According to the record in Genesis, the heavens and the earth were not fashioned by a silent volition on the part of God, nor by the action of His hand, but in this manner : “God said”—“and it became so.” It was by His Word that the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them. The Evangelist’s statement is the New Testament repetition of the record in Genesis : in this vast universe which exists before our eyes, there is not anything which does not owe its being to the Word. “In Him,” as Paul says to the Colossians, “were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities or powers ; all things have been created by Him and for Him ; and He is Himself before all things, and in Him all things subsist” (Col. i. 16, 17).

Either the material universe has been called into existence, or it is eternal—as it seemed to certain ancient theorists and to some moderns, who find in matter itself “the primeval cause of all being,” “the promise and potency of every form and quality of life,” so that God is not merely unnecessary, but is excluded. It is the former view which is presented here. But what “course” or “process” followed the calling of matter into existence—what spaces of duration lay between the command and the perfect “*it was so*”—is left in the dark. For aught that the Evangelist tells us, the original creative act may have been followed by processes of evolution extending over unmeasured time—all which processes would be covered by the word “*became*.”

“When God made the rocks, He made the fossils in

THE FIRST CAUSE.

them," said the old weaver to the boy David Livingstone—but the Evangelist does not speak after this fashion; though his language is non-scientific, yet it does not require to be corrected so as to take it out of conflict with fact, any more than the astronomer forbids us to speak of "sunrise" and "sunset." All the researches of science go to show that God has set an example for all workers to follow, by proceeding from the lower to the higher, working (if one may reverently use such an expression) on one and the same ground-plan throughout, yet producing ever higher and nobler results. Of such processes, however, the Evangelist gives no account or even hint, but simply declares that the universe, in its every realm and minutest detail, owes its being to the Word. It was made "by" Him, or rather "*through*" Him: He is not (so to speak) an independent and isolated actor in the case, any more than He is a mere instrument. The will in which creation stands is the will of God; as it is written in Genesis, "*Let us make*."

Some men, discarding God as a nightmare or oppressive superstition, and professing to be guided by science, are looking out for some force that shall account for what they find in creation. It is becoming more and more manifest that all things are so related, so kin (*sib*, if one may use an expressive old Scotticism), as to form a kind of unity; that the present has grown out of the past; that one form of force may be translated into another, as motion into heat; but that we can create nothing and annihilate nothing. What is the prime Force of all—the Force of which all other forces are the outcome? Is it intelligent or unintelligent? Is it a "potential atom" or a Spirit? Is it a fate or does it possess a heart and a holy will? Shall we say *it* or *He*? Science cannot tell. Science knows nothing which does not rest ultimately on the evidence of sense, and consequently can never take us out of the region of the material. Its most

PRIMAL FORCE.

ingenious and delicate apparatus is after all but an extension of our senses, and all its discoveries therefore are of a "sensible" order; however far out it may go in its researches, and however far back—over spaces measured by millions of years—it comes up to a boundary-line beyond which is impenetrable mystery.

The Evangelist announces that the primal force (if that term must be used) resides in the Word. The creation of a single atom would have been a revelation of Him; how much more is this great universe! A man is always greater than his work; no architect, for example, ever put his whole self into the noblest building he designed; even so the Word is greater than the universe which He has called into being. Still, so far as it goes, it reveals Him to us. To the eye of childhood this world into which we are born is beautiful and strange and marvellous past expression. Not less so to intelligent and thoughtful manhood. If the romance is gone, as the summer dew from the grass at noon, the real wonder only becomes overwhelming.

We look around us upon the infinite variety of productions which the earth brings forth—their use, their goodness, their beauty; we sweep the eye of imagination over ocean and continent, hill and plain, lake and stream, corn-land and forest, sahara and paradise; we mark the changes produced by day and night and the succession of the seasons; we listen to the music of nature—the boom of ocean dashing on the shore, the wind in the forest, the tinkling of the hidden moorland rill; we think of the countless tribes of living and sentient beings that inhabit earth along with us; we think of man with his marvellous endowments; we think of the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places; we listen to all that science can tell us of the subtle agencies that pervade creation and the laws which bind all beings together.

THE STELLAR WORLDS.

Then, standing on earth, as on a promontory that juts out into the infinite, we look upwards and outwards. Beyond the nether sky, with its cloud-scenery and its sunrise and sunset hues of beauty, there are illimitable realms of space, studded with worlds moving harmoniously in close-ravelled maze. These heavens were vast and glorious to the eye of the old Chaldee gazer thousands of years ago; how have their vastness and glory grown to us since then! The globe which is our dwelling place is one of the smallest planets wheeling round one of the lesser suns. It is conceivable that only our own little world might have hung solitary in immensity; but the space swept by the telescope teems with solar systems compared with which ours is insignificant. In the Milky Way alone are millions of suns, the nearest of which requires years to dart its light to us, though light travels two hundred thousand miles during a single vibration of a pendulum. In the presence of that immensity our globe is but as a grain of sand on the seashore.*

And as is our relation to space, so also to time, according to the teachings of geology: since our world became the theatre of life, ages on ages have run their course, for the duration of which we have absolutely no measure.

* "The least of the stars seen in the galactic depths—even though the telescope which reveals it be the mightiest yet made by man, so that with all other telescopes that star would be unseen—is a sun like our own. It is a mighty mass, capable of swaying by its attraction the motions of worlds, like our earth and her fellow-planets, circling in their stately courses around it. It is an orb instinct with life (if one may so speak), aglow with fiery energy, pouring out each moment supplies of life and power to the worlds which circle around it. It is a mighty engine, working out the purpose of its Great Creator. . . . . What then must be our thoughts when we see thousands and thousands of stars, all suns like our own, and many probably far surpassing him in splendour, passing in stately progress across the telescopic field of view! The mind sinks appalled before the amazing meaning of the display."—RICHARD A. PROCTOR, B.A., Cantab.; Hon. Sec. of Royal Astronomical Society.

