Expositor's Bible: The Epistles of St. John Part 30

But the short letter of St. John is addressed to Kyria's _family_ as well as to herself. "The elder to the excellent Kyria and her children."[357]

There is one question which we naturally ask about every school and form of religion. It is the question which a great English Professor of Divinity used to ask his pupils to put in a homely form about every religious scheme and mode of utterance--"will it _wash_ well?" Is it an influence which seems to be productive and lasting? Does it abide through time and trials? Is it capable of being pa.s.sed on to another generation? Are plans, services, organizations, preachings, cla.s.ses, vital or showy? Are they fads to meet fancies, or works to supply wants? Is that which we hold such sober, solid truth, that wise piety can say of it, half in benediction, half in prophecy[358]--"the truth which abideth in us; yea, and with us it shall be for ever?"

2. We turn to the _contents_ of the Epistle.

We shall be better able to appreciate the value of these, if we consider the state of Christian literature at that time.

What had Christians to read and carry about with them? The excellent work of the Bible Society was physically impossible for long centuries to come. No doubt the LXX. version of the Old Testament was widely spread. In every great city of the Roman Empire there was a vast population of Jews. Many of these were baptized into the Church, and carried into it with them their pa.s.sionate belief in the Old Testament. The Christians of the time and place to which we refer could, probably, with little trouble, if not read, yet hear the Old Covenant and able expositions of it. But they had not copies of the entire New Testament. Indeed, if all the New Testament was then written, it certainly was not collected into one volume, nor const.i.tuted one supreme authority. "Many barbarous nations," says a very ancient Father, "believe in Christ without written record, having salvation impressed through the Spirit in their hearts, and diligently preserving the old tradition."[359] Possibly a Church or single believer had one synoptical Gospel. At Ephesus Christians had doubtless been catechised in, and were deeply imbued with, St. John's view of the Person, work, and teaching of our Lord. This had now been moulded into shape, and definitely committed to writing in that glorious Gospel, the Church's Holy of Holies, St. John's Gospel. For them and for their contemporaries there was a living realization of the Gospel. They had heard it from eye-witnesses. They had pa.s.sed into the wonderland of G.o.d. The earth on which Jesus trod had blossomed into miracle. The air was haunted by the echoes of His voice. They had, probably, also a certain number of the Epistles of St. Paul. The Christians of Ephesus would have a special interest in their own Epistle to the Ephesians, and in the two which were written to their first Bishop, Timothy. They had also (whether written or not) impressed upon their memories by their weekly Eucharist, the liturgical Canon of consecration according to the _Ephesian usage_--from which, and not from the Roman, the Spanish and Gallican seem to be derived. The Ephesian Christians had also the first Epistle of St. John, which in some form accompanied the Gospel, and is, indeed, a picture of spiritual life drawn from it. But let us remember that the Epistle is not of a character to be very quickly or readily learned by heart. Its subtle, latent links of connection do not present many grappling hooks for the memory to fasten itself to.

Copies also must have been comparatively few.

Now let us see how the second Epistle may well have been related to the first.

Supremely, and above all else, the first Epistle contained _three_ warnings, very necessary for those times. (1) There was a danger of _losing the true Christ_, the Word made Flesh, Who for the forgiveness of our sins did shed out of His most precious side both water and blood--in a false, because shadowy and ideal Christ. (2) There was danger of _losing true love_, and therefore spiritual life, with truth.

(3) With the true Christ and true love there was a danger of losing _the true commandment_--love of G.o.d and of the brethren. Now in the second Epistle these very three warnings were written on a leaflet in a form more calculated for circulation and for remembrance. (1) Against the peril of faith, of _losing the true Christ_. "Many deceivers are gone out into the world--they who confess not Jesus Christ coming in flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist."[360] With the true Christ, the true doctrine of Christ would also vanish, and with it all living hold upon _G.o.d_. _Progress_ was the watchword; but it was in reality _regress_. "Every one who abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not G.o.d."[361] (2) Against the peril of _losing love_. "I beseech thee, Kyria ... that we love one another."[362] (3) Against the peril of losing _the true commandment_ (the great spiritual principle of charity), or the true commandments[363] (that principle in the details of life). "And this is love, that we walk after His _commandments_. This is the _commandment_, that even as ye heard from the beginning ye should walk in it."[364]

Here then were the chief practical elements of the first Epistle contracted into a brief and easily remembered shape.

