227,9 D63j 65-06685
Dodd
The Johannine epistles*
kansas city nil public library
... * * SaSSS*!
kansas city, missouri
Books will be issued only
on presentation of library card.
Please report .lost cards and
change of residence promptly.
Card holders are responsible for
all books, records, films, pictures
or other library materials
checked out on their cards.
Illl
it) 375'
The
MOFFATT
NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY
Based on The New Translation by the late
REV. PROFESSOR JAMES MOFFATT, D.D.
and under his Editorship
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
The
Moffatt
New Testament Commentary
Based on * The Mew Translation' by the late
REV. PROFESSOR JAMES MOFFATT
D.D., LL.D., D.Litt.
and under his Editorship
Volumes already published
THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW
by THEODORE H. ROBINSON, M.A., D.O.
THE GOSPEL OF MARK
by B. HARVIE BRANSCOMBE, K.A., PH.D.
THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
by WILLIAM HANSON, D.D.
THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
by G. H. C. MACGREGOR, D.D., D.LITT.
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
by F. J. FOAKES-JACKSON, D.D.
THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE ROMANS
by C. H. DODD, M.A., D.D.
THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE CORINTHIANS
by JAMES MOFFATT, D.D., LL.D., D.LITT.
THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE CORINTHIANS
by R. H. STRACHAN, D.D.
THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE GALATIANS
by GEORGE S. DUNCAN, D.D.
THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS
by J. HUGH MICHAEL, D.D.
THE EPISTLES OF PAUL
TO THE COLOSSIANS, TO PHILEMON AND TO THE EPHESIANS
by E. F. SCOTT, D.D.
THE PASTORAL EPISTLES
by E. F. SCOTT, D.D.
THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS
by THEODORE H. ROBINSON, M.A., D.D.
THE GENERAL EPISTLES: JAMES, PETER AND JUDAS
by JAMES MOFFATT, D.D., LL.D., D.LITT,
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
by C. H. DODD, M.A., D.D.
THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN
by MARTIN KIDDLE, M.A., assisted by M. K. ROSS
In preparation
THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS
by J. S. BEZZANf
THE JOHANNINE
EPISTLES
BY
C . H . D O D D, M.A., D.D.
Norris-Huhe Professor of Divinity
in the University of Cambridge
HARPER & ROW, PUBLISHERS
New York, Evanston, and London
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
Copyright, 1946, by C. H. DODD
Printed in the United States of America
All rights in this book are reserved.
flo part of the book may be used or reproduced in
any manner whatsoever without written permission
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles and reviews. For information address:
Harper & Row, Publishers, Incorporated
49 East 33rd Street, New York 16, N.Y.
IN PIAM MEMORIAM
PRAECLARI SCRIPTVRARVM SACRARVM INTERPRETIS
QVI COMMENTARIORVM HANC SERIEM
CONSILIO INSTITVIT
IVDICIO DIREXIT
NOMINE ORNAVIT
IACOBI MOFFATT
INTER LABORES DEFVNCTI
HOC OPVSCVLVM
IPSIVS NVTV INCEPTVM
TANDEM ABSOLVTVM DICAT AVCTOR
PREFACE
IN studying the Johannine Epistles I have consulted various
current commentaries, notably those of Rothe, Westcott,
B. Weiss, Holtzmann, R. Law (The Tests of Life), Windisch,
and A. E. Brooke, to whose admirable Introduction I am much
indebted, although I sometimes come to different conclusions.
The interpretation, however, which I offer here has in large
measure emerged from studies primarily directed towards
the understanding of the Fourth Gospel in its contemporary
setting.
CAMBRIDGE,
January, 1945
11
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PAGE
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES IN THE EARLY CHURCH xl
II. BACKGKOU-ND AND SETTING OF THE FIRST EPISTLE xvi
III. CHARACTER AND CONTENTS OF THE FIRST EPISTLE xxi
IV. RELATION OF THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE FOURTH
GOSPEL ....... xlvii
V. CHARACTER AND CONTENTS OF THE SECOND AND
THIRD EPISTLES Ivii
VI. CRITICAL PROBLEMS OF THE SECOND AND THIRD
EPISTLES ....... Ix
VII. PLACE, DATE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE JOHANNINE
EPISTLES ....... Ixvi
COMMENTARY
THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN
EXORDIUM: THEME AND PURPOSE OF THE EPISTLE (i. 1-4) i
I. WHAT is CHRISTIANITY? (I. 5-ii. 28) . . 16
1. A Criticism of * Religious Experience, 'with an excursus
upon Sin and Forgiveness (i. 5 - ii. 6).
2. The New Dispensation (ii. 717).
3. The Truth and the Lie (ii. 18-28).
II. LIFE IN THE FAMILY OF GOD (ii. 29 - iv. 12) 65
1. The Children of God, their Prerogatives and Obliga-
tions; with an excursus upon the Nature and
Gravity of Sin (ii. 29 -iii. 10).
2. Love and Hatred; Life and Death (iii. 11-18).
3. Fellowship with God (iii. 19-24). Excursus on In-
spiration, true and false (iv. 1-6).
4. The Love of God (iv. 7-12).
ix
CONTENTS
III. THE CERTAINTY OF THE FAITH (iv. 13 - v. 13) . 113
1. The Nature and Grounds of Christian Assurance
(iv. 13-18).
2. Love, Obedience and Faith (iv. 19 - v. 5).
3. The Witness to the Faith (v. 6-13).
POSTSCRIPT 134
1. On Prayer and Intercession (v. 14-17).
2. The great Christian Certainties (v. 18-21).
THE SECOND EPISTLE OF JOHN
EPISTOLARY INTRODUCTION (1-3) . . . .143
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE (4-6) 147
FALSE TEACHERS AND How TO TREAT THEM (7-11). 148
EPISTOLARY CONCLUSION (12-13) . . . . 153
THE THIRD EPISTLE OF JOHN
EPISTOLARY INTRODUCTION (1-2) . . . .155
GAIUS AND THE TRAVELLING MISSIONARIES (3-8) . 158
THE RECALCITRANCE OF DIOTREPHES (9-11) . . 161
A TESTIMONIAL FOR DEMETRIUS (12) . . .166
EPISTOLARY CONCLUSION (13-15) . . . .168
INTRODUCTION
I. THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES IN THE EARLY CHURCH
THE first clear evidence of the existence of any of these writings
Is afforded by Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, who died as a
martyr at the age of eighty-six, A.D. 155-6. Apparent echoes of
the language of I John are fairly numerous in his work. Many
of these however might be due simply to acquaintance with
'Johannine' ways of thought and speech, such as might be
expected in one with Polycarp's background. We are credibly
informed by Irenaeus (who knew him) that Polycarp had been
acquainted with 'John' (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, V.
20. 6). But there is at least one passage which seems to go
beyond this. It is in the seventh chapter of Polycarp's Epistle
to the Philippians. The parallel passages are here given in
a literal translation for the purpose of comparison.
Polycarp vii I John
1. 'Everyone who does not iv. 2-3. 'Every spirit which
acknowledge that Jesus Christ acknowledges that Jesus
has come in the flesh, is anti- Christ has come in the flesh is
christ; and whoever does not of God; and every spirit which
acknowledge the witness of does not acknowledge Jesus
the cross, is of the devil ... is not of God; and this is the
2. Wherefore, leaving the (spirit) of antichrist/ (Cf.il. 22,
futility of the many, and their 'this is antichrist/)
false teachings, let us return iii. 8. 'He who commits sin
to the word handed down to is of the devil/
us from the beginning/ ii. 24. 'Let that which you
heard from the beginning
remain in you/
Here Poiycarp is saying the same thing as I John, and saying
it in almost the same language, though somewhat more
succinctly. It seems most natural to conclude that Polycarp
was acquainted with our First Epistle. For the two lesser
epistles Polycarp offers no similarly clear evidence. (See the
careful display and assessment of the evidence in P. N. Harrison,
Polycarp's Two Epistles to the Philippians, pp. 300-1.)
The date of Polycarp's work is unfortunately not precisely
determined. There have been many attempts to interpret the
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
apparently contradictory Internal evidence. The solution of the
problem offered by Dr. P. N. Harrison (in the work cited above)
is that the so-called Epistle to the PhOippians consists
of two epistles of Polycarp to the same church, written at
different times. One of them was apparently written within a
fortnight or so of Ignatius's visit to him, which was in all prob-
ability A.D. 115. The other, in which our crucial passage occurs,
must have been written later; but how much later, it is difficult
to say. Dr. Harrison dates it about 135-7; but his arguments
for so late a date are not conclusive. It might well be ten or
fifteen years earlier. Indeed, there seems no cogent reason
why the interval between the first letter and the second may
not have been measured in months rather than years.
Next, Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis in the second century,
made more than one quotation from 'the former epistle of
John/ So Eusebius informs us (Ecclesiastical History, III. 39.
17), and we may accept the statement, since Eusebius had
before him the complete text of Papias's work, which is now
extant only in fragments. The expression 'the former epistle*
would in a classical Greek writer imply the existence of only
two epistles of John; but in the Hellenistic and Roman periods
the comparative and superlative were frequently confused,
and Eusebius has exactly the same expression in a context
where he speaks explicitly of three Johannine epistles (op. cit. t
III. 25. 2). We may take it that this is Eusebius's way of say-
ing 'i John.' It implies nothing about Papias's acquaintance
with either or both of the lesser epistles. It has been thought
that the following passage of Papias contains a reminiscence of
3 John: 'I did not take pleasure, like most people, in those who
. . . report alien commandments, but in those who report the
commandments given to faith by the Lord, and proceeding
from the Truth itself (Eusebius, op. cit., III. 39. 3); cf. 3 John 12:
Testimony is borne to Demetrius by all, and by the Truth itself,'
This is no very striking parallel; and as it occurs in a passage
where Papias is glorifying oral tradition over against written
documents, it might be naturally explained (so far as it can be
said to echo specifically Johannine language) as the result of
Papias's association with Johannine circles. For so much we may
xii
INTRODUCTION
safely affirm about him, though Eusebius showed that there is
no sufficient ground for accepting Irenaeus's statement that he
was a 'hearer of John/ In sum, we may conclude that Papias
cited our i John, and assume (e silentio) that he did not cite
either 2 or 3 John, though that does not necessarily mean that
he did not know them.
The date of Papias's work is again uncertain. Some would
date it between 120 and 140: some between 140 and 160.
Thus our two earliest witnesses are less valuable than might
have been hoped. We may say with certainty that i John was
known in the province of Asia (to which both Smyrna and
Hierapolis belonged) before the middle of the second century;
and we may say with great probability that this date might
safely be brought up to about A.D. 120-5 a ^ latest, since there
is no need to date any part of Polycarp's work later than this.
There are in other writers, some of them earlier than these,
passages which have been adduced as echoes of the language
of our epistles; but on examination they prove to be of a kind
which could be sufficiently explained by the generally diffused
tradition of apostolic teaching, or, it may be, by the specially
'Johannine' form of that tradition. They fall far short of pre-
supposing an acquaintance with these particular writings.
It is only in the last quarter of the second century that
evidence becomes really satisfactory. Irenaeus, Bishop of
Lyons (died about A.D. 202), quotes freely from i John, and
also from 2 John, attributing both writings to 'John the dis-
ciple of the Lord/ to whom he also attributes the Fourth
Gospel (Adversus Haereses [ed. Harvey], I. 9. 3, III. 17. 5, 8).
Clement of Alexandria (head of the catechetical school at Alex-
andria about 180-202) frequently quotes i John and attributes
it to the Apostle John (Stromateis, III. 5. 45). In the Latin
Adumbrationes (supposed to represent extracts from the Greek
Hypotyposes of the same author) there is a short summary of
'the Second Epistle of John' (expressly so-called), with the
scarcely consistent statements that it was written (a) 'to
Virgins/ and (6) *to a Babylonian woman named Electa who
signifies the Catholic Church/ We may suppose that the Latin
translator (or adaptor) has been guilty of some confusion,
xiii
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
However this may be, it is certain that Clement did know at
least one epistle beside the First, since in one of his quotations
from that work he cites it as 'the greater epistle' (Stromateis,
II. 15. 66). In a correct Greek writer this would imply that
Clement knew only two; and that is probably the case; but we
cannot be sure that even Clement was immune from the
common Hellenistic confusion of comparative and superlative
to which allusion was made above.
The first known list of New Testament books is the so-called
Muratorian Canon, which was made at Rome about A.D. 200,
probably by the learned scholar and theologian, Hippolytus,
dissenting Bishop of Rome about that time. The references to
the Johannine epistles in this document are as follows.
(After giving an account of the composition of the
Fourth Gospel, Hippolytus proceeds:) 'What wonder, then,
that John so emphatically brings out the several points in his
epistles also, saying in his own person, "What we saw with
our eyes and heard with our ears, and our hands handled,
these things we have written to you." Thus he describes
himself not only as an eyewitness, but also as a hearer and
writer of all the wonders of the Lord in order/ (Then, after
dealing with the Acts and the Pauline epistles, he pro-
ceeds:) 'The epistle of Jude and two of the above mentioned
John are reckoned among the catholic writings/
The meaning of this surely is that Hippolytus recognizes as
canonical two epistles of John, one of which is identified by
his quotation as our I John. Some critics indeed have tried to
secure his attestation for all three Johannine epistles, by
assuming that after dealing with the First Epistle in connec-
tion with the Fourth Gospel, he then means to say 'there are
two more epistles of John which are reckoned canonical/ That
is a quite unnatural forcing of language. There are (he makes it
quite explicit) two 'catholic 1 or canonical epistles of John. One
of them he has already quoted for its bearing on the Fourth
Gospel. Whether the other is our 2 John or 3 John remains
uncertain. Since, however, Irenaeus, whose relations with
Rome about this time were intimate, recognizes I and 2 John,
but ignores 3 John, we may probably take it that these same
xiv
INTRODUCTION
two were acknowledged as canonical at Rome at the close of
the second century. From that time on i John has a secure
place in the Canon of the New Testament.
It is otherwise with the two lesser epistles. As we have seen,
there is evidence of the existence of more than one Johannine
epistle during the second century, and 2 John is definitely
attested. Of 3 John there is no explicit mention until we reach
the third century, and there is no clear citation from it until
the fourth century. Origen of Alexandria and Caesarea (A.D.
185-254), who includes I John among canonical writings, and
quotes from it, attests the existence of two other epistles,
whose authenticity is doubtful (Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., VI.
25. 10). This doubt long remained, Eusebius himself, in the
early fourth century, while placing I John among the 'un-
questioned' books of the Canon, relegates 2 and 3 John to the
category of 'disputed' books (op. cit. f III. 25. 3), Later still
Jerome, who himself accepted all three epistles as the work of
the Apostle John, records that many attributed 2 and 3 John
to a different author, John the Presbyter (De Viris Illus-
tribus, 9, 18). By his time, however, all three were generally
recognized as canonical in Greek and Latin Christianity, thanks
largely to the authority of Athanasius. In the Syriac New Testa-
ment, on the other hand, none of them appear before A.D. 500.
As a curiosity of criticism, it may be mentioned that in the
fourth century it was widely held that the First Epistle at
least, and perhaps all three, were addressed to Parthia, and
the title 'To the Parthians' actually occurs in a handful of late
MSS. This theory, though supported by so great an authority
as Augustine, has no probability. It is difficult to conjecture
how it arose. It is possible that it has some connection with the
statement in the Clementine Adumbratio-nes (see p. xiii) that
2 John was addressed to a Babylonian lady (Babylon being
within the territory of the Parthian Empire). But was Clement
(or his Latin adaptor) thinking of i Pet. v. 13: 'She in Babylon
elect together with you? And is this perhaps the source of the
whole 'Parthian' theory?
To sum up: i John has an established place in Christian
tradition at least from the second quarter of the second century.
xv
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
It first emerges in the province of Asia, and is first quoted
extensively, and attributed to John, by Irenaeus, a native of
the same province. It Is already included in the Roman New
Testament of about A.D. 200. 2 John first appears in the last
quarter of the second century, attributed to the author of I
John, and is probably included in the Roman Canon of about
A.D. 200. Elsewhere both its authorship and its canonicity
were widely disputed down to the fourth or (in some places)
fifth century. 3 John is first mentioned, as a writing of dubious
authenticity, in the first half of the third century, and is not
definitely admitted to the New Testament until about the
middle of the fourth century later still outside Greek and
Latin Christianity.
The external evidence, therefore, for the two lesser epistles is
late, meagre and unsatisfactory, especially for the Third. It
should however be borne in mind that both are extremely
short, and contain very little material for quotation. Critical
questions fall to be determined largely upon the ground of
internal evidence, and cannot profitably be discussed until we
have examined the character and contents of the writings
themselves (see, further, pp. Ixvi sqq.),
For a full account of the patristic evidence the reader may
be referred to A. E. Brooke's Introduction to his Commentary
on 1-3 John (International Critical Commentary), pp. lii Ixii.
II. BACKGROUND AND SETTING OF THE FIRST EPISTLE
At the beginning of the Christian era there was a movement
or tendency within paganism towards a purer, more reasonable
and more inward piety. Its representatives often patronized
traditional cults, particularly those known as 'mysteries/ and
they invented or developed others; but its underlying assump-
tion was that all religions come to much the same thing, if they
are rationally understood. Its exponents offered ways of
rationalizing most of the current rituals and myths. The move-
ment covered a wide range. Near the bottom of the scale it was
little more thaa a way of making superstition respectable for
the minor intelligentsia. Near the top, it took form in a high
religion of mystical communion with the Divine. Certain
xvi
INTRODUCTION
general assumptions can be recognized. The material world Is
evil. The rational part of man is a prisoner in it, and an exile
from the world of light; in fact, in some way a separated part
of the supernal world, an effluence, or radiation, of that
eternal Light which is Reason, or pure Being, or God. By
knowledge of the world of light, communicated in esoteric
revelations or initiations of one kind or another, the rational
spirit of man can liberate itself from its prison of matter and
rise to the supernal world. It is then united or identified with,
or absorbed in, the Divine.
Many variations were played upon this theme, all of them
controlled by the central dogmas: the distinction between the
realm of light and the realm of darkness which is the material
world, and deification through supernatural knowledge
(gnosis). The movement undoubtedly attracted many charla-
tans, but it also had exponents (like those writers who are
responsible for the tractates of the Corpus Hermeticum) who
display a pure and genuine mystical piety. In general, we may
recognize in it the traits of a type of religion which recurs in
many periods; laying stress upon 'enlightenment'; usually
individualist and esoteric in temper; jealous of its 'spirituality*
and disdainful of the material world, and of history.
When Christianity appeared in the Graeco-Roman world, it
early came into contact with this higher paganism; naturally
enough, for it too was a missionary faith aiming at the con-
version and salvation of mankind through the revelation of
God and communion with Him. On the one side, believers in
a generalized religion, expressing itself in various mythologies
and cults, readily welcomed one more cult, one more mytho-
logy, which could be added to the ingredients of the theo-
sophical hotch-potch. They prepared to adopt Christianity as
they had already tried to adopt Judaism. On the other side,
enthusiastic but ill-informed converts to Christianity were
eager to reinterpret the faith 'in terms of modern thought/ as
we say. There are hints of attempts at assimilation already in
the Epistle to the Colossians and the Pastoral Epistles; and the
Fourth Gospel can best be understood as a brilliant attempt to
undercut the whole process by a genuine and thoroughgoing
xvii
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
^interpretation, in which alien categories are completely
mastered and transformed by the Gospel, and constrained to ex-
press the central truth of Christianity in universal terms. It was
along the lines laid down in the Fourth Gospel that the problem
was in the end successfully solved. But that is to anticipate.
At the end of the apostolic age, church history, it has been
said, enters a tunnel. When it emerges, in the middle of the
second century, we discover a central body which is the
Catholic Church, surrounded by a medley of sects claiming in
some sense the Christian name, and varying from recognizable
though somewhat eccentric presentations of the Gospel,
through various half-Christian or near-Christian systems of
belief, to downright caricatures. Their names, and some
account of their peculiar tenets, can be read in the pages of
Irenaeus, Hippolytus and Epiphanius. To some of them ancient
writers apply the term 'Gnostic/ and this has been adopted
by modem writers as a general designation for all these would-
be Christian heresies. Others apply the term to all systems of
thought, with or without a tinge of Christianity, which teach
salvation through gnosis or supernatural knowledge. It is
equally appropriate to them all, and there are advantages in
using in its widest denotation a term which brings out the
common element in a great variety of religious beliefs. We
need not however dispute over names. The facts are clear.
What is not altogether clear is the process by which this
situation came about, for the rise of heretical Gnostic sects
took place during the 'tunnel' period.
The First Epistle of John appears to reflect a critical
moment at an early stage in the process. It speaks of a group
of Christian teachers who had gone wrong. They were not only
teachers: they were prophets 'false prophets* our author
calls them. He does not deny that they spoke by inspiration;
only he is sure that their inspiration was not divine. As
prophets, they must have been persons commanding respect
and exercising authority in the Church. They began to teach
new doctrines, and, presumably after failing to carry the
Church with them, seceded, and continued their missionary
activity in the pagan world. Their mission was successful. They
xviii
INTRODUCTION
found a wide hearing indeed, a wider than the orthodox
teachers could command. All this is told us in plain terms in
I John ii. 18-19, iv. x-6. The secession clearly gave the
Church a harsh shock. We may conjecture that it may have
been the first case, at least in this province, of a deliberate
secession on doctrinal grounds, and the fact that it was led by
prophetic men, respected and influential, to whom the laity
had been accustomed to look as leaders, made the situation
very dangerous. The fellowship of the Church was rent; the
unity of belief and teaching was broken; the rank and file
might well be disturbed and perplexed. It is to this situation
that the epistle is addressed.
What then did these dissenters teach? All that we are told
directly is that they denied the reality of the Incarnation.
This denial was characteristic, we are told, of the 'Docetists/
But in fact any 'Gnostic' was bound to find some way to avoid
the scandalous idea that the Son of God, the Revealer, the
Intermediary between the Divine and the human, suffered the
degradation of direct contact with matter, the embodiment of
all evil; and above all he was bound to deny that the Divine
could suffer. The false prophets therefore were certainly on the
track which led to later Gnostic heresies. For their further
tenets we can only proceed by inference. Our author attacks
people who use (unworthily and untruly as he thinks) such
language as, 'we are born of God/ 'we are in the light,' 'we have
no sin/ 'we dwell in God/ 'we know God/ He is prepared to use
such expressions, properly defined, in a fully Christian sense.
It is their false and unworthy use that he reprobates. All the
same, it is noteworthy that if such expressions cannot in all
cases be exactly cited from Gnostic sources, they are certainly
closely analogous to Gnostic language, and taken together
describe well enough the best type of Gnostic piety (in the
widest sense), with its intense spirituality and its claim to
mystical experience above all to that 'knowledge 1 of God
which is the way to salvation and deification.
Our author also finds in his adversaries a neglect of Chris-
tian morality. Is this neglect to be called 'Gnostic? Christian
apologists of the second century charge the Gnostics with all
xix
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
manner of moral enormities. The pagans, we may recall, made
similar charges against Christians, and Christians have been
known to retort them upon the Jews. There seems however no
reason to doubt that some of the heretics believed themselves
to be so far above good and evil that their conduct scandalized
even the easy-going censors of Roman society. Yet it would
certainly be unjust to tar all Gnostics with that brush. In some
Gnostic circles there is evidence of ascetic personal morals.
When our author urges that those who cherish the Christian
hope should 'purify themselves as Christ is pure/ some of his
opponents might have applauded the sentiment, while adding
that they could not understand how the Son of God could be
described as 'pure' if He was involved in matter. It is, how-
ever, to be noted that our author, with a sure instinct, thinks
of Christian morality as being from first to last a matter of
obedience to the divine command of love or charity. It does
not appear that charity plays any considerable part in the
ethical ideals of Gnosticism, pagan or Christian. That type of
piety went along with an individualism which had usually
little sense of social obligations.
On the whole, then, there is good ground for concluding that
the errors with which this epistle is concerned are associated
with that tendency in the religious life of the time which is
known as 'Hellenistic mysticism/ or 'the higher paganism/ or
especially in its near-Christian dress, as 'Gnosticism/ Refer-
ence to writings in the Gnostic tradition will often illuminate
passages in the epistle (as this commentary will attempt to
show). In common with the Fourth Gospel, the First Epistle of
John shows the influence of Gnostic ways of thought. It was
not without reason that the Gospel according to John was
welcomed in some heretical circles, and at first looked at
askance by some ultra-conservatives in the Church. But both
parties were wrong. The use of current religious phraseology
and thought-forms serves only to bring out more clearly a
radical divergence.
The religious quest of the Hellenistic world was not in vain.
It attained some genuine religious insight; and it provided early
Christian thinkers with an intellectual apparatus for interpre-
xx
INTRODUCTION
ting Christianity to the wider world, and, in doing so, penetra-
ting more deeply into the meaning of the Gospel. But the more
openly the religious discussion was conducted upon ground
common to Christianity and the best non-Christian thought,
the more clearly did the specific differentia of the Christian
faith emerge. Augustine, himself trained in a philosophy which
was the fine flowering of the Hellenistic spirit, put his finger
upon the point when he said that most of the statements made
in the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel were already familiar to
him from the writings of the Neo-Platonists; but one thing he
could not find there: The Word was made flesh" (Confessions
vii. 9). It was there that the issue was joined between two
rival philosophies of life. And it was this issue that our author
saw to be raised by the disturbing propaganda of 'false pro-
phets' in the churches which he knew and for which he felt
responsible. In all that he writes he has this problem in mind.
III. CHARACTER AND CONTENTS OF THE FIRST EPISTLE
The First Epistle of John (unlike the Second and Third) has
no epistolary introduction or conclusion, such as we find in
Pauline and other New Testament epistles, after the regular
models of contemporary correspondence. It is not so much a
letter as a somewhat informal tract or homily. It seems, how-
ever, to have been addressed, in the first instance, to a particu-
lar circle, rather than written for general publication. The
situation in view is apparently local, and there is evident a
certain warmth of intimacy between writer and readers. The
tone of the work is that of a pastor addressing his flock. Yet no
names or other particulars are given, to connect the work with
this or that local church. It may perhaps be best understood as
a circular letter, like I Peter and (probably) Ephesians,
addressed to the churches of a whole region.
The argument is not closely articulated. There is little direct
progression. The writer 'thinks around' a succession of related
topics. The movement of thought has not inaptly been des-
cribed as 'spiral/ for the development of a theme often brings
us back almost to the starting-point; almost, but not quite, for
there is a slight shift which provides a transition to a fresh
xxi
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
theme; or it may be to a theme which had apparently been
dismissed at an earlier point, and now comes up for considera-
tion from a slightly different angle. The striking aphorisms
which are the most memorable things in the epistle do not
usually emerge as the conclusion of a line of argument. They
come in flashes, and their connection with the general line of
thought is sometimes only hinted at.
Any attempt to divide the work into orderly paragraphs and
sections must be largely arbitrary, and will indicate only in a
broad way the succession of topics. After separating off the
exordium (i. 1-4) and the postscript (v. 14-21), we may
regard the epistle as falling into three main divisions, to which
the following headings may be supplied:
I. What is Christianity? i. 5 - ii. 28.
II. Life in the Family of God. ii. 29 - iv. 12.
III. The Certainty of the Faith, iv. 13 - v. 13.
Within this framework the argument may be summarized as
follows, square brackets marking words inserted to bring out
implied connections of thought, and round brackets the
author's own parentheses.
'I am writing about that which is the theme of all Christian
preaching and teaching the Gospel, God's life-giving Word
to man. Since the life of eternity was manifested in time by
the incarnation of the Son of God, we can speak of it with
an assurance based upon direct testimony to historical facts,
'My object in writing is to promote the threatened unity
of the Church in this crisis of schism and apostasy (i. 1-4).
I. The main purport of the Christian revelation may be
summed up in the familiar maxim, "God is light/* Since
light is an absolute, excluding darkness, fellowship with God
must show itself in a life radiant with goodness, and free
from all dark ways: in other words, a good life, free from
sin. Only in such a life can Christian fellowship be realized.
'(Free from sin, however, not in the sense of a personal
achievement of moral perfection the claim to sinlessness
xxii
INTRODUCTION
made by some Is a delusion but free from sin by divine
forgiveness and renewal mediated through the sacrifice and
the intercession of Christ,)
'Again Christianity offers [in the familiar phrase] know-
ledge of God; but it recognizes no such knowledge as genuine
unless it shows itself in obedience to God's commands.
'And again, Christianity means union with God; but
insists that such union involves moral conformity with His
character as revealed in Christ (i. 5 - ii. 6).
2. "[To return to our starting-point "light" and "dark-
ness"; how fittingly the terms describe the contrast between
the new order of life revealed in Christ and the old order
which is doomed.] The new order is marked by Christ's own
"new commandment" of love, or charity. There is no
genuine "enlightenment" apart from obedience to this
commandment.
'As Christians you are actually living within the new order,
in which you possess forgiveness of sins, knowledge of God,
and victory over aU evil powers.
'Over against this new order stands the pagan world-
order, in irreconcilable opposition to God, and doomed to
destruction. The Christian who loves God and obeys His
will has no attachment to this doomed world, but belongs
to the immortal order (ii. 7-17).
3. The end of this world is at hand. We have been taught
that it will be immediately preceded by the appearance of
"Antichrist" and Antichrist is here! For what else is this
appalling apostasy, this denial of Christ and of the Father
He reveals? The false teachers claim superior "enlighten-
ment"; but there is enlightenment enough for every Chris-
tian in the simple Gospel which you received. If you remain
stedfastly, and intelligently, loyal to the Gospel, you are
secure in the truth, and can face the impending Day of
Judgment with confidence (ii. 18-28).
II
I. '[Loyalty to the Gospel includes right conduct; and] right
conduct is the sign that by God's grace we have been born
xxiii
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
again as His children. Consider how much is implied in the
Gospel assurance that God is our Father. It is, first, a proof
of God's love for us. Secondly, it is a promise that we shall
hereafter see God and be like Him. Thirdly [and this is the
point I wish to emphasize here], it lays upon us the obliga-
tion to imitate the divine character as revealed in Christ.
There is a stark contrast between righteousness (or right
conduct) and sin (or wrong-doing), a contrast which no
sophistry should be allowed to obscure. The Son of God,
Himself sinless, came to abolish sin. The children of God,
by virtue of a divine heredity, live a life over which sin has
no power (ii. 29 - iii. 10).
2. 1 remind you again of Christ's own commandment:
"Love one another/' Hatred among brothers is a monstrous
thing. It is pilloried in the bible story of Cain, the first
murderer for hatred is murder. Cain stands for the pagan
world-order, which is the realm of hatred, and of death. We
are living in the new order which is a realm of life; and the
token is, that we love one another.
'What love, or charity, is, we learn from Christ's action
in laying down His life for us. We are bound to imitate His
sacrifice even if it be only in the humble way of giving up
what we have, to relieve a brother's need. In any case,
charity is action (iii. 11-18).
3. 'It is only in the exercise of charity that we have solid
assurance of our Christian standing before God; and if con-
science is still uneasy, we may take confidence from the
thought that God knows us better than we know ourselves.
If our conscience is clear [as the conscience of a Christian
should be], then we may live in frank and open intercourse
with God, asking Him for what we need, and doing what He
wills. To live thus is what is meant by union with God; and
a token of this union is the gift of the Spirit (iii. 19-24).
'(The gift of the Spirit, however, may be counterfeited.
There is false inspiration as well as true. The test lies in the
confession of Christ as the incarnate Son of God. The false
teaching which denies the incarnation is [as I said before]
the mark of Antichrist. As the world-power of evil is already
xxiv
INTRODUCTION
overcome by those in whom God dwells, so also Is the false
teaching, whose very success in the pagan world sufficiently
indicates its pagan origin. The Church is God's family: its
testimony is received by those who know God, rejected by
those who are none of His. The former show the trae in-
spiration, the latter the counterfeit) (iv. 1-6).
4. '[To resume:] love, or charity, is of divine origin, and
those who practise it are children of God, and know God. In
fact, God is love. His love is disclosed to us in the coming
of Christ and His work of redemption; and that loving
action of God's is the one ground of all love, or charity,
among men. Clearly, then, the command to love one another
is an inseparable consequence of the Gospel of God's love.
There is no "vision of God" in this life; but there is real
union with God: we have it when His love is freely active in
our love for one another (iv. 7-12).
in
1. 'We have assurance of this union, [as I said before,] in
the gift of the Spirit. But moreover, [though man cannot see
God in His eternal being,] there is one thing we have seen
the coming of Christ, the Son of God incarnate, as Saviour
of the world. To hold that conviction is to have union with
God, for it is to be aware of His love. [I repeat:] God is love;
to live in union with God is to live in love. And living in
love we need have no fear of the impending Day of Judg-
ment; for we are already at one with our Judge; and love
excludes fear (iv. 13-18).