THE DIVINE ARCHITECT.

How great must *the Maker* be!—how wise, how good, how glorious! That universe in its vastness, wonder, and divine beauty, and in all the evolutions through which it has passed during countless ages, lay first of all in His mind—if one may say so—as the grand cathedral was in the brain of the architect ere its foundation-stone was laid: it took all that we see, and all that science discloses, and all that mystery still hides, to express His creative Idea.

“The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.” There is indeed in some minds an unbelieving suspicion that harm must come to piety through researches into the constitution of nature and the investigation of its history and laws; and the very name of *science* in some quarters has a profane sound and awakens an uneasy dread that the next word will be *scepticism*. In the face of sayings to the effect that an undevout astronomer is mad, it must be granted that it is possible for a scientific inquirer to know only the material and deny the Divine, even as it is possible for a man who is busy making money in a selfish spirit to have no heartfelt appreciation of the sacrifice of the Redeemer. But there is no feud between religion and the scientific spirit. On the contrary, religion lifts up her hands and blesses science in the name of the Lord, and bids her be reverent, humble, true, and fearless. And when science takes the blessing, she can adopt the words with which Kepler concludes his work, “On the Harmony of Worlds:”—“I thank Thee, O my Creator and Lord, that Thou hast given me this joy in Thy creation—this delight in the works of Thy hands. I have shown the excellency of Thy works unto men, so far as my finite mind was able to comprehend Thine infinity. If I have said aught unworthy of Thee, or aught in which I may have sought my own glory, graciously forgive it.”

"IN HIM WAS LIFE."

§ 3.

Carrying our thoughts forward into a new region, the Evangelist adds, "In Him was life."

This evidently means more than that He lived—which in this connection were a mere truism. To have life was His characteristic. Life was that which existed in Him, and of which He was full. In our case life is derived, is dependent, is placed under limitations, is continually changing, must be nourished and sustained by fit supplies: in Him it exists as in its eternal and exhaustless fountain.

The Evangelist's statement at first glance appears simple in the extreme, and we are in danger of slipping over it without much thought; but, if we pause and look, it broadens out and deepens under our gaze all but immeasurably.

Let us, first of all, look into the meaning of the word "life" itself. It is not to be resolved into "happiness" or "salvation," far less into mere existence; all such paraphrases are an emptying of it. It is one of the great words we so often meet in John's writings, which are used without being defined, and which indeed could not be made intelligible by verbal explanations. Including its cognate "*live*," it is found more than fifty times in his Gospel alone, and nearly as often in his Epistles and the Book of Revelation. It is the antithesis to "death," as is seen, for example, in the passage, "He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." Our order usually is *life and death*; we reckon "from the cradle to the grave;" we begin with life, and trace it from its dawn onwards throughout its manifold vicissitudes till it ends with the last breath; in John, on the contrary, the order is *death and life*—answering to which order, for example, is the name which Jesus takes upon Himself: "I am the resurrection and the life;" implying that He begins by dealing with death.

THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

To know the scope of the word, we begin with life in its lowest and simplest forms, as it is seen in the Arctic moss or the ooze brought up from the sea-depths by the Challenger. Even in such lower forms the physiologist cannot tell us what life is, nor the microscopist, nor the chemist, nor the wisest philosopher. They can tell us the signs of it, and the laws according to which it is continued or extinguished; but that is about all. From the lowest and simplest we pass upwards, through one order of being after another, till we come to man, in whom life reveals itself so much more marvellously, in sense, intellect, emotion, conscience, will. We mark how different a thing it is in different cases; to the unlettered peasant and the man of profound and various culture; to the playful child and to the grey haired saint, ready to enter the perfect kingdom of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. In this passage the term "life" is not to be restricted to any single province, wide or narrow, "physical," "moral," "spiritual," or "eternal," but is to be taken in the whole breadth of its significance.

Besides the marvel and mystery of life in its nature and infinitely various forms, there is also its immensity of volume—its quantity—its amazing amplitude of extent—all that is, all that has been, in air, and earth, and sea. So far as our comprehension is concerned, the sum of it is absolutely boundless. As an illustration of the impossibility of dealing with this aspect of the case, a single fact may be selected from the microscopic researches of Ehrenberg: one cubic inch of the hardened clay called tripoli he found to contain between forty and fifty thousand millions of the silicious fossil shells of infusoria. In presence of such a fact our minds are utterly helpless to conceive the extent of life even in this little globe that we inhabit.

All the life of creation, so vast in its sum, so wonderful

"THE LIGHT OF MEN."

and glorious, from the life that lasts only a summer evening to that of the archangel who bows before the eternal throne and adores—all that life, the Evangelist tells us, “was in Him.” He is the Fount whence it has all proceeded. Being in Him, the outcome was a necessity. If there is life in the vine, it comes out in branch, and leaf, and grape cluster. So with the life that was in the Word: it has come out in the vast and varied life of creation. Because in Him was life, therefore this is a living world, and not a mere material and ponderable ball, or a world of automatons, destitute of understanding and volition. All the life of which we have any knowledge is the out-blossoming and fruiting of the life that was in Him.

This “Life” the Evangelist proceeds to tell us was “the light of men.” The order of thought is the same as in Psalm xxxvi. 9: “With Thee is the fountain of life; in Thy light shall we see light.” Light is another of the great words of this Evangelist. Its antithesis is darkness. John’s usage as to both words is shown in such passages as the following: “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil;” “He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life;” “I am the light of the world;” “Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.”