Easily remembered, too, was the stern, practical prohibition of the intimacies of hospitality with those who came to the home of the Christian, in the capacity of emissaries of the antichrist above indicated. "Receive him not into your house, and good speed salute him not with."[365]

Many are offended with this. No doubt Christianity is the religion of love--"the epiphany of the sweet-naturedness and philanthropy of G.o.d."[366] We very often look upon heresy or unbelief with the tolerance of curiosity rather than of love. At all events, the Gospel has its intolerance as well as tolerance. St. John certainly had this.

It is not a true conception in art which invests him with the mawkish sweetness of perpetual youth. There is a sense in which he was a son of Thunder to the last. He who believes and knows must formulate a dogma. A dogma frozen by formality, or soured by hate, or narrowed by stupidity, makes a bigot. In reading the Church History of the first four centuries we are often tempted to ask, why all this subtlety, this theology-spinning, this dogma-hammering? The answer stands out clear above the mists of controversy. Without all this the Church would have lost the conception of Christ, and thus finally Christ Himself. St. John's denunciations have had a function in Christendom as well as his love.

3. There are two most precious indications of the highest Christian truth with which we may conclude.

We have prefixed to this Epistle that beautiful Apostolic salutation which is found in two only among the Epistles of St. Paul.[367] After that simple, but exquisite expression of blessing merged in prophecy--"the truth which abideth in us--yes! and with us it shall be for ever"[368]--there comes another verse set in the same key. "There shall be with us grace, mercy, peace, from G.o.d the Father, and from Jesus Christ the Son of the Father, in truth" of thought, "and love"

of life.[369]

This rush and reduplication of words is not very like the usual reserve and absence of emotional excitement in St. John's style. Can it be that something (possibly the glorious death of martyrdom by which Timothy died) led St. John to use words which were probably familiar to Ephesian Christians?

However this may be, let us live by and learn from those lovely words.

Our poverty wants _grace_, our guilt wants _mercy_, our misery wants _peace_. Let us ever keep the Apostle's order. Do not let us put _peace_, our feeling of peace, first. The emotionalists' is a topsy-turvy theology. Apostles do not say "peace and grace," but "grace and peace."

One more--in an age which subst.i.tutes an ideal something called the spirit of Christianity for Christ, let us hold fast to that which is the essence of the Gospel and the kernel of our three creeds. "To confess Jesus Christ coming in flesh."[370] Couple with this a canon of the First Epistle--"confesseth Jesus Christ _come_ in flesh."[371]

The second is the Incarnation _fact_ with its abiding consequences; the first, the Incarnation _principle_ ever living in a Person, Who will also be personally manifested. This is the substance of the Gospels; this the life of prayers and sacraments; this the expectation of the saints.

NOTES.

Ver. 1. _The Elder._] This word has played a great part in an important controversy. It is argued that the Elder of this and of the Third Epistle is the author indeed of the first Epistle and of the Gospel, but cannot be the Apostle St. John, who would not, (it is alleged,) call himself ? p?es?te???. And Eusebius (_H.E._ lib. iii., cap. ult.) preserves a fragment from Papias, which he misunderstands to indicate that there were two Johns (see Riggenbach, _Leben Jesu_, 59, 60). But even if the word be Presbyter, and points to an ecclesiastical t.i.tle, it might stand precisely on the same footing as St. Peter's language--"the elders among you I exhort, who am a _fellow elder_" (1 Pet. v. 1). The Elder at the opening of the Second and Third Epistles of St. John, may well signify the aged Apostle, the oldest of the company of Jesus, the one living representative of the traditions of Galilee and Jerusalem.

Ver. 7. _The seducer._] ? p?a???. The almost technical force of this word would be adequately appreciated only by readers more or less imbued with Jewish ideas. It was indeed the really strong motive in the terrible game which the Jewish priests played in bringing about the death of our Lord. The process against the _Mesith_, "seducer," is drawn out in the Talmud with an effrontery at once puerile and revolting. The man accused of _seduction_ was to be drawn into conversation, while two witnesses were hidden in the next room,--and candles were to be lighted, as if accidentally, close by him, that the witnesses might be sure that they had seen, as well as heard the heretic. He was to be called upon to retract his heretical pravity. If he refused, he was to be brought before the Council, and stoned if the verdict was against him. The Talmudists add that this was the legal process carried out against Jesus: that He was condemned upon the testimony of two witnesses; and that the crime of "misleading" was the only one which was thus formally dealt with. (See references to the Talmud of Jerusalem, and that of Babylon, _Vie de Jesus_, Renan, 394, N. 1). The Gospels tell us that the accusation against our Lord was "misleading:" and the terrible word in the verse which we are examining was actually applied to Him (e?e???? ?

p?a???, Matt. xxvii. 63; p?a?a t?? ????? John vii. 12; ? ?a? ?e??

pep?a??s?e John vii. 47).