2. '[To sum up:] we love, because He loved us first. The
test for the reality of our love is simply practical charity
towards our brothers. Unless a man loves his fellow (whom
he has seen) , it is idle to assert that he loves God (whom he
cannot see). It is moreover God's own command [through the
teaching of Jesus Christ] that in loving Him we should love
our fellows, and love without obedience is meaningless.
Through faith in Christ we are ail children of God, "Love
me, love my child/' is a maxim applicable here as in ordinary
xxv
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
human relations: if we love God, we must needs love our
brother, who is His child.
'To love God is to obey His commands. [But surely, you
will say, that is too hard for us. No:] it is not hard to obey
God, because we are His children, having within us that
divine quality of life which is victorious over the world. Our
faith assures us victory over God's enemy, without us and
within: the faith, I mean, which affirms that Jesus is the Son
of God incarnate (iv. 19 - v. 5).
3. This faith we must hold in its fulness. Christ came, not
only by the water of His baptism, [as the first great initiate,]
but also by the blood of His cross, [as Saviour of the
world]. In evidence, we have the testimony both of the
Spirit [in the earthly ministry of Christ, and in the Church],
and of the water [of His baptism, and ours], and the blood
[of His cross, and of the sacramental chalice]. The witness is
consentient, and it is the testimony of God Himself. It is,
however, only in the act of faith in Christ that we appro-
priate the testimony to ourselves. To reject it is to give the
lie to God.
The sum of the testimony is this: that God has given us
eternal life, in His Son: to have Christ is to live; to be with-
out Christ is to be dead. I have written to you who believe,
to assure you that you possess eternal life* (v. 6-13).
POSTSCRIPT
r. The Christian assurance of which I have spoken has an
especial bearing on prayer. Prayer which conforms to the
will of God is assured of an answer; and in particular prayer
for a fellow-Christian who has fallen into sin (provided it is
not mortal sin) (v. 14-17).
2. There are three things of which we can be quite cer-
tain: (i) the child of God is preserved from sin; (ii) we are
God's children, in an evil world; (iii) through the incarnate
Son we know the God who is utterly real, and being in
union with Him we live the life of eternity. Knowing
this, have nothing to do with unreal substitutes for God'
(v, 18-21).
xxvi
INTRODUCTION
The immediate aim of this epistle, as we have seen, is to
meet a critical situation arising out of the preaching of a dis-
torted form of Christianity. By way of meeting it, the author
recalls his readers to the original springs of Christian belief; to
that which you learned from the very beginning- (ii, 24), the
message you have learned from the very beginning (iii. n), the
old command which you have had from the very beginning . . .
the word you have heard (ii. 7), in short, the 'word of life/
embodied in the primitive, apostolic Gospel (L 1-3). That recall
is a note that sounds all through, whatever may be the
particular topic discussed in any passage.
It is not at first sight obvious to the reader that what the
author is giving is in fact the common, original Gospel of
primitive Christianity. His forms of expression certainly
differ from those of most of the New Testament, and have a
close resemblance only to those of the Fourth Gospel, which is
admittedly a relatively late work, and one with a highly indi-
vidual cast of thought and language. It will therefore be of
interest to confront the teaching of the epistle with what we
know of the early presentation of the Christian faith to the
world.
About the character and contents of the primitive Gospel,
at least in its broad lines, the New Testament leaves us in no
doubt. The briefest possible formulation is that which Mark
gives as a summary of the preaching of Jesus: The time is
fulfilled and the Kingdom of God has drawn near. Repent and
believe the Gospel' (Mark i. 15). How the Apostles proclaimed
this Gospel in the earliest days we may learn from a com-
parison of data in the Pauline Epistles (the earliest surviving
Christian documents) with the apostolic speeches in the Acts
of the Apostles (which though written down much later agree so
remarkably with the Pauline data that we must conclude they
rest upon good and early tradition). The kerygma, or proclama-
tion of the Gospel by the earliest preachers, may be sum-
marized somewhat as follows: 1
i For the evidence, see my book The Apostolic Preaching and its
Developments, Chapter I.
xxvii
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
The crisis of history has arrived; the prophecies are
fulfilled; and the 'Age to Come' has begun.
Jesus of Nazareth, of the line of David, came as God's
Son, the Messiah.
He did mighty works;
gave a new and authoritative teaching or law;
was crucified, dead and buried (died for our sins);
rose again the third day;
was exalted to 'the right hand of God/ victorious over
'principalities and powers';
will come again as Judge of quick and'dead.
The apostles and those who are in fellowship with them
constitute the Church, the New Israel of God, marked out
as such by the outpouring of the Spirit.
Therefore repent, believe in Christ, and you will receive
forgiveness of sins and a share in the life of the Age to Come
(or eternal life).
The setting of this apostolic preaching is eschatological; that
is to say, it presupposes the general scheme of Jewish belief
in the providential ordering of history towards a final crisis in
which God's purpose will be fulfilled, and His sovereign rule
over the world will be demonstrated in judgment upon evil
and in the redemption of men. The essential point in the
kerygma is that the decisive step in this culminating act of
history has already been taken. In the coming of Christ the
Kingdom of God has come upon men for judgment and
redemption; and consequently, in the Church, the new Israel of
God, there exists a divine community enjoying within time
and space the 'life of the Age to Come 1 ; and the final consum-
mation is impending, in which Christ will be manifested in
glory as Judge and Redeemer to wind up the historical
process.
It is clear that the author of this epistle lives fully within
this eschatological faith, even though in many respects his
expression of it differs from that of the primitive Church. He
is aware of living at the moment of history in which, so to
xxviii
INTRODUCTION
speak, the two 'ages' overlap. It is the last hour of this age.
The world Is passing away. It is true that he never relates this
conviction, as earlier writers do, to the Hebrew conception of
history as the working out of a divine plan interpreted by the
prophets. He never alludes to the fulfilment of prophecy, as he
betrays virtually no interest in the Old Testament, and no
acquaintance with the contemporary thought of Judaism.
For him the two 'ages' of Jewish-Christian thought are
the realms of light and darkness which figure in Hellenistic
theology. The darkness is passing away and the true light Is
already shining (ii. 8). That is his characteristic way of
restating the evangelical proclamation of the new age. The
epithet true more properly 'real/ as in John i. 9 in itself
betrays the philosophical background of his thought. He
speaks of the 'real* light in a quasi-Platonic sense; that is to
say, the eternal or archetypal light ('the light that never was
on sea or land'); the light of which ail visible lights are only
suggestive symbols; the real light which in John i. 9 is identified
with the Logos, the eternal Principle of creation and revela-
tion. But the realms of 'light' and 'darkness' do not here
represent, as for Hellenistic thinkers in general, a static map
of the universe in its several planes. The darkness fades, the
light dawns: there is movement and change; something is
happening. What our author means is that a divine action has
taken place which profoundly alters the character of human
existence in this world: a new dispensation, a new order, has
been constituted by act of God; and this is the realm of light,
within which Christians live, even while the pagan world
continues (not for very long) to live in the old order of darkness.
If he Is indifferent to the historical antecedents of the act of
God as expressed in prophecy and its fulfilment, he is very
much alive to the historical actuality of the events in which
that act of God was manifested. As in the primitive Preaching,
so here, the passage from the age of darkness to the age of
light was effected by the coming of Christ. In the simplest
terms he affirms, We know that the Son of God has come
(v. 20). In eschatological prediction the Messiah (or God Him-
self as Judge on the Last Day) is 'the Coming One' (see Heb.
xxix
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
x. 37, citing the Greek of Hab. ii. 3; Matt. iii. n). In the
apostolic Preaching Christ is He who has come. The change
of verbal form is significant. Another way of stating the same
fact is to say that Christ was 'sent' (iv. 9, 14). This is a form
of expression especially congenial to 'Johannine' circles, but
it has primitive origins, as may be seen from the coincidence
of Pauline language with that of the Gospels (cf. Gal. iv. 4;
Rom. viii. 3; Mark ix. 37). He adds statements of the purpose
or effect of the coming of Christ expressed in distinctively
'Johannine' language (iii. 5, 8, iv. 9). The form of expression
nevertheless recalls several statements in the Synoptic Gospels
about the coming of Christ and its purpose (e.g. Luke xix. 10;
Matt. xx. 28; cf. also Matt. v. 17, ix. 13, etc.). Again, in
ii. 22 we have a clear echo of a very primitive confession of
faith: Jesus is the Christ (cf. Mark viii. 20). In iv. 15 this takes
the alternative form, Jesus is the Son of God, which is also
primitive (cf. Mark iii. ii, v. 7, xiv. 61-62, xv. 39; Matt.
vii. 29, xiv. 33, xvi. 16; Rom. i 3-4, etc.).
In all this our author keeps closely to the forms of the
primitive Preaching. But the development of Christian
theology, and the emergence of 'Gnostic' versions of Christ-
ianity, made it necessary to elaborate this clause of the kerygma
so as to preclude erroneous interpretations. Some teachers
asserted that the Son of God, the eternal Christ, had indeed
'corne/ in a sense, but only by taking on the temporary
appearance of a man (much after the fashion of the 'theo-
phanies* which Jews and Gentiles alike believed in). The
actuality of the events on which the Gospel rested was thus
denied, and the unique connection of the eternal with history,
which was the presupposition of the proclamation of a new
order, was destroyed. Hence the simpler confessions of faith
needed to be restated in the lorrn 'Jesus Christ has come in the
flesh* (such is the literal translation of iv. 2) . To deny this is to
deny the Gospel (iv. 3). It is because of the vital importance of
this conviction of the actuality of Christ's human life that the
writer appeals so emphatically to the evidence of the senses in
i. 1-3-
Of the mighty works of Christ, 'in the flesh/ to which the
xxx
INTRODUCTION
kerygma seems to have alluded (Acts ii. 22, x. 38), our author
has nothing to say: it was hardly germane to his purpose. On
the other hand, he is insistent upon the authority of His
teaching. It is doubtful how far this point was generally in-
cluded in the kerygma. Only the form given in Acts iii. 22
expressly indicates Christ as the second and greater Moses,
prophet, teacher and lawgiver. This comparative silence, how-
ever, must not be misunderstood to mean that the primitive
Church was not interested in the teaching of Jesus. It Is
evident from the whole New Testament that the message of
the Church was conceived as having two main aspects: the
Gospel of Christ, the theme of preaching (kerygma), and the
Law or Commandment of Christ, the theme of teaching
(didacht). (The distinction was partly a matter of method and
of ministerial organization.) The Gospel of Christ is essentially
a declaration of what God, in His grace towards man, has done
through Christ; the Law of Christ is a statement of what God
requires of those who are the objects of His gracious action.
The two are intimately united, though distinguishable. The
distinction and the relation between the two appear in the
structure both of the Gospels, which interweave the story of
Jesus and the record of His teaching, and of the Epistles,
several of which are divided into a 'theological' part, expound-
ing the implications of kerygma, and an 'ethical' part, develop-
ing and applying the Law of Christ (so Romans, Galatians,
Ephesians, Coiossians, i and 2 Thessalonians, Hebrews with
an attenuated 'ethical' section and i Peter).
In the First Epistle of John there is a thorough integration of
the Commandment and the Gospel. Whether one says that the
teaching of Jesus is a part of the Gospel, or that the 'word of
life 1 (i. i) includes inseparably both Gospel and Command-
ment, the unity of the two elements in the Christian message
is complete (see ii. 7-11). To have stated this with the utmost
clearness and emphasis is a distinctive service to Christian
thought, and one to which the author was provoked by propa-
ganda which seemed to deny it. When something hitherto
taken for granted is challenged, it must be made perfectly
explicit. Hence the reiteration in this epistle of what might
xxxi
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
almost seem a Christian truism. Nowhere else in the New
Testament is it made more clear that the evangelical pro-
clamation of the love of God in sending the Saviour (iv. 9, 14),
and the commandment Xove one another' (iv. n, 21), are
aspects of a single and indivisible divine revelation by which
the Christian religion is constituted; and nowhere is there less
excuse for the reader to suppose that Christian theology can
stand apart from Christian ethics, or Christian ethics apart
from theology.
Upon the relation of this epistle to the tradition of the
teaching of Jesus more must be said presently. We now take
up again the main thread of the kerygma.
In all our accounts of the apostolic preaching the death of
Christ has a prominent place. I passed on to you, writes Paul,
what I had myself received, namely, that Christ died for our
sins, as the scriptures had said, and he appeals confidently to
the consensus of apostolic testimony, (i Cor. xv. 3, n). The
Old Testament 'scriptures' to which this highly compressed
statement refers can, at least in part, be identified by com-
parison with other passages in the New Testament. It seems
that the most important of them is the prophecy of the Suffer-
ing Servant of the Lord in Isa. Iii, 13 - liii. 12, The opening
words of this prophecy are cited (freely) in the Petrine speech,
Acts iii. 13; and in Acts viii. 26-38 it is made the text of the
preaching of the Gospel to an Ethiopian (which we may take
as typical of the earliest 'foreign missions'). The implication is
that from an extremely early period, if not from the very first,
the preaching of the apostles interpreted the death of Christ
through the prophetic conception of the Servant of the Lord,
whose vicarious sufferings bring salvation to 'many/ The
reference to the Isaianic prophecy is incorporated in the
Synoptic Gospels (Mark x. 45, ix. 12, Luke xxii. 37, etc.), and
there is no good reason to reject their evidence that it was
already made in the sayings of Jesus Himself. Our author
therefore is keeping closely to the primitive kerygma when he
says, The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every
sin (i. 7); or, in language which is the ' Johannine' equivalent
for Mark xv. 45, He laid down His life for us (iii. 16; cf. also
xxxii
INTRODUCTION
Gal. II. 20). There Is so far no attempt to go further theo-
logically than the simple statements of the early kerygma; and
even in II. 2, iv. 10, where Christ is said to be the 'expiation*
for our sins (cf. Rom. ill. 25), there is nothing that goes
beyond the Implications of the Isaianic prophecy.
In the Preaching of the Apostles, the announcement of the
death of Christ is regularly followed by the announcement of
His resurrection. Indeed the double proclamation that Christ
died and rose again is the core of the kerygma in all its forms.
It is surprising to find that in this epistle there is no direct
allusion to the resurrection. One other New Testament writing
resembles it in this respect. In the Epistle to the Hebrews the
only direct reference is in the liturgical language of the closing
Benediction and Doxology (xiii. 20-1). In practically every
other book of the New Testament the resurrection has a
dominant place.
It seems possible, however, to distinguish two slightly
different ways of regarding it. Some, it would seem, thought
chiefly of the appearances of the risen Christ to His followers,
and especially of their evidential value for faith. Others (or the
same persons in a different context) thought chiefly of the
risen Christ as exalted 'at the right hand of God/ ready to
come again in glory. The difference is reflected in various forms
of the kerygma: compare, for instance, Acts ii. 32-6, iii. 13-21,
where the emphasis is entirely on the latter aspect, with Acts x.
40-1, xiii. 30-1, where the emphasis is on the former aspect.
(See also R. H. Lightfoot, Locality and Doctrine in the Gospels,
where a somewhat similar distinction is drawn between the
outlook of the Gospels according to Mark and Luke). If the
foreground of one's rnind were occupied with the thought of
Christ's eternal power and glory in the heavenly places, the
fact of His resurrection might be taken to be implied in this
larger and more inclusive truth. To put it in terms of the
kerygma, the affirmation of Christ's resurrection might be
taken as implicit in the clause affirming His victory over 'princi-
palities and powers,' and His eternal session 'at the right hand
of God/ Perhaps this is true of our author.
For the clause just referred to, that which affirms Christ's
xxxiii
THE JOHANNINB EPISTLES
exaltation, the earliest forms of the kerygma appear to look
back to Psalm ex. I (Acts ii. 34-5, Rom. viii. 34, i Pet. iii. 22,
etc.) to which (according to an entirely credible statement in
Mark xii. 35-7) Jesus Himself had drawn attention. This pas-
sage was understood to indicate (i) that the risen Christ is
'Lord of all' (Acts x. 36; cf. Phil. ii. 9-11), and (ii) that He is
victorious over all cosmic powers (cf. i Pet. iii. 22). This double
theme is elaborated in a great variety of ways in the New
Testament writings, In the Fourth Gospel His victory is won
over the Prince of this world (xii. 31; cf. xiv. 30, xvi. n), and
consequently over the world itself (xvi. 33). It is this line of
thought that is followed by our author. The world, that is,
human society organized in hostility to God (or in plain terms,
pagan society as he knew it), lies in the power of the evil One
(v. 19), or the devil. It was to destroy the deeds of the devil that
the Son of God appeared (iii. 8). He is greater than he who is in
the world (iv. 4) more powerful, that is, than the Prince of
this world and consequently He is the conqueror of 'the
world* as a power hostile to man's salvation. And from this
follows the further consequence, which the writer draws for his
readers 1 encouragement, that to have faith in Christ is to
share His victory; our faith, that is the conquest which conquers
the world; for he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God is the
world's conqueror (v. 4-5). We shall certainly be within the
author's intention if we understand that for the confirmation
of his readers' faith he is appealing once more to the most
certain testimony of that which you learned from the very
beginning; in other words, the Gospel itself as declared in the
Preaching of the Apostles and handed down in the Church.
The Gospel, rightly understood, is a proclamation of Christ's
victory; and to accept the Gospel heartily, in its fulness, is to
share that victory. He would have allowed no other ground for
confidence or optimism in the great war against the powers of
evil and of the lie.
The testimony of the apostolic preaching to Christ ends with
a clause affirming the certain expectation of His second com-
ing which brings the 'end of the age' (Matt, xxviii. 20), the
'restoration of all things' (Acts iii. 21), and the last judgment
xxxiv
INTRODUCTION
(Acts x. 42, Rom. ii 16, etc.). It would appear that in the
earliest days the second advent was proclaimed as the immedi-
ately impending completion of a process set in motion by the
entry of Christ into the world, and carried forward in His
ministry, death, resurrection and ascension. As time went on,
and the Lord did not return in the way He was expected, the
continuity of the process was broken. The new situation was
met by various Christian thinkers in different ways. In the
Fourth Gospel, although the belief in a judgment on the last
day' is retained, its significance is attenuated; for the whole
episode of Christ's incarnation, including His passion and
death, is shown to be the world's Day of Judgment; and the
promise of His return is held to have been fulfilled by His
resurrection and the coming of the Paraclete (John iii. 17-21,
ix. 39-41, xii. 31-32, xiv. 15-23). The author of the First Epistle
knows nothing of this ^interpretation of the Advent hope. He
holds to the belief that the great Day of Judgment is at hand;
and although he must have seen the repeated disappointment
of that belief, he thinks he now has definite grounds for con-
fidence that the delay will not be prolonged (ii. 18). Once again
the expectation proved illusory. But this belief, persisting all
through the first century of Christianity, that the consumma-
tion of aU things lay 'round the corner/ had its value. It
served to keep alive, through a period of intense trial, a sense
of the inconceivable nearness and reality of the unseen world,
and of the Lord 'whom having not seen ye love 1 ; and it evoked
a sense of moral urgency corresponding to the incalculable
significance of the present moment, which (for all one knew)
might in strict truth be the last moment before the great Day
dawned.
It is instructive to observe the ideas which in this epistle are
associated with the thought of the Lord's advent. First, the
thought of coming judgment, here as elsewhere in the New
Testament, sharpens the sense of moral responsibility. But this
sense of responsibility is not to be associated with any craven
fear; for our Judge is Christ, and Christ is the expression of the
divine love, and if we dwell in love there is nothing to frighten
us in the thought of meeting Christ (iv. 14-18, ii. 28). For,
xxxv
THE JOHANNINB EPISTLES
secondly, the main thing is, after all, that Jesus Christ Himself
is to appear: we are to see Him as He is (iii. 2). The writer has
here put in the simplest possible words, not indeed the whole
content of Christian eschatology, but the controlling convic-
tion which gives character to any eschatology which is to be
distinctively Christian. From it he proceeds to draw conse-
quences directly relevant to the ethical life of a Christian man:
we cannot see Christ as He is without being like Him; and
this prospect must powerfully stimulate moral endeavour
(iii. 2-3).
It is clear that while our author shares the popular belief of
early Christianity in an almost immediate end of the world,
he avoids the crude and even fanatical forms which that belief
could take (as it does, for example, in parts of the Book of
Revelation), and emphasizes aspects of it which are of per-
manent relevance to Christian faith and life.
In addition to the affirmations about Christ and His work,
the kerygma seems to have included, in one form or another, a
testimony to the Church as the People of God under the new
covenant, distinguished as such notably by the gift of the
Spirit (as foretold in prophecy), and enjoying forgiveness of
sins and the assurance of salvation. In the examples of apos-
tolic preaching given in the Acts, the proclamation of the
Gospel normally issues in an appeal to the hearers for faith
and repentance, accompanied by the offer of initiation (by
baptism) into the life of the true 'Israel of God' with all its
distinctive privileges (Acts ii. 38-9, iv. 11-12, xiii. 38).
In our epistle the word 'church' does not occur (as it is
also absent from the Fourth Gospel); but the author is acutely
conscious of the Church as a community called into being by
the act of God in Christ and sustained by fellowship with the
Father and with His Son Jesus Christ (i. 3). Like the earliest
preachers, he appeals to the witness of the Spirit (v. 6; cf . Acts
ii. 33, v. 32, etc.). He does not allude to more developed doc-
trines such as the Pauline conception of the 'Spirit of Christ*
as the animating and unifying principle of the Body of Christ
and the ground of moral achievement, or the Johannine con-
ception of the Paraclete as Christ's representative dwelling in
xxxvi
INTRODUCTION
His Church and mediating His judgment upon the world
(John xvi. 7-11). He stands upon the ground of the simpler
early Preaching: that the manifest presence and activity of the
Spirit is the evidence of the truth of the Gospel and the reality
of Christian experience.
Fully in line, again, with the earliest tradition is the contrast
drawn in ii. 7-17 between the Church and the world. 'The
world' is here human society organized in hostility to the will
of God; but it is also the embodiment of an order of life belong-
ing to the evil age which has in principle been brought to an
end by the coming of Christ, and is now manifestly in process
of dissolution. Over against this dying order is a new order of
life, also embodied (it is implied) in a society, the Church, which
possesses the marks of the people of the new covenant (cf.
Jer. xxxi. 31-4; Heb. viii. 8-12) forgiveness of sins and
knowledge of God; and is, by virtue of Christ's conquest of
'principalities and powers', victorious over the world.
In contrast to the dying world, the divine community, being
united with the will of God, remains for ever (ii. 17). For our
author the supreme divine gift is life eternal (v. ii), and it is
this which is proclaimed in the Gospel, which accordingly is
called 'the word of life* (i. i). It is likely that in 'Johannine'
circles the idea of 'eternal life' was in some measure affected by
Hellenistic philosophy; but the idea itself is rooted in the earliest
Preaching. In the Acts, although the complete expression
occurs only in a passage with a Pauline colouring (Acts xiii.
46-8), yet elsewhere the effect of the Preaching upon the
Gentiles is described as 'repentance unto life' (xi. 18); the
Gospel itself is called 'the words of this life' (v. 20); and Christ
Himself, 'the Prince of life' (iii. 15). In the Synoptic Gospels the
expression 'life ' or 'eternal life/ is used as an alternative for
'the Kingdom of God' in certain connections. To 'enter into
the Kingdom of God/ to 'enter into life/ to 'inherit eternal
life/ and to 'be saved' are synonyms (Mark ix. 43-7, x. 17,
23-6). In the eschatological setting of the earliest preaching
'eternal life' is 'the life of the Age to Come/ now inaugurated
by the coming of Christ. That is what it essentially is (and not
any philosophical conception of immortality) in this epistle.
xxxvii
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
Of its character and quality the author has important things to
say, to which we shall turn presently.
So much for the kerygma, or proclamation of the Gospel. We
now turn to the other side of the tradition, that which pre-
served the Sayings of Jesus, chiefly for the purpose of instruc-
tion in Christian morals, individual and social. We have
already seen that our author insists with particular emphasis
upon the inseparable unity of the Gospel and the Command-
ment of Christ. He often echoes the teaching of the Lord as
reported in the Fourth Gospel. It will, however, be of some
interest to enquire whether he shows acquaintance with a
tradition of the Sayings over and above the tradition embodied
in the Fourth Gospel; and here our standard of comparison
must be the Synoptic Gospels. There is no verbal similarity
close enough to suggest that the author was acquainted with
any of these Gospels in their existing forms. Nevertheless there
are some striking resemblances which strongly suggest that he
was acquainted with an oral tradition of the Sayings similar
to that which underlies the Synoptic record.
We have already observed that for him the Law of Christ
is summed up in what he calls (as does the Fourth Gospel) the
New Commandment: 'Love one another/ That form of the pre-
cept is Johannine. But in iv. 21 he seems to betray knowledge
of a formulation similar to that which we have in Mark xii.
28-31 and parallels. 1
Mark xii. 29-31 I John iv. 21
The first commandment is: This commandment we
. . . Thou shalt love the Lord have from Him: that he who
thy God. . . . And the second loves God shall love his
is this: Thou shalt love thy brother also,
neighbour as thyself.
This combination of the commandments of love to God and
love to man is not made in the Fourth Gospel.
In i John iv. n the precept is put in another way: If God so
loved us we ought also to love one another. 1 The principle
is similar (though the language is different) to that which is
* In the following citations, a literal translation is offered, the degree of
identity in language being sometimes disguised in the Moffatt rendering.
xxxviii
INTRODUCTION
expressed in Matt, xviil. 33, 'Ought you not to have had mercy
on your fellow-servants as I had mercy on you?' Again, in
iv. 7 we have (in distinctively 'Johannine' language) the
doctrine that 'he who loves is born of God'; but the same idea
is present in Matt. v. 44-5: 'Love your enemies . . . that you
may become sons of your Father in heaven/ On the converse
side, our author says that hatred is murder, and the murderer
is excluded from eternal life (iii. 15). There is sufficient
authority for this in Matt, v, 21-2 (though once again there is
no verbal parallel). 'It was said to the ancients: Thou shalt not
kill; whoever kills is liable to the Judgment. But I say to you:
Whoever is angry with his brother is liable to the Judgment/
In these fundamental matters of Christian ethics we might
perhaps have assumed, even without direct evidence, that
any type of Christian tradition would preserve the essentials
of the teaching of Jesus in one form or another. But there are
many other passages where, though there is no extensive
identity of language with the Synoptic Gospels, there are
nevertheless significant echoes.
In ii. 22, 23, 28, iv. 2, 3, we have pronouncements upon the
general theme of 'confessing' and 'disowning' Christ, which
seem to be the result of reflection upon such sayings as those
which are preserved in Mark viii. 37-8, Matt. x. 32-3, Luke ix.
26, xii. 8-9 (the keywords 'confess/ 'disown/ 'shame' are com-
mon to the Gospels and the Epistle). It appears that these
sayings were present in, more than one of the sources of the
Synoptic Gospels, and there is no reason why our author should
not have been acquainted with yet another version of them, in
the oral tradition which he received (see also notes, pp. 56-7, 64) .
Compare again the following passages:
Matt. mi. 21 I John ii. 17
Not everyone who says to He who does the will of
me Xord, Lordl' will enter God remains for ever,
the Kingdom of Heaven, but
he who does the will of my
Father in heaven.
We recall that to 'enter the Kingdom of heaven 1 and to
Inherit eternal life' are synonyms in the Synoptic Gospels.
xxxix
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
Matt. v. 8-9
Blessed are the pure in
heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called sons of
God.
i John Hi. 1-3
See what love the Father
has given us, to be called
children of God ... we shall
see Him as He is. ... He who
has this hope cleanses himself.
It certainly looks as if our author were acquainted with the
Beatitudes in one form or another. He has put together the
blessings of seeing God and being called God's children, which
in Matthew are kept distinct, and associated them both with
the idea of purity.
I John iv. I
Test the spirits . . . because
many pseudo-prophets have
gone out into the world.
Matt. xxiv. ii
Many pseudo-prophets will
arise and lead many astray.
Matt. vii. 15, 20
Beware of pseudo-prophets.
. . . From their fruits you shall
recognize them.
Matt. xxiv. 24
Pseudo-christ s and pseudo-
prophets will arise ... so as
to lead even the elect astray,
if possible,
'Antichrist' is not identical with 'pseudo-Christ/ but it may
be that the author of the epistle had in mind some such
saying as this, and combined it with other current predictions.
Mark xiii. 5 I John Hi. 7
Beware that no one leads Children, let no one lead
you astray. you astray.
i John ii. 18
As you have heard that
Antichrist is coming, so now
many antichrists have come.
Matt. v. 48
You shall be perfect, as your
Father in heaven is perfect.
Luke vi. 36
Be merciful, as your Father
is merciful.
xl
i John Hi. 7
He who performs right-
eousness is righteous as He is
righteous.
(Here, as so often, it is not
very clear whether 'He 1 is the
Father or the Son; but for
this author the difference is
negligible.)
INTRODUCTION
'Perfect/ 'merciful/ 'righteous': these might well represent
variants of one saying.
Luke vi. 22
Blessed are you when men
hate you.
i John Hi. 13
Do not be surprised if the
world hates you.
Matt. vii. 8 - Luke xi. 10
Everyone who asks re-
ceives.
Mark xi. 24
Whatever you pray and ask
for, believe you have received
it, and you shall have it.
Matt. x. 25 (cf. Luke m. 40)
It is enough for the dis-
ciple to be as his teacher, and
the slave as his master.
Matt. xi. 30
My yoke is kindly and my
burden light.
I John in. 22
Whatever we ask for we
receive from Him.
i John v. 15
If we know that He hears
us whatever we ask for, we
know that we possess those
things we have asked of Him.
i John iv. 17
As He is, so are we in this
world.
i John v. 3
His commandments are not
heavy.
If it be allowed that these examples cumulatively build up a
probability that our author is referring to a body of traditional
Sayings of Jesus similar to that which we have in the Synoptic
Gospels, then we may perhaps trace reminiscences of such a
tradition in other places where the resemblance is not so
obvious.
In the notes on i. 5-6 it is suggested that the teaching about
'walking in the light/ there and in ii. 9-11, though it has
immediate antecedents in the Fourth Gospel, nevertheless
fairly represents the purport of such passages as Matt. vi. 22-3,
Luke xi. 34-6, where the keywords are light' and 'darkness/
The figurative use of the term 'blindness* in ii. n is consonant
with the language of the Synoptic Sayings (cf. Luke vi. 39), and
the term translated pitfall skandalon in the original is one
that has a significant place in the vocabulary of the Synoptics
(Matt. xiii. 41, xvi. 23, xviii, 7). It is not found in the Fourth
xli
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
Gospel, and it is not a word that a Hellenistic writer would
ordinarily be likely to use (see Moffatt Commentary, Romans,
xiv. 13).
Again, while the language used about 'the world' in ii. 15-17
has a distinctively 'Johannine 1 ring, the contemptuous dis-
missal of the desires of a transient world is implicit in Luke xii.
29-30: 'You are not to seek after things to eat and drink, for
all that is what the nations of the world seek after/ and Mark
viii. 36: 'What advantage is it to a man to gain the whole
world and forfeit his soul?'
Finally, when our author declares the content of the 'word
of life' to be 'what we have heard, what we have seen with our
eyes/ can we exclude an allusion to the great 'beatitude' of
Matt. xiii. 16-17 (Luke x. 23-4)?
'Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears,
because they hear. In truth I tell you, many prophets and
saints desired to see what you see, and did not see it; to
hear what you hear, and did not hear it/
To sum up: while the First Epistle of John is written in a
peculiar idiom both of thought and of speech, showing the
undeniable influence of the Hellenistic environment, its author
is justified in claiming that the substance of his message to his
readers is neither more nor less than the original and unchang-
ing content of the Church's common faith, embodied in the
Gospel and the Commandment, and attested by primary
witnesses. It is this that gives his work its universal, catholic,
significance. He might have spent his time in discussing and
refuting the errors of the heretical propaganda. If he had
done so, the epistle would now have had little more than
antiquarian interest. But the 'word of life/ that is the Gospel
and the Commandment of Christ as delivered by the apostles,
commands the prime interest of Christians everywhere and at
all times. Fidelity to it, under all changes of theological
climate, remains the test stantis vel cadenlis ecclesiae,
It is clear that the theological climate prevailing at the time
and place of writing differs appreciably from that of most of
xlii
INTRODUCTION
the New Testament. The author is free to reinterpret and
apply fundamental articles of faith in relation to a new
situation: a task to which Christian teachers are called at every
period. He writes as a pastor to his people, rather with the
practical aim of recalling them to fundamental loyalties than
with the intention of developing theological doctrines. His
interest in the building up of Christian dogma is limited. It is
not here, but in the Fourth Gospel, that we must look for the
distinctively 'Johannine' contribution to the clarification of
Christology and of the doctrine of the Atonement, and for that
profound insight into the Christian experience of God as
Father, Son and Paraclete which both enforced and made
possible the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity. Our
author is little concerned about precise theological definition.