The terms belong primarily to the sphere of nature—the light of day and the darkness of night. But in every instance in which they appear in John’s writings, they are used as figures of spiritual ideas; they suggest the element in which the evil life proceeds, and the element in which God is said to dwell. According to John’s usage, light is not that which enters the bodily eye, but symbolizes knowledge, wisdom, truth, holiness. Darkness, its antithesis, he likewise uses symbolically; for example, even when he

LIGHT AND LIFE.

records the going forth of the betrayer from the upper room, and adds, "*It was night*," we feel that his thought is moving in a symbolic region. Darkness is not the mere absence or negation of light; it is a positive element, antagonistic to light, and is synonymous with ignorance, hatred, falsehood, unrighteousness, sin and misery, implying that man has lost God.

Now the "life" that was in the eternal Word "was the light of men." The statement seems intended to cover the whole period of human history. It is not that the life "*became*" the light of men at some definite time, fixed by chronology—as for example at the incarnation, or the commencement of Christ's public ministry, when the people who sat in darkness saw great light, and to them who sat in the region and shadow of death light sprang up: the life "*was*" the light of men from the beginning.* During that brief period of innocence, when the ideal and the actual were one and the same, it was so; and so also, though in a different mode, down the darkest ages that followed: as matter of fact, the life that was primarily in the Word, and that was divinely implanted in human souls, was the world's light.

We must not represent the case to ourselves in a mere mechanical way, but vitally. We are not to find an analogy in the shining of the sun upon the moon and planets, making them gleam like burnished metal. It was not that the life emitted rays which beat upon men's eyes *from without*—but as when a lantern is lighted: the life entering men's souls kindled them, and shone *within*, and gave light (streaming from within outwardly) to all that were around. When natural life is quenched, what a blank is occasioned!

* How and in what measure will never be known until the great day of unveiling; but in the meantime we must not forget that He has all along had sovran access into the human breast.

LIGHT IN DARKNESS.

how the lustre of the eye is dimmed! how night and darkness settle down upon the countenance! Rising from the natural to the spiritual, it is life that is the light of men—the light in which they see, and in which they shine. To the soul that lies in death, the glories of God are no more than the stars of heaven to the blind. The Word is the light-giver in that He is the life-giver. In perfect keeping with this mode of viewing the case is the saying of Jesus, "If a man walk in the night he stumbleth, because there is no light in him." The light is inward, or it is nothing to us, either for our own walking, or for help to others. Milton has embodied the truth in these lines:

"He that has light within his own clear breast,

May sit i' th' centre, and enjoy bright day:

But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts,

Boughted walks under the midday sun;

Himself is his own dungeon."

"The light shineth in darkness." Note how "darkness" (symbolizing evil) is named, and its existence taken for granted, without being explained or in any way accounted for; nor even is a single hint thrown out to mitigate the awful oppressiveness of its mystery. Were the question presented to us as an abstract one, we should pronounce darkness impossible in a universe created by a holy and almighty Being. But, as a matter of fact, it exists. Is it eternal? Or had it a beginning? If so, when and how? Is it utterly causeless? Is it the result of necessity? and is the sinner as little to blame for his sin as the apple is for obeying the law of gravitation and falling to the ground? Is it included among the "all things" that were made by the creative Word? Is He its author, and is the will of God its ground? Is evil not really evil, but only good in the bud? Is it the stumbling of the child in learning to walk--his stammering in learning to speak? Is the Fall (as

LIGHT UNCOMPREHENDED.

has been argued) "the most fortunate and greatest event in history," being the starting-point of man's moral freedom? Is it better to have become a sinner than to dwell in the bowers of Paradise? Is sin the necessary pathway to the highest ideal of perfection and felicity? Has God introduced evil in order that He may work out the highest purpose, and is He (so to speak) playing both sides of the game, the right hand against the left? Or does it spring from imperfection in Him? If it be a contradiction of His will, how could it originate, except He is less than almighty?

The problem to which these and other questions belong—the origin of evil—is one that has fascinated, perplexed, bewildered, tortured, all who have ever attempted to deal with it; they could neither let it alone, nor mitigate by a single shade the blackness of its darkness: the attempt to solve it has proved as vain as the search for the philosopher's stone or the elixir vitæ; every solution yet proposed contains within it the very mystery which it attempts to clear up. The Evangelist has the opportunity of giving some relief to the mind by throwing light upon the mystery; indeed it appears as if the line of thought he is pursuing must necessitate some utterance on the subject, it seems to lie so directly in his way. Yet he says not a single word. There is the "darkness"—unaccounted for, unexplained, a dread and undeniable fact of almost infinite magnitude. Is not his silence significant?

"The light shineth" in this darkness. This statement does not refer merely to the personal ministry of Jesus and the promulgation of His gospel: we are not to think merely of the rising up of a great Teacher who came to instruct an ignorant and benighted world; the statement sweeps over all time, and embraces all the illuminating activities of the Word, both before and since the Incarnation. It is not

"BEHOLD, I SEND MY MESSENGER!"

merely that the light shone for a period of three or three-and-thirty years; but from the beginning of human history it has gone on shining, and shineth still. This world has never been given over to the unchallenged reign of darkness: there have always been souls wherein the life has been kindled, and through whom it has shot its rays into the world's gloom--God's candles lighted and placed according to His own will. In this respect the Father of lights has never been left without witness.