"Excepting some minutiae which were the product of the Rabbinical imagination, the narrative of the Evangelists answers, point by point, to the process actually laid down by the Talmud" (Renan, ut sup.).

Ver. 9. _Every one who leadeth forward._] pa? ? p??a??? is certainly the true reading here; the commander himself pus.h.i.+ng boldly onward, and also carrying others with him. The allusion is polemical to the vaunted _progress_ of the Gnostic teachers.

"_The doctrine which is Christ's._"] What is that? John vii. 16, 17.

The doctrine which Christ emphatically called "_My doctrine_," "_the doctrine_." No doubt the word (d?da??) sometimes means the _act_, sometimes the _mode, of teaching_ (Mark xii. 38; 1 Cor. xiv. 6); but "it underwent a transformation which converted it into a term synonymous with dogmatic teaching," with the body of faithful doctrine which was the ultimate type and norm to which all statements must be conformed. (Acts vi. 42; t.i.t. i. 9; Rom. vi. 17, xvi. 17; see also Matt. xvi. 12; Acts v. 28, xvii. 19; Heb. xiii. 9.) It is much to be regretted that in the R.V. the word "doctrine" has disappeared from all these pa.s.sages, Romans xvi. 17 alone excepted. St. John's language in this verse seems quite decisive.

FOOTNOTES:

[348] John i. 18.

[349] There is no doubt a large amount of authority for this view that St. John addresses a Church personified. It has the support of sacred critics so different as Bishop Wordsworth and Bishop Lightfoot. (_Ep.

to Colossians and Philemon_, 305), and Professor Westcott seems (with some hesitation) to lean to it. But there is also a great body of support, ancient and modern, for the literal view. (Clem. Alex., _Adunbr. ad ii. Joan., Op._, iii. 1011.) So Athanasius, or the author of "Synopsis S.S." in Athanasius, _Opp._, iv. 410. See also the heading of the A. V. ("He exhorteth a certain honourable matron, with her children.") For reasons for accepting Kyria rather than Electa as the name, see _Speaker's Commentary_, iv. 335.

[350] Ver. 12.

[351] e????a, ver. 4.

[352] "James, Cephas, and JOHN, who seemed to be _pillars_." Gal. ii. 9.

[353] Luke ii. 36.

[354] 1 Tim. v. 3, 5, 10.

[355] 1 Tim, v. 6-11, 12, 13.

[356] 2 John 2.

[357] Ver. 1.

[358] d?a t?? a???e?a? t?? e???sa? e? ???, ?a? e?' ??? esta? e??

t?? a???a. 2 John ver. 2.

[359] Irenaeus, _Haer._, iii. 4.

[360] Ver. 7.

[361] Ver. 9.

[362] Ver. 5.

[363] "_Commandments_ and _commandment_--Love strives to realise in detail every separate expression of the will of G.o.d." (Prof. Westcott, _Epistles of St. John_, 217).

[364] Ver. 6.

[365] It is, probably, the existence of these verses (vv. 10, 11) which acts as a stimulus to many liberal Christian commentators in favour of the ultra-mystical view, that the lady addressed in this Epistle is a Church personified. It should be carefully noted that St.

John speaks of a _formal_ summons, so to speak, from an emissary of antichrist as such. (e? t?? e??eta? p??? ?a?, ver. 10). St. John, also, must have detected a danger in the very gentleness of Kyria's character, or in the disposition of some of her children. So much, indeed, might seem implied in the sudden, solemn, and rather startling warning, which entreated constant continuous care (?epete ?a?t???), so that they should not in some momentary impulse, under the charm of some deceiver, lose what they had wrought, and with it reward in fulness (??a ? ap??es?te, ver. 10).

[366] t.i.tus iii. 4.

[367] 1 Tim. i. 1; 2 Tim. i. 2.

[368] The construction altered to bring out the meaning more strikingly than a uniform structure could have done.--Winer, _Gr.

Gr._, Part III., -- 3.