He often writes in terms which leave it uncertain whether the
reference is to God the Father or to Christ. It seems as if he
were almost indifferent to that distinction of Persons which is
drawn with such clearness and subtlety in the discourses of the
Fourth Gospel; and his allusions to the Holy Spirit follow the
usage of popular Christianity without apparent interest in any
deeper theological implications.
The especial emphasis, however, which he places upon
certain aspects of the Church's tradition issues in a distinctive
and consistent presentation of the Christian life and faith
which is of high importance to theology in the wider sense.
First we may place his emphasis upon the realization of
eternal life here and now. As we have seen, our author shares
the eschatological expectations of early Christianity. When he
speaks of eternal life, he includes in it the idea of continuance
after death (or, rather, after the dissolution of this world,
ii. 17), and he holds out the prospect of a future glory at
present inconceivable. Yet he makes it perfectly clear that
eternal life is a present possession and experience of believers
(v. 12-13). The Christian is now a child of God: the divine
'seed' (the germ of divinity, may we say?) resides in him; he
knows God, dwells in God and is indwelt by God; he has fellow-
ship with the Father and the Son; he is in the light; he possesses
an 'unction' or initiation which confers supernatural knowledge;
xliii
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
he has within him the divine Spirit witnessing to the truth
of that which he believes, and to the reality of his experi-
ence of God. These modes of expression (with two excep-
tions) echo more or less clearly the language of contemporary
Hellenistic mysticism. There they refer to the initiate who by
knowledge of God has become immortal like the gods. Here
they are used to describe the believer as the possessor of
eternal life; and they bring into full light the truth (implied all
through the New Testament) that the eternal life which is
offered through the Gospel is by no means simply a prolongation
of existence beyond the grave, but life of a particular quality,
lived in union with God, and accessible to present experience,
while it waits for its perfection upon a change yet to come.
Secondly, he insists that all such language is misleading or
meaningless unless it is capable of being translated into
ethical terms. To be in the light is to be cleansed from evil; to
know God is to obey His commands; to be a child of God is to
to be pure and righteous like Him (or at least to be getting
purified, iii. 3). And at this point we begin to see the relevance
of our author's repeated insistence upon the actuality of
Christ's life 'in the flesh/ It proceeds from no theoretical
interest in dogma. As we have seen, our author is not distin-
guished by any such interest. He does not insist upon the
Incarnation because this doctrine is necessary to a complete
theological scheme; but because the incarnate life of Christ
fills the concept of eternal life with human, personal, ethical
meaning. What is it to dwell in God? It is to live after the
example of Christ (ii. 6). What is it to walk in the light? It is
to obey the commands of Christ (ii. 7-11). In other words, oil
this 'mystical' language about eternal life is false and per-
nicious if it is used in a merely 'mystical' sense; even in a
merely religious sense; it is true only if religion and ethics
interpenetrate; and the religious ethics, or ethical religion, of
Christians is defined by reference to the remembered and
recorded life and teaching of Jesus Christ, who suffered under
Pontius Pilate.
Thirdly, when once it is recognized that real religion is
ethical religion, and that it falls to be judged by the standards
xliv
INTRODUCTION
of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, it is seen to demand
as its essential mark one overriding ethical principle, of which
Christ is the supreme exponent; that which our author, like all
New Testament writers, calls by the untranslatable Greek
term, agape. We are bound to render it, in general, by the
English word love/ though our older religious speech took
a word from the Latin and called it 'charity.' In common
English usage, neither word is a complete equivalent to
the Greek. In this commentary 'charity' is frequently used
as an alternative rendering, to remind the reader that if
he reads love' he must understand it in a distinctive sense.
Whichever word we use, however, it requires to be filled with
meaning from the source which originally supplied the colour-
less Greek term with its Christian connotation the source to
which our author continually refers us: the life and teaching of
Jesus Christ. If we have the Gospel record in mind, we need
not be at a loss about the meaning of love/ or 'charity/ as
the word is used in this epistle. And if we understand this,
then, as our author constantly affirms, we know what eternal
life really means.
It is clear that the life of eternity, so conceived, can be lived
only in community. Agap$ is of such a nature that we simply
cannot love God to the exclusion of our fellow men. Whatever
religious emotion may be aroused in the soul by the contem-
plation of the divine Being, it is not worthy to be called agape
unless it issues in a concern for some fellow human being,
which will lead us to serve him at our cost (iii. 16-17). That is
to state the principle in its lowest and simplest terms. But such
mutual service by self-sacrifice is a property of community
life: indeed, it alone is capable of creating a real community
out of an aggregation of people. Thus the kind of religion
recommended in this epistle has little in common with the
mysticism which is described as a 'flight of the alone to the
Alone/ The fatherhood of God implies a family of God in
which His children live as brothers. This is the basis of the
'fellowship' which is the essential mark of the Church (i. 3).
The author is so acutely aware of the intimacy of the family
tie within the Church that he sometimes speaks as if the
xlv
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
Christian fellowship alone offered the proper field for the
exercise of charity. He speaks of love either for 'one another'
or for our 'brothers/ and the context shows that he is thinking
of fellow Christians (see iii. 14, v. 1-2), of whom alone it can
be said, strictly, that they are 'children of God' (iii. 2) and
consequently 'brothers 1 of all others who have been similarly
regenerate by His Word (iii, 9 and note). (The doctrine that
all men, as such, are by nature the offspring of God has little
biblical support. It is found explicitly in the New Testament
only in a quotation from a pagan poet (Acts xvii. 28); and it
is implied in Luke iii. 38, and possibly, though not probably,
in Jas. i. 18, but nowhere else. See Moffatt Commentary,
Romans, pp. 130-1.)
In justice to the author, it must be remembered that he is
dealing with a particular situation which has arisen within the
Church. It is not the attitude of Christians towards mankind
at large that is in question, but their attitude towards one
another in the Church. The author therefore is primarily
concerned with charity in its particular aspect (to employ
Paul's precise terminology) of love for the brotherhood (Phila-
delphia, Rom. xii. 10; see note in Moffatt Commentary). He
certainly does not intend to deny that agape has also a wider
application; and in many places his expressions are quite
unrestricted (e.g. iv. 16, 19). It is further to be observed that
the Church in the New Testament is represented as the nucleus
{or 'firstfruits'; cf. Rom. xi. 16, Jas. i. 18, Rev. xiv. 4) of a
redeemed humanity; as the trustee (so to speak) of God's
benefits towards all mankind; and that in fact a great deal of
what is said about the Church is fully true only if its ultimate
limits are set nowhere short of the frontiers of the human race
(or even of the whole creation; see Rom. viii. 20-3, Eph. i.
3-14). Our author is aware of this, in spite of his severe insist-
ence upon the opposition between the Church and the world
(see ii. 2, iv. 14). As he says that Christ is the expiation for our
sins, and hastens to add, 'not ours only, but those of the whole
world'; so we may read his maxim, 'We know that we have
passed from death to life, because we love our (Christian)
brothers/ with the addition 'and not them only, but all our
xlvi
INTRODUCTION
fellow men/ The Church, like the family, should be a school of
charity whose lessons may be applied abroad.
If we put these three points together, we arrive at a picture
of what is most distinctive in this epistle. There are always
cropping up two misconceptions of what religion is. For some
minds, it is a matter of exalted 'spiritual' states; for others, it is
'morality tinged with emotion/ To minds of the former cast
this epistle may at times smack of 'moralism' or even
legalism'; to minds of the latter cast, its exalted language
about religious experience as a foretaste of eternal life may
seem almost highfalutin. The writer, however, insists that while
glib talk about religious experience is a snare and a delusion
in the absence of a serious attention to daily conduct, a truly
virtuous life can spring only out of a unique relation to God,
which is not achieved by us, but granted by His grace. He is
able to maintain this position persuasively because he con-
strues both religious experience and morality in terms of
&g&p&, which is at once the only valid basis of communion with
God, and the only spring of true virtue.
Finally, this reading of the Christian life as one of union
with God, upon ethical conditions, these conditions determined
by the overriding principle of love, or charity, culminates in
our author's outstanding contribution to Christian theology:
the doctrine that 'God is love/ For a discussion of its meaning
and implications, the reader must be referred to the notes on
iv. 8. Starting without any aim at dogmatic definition, the
author of the epistle has found himself led, through reflection
upon the content of the tradition and of Christian experience,
to formulate the most profound, as well as the simplest, sum-
ming up of the Christian revelation of God: a maxim which,
once enunciated, becomes the touchstone of Christian faith and
life, and a signpost to the direction which must be taken by all
sound theological thinking.
IV. RELATION OF THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL
That very judicious critic, Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria,
about the middle of the third century, wrote as follows about
the Fourth Gospel and the First Epistle of John:
xlvii
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
The Gospel and the Epistle agree with one another. They
begin alike . . . [John i. I. 14; i John i. 1-3] , . . and he
deals with his whole matter by way of the same topics and
terms, some of which I will briefly enumerate. Anyone who
reads attentively will find in each writing, life largely, light
largely, and the repudiation of darkness; truth continually,
grace, joy, the flesh and blood of the Lord, judgment, the
forgiveness of sins, God's love for us, and the mutual love
enjoined upon us; that we must keep all the commandments;
the condemnation of the world, the devil, and Antichrist; the
promise of the Holy Spirit; God's adoption of us as sons; the
absolute faith demanded of us; the Father and the Son
everywhere. To characterize them generally all through, one
may observe one and the same complexion in the Gospel
and the Epistle' (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, VII. 25.
18-21).
The good bishop is quite right; most of the themes treated in
the Epistle have a place also in the Gospel, and there is a
general affinity of theological outlook, at least in comparison
vrith any other part of the New Testament.
Not only the ideas of the two writings, but also their ways
of expressing them, are similar. It would be easy to compile a
list of fifty or more phrases in the Epistle which have close
parallels in the Gospel. The reader, however, can best form an
impression of the extent of the similarity, if he goes through
the text of the Epistle (perhaps with the help of a concordance
or a good reference Bible), and underlines all those expressions
which echo the language of the Gospel more or less exactly. A
glance at the result will show how few and short are those
passages of the Epistle which are free from such echoes.
We seem bound to conclude, either that the two writings are
from one hand, or that the writer of the one was strongly influ-
enced by the writer of the other, whether that influence was
due to personal discipleship, or to a deep and prolonged study
of his work, or to both.
The unvarying tradition from early times, which is upheld
by many modern scholars, is that the First Epistle and the
xlviii
INTRODUCTION
Gospel are the work of one author. There are, however, some
difficulties about this view. When we have fully recognized the
close kinship of the two writings, we must also observe that
there are differences between them, both in form and in con-
tent, which are by no means negligible.
First, there are differences of style, in spite of the general
similarity which we have noted. These differences could be
fully set out only in a detailed study of the Greek text; 1
but in a measure they can be appreciated in an English
translation.
There is surely to be felt in the Fourth Gospel a richness, a
subtlety, a penetrating quality of style to which the Epistle
cannot pretend. While the rhythm of both is slow and regular,
in the Gospel it is subtly varied, within the limits imposed by
its general character; but in the Epistle regularity often
descends to monotony. The language of the Gospel has an
intensity, a kind of inward glow, a controlled excitement,
which the reader does not feel, or seldom feels, in the Epistle.
The language of the Epistle is generally correct Greek, though
not always as lucid as might be wished; it is sometimes forcible
and epigrammatic; but it does not suggest the pen of a ready
writer. It does not persuade the reader (as does the Fourth
Gospel) that here is a man who, with a relatively small vocabu-
lary and a narrow range of grammatical idiom, has genuine
power of style.
Such impressions of style are apt to be subjective; but in
certain respects they are open to be tested by detailed study of
the linguistic phenomena in the Greek. Thus, the impression of
a certain monotony is confirmed by the observation that the
writer of the Epistle greatly overworks a few favourite gram-
matical constructions; and that he uses a much smaller variety
of compound verbs (little more than one-tenth of the number
1 For such a detailed study the reader may be referred to my paper,
The First Epistle of John and the Fourth Gospel (Manchester Univer-
sity Press), reprinted from the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library.
Vol. 21, No. i, April, 1937. Subsequent revision has shown that the
word-lists and statistics given there need minor corrections. These
do not, however, afiect the general conclusion; on a balance, they
slightly strengthen the evidence for a significant difference of style
between the two writings.
xlix
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
used in the Gospel), and of those 'grammatical words' (par-
ticles, conjunctions, and the like) which, especially in Greek,
give variety and individual colour to a writer's style.
On the other hand, he has forms of speech which are lacking
in the Gospel Like many popular writers on philosophical sub-
jects in the Hellenistic period, he is fond of the figure known
as the rhetorical question (see ii. 22, iii. 12. 17, v, 5), which
probably does not occur in the Gospel (for Pilate's 'What is
truth?' is at any rate not that kind of rhetorical question).
Again, the conditional sentence (to which he is immoderately
addicted, having an average of just under five per page,
against just over one per page in the Gospel) is used in a
variety of rhetorical figures unparalleled in the Gospel (see i. 6,
8, 9, ii. i, 29, v. 9, 15, and perhaps iii. 20).
Among the idioms present in the Gospel, but absent from the
Epistle, the most interesting and significant are a group which
have been held to betray Semitic influence. In some of these
the Semitic character is not sure, but there are at least five
notable idioms, characteristic of the Gospel, where the case for
Aramaism is very strong. Of these, four are entirely unknown
to the Epistle, and the fifth occurs doubtfully in one passage
where the manuscript evidence leaves the true text uncertain.
Indeed, a careful scrutiny of the language of the Epistle fails to
disclose any evidence of definable Semitism, apart from two
quite doubtful examples. The language of the Gospel, on the
other hand, undoubtedly shows a definite Semitic colouring,
whether this is due to translation from an Aramaic original
(which is unlikely), or to the use of Aramaic sources, or (which
seems most probable) to bilingualism in the writer.
The vocabulary of the Gospel is larger than that of the
Epistle, as we might expect, in view of its much greater length
and the greater variety of its themes. Yet the Epistle, short as
it is, has nearly forty words and expressions which do not
occur in the Gospel. There is so far nothing very remarkable.
It is a different matter when we observe that out of the
numerous words present in the Gospel but absent from the
Epistle, a list of over thirty can be compiled which are either
so frequent in the Gospel, or so closely related to its central
1
INTRODUCTION
ideas, that their absence from a writing claiming Johannine
authorship is significant, It is surely strange that the author
of the Gospel should have written a second work upon some
of the central Christian themes themes which have a prom-
inent place in his major work without using (for example) the
words which came so readily to him for the ideas of being
saved and lost, for grace and peace, for the divine necessity
('it must needs be'), for 'bearing fruit' in Christian living,
without referring to Christ as 'Lord/ to His glory, His
descent from heaven and ascent to heaven again, or His
resurrection. No one can say it is impossible; but it makes one
wonder.
The weight to be given to considerations of style and language
will be estimated differently by different minds. We turn now
from form to content, and enquire how far the ideas of the
Epistle, and its religious or theological outlook, are identical
with those of the Gospel, or differ from them significantly.
That the two writings, as compared with the rest of the New
Testament, show a decided affinity of thought and standpoint
is, as we have observed, obvious to any attentive reader. That
there are certain differences is equally obvious, and not sur-
prising. A writer who exactly repeats himself in two separate
works betrays an infertile mind. Moreover, it is natural
enough that some of the themes treated in the Gospel should
be lacking in the Epistle, a short work with a restricted aim.
There are, however, some divergences which seem to go
beyond what we should naturally expect in two works from the
same hand.
In the first place, tLe Epistle is unique among New Testa-
ment writings (if we except its two short companions) in having
no quotation from the Old Testament, only one explicit refer-
ence to the Old Testament (iii. 12), and few if any direct echoes
of Old Testament language. The Fourth Gospel, like the other
Gospels, has numerous quotations, and still more numerous
implicit (but quite definite) allusions, and its language
frequently recalls that of the Greek Old Testament. This
difference might be accounted for by the difference in aim
between the two writings, or by the Evangelist's use of sources
li
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
which contained Old Testament material (It may be noted
that some parts of the Gospel, for instance the Farewell
Discourses, have fewer Old Testament quotations or allusions
than some other parts, though in no part are they absent.)
But there is a further point. Not only has the Fourth Gospel
an extensive Old Testament background; it also betrays close
acquaintance with contemporary Jewish ideas and practices,
and a strong interest in the doctrines, not only of Hellenistic
Judaism, but of the Rabbinic Judaism of Palestine, A great
Jewish scholar, the late Israel Abrahams, once said that the
Fourth Gospel struck him as the most Jewish of the four.
Whether or not that is an overstatement, no one would be
tempted to any such statement with reference to the First
Epistle. We have already noted that its language shows no
clear trace of Semitism; and while all the literature of early
Christianity carries over something from its Jewish ante-
cedents, there is no other New Testament writing in which the
Jewish colouring is so little significant as in the Johannine
Epistles. Here then is a formidable difference between our two
writings: the Gospel according to John has a stamp derived
from the influence of the Old Testament, from interest in
Judaism as a living religion, and from knowledge of a Semitic
tongue: the Epistle is free from any such stamp.
In contrast, the Hellenistic element, which in the Fourth
Gospel is fused with the Hebraic after a unique fashion, has in
some respects freer play in the First Epistle.
The maxim, for instance, 'God is light' (i. 4), belongs
properly to a circle of ideas neither Christian nor Jewish in
origin, though it is here filled with definitely Christian meaning.
The Fourth Evangelist, like Philo the Jew, stops short of
enunciating it without qualification. The writer of the Epistle is
less guarded (see notes, pp. 18-19).
It is argued in the notes that the ideas of the divine
'seed' (iii. 9), and of the 'unction* or 'chrism* which confers
supernatural knowledge (ii. 20, 27), are best understood as
derived (with a profound change of meaning) from 'Gnostic'
sources. Neither of these ideas occurs in the Fourth Gospel.
Again, the argument implied in the statement, 'We know
111
INTRODUCTION
that if He is manifested we shall be like Him, because we shall
see Him as He is' (iii. 2), is shown in the notes (p. 71) to rest
upon presuppositions characteristic of 'Hellenistic mysti-
cism.' The Fourth Gospel promises the vision of Christ in His
glory (xvii. 24), but does not draw the inference that we shall
bear His likeness.
Most significant of all, the weightiest theological pronounce-
ment in the Epistle the maxim, 'God is love' while its In-
spiration is wholly Christian, appears to have been moulded
upon lines traceable directly to ideas of Hellenistic thinkers
about the divine nature (see notes, pp. 107-10). The maxim is
so familiar to us, and the idea so deeply rooted in Christian
thought, that the reader of the Epistle is hardly aware how
strange it is to find such a statement in the New Testament.
In form, it equates the Deity with a purely abstract idea
purely abstract in a sense not applicable to such Old Testa-
ment maxims as 'The Lord is my salvation/ The sense in-
tended is far from abstract; but the fact remains that the
author of the Epistle has followed a mode of thought and
expression avoided in all other New Testament writings, in-
cluding the Fourth Gospel. (It should perhaps be added that
the term 'Spirit' in the Johannine definition, 'God is Spirit/
is for any ancient thinker, Hebraic or Hellenistic, anything but
abstract, whatever it may be for moderns.)
Here then we have evidence which enables us to carry a step
farther our definition of the difference between the outlook of
the Epistle and that of the Fourth Gospel: the Epistle is not
only less Hebraic and Jewish; it is also more free in its adoption
of Hellenistic modes of thought and expression.
Thirdly, there are various points, and those by no means
unimportant, where the Epistle represents a theological out-
look nearer than that of the Gospel to primitive, or popular,
Christianity. These have already been referred to (pp. xxvii-
xlii) and receive full treatment in the notes. They need only
be summarized here.
(i) The Epistle holds out the prospect of a near Advent of
Christ and end of the world, quite in the primitive way, taking
no account of the profound reinterpretation of eschatology
liii
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
which is one of the distinguishing marks of the thought of the
Fourth Gospel a reinterpret ation, it should be added, which
appears to do fuller justice to the teaching of Jesus Christ than
the naive thinking of the primitive Church.
(ii) The statements made in the Epistle about the redemp-
tive efficacy of the death of Christ scarcely go beyond the
terms of the primitive apostolic Preaching. Only one technical
term of theology is used, the word which should be translated
'expiation' (ii. 2, iv. 10; see notes, pp. 25-7). This term, which is
little more than an index to the doctrine of the Suffering Ser-
vant of the Lord in the prophecy of the Second Isaiah, is
avoided in the Fourth Gospel. Though the Evangelist, like
most other New Testament writers, alludes to the classical
prophecy, he never develops the idea of expiation. His dis-
tinctive doctrine (to put it with impossible brevity) is that in
dying Christ both accomplished the final 'descent' of the Son
of God from heaven, and was lifted up' in glory, thereby
frustrating the powers of evil, releasing the life that was in
Him to dwell in believers, and drawing all men into the unity
of the divine love (see John iii. 13-17, vi. 48-51, xii. 23-4,
31-3, xvii. 19-23). Of all this there is nothing in the Epistle.
(iii) The conception of the Spirit in the Epistle remains
within the limits of primitive or popular belief (iii. 24, iv. 6,
iv. 13, v. 6-8; see notes, pp. 95-9, 128). There is no trace of
the high ' Johannine'- doctrine which is found in the Gospel.
(John iii. 5-8, iv. 23-4, vi. 63, and especially xiv. 15-17, 25-6,
xv. 26, xvi. 7-15). It is particularly remarkable that although
one of the leading ideas of the Epistle is the divine generation
of believers (iii. 1-2, 9, v. i, etc., see notes), it has no allusion
at any rate no direct allusion to the function of the Spirit
in regeneration as set forth in John iii, 5-8.
Eschatology, the Atonement, the Holy Spirit: these are
certainly no minor themes in Christian theology. In all three
the First Epistle of John represents an outlook widely different
from that of the Fourth Gospel. When this difference is added
to those previously noted, the question arises acutely: Is it
likely that these two works are the product of a single mind?
It is, of course, true that authors change their style with the
liv
INTRODUCTION
passage of years, or even in response to changes of circum-
stance; it is also true that an active mind continues to modify
its ideas, often quite substantially, while retaining certain
fundamental characteristics. It may be that the differences we
have been considering can be so accounted for. It is however
not very easy to frame a plausible hypothesis. It is often sug-
gested that the inferior mental powers manifest in the Epistle
are due to increasing years. In that case we should have to
suppose that the Evangelist not only declined in powers of
thought and expression (though still capable of flashes of
creative insight), but also reverted in various respects to a
stage of religious thought which at the time of his major work
he had left behind. On the other hand, if we have regard to the
relatively primitive character of some of the ideas in the
Epistle, it might be suggested that it was the product of its
author's 'prentice hand, and the Gospel of his maturity. We
should then think of the massive theology of the Fourth
Gospel as having its starting point in the simpler ideas of the
Epistle; and of the somewhat unguarded concessions to
Hellenistic thought which we have noted in the Epistle as
having been corrected by the author's more mature mind. It
is, however, difficult to take this view, since there are places
where the argument of the Epistle is hardly to be understood
without reference to fuller statements in the Gospel (see
especially ii. 7-8, iii. 8-15, v. 9-10, and notes). It is in fact
difficult to set aside the impression, which is confirmed by a
very wide consensus of scholars, that the Gospel is the earlier
work and is presupposed in the Epistle. (Reference may be
made to the full discussion in Brooke's Introduction in the
International Critical Commentary, pp. xix-xxvii; which
seems conclusive on this point.)
If the Fourth Gospel is regarded, with a whole school of
critics, as the work of several hands, it might be suggested that
the author of the Epistle had a part in its composition; and
such an hypothesis might account for some of the facts. But
the tide of criticism seems to be setting away from separatist
theories. It seems almost certain that the Gospel bears all
through (apart from possible minor and occasional editorial
Iv
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
touches, and in spite of the possible use of various sources) the
stamp of a single mind; and in view of the facts we have noted,
it is difficult to find the same mind at work in the Epistle.
Again, if the theory won its way, that the Fourth Gospel was
written originally in Aramaic, a place might be found for the
author of the Epistle as translator. But this theory is improb-
able, and the hypothesis based upon it has difficulties of its
own. It may prove possible to frame some other hypothesis,
which will admit identity of authorship and yet account con-
vincingly for the deep-lying differences. In such matters strict
proof is seldom attainable.
The simplest hypothesis, however, seems to be that the
author of the Epistle was a disciple of the Evangelist and a
student of his work. He is not a mere imitator, but he has
become possessed by certain of his master's ideas, though not
going the whole way with him; and he has caught something
of his style and manner, though with a difference^ The phe-
nomenon is not unfamiliar. In our own time there is an influ-
ential school of theologians who draw their inspiration from
one great teacher, Dr. Karl Barth (quern honoris causa nomino).
They are not all slavish followers, by any means. Some of them
disagree with their master on some points, or develop his ideas
in ways which he would not acknowledge. But the stamp of
his mind is upon them. One may observe, sometimes not with-
out amusement, how they repeat his characteristic expres-
sions, and overwork his favourite turns of phrase. They do not
set out to imitate, but apparently they cannot help themselves.
It may be that the relation of the author of the Epistle to the
Evangelist was similar.
The question of authorship is not of the first importance.
The present commentary, however, is written upon the
assumption that the First Epistle of John best reveals its
character and significance when it is not treated as a great
author's second thoughts, but allowed to speak for itself. It is
in any case not merely derivative. It represents a definite stage
towards that central or normal Christianity which emerged
from the New Testament period.
Ivi
INTRODUCTION
V. CHARACTER AND CONTENTS OF THE SECOND AND THIRD
EPISTLES
The Second Epistle has the form of a private letter. This
form however seems to be a thin disguise for a pastoral epistle
addressed to a Chpstian congregation by a person of weight
and authority who describes himself as The Presbyter 1 (see
notes on verse i).
After a general exhortation to the congregation to maintain
right belief and Christian charity, the writer warns his readers
specifically against certain persons who are carrying on propa-
ganda on behalf of an 'advanced' or progressive type of
Christian theology (as they call it), which, however, involves
the denial of the reality of Christ's incarnation. The recipients
of the letter are assumed to be instructed in the orthodox
'doctrine of Christ/ They are to stand firmly by this doctrine,
which alone provides the basis for a genuinely Christian life
and experience. Any professedly 'advanced* doctrines are to
be tested by this norm. If any wandering missionary appears,
whose teaching fails to stand this test, he is to be excluded
from Church fellowship, and even from the most elementary
social intercourse.
The verses which prescribe this rigorous boycott of heretics
(io~n) are the only portion of the epistle (except the epistolary
introduction and conclusion) which adds anything of sub-
stance to what is contained in I John. For the rest, it simply
echoes the teaching of that epistle in brief, repeating both its
emphasis upon the 'commandment' of love, or charity, and its
characterization of the heretical teachers and their doctrine.
The situation contemplated in the two writings is similar, but
apparently not identical. The Second Epistle appears to
announce the existence of a widespread movement of heretical
propaganda as if it were something quite new to the church
addressed. It is not certain that the propagandists have yet
reached this church, but t/ any heretical teacher should appear,
the letter will tell them how to proceed (verses 7, 10). In the
First Epistle, on the other hand, we have the impression
(though there is no unequivocal statement) that the recipients
Ivii
THE JOEANNINB EPISTLES
of the letter are already In the thick of the controversy. It does
not, however, seem plausible to explain the difference on the
ground that I John is later than 2 John, because the ideas
briefly indicated in 2 John need for their understanding the
fuller exposition given in the longer writing. In particular, the
term 'antichrist' is thrown out without any explanation
(verse 7), and we could hardly understand what lies behind it
without the exposition in I John ii. 18, iv. 1-6; and the play
upon the idea of the 'new commandment' (verse 5) gains
point if it is referred back to i John ii, 7-8. The relation of the
two writings remains enigmatic.
The Third Epistle has an entirely different character. It is,
quite obviously, a genuine piece of personal correspondence.
How closely it follows the conventions of first-century letter-
writing is illustrated in the notes. The Presbyter, his friend
Gaius, his opponent Diotrephes, and even the briefly mentioned
Demetrius, stand before us as individuals, acting their parts
in a dramatic situation. The letter gives us a vivid glimpse of
a moment in the life of the Church full of human interest, and
possibly of historical importance. Unfortunately the glimpse is
so brief, the letter so isolated, that we cannot define precisely
the issues at stake in the conflict between Diotrephes and the
Presbyter. Clearly enough, the Presbyter is in a position of
authority and responsibility, with a group of churches (it
would appear) under his charge. Travelling agents commis-
sioned by him move among the churches and carry the Gospel
to the pagan population with the financial and moral support
of the Christian communities of the neighbourhood. In one
church, however, they have met with a rebuff. Some of its
members wished to welcome them, but others were strongly
opposed to their reception.. The opposition was led by
Diotrephes, whom we see, through the eyes of the Presbyter, as
an ambitious demagogue with a turn for vituperative rhetoric.
The occasion became a trial of strength bet ween Diotrephes and
the Presbyter; and Diotrephes won. The party which wished to
welcome the missionaries was overborne, and its members
driven from the church, whether by formal excommunication
or by mere mob violence. The travellers, thus turned adrift,
Iviii
INTRODUCTION
seem to have postponed their further missionary journeys and
returned to the Presbyter to report.
This brings us to the situation in which 3 John was written.
The Presbyter, perturbed by what he hears from the mission-
aries, and incensed by the discourtesy they (and he as their
sponsor) have received from Diotrephes, plans to visit the
offending church as soon as possible, to deal with the disturb-
ances. Meanwhile, he writes a letter to the congregation, but,
suspecting that Diotrephes will either prevent the letter from
reaching its members, or induce them to ignore it, he writes at
the same time the letter now before us. It is addressed to a
loyal supporter named Gaius, and entrusted (apparently) to
Demetrius, a man of unquestioned integrity, universally
respected, and completely in the Presbyter's confidence. With
him travel the rejected missionaries (of whom indeed
Demetrius may have been one). They had previously been
generously entertained by Gaius (whether before their ill-
starred encounter with Diotrephes, or after he had persuaded
the church to turn them adrift, is not clear). They are now to
resume their interrupted mission, and the Presbyter appeals to
Gaius, as his most trustworthy adherent in those parts, to take
responsibility for their needs; and at the same time apprises
him of the deplorable development of Diotrephes' opposition.
The letter, which is written under the stress of strong
emotion, undesignedly gives us a portrait of Gaius: a con-
sistent Christian, generous and loyal, but, just possibly, a
little susceptible to influence, since the Presbyter, after
describing Diotrephes' outrageous conduct, feels it necessary
to add: Beloved, do not imitate evil, but good.
Such is the background, and the purport, of the letter. It is
tantalizing to have this sudden vivid glimpse, and to learn
nothing of what preceded or followed. For lack of such informa-
tion many points must remain uncertain. There is nothing to
indicate any connection with the problem of heretical teaching
towards which the other two epistles are directed. There is no
hint that Diotrephes was unorthodox, though the Presbyter
{we must suppose) would hardly have failed to mention a fact,
if it had been a fact, so much to his opponent's discredit. The
lix
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
conflict, to all appearance, does not turn upon doctrine, but
upon the question of authority. It is probably an episode (as
suggested in the notes) in the process through which (not
without tensions and difficulties) the Church passed out of the
'missionary' phase, in which the authority of the apostles and
their immediate representatives was paramount, to the phase
of local episcopacy which we find established in the course of
the second century.
In the absence of anything like cross-references (for the
similarities between the epistolary introduction and conclusion
of 2 and 3 John are merely a matter of a writer's idiosyncrasy
modifying current epistolary conventions) it is not profitable
to attempt any connection between 3 John and the other
Johannine epistles. It remains an isolated item in a corre-
spondence of which the ecclesiastical historian would gladly
have had more.
VI. CRITICAL PROBLEMS OF THE SECOND AND THIRD EPISTLES
The external evidence, as we have seen, shows that in
ancient times there was no unanimous or consistent tradition
of the lesser Johannine epistles (pp. xv-~xvi). The judgment that
they were all three from one hand, and canonical, did not
prevail until a late period. In some quarters I and 2 John
formed a pair, and 3 John was ignored. In other quarters
2 and 3 John formed a pair, and were attributed to an
author different from the writer of r John. We have now to
enquire what evidence can be gleaned from the epistles them-
selves regarding their relations with one another and with the
major Johannine writings.