Have light and darkness then entered into coalition? Do they form a mixture, neither clear nor dark, like our twilight? Is there a blending of the two (in our modern civilization, for example) as when two chemical elements combine to form a new substance? Does the darkness, when penetrated or permeated by the light, take in something of its nature, and become in a measure assimilated to it? No; the darkness still retains its own qualities; continues to be darkness; is essentially the same to the last; does not appropriate the light, but holds it outside, as something which it cannot understand. As it was when the Holy One dwelt among men, so it has ever been; the light of a heavenly and beautiful life has shone before men's eyes, and they have not so much as seen it. The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not; so far from comprehending, not seldom has the darkness formally *denied* it, as when the Pharisees rejected the Christ of God, and then asked, "Are we blind also?"

§ 4.

The following verses (6—13) conduct us to a fresh point of view from which to regard the Word.

There arose a God-sent man, the Evangelist tells us, whose name was John. This was John the Baptist, the son

BEARING WITNESS OF THE LIGHT.

of Zacharias and Elisabeth. We have glimpses of his story in the Gospels, in so far as it bears on the life of Jesus, glimpses which exhibit him as a true-souled and noble man, than whom there had not risen a greater among them that are born of women. There are those who arrive at just conclusions through research, intuition, or reasoning, and become leaders of their generation into farther light; there are others, like Cyrus, whom God raises up and girds for great service, though they know Him not: this man, the Evangelist announces, was "sent from God"—a messenger after the example of Moses or Elijah, fulfilling the prophecy: "Behold, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me."

Though sent from God, he did no miracle: gave no fresh or farther revelation of Divine truth. His special function—the scope of his ministry, grasped in its total significance—was witness-bearing.

In particular, he came to bear witness concerning the light—the light that had been shining uncomprehended in the darkness, and that was now entering on a new and more wonderful manifestation. Does the light then need that witness should be borne to it? Is not light its own evidence? Yes, if men have eyes to see; but because they lay in the darkness and slumber of sin, it was necessary to arouse them, and to give testimony to the true light, distinguishing it from all false lights that could only lure to death. In an obvious sense, "the law and the prophets" formed a great system of "witness" to the coming One (Acts x. 43; Rom. iii. 21, 22); but it required completing, and John's ministry was the completion of it—the grand close of the prophetic symphony. The morning star, day's harbinger, bears witness of the sun, by shining in his light; and so also does the mountain-top, kindled with the first rays of morning, to the dwellers in the deep valley beneath, or the

THE DAY-SPRING FROM ON HIGH.

far-stretching plain. But John's testimony went beyond even this: he not merely preceded the Messiah, closing the prophetic line, but, having first aroused the nation by that cry, "*Repent*," he actually introduced and named Him to Israel. A single example will suffice to show the character and manner of his testimony. "John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon Him; and I knew Him not: but He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost; and I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God" (John i. 32—34).

We sometimes speak as if we thought Divine dealing with men intended simply to render them "without excuse." It is true that God's revelations have left even the heathen without excuse in their ungodliness, as Paul tells us in the Epistle to the Romans (i. 20), and this not merely by way of result, but of Divine purpose. The leaving of men without excuse is not however the complete account of God's action; He wishes more than merely to keep Himself in the right in the condemnation of sinners. In the case of the Baptist's ministry this holds good; his testimony was not given in order that men might be without excuse, but (answering to the Divine benevolence) "that all men through him might believe." The very aim of his mission, the reason why God sent him, was that men might be led into faith—the faith spoken of in such words as these: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life;" "These (things) are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life in His name."

Zacharias spoke in his prophetic song of "the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day-spring from on high

"HE WAS IN THE WORLD."

hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death;" and when afterwards the Baptist began his ministry, "all men mused in their hearts whether he were the Messiah or not." Doubtless many of his disciples could say, "He kindled my soul; my intercourse with him was like the dawn of day." But he was not himself the light: only at most "a burning and shining lamp;" that was all; and his shining was a testimony to the light that is unkindled and eternal.

The true light (true in distinction, not only from the false, but also from the partial and borrowed and dependent) was that "which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."* The light given by the eternal Word was not a mere private illumination vouchsafed to a few; but wheresoever there was a living man, born into the world, light was given to him. This harmonizes with what Paul says (Rom. i. 19): "That which may be known of God is manifest in them"—in their very consciousness, in their very hearts (ii. 15)—"for God *hath showed it unto them*," hath made it lie in their view as in the daylight. The very life given to man, as a being endowed with understanding, conscience, and other equally great faculties, and placed in such a world, carries in it the possession, though of course not necessarily the appropriation, of light; for there was such a thing as "holding the truth in unrighteousness." It is not needful to single out men like Socrates, and claim that light was given to *them*; but take any common man out of the crowd, even to him was light given, and that

* It makes no substantial difference *in the sense* whether we translate, as the English version does, "the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," or, "the true light was coming into the world which lighteth every man." The latter translation would bring the clause into this group of passages—John iii. 19; iv. 14; ix. 39; xi. 27; xii. 46. A good deal can be said on both sides.

"HIS OWN RECEIVED HIM NOT."

light was due to the Word. This holds not merely since the Incarnation, but from the beginning; and we must read history with the fact in our minds. The measure of light is very different in different cases; but in all cases light has been given; and men have been responsible to God in that proportion.

Advancing another stage, the Evangelist tells us, "He was in the world," that world in which we are at present, which we enter by the gate of birth, and leave by death. The manner of His presence is in no way explained—whether by virtue of His omnipresence, or by theophany, or by incarnation—only the fact is asserted. "And the world was made by Him"—it was His creation; it owed existence, order, happiness, and well-being to Him; and yet it "knew Him not." He remained a stranger in His own world, unknown among the works of His own hand.