The Second Epistle, as we have seen, is largely made up of
material parallel with the First. Thus, verse 5 is parallel with
I John ii. 7, verse 6 with I John v. 3; in verse 9 the peculiar
expression, possesses both the Father and the Son, recalls
I John ii. 23, and in verse 12 the concluding phrase recalls
i John i, 4, as well as John xv. ii, xvi. 24.
At the same time there are some striking parallels with
passages in the Fourth Gospel which have no parallel in i John.
In the following list, the Greek has been translated literally,
Ix
INTRODUCTION
since the Moffatt translation tends to disguise similarities by
variant renderings.
2 John
I. 'who know the truth.'
2. 'the truth which . . . will
be with us for ever/
4. 'as we received com-
mandment from the Father/
8. 'that you may receive a
full reward/
9. 'everyone who . . . does
not remain in the doctrine of
Christ/
John
viii. 32, 'you will know the
truth' (the same verb: i John
ii. 21 has a different verb).
xiv. 16-17, 'He will give you
another Paraclete to be with
you for ever, the Spirit of
truth/
x. 18, 'this commandment I
received from my Father' (the
expression 'to receive a com-
mandment' does not occur in
i John).
iv, 36, 'the reaper is receiv-
ing a reward' (the verb in 2
John is a compound form of
the verb in John. The idea of
'reward' does not appear in
i John).
viii. 31, 'if you remain in
my word, you will really be
my disciples/
If now we examine the actual vocabulary of 2 John, we
arrive at the following results. The total number of different
words used in this brief writing is 84. Some 20 of these we
may ignore, as too commonplace to call for notice ('the/ 'and/
'not/ and the like). Of the remaining 64 significant words,
there are 4 which are not found in the New Testament except
in Johannine writings. Of these, two are peculiar to 2 John
(lady' and 'paper'); one is common to 2 and 3 John ('ink 1 ),
and one is common to i and 2 John ('antichrist'). Only one of
these peculiar words has any theological significance. Of the
remaining 60 words, 9 are not found either in i John or in
the Fourth Gospel (according to the best text), though 3 of
them occur in 3 John; and 16 are found in the Fourth Gospel,
but not in i John.
Leaving these figures for the moment, we turn to 3 John.
Here parallels to the other Johannine writings are less striking.
bci
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
The greeting in verse i is similar to 2 John I, and the epistolary
conclusion in 13-14 is similar to 2 John 12-13. The substance
of verse n might be regarded as a brief summary of the teach-
ing oi r John iii. 4-10, but apart from this there is little that
recalls the First Epistle. The repeated emphasis on 'truth' and
love' is broadly Johannine, but not characteristic of any one
writing. The most striking parallel with the Fourth Gospel is
in verse 12: its first clause is shaped like John xv. 27*1, and
its second clause recalls the editorial note in John xxi. 24,
which is in any case not by the Evangelist, but in turn
recalls, though more remotely, John xix. 35. To these we
may add the not very striking similarity of 3 John 3 to
John xviii. 37, and of 3 John 4 to John xv. 13 (which, however,
uses a different, and more correct, grammatical form of the
word 'greater'). These parallels do not go very far, but so far
as they go, they suggest certain habits of speech rather than
deliberate imitation of the Fourth Gospel.
Analysis of the vocabulary of 3 John shows the following
results. The total number of words used is 99, or 78 significant
words. Of these, 23 axe not found either in i John or in the
Fourth Gospel, 4 of them being peculiar to 3 John, i common
to 2 and 3 John, and 2 common to both these epistles and
other New Testament writings. Of the rest, there are 5 words
which are found in the Fourth Gospel but not in i John, and
one which is found in I John, but not in the Fourth Gospel.
In dealing with such extremely short writings, linguistic
data must be used with caution, but so far as they go, they do
not, prima facie, suggest a very close relation between 2 and 3
John over against i John. The *non- Johannine' words (i.e.
words not found either in John or in i John) which they have
in common are practically confined to the epistolary introduc-
tions and conclusions, where there is, naturally, no basis of
comparison with the First Epistle or the Fourth Gospel. The
total number of significant *non- Johannine' words in 2 John
amounts to just under 20 per cent.; in 3 John, to almost
exactly 30 per cent. 3 John is therefore appreciably less 'Johan-
nine* in its vocabulary than 2 John. The Third Epistle again
has only one passage substantially parallel with i John, over
Ixii
INTRODUCTION
against a whole series of parallels in the Second Epistle. Apart
from these close echoes of i John, the Second Epistle has a
vocabulary nearer to that of the Fourth Gospel than to that
of i John, and so has 3 John, though in a lesser degree. All
three may fairly be said to have a recognizably Johannine
colouring, but the linguistic phenomena would not be incon-
sistent with either of the critical views held in ancient times,
which separate one or both of the lesser epistles from the
major Johannine writings, though they do not lend decisive
support to either of them.
Some modern critics, following those ancients who separated
the Second and Third Epistles from the First, and attributed
them to a different author, have suggested the theory that the
'Presbyter' who wrote these two short letters is no other than
the 'John' who wrote the Revelation (see Moffatt, Introduc-
tion to the New Testament, 1912, pp. 479-82, 513-14)- It is true
that the Apocalyptist describes himself not as a 'presbyter/
but (by implication) as a 'prophet' (Rev. i. 3, xxii. 9). There is,
however, no reason why the Presbyter may not have had the
gift and repute of prophecy; and in any case both works pro-
ceed from someone who, in whatever capacity, was conscious
of pastoral responsibility and authority over a group of
churches, and probably a group of churches in the same
province. But this theory is no longer tenable after R. H.
Charles's study of the language of the Revelation in the
Introduction to his Commentary on that work (International
Critical Commentary), Vol. I. pp. xxix-xlv, which shows con-
clusively that, whatever differences of style and language there
may be among the Johannine Epistles and Gospel, they form a
definite group in contrast to the Revelation, and that it is in
the highest degree improbable (not to say impossible) that the
Apocalyptist could have written any of them.
Let us then attempt to estimate probabilities. We may start
with 3 John, which is unquestionably a genuine private letter.
Although it is not attested, probably, before the third century,
there is no likelihood that it is a late fiction. It is so brief, and
so unimportant in content, that we can well understand that
there were few occasions for quoting it, but we could not
bdii
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
understand why anyone should have taken the trouble to
fabricate it. It is a writing with a distinctive vocabulary of its
own, largely independent of that of the First Epistle and the
Fourth Gospel, and yet with certain turns of expression
sufficiently marked and numerous to indicate its affinity with
the Johannine group of writings. There is little to suggest
direct dependance upon either the Gospel or the First Epistle.
There is, in fact, only one verse (n) which directly recalls the
teaching of either; and that is far from being a quotation or
repetition. The epistle is the spontaneous composition of a
writer who, even in the unconstrained self-expression of
private correspondence, slipped naturally into 'Johannine'
turns of speech from time to time. Such a writer might be
either (a) the Fourth Evangelist, or (b) the author of i John,
or (c) a member of the Johannine school, influenced by one or
both of these writers. In any case, however, he bore high
authority and responsibility in the Church. He commissioned
missionaries and planned for their support, and he expected to
have his directions carried out by the various congregations in
his region. He was in fact (if the interpretation given in the
commentary is correct) one of the 'elders' or 'presbyters' who
in the sub-apostolic age carried on the tradition of apostolic
authority. Such a figure can hardly be identified with a
subordinate member of a Johannine school.
The Second Epistle professes to be the work of the same
author, and we must choose between accepting this claim, on
the one hand, and, on the other hand, regarding the work as a
deliberate fiction. Certainly 2 John does not make the same
impression of spontaneity as 3 John. A large part of its con-
tents (verses 5-7) is a sort of resume of teaching given in I
John, largely in the same phrases, and in a form which seems
to presuppose the longer writing. At the same time the descrip-
tion of the false teaching in verse 7 (see commentary) differs
curiously in one word from the corresponding description in
i John. Either it is a different heresy, which seems scarcely
credible, or the author of 2 John has used the Greek verb
loosely, although in i John it is used with perfect idiomatic
correctness. The epistolary opening and close are so very like
bdv
INTRODUCTION
those of 3 John that we should naturally suppose them the
work of the same author, unless it is a case of deliberate
fabrication. But what is the purpose of the mystification about
the 'elect Lady/ her 'sister' and her 'children'? If the Pres-
byter could be so frank and downright in 3 John, why must he
beat about the bush in the companion epistle? If it is a genuine
letter from the Presbyter to a church for which he felt a special
affection (as verse I implies), it is strange that the individuality
of the church does not emerge in a single syllable. The precepts
(apart from, the ad hoc regulations about heretics) are such as
might be addressed by any Christian minister to any group of
Christians at any time, whether he knew them personally or
not.
There is here much to suggest the possibility that 2 John is
an imitation composed by a writer who had both I John and 3
John before him. His motive might have been to claim the
authority of the Presbyter for the boycott of heretics, which
is his sole substantial addition to material present also in the
other two epistles.
If, however, we assume an imitator, we must confess that he
has done his work with rare skill. As the foregoing analysis of
the language shows, he keeps well within the limits of 'Johan-
nine' vocabulary, with only the modicum of 'non-Johannine'
words which we should expect in a free composition. In verses
5-7 this would be sufficiently accounted for by direct imitation
of i John, but elsewhere the choice of words is nearer to that
of the Fourth Gospel, and there are several distinct echoes of
phrases in the Gospel, which appear on examination more like
unconscious habits of speech than deliberate imitation.
Upon internal grounds, therefore, the hypothesis of fiction
falls short of complete plausibility. The external evidence con-
fronts it with a more serious difficulty. Slight as this evidence
is, it makes it clear that 2 John obtained relatively early
recognition, at least in some quarters, while the reception of
3 John was late and doubtful in any area covered by our
evidence. It would indeed be paradoxical if a genuine letter of
the Presbyter failed of recognition while a fictitious imitation
was canonized.
Ixv
THE J OH AN NINE EPISTLES
The simplest hypothesis seems to be that 2 John is, in spite
of differences, a genuine work of the author of 3 John. But it is
also closely related to I John, much more closely than is 3
John, and forms in some sort a link between these two writings.
The internal evidence left it open whether the author of 3 John
was the Fourth Evangelist, or the author of i John, or a
disciple of one or both of these. If, however, we were right in
distinguishing the author of i John from the Fourth Evan-
gelist, we must now eliminate the Evangelist from the list of
possible authors of the two lesser epistles, since 2 John seems
to be, in some sense, dependent on i John, and the Evangelist
cannot be thought to have followed so closely the work of one
who (on our theory) was his disciple. Of the remaining two
possibilities, it seems that we must prefer the identification
of the Presbyter with the author of I John, on the ground
that his dignity and authority appear to be in no way
inferior.
The evidence is far from satisfactory, but on the whole the
best tentative conclusion would seem to be that all three
Johannine epistles are the work of the 'Presbyter/ who is to be
distinguished from the Fourth Evangelist, i John may be
supposed to have the character of a circular epistle, addressed
to a fairly wide Christian public; 2 John is addressed to some
particular local congregation; and 3 John is a private letter to a
friend, albeit on church affairs, i and 2 John may have been
written within a very short time, and deal with successive
stages of a single situation. 3 John deals with an entirely
different situation, and may have been separated from the
others by a considerable lapse of time. These considerations
may suffice to account for the differences which have led some
ancient and some modern critics to separate one or both of the
lesser epistles from i John.
VII. PLACE, DATE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE JOHANNINE
EPISTLES
The writer is not named in the text of the epistles; nor do
they indicate either the place from which, or the place to
which, they were sent.
Ixvi
INTRODUCTION
The first evidence of the existence of Johannine epistles
comes, as we have seen, from the province of Asia, in the
writings of Polycarp and Papias, to whom we may add Irenaeus,
a native of the same province (pp. xi-xiii). This suggests
pyima facie that they belonged originally to that province, and
this view is confirmed by the peculiar use of the title Tres-
byter,' which again appears to be associated with the province
of Asia (see notes on 2 John i). There is nothing which con-
flicts with the conclusion that these writings originated in that
province; and indeed few would question this conclusion,
even if they would place the origin of the Fourth Gospel
elsewhere.
The dating of the epistles depends too largely upon some
unsolved problems in the chronology of early Christian litera-
ture to admit of certain or precise determination. We need not
indeed assume that all three are strictly contemporary. If one
were to trust mere impressions, the Third Epistle might be
thought to betray a more vigorous, the First Epistle a riper
age. But in any case the difference of time cannot be great.
The following points may be noted:
(a) The external evidence gives us, in Polycarp and Papias,
a terminus ante quern which is in no case later than A.D. 140,
and may be some twenty years earlier.
(b) The 'Presbyters/ representing the sub-apostolic genera-
tion, seem to belong to the period round about the reign of
Trajan (A.D. 98-117), though some of them must have survived
later.
(c) The ecclesiastical situation in the province of Asia, as
represented in these epistles, seems to be earlier than the
situation represented in the Epistles of Ignatius, A.D. 115
(see notes on 3 John). The Pastoral Epistles, which reflect
conditions in the same provinces some time before Ignatius
(since he seems to quote them), are of uncertain date. The
Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (about A,D. 96) seems to
reflect a situation at Corinth comparable with that pre-
supposed in our epistles.
(d) The First Epistle is probably later than the Fourth
Gospel; but again this is a writing of uncertain date. If the
Ixvii
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
date of i John could be fixed, it would help towards the dating
of the Gospel.
(e) Little can be said of the probable date of the particular
doctrinal controversy with which I and 2 John are concerned.
If these epistles could be dated, we should have a much-
needed fixed point in tracing the development of Gnosticism.
(/) The epistles do not seem to belong to a period of persecu-
tion. The Church indeed is unpopular (i John iii. 13), though
it is implied that travelling missionaries might, if they would,
look for subscriptions from friendly pagans (3 John 7). The
danger which the Presbyter fears is that of a too ready accom-
modation with pagan thought and ways. The general tone of
the epistles offers the strongest contrast to that of the Revela-
tion, which shows us a Church enduring severe persecution and
looking forward to yet worse. If we reflect that these epistles
were written in the same province of Asia, and very likely
addressed in part to the same churches, it is impossible to
believe that they belong to the same period. We may take it
for granted that the Revelation belongs to the reign of Domi
tian. The extreme tension which it reflects was relieved by his
death and the accession of Nerva in 96, which began a period of
relative toleration. The Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians
is thought to have been written immediately after the close
of the persecution. We might perhaps imagine that the
disturbances at Corinth with which Clement deals, and the
recalcitrance of Diotrephe^ at the unnamed Asian church, were
both symptoms of a certain spirit of unrest in a society which
had recently suffered under acute repression, and now emerged
to face a new set of conditions. On the other hand, a date
before Domitian's persecution is not excluded for the Johan-
nine epistles, Only it is not clear that the Church was ever free
fron the immediate menace of persecution all through the
Flavian period. The Epistle to the Hebrews, which is certainly
pre-Domitianic (since it is quoted by Clement), is aimed at
strengthening its readers to endure a fresh attack. On the
whole, a post-Domitianic date seems to fit the other indications
better, slight and inconclusive as they are.
Our tentative conclusion, therefore, is that the three
Ixviii
INTRODUCTION
Johannine Epistles were written in the Province of Asia,
between A.D. 96 and no (or thereabouts), by one of the
'Presbyters' who are known to have lived in that province at
that period.
This conclusion rests upon probable arguments from in-
ternal and external evidence. If we attempt to go further, and
to identify the anonymous author of these epistles with some
known individual, we have little but surmise to go upon. It is
unlikely that he is to be identified with John the Apostle, the
son of Zebedee. The very use of the title 'presbyter' is against
it. It is true that Papias (who, whether or not he merited
Eusebius's verdict, 'a person of quite small intelligence/ was an
uncommonly clumsy writer) expresses himself so loosely in the
crucial passage that it would be possible to hold that he
intended to include apostles in the wider class of presbyters;
but we should probably be right in understanding him to dis-
tinguish them. Irenaeus's formula, 'the Presbyters, disciples of
the Apostles/ is clear (see note on 3 John i). The use of the term
'fellow-presbyter' by an apostle (or by a writer who imper-
sonates an apostle, if that view is preferred) in i Pet. v. I
belongs to a different context, and cannot usefully be cited as
a parallel. The argument of 3 John turns altogether upon the
question of the writer's authority. Can we doubt that if he had
possessed the apostolic dignity, he would have flung out a
defiant 'John, apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God/ and
reduced Diotrephes to silence?
The Presbyters are for us scarcely individual figures. Papias
names only one explicitly, the Presbyter John. Since Irenaens
(who derives from the Asian tradition of Polycarp and Papias)
cites both i John and 2 John under the name of 'John' (though
he meant the Apostle), it is an easy conjecture that the true
author is John the Presbyter (upon whom see G. N. C.
Macgregor in Moffatt Commentary on John, pp. i-btii). Of
this John we know singularly little. He is understood to have
resided at Ephesus in the province of Asia, where his tomb
(along with that of John the Apostle) was shown in the third
century. Papias calls him a 'disciple of the Lord/ meaning
apparently that he was a survivor of the group who had heard
Ixix
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
and followed Jesus in His lifetime. If so, he would have been
a very old man at the date we have assigned to the epistles. It is
perhaps significant that Irenaeus says that 'John the disciple
of the Lord* survived to the time of Trajan, and was known to
'the Presbyters' in Asia (Adversus Haereses, II. 33. 3, III. 3. 4).
Since we are now indulging in conjecture, there is no harm
in the suggestion (which has often been made) that there may
be some confusion here. Irenaeus, no doubt, meant John the
Apostle, but it is not impossible that the long-lived disciple
was actually not an apostolic associate of the Presbyters of
Asia, but one of them namely, John the Presbyter. If so,
it is also possible that the 'John* of whom Irenaeus re-
membered hearing Polycarp speak was, once again, not the
Apostle, but the Presbyter; and that it is the Presbyter, not
the Apostle, who appears in tradition as the organizer of the
episcopate in Asia. To pile conjecture upon conjecture, it may
be that some of the anecdotes told of John of Ephesus refer to
the Presbyter. It has been pointed out in the notes on 2 John
10 -ii that the story of Cerinthus at the baths would at least
fit the character of the author of that epistle; and it certainly
looks as if it was the author of i John who, when in extreme old
age he was carried to church, had only one sermon to preach:
Tittle children, love one another' (Jerome, Commentary on
Galatians, vi. 10).
We are here, it must be repeated, in the realm of pure con-
jecture. It is quite possible that the shadowy figure of John the
Presbyter may be brought to life along these lines, and
recognized as the author of these epistles, but evidence is
lacking to turn the possibility into a probability. Two observa-
tions should be made. First, if the author is John the Presbyter,
and if he was (as Papias seems to say) a personal disciple of the
Lord, he cannot have been much less than twenty years of age
in A.D. 30, and was therefore not far short of ninety in the
early years of Trajan (assuming that he is the John who
survived till that Emperor's reign). The First Epistle, even if
ii be thought to show something less than the vigour of a man
in the prime of life, would be an astonishing performance for
one of nearly ninety; and the journeys contemplated in
Ixx
INTRODUCTION
2 and 3 John would probably be beyond his powers. If there-
fore the epistles are attributed to John the Presbyter, the
pre-Domitianic date must be preferred. Secondly, if the argu-
ments adduced above (pp. xlvii-lvi) are accepted as leading to
a distinction between the author of i John and the Fourth
Evangelist, then, obviously, the epistles can be attributed to
the Presbyter John only at the cost of withdrawing his
candidature for the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, which
at the present time is widely favoured, and is approved in the
Commentary on the Gospel according to John in this series.
We must confess that we do not know who our Presbyter
was. It does not greatly matter. He has left us a recognizable
self-portrait in his three epistles. If we cannot affix a famous
name to the portrait, we know what manner of man he was,
what he taught about faith and duty, and what part he played
at a critical moment in the history of the Church.
bcxi
THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN
EXORDIUM
(i. 1-4)
THEME AND PURPOSE OF THE EPISTLE i.
It is of what existed from the very beginning, of what we I
heard with our ears, 1 of what we saw with our eyes, of
what we witnessed and touched with our own hands, it is
of the Logos of Life (the Life has appeared; we saw it, 2
we testify to it, we bring you word of that eternal Life
which existed with the Father and was disclosed to us)
it is of what we saw and heard that we bring you word, 3
so that you may share our fellowship; and our fellowship
is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. We are 4
writing this to you that our joy may be complete.
The opening sentence of the Epistle, extending to the end
of verse 3, is exceedingly complex. The writer has tried to
pack into it more than a single sentence can well contain, at
the cost of clarity. The Moffatt version smoothes over some
difficulties of construction (as one must do if the translation
is to be readable), and gives a fairly clear sense, which may
be that intended by the author,
According to this way of taking the sentence, what existed
from the very beginning, what we heard, what we saw with
our eyes, what we witnessed and touched with our own hands,
is identical with the Logos of Life. The Greek word Logos is
retained untranslated because it is taken to be a technical
term, as in the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel, where it is
said that the Logos existed in the very beginning, and that
in him life lay; that he became flesh, and that we beheld his
glory. If our present passage is held to be moulded on the
lines of the Prologue, the first clause of verse i may be referred
to the pre-incarnate Logos, and the following three clauses to
1 The words 'with our ears' are not found in the MSS. and seem to
have been interpolated here by inadvertence,
I
THE J OH AN NINE EPISTLES
the incarnate Logos, that is to say, 'the Jesus of history,
who, as a Man among men, could be seen, heard and touched.
So much for verse i. In verse 2 there is a certain shift of
expression. The Fourth Gospel says that the Logos was with
God in the very beginning, and implies that He was disclosed
to us in the Incarnation (though the actual verb here rendered
'disclosed' is not used in the Fourth Gospel in this context).
In our present passage it is not the Logos, but the Life, that
existed with the Father and was disclosed to us. The difference
may be more apparent than real. In John i. 9-13 it is not
easy to say which clauses have the Logos for their formal
subject, and which, the Light that was in the Logos. It seems
clear that since for the Evangelist the Logos has the aspects
(as we might put it) of life and light, it makes little difference
to the sense whether we speak, on the one hand, of the Light,
or the Life, or on the other hand of the Logos in His aspect
of light or of life. And so here, when the writer says that the
Life was with God and was disclosed to us, we need not
suppose that he means anything substantially different from
what is said in the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel.
According to the Moffatt rendering, then, our author starts
by saying that it is his intention to speak of Christ as the
eternal Logos, in whom was life indeed, who is Himself the
Life and who as such existed in union with God the Father
before all time, and was incarnate in time and so became the
Object of sensible experience.
It is, however, not certain that this is precisely what the
author means, or, in particular, that he is following so closely
the tenor of the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel. It will be
well to make a fresh start with a literal translation of verses
1-30. The sentence is not good Greek, and it is only by para-
phrase that it can be rendered into good English. Word for
word it reads as follows:
'That which was from the beginning; that which we have
heard; that which we have seen with our eyes; that which we
observed and our hands felt concerning the word of life
and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear
2
I JOHN, CHAPTER I, VERSES 1-4
witness and announce to you the eternal life which was with
the Father and was manifested to us that which we have
seen and heard we announce to you also.'
In this grammatical tangle one thing is clear which the
Moffatt version has disguised in the interest of smoothness
namely, that the clause 'concerning the word of life' is not in
the same construction as the preceding clauses. It is of course
possible that the author changed the construction merely for
the sake of variety. But prima facie the clause 'concerning the
word of life' indicates the theme of the announcement, and the
clauses 'that which was from the beginning . . . our hands felt'
state the contents of the announcement. That which we have
heard concerning the word of life* would be a perfectly straight-
forward and perspicuous expression, and although the author
has expanded the relative clause by various additions, the
fundamental structure of the sentence is not altered by them,
though the meaning is significantly enlarged. He is announcing
(he says) to his readers what is known from direct evidence to
be true about the word of life; what has always ('from the
beginning') been true about the word of life. By thus dis-
tinguishing the expression 'the word of life' (as giving the
theme of the announcement) from the clauses beginning 'that
which . . .' (as giving the contents of the announcement) we
avoid the awkward necessity of taking the neuter pronouns
(neuter in Greek and in English) in reference to Christ as the
Logos. The Greek word logos is masculine, and if Christ is
meant, masculine pronouns would be required in either lan-
guage.
This leads to the question whether the term logos is here to
be taken in the technical sense which it is supposed to bear in
John i. i, 14, or whether some less specialized sense of logos is
intended. In the former case, it would be well to preserve the
Greek term in translation (as Mofatt has done); in the latter
case, an English equivalent should be used.
The Greek word logos has several meanings, but the two
meanings which come into question here are (a) 'word/ and
(b) 'reason* or 'thought/ For the Greek these two were not so
3
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
distinct as they are for us. Logos as 'word' is in any case not
mere speech, but rational speech; not mere utterance, but the
utterance of a meaning; and logos as 'reason* is not the reason-
ing faculty, but a rational content of thought, articulate and
fit for utterance; the meaning which a word expresses. The
Stoics used logos also for the rational principle immanent in
the universe, conceived as the sum of a plurality of logoi, by-
virtue of which things are what they are. Very many thinkers,
of different schools, came under the influence of Stoic meta-
physics. Among them was Philo the Jew, whose Logos-doctrine
has so greatly influenced Christian theology. But Philo is
always aware that logos also means 'word/ and that the Word
of the Lord in the Old Testament is the medium both of
creation and of revelation. In the New Testament (apart from
our present passage) the prologue to the Fourth Gospel is the
only place where it is plausible to recognize the 'metaphysical'
use of the term logos. It seems, however, probable that the
immediate background of the Prologue is the biblical concept
of the Word of the Lord by which the heavens were made
(John i. 3; Gen. i. passim; Ps. xxxiii. 6; Wisd. ix. i), and which
came to God's people through the prophets (John i. u; cf.
O.T. passim); the Word of God which is also His Law (Isa. ii.
3, etc.; Ps. cxix.); which in turn is equated with the creative,
immanent and revealing Wisdom of God (Prov. viii. 22-31;
Wisd. vii. 22-viii. i; Ecclus. xxiv. 23). More remotely in the
background is the Stoic logos as the immanent principle, or
meaning, of the universe, a conception (not altogether unlike
that of Wisdom) which no doubt reached the Evangelist
through Hellenistic Judaism, in a form similar to that which is
familiar to us from Philo. The translation 'word/ though it is
narrower in meaning than the Greek logos, is justified, even in
John i. 1-14, because it recalls the all-important Old Testa-
ment background, and here it is the natural rendering. We may
read 'the word of life/ leaving open for the moment the ques-
tion of the precise connotation of the term in this context.
Now the expression 'word of life' occurs in Phil. ii. 16:. Hold
fast the word of life. The definite article is not expressed in the
original, but this need not be significant, and the Moffatt
4
/ JOHN, CHAPTER I, VERSES 1-4
translation (which conforms to the A.V. and R.V.) is probably
justified. If we insisted on the absence of the article, the mean-
ing would be a message or announcement of life, or a promise
of life (cf. 2 Tim. i. i); and in any case the word of life (par
excellence) could be no other than the Gospel, by which life and
immortality are brought to light (2 Tim. i. 10). Similarly in
Acts v. 20, 'the words of this life 1 means 'this Gospel/ Pauline
and Lucan usage is not decisive for a Johannine passage, but in
this case we have grounds for saying that Johannine usage
agrees. In John vi. 68 the words of Christ are words of eternal
life. These words (rhemaia) it is elsewhere explained, are derived
from God, and are collectively the Word (logos) of God, which is
truth, and which Christ gives to men (John xvii. 6-8, 14, 17).
In view of this, it may appear almost accidental that the ex-
pression 'the word of life' does not occur in the Fourth Gospel.
If it had appeared, it is fairly clear what its meaning would
have been. It would be in accord with Johannine ideas to
understand 'the word of life* in our present passage as the life-
giving Word of God which came to men through Christ and
is embodied in the Gospel.
Following this line of interpretation, we should understand
the author to mean that his theme is the Gospel, and that he
is stating, in the first place, what has always 1 been true about
it (and not any innovation or afterthought), and, in the second
place, what can be attested upon the immediate evidence of
the senses (and not some airy speculation or fabricated fable;
cf. 2 Pet. i. 16).
Having defined the Gospel as the Word of Life, he now adds,
in parenthesis, that by 'life' he does not mean any abstract
idea, but the divine reality disclosed to men in the incarnate
Christ, whose appearance on earth is a fact attested by eye-
witnesses. It is in this sense (he proceeds) that he announces
eternal life namely, by bearing witness to Christ, in whom the
* 'From the very beginning.' If the passage is understood in this way
it is not necessary to determine whether 'the beginning' here is the
absolute Beginning of the universe (as in ii. 13-14) or the beginning of
the preaching of the Gospel (as in ii. 7. *4. "i- ) Tlie Gos ? el ***YJ**
nature, as the Word of God, an 'eternal Gospel' (Rev. xiv. 0). ine
emphasis is upon the unchanged, original content of the Gospel, over
against novel forms of doctrine.
5
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
divine life which existed from all eternity was made accessible
to human knowledge.
3^ Having made this explanation, the author resumes his inter-
rupted sentence with a repetition of some words from the
opening clause, and brings it to a conclusion: it is of what we
saw and heard that we bring you word. "Whatever may be the
uncertainties regarding the precise construction of the involved
sentence, its general purport is now clear. Faced with novel
doctrines of a speculative cast, the author recalls his readers
to the unchanging apostolic Gospel, which is the Word of God,
and to its attestation by eyewitnesses of the historical facts
about Jesus Christ. We shall find that this appeal to the
primitive Gospel and this insistence upon the historical reality
of the Incarnation, recur all through the Epistle.
36 He now passes on to a statement of his purpose in writing.
Why is he thus recalling them to the Gospel and its factual
truth? So that you may share our fellowship. The word fellow-
ship renders a scarcely translateable Greek word, koinonia,
which is often rendered 'communion.' Neither English word
is wholly adequate to convey the meaning of the Greek. 'Com-
munion' is etymologically the nearest, but in English usage it
is too specialized; 'fellowship/ on the other hand has been
overworked in recent years, and has been flattened and
reduced in significance. Fundamentally, the meaning of the
Greek term is simple. Koinonoi are persons who hold property
in common, partners or shareholders in a common concern,
like the fishermen disciples in Luke v. 10, who (it is implied)
were joint owners of the little fishing fleet. Thus koinonia is
properly 'partnership/ 'joint ownership/ or the like. Even
where property is not concerned, the word carries this idea of
partnership or sharing through a wide range of usage. Now, if
the blessings of Christianity are thought of as an 'inheritance/
of which believers are 'joint-heirs' (Rom. vii. 17; Eph. iii. 6;
I Pet, iii. 7), then the Christian may be described as a 'partner'
or 'joint-shareholder' (synkoindnos, Phil, i, 7; Rev. i. 9) with
his fellow Christians. They hold shares together, in the Gospel
(i Cor. ix. 23), in faith (Philem. 6), in sufferings (Phil. iii. 10)
6
I JOHN, CHAPTER I, VERSES 1-4
and consolation (2 Cor. i. 7), in the distress and realm and
patient endurance which Jesus brings (Rev. i. 9), in the Holy
Spirit (2 Cor. xiii. 13; Phil. ii. i), in the future glory (i Pet.
v. i). The same 'partnership' finds expression when Christians
share their money or goods with one ar other (Rom, xv. 26,
2 Cor. viii. 4-5, ix. 13, Phil. iv. 15; the principle is clearly laid
down in Rom. xv. 27). In ail these passages the original has
koinonos or one of its cognates or derivatives, though the trans-
lation necessarily varies. The koinonia has a special embodi-
ment in the service which Paul calls the Lord's Supper, and
which among ourselves is often called the Communion par ex-
cellence, as being a 'sharing* of the Body and Blood of Christ
under the forms of bread and wine partaken in common (i Cor.
x. 16-17). It seems likely that the fellowship or 'Communion'
of Acts ii. 42 is in fact the primitive Eucharist or Holy Com-
munion, there described as 'breaking bread and praying
together/ an apt enough summary of the minimum essentials
of the Liturgy.