This was sad: but there was sadder than this. "He came unto His own," unto His own possessions, His own heritage, "and His own (covenant people) received Him not." The manner in which He came, the abasement and self-sacrifice involved in His coming, the purposes He had in view, the claims He raised, the grace He proffered—these matters are not yet touched upon; only the fact is declared of a real and close approach to Israel. But His coming was not met by a welcome; Israel did not stretch out the hand to Him. It was as if a monarch should enter one of his own palaces, and none of his servants should recognize him. Nor was there merely non-recognition; there was rejection; He was repelled as an intruder: the phrase, "They received Him not," marks a refusal to have Him. "Though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on Him." "To Israel He saith, All day long I have stretched forth My hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people." The supreme token of rejection was the

"SONS OF GOD."

cross, when they "denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired that a murderer should be granted unto them, and killed the Prince of life."

The rejection was not indeed absolutely universal; some *did* receive Him. The "receiving" carries in it that they admitted His claims, accepted the grace He held out, trusted in Him as Saviour, with the assent of the understanding, and the consent of the heart. In itself, the term is somewhat general. When the Galileans "received" Him after His departure from Judea (John iv. 45), it marks a certain welcome given to Him. When He says to His disciples, "He that receiveth you, receiveth Me," He does not speak of mere kindly feeling, expressed in hospitable entertainment, though even this is not to be undervalued, but He speaks of a believing welcome given to the messengers on account of the message they bring, and of Him whom they represent. So here, the receiving implies that His claims were allowed, and welcome given to Him accordingly.

The receivers are further described in the clause, "even to them who believe in His name." These words are to be read in the light of the great gospel message, as afterwards set forth in the preaching and writings of the Apostles. His name is the summing up of all that He is as Saviour and Lord, and faith or believing is the trust of "all that is within us" reposed in Himself.

Though comparatively few in number, there *were* such receivers of Him when He came to His own; and to all of them He gave power to become "sons of God"—not "*disclosed a relationship already existing*," but (vital distinction) gave power *to become* what they were not before. The paternal and filial relationship helps us to understand the nature of this sonship. What a son is to an earthly father, that a receiver of Christ is to the eternal God. It is a great

THE NATURE OF SONSHIP.

thing to be God's creature, as Adam was in his innocence, the creature of a God supremely wise, and good, and holy, and mighty; and it is conceivable that believers might only have obtained forgiveness, and been received back into a state of favour as creatures; but the grace actually shown goes unspeakably beyond this—they become "sons."

And it is not sonship in the loose sense in which all men are sons—"for we are also His offspring"—but, transcending this, after the example of the Son, and in virtue of union with Him. It is of this sonship that the Apostle Paul says, "The Spirit witnesseth with our spirit"—not that we are believers—but that we (being believers) "are children of God; and if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ;" and again, "Ye are all the children of God, by faith in Christ Jesus;" and again, "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba Father."

Man could never have claimed such a position as this, taking his stand on any prerogative of caste or character; no man had native right to it or native ability to attain it; but to them who received Him, even to them that believe in His name, He "gave power" to become sons—power whether we regard the legal aspects of the case or the moral and spiritual, the status or the disposition, and including the whole capability of obtaining and holding possession.

The sonship is not effected in virtue of a mere act of adoption on the part of God. A child may be taken out of the family to which he originally belonged and be planted in another; he may get a new name; he may be trained to forget that he had other birth; he may be made heir to great estates; he may be as dearly loved and as tenderly cared for as if he were own child to those who have adopted him: but the fact remains that he is really the child of

"BORN OF GOD."

another, and nature may prove too strong for the new bonds, and he may pine for his native home, and at length go back to it. The "sons of God," however, are *sons by birth*, for such is the significance of the word here used, having not only a new name and position, but also a new life. It is not simply that they are *called* sons; they *are* sons, partakers of the Divine nature, with a filial relationship, and a filial resemblance to the eternal God. The sonship is already established in fact and in principle, though it awaits its full manifestation hereafter (1 John iii. 1, 2).

Unfolding the idea conveyed in the very term "*son*," it is added, "Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Born into God's family: full illustration of this is found in the conversation with Nicodemus, recorded in the third chapter of this Gospel. To what is the new birth to be traced? Out of what does it spring? It is not "of blood," blood-relationship, natural descent, transmission from father to son, even though the pedigree could be traced back clear to Abraham. "Nor of the will of the flesh," excluding all that pertains to the sensuous nature. "Nor of the will of man," excluding all that pertains even to the higher manhood. The origin (*vis originis*) of the new birth is outside human will, outside humanity altogether, and lies in God. It is due to the good pleasure of His goodness, to His abundant mercy, to His great love wherewith He loved us. When we recognize the truth that regeneration is no mere hard and arbitrary condition, on which entrance into heaven is made dependent, but is the provision of Divine love, making us meet as sons for the eternal fellowship and eternal enjoyment of God, the whole aspect of the doctrine is changed, and it becomes to us a new revelation of grace, and an inspiration of the loftiest hope.

THE INCARNATION.

§ 5.

"He was in the world"; "He came unto His own." Evident stress has been laid on these expressions. What do they mean? What was the manner of His coming and His presence? What was the nature of that manifestation which "the world" did not recognize, but which was attended with such blessed results to as many as received Him? The Evangelist answers our questions by telling us, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth."

Hitherto the verb "*was*" has been made use of in speaking about the Word; now for the first time we meet the verb "*became*"—"The Word was made, or became, flesh." This statement brings into view one of the deepest mysteries with which the human mind can deal—the mystery which we sum up as "*the Incarnation*." We get no help from analogy towards understanding it; the case is altogether unique and without parallel. While, however, we cannot clear the mystery, there are some things which we may set down as certain.