The nature of the koinonia is set forth in the New Testament
under two especial figures, that of a tree and that of a human
body. As the branches of a vine (John xv, 1-6), or olive tree
(Rom. xi. 16-24), draw their life from the root and parent stem,
and so are 'joint-shareholders in the richness of the olive/ as
Rom. xi. 17 has it, so Christians share a common life drawn
from Christ through His Spirit. Similarly the constitution of
the Church reproduces the organic unity of a human body (i
Cor. xii; Rom. xii. 4-5). When one member suffers the others
suffer with it; and as when the mouth speaks, or the ear hears,
it is the whole body that speaks or hears through its members,
so all the experiences and activities of the whole Church are
in some sort communicated to the individual believer; and in
turn the due activity of each part enables the Body to grow
and build itself up (Eph. iv. 16). These metaphors make it clear
that the 'partnership 1 of Christians is not a meie pooling of
their own individual resources, whether material or spiritual;
for neither tree nor body is constituted by an association of
separately living parts; the life that is shared exists only as
shared; and in the application of the metaphors it is made
7
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
clear that the life of the Church is the divine life disclosed (as
our author has it) in the incarnate Christ and communicated
through His Spirit. Thus it matters little whether we say that
we participate in Jesus Christ our Lord (as i Cor. i. 9), or that
Christ is the Vine and we the branches (as John xv. 5) or that
as the body is one and has many members, so also is Christ
(as I Cor. xii. 12), or that we form one Body in Christ (as Rom.
xii. 5), or that Christ is the Head of the Body (as Eph. i, 22,
iv. 15; Col. i. 18): the implication is the same in each case.
Again, the services that individual members render to the
Body are not contributions out of their own resources; they
are gifts bestowed upon the Body by Christ through His Spirit,
and held for its benefit by the individual as a 'shareholder'
(Rom. xii. 4-5; i Cor. xii. 4-12). According to Paul's teaching,
the supreme gift of the Spirit is love or charity, by which the
body is held in unity and built up (i Cor. xii. 31-xiii. 3, Eph.
iv. 16, Col. iii. 14). Since love is the characteristic activity of
God since, indeed, according to the teaching of this Epistle,
God is love, and to remain in love is to remain in God we are
shareholders in the divine nature (2 Pet, i, 4) according as we
receive and exercise the gift of charity.
The author's purpose, then, is to promote this fellowship in
the face of disruptive tendencies. False teaching and bitter
antagonisms threaten a dissolution of partnership in the
common faith and a breach of the common bond of charity.
To counter the menace he would recall his readers to the 'word
of life/ to the Gospel, without which there is no Christianity at
all. The Gospel is grounded upon most sure testimony, and it
provides a searching test for all teaching offered as Christian.
And the 'word of life 1 includes the commandment of charity
(ii. 7, iii, 11), which is inseparable from the Gospel proclama-
tion of God's redemptive act in Christ. A return to the Gospel
and the Commandment will restore and confirm the threatened
fellowship of the Church. Nothing else will. For the Church is
not a human association (such as a club or party, which might
get over difficulties by a little politic give-and-take); it exists
by sharing the divine life embodied in Christ: our fellowship is
with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And that life is
8
/ JOHN, CHAPTER I, VERSES 1-4
disclosed in the 'word of life/ in the Gospel which proclaims
the facts of Christ's coming, and the Commandment which
declares what that coming means in terms of personal relations
among men.
The remoter aim of such a restoration of fellowship is stated
in the words that our joy may be complete. It cannot be
doubted that there is a reference to the words of the Lord in
the Fourth Gospel. In John xv. i-io we have the great
exposition of the koinonia of the Church under the figure of the
Vine, leading to the definition of love as the mode of fellowship
with the Father and the Son, and concluding (xv. n), I have
told you this that my joy may be within you and your joy com-
plete. The words are repeated in a different but allied context in
xvi. 24, With these passages in view we can hardly take verse 4
to mean simply 'It will give me great pleasure when these divi-
sions are healed.' (That idea is expressed in different language
in 2 John 4, 3 John 3.) It means that with the restoration of
the threatened fellowship the Church will enter into the joy of
its Lord, according to His word.
This last verse raises a question which must be discussed
before we dismiss the exordium the question, namely, of the
sense in which the writer uses the pronoun 'we.' On the face
of them, the opening verses taken together seem to imply a
distinction between those who had direct experience of the
historical facts of the Gospel, and those who knew of them
only at second hand, the writt r being included in the former
class ('we'), and his readers in the latter ('you'). The first
person plural might be the familiar epistolary use, in which
Ve' means T (like our editorial 'we'), or it might stand for
a group to which the writer belongs, and in whose name he
writes.
Elsewhere throughout the epistle he commonly uses the
first person singular when he is addressing his readers in
the capacity of their pastor and teacher (ii. i, 7, 12-14, 21,
26, v. 13, 16). The first person plural, on the contrary, is
very frequently used in a way which includes author and
readers in one class. It is what we might call the preacher's
9
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
'we.' This form of speech Is common in homilies of all periods,
and might appear no more than a matter of tact, particularly
appropriate where censure has to be passed or error corrected.
But it has deeper roots. It belongs to the language of the
Church as a fellowship, in the sense explained above. When a
preacher addresses his fellow Christians, he must indeed
speak 'as the oracles of God' (i Pet. iv. n), but he remains one
member of the body among others, sharing not only in its
corporate faith and experience, but also in its liability to
faults and errors which, speaking 'as the oracles of God/ he
must reprobate. Similarly, the congregation, as belonging to
the body of Christ, implicitly possesses the truth which the
preacher communicates. He must always say in effect what our
author says to his readers (ii. 21): lam not writing to you because
you do not know the truth, but because you do know It (and
consequently may be expected to recognize and assent to it
when it is spoken). The first person plural therefore is an
appropriate construction to use. Our author frequently
employs it to mean (in effect) 'all Christians/ or 'any Chris-
tian/ The contrast to 'we* in tliis sense is not 'you/ but 'the
world* or some equivalent expression (ii. 2, v. 19). The writer
freely uses this 'we* even where he is hypothetically contem-
plating Christians falling into error (If we say we have fellow-
ship with Him when we live and move in darkness, then we arc
lying), as well as when he is affirming the great common
realities of Christian faith and experience (We are children of
God; We know we have crossed from death to life).
Where 'we* and 'y u ' occur in the same context, it is often
difficult to establish the precise difference in meaning. (There
are in fact several places where some manuscripts read 'we 1
and others 'you/ and the true reading could not be deter-
mined from the sense of the passage alone.) In ii. 28 for example,
we have an alternation of 'you* and 'we* without any apparent
change of meaning. It can hardly be supposed that our author
intended to say, 'Do you remain in Him so that I (or my
colleagues and I) may have confidence/ The meaning of the
sentence would not have been different if it had read, 'Let us
remain in Him so that we may have confidence/ or 'Remain
10
I JOHN. CHAPTER I } VERSES 1-4
in Him. so that you may have confidence/ In iL 18-21 the
first person singular, the first person plural and the second
person plural all occur. In verse 21 (already quoted) we have
T and 'you': I do not write to you because you do not know
the truth but because you do know it. The writer and his
readers are clearly contrasted, yet In such terms as point to
the overcoming of the contrast in a fellowship of mutual
understanding, for which an inclusive 'we' is the appropriate
pronoun. In 18-20 'we' and f y u ' alternate: You have learned
. . . which makes us sure . . . They withdrew from us . . .
You have been anointed by the holy One. It does not seem
possible that 'we' is either the epistolary plural (meaning T)
or the true plural of the T in 21 (meaning 'my colleagues
and myself). The 'anointed' Christian community is the same
community from which the heretics have seceded; and when
the author says that an observation of the present situation
makes us sure that it is the last hour, it is not likely that he
means either 'I am sure* or 'My colleagues and I are sure':
he means that it is a Christian certainty shared by all who
have the 'anointing' through which true knowledge comes
{compare similar expressions in ii. 3, 5, Hi, 2, 14, iv. 13, v, 18-
20), In other words, the relation of 'we' and 'you' is not
antithetical. If there is any distinction, Ve' is the wider and
more inclusive expression, standing for the Christian com-
munity as such.
A somewhat more difficult case is iv. 4-6. The words of verse
6a, We belong to God, he who knows God listens to us, he who
does not belong to God does not listen to us, might very natur-
ally be understood to refer to authorized teachers of the
Church among whom the writer reckons himself but for the
illegitimate implications it would seem to carry: namely, (a)
that when he says we belong to God he means 'my colleagues
and I belong to God/ and (b) that this 'we 1 is to be distin-
guished from the 'you' of verse 4: Dear children, you belong to
God. But 'We belong to God' and 'You belong to God' cannot
be distinguished in that way. We can only conclude that when
the writer says, He who knows God listens to us, the first
personal pronoun really stands for the Church as such,
II
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
proclaiming the Gospel which becomes the touchstone to test its
hearers, whether or not they belong to God and know God.
That this proclamation may actually be carried out by a
particular group within the Church is true, but if 'we' stands
lor such a special group, it does not contrast them with the
laity, but identifies them with the whole Church, their words
being its utterance, and as such heard by those who belong to
God, and rejected by the world.
With this in view, consider the meaning of the first person
plural in iv. 14: We have seen, we do testify, that the Father
has sent the Son as Saviour of the world. Does this imply that
the author (or the author and his colleagues, if the 'we' is a
strict plural) stands as an actual eyewitness of the Gospel facts,
over against his readers, who can only accept his testimony?
If so, does that hold good also for the preceding verse? Does
the author mean, 'My colleagues and I know that we are in
intimate communion with God, because we (unlike you)
possess the divine Spirit'? Surely not. We have here an example
of a type of argument which recurs all through the epistle, in
which the validity of certain propositions is tested by reference
to the common Christian faith and experience. The writer here
affirms the reality of a mutual indwelling of God and the
believer on the ground that all true believers have a share in
the divine Spirit; only, instead of 'all true believers/ he says,
'we/ This generalizing 'we' persists throughout the whole con-
text, iv. 7-19, which contains some of the most important
general propositions about the Christian life. At no point
should we for a moment suspect any restriction of the scope
of 'we/ except in the phrase 'we have seen/ It is difficult to
accept a sudden shift of meaning so radical that whereas all
through the passage 'we' has meant Christians in general, it
now means a group of eyewitnesses sharply distinguished from
Christians in general.
It might be suggested that the expression 'we have seen'
refers here not to eyewitness, but to inward or spiritual
vision, which might be predicated of any Christian who (in
terms of verse 13) has a share of the divine Spirit. The author,
however, has guarded against such an understanding in the
12
I JOHN, CHAPTER I, VERSES 1-4
first verse of the epistle (at which we must glance for a moment
before returning to it for more detailed investigation). He is
writing, he says, about what we saw with our eyes and touched
with our hands. He could not have made it clearer that he is
speaking of sensible experience and not of spiritual vision.
But if it is not inward vision, but actual sensible experience
that is in question, can the 'we' of verse 14 be given the wide
reference which belongs to the pronoun in the context? Must
not the pronoun, here at least, stand for a closed group of
eyewitnesses?
It may be observed that the same difficulty about the first
person plural arises in some passages of the Fourth Gospel.
Particularly in John i. 14 we have an expression which recalls
our present text: The Logos became Hesh and tamed among us;
we have seen his glory; which in turn can hardly be separated
from i. 16: We have aU been receiving grace after grace from his
fulness. Does 'we' mean the apostolic witnesses or Christians
in general? It may be that the solution of the problem in both
writings is the same.
It is possible that the way to a solution may be found
through the doctrine of the 'fellowship' of the Church which
is so important to our author. The English word 'fellowship'
as we have seen, is weaker than the original word koinonia,
which connotes a sharing of life and experience so deep and
thoroughgoing that what is predicated of the whole community
can tn some real sense be predicated of each member, and vice
versa. The background of this is the sense of solidarity which
was so intense in ancient societies. It is a commonplace to
students of the Old Testament. The T of the Psalms, for
example, seems to expand and contract between the individual,
a group, and the entire nation. It expresses the solidarity of
the Psalmist with the Israel of God. The experiences he
describes are not less his own for being also those of his people,
and not less corporate for being personal And as there is
solidarity among all members of God's people who are con-
temporary with one another, so there is solidarity among the
successive generations of Israel Thus Amos writes in the
eighth century B.C.: Thus saith the Lord ... I brought you
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
up out of the land of Egypt, and led you forty years in the
wilderness 9 (Amos li 10), although the Exodus lay at least five
hundred years behind him; and Joshua, addressing the elders
of Israel after the conquest of Canaan, can even be represented
as saying, Thus saith the Lord . . . Your eyes saw what I did
in Egypt' (Joshua xxiv. 7), although, according to the tradi-
tion, the whole generation of the Exodus died in the wilderness.
This sense of solidarity is not peculiarly 'Semitic/ Similar
examples can be quoted from Greek and Latin authors. Indeed,
it might be said that a faint shadow of it persists among our-
selves, and sometimes colours our speech; as when an under-
graduate says, 'We went head of the river in 1870'! But it needs
an effort for us, bora into the individualism of the modem
world, to realize in imagination the strength and spontaneity
of the sentiment of solidarity in ancient societies. The Old
Testament usages, however, to which we have referred, are of
more direct significance for our present purpose, because in
Israel the natural solidarity of blood and soil was increasingly
transcended by the sense of a unity based on the divine calling
and covenant.
In the New Testament the conception of the koinonia
of the Church represents a perfect sublimation of natural
solidarity, or its re-creation upon a higher level Bearing
this in mind, we may freely illustrate the language of Christian
fellowship from the established forms of speech developed out
of the social solidarity of antiquity, and especially from Old
Testament language. It is noteworthy that both Amos and
Joshua (in the passages cited above) are speaking of the
'mighty acts of the Lord 1 by which Israel was redeemed and
became a holy people. It is of these events that both speak as
if their hearers had personal experience of them. If Joshua
could say, 'Your eyes saw what I did in Egypt /to an audience
who could not have been actual eyewitnesses, because he did
not distinguish the experience of individuals from that of the
society in which they lived and moved, so our author (referring
also to the 'mighty acts of the Lord/ by which the Church was
redeemed and became a holy people) may be conceived as
saying, 'We have seen/ even though the 'we' might include
I JOHN, CHAPTER I, VERSES 1-4
many who had not been individually eyewitnesses of the Gospel
facts. The Church, through its solidarity with the apostles and
eyewitnesses, possesses their testimony, and therefore can bear
witness before the world to the reality of the Incarnation, say-
ing, 'We have seen'; and any member, speaking in the name of
the Church, may repeat that affirmation, without necessarily
making an individual claim to sensible experience of the facts.
This does not preclude an alternate expansion and contraction
of the 'we/ analogous to the expansion and contraction of the
T of the Psalms. But neither this passage nor any other of
those we have examined seems to afford any solid ground for
the supposition that the author is thinking in terms of a
closed group of eyewitnesses (such as the Apostles) over against
the general membership of the Church, or that the pronouns
'we* and 'you' distinguish this closed group from the readers
of the Epistle.
In the exordium, to which we now return, the position is
somewhat different. Here certainly a distinction is made (as
is natural) between the author and his readers, and this dis-
tinction is expressed by 'we' and 'you' in verse 4: 'We are
writing this to you/ and similarly in verse 3. 'We bring you
word, so that you may share our fellowship/ Yet this 'we'
of authorship is in each case at once swallowed up in a 'we'
which can be no narrower in scope than the whole member-
ship of the Church. In verse 3, 'Our fellowship is with the
Father and with His Son Jesus Christ' can hardly mean, 'My
colleagues and I enjoy communion with God, which we should
like you to share/ 'Our fellowship' is surely the koinonia which
belongs to all members of the Church as such; the fellowship
which they have one with another (i. 7). And 'Our joy/ as we
have seen, is the joy of the whole Church in realizing its
koinonia (for although in the dramatic setting of John xv. i-n
the promise is addressed to the eleven Apostles, its intended
application is as wide as that of the allegory of the Vine to
which it is appended). The question is whether the 'we' of
verses I and 2 is the 'we' of authorship, referring to the
writer's own experience (which is not that of his readers), or
the wider 'we' which includes the whole Church united in
15
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
fellowship. On the one hand, this kind of language would be
very natural from the Apostle John, or the Presbyter John
('the disciple of the Lord'), or some other eyewitness to whom
the authorship of the epistle might be ascribed. On the other
hand, it is not in itself sufficient to prove authorship by an
eyewitness. We have seen that the author can say, We have
seen; we do testily, where 'we' includes ail Christians who, as
such, 'remain in' Christ and 'have a share in His Spirit' (iv.
13-14); and his language here we saw with our eyes (cf.
Joshua's 'Your eyes saw 1 ), touched with our own hands differs
only in the emphasis with which he insists that it is actual
seeing, hearing and touching that he means, and not anything
like inward vision. It is there that the emphasis lies, and not
upon the direct knowledge of some Christians over against the
second-hand knowledge of others. Even if the language is that
of an eyewitness, his 'we' is like the T of the Psalms, which
can stand both for the individual Psalmist and for the
Israel of God. He speaks not exclusively for himself or for a
restricted group, but for the whole Church to which the
apostolic witness belongs by virtue of its koinonia f over against
the world which being outside the koinonia has no knowledge
of the incarnate Son, and therefore no knowledge of the Real
God (v, 20). He has already in mind those who break the
fellowship of the Church, and who, by rejecting the evidence
of eye, ear and hand to the reality of the Incarnation (iv. 2-3),
range themselves with the unenlightened world (iv.
I. WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY?
(i. 5 - iL 28)
The general intention of this section of the Epistle is to set
forth the distinctive marks of Christianity as a way of life
and belief, over against current misunderstandings or mis-
representations.
First, various expressions for forms of 'religious experience'
are passed in review, and subjected to searching criticism in
the light of the fundamental axioms of Christianity, emphasis
16
/ JOHN, CHAPTER I, VERSES 5-10
being laid upon the evangelical doctrine of forgiveness
(i. 5-ii. 6).
Secondly, Christ's 'new commandment' of love is shown to
be of the essence of the Christian religion, which is the dis-
closure of a new order of life, in contrast to the doomed order
of a pagan world (ii. 7-17).
Thirdly, a direct attack is made upon the false doctrines
which are being propagated in the Church, and the readers are
recalled to the certainties of the divine revelation in the
Gospel of Christ (ii. 18-28).
I. A CRITICISM OF 'RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE/ WITH AN EXCURSUS
UPON SIN AND FORGIVENESS (i. 5-ii. 6)
Here is the message we learned from him and announce to you : 5
'God is light and in Him there is no darkness, none.' If we 6
say, 'We have fellowship with Him,' when we live and move
in darkness, then we are lying, we are not practising the
truth; but if we live and move within the light, as He is 7
within the light, then we have fellowship with one another,
and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin.
If we say, 'We are not guilty,' we are deceiving ourselves 8
and the truth is not in us; if we confess our sins, He is 9
faithful and just, He forgives our sins and cleanses us from
all iniquity; if we say, 'We have not sinned/ we make Him 10
a liar and His word is not within us. ii.
My dear children, I am writing this to you that you may not I
sin; but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the
Father in Jesus Christ the just; He is Himself the propitia- 2
tion for our sins, though not for ours alone but also for the
whole world.
This is how we may be sure we know Him, by obeying His 3
commands. He who says, 'I know Him/ but does not obey 4
His commands, is a liar and the truth is not in him; but 5
whoever obeys His word, in Him love to God is really
complete.
This is how we may be sure we are in Him : he who says 6
he 'remains in Him' ought to live as He lived.
17
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
We shall find a clue to the meaning of this section of the
epistle if we understand the writer to be alluding all through
to certain maxims which were used as watchwords by heretical
teachers. Some of them he would accept himself, but in a
different sense, or with different implications. 'We are sinless';
'we know Him 7 ; 'we are in Him': this is the kind of language
used by those who claimed superior enlightment, and were
leading the Church away from the simplicity of the Gospel,
None of these maxims could be directly repudiated by one
who took the 'Johannine' view of Christianity. Yet they could
be so applied as to destroy the distinctive character of the
faith. The writer is concerned to expose the fallacy underlying
their use by the heretics.
i
5 He begins with a maxim acceptable alike to himself and his
opponents: God is light and in Him there is no darkness. Any-
one who speaks in this way is at home in the religious world
of first-century Hellenism. There is indeed something natural,
and almost universal, in the symbolism of light. In primitive
religion the light of the sun, apparently the source of life and
well-being to the earth and all its denizens, is an object of wor-
ship. When a people has passed beyond crude nature-worship,
light is still the symbol of well-being as well for the body as the
soul, which is referred in thankful adoration to its source in the
high God. The Lord is my light and my salvation/ says the
Hebrew Psalmist (Ps. xxvii. i). In Greek philosophy Plato
had sanctioned the description of the ultimate reality, the
Eternal Goodness (or Idea of the Good*) in terms of light. The
influence of Platonism combined with that of Zoroastrianism,
with its conception of the universe as the scene of an agelong
conflict between light and darkness, to provide the religious
mind of the Near East with an imaginative metaphysk. A
Greek writer of a period not far from that of our author gives
a vision of creation. First there was boundless light; then an
ocean of darkness. A holy word out of the light descended upon
the darkness, and the creation of the world began. That light,
he says, is Mind, or God (Corpus Hermeticum, I. 4-6). Philois
half a Greek and half a Hebrew when he says, referring to the
18
I JOHN, CHAPTER /, VERSES 5-10
verse of the Psalm quoted above, 'God is light, and not light
only, but the archetype of every other light; or rather, more
ancient and higher than any archetype* (De Somniis, I. 75).
In the Fourth Gospel the Logos (that is to say, God as revealed
in creation and in man) is equated with 'the real Light' (which
is equivalent to Philo's 'archetypal Light'), and Christ as the in-
carnate Logos is described as the Light of the world. In fact, the
teaching of this Gospel is pervaded by light-symbolism. Like
Philo, however, the Evangelist stops short of the statement
that the eternal God is to be defined as Light. Both these great
theologians, the Jewish and the Christian, apparently felt that
to go the whole length in adopting the language of current
religious philosophy might endanger the conviction of the
personal transcendence of God which is fundamental to Judaism
and Christianity alike. Our present author is less guarded.
Perhaps he was hardly aware that in summarizing the purport
of Christian teaching as given in the Fourth Gospel he is giving
it a turn which brings it nearer to current forms of expression,
and nearer, no doubt, to the language of the heretics whom he
is criticizing.
Where then does he differ from them? Not in emphasizing
the truth that the being of God as light excludes any trace of
darkness. They, like their compeers outside Christianity,
would have affirmed that as strongly as he. It is in the corollary
that he immediately draws, If we say, *We have fellowship with 6
Him/ when we live and move in darkness, we are lying. That
is to say, he is not interested in any metaphysical implications
of the idea that God is light, but in its ethical implications.
Light is for him primarily the symbol of sheer goodness;
darkness, of moral evil. If then God is altogether good, without
any trace of evil, it follows that we cannot have fellowship with
Him without being good in our degree. It was necessary to lay
stress upon this point. The age was a religious age, and many
religions and philosophical systems offered communion with
the divine. But religious fervour did not always go with moral
seriousness. According to our authorities for the next period,
there were heretical forms of Christianity which fell far below
the best kind of paganism in their moral standards. Our author
19
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
sees that danger in the kind of teaching which is making
propaganda in the Church specious propagnada, since it
uses the language of an elevated mysticism. He insists on the
ethical criterion. Religion is not indeed just 'morality tinged
with emotion/ but, on the other hand, there is no religion in
the Christian sense of the word unless it includes moral
endeavour and the criticism of conduct,
a To be within the light, then-- that is to say, to be in union
with God means to lead a good life, since God is good. And
this is the true basis of fellowship in the Church. It is a society
of people who, believing in a God of pure goodness, accept the
obligation to be good like Him (cf. Matt, v, 48). (This statement
serves for the present; it must be filled out and clarified from
later parts of the epistle, where it is shown that the specific
character of light/ as a divine attribute and as a quality of
human life alike, is love or charity. See pp. 34-6, 84-7,)
Down to this point, then, we have an exposition of the text,
God is light. This maxim itself is offered as the message we
learned from Him (that is, Christ). It is unlikely that the
author supposed himself to be citing an actual saying of the
Lord. We may conceive him as saying, in effect, The teaching
of the Gospel about God may be summed up in the familiar
maxim, "God is light/' if you will allow to this maxim its full
logical implications: that light excludes darkness, and that
communion with a God who is all light without a shade of
darkness must involve living a life free from the darkness of
sin and radiant with the light of goodness/ For the use of the
popular light -symbolism he found sufficient sanction in the
Fourth Gospel, which he accepted as an authoritative exposi-
tion of the teaching of Jesus Christ. It is, however, of interest
to enquire whether his doctrine is supported by the older
tradition of the sayings of Jesus in the first three Gospels. The
most significant passage for our purpose is the saying which
both Matthew and Luke give from a tradition common to
them both. In its Lucan form it reads: Your eye is the lamp of
the body: when your eye is sound, then the whole of your body
has light, but if your eye is diseased, then your body is darkened.
20
/ JOHN. CHAPTER /, VERSES 5-10
(Look! perhaps your very light is dark.) So if your whole body
has light, without any corner of it in darkness, it will be lit up
entirely, as when a lamp lights you with its rays (Luke xi. 34-
6). Here we have a picture of single-minded integrity, under
the combined figures of a space flooded with light, and of a
man with perfect eyesight. It is in fact a picture of one who
(as our author would put it) lives and moves in the light, con-
trasted with one who lives and moves in darkness. This
quality of integrity is the same as the purity of heart which
leads to the vision of God according to Matt. v. 8 (cf. I John
iii. 2-3), and it is a reflection in man of the 'perfectness' of God
(Matt. v. 48), who alone is 'good' without qualification (Mark
x. 18). Similarly, to imitate the impartial benevolence and
beneficence of God towards all men is to be a son of God
(Matt. v. 43-7, Luke vi. 35-6; cf. i John ii. 29-01. i). If we
apply to these sayings the symbolism of Luke xi. 34-6, we
shall find ourselves very close to our author's teaching that
God is light, and in Him there is no darkness; and that to
have fellowship with Him means to live and move within
the light.
Here a fresh point comes up. To be within the light, to have 76.
fellowship with Him, is to be pure from sin (for 'what fellowship
has light with darkness?': 2 Cor. vi. 14). Such purity belongs
to believers, not through their own moral achievement, but
by virtue of the death of Christ. Here the writer is faithfully
reproducing that clause of the original apostolic Preaching
which declared that Christ died for our sins (i Cor. xv. 3).
It was important to guard against misunderstanding here. 8
The heretics (if we may read between the lines, with the sup-
port of what is known about 'Gnostic' teaching) take then-
stand upon the belief that Christians have been given a new
nature superior to that of other men. Consequently, they
affirm, Christians are already sinless beings; or if not all
Christians, at least those who have attained to superior
enlightenment. They have no further need for moral striving:
they are already perfect. Indeed, some appear to have held
that if the enlightened do tilings which in other men would
21
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
be counted sinful, they are not sinners. Their mystical
communion with God in itself removes them from the category
of sinful men. Now up to a point this is so like our author's own
teaching that he cannot lightly pass it by. He is quite clear
that if a man has really been 'bom of God' he cannot live in
sin (iii. 9); and in spite of anything that may be said here, it
remains true that a Christian is expected not to sin. Neverthe-
less, to assert roundly, we arc not guilty, is self-deception. Our
author has a plain, straightforward view of sin which is
salutary in its very crudity. Just as to be righteous is, quite
simply, to do what is right, so to break the moral law is to be
sinful (iii. 7, 10), and an honest man must acknowledge that he
has done so. There is no place for subtlety. We have sinned,
and there is no use in denying it. The true teaching of the
Gospel is, not that by initiation we become automatically
sinless, but that within the Church we are under a dispensation
which deals effectively with our sins.
9 The basic fact is that God is a forgiving God, as the Gospel
(the 'word of life') declares Him to be. He is forgiving because
He is faithful aisd just. That God is 'faithful/ or trustworthy,
is a fundamental postulate of biblical religion in Old and New
Testaments (cf. Deut. vii 9; Ps. xxxvi. 5, bcxxix. passim, etc.;
I Cor. i. 9, x. 13; i Thess. v. 24; 2 Thess. iii. 3; I Pet. iv. 19);
that is to say, unlike the fickle gods of pagan mythology, He
is so entirely consistent with Himself that we can rely upon
Him completely in all circumstances and through all vicissi-
tudes. It is because God is faithful, or trustworthy, that He can
be the Object of faith or trust. God is also just, or righteous:
without this conviction there is no ethical religion. But it is
remarkable that our author should base divine forgiveness
directly upon the faithfulness and justice of God. Christian
teaching has often opposed the justice of God, which demands
that sin shall be punished, to His mercy, which remits the
punishment; and some theories of the Atonement set out to
explain how this opposition is overcome. The opposition is not
recognized in the New Testament. For 'John* as for Paul (see
Rom. iii. 21-6 and notes in Moffatt Commentary) the mercy
or forgiveness of God is a function of His righteousness; and so
22
I JOHN, CHAPTER I, VERSES 5-10
far from forgiveness being a kind of breach in His self-consist-
ency, it is both possible and actual only because God is com-
pletely 'faithful/ completely to be relied upon in all circum-
stances; or, as it is put in 2 Tim. ii. 13 (with reference to
Christ), if we are faithless, He remains faithful for He cannot
be untrue to Himself. God's attitude to us, His purpose for us,
do not alter because we sin against Him. When we turn to
Him again, we find Him still the same. If we confess our sins,
and in confession repudiate them, then God forgives, not (as a
man might) because He chooses on this occasion to be indul-
gent, or considerate, or tolerant, but because no other course
would be consistent with the perfectly good will by which the
whole universe is created and sustained. It is this, and this
only, in the last resort, that justifies our confidence of being
forgiven our repeated offences against the law of God. We
believe in the forgiveness of sin, not by convincing ourselves
that our sins were excusable, or remediable, or that we
meant well, or that 'we won't do it again/ It is because the
principle of forgiveness is built into the structure of a moral
order created and determined by the character of a just and
faithful God.
In view of all this, the claim to be sinless is not only self- 10
deception (as in verse 8); it is a presumptuous denial of the
truth of the Gospel; for in proclaiming God to be a faithful,
just and forgiving God, it declares man to be a sinful creature
needing forgiveness. If on the ground of any ideas of our own
we deny this, then his word is not within us : we have heard the
Gospel, and thought we believed it; but we have not inwardly
digested it. The probability is that an effective appreciation
of our own sinful condition is in most cases not (as is often
supposed) a preliminary to the hearing of the Gospel, but a
consequence of it. ii.
The general position having been thus laid down, we are to i
have two outstanding evidences or instances of the way in
which, according to the Gospel, sin is effectively dealt with. But
before speaking of them the writer once more enters a caveat:
nothing he is about to say must be understood as conferring
any license to sin. That is in any case excluded (compare the
23
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
similar misunderstanding mentioned in Rom. vi. i and
confuted in the verses following).
First, then, Christ not only died for our sins (as verse 7 above);
He also lives to intercede for us. This also is part of the Gospel
(cf. Rom. viii. 34; Heb. vii. 25, ix. 24), which contemplates us
always as sinners standing before God's judgment seat, and
needing the mediation of an advocate*
The word so translated is parakletos, familiarly Englished as
'paraclete/ Its etymological meaning is 'one called in' to help,
and so in the most general sense it means 'helper/ 'supporter'
(cf. Moffatt's translation in John xiv. 16, etc.). But it was
popularly used to denote a friend 'called in 1 to support a party
to a law-suit or the defendant in a criminal trial, an 'advocate.'
It is interesting to observe that in the early Rabbinic tractate
Pirqe Aboth (iv. 13) the Greek word, transliterated into
Hebrew, is used in speaking of man as a defendant before the
heavenly tribunal. 'He who fulfils one commandment has
gained for himself one "paraclete"; he who commits one
transgression has gained for himself one accuser/ Here it is a
question of balancing merit against demerit: a man's own
merits are his 'advocates' to win God's favour. The New Testa-
ment repudiates this idea. We cannot acquire merit before God.
We need an 'advocate' who is other than ourselves.
The same word 'paraclete' is used by Philo where he is
describing the nature of true worship, as symbolized by the
liturgy of the Temple. The High Priest's vestments, he says,
are emblems of the created universe in its perfection as mani-
festing the divine Logos. 'It was necessary for him who per-
forms the office of priest to the Father of the universe to employ
as advocate His Son, most perfect in virtue, for the amnesty
of sins and the supply of unstinted blessings' ( Vita Mosis,
II. 134). It may have been language of this kind that led to
the choice of the term 'paraclete' for Christ as Intercessor in
'Johannine' circles. But the belief in His heavenly intercession
is no innovation (see Moffatt Commentary, Romans, p. 144).
The belief responds to a need deeply felt wherever religion is
seriously ethical. When once the conscience of man comes to
recognize a moral law conceived as the will of an entirely
24
I JOHN. CHAPTER II, VERSES 1-6
righteous God, then every advance in our apprehension of the
character of God and of His demands upon man deepens the
sense of guilt which sets a barrier between God and ourselves.
Yet our need to approach God is all the greater because of our
sin. How if there be within the divine Being Itself that which
sympathizes with us and pleads our cause? The Christian
Gospel declares that this is so; and not only so, but that this
Everlasting Mercy was incarnate for us in Christ, who as Man
had personal acquaintance with our moral conflict, and now
represents us within the eternal Godhead (Heb. iv. 14-16). If
we conceive to ourselves Christ as praying for us (as He prayed
for His disciples on earth), then our prayers for forgiveness
and release from sin, whether for ourselves or for others (v. 16),
are taken up into His intercession, which is not, as all our
prayers are, weakened or hindered by sin (for He is Jesus
Christ the just, or righteous, as our author emphatically adds).
This is what is meant by praying 'in the name of Jesus Christ/
Whatever our words, or even our thoughts, may be when we
pray (and they are inevitably imperfect at best, and often
mistaken), the real content of Christian prayer is that which
Christ asks on our behalf, and the Father grants. To this Paul
adds (Rom, viii. 26) that the Spirit (who for him is scarcely
distinguishable from Christ indwelling) 'intercedes* within us,
when we do not know what prayer rightly to offer, and can
only utter an inarticulate sigh. This conception of the Spirit as
Advocate, supplementing, as it were, the work of Christ as
Advocate, is not present in this epistle, but the Fourth Gospel
knows the Spirit as 'another Paraclete' (John xiv. 16).
Secondly, the heavenly Advocate is also Himself the pro-
pitiation for our sins. The word propitiation, however, is a
doubtful rendering. The word in the original (hilasmos), which
occurs also in iv. 10, is derived from a verb which in
pagan Greek usage generally means to 'placate/ 'pacify' or
'propitiate' an offended person, and in particular an offended
deity. The verb, however, has another meaning, rarer in pagan
writers namely, to perform an act by which defilement
(ritual or moral) is removed; to 'expiate/ The sense that evil
doing brings with it a kind of taint is natural and general. It is
25
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
related to that 'numinous* feeling in the presence of a
mysterium tremendum in which some see the most primitive
element in religion. When the object of the 'numinous' feeling
comes to be identified with the moral Absolute, or with a God
who is 'of purer eyes than to behold iniquity/ the sense of
defilement attaches itself more and more definitely to moral
evil. In antiquity it was universally believed that the perform-
ance of prescribed rituals (which might or might not include
the ritual slaughter of animals) had the value, so to speak, of
a powerful disinfectant. The ritual duly performed, one could
be confident that the taint was removed. For such rituals the
most general term in the Greek Old Testament is the verb in
question, which almost invariably bears the sense 'to cleanse
from defilement/ 'to expiate/ Where priests or other men are
the subject, it refers to sacrifices or lustral rites. But in Hebrew
thought it is possible, as it never is in Greek paganism, for the
subject of the action to be God; and then the meaning is
virtually indistinguishable from 'to forgive': the defilement of
sin can be removed, in the last resort, only by divine forgive-
ness (see Moffatt Commentary, Romans, pp. 54-5).
Biblical usage is not necessarily decisive for a writer who
makes so few allusions to the Old Testament as our present
author; and in the immediate context it might seem possible
that the sense of 'propitiation' is in place; if our guilt requires
an advocate before God, we might, logically, need to placate
His righteous anger. But the wider context denies this inter-
pretation. Our forgiveness rests upon the justice and faithful-
ness of God, not upon the possibility of averting His anger.
He forgives our sins; He cleanses us from all iniquity: those
two verbs express precisely the ideas principally associated
with words of this family throughout the Greek Old Testa-
ment (and probably also in the few cases where they occur in
the New Testament, Rom. iii. 25; Luke xviii. 13; Heb. ii. 17,
and in a transferred application, Heb. ix. 5).
The reference in i. 7 to the blood of Christ suggests that the
author is thinking in the first place of the death of Christ as
analogous to animal sacrifices (much in the same way, perhaps,
as is set forth in the Epistle to the Hebrews; see Heb. ix.-x.). The
26
I JOHN. CHAPTER II, VERSES 1-6
term used, however, does not in itself connote a blood-sacrifice,
and the expression in ii. 2 is wide enough to cover the whole
work of Christ His death especially, no doubt, but not to the
exclusion of His incarnation, His earthly ministry, and His
resurrection and ascension. The entire work of Christ is an act
of expiation; and God is the Author of it. It is He who sent
His Son to be the expiation for our sins (iv. 10) that is to say,
as the efficacious means by which He forgives our sins and
cleanses us from all iniquity. The originating cause of the
whole action is the justice and faithfulness of God, or (as in
iv. 10) the love of God. Further, this act of God affects the
whole human race. Christ is the expiation for our sins, and
not for ours alone, but also for the whole world. The world' is
in this epistle as a rule an expression for the hostile pagan
order in which human life is organized in opposition to the
will of God (ii. 15-17; see notes there), and as such a realm of
evil and an enemy to be overcome (v. 19, 4-5). But the author
does not forget that the human beings who are thus involved
in a godless order remain the objects of God's care and interest;
and that the Gospel affirms that He loved the world (in this
sense) so dearly that He gave up His only Son (John iii. 16).
This saying is echoed in iv, 9, and its universal intention is
succinctly brought out in iv. 14: The Father has sent the Son
as the Saviour of the world.
Such is the doctrine of Christ's expiation as we gather it
from this epistle. We are not told precisely how the work
of Christ h$.s this effect. Christian theology has notoriously
always been in some uncertainty upon this point. But an atten-
tive study of the Gospels will suggest that the doctrine is by
no means an unsupported speculation. Jesus Christ acted
within a situation representative of human history at large. He
became involved in desperate conflict with sinful elements in
the situation. In the conflict He acted in such a way as to mirror
perfectly the attitude to men which He attributed to the
Father in heaven: uncompromising towards all evil; unweari-
edly benevolent towards those who wrought the evil. He was
finally left utterly alone, and suffered the extremity of all that
27
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
human wickedness could inflict. On a particular day in history,
therefore, there stood on the one side a world of men with the
stain of an indelible crime upon its conscience a stain of
which none of those involved in the situation were free, not
Peter nor the sons of Zebedee and on the other side stood a
Person upon whom all this concentrated wickedness had no
other effect than to give Him the occasion for suffering to the
end in undiminished loyalty to God and goodwill towards men.
At the moment when Christ seemed defeated, and all that He
stood for appeared powerless in face of the sin of the world,
the power of almighty God was made manifest in bringing
Him back from the dead. His return to His faithless disciples
was a clear act of forgiveness; and the first message they bore
from Him to the world contained the offer of forgiveness for its
sins (Acts ii. 38-9). The Church made its entry into history in
the newborn conviction that by what Christ had done and
suffered the sin that had brought Him down was, so to
speak, neutralized, and its corruption sterilized, by the love
and power of God. In some such way we might briefly
summarize the story. It is at least sufficient to show that our
author, while using the language of pre-Christian religious
observance, is not deserting his canon of historical actuality
(what we heard, what we saw with our eyes, what we witnessed
and touched with our own hands) when he says that in
Christ the love of God provided an expiation for sin. For it is
true that the historical episode in question, while it displays
in a marked degree the corruption of our nature by sin, issues
in a signal exhibition of divine forgiveness, determined entirely
by what Christ was, did and suffered.
Our generation, confronted with the 'mystery of iniquity'
upon so vast a scale, is perhaps more ready than our immediate
predecessors to receive with some understanding the doctrine
of Christ's expiation. Wicked things have been done, and are
being done, which shame us all and defile our common hu-
manity. We grope about for means of redress; but we know
that whatever we may do or resolve, the shame and defilement
remain, and no one of our generation can ever be clear in his
own conscience. The Gospel 'speaks to our condition' when it
28
I JOHN, CHAPTER II, VERSES 1-6
assures us, not only that God loves the world and is ready to
forgive our sin, but that His love has been expressed concretely
and objectively in history to provide a means of sterilizing
human wickedness and effecting a forgiveness which is not
merely an amnesty or indulgence, but a radical removal of the
taint. We may not be able to give a fully reasoned theology of
the matter, but we are entitled to believe, in face of the
degradation of our common humanity, that God has done in
Christ all that needs to be done to cleanse us, and done it with
the complete adequacy possible only to infinite power and
love.
We now pass on to another point in which the author con-
ceives the teaching of the heretics to misrepresent the authen-
tic Christian Gospel namely, their claim to 'knowledge* of
God. We are here in touch with the central idea of that
movement which is often called 'Gnosticism 1 because of its
emphasis upon gnosis, knowledge. It goes back, on the one
hand, to the intellectualism of the Greeks. In the classical
period an almost unbounded confidence in the human reason
led thinkers to believe that accurate knowledge of reality was
attainable, and that in such knowledge lay the ideal for
human life. Plato insisted that knowledge in the true sense, as
opposed to mere 'opinion/ must be knowledge of the eternal
and unchangeable essence of things, and not of variable
phenomena. In his doctrine of eternal 'forms' or 'ideas/
resident in heaven and contemplated by pure reason, there is
already an element which may fairly be called mystical,
especially when the knowledge of the ideas is represented as
the soul's 'recollection' of what it had known in a higher exist-
ence. In the Hellenistic period the self-confidence of the
Greek spirit faltered. Doubtful of the competence of the un-
aided intellect to attain the highest knowledge, philosophers
turned to religion, which in the 'mysteries' offered a revelation
or vision of God. Spiritualizing this conception (for the
mysteries before they were reinterpreted by philosophers were
crude enough), they arrived at a conception of a 'knowledge*
of God not attained by rational thought, but given in an
29
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
ineffable experience. One writer says, 'Not yet are we able to
open the eyes of the mind and to behold the beauty, the
imperishable, inconceivable beauty, of the Good. For you will
see it when you cannot say anything about it. For the know-
ledge of it is divine silence and annihilation of all senses. . . .
Irradiating the whole mind, it shines upon the soul and draws
it up from the body, and changes it all into divine essence'
(Corp. Herrn., X. 5-6). The attainment of such knowledge
became the ideal of the religious life. This alone is salvation
for a manknowledge of God' (*'&., 15). He who in this sense
knows God is a 'perfect man'; he is immortal like the gods;
indeed, he has himself become a god. Such ideas were widely
diffused in the Hellenistic world.
In the Hebrew Scriptures also 'knowledge of God' is the
goal of human aspiration. 'Let him that glorieth/ says
Jeremiah, 'glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth
Me, that I am the Lord' (Jer, ix. 24). The same prophet foretells
a day when 'they shall all know Me, from the least of them to
the greatest of them, saith the Lord' (xxxi. 34). For the Hebrew,
however, to know God is neither (primarily) an intellectual
exercise nor an ineffable mystical experience. It means rather
to acknowledge God in His ways with man, to recognize His
claims upon man, to understand His Law with the intention of
obeying it. Nevertheless, when the Old Testament was trans-
lated into Greek, the expression 'to know God' inevitably sug-
gested to a new circle of readers the idea of a mystical appre-
hension of pure reality with which they were familiar. Philo,
with a foot in each camp, often uses language which is similar
to that of his Greek contemporaries. The supreme end/ he
says, is 'knowledge of Him who truly is, who is the first and
most perfect Good, from whom as from a fountain all partial
goods are poured upon the world and those in it' (De Decal,, 81).
The Fourth Evangelist boldly adopts such language: This
is eternal life to know Thee, the only real God' (John xvii. 3).
There was sanction for it in the saying attributed to Jesus in
the tradition lying behind the First and Third Gospels (Matt.
xi. 27, Luke x. 22), in which, claiming a Son's knowledge
of the Father, He offers to reveal Him to men. The meaning
30
I JOHN, CHAPTER II, VERSES 1-6
is here closer to the biblical tradition than to Hellenistic
ideas. In the Fourth Gospel itself it is made perfectly plain
that to know God is to experience His love in Christ, and to
return that love in obedience (see John xiv. 15-24, etc.). Some,
however, who claimed the Christian name went right over to
extreme forms of 'Gnosticism/ The Gospel/ said the Gnostic
Basilides, 'is knowledge of the supra-mundane.' He and other
heretical teachers of the second century dissolved Christian
belief into various theosophical systems which, though they
sometimes command admiration for the subtlety of their
speculative thought, have little obvious connection with
ethical religion.
The teachers whom our author has in view would appear, as
we have seen, to have been precursors of the second-century
Gnostics, They claimed to be enlightened, but they did not
take seriously the ethical demands which true religion makes
upon men. 'I know Him,' they said. Whether the word 'Him'
here refers to God or to Christ is uncertain, as elsewhere in the
Epistle. In the Fourth Gospel God is known in and through
Christ, and the present writer hardly distinguishes. If we have
in mind i. 8, we should naturally take 'I know Him' as a
statement parallel to 'We have fellowship with Him/ and the
reference would be to God. If we look to the immediate con-
text, we should take it to refer to Christ. It makes little differ-
ence. In any case, it is the familiar idea of 'knowledge of God'
that is in view. It is easy to say, *I know Him,' but how can we 4"
be sure that we know Him? The answer is, by obeying His
commands. In such obedience love to God is expressed, and it 50
is only in such ethical love that God is 'known' in any sense
that matters for religion.
It is clear that the highly elliptical statement we have here
presupposes the fuller exposition of the theme in the Fourth
Gospel presupposes it, probably, as an authority acknow-
ledged both by the writer and by his opponents. They, like
him, believe, on the authority of the Fourth Gospel, that
eternal life lies in the knowledge of God, but they overlook
the explicit teaching of that Gospel about the true nature of
such knowledge.
3*
THE JOHANN1NE EPISTLES
8 e~ There is another way of formulating the relation of man to
God which constitutes eternal life: it may be spoken of as
'knowing' God, or it may be spoken of as 'remaining in' God.
The latter formula is characteristic of the Fourth Gospel It is
not found (verbally) in the sources which are our authorities
for Hellenistic mysticism, but analogous expressions are found,
and the general idea, which is that of 'mystical union/ is wide-
5* spread. Again our author asks, how can we be sure we are in
6 Him? In this case the word 'Him' must stand for Christ; for
the answer is, He who says he 'remains in Him* ought to live as
He lived. The test for the reality of the experience of union with
God in Christ is the imitation of Christ. We must take it that
the heretics are not talking idly when they say, 'I know Him;
I remain in Him/ They are affirming their own 'religious
experience.' Only, the absence of ethical seriousness in their
lives throws doubt upon the validity of the experience.
In this passage our author is not only rebutting dangerous
tendencies in the Church of his time, but discussing a problem
of perennial importance, that of the validity of religious experi-
ence. We may have the feeling of awareness of God, of union
with Him, but how shall we know that such experience corres-
ponds to reality? It is clear that no amount of clearness or
strength in the experience itself can guarantee its validity, any
more than the extreme vividness of a dream leads us to suppose
that it is anything but a dream. If, however, we accept the
revelation of God in Christ, then we must believe that any
experience of God which is valid has an ethical quality defined
by what we know of Christ. It will carry with it a renewed
fidelity to His teaching and example. The writer does not mean
that only those who perfectly obey Christ and follow His
example can be said to have experience of God. That would
be to affirm the sinlessness of Christians in a sense which he
has repudiated. But unless the experience includes a setting of
the affections and will in the direction of the moral principles
of the Gospel, it is no true experience of God, in any Christian
sense. That is, of course, not all that is to be said. There
will be more to be said in the Epistle itself; but so far as
32
I JOHN, CHAPTER II, VERSES 7-11
it goes, this criterion of the validity of religious experience
holds good.
Here ends the first section, dealing with questionable claims
to exalted 'religious experience/ and with the tests by which
their validity must be judged. It moves largely in the sphere
of anti-Gnostic polemic, and, as we have seen, it has many
allusions to 'Gnostic' ideas and forms of speech. Embedded in
it, however, is a passage (i. 8 - ii. 2) which recalls the funda-
mental teaching of the Gospel about sin and forgiveness, and
does so in the native speech of primitive Christianity, formed
out of its Jewish heritage, without any 'Gnostic* colouring.
This is significant.
2. THE NEW DISPENSATION (ii. 7-17)
This section falls into three well-marked divisions: (a) In
7-11 the difference between the world of light* and the world
of 'darkness' is correlated with the passage from the old
order to the new, which, according to the apostolic Preaching,
took place with the coming of Christ; and the new order is
shown to be characterized by Christ's 'new commandment' of
love, or charity.
(b) Then, in an almost lyrical strain, the writer celebrates the
blessings of the new dispensation forgiveness, knowledge of
God, and victory over evil powers (ii. 12-14).
(c) Finally, he emphasizes the irreconcilable opposition
between the Christian, who belongs to the new dispensation,
and the pagan world, which belongs to the old order, doomed
to destruction (ii. 15-17).
What is particularly noteworthy here is the power with
which the primitive Gospel of 'realized eschatology' reasserts
itself in a Hellenistic environment, finding new forms of
expression, but conserving the authentic note of the apostolic
Preaching.
(a) THE NEW COMMANDMENT (ii. 7~Il)
Beloved, I am not writing you any new command, but an old 7
command which you have had from the very beginning:
the old command is the word you have heard. And yet it is 8
33
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
a new command that I am writing to you realized in Him
and also in yourselves, because the darkness is passing away
9 and the true light is already shining. He who says he is 'in
10 the light* and hates his brother, is in darkness still. He who
loves his brother remains in the light and in the light
11 there is no pitfall; but he who hates his brother is in dark-
ness, he walks in darkness and does not know where he is
going, for the darkness has blinded his eyes.
The writer has spoken of the divine commands, or word, in
obeying which love to God is complete. He is now to make
explicit what the command of Christ is. He has in mind that
passage of the Fourth Gospel, where Christ says, I give you a
new command, to love one another as I have loved you, you
are to love one another (John xiii. 34). That this 'command* is
intimately related to the union with God which is eternal life
is made clear in another passage; If you keep my commands,
you will remain within my love, just as I have kept my Father's
commands, and remain within His love. . . . This is my
command: you are to love one another as I have loved you
(John xv. 10-12).
7 This well-known precept of Christ is not, he says, a new
command, in the sense that it is something added to the
original Gospel. It is an old command which you have had from
the very beginning; it is the word you have heard, that is to
8 say, a part of the Gospel itself. In what sense then is it called
in the Fourth Gospel a new command? In the sense in which
c all things are made new' in Christianity. For to be a Christian
is to be living in a new creation, as Paul had said (2 Cor. v. 17).
The writer is echoing a thought which runs all through the
New Testament when he says, The darkness is passing away and
the true light is already shining. It is the universal assumption
of all New Testament writers that with the coming of Christ
a new age has dawned: night is yielding to day, darkness to
light; Christians are sons of the Light and sons of the day
(i Thess. v. 4-8; cf. Eph. v. 8-14), Originally this idea was set
within the time-scheme of Jewish eschatology, with its
doctrine of the two ages, 'this age' and 'the age to come/ It
34
I JOHN, CHAPTER II, VERSES 7-11
was translated, partially in Paul, more thoroughly in the
Epistle to the Hebrews and the Fourth Gospel, into terms of the
two orders or planes of reality recognized by contemporary
philosophical thought (chiefly Platonic) the eternal order and
the temporal or phenomenal order. The frequent use of light
(from Plato onwards) as a symbol for the eternal order helped
the transition. To say, then, that Christians are in the light
carries with it, for those who are aware of the primary purport
of the Gospel, the idea that through the work of Christ they
have passed into a new order of life, as He died to this world
and rose again. Provided that one did not lose sight of the
whole rich content of this idea in its evangelical setting, the
language and categories of a philosophical mysticism could be
safely and profitably used to interpret it to the wider world.
But it was easy for converts from the higher paganism to miss
the distinctively evangelical note, and this, our author believes
is what the heretics have done. For them, to be in the light, 9
means no more than to be 'enlightened/ or to be initiated into
'knowledge of the supra-mundane. 1 They must be reminded
that to be in the light, as Christians understand it, is to be
within that 'newness of life' which Christ has brought to the
world; and an aspect of that 'newness* is the new command
of love or charity. It is an aspect realized in Him, because He 8
lived in the love of the Father and laid down His life in love
for men (cf. John x. 14-18, xv. 12-13); an< i realized also in
yourselves, because you are within the new order in which
the darkness is passing away and the true light is already
shining or are you within it? He who says he is 'in the light 1 9
and hates his brother, is in darkness still, while he who loves his 10
brother remains in the light. So there is a clear criterion. To
obey the command of Christ, to follow His example, and in
particular to obey and follow Him in the way of love, this is to
be sure we know Him, to be sure we are in Him, and to be in
the light.
As for the heretics, they have missed the way, for all their n
claims to superior 'religious experience. 1 Why have they done
so? In the opinion of the writer it is not a simple case of intel-
lectual error; it is a fundamentally false attitude to life, shown
35
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
in their lack of charity. The implication is that their conten-
tiousness, their arrogance and contempt for the 'unenlightened/
on the one hand, and on the other their neglect of the practical
obligations of Christian fellowship (see iii. 17), amount to a
flat denial of the principle of charity. Anyone who denies
that principle, who hates instead of loving his 'brothers/ is so
alienated from the true life of man that he cannot think
straight: he walks in darkness and does not know where he is
going (cf. John xi. 9-10, xii. 35).
(b) BLESSINGS OF THE NEW DISPENSATION (ii. 12-14)
12 Dear children, I am writing to you,
because your sins are forgiven for His sake :
13 fathers, I am writing to you,
because you know Him who is from the very beginning:
young men, I am writing to you,
because you have conquered the evil One.
Children, I have written to you,
because you know the Father:
14 fathers, I have written to you,
because you know Him who is from the very beginning:
young men, I have written to you,
because you are strong, and the word of God remains
within you, and you have conquered the evil One.
The writer now turns from the argument by which he has
been confuting false interpretations of the Christian religion,
to a direct pastoral appeal to his readers. In a series of
aphorisms he reminds them of what it means to live in an age
when the darkness is passing away and the true light is already
shining. What are the characteristic notes of the new age as
affirmed by prophecy and by the Gospel? They are, above all
else, forgiveness of sins, knowledge of God, and victory over
the powers of evil. Thus Isaiah (xi. 1-9) forecasts the reign of
a Messiah, upon whom rests the spirit of knowledge and of the
fear of the Lord, and who will be victorious over 'the wicked/
Under His reign, 'the earth shall be full of the knowledge of
the Lord, as the waters cover the sea/ Similarly, the Second
36
I JOHN, CHAPTER II, VERSES 12-14
Isaiah (Hi. 3-6) proclaims the redemption of the people of God
from the worldly powers which oppress them, and continues,
Therefore My people shall know My name: therefore they
shall know in that day that I am He that doth speak: behold,
it is I/ Jeremiah (xxxi. 31-4) sums up the terms of the 'new
covenant' in the words, They shall all know Me, from the
least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I
will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no
more.' This passage is echoed in various places in the New
Testament, and is quoted at length in Heb. viii. 8-12 as, so
to speak, the programme of the Christian dispensation. Already
in the primitive apostolic Preaching as represented in Act ii.
the proclamation that Christ is 'at the right hand of God/ and
this His enemies are under His feet (i.e. that He is victor over
the powers of evil), leads up to the offer of forgiveness of sins
in His name. In Rorn. viii. 31-9 Paul plays eloquently upon
the same association of ideas. We are justified through Christ,
who is 'at the right hand of God' and therefore we are 'more
than conquerors/ Again, in the closely argued passage i Cor.
i. 18 - ii. 16, Christ is to us both wisdom and power. In Him
the Church has been chosen to overcome 'the strong things' of
the world, and in Him we have both justification and know-
ledge of 'the things of God/ Above all, in the Fourth Gospel
(which for our author is the most authoritative exposition of
Christianity), Christ both 'takes away the sin of the world/
and reveals the knowledge of God, and by His death 'the
prince of this world' is 'cast out' (John i. 29, xii. 31).
Our author therefore is echoing the central tradition of the
Gospel when he addresses his readers as members of the people
of the new covenant, whose sins are forgiven, who know the
Eternal, and who have overcome the world.
His appeal is couched in a rhetorical, almost poetical, form,
consisting of two sequences of three aphorisms, with a strongly
marked rhythm and parallelism (not, however, the distinc-
tively Hebraic kind of parallelism familiar to us from the Old
Testament). The three aphorisms in each sequence are
addressed respectively to children, fathers, and young men.
(The word for 'children' in verse 12 is teknia, in verse 13,
37
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
paidta; but at this stage of the language there was little differ-
ence in meaning.) The question is whether or not the author
designs each statement specifically for one of three 'age-
groups' in the Church. It is not impossible to recognize a
certain appropriateness to a particular age-group in some of the
privileges mentioned. Thus it is natural enough that young
men should be congratulated because they are strong. It is not
unnatural to congratulate men of the elder generation^ because
they know Him who is from the very beginning the 'Ancient
of Days.' To say of children that they know their Father has
at least a certain sentimental aptness, and perhaps more,
since there is a saying of Jesus in which the revelation of the
Father is reserved for 'babes' (Matt. xi. 25; Luke x. 21)
On the other hand, there is in fact no difference between the
assurance to children that they know the Father, and the assur-
ance to fathers that they know Him who is from the very
beginning. And surely it is not only to young men that the
Gospel assures victory over evil, or to children, the forgiveness
of sins. Moreover, the fact that elsewhere in the Epistle the
author frequently addresses his readers in general as 'children'
(teknia, ii. I, 28, iii. 18, iv. 4, v. 21; paidia, ii. 18; and one or
the other, iii. 7, the MSS. differing), makes it difficult to sup-
pose that in this passage alone he seriously intends to confine
the term to one class among them. The threefold arrangement
is probably not much more than a rhetorical figure. All the
privileges mentioned belong to all Christians, but emphasis
and variety of expression are secured by distributing them into
groups. Christians have the innocence of childhood not a
natural innocence, but that conferred by the forgiveness of
sins as it is written, 'Of such is the Kingdom of God/ They
know God as a child knows his father, in accordance with the
word of Christ. They have the strength of youth again not
merely natural strength, but the power of Christ's victory over
evil, which makes us 'more than conquerors through Him that
loved us.' They have that serene sense of the abiding and
eternal which is naturally the fruit of age and experience, but
is given to Christians, young or old, by their faith. That is to
say, all Christians are (by grace, not nature) children in inno-
38
I JOHN. CHAPTER II, VERSES 12-17
cence and dependence on the heavenly Father, young men in
strength, and fathers in experience. It is perhaps worth
observing that in non-Christian religious writers of the period
we meet with the thought that the true mystic, who has risen
above the limitations of time and space into communion with
the eternal, has experience of all grades and stages of existence
at once. To be everywhere at once in earth, in sea, in
heaven; to be unborn, in the womb, young, old, dead, after
death 1 this is to be fit for the knowledge of God (Corpus
Hermeticum, XL 20; somewhat similarly, ib. t XIII. n). In
view of our author's manifest sympathy with some aspects of
'Hellenistic mysticism/ it is in character that he should think
of the Christian life as combining the characteristic experi-
ences of childhood, youth and age,
(c) THE CHRISTIAN AND THE OLD WORLD
Love not the world, nor yet what is in the world; if anyone loves 15
the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is 16
in the world, the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes
and the proud glory of life, belongs not to the Father but to
the world; and the world is passing away with its desire, 17
while he who does the will of God remains for ever.
From assurance the writer passes to exhortation. The con-
nection of thought is clear when we bear in mind that the
forgiveness, knowledge and victory of which he has spoken are
the notes of the new order of life inaugurated by Christ. The
old order is here called the world, the term being used not for
the created universe, nor for the human race as such (for in
this sense, as we have seen, Christ is the Saviour of the world,
iv. 14, and His death is an expiation for the sins of the whole
world, ii. 2), but for the life of human society as organized
under the power of evil, as it is described in v. 19: the whole
world lies in the power of the evil One.
It was a part of the eschatological belief which Christianity
inherited from Judaism that while God is the creator and ruler
of all mankind, He has for reasons best known to Himself
permitted to the powers of evil a limited and temporary rule
39
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
over His world. This rule will be brought to an end when 'His
Kingdom will appear throughout all His creation' ( Assumption
of Moses, x. i). This view, which is first clearly and explicitly
enunciated in post-exilic apocalypse, may perhaps have been
influenced by the dualism of much religious thought in the
pagan world, especially of the ethically elevated faith of
Zoroaster, with which the Jews were brought into con-
tact from the days when they formed part of the Persian
Empire. According to this faith, the world is the scene of
perpetual conflict between the power of light, Ahura-Mazda,
and the power of darkness, Angro-Mainyu. Its message to the
world was a bracing call to stand on the side of Ahura-Mazda.
Zoroastrianism exercised a far-reaching influence upon the
religious thought of the Hellenistic world, strengthening
tendencies to dualism already present from other sources.
Much of this thought has an ascetic bias against the world of
matter and sense. That apocalyptic Judaism was wholly un-
affected by this tendency cannot be affirmed, and Christian
thought was always in danger of falling under it. But Judaism
never really succumbed to dualism. It was not for nothing that
at the beginning of the Persian period the Second Isaiah had
formulated Jewish monotheism in absolute terms over against
the dualism of Persia (see Isa. xlv. 5-7). The Jews never doubted
that 'the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men' (Dan. iv.
32). Even the temporary sway of the powers of evil falls some-
how within the purpose of God, and the whole meaning of
that purpose will be revealed and fulfilled when His Kingdom
shall appear. In the 'present age' the sovereignty of God is
real but veiled; in the 'age to come* it will be manifest. Nor &
the created world of matter irredeemably evil, though it was,
according to an interpretation of Gen. iii. 17, 'cursed' for
Adam's sake; for in the 'age to come 1 the whole creation will
be transfigured (cf. Rom. viii. 21).
The Christian Gospel, first formulated in terms of escha-
tology, affirmed that with the coming of Christ the Kingdom
of God was revealed, and the Age to Come inaugurated. But
this did not bring with it (according to eschatological expecta-
tion) the end of history. While Christ had undoubtedly over-
40
/ JOHN, CHAPTER II, VERSES 15-17
come the 'rulers of this age' (i Cor. ii. 6), or the 'prince of this
world' (John xii. 31), the full effect of His victory was to be
observed only within the new Israel created by His redemptive
work that is, in the experience of the Church. Outside this
sphere the old order appeared to survive intact. This presented
a problem with which Christian thought is wrestling all through
the New Testament. Our present author is not concerned with
the theological or philosophical aspects of the problem. He
takes a realistic view of the actual situation. Within the
Church, the experience of forgiveness, victory and knowledge
of God establishes the reality and finality of Christ's redemp-
tion. That this redemption is designed for the whole world is a
matter of faith. But the author observes in the pagan world in
which he lives the marks of that domination of evil powers
which Christ lived and died to destroy. Thus he sees the
Christian life as one which demands a clear choice between
God and the 'world ; that is, in practical terms, the Christian
must not compromise with the principles and ways of pagan
society.
The world then, for this writer, is no merely theoretical con-
ception, but simply the pagan society in which he and his
readers* necessarily moved, and which in various ways exer-
cised pressure upon them. It would appear that in his time,
and in his neighbourhood, this pressure was not exerted by
persecution. Christianity was indeed unpopular (iii. 13); but of
actual persecution we hear nothing in these epistles. (Contrast
the position revealed in the Revelation of John). But when
persecution was relaxed, the temptation was all the greater to
conform as far as possible to the practices and customs of
pagan neighbours. It is against this conformity that the writer
is concerned to warn his readers. In a few telling phrases he 16
characterizes what seem to him the essential marks of the
pagan way of life. There is the desire of the flesh that is to
say, the sensuality which, not on Christian testimony alone,
was deeply rooted and widespread in Graeco-Roman society.
There is the desire of the eyes, by which we may understand
the tendency to be captivated by the outward show of things,
without enquiring into their real values. There is the proud
4*
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
glory of life. The word translated proud glory is one used by
Greek moralists from Aristotle onwards alazoneia. The alagdn
is a conceited, pretentious humbug. He is thus described in the
Characters of Theophrastus:
'The Ala^on is the kind of person who will stand on the
mole and tell perfect strangers what a lot of money he has
at sea, and discourse of his investments, how large they
are, and what gains and losses he has made, and as he spins
his yams he will send his boy to the bank his balance
being a shilling. If he enjoys company on the road, he is
apt to tell how he served with Alexander the Great, how
he got on with him, and how many jewelled cups he brought
home; and to discuss the Asiatic craftsmen, how much
better they are than any in Europe never having been
away from Athens. He will say that he was granted a
free permit for the export of timber, but took no ad-
vantage of it, to avoid ill-natured gossip; and that during
the corn-shortage he spent more than fifteen hundred
pounds in gifts to needy citizens. He will be living in
a rented house, and will tell anyone who does not know
the facts that this is the family residence, but he is going to
sell it because it is too small for his entertainments*
(Characters, No. 23: my translation, abridged).
The vulgar 'climber' of this light-hearted but pungent carica-
ture came to the front in the irresponsible, acquisitive, indi-
vidualistic society of the Hellenistic world. Our author, looking
upon contemporary society from a Christian standpoint, and
judging it with a deeper seriousness, sees it as the very incarna-
tion of this pretentious, self-glorifying spirit.