It is certain (to begin) that, in becoming "flesh," the eternal Word did not cease to be what He was before—as "the water that was made wine" ceased to be water. He continued still to be the Word, the same who was in the beginning with God and who was God; by whom all things were made, and who throughout history was the life and light of men. The mode of His being was changed, but in personal essence He remained the same. This is so obvious that it is unnecessary to enter into any discussion of it.

Next, it is certain, according to the Evangelist's statement, that, in being made flesh, the Word "became" what He was not before. Paul's use of the term "*flesh*" is too

DIVINE DISCLOSURE.

well known to require notice here. John's use of the term is different; he employs it to denote human nature in its entireness, with all its sensibilities, capacities, and powers—not the body alone, but all that constitutes us human beings. To say that the Word was made flesh is the same thing as to say that He became a true member of the human family. He had a *body*—material, visible, tangible; so that men heard Him, saw Him with their eyes, looked upon Him, and their hands handled Him (*1 John i. 1*). But He did not take a body only, and become the Word embodied, His higher nature occupying the place of a human soul in a material frame: a body without a soul is not a man. He could say, "Now is *my soul* troubled;" or again, the Evangelist could write concerning Him, "He groaned *in the spirit* and was troubled." He became as really and as fully man as any member of the race. The *sinlessness* of His manhood is not asserted here—it comes unmistakably into view elsewhere—but the special thought to grasp is the *reality* and *wholeness* of that manhood. Hence He grew in knowledge and wisdom, He was tempted, He sorrowed, He wept, He rejoiced, He wondered, He prayed, as truly as we do—in all things made like unto His brethren.

We have no parallel to the case; neither have we even an analogy that can help us to a better understanding of it. A prince in disguise, going about among his subjects and blessing them, is no illustration. There was no disguise. It is true that men knew Him not when He came; but the cause of their non-recognition lay in themselves—in their own moral and spiritual condition—and not that He wore a mask. I set aside, therefore, as unwarranted, every view of the Incarnation which regards it as a disguise. Indeed, to represent it so is not merely unwarranted, but suggests what is untrue. In point of fact, the Incarnation is not a Divine hiding, but a Divine disclosure. The Divine could not be

HE "DWELT AMONG US."

revealed perfectly, so far as our needs are concerned, in the geometry, the mechanism, the chemistry, the life, the order and glorious beauty of the world—nor in providence and history—nor in the symbols of the law of Moses—nor in spoken or written words: the highest revelation can be made—to us—only through the medium of our own nature. The "Word made flesh" is a revelation—the highest revelation that at present we are capable of receiving—of the Divine; the glory of God shines forth to us from the face of Jesus Christ.

How shall we conceive of the union of the two natures in Him? Is humanity Deified? Is Deity humanized? Is there a blending of the human and the Divine? Do the two natures run one into the other? or are they simply present together in Jesus, harmoniously co-operating—sometimes the one coming into view and sometimes the other? Such things are nowhere said or implied by the Evangelist. What we do learn is that, at a definite time in history, the eternal Word, continuing to be the Word and to possess all the attributes of the Word, assumed our true and full humanity; Godhead in its perfect essence, and manhood in all its elements, were joined in indivisible and everlasting union. The thought is wonderful and glorious beyond all conception; we can only contemplate without comprehending.

Why the Word was made flesh is not here declared; nothing is said about the holy love of which the Incarnation is an expression, nor about the purpose in view, namely, to accomplish the work of redemption and restore sinful men to God; the one thing stated is the amazing fact itself.

Having assumed our nature, He "dwelt," tabernacled, sojourned among us—"us" His friends and companions. Just as we are strangers and sojourners on earth, so He

"WE BEHELD HIS GLORY."

became a sojourner likewise. He tabernacled, He took up His abode a pilgrim among pilgrims, as in a manner He tabernacled in the midst of His people Israel in the wilderness. It is conceivable that He might have come into the world to dwell with men throughout successive generations—as the people said, "We have heard out of the Law that Christ abideth for ever"—or He might have assumed our humanity and simply made His appearance in it, departing almost as soon as He had come. But for a period of about three-and-thirty years He remained as a sojourner on earth, a man among men, God with us. Here is an answer to Solomon's wondering exclamation: "But will God indeed dwell on the earth?" Here is fulfilment, higher than had yet been known, of the ancient word, "I will set my tabernacle among you, and my soul shall not abhor you," and anticipation of what shall yet be when "the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them; and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them—their God."

The line that follows is usually regarded as a parenthesis, out of the fulness of the Apostle's heart, "And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father." If parenthesis it be, it is in its right place, and is no interruption of the narrative, but rather carries it forward. It is John's testimony, agreeing with that of his fellow-apostles, to the majesty that was shown forth in Jesus. We, His fellow-pilgrims, beheld His majesty. The vision of that majesty began to dawn upon them in the beginning of their intercourse with Him, though, for a time, it was dim and obscure, owing to their dulness of spiritual perception; but as they entered more fully into fellowship with Him, it became more clear and glorious. The majesty was not that of a mere man, standing however high above his fellow-men; it was not official, but personal—"as of the

"FULL OF GRACE AND TRUTH."

Only-begotten of the Father;" * it was Divine and not merely human, though manifested humanly; it was what might have been expected in One who stands for ever in a relation to the Father which none shares with Him—that of the Only-Begotten. We are not to limit their vision of this majesty to specific occasions, such as the Transfiguration, or the great miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead; it was in process throughout the whole period of their intercourse with Him, and was completed when the veil was rent and they could say before Him, "My Lord, and my God!" His glory rose upon them like the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day—the glory of wisdom, power, pity, mercy, patience, righteousness, truth, stainless purity, and holy love, untainted by any element of selfishness. All this, says the Evangelist, "we beheld" in the Word made flesh, unobscured by outward abasement and circumstances of lowliness.