By the world, then, we are to understand pagan society, with
its sensuality, superficiality and pretentiousness, its materi-
alism and its egoism. These are the marks, our author means,
of that old, bad order out of which the Christian has been
15 brought into the new order inaugurated by Christ. The two
orders are mutually exclusive. If a man hankers after what
the world can offer, love for the Father is not in him. There must
42
I JOHN, CHAPTER II, VERSES 15-17
be no compromise with the false standards of paganism. It was
necessary to say this because, clearly, the kind of teaching he
has in view made for compromise. It may be we do not know
that the teachers whom the author is attacking had no con-
scious intention of lowering the ethical standards of the
Church; but their willingness (as he sees it) to accommodate
Christian doctrine to current ideas went with a general desire to
minimize the difference between Christianity and the ordinary
life and thought of the time. And that difference is for him
real, substantial and irreconcilable.
For (and here he returns to the eschatological presupposi- 17
tions of early Christian thought) the world (pagan society) is
an order not only temporal and transient in its character, but
actually passing away before one's eyes; the darkness is passing
away and the true light is already shining. The new age has
dawned, and with its coming the power and reality of the old
order are broken. To belong to the new order is to have
eternal life, which endures when the old order passes away.
But to belong to the new order is not to lay claim to mystical
experience to say 'we know God/ or 'we are in the light, 1 or
'we have no sin/ It is to do the will of God, and this, as we have
already learned, is to live by the principle of love, or charity,
over against the sensuality, materialism, and self-glorification
which are the marks of the old order. He who does the
will of God remains for ever, for he belongs to the order of
immortality.
This rigid separation of the Church and the world looks
rather like the ascetic dualism which was common enough in
the religious thought of the time. The distinction between the
eternal and the temporal orders of being, the spiritual world
and the world of the senses, was familiar. It was held that in
order to attain to immortality it was necessary to turn away
from the world of the senses and to have communion with the
eternal. Many taught that for such communion it was necessary
to repress bodily desires, since they are concerned with the
things of sense. Such teachers would have felt themselves at
one with our author in his emphatic antithesis of God and the
43
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
world. 'I thank God/ writes one of them, 'who has put it into
my mind, as touching knowledge of the Good, that it is impos-
sible for it to exist in the world. For the world is the totality of
evil, and God, the totality of good 1 (Corp. Herm. t VI. 4). The
similarity, however, is not so close as it seems. By 'the world 1
such writers mean the material world as such. The body is
evil because it is material, its desires evil because they axe
desires for material things. Our author means human society
in so far as it is organized on wrong principles, and charac-
terized by base desires, false values, egoism. The material
world as such is God's creation. We have no reason to doubt
that he would have agreed with Paul that in the material order
nothing is in itself unclean (Rom. xiv. 14), since 'the earth is
the Lord's and the fulness thereof (i Cor. x. 26). But an order
of society based upon the primacy of material values is con-
trary to God's purpose for humanity. Again, the main object
of these teachers of the higher paganism was the release of the
individual soul from the bonds of matter, and its 'deification*
through knowledge of the eternal. In their writings any allusion
to social obligations is extremely rare, The Christian writer on
the other hand opposes to love of 'the world' a love of God
which is also love for other men, and to 'the world' as a godless
and egoistic society he opposes the 'fellowship' of a community
based upon mutual love. Moreover, while 'the world/ that is,
godless society, lies in the power of the evil One, Christ is
nevertheless the Saviour of all mankind; His sacrifice is avail-
able for the sins of the whole world. The dualism of God and the
world is thus ultimately overcome through God's love for the
world. It is true that the writer has not clearly drawn the
logical conclusions from his premises. He speaks in the main
as though mankind were rigorously, and permanently, divided
into two classes, represented by the Church and 'the world/
This is partly because he is not here interested in anything but
the practical needs of an immediate situation. Empirically, the
the Church stood as a community based upon high ethical
standards over against pagan society with its degraded moral
standards. Compromise was easy; it must be resisted at all
costs. Any kind of teaching which suggested that the differ-
44
I JOHN, CHAPTER I/, VERSES 15-17
ence between Christianity and paganism was (shall we say?)
one of degree rather than of kind, was a denial of the very
raison d'etre of the Church, God's new creation.
If, therefore, the teaching of this passage is not strictly dual-
istic or ascetic, it does inculcate a certain detachment of Chris-
tians from the secular order. We may ask how far this is really
dependent upon the writer's particular eschatological beliefs,
and consequently no longer applicable to Christians of our
own time.
The world, which seemed to him to be trembling on the
verge of dissolution, has had a reprieve of eighteen centuries
and is still running. Apart from some eccentric sects, most
Christians do not now suppose that there is any urgent prospect
of the 'end of the world/ Then are we to say that our author's
argument falls to the ground because its premise has proved
false? Since this world, though no doubt transitory, is still
fairly durable, is there any reason why we should not make the
best of both worlds, or why the Church should not come to
favourable terms with its social environment? A more ready
answer to such questions might have been given in the optim-
istic days before 1914, than we are now prepared to give. In
those days civilization seemed at last to have arrived at
security and permanence, and most of us confidently expected
that progress would continue indefinitely, to the 'great, far-
off, divine event/ To this state of mind there was little real
meaning in such a proposition as 'the world is passing away with
its desire/ To-day, however, insecurity and impermanence are
the outstanding features of the world as we see it. We may not
expect the world to come to an end to-morrow, but the
essential transience of the whole order of civilization is no
longer a theory to be complacently entertained, but a fact to
be welcomed or resented, but in any case reckoned with, It is
not a matter of faith either that our civilization should persist,
or that it should perish: it is a matter, not only of faith, but of
observation, that it has no inherent permanence. Not only so,
but if 'the world' be defined in terms of the desire of the flesh,
and the desire of the eyes, and the proud glory of life in other
words, if, and in so far as, civilized society has the marks of
45
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
sensuality, materialism and self-glorification, then it is self-
destructive. 1 It is this, and not the merely natural transience of
the material universe as such, that sets the world over against
the will of God. Nor is the object of our faith the eternal as
such, by virtue of its permanence over against a transient
world, but God Himself as holy will, active for the salvation of
men. To live in willing obedience to that wiE, while we move
in the temporal sphere, is to dwell in the eternal world, to possess
eternal life: he who does the will of God remains for ever.
How far the Church should in practice hold itself aloof from
its social environment, and how far enter into alliance with the
secular order to reform it, is largely a question of expediency
dependent on changing conditions. Under the conditions of the
first century, the Church had no choice. It could bear its
witness only by separation from pagan society. We need not
look far for indications that similar conditions might recur.
Such separation, indeed, can never be complete. In the realm
of thought, even the author of this epistle was substantially,
though perhaps unconsciously, indebted to the higher
paganism, and those early thinkers who naturalized within
Christian theology the best thought of the Hellenistic world
did good service to the faith. A certain spiritual tact led them
to draw the line beyond which a sympathetic appreciation and
co-operation would lead to harmful compromise. In other
periods the Church can best serve the will of God for the
salvation of men by close co-operation with the best elements
in secular civilization. But it can never do so without preserv-
ing an inner detachment from everything that bears the marks
of 'the world' in the Johannine sense (which does not mean an
ascetic rejection of the material world). 'Love not the world,
nor yet what is in the world' is in this sense a precept always
binding on the conscience of its members, and the more reason-
ably binding because we know that everything that belongs
not to the Father but to the world is under sentence of dissolu-
tion. Only the will of God, and the life that is lived under that
will, abides.
1 Since the above was written, events have emphasized ominously
the inherent self-destructiveness of our present civilization.
I JOHN, CHAPTER II, VERSES 18-28
THE TRUTH AND THE LIE (ii. 1 8-28)
Children, it is the last hour. You have learned that 'Antichrist 18
is coming/ Well, but many antichrists have appeared
which makes us sure it is the last hour. They withdrew 19
from us, but they did not belong to us; had they belonged to
us, they would have remained with us, but they withdrew
to make it plain that they are none of us. Now, you have 20
been anointed by the holy One, and you possess all know-
ledge. 1 am not writing to you because you do not know 21
the truth, but because you do know it, and know that no
lie belongs to the truth.
Who is the real liar? 22
who but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?
This is 'antichrist/
he who disowns the Father and the Son.
No one who disowns the Son can possess the Father: 23
he who confesses the Son possesses the Father as well.
Let that remain in you which you learned from the very 24
beginning; if what you learned from the very beginning
remains with you, then you will remain in the Son and in
the Father.
Now this is what he has promised you,* eternal life. I am H
writing to you in this way about those who would deceive
you, but the unction you received from Him remains 27
within you, and you really need no teaching from anyone;
simply remain in Him, for His unction teaches you
about everything and is true and is no lie remain in Him,
as it has taught you to do. Remain within Him now, my 28
dear children, so that when He appears we may have
confidence, instead of shrinking from Him in shame at
His arrival.
The writer now proceeds to a direct attack upon the false
teachers whom he has had in mind in the discussion of religious
experience in i. 5 - ii. 6. These teachers denied the real incarna-
tion of the Son of God (as we learn from iv. 3). For our author
* Reading fyuV instead of
47
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
this is the last apostasy, signified by the mystery of 'Aiiti-
christ.' To meet their claims to superior enlightment, he recalls
his readers to the sufficient revelation which every Christian
has received in his initiation into the truth of the Gospel.
18 The connection of thought with the preceding section is by
way of the eschatological ideas to which the writer has given
expression. Christians, he has said, live within the new order
revealed in Christ. The old order is passing away: the end of the
world approaches; indeed, he now adds, it cannot longer be
delayed: it is the last hour. There is proof of this.
To understand his 'proof we must review certain elements
in the eschatology which Christianity carried over from
Judaism. Jewish apocalypse taught, as we have seen, that the
world was under the (limited and temporary) sway of evil
powers, and that in the end God would reveal His Kingdom
and make an end of the 'kingdom of the adversary/ But it was
a very ancient belief (going back perhaps to primitive
mythology) that before that glorious consummation evil would
make one last desperate stand. There would arise one supreme
adversary of the cause of God, either a man of diabolical power
and wickedness or a demonic being from the other world. This
adversary appears as a kind of diabolical parody of God's
Messiah. Hence he is called 'Antichrist/ (The term appears
here for the first time in extant literature, but the idea is
present long before.) In the eschatological discourse of Mark
xiii. (which is probably an early Christian apocalypse based
upon Jewish models, incorporating genuine sayings of Jesus),
Antichrist appears in the guise of the 'Abomination of Desola-
tion' (Mark xiii. 14, the appalling Horror, Moffatt), a term
originally applied in the Book of Daniel (xii. n, the appalling
abomination, Moffatt) to the idolatrous image set up in the
Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, but here clearly applied to
a person (see the Moffatt Commentary on Mark, I.e.). The
Abomination of Desolation is to defile the Temple ('standing
where he ought not'), and this will be the sign that the End is
near. Similarly in 2 Thess. ii. 3-4 Paul foretells the appear-
ance of the Lawless One. He too will profane the Temple by
I JOHN, CHAPTER II, VERSES 18-28
enthroning himself there and claiming divine honours. Until
he appears, the second advent of Christ is delayed. His coming
will be the immediate prelude to the End. In the Book of the
Revelation the myth of Antichrist is elaborated in profuse and
not altogether perspicuous imagery. The r61e of the great
adversary is played chiefly by the Beast, which is either
identified, or closely associated, with the Roman Empire,
especially in respect of the claim of the Emperor to divine
honours; and here too Antichrist is destroyed by Christ at His
second advent. The belief, then, was widespread in early
Christianity that before Christ's second advent Antichrist
would appear, and that his appearance would be the signal
for the End. When therefore Antichrist is recognized, men will
know that it is the last hour.
The author of the epistle believes that he has evidence that
Antichrist has already appeared, 'which (he adds) makes us 18
sure it is the last hour/ He has rationalized the myth. Anti-
christ is no monster from the abyss, no potentate wickedly
claiming divine honours. There is in fact no single Antichrist.
There are many antichrists. For wherever doctrines are taught
that subvert the essential truths of the Gospel, there is
Antichrist, and the false teachers are themselves in this sense
antichrists (see also iv. 3).
This might seem a somewhat far-fetched interpretation of
the myth. But the steps that lie behind this interpretation can
be recognized. In the Marcan apocalypse it is predicted that
false Christs and false prophets will arise and perform signs and
wonders to mislead the elect (Mark xiii. 22). They are not
indeed identified with the 'Abomination of Desolation/ but
they play a similar role as antecedents of the End. Similarly, in
Rev. xvi. 13, xix. 20, xx. 10 the Beast is accompanied by a false
prophet, who shares his fate at Christ's coining. One aspect,
therefore, or one concomitant, of the appearance of Antichrist is
false prophecy. Prophecy was regarded as the result of in-
spiration: true prophecy was dictated by the Holy Spirit; false
prophecy no less by a lying spirit' (cf. I Kings xxii. 15-23).
If the emergence of prophecy in the Church was evidence of the
presence of the Spirit of God (cf. i Cor. xii. 8-10; Acts ii.
49
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
16-17), then if false prophecy emerged, was it not evidence that
a diabolical spirit was at work (iv. 3; cf. I Cor. xu. 3)? And
might not this be the revelation of Antichrist, as the Holy
Spirit was a revelation of Christ's own presence with His
Church (cf. 2 Cor. iii. 17-18)?
This would appear to have been our author's line of argu-
ment. He had observed with horror persons who were, or had
been, members of the Church uttering 'prophecies' which con-
tradicted the fundamental truths of the faith. (What they
actually taught we shall see presently.) That they spoke under
'inspiration' he could not deny (cf. iv. I, 3), But so shocking
were their teachings that the inspiration could not be other
than diabolical. This must be Antichrist! The world is coming
to an end!
It is a curious argument. On the whole, the development of
early Christian thought left the Antichrist myth behind. Paul
has nothing further to say of it after 2 Thessalonians. It has
no place in the Epistle to the Hebrews, or (as such) in the
Fourth Gospel. The author of the epistle stands nearer to
popular beliefs. But he too has left behind the crude mythology
which bulks so largely in the Book of Revelation. The real
Antichrist is for him not a person, whether human or super-
natural It is an idea an idea no doubt embodied in persons
who promulgate it, but essentially an idea, with power to
poison the minds of men and pervert them from the truth.
The final adversary of the truth is the lie, whoever utters it.
The supreme enemy of Christ's redeeming work is radically
false belief. (The quaint old notion that 'it does not matter
what a man believes, so long as he leads a decent life' needs
no confutation in a world buzzing with 'ideologies.') The con-
flict between Christ and Antichrist is fought out upon the
field of the mind. 'We do not war/ says Paul, 'accord-
ing to the flesh. The weapons of our warfare are not fleshly,
but they are powerful with the power of God to demolish
strongholds. We demolish arguments, and every proud thing
that lifts itself up against the knowledge of God. We
take captive every thought into the obedience of Christ*
(2 Cor. x. 3-5).
50
I JOHN, CHAPTER II, VERSES 18-28
What are we to say of this doctrine that because Antichrist
has appeared, in the form of deadly heresy, it is the last hour?
Clearly enough, in any literal sense (and we have no reason to
suppose that the writer intended any but a literal sense), it
was not true. The last hour of the world did not strike, either
then, or for many centuries to follow. But let us consider what
Antichrist meant. The idea stood for a concentration of the
powers of evil to such a degree that man must stand
helpless before it, saved from despair only by the faith
that now at last, at the moment of utmost need, the Lord
would come. That is to say, to see Antichrist means to have
a vision, it may be momentary, of a power of evil in the
world (in ourselves) beyond all the resources of human
wisdom and virtue, and to be thrown back without reserve
upon God.
The supreme example of such a situation is the crucifixion
of Jesus Christ, which is, in the 'realized eschatology' of the
Gospels, the true last hour* of a doomed world. This is your
hour, and the power of darkness/ says Jesus in Luke (xxii.
53). But also, as the Fourth Gospel has it, 'Now is the judg-
ment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast
out' (John xii. 31). For the resurrection supervenes, and Jesus
is 'at the right hand of God/
This situation recurs in the experience of the Church, when,
confronted by the resurgence of deep-seated evil, it sees the
day lost, but for the certainty that Christ is at the right hand
of God, principalities and powers being subject to Him. If
the evil is disclosed within the Church itself, if its fellowship is
shaken by disloyalty to Christ (as the disciples forsook Him and
fled in the hour of darkness), then the case is indeed hopeless
but for God. That was how our author saw the situation. He
thought it meant, quite literally, that the world was coming
to an end. That was an illusion. But it was no illusion that the
Church was entering into the meaning of that last hour when
the cross and resurrection of Christ revealed both the 'mystery
of iniquity' (cf. 2 Thess. ii. 7), and the 'working of the strength
of His might which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him
from the dead* (Eph. i. 19).
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
19 The false teachers, we learn, had been members of the
Church, and had withdrawn from it. This very fact shows,
says the writer, that they never had really belonged to the
Church, although they were formally members of it. Had they
belonged to us, they would have remained with us. The words
which follow, but they withdrew to make it plain that they are
none of us, are a paraphrase of an expression in the Greek
which, after the author's manner, is elliptical or com-
pressed, and somewhat obscure. They might be understood to
convey the meaning that the heretics withdrew from the
Church as a formal demonstration of their fundamental di-
vergence from its principles. But this is probably not what the
writer meant. Literally, the words are to be translated, 'but in
order that they might be made manifest that not all are of us/
The concluding words, taken au pied de la lettre, would mean,
'not all men are genuine Christians/ which is a truism. But in
the context the word 'all' can readily be understood as meaning
f all members of the Church/ and the statement that not all
those who are in formal communion with the visible Church
belong in the true sense to the Church of Christ is an important
one (cf. Rom. ix. 6). To make this fact plain was the purpose
of their withdrawal. But whose purpose? Not necessarily the
conscious purpose of the scceders. Let us recall the expression,
frequent in the Fourth Gospel, as elsewhere in the New Testa-
ment, 'that the scripture might be fulfilled/ Where this or
similar expressions are used, the final conjunction may indi-
cate the purpose, not of the human agent, but of the over-
ruling divine Providence. (When, for example, Matthew says,
ii 15, that the flight into Egypt took place 'in order that the
word of the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, "Out
of Egypt have I called my Son," ' he does not mean that the
motive of Joseph in taking the Child and His mother into
safety was a desire to fulfil prophecy. He means that he was
led to do so in the providential designs of God.) So here, the
probable meaning of the writer is that in God's providential
care for His Church a situation was brought about in which
the heretics overtly declared their disloyalty to the truth of
the Gospel, instead of confusing the issue by retaining their
52
I JOHN, CHAPTER II, VERSES 18-28
position as prophets and teachers within the Church. They
thereby illustrated the truth that a man may be admitted to
Church membership, may receive the sacraments, and may
even exercise a ministry of the Word, and yet never really
belong to the Church, since he has never had the root of the
matter in him. In the light of long experience this lamentable
fact has become a commonplace. When this epistle was
written, we may suppose that an actual secession on doctrinal
grounds was still a new and unfamiliar phenomenon. It was a
shock to Christian feeling. But, the writer believes, it served
the divine purpose, in bringing home to the conscience of the
Church the solemn truth that formal membership is no guar-
antee that a man belongs to Christ and not to Antichrist.
He now turns to these who remain loyal. They have been 20
anointed by the holy One, and know the truth of the Gospel.
What is meant by this 'anointing' we shall enquire presently.
It stands in any case for something given by God, and it
brings with it a knowledge which is, by the same token, a gift
of God, and no human attainment. You possess all know-
ledge. So some MSS. read; but the older and better texts have
the reading, 'You all possess knowledge.' It is a safe assunjp-
tion that these early heretics, like their successors, the 'Gnos-
tics' of the second century, laid claim to a superior gno$i$, or
knowledge of divine things, of which they deemed the ordinary
Christian incapable. The writer denies this. Every Christian,
in virtue of what God has given him, has saving knowledge of
the truth. We may compare the similar emphasis in Col. L 28
(a letter in which Paul is also dealing with incipient 'Gnosti-
cism'): We train everyone and teach everyone the full scope of
this knowledge, in order to set everyone before God mature in
Christ. Indeed, the New Testament writers normally assume
that the ordinary lay Christians whom they address have an
effective grasp of the fundamentals of the Gospel, because they
are divinely enabled to apprehend them. Thus Paul writes to
the Thessalonians, You need no one to write to you upon
brotherly love, for you are yourselves taught by God to love one
another (i Thess. iv, 9); and to the Romans, You are filled with
knowledge of every kind, and you are well able to give advice
53
THE JOHANN1NE EPISTLES
to one another. Still, by way of refreshing your memory,
I have written you with a certain freedom (Rom. xv. 14-15).
a Similarly, our present author proceeds, I am not writing to
you because you do not know the truth, but because you do
know it There is a note of authority in his writing, but it is
not an authority which will override the judgment or con-
science of his readers. On the contrary he writes with authority
just because he is confident that he expresses the corporate
convictions of the Church, which will be recognized as such
by all humble and sincere believers.
There is light here upon the way in which the Christian
tradition was both conserved and developed. Paul said that
one purpose for which Christ gave a ministry to His Church
was that we should not be blown from our course and swayed
by every passing wind of doctrine (Eph. iv. 14). The ministry
bore this responsibility through the difficult period when
Christian thought was fluid, and all sorts of aberrations were
possible. What bold experimentation went on, we can judge
from the bewildering variety of 'heresies 1 described by
Irenaeus and Hippolytus. It was quite possible, humanly
speaking, that the main line of Christian thought should have
led through a Valentinus, or a Basilides, whose intricate systems
of theosophy had an attraction for many minds. If it had done
so, the distinctive character of Christianity would have been
largely, if not entirely, lost. The writer of this epistle is one of
those who guided the thought of the Church during the obscure
period of stress, admitting reinterpretations of the faith, but
keeping all such reinterpretations controlled by the central
convictions of the Gospel. It is to him and to others like him
that we owe it that the faith emerged from the stage of
fluidity with new forms of thought and expression adapted to
its wider environment, but with its Gospel intact. They suc-
ceeded in their task only because they could count upon a
solid body of lay Christian conviction, by no means obstinately
conservative, but intelligently and experimentally grounded in
the Gospel. They could count upon addressing people who,
when they met with some unfamiliar form of teaching, could
54
I JOHN, CHAPTER II, VERSES 18-28
say, from a certain spiritual instinct, That is not the Gospel
we received/ or, on the other hand, 'Yes: that is the Gospel
which we received and by which we were saved/
He assumes, then, that his readers know the truth, and, he ai&
adds, know that no lie belongs to the truth. That is to say, the
false and the true are genetically different: you cannot say that
a lie is an 'aspect* of the truth. To suppose that it is may be a
false kind of tolerance, or just muddled or lazy thinking. The
situation here in view is too serious for muddled or lazy think-
ing. As for tolerance, at least it is clear that no one has any
business to tolerate falsehood along with the truth in his own
mind.
We are now to learn what the lie is. It is the denial that Jesus 22
is the Christ. The form of expression might imply that the
false teachers refused to admit the Church's claim that Jesus
was the Messiah predkted in biblical prophecy. This of course
was the position taken by Jewish opponents of Christianity,
But it is unlikely that any person who took this view should
ever have been (as these heretics had been) a member of the
Church. We must look elsewhere.
We know that in certain schools of 'Gnostic 1 thought a
sharp distinction was drawn between the divine Christ, con-
ceived as an 'emanation' from the eternal Deity, or as an
'aeon/ or member of the hierarchy of supra-mundane essences,
on the one hand, and the man Jesus, on the other, and taught
that the two were only temporarily, externally, and as it were
accidentally connected; that the Christ descended upon Jesus
at some point in His life, as, for example, at His baptism, and
left Him again before His passion. It is probable that the doc-
trine here attacked was similar. Thinkers who took this view
did not conceive themselves to be denying the doctrine of the
Messiahship of Jesus. They were attempting to solve the
problem set to Christian thought by the fact that the Gospel
told the story of a man who lived and died in Palestine, and at
the same time declared Him to be the eternal Son of God. The
problem is one with which the thinkers of the Church had to
grapple long in seeking an acceptable solution. The kind of
55
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
doctrine, however, which made a distinction between 'Jesus 1
and 'Christ 1 (somewhat as some moderns attach religious
value to the 'Christ-idea/ as distinct from the * Jesus of
History 1 ) was rather an evasion than a solution of the
problem.
He who in this sense denies that Jesus is the Christ, says our
author, disowns in effect the Father and the Son. For Christian
theism acknowledges God as revealed in Jesus Christ; and this
is not the same thing as belief in absolute Being, or eternal
Reason, or the Unfathomable Depth, or any other of the
abstractions which in various Gnostic systems stood for God,
even though such an abstraction might be called by the name
of 'the First Father' or the like, and might be held to be
mediated to the world by an 'emanation' or 'aeon' described
as His 'Son/ or even as 'Christ/ The Gospel speaks of 'the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ/ If Jesus is not the
Christ, the content of the Christian revelation of God is disin-
23 tegrated, and in this sense no one who disowns the Son can
possess the Father, while he who confesses the Son possesses
the Father as well.
The doctrine that our access to God depends upon the
acknowledgment of His Son runs through the Fourth Gospel
(John xii. 44-5, xiv. 6-9, etc.). It has sanction in a traditional
saying of Jesus given by Matthew and Luke from their
common tradition: 'No one knows the Son except the Father,
nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and he to
whom the Son chooses to reveal Him' (Matt. xi. 27; cf. Luke
x. 22).
Further, the antithesis drawn between 'confessing' Christ
and 'disowning' Him recalls another saying of the Lord in the
Synoptic Gospels, where the same two verbs are used in
antithesis (though the fact is disguised in the Moffatt trans-
lation):
'Everybody who shall confess me before men
I will confess him before my Father in heaven;
And whoever shall disown me before men,
I will disown him before my Father in heaven'
56
I JOHN. CHAPTER II, VERSES 18-28
(Matt. x. 32-3: similarly in Luke xii. 8; cf. also Mark viii. 38).
The saying is clearly alluded to in Rev. iii. 5, and probably also
in Rom. x. 9-10: Confess with your mouth that 'Jesus i s Lord/
believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, and
you will be saved; for with his heart man believes and is justified;
with his mouth he confesses and is saved.
The currency of this saying in fact probably goes far to
account for the special weight and solemnity attaching to the
words 'confess' and 'confession* in all early Christian thought
(cf. also Heb. iv. 14, x. 23, and xiii. 13-15, where the allusion
is probably to the confession of the name of Christ, for which
Christians suffered persecution; i Pet. iv. 14-16). But our
present passage is more closely moulded upon the saying of
Jesus than any of the others. It has the same antithetical form,
and (if we allow for a certain theological development) its pur-
port is substantially the same. According to Matt. x. 32-3, the
confession of Christ establishes solidarity with Him, by which
our standing before God is guaranteed. So here to confess
Christ is to possess the Father or as it is expressed in iv. 16,
to remain in God (quasi-mystical categories being substituted
for the quasi-forensic categories of Matt. x. 32-3). As for the
content of the confession itself, it is here given in terms iden-
tical with the confession of Peter in Mark viii. 29. In iv. 15 it
takes the form Jesus is the Son of God, which recalls the
Matthaean addition to Peter's confession, Son of the living
God (Matt. xvi. 16). Both these may be compared with the
Pauline confession, 'Jesus is Lord/
The interest of these comparisons is to show how closely the
author is basing himself upon the common tradition of early
Christianity, incorporating the teaching of Jesus Himself. It is
only in iv. 2, where it is necessary to put the Church's confes-
sion beyond all possibility of misunderstanding, against the
aberrations of heretical teachers, that specifically 'Johannine'
language is used: every spirit which confesses Jesus as the
Christ incarnate.
The writer does not here make any attempt to discuss the
theological problem which is involved in the confession of
Jesus as the Christ, the eternal Son of God. He no doubt
57
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
assumes that his readers are acquainted with the Fourth
Gospel, in which this problem is dealt with in masterly fashion
or, if not with the written Gospel, at least with the Johannine
24 teaching which it embodies. What he is here concerned to urge
is that his readers shall hold fast to that which is the pre-
supposition of all Christian doctrine namely, the fundamental
content of the Gospel, that which you learned from the very
beginning. If this remains in you, he says, then you will
remain in the Son and in the Father.
As we have seen (note on ii. 5-6), this type of expression is
analogous with language used to describe the experience of
'mystical union/ It is adopted in the Fourth Gospel for that
intimate union with God in Christ which is the result of the
love of God manifested in the life and death of Jesus, to which
the love of man responds in obedience and trust. (See, especi-
ally, John xv. i-io, xvii. 21-3.) In the discourse on the Bread
of Life we read, He who feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood
remains in me, as I remain in him. Just as the living Father sent
me, and I live by the Father, so he who feeds on me will also
live by me. ... He who feeds on this bread will live for ever
25 (John vi. 56-8). This promise of eternal life the writer now
recalls, assuring his readers that the blessed hope of everlasting
life is not based upon any theosophical speculations, but upon
the Gospel of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
37" The writer now returns to the point with which he is immedi-
ately concerned the warning against false teaching and he
develops what he has already said briefly about Christians
being anointed by the holy One. We must now raise the ques-
tion: What is meant by the anointing, or unction? The actual
word used is chrisma^ which is Englished as 'chrism/ It does
not occur elsewhere in the New Testament. It is derived from
a verb which means to 'rub over 1 or 'smear/ The noun should
by its grammatical form signify, concretely, that which is
smeared or rubbed on, such as paint, or whitewash, or (in
particular) oil. It can however also be used, abstractly, of the
act of smearing, and in the Greek Old Testament it is com-
monly used of the act of anointing with oil. In verse 27 the
concrete significance seems to be called for, since the chrism is
58
I JOHN, CHAPTER II, VERSES 18-28
something which remains within you and teaches you, though
it is not at once clear what this 'something* is. That it is
literally the oil used for anointing is altogether unlikely.
We may take it that: whatever metaphorical sense of the
word may be intended, it is based upon the use of the verb and
the noun with reference to anointing with oil, especially as a
ritual act.
Anointing was among the Hebrews a rite of consecration.
Priests, prophets, and kings were anointed in token of their
consecration to Jehovah. In common parlance, 'the anointed
priest/ or simply, 'the Anointed/ meant the High Priest,
whose office was a specially solemn one of mediation between
God and the people. More specifically, 'God's Anointed/ or
simply, 'the Anointed/ meant the ideal figure of the future,
variously conceived, in and through whom God's purpose for
His people should be finally fulfilled. In this sense the expres-
sion was taken over into Christianity. We are accustomed
either to adapt the Hebrew or Aramaic word, following the
example of the Fourth Gospel, and to speak of 'the Messiah/
or else to follow the other writers of the New Testament, and
to use the Greek equivalent, Christos, Englished as 'Christ.'
The original and fundamental confession of Christianity is in
Peter's words, 'Thou art the Messiah' (Mark viii. 29). The
question could not but arise: How and when was Jesus
'anointed? There was no record of His having received
the anointing of king or priest. But the tradition affirmed
that He had received consecration to the Messianic office
at His baptism, when the Holy Spirit descended upon
Him. This, then, in accordance with the prophecy of Isa.
Ixi. i (cited in Luke iv. 18), was the 'anointing* by virtue
of which Jesus was the 'Anointed/ the Messiah or Christ.
So the apostolic Preaching as given in Acts x. 38 declared
how God 'anointed Jesus of Nazareth with Holy Spirit
and power. 1 There is no other place in the New Testament
where the expression 'to anoint with Holy Spirit' occurs,
though there is a passage cited from the apocryphal Gospel
according to the Hebrews where the prophets are said to have
been 'anointed with holy Spirit.' In 2 Cor. i. 21 we read, It is
59
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
God who guarantees us together with you in Christ, and
who anointed us; He who also sealed us, and gave us the earnest
of the Spirit in our hearts/' The collocation of the words 'Christ'
and 'anointed' (Christos and chrisas) shows that Paul has in
mind the Messianic consecration as shared by those who are of
'the Body of Christ.' (Christ is the inclusive representative of
the People of God as a corporate personality; see Moffatt Com-
mentary, Romans, pp. 78-80). It is not, however, said that
Christians are 'anointed with the Holy Spirit'; they are
'anointed' that is, consecrated in solidarity with Christ, and
the 'seal' or guarantee of this fact is the presence of the
Holy Spirit in the heart. Such appears to be the Apostle's
meaning.
This is (apart from our present passage) the only place in
the New Testament where Christians are said to be 'anointed*
(in any sense). It is hardly sufficient to account for the use of
'chrism' here as a technical term, which the readers are ex-
pected to recognize; for such it seems to be. We must look else-
where for a clue. We could understand the writer's choice of
the term if it were taken from the vocabulary of the heretics
whom he is attacking. That it was used by them is made
probable by the following considerations.