Grammatically, the next clause, "full of grace and truth," is linked on to the words, "He dwelt among us," and tells what throughout their whole intercourse with Him the Apostles found Him to be; in thought however, as I cannot help believing, it finds its right place just where John has written it.

They found in Jesus a strange and unexampled "fulness"—such a fulness as would require a worldful of books to set forth. It was fulness in presence of the world's immeasurable need. It was fulness that stood in contrast with the emptiness of men. The scribe and the Pharisee, the philosopher and the guide into the paths of pleasure, the bringer forth of things new and the bringer forth of things old, whatever

* The word of comparison, "as," has now and again caused needless perplexity. The expression is qualitative. The glory was "as of an only-begotten [who has come forth] from a father." Through the human we are helped to see the super-human.

"GRACE" AND "TRUTH."

their pretensions, alike failed to satisfy the cravings of human hearts, so manifold and deep, and left them sighing, "Who will show us any good?" Even the sacred ordinances of the Old Covenant, out of which it was designed that with joy men should draw water as from the wells of salvation, had been turned very largely into mere outward ceremonies, and the sacred services into mere "bodily exercise" — reminding one of the process of dropping buckets into empty wells and drawing nothing up. The Word is made flesh, and sojourns among men; and they find in Him the very fulness of the Godhead bodily.

Two things are named as belonging to His fulness: He was full of "grace" and full of "truth."

"Grace" is loving favour; it embraces all that was in His heart, and all that He did throughout His sojourn on earth, for the restoring of sinful men to God and making them children in His family. It was not merely that He spoke such gracious words and did such gracious works, that even the publicans and sinners, the outcasts of the nation, drew near and gathered around Him: we must take into account His whole redeeming and saving ministry onwards to His return to the Father.

Conjoined with grace, in His fulness there was also "truth." It is not enough to say that there was no falsehood in Him; in the largest scope of the word, there was TRUTH. In man's graciousness there is oftentimes hollowness and pretence; and even when it is sincere enough it cannot be depended on: if you lean your weight upon it in the day of your weakness, it proves as the staff of a broken reed that goes into your hand and pierces it. Jesus is true in word and deed and character, and can be depended upon to the uttermost. Under the Old Testament the sacrifices and other ordinances were only symbolical; the law had only a shadow of good things to

THE BAPTIST'S TESTIMONY.

come : in Jesus we have the reality—the very truth that God designed.

Here therefore is the Evangelist's testimony to the perfect completeness of Jesus as Saviour. Those who knew Him on earth proved Him to be full of grace and truth ; and what He was, that He is—"Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever."

§ 6.

The verse that follows (15) is frequently taken as a parenthesis ; one commentator even goes the length of saying that it "should be inserted between the 18th and 19th verses, which appears to be its proper place : thus John's testimony is properly connected." Such a view however seems to break the chain of thought.

The coming forth of the incarnate Word among men was not in secrecy and silence, as a king might go forth *incognito* among his subjects ; but public attention was directed to Him. This was done through the ministry of John the Baptist. The place held by this man in the historical unfolding of Divine grace is altogether unique, differing from that both of apostle and prophet. The Evangelist has already introduced him (verses 6—8), as a man sent from God, whose mission it was to bear witness to the True Light, and thereby lead men into faith ; and now a summary of his testimony is placed before us.

This testimony occupies a place of its own, as well defined and in some respects as important as that borne by the twelve Apostles, and is worthy of being singled out and presented by itself, as is done here. In speaking of the testimony of the Apostles, we use the present tense, as if they were still engaged in delivering it ; we say, "The Apostles *tell us* such and such things ;" we take their word, not as designed for the moment of speaking merely, but for

"GRACE FOR GRACE."

all time; it is still sounding forth. In like manner, the testimony of the Baptist is to be regarded as abiding testimony, of continuous significance; and hence it is said (verse 15), "John beareth witness and crieth, saying, This was He of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me; for He was before me." He "*beareth witness*" and "*crieth*" to the nineteenth century, as to the men of his own day.

In entering on his ministry, the Baptist could only say, "There cometh One mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose:" he could not in the outset name or point out the mightier One. But when Jesus of Nazareth came to be baptized of him, the promised sign was given, namely, the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Him in visible manifestation; and now the abiding testimony of John is this: This Jesus is He of whom I spake when I announced the coming of One after me who is preferred before me, because He was before me. He does not simply identify Him, and step aside that He may have the foremost place; but announces that the coming One, while following him in time, nevertheless preceded him; "for He *was* before me,"—as has been already set forth in the profound teaching of the Evangelist. It is testimony in the line of Christ's own word, "Before Abraham was, I am" (John viii. 58).

The witness of the Baptist was not merely corroborated, but was carried forward by the personal experience of the disciples of Jesus, whose testimony is next presented by the Evangelist: "Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." The fulness has been already so far described. We have a picture of it in the four Gospels. It is not to be conceived of after a mechanical fashion, as a granary may be full of wheat, or a treasury full of gold. So far as I know, the fulness of Jesus Christ is never set forth

"WE ALL RECEIVED."

in Scripture in this poor, mechanical way: He is nowhere represented as an "inexhaustible store-house": His fulness is that of a Person. That which is in my friend, of knowledge, of truth, of wisdom, of tenderness, of noble feeling, or whatever else may be named, is in him not mechanically, but vitally: and so with the fulness of Jesus. In Him, personally, was the fulness of grace and truth.

Hence it came that the disciples did all receive of His fulness, each according as he could take it in. *What* He gave is not named in express terms; the words, "grace for grace," point rather to His way of giving, than to the particular blessings given. When He gave it was not as when one gives of his possessions; it was not as when a gracious man does gracious deeds, or a true man deals in truth; it was not merely as when a teacher imparts his knowledge, or a craftsman his skill: but the mind of Christ became theirs also; they could say, each in his measure, "Christ liveth in me." Joyfully the Apostle testifies, in the name of his fellow-disciples, "We all received, and grace for grace." * The "all" marks that none went empty away. And it was grace in the stead of grace, or in exchange for grace,— as may be understood from Rom. v. 3—5. When grace had been given, farther and fuller grace succeeded, in endless stream. It was no monotonous giving on His part; but grace, ever fresh and new, took the place of that already imparted.

The experience of the personal attendants and disciples of Jesus was not an experience that stood by itself, peculiar to those who had personal acquaintance and intimacy with Him, but was the beginning of what is going on still: "For

* Literally, *grace instead of or in exchange for grace*. Not grace in room of that which Adam lost. Not New Testament, instead of Old Testament grace. Not grace answering to the grace in Christ. But other and fresh grace, in room of grace already given—in unbroken succession.

"IN THE BOSOM OF THE FATHER."

the law was given by Moses; but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." The great name in Israel was the name of Moses; the great distinction of Israel was the Law. But, whatever its promise, the law carried no grace in it; nor was it the truth, but only a shadow of the truth. Grace and truth "became" by Jesus Christ; in and through Him they are realized: He has brought them in, so that we live under the dispensation of grace and truth. There was first, in the law, God's claim of right, which man could not meet, and now, in Jesus Christ, God's gift of salvation.

This great name for the Word made flesh, the Divine manifested humanly--the name, "JESUS CHRIST" is now written by the Evangelist for the first time. It is the name that embraces all the revelations of the past, and all the grace and truth of the future.

The thought rises to its climax in the words that follow: "No man hath seen God at any time; the Only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him."

No man hath seen God at any time--not even Moses when the Lord passed by and proclaimed His name to him. This is no denial that there had been revelations of God in the past. There *had been* such revelations, manifold and precious. There was the revelation of nature, which showed the eternal power and Godhead of the great Creator. There was the revelation of providence and history. There was the revelation made within the human breast, to heart and conscience. There was the revelation made through prophets and seers to whom God spake, and who were "moved" by His Spirit. But putting all such revelations together, it held true, "No man hath seen God at any time." It was not merely that no man saw Him with the seeing of the bodily eye; but take "seeing" in its most spiritual sense, and the statement holds. "Clouds and

"HE HATH DECLARED HIM."

darkness were round about Him." "Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour."

But God is now the revealed God. The revealing is accomplished through "the Only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father." This is another way of describing Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, appropriate to the special purpose which is in the Evangelist's mind. He is the Son of God, His begotten Son, His Only-begotten—standing in a relation to which no parallel exists. He is "in the bosom of the Father"—or literally "towards" His bosom—the expression not a metaphysical one, but marking the most intimate communion, knowledge, love. We are not to explain the expression from such a fact as the leaning of John on Jesus' breast at the last supper, though that may be of some help; we are rather to think of the intimacy and love subsisting between a father and his son. The relationship indicated under the terms "*who is in the bosom of the Father*" is eternal and unchangeable, and His sojourn on earth was no interruption of it.

The Only-begotten Son has "declared" God.* The word indicates "exposition." We know just as much as Jesus Christ has shown us respecting God, and no more. It is not that He has "brought" us a fuller revelation of God than the prophets had done before Him: we are not to think of "the revelation which He came to communicate:" He Himself is the Revelation. View Him as the Messenger of God, the Servant of God, the Gift of God, the Lamb of God, the Son of God—the eternal, unsearchable, infinite Father is shown forth in Him. And now, whosoever would know that Being who is the first cause and the last end of

* Compare the words of Jesus, reported in Matt. xi. 27, "Neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him;" and the words of the Apostle Peter, referring to Jesus, (1 Peter i. 21), "who by Him do believe in God."

DIVISIONS OF JOHN'S GOSPEL.

all things, who fills immensity and eternity with His sovereign presence, who dwells "in light that no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen nor can see," let him look to Jesus Christ—for "*He hath declared Him.*" As He Himself said to Philip, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." Not merely His teaching but His whole appearance among men was an unceasing Divine revelation.

The Gospel of John is the forth-setting, by means of selected examples, of what he has expressed in a condensed form in this Introduction. In his narrative it is not that he has had the art to conceal his art: there is really no art to conceal: the current of the narrative is determined by the historical manifestations of which he was a witness, and not by any *a priori* metaphysical "idea." If we divide the narrative into sections at all, the following division seems as natural as any:

First, chapters i. 19—v. 47, concluding with a summary of the "witness" borne to Jesus as the Messiah;

Second, chapters vi.—xii. 50, concluding with a statement of the reception He met with from Israel, and a summary or *résumé* of what He "cried and said" during His public ministry;

Third, chapters xiii.—xvii., giving an account of His private intercourse with "His own" previously to His last sufferings, from the washing of the disciples' feet to the High-priestly prayer;

Fourth, chapters xviii., xix., tracing the story from the crossing of "the brook Cedron" until Joseph and Nicodemus laid Him in the garden-sepulchre;

Fifth, chapters xx., xxi., giving examples of the appearances of the risen Christ to His disciples.

And the whole is written with this design, "that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life in His name."


VII.