In each place where the term 'chrism' is introduced, the
word 'you' is extremely emphatic in the Greek; indeed, in the
second place (verse 27) emphasis is obtained by a construction
which is strictly ungrammatical, though not illegitimate in
usage. We must suppose that 'you' are contrasted with some
other group. In view of the considerations adduced in pp. 9-16,
it is improbable that the contrast to 'you' is 'we.' Probably
a contrast is intended between 'you,' i.e. true believers, and
heretics. Let us then try to bring out this emphasis in transla-
tion: They withdrew in order that it might be made clear that
not all (formal members of the Church) belong to us. You too
have an unction, an unction from the holy One, and you all
possess knowledge. . , . I am writing to you in this way about
those who would lead you astray; and as for you, the unction
you received from Him remains in you.' This way of speaking
would have a sharp point if the heretics claimed to have been
60
I JOHN, CHAPTER II, VERSES 18-28
'anointed* in some special way which ensured to them a
superior gnosis or knowledge of divine things. Have we any
reason to suppose that such a claim was made?
In a document cited by Hippolytus as representing a
'Gnostic 1 sect known as Naassenes, we read, 'We alone of all
men are Christians, who complete the mystery at the third
portal, and are anointed there with speechless chrism' (Philo-
sophuntena, V. 9. 121-2). The anointing here (probably an
actual anointing with oil) is clearly some form of initiation into
a mystery. The background of the thought is not the Hebrew
and primitive Christian idea of the Messianic consecration,
but rituals of anointing such as we know to have been em-
ployed in some pagan mysteries. The writer appears to claim
that only those who have undergone this special initiation are
worthy to be called Christians. Language of this kind could
be taken over by orthodox writers. Thus Ignatius (who often
uses quasi-Gnostic language) writes: 'Be not anointed with the
ill-odour of the doctrine of the Prince of this world, lest he take
you captive from the life that is set before you. Why do we
not all become wise, receiving the knowledge of God, which is
Jesus Christ' (EpL. xvii. 1-2). Ignatius contrasts the tine gnosis
with the false. Initiation into false doctrine he describes
(metaphorically) as anointing with ill-odour. (A different verb
is used, but its sense is the same.) It is implied that initiation
into true gnosis could also be described as anointing, only with
a different chrism. This true initiation, he emphasizes, is open
to all Christians. Our author similarly speaks of the true
chrism, by virtue of which all Christians know the truth all
Christians, and not only those who have received some
special initiation; and this chrism is by implication contrasted
with the false doctrine that is infecting the Church.
It seems probable therefore that, though the concept
of anointing as consecration belonged to the earliest Christian
thought as an inheritance from the Messianic ideas of
Judaism, yet the immediate background of the present pas-
sage is rather that of Hellenistic religion; and 'anointing 1
suggests initiation into gnosis, or supernatural knowledge. But
we have still to ask: What is the chrism, which is at once the
61
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
medium of Initiation and the abiding source of a growing
knowledge of God?
If rites of initiation are in question, the one such rite which
att Christians undergo is Baptism. It is reasonable to suppose
that the chrism is something connected with Baptism. One
view is that it stands for the divine grace conferred in the
Sacrament. Indeed, one manuscript actually reads charisma
('gift of grace') for chrisma; but this is certainly an erroneous
reading. That 'chrism' however stands for grace is not impos-
sible; but something more particular than the general notion
of grace seems to be called for here, where it is a matter
specifically of communication of knowledge. Most commenta-
tors suppose that the reference is to the Holy Spirit. If we
substitute the term 'Spirit' for 'chrism' we get a good sense:
The Spirit you received from Him (in Baptism) remains in you
and you really need no teaching from anyone; simply remain in
Him, for His Spirit teaches you about everything, and is true
and is no lie. This is in harmony with what is said about the
Spirit as Paraclete in John xiv. 16-17, 26. On the other hand,
the author of the Epistle, when he comes to give his own doc-
trine of the Spirit, does not bring it into connection with the
chrism. His teaching in iv. 1-6 is not that doctrine must be
tested by inspiration, but that inspiration must be tested by
the Gospel (see notes on that passage). Further, if the parallel
from Ignatius be admitted, the false unction is 'the teaching of
the Prince of this world'; and we must suppose that the true
unction is also in some way a kind of teaching. We now
observe that ii. 24 prescribes a prophylactic against the poison
of false teaching as follows: Let that remain in you which you
learned from the very beginning; if what you learned from the
very beginning remains in you, then you will remain in the
Son and in the Father. The parallel between this passage and
ii. 27, which speaks of the unction which remains within you,
is unmistakable. That which .you learned from the very
beginning is the Gospel itself, the Word of God, which is said
to 'remain in 1 the believer, as the chrism does in verse 27.
Similarly, in John xv. 7, Christ says, If you remain in me
and my words remain in you, then ask whatever you like and
62
I JOHN, CHAPTER II, VERSES 18-28
you shall have it, while, on the other hand, in John v. 38 he
says to the unbelieving Jews, Ton have not His word remain-
ing in you* [the Moffatt translation again disguises the simi-
larity of the language]. We have here the conception of the
Gospel or Word of God, not as a mere set of propositions
which may be 'kept in mind,' but as an indwelling power
(in accordance with antique ideas of the almost independent
reality of the spoken word, which are especially acute in
Hebrew thought, but occur also among the Greeks from
Homer onward).
In view of all this, it seems natural to conclude that the
'chrism/ which confers knowledge of God, and is also a
prophylactic against the poison of false teaching, is the Word of
God, that is, the Gospel, or the revelation of God in Christ, as
communicated in the rule of iaith to catechumens, and con-
fessed in Baptism. This is the Christian's initiation, by water
and the Word. So long as the Word (which is true and is no lie)
remains within him that is to say, so long as that which he
learned from the beginning is not merely kept in mind, but
continues to be a living power in him, controlling his thoughts,
affections and will, he really needs no teaching from anyone
(though such teaching may be useful for developing the
implications of the Gospel), since by virtue of it he remains
in the Son and in the Father, possesses knowledge of God, and
receives further teaching as the occasion demands.
Whether we understand the chrism to be the Holy Spirit,
or the Word of God, may perhaps make little ultimate differ-
ence to the essential purport of the passage. But there is a
difference in the point of view. The appeal to the indwelling
Spirit easily declines into an appeal to the individual experi-
ence of 'inspiration/ If such experience is made the criterion,
persons with little grasp of the central truths of the Gospel may
mistake their own 'inspirations' (or bright ideas} for the truth
of God, and so the corporate, historical tradition of Christi-
anity is imperilled. Our writer found that this was actually
happening within his sphere of influence (see iv. 1-6). If, on
the other hand, we are referred to the Gospel itself, which is a
recital of what God did for us in the life, teaching, death and
63
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
resurrection of Jesus Christ to the Gospel not as merely
heard, believed and remembered, but as livingly apprehended
and retained as a power in our lives then there is an objective
standard by which the faith of the Church is kept true to what
is distinctive in the Christian revelation. The interior testimony
of the Holy Spirit is confirmation of the datum in the Gospel
(see iv. 13).
28 The whole section dealing with the danger of false teaching
is now rounded off with an appeal to the loyal members of the
Church, echoing a thought that has run all through it: Remain
within Him. A special motive is now added. If this is the last
hour, then the Lord may be expected shortly to come again.
Just as Paul had written, 'We are ambitious to be well-
pleasing to Him; for. we must all appear before the judgment-
seat of Christ* (2 Cor. v. 9-10), so our author appeals to this
'ambition 1 of every loyal Christian, that when He appears we
may have confidence instead of shrinking from Him in shame
at His arrival. We can hardly miss a reminiscence of sayings
attributed to Jesus in the Gospels: Whoever is ashamed of me
and my words in this disloyal and sinful generation, the Son of
Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His
Father with the holy angels (Mark viii. 38). Everyone who will
confess me before men, I will confess him before my Father in
heaven; and whoever will disown me before men, I will disown
him before my Father in heaven (Matt. x. 32-3; cf. Luke xii.
8-9). On the authority of these words (to which we have
already noted an allusion in ii. 22), he who confesses the Son
will remain in union with Him, and can look forward with
serene confidence to meeting Him.
The Lord did not return, in the way He was expected to
come, shortly after the writing of this epistle. When Christian
thought adapted itself to the fact of this delay, the urgency of
the appeal to an immediately impending second advent was
lost. Attempts to revive it, under the illusion that at particular
periods the signs of the times pointed to the end of the world
in the near future, have always been artificial and disappoint-
ing. With a deeper penetration, the Fourth Evangelist taught
that by His resurrection and the gift of the Spirit Christ came
64
I JOHN, CHAPTER II, VERSES 18-28
to His people, never to leave them again (John xiv. 15-18, 23,
xvi. 16-22). At any moment the shame of denial may cause us
to shrink from Him; at any moment, remaining in Him, we
may have confidence in His presence. The Last Judgment, in
all its solemnity and decisiveness, waits upon us in the midst of
time.
Nevertheless, our experience in time has an end. The whole
unknown future, beginning from the incompleteness of the
present moment, is telescoped for us, in our sheer ignorance of
what a day may bring forth, into a mere transition from time
to eternity. For the world, time to come may prove to be
measured in years or in millenniums; for each individual it
cannot in any case be long. Death places us in the immediate
presence of the Lord, for it sets us beyond time. It would be
a pity if we should then shrink from Him in shame.
II. LIFE IN THE FAMILY OF GOD
(ii. 29 - iv. 12)
The second main section of the epistle is built about the
central theme that Christians are children of God. They are
'born of God' (regenerate), and together make up a family in
which all are brothers with God as their Father. The bond of
union in the family is that divine love which is, at once and
indistinguishably, the love which God showed to us in Christ,
the love which we accord Him in return, and the charity we
are bound to exercise towards one another. Indeed, 'God is
love/ and all that can be said about life in the Christian
family depends directly upon that far-reaching theological
affirmation.
This main theme is treated in various aspects, without strict
continuity of argument, and there are several divagations or
excursuses, notably one (iv. 1-6) which, while it is a paren-
thesis in the present argument, reverts to one of the principal
interests of the epistle, the danger of false teaching which denies
the Incarnation.
65
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
I. THE CHILDREN OF GOD, THEIR PREROGATIVES AND OBLIGA-
TIONS; WITH AN EXCURSUS UPON THE NATURE AND GRAVITY
OF SIN (ii. 29 - iii. 10)
29 As you know He Is just, be sure that everyone who practises
iii. righteousness is born of Him. 'Born of Him!' Think what
1 a love the Father has for us, in letting us be called 'children
of God!' And such we are. The world does not recognize
2 us? That is simply because it did not recognize Him. We
are children of God now, beloved ; what we are to be is not
apparent yet, but we do know that when He appears we
3 are to be like Him for we are to see Him as He is. And
everyone who rests this hope on Him, purifies himself as
4 He is pure. Everyone who commits sin commits lawless-
5 ness : sin is lawlessness, and you know He appeared to take
6 our sins away. In Him there is no sin ; anyone who remains
in Him does not sin anyone who sins has neither seen nor
7 known Him. Let no one deceive you, dear children : he who
practises righteousness is just, as He is just; he who com-
8 mits sin belongs to the devil, for the devil is a sinner from
the very beginning. (This is why the Son of God appeared,
9 to destroy the deeds of the devil.) Anyone who is born of
God does not commit sin, for the offspring of God remain
in Him, and they cannot sin, because they are born of God.
10 Here is how the children of God and the children of the
devil are recognized; anyone who does not practise right-
eousness does not belong to God, 1 and neither does he who
has no love for his brother.
1 The expression 'to belong to God' represents the Greek IK roiJ Qtov
tlva.1. The preposition <'* properly means 'out of/ and is used to indi-
cate the point of origin or departure. It has, however, various extended
uses, and one of these is to express a more or less vague relation of de-
pendence or attachment. This vague sense is represented here, and in
other passages of the Moflfatt translation of the epistle, by the English
verb 'to belong.' The actual meaning intended by the writer is not quite
clear. In this place it looks as if <?* roD 0ou, with its literal meaning
'originating out of God, 1 were intended as a briefer synonym for 'born
of God,' or 'children of God/ and if so, then IK roO Siapohov in verse 8
would mean 'born of the devil* and would be the equivalent of 'children
of the devil' in 10, But the author may deliberately have used the vaguer
expression here and in some other places. It is however well for the
reader to bear in mind that the Moffatt translation habitually uses the
verb 'to belong' to render a Greek expression which in any particular
case may well bear a more definite meaning.
66
I JOHN, CHAPTER II, VERSE 29
Verse 29 forms a transition, in the author's manner, from
the foregoing section to the following, and might be attached
to either. The connection with the foregoing is perhaps through
the thought of 'the Lord the righteous Judge'; though It is
clear that attention is passing from the Son to the Father.
While the 'He' of the first clause might refer to either, the
'Him' of the last clause is clearly the Father. The purpose of
the verse is to introduce the idea of divine generation, which is
to be elaborated in what follows. God is righteous. [There is no
need to vary the translation: all through this part of the epistle
4 just' and 'righteous* represent the same Greek word, and
'righteousness' represents the derived substantive.] The
Christian who practises righteousness (or in the language of the
earlier part of the epistle lives and moves within the light,
walks as Christ walked, or obeys the command of love) is born
of God,
That God is our Father and we His children is a thought
several times expressed in the Synoptic sayings of Jesus. In
Paul this thought is set forth in the doctrine of 'adoption.' As
Christ is the Son of God, we who are 'in Christ/ members of
His Body, are adopted by God as His sons, in token whereof
the Spirit within us cries 'Abba, Father' (see Rom. viii. 14-17,
I Cor. i. 9, Gal. iii. 26-7, iv, 6-7, etc.). The Pauline doctrine
makes clear what is always implied in the biblical idea of the
Fatherhood of God namely, that we are sons of God by His
grace and not in our own right (see Moffatt Commentary,
Romans, pp. 130-1). In the Old Testament Israel is the 'son 1
of Jehovah because Jehovah chose the children of Israel as
objects of His love, called them into a covenant with Himself,
and so set up a relation between God and man which is, morally
and spiritually, that of father and child. In paganism, tribes,
or their chiefs and kings, were believed to be actual des-
cendants of a deity. This belief, in a more refined and elevated
form, becomes the doctrine that man as such (or the spiritual
part of man) is the offspring of God (as we have it in the pagan
poet quoted in Acts xvii. 28); or, in other words, a kind of
emanation of the Divine (cf . notes on iii. 9, pp. 74-6). This is not
the biblical, or Christian, doctrine. God created man in His
67
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
image, out of the dust of the earth, and the 'natural' relation
of men to God is one of creaturely dependence. It is of His
grace that they enter into the spiritual relation of children. In
I Pet. i. 23 this thought is expressed in the words, You are bora
anew of immortal, not of mortal seed, by the living, lasting
word of God.
The antecedents of the idea of regeneration lie not within
Judaism, but in Hellenistic thought. It is found in some mystery
religions; and in the higher paganism, or 'Hellenistic mysti-
cism/ the initiation into gnosis is sometimes represented as a
process of regeneration (as, for example, in Corpus Hermeticum,
XIII a late dialogue, probably of the third century). The
Fourth Evangelist adopts the idea, both in the Prologue (i. 12)
and in the dialogue with Nicodemus (iii. 3-8), placing it in the
essentially Christian context of the Kingdom of God and the
Holy Spirit, and connecting it with the sacrament of Baptism,
by which a man becomes a member of the Church. The phrase
used in our present passage, here translated 'born of God', occurs
in John i. 13 (where it is differently translated). The idea which
it expresses is one of the cardinal ideas of the Epistle. In view
of its connection in Hellenistic thought with initiation into
knowledge of the divine, we may suspect that 'born of God, * like
'knowing God/ and 'in the light' (see notes on ii. 4, 9), was an
expression used, and in our author's view misused, by the
false teachers. At its first introduction, therefore, he empha-
sizes the point that its true connotation is an ethical one. It is
he who practises righteousness who can rightly be said to be
born of God, just as in Matt. v. 45 it is those who love their
enemies who are sons of the Father in heaven. In enforcing the
ethical criterion our author is simply following the fundamental
tradition of the teaching of Jesus,
iii.
i Having thus safeguarded the ethical purport of the doctrine
of divine generation, the writer now takes up the phrase
children of God, which was already current in Christian circles,
and was used, in particular, in the work which was for him
most authoritative, the Gospel according to John (i. 12, xi. 52).
Behind this lie such sayings of the Lord as Matt. v. 9, 45. In
68
/ JOHN, CHAPTER III, VERSES i-io
these sayings the term used is 'sons of God/ In Johannine
circles it appears that the term 'Son of God' was reserved
exclusively for the 'only-begotten Son/ and the term 'chil-
dren' substituted when believers were spoken of. It appears,
however, that our author had in mind the word of Jesus
recorded in Matt. v. 9, 'they will be called sons of God/ [The
Moffatt rendering obscures the identity of the verb.] He
would have his readers consider how deep is the meaning of
such an appellation. In harmony with the whole biblical tradi-
tion he regards this filial relation to God not as something
inherent in human nature, but as due wholly to the love of
God. It is a pure act of grace that allows us to be called
'children of God/ Nor are we merely called God's children:
such we are; born of Him, 'partakers of the divine nature*
(2 Pet. L 4). As the Fourth Gospel has it, we have passed
by regeneration out of the sphere of 'flesh' into the sphere
of 'spirit' (John iii. 5-6); or, as Paul put it, there is a
new creation whenever a man comes to be in Christ (2 Cor.
v. 17). That is to say, in the children of God a new kind of
humanity has emerged. Similarly, in the Hermetic tractate On
Regeneration we read, 'He who is born (again) will be another
person'; and the initiate says, 'I am now not what I was
before' (Corpus Hermeticum, XIII. 2, 3). So far our author
will go with 'Hellenistic mysticism/ The Christian is (by grace
of God) in some real sense a supernatural being.
It is true that he is not ostensibly different from other men.
The world does not recognize us as children of God. What of
that? Did it recognize Jesus Christ as other than an ordinary
man? (For 'Him' here probably refers, not to the Father, but to
the Son.) Yet He, we know, was the Son of God. In us, as in
Him during His incarnate life, the divine sonship is veiled,
But it will not always be so. Paul deals with the same theme 2
in the Epistle to the Colossians. He too taught that Christians
possess, by grace of God, a supernatural life. His favourite way
of expressing this is, not in terms of regeneration (an idea of
which he shows no knowledge), but through the concept of the
Christian as dead and risen with Christ. So in Col. iii. 1-4 he
says, You have been raised with Christ, but he hastens to add,
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
Your life is hidden with Christ in God; not, however, hidden for
ever: when Christ, who is our life, appears, then you will appear
with Him in glory. This is the 'revelation of the children of
God/ for which the whole creation waits (Rom. viii. 19).
Similarly, our author, affirming that in spite of appearances
Christians are here and now children of God, looks forward to
a fresh stage of existence in which they will be something more
glorious still. What that 'something' is, is a question upon
which we must be content to remain in ignorance at present:
what we are to be is not apparent yet. But so much we can say
with assurance: when He appears, we are to be like Him.
Similarly Paul had said, God decreed of old that those whom He
predestined should share the likeness of His Son (Rom. viii. 29).
But our author gives a fresh turn to the thought. In the
clause, we are to see Him as He is, he is alluding to that 'vision
of God' to which all mystics aspire. Whether the pronouns
'He* and 'Him' refer to the Father or the Son is, here as else-
where, not quite clear, though the latter is in the context
more natural. But it makes little difference, for in Johannine
thought to see the Son is to see the Father (cf . John xii. 45, xiv.
9). Our mysterious but glorious destiny, therefore, includes the
vision of God, or of Christ, in His true being. In most of the
New Testament not much is said about the hope of the vision
of God (Matt. v. 8 and Heb. xii. 14, the latter referring prim-
arily to Christ, are the only clear cases; and note that in Matt.
v. 8-9 the ideas of seeing God and being His children are in
dose contiguity, as here). But in the Fourth Gospel it is a
frequent theme. Starting from the proposition, Nobody has
ever seen God, but God has been unfolded by the divine One, the
only Son (i. 18), it expounds the whole ministry of Jesus
Christ as the realization of the hope of the vision of God and
His glory, under the conditions of time and space. In the fare-
well discourses, when the incarnate life is drawing to a close,
Christ promises a further vision of Himself (xiv. 19, etc.), a
promise conceived as being fulfilled, in the first place, by the
resurrection and the coming of the Spirit. Finally, He prays
that His followers may be beside me where I am, to behold my
glory in the eternal world (xvii. 24). It is here, doubtless, that
70
I JOHN, CHAPTER III, VERSES i-io
our author finds direct authority for his teaching in this place.
Grammatically, the clause 'for we are to see Him as He is'
might be connected (in the Greek as in the English) either (a)
with the words we know, or (&) with the words we are to be like
Him. (a) If we adopt the former construction, the meaning is,
'We are to be like Kim: this we know because we are to see
Him as He is.' The latter is the premise (itself guaranteed by
John xvii. 24) from which the conclusion is drawn that we are
to be like Christ. But the argument demands another premise
which is unexpressed; those who are to see God must be like
God. The maxim 'Like is known by like 1 is frequently enunci-
ated by Hellenistic religious writers in this sense, (b) If we
adopt the latter construction, the meaning is 'because we shall
see God, we shall (as we know) become like Him/ The presup-
position of this is the doctrine that the vision, or knowledge,
of God makes a man like God. There is no direct authority for
this doctrine in the New Testament, but it was widely accepted
in 'Hellenistic mysticism/ in the sense that through gnosis,
direct knowledge of God, a man might become immortal and
even divine. It makes no important difference which of these
two interpretations we adopt, but it is interesting to observe
that in either case our author is assuming principles which he
held in common, not only with the 'Gnostic' teachers whom he is
combating, but with the higher thought of the Hellenistic
world in general. He is naturalizing within Christian theology
a widely diffused mystical tradition. But a recognition of this
fact enables us to see more clearly where his Christian inter-
pretation of this tradition is distinctive, as the following verses
will show.
The profound thought to which he has given such simple and
moving expression has entered deeply into the Christian con-
sciousness. The reserve which he exercises about our future
destiny, discouraging all fruitless speculation, combined with
the serene certainty that we shall see our Lord and be like
Him, is the model for all our thinking about the life to come.
We now come to an all-important corollary of the Christian 3
hope. If we are to be like Christ hereafter, we must practise that
71
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
likeness by imitating Him here and now, imitating Him (in par-
ticular) in purity of living. It is the pure in heart who will see
God (Matt. v. 8). It is idle to speak of seeing or knowing God, if
we are content to live in sin. The argument returns to the theme
which was in view in I. 5 - ii. II. In Him there is no darkness,
6 we were there told; and that means, in Him there is no sin.
God is all light, all goodness; and the Son who reveals the
Father reveals His sinless perfection. Consequently, anyone
who remains in Him does not sin anyone who sins has neither
seen nor known Him.
4 In speaking of sin, the author wishes to make clear, he is
speaking of actual infraction of the moral law; and similarly,
when he speaks of being righteous, he means practising right-
eousness (verse 7) that is, doing what is right. It appears
that it was necessary to say this because there was a tendency
to use the term 'righteousness* with an artificial connotation,
as though a man might be righteous in a religious sense even
though his actual conduct showed no marked conformity with
recognized moral standards. There are pretty clear hints in the
epistles of Paul that his teaching was misconstrued in this
way. He taught that the Christian was 'justified* (declared
righteous) by grace. Some said, remain on in sin, so that there
may be all the more grace (Rom. vi. i), implying that the
status of 'righteousness' might be maintained without (in our
author's words) practising righteousness. But we need not
look for any particular heretical doctrine here. Religion and
morality are not inherently identical spheres of experience.
There is always the possiblity that religious categories may
not coincide with the corresponding ethical categories. In the
Old Testament the prophets have to protest against a view
which identifies sin with breach of taboo instead of with
injustice, cruelty, impurity and the like; and righteousness
with the punctual observance of feasts and fasts, instead of
with justice and humanity. And within the Christian com-
munity it is not always clear that a deep 'sense of sin 1 goes with
a sensitiveness to social obligations unfulfilled. Any strongly
ethical religion (like Judaism or Christianity) has constantly to
be on its guard lest 'religious experience/ whether mystical or
73
I JOHN, CHAPTER III, VERSES i-io
sacramental, should lose its ethical content, or 'cold morality*
forget its religious sanctions. This is our author's concern.
His maxim Sin is lawlessness, if considered as a general
definition of sin, must be considered somewhat superficial, in
contrast, for example, with Paul's treatment of the theme (see
the Moffatt Commentary, Romans, pp. 50-51, 79-83). But his
intention is to insist that in the whole discussion the terms
'sin' and 'righteousness' shall be taken in their plain, crude
sense: sin is doing wrong; righteousness is doing fight. Or this,
let no one deceive you with any subtle sophistry which blurs
the plain meaning of such terms.
If we thus keep crude actuality in view, we shall appreciate 5
the teaching of the Gospel that Christ appeared to take our sins
away. The immediate authority for this teaching is, once
again, to be found in the Fourth Gospel, which speaks of Christ
as the lamb of God, who is to remove (take away: the same
word in the Greek) the sin of the world (L 29). (The Evangelist
thinks of 'sin' as a principle or quality of life, expressing
itself variously in thought, word and deed; the author of the
epistle thinks of 'sins,' the multiform outward expression of
the sinful principle). In other words, Christ came to destroys
the deeds of the devil (cf. Matt. xii. 25-29, Luke x. 18, Col ii.
15, i Pet. iii. 22, etc.; and especially John xii. 31). The devil is
a sinner from the very beginning; but he has no hold on Christ
(John xiv. 30), in whom there is no sin (verse 5). Hence, to
sin (meaning to break the moral law, to do wrong) is to
belong to the devil: to remain in Christ is to be righteous as He
is righteous (meaning to practise righteousness, to do right,
verse 7).
It is all very plain black-and-white. It had to be made so,
if the readers were to be sufficiently warned against the
dangers of sophistication. Sophistry can as easily prove that
evil is an aspect of good as that error is an aspect of truth. But
truth and falsehood, good and evil, right and wrong, God and
the devil, are irreconcilable opposites. True religion means
belonging to God, and therefore it means standing on the side
of truth and goodness, to the exclusion of their opposites.
This is now applied to the doctrine of divine generation. If 10
73
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
by being bom of God you mean 'enlightment', or Initiation into
a superior grade of 'knowledge/ then this is mere delusion
unless the ethical test is satisfied: anyone who is born of God
does not commit sin (i.e. do wrong); anyone who does not
practise righteousness (i.e. do right) does not belong to God,
but is among the children of the devil.
9 The argument is supported in verse 9 by a somewhat
obscure clause. Literally translated, it runs as follows: 'Every-
one who is born of God does not commit sin, because his seed
remains in him.' Dr. Moffatt has taken the Word 'seed* (sperma)
as a collective noun, meaning 'offspring/ as 'seed of Abraham'
(Luke i 55, Gal iii. 29, John viii. 33, 37) means 'offspring* or
'posterity of Abraham/ and he has substituted 'of God' for
'his' to make the meaning clear. The expression 'seed of God'
in this sense is not found in the New Testament, but it could
find support in parallels elsewhere. The offspring of God,
then, is taken as a collective equivalent for anyone who is bora
of God, and is the subject of the verb remain (Moffatt gives the
verb in the plural, since 'offspring' is plural in sense). The same
expression is the subject of the verbs in the following clause:
the offspring of God cannot sin because they are (it is) born of
God. This gives excellent sense, being closely parallel to verse
6: anyone who remains in Him does not sin.
Other interpreters take the word 'seed' as carrying on the
metaphor of generation. This may be aptly illustrated from
the Hermetic tractate, On Regeneration: 'I know not/
says the would-be initiate, 'from what womb a man is born
(again), and of what seed/ 'My child/ replies Hermes, '(the
womb is) intellectual wisdom (conceiving) in silence, and the
seed is the true Good' (Corp. Herm., XIII. 1-2). The divine
act of generation is thought of (on analogy with the physical
act) as implanting a divine principle from which the new
nature of the children of God is produced. This divine prin-
ciple, once implanted, remains in the child of God (for the
word 'him' then refers, not to God, but to the man who is
born of God), and it is this divine principle, now immanent in
the man, which keeps him from sinning. The subject of the
verbs in the last clause of verse 9 (which are both singular, not
74
I JOHN, CHAPTER I/I, VERSES i-io
plural, In the Greek) is then the same as that of the first clause,
and the sense is: anyone who is born of God not only does not,
but cannot sin, because he is born of God, and a divine seed
remains in him.
So far as the grammatical form of expression is con-
cerned, the former way of interpreting the passage has the
advantage that it gives to the expression 'remains in him' the
usual sense, in which the subject of the verb is the Christian
man, and 'Him' refers to God. On the other hand, it has two
(not very decisive) drawbacks: (a) The clause 'his seed' lacks
in Greek the definite article, which is properly required if the
expression is to be the equivalent of anyone who is born of
God, and is in fact inserted in the translation, the offspring of
God. Some writers, it is true, are loose in their use of the
article, in particular such New Testament writers as are under
Semitic influence. This writer, however, does not semitize, and
is usually precise in his use of the article. If the meaning of the
phrase is 'a divine seed/ i.e. a divine principle implanted, then
the definite article is not required. (6) If 'the seed of God* is a
synonym for anyone who is born of God, then there is an un-
necessary tautology. The meaning could in that case have been
equally well given by writing, 'Anyone who is born of God does
not commit sin, for he remains in Him and cannot sin.' If, on
the other hand, we take the view that 'the seed of God' is a
divine principle implanted in man, we have* a perfect paral-
lelism of clauses:
'Everyone born of God does not commit sin,
because His seed remains in him:
and he cannot sin,
because he is born of God/
As parallelism is a notable feature of this writer's style, there
is a certain presumption in favour of this line of interpretation.
In order to decide the question, we must have regard to the
wider context of thought. In 'Hellenistic mysticism' and in the
Christian or near-Christian 'Gnosticism' affiliated to it, the
doctrine of a divine principle implanted in human nature is
one of the most constant elements. To give some examples:
75
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
In the Hermetic tractate Poimandres we learn that there is
resident in men an 'essential Man/ the offspring of the
supreme God ('the Father of all, who is life and light'), and it
is possible for this essential humanity in us to be liberated,
by enlightenment or gnosis, from the bonds of matter, and to
ascend again to the Father (Corp. Herm., I. 12-15, 24-26).
Philo (who is strongly under the influence of Hellenistic
speculation) similarly speaks of a 'real Man/ dwelling in the
soul of each of us (Quod Det., 22). This indwelling Man he
identifies with the heavenly Man, made in the image of God,
whom he took to be referred to in Gen. i. 26-7; and this
heavenly Man, he says, is not the creature of God (like the
man referred to in Gen, ii. 7), but His offspring (Leg. AU. t L
31-2). Writing in a more popular strain, he says of the Hebrew
nation (God's chosen race) that 'their bodies were moulded of
human seeds (spermata), but their souls of divine; wherefore
they have become kinsfolk of God' ( Vit. Mos., I. 279). In the
Book of Baruch attributed to the Gnostic Justin, man is the
progeny of Elohim (God) and Edem (or Earth). His 'soul'
comes from Edem, his 'spirit* from Elohim; and it is the spirit,
the divine principle in man, that is ultimately to be redeemed
(Hippolytus, Philosophumena, V. 26-8). In a document attri-
buted to the Gnostic sect of Naassenes God is said to have
sown seeds (spermata) into the world, through which the whole
world is being brought to perfection. The 'perfect Gnostics' are
those who receive these seeds (Hipp., op. cit., V. 8. 112-13).
The Christian Gnostic Valentinus produced an elaborate myth
of the beginning of things. In the course of it he relates how the
material universe, including the human body with its animal
'soul/ was made by the Demiurge, or heavenly Craftsman, out
of the lower elements; but divine Wisdom, unknown to him,
inserted into some men the 'spiritual seed 1 (sperma), also called
the 'seed of Achamoth' (Wisdom). Thus there are among men
good souls and evil souls. The former are those which are
'receptive of the seed/ The function of Jesus as Saviour is to
open a way for the 'seeds' (i.e. the divine element in man) into
the Pleroma or celestial society; and final salvation comes
'when the seeds of God have been gathered together* (Irenaeus,
76
/ JOHN, CHAPTER III, VERSES i-io
Adv. Haer. [ed. Harvey], I. i. 10, 12-13; Clement, Excerpta
ex Theodoto, 38, 40, 49, 53).
It is difficult not to suppose that there is some relation
between Valentinus's doctrine of the divine 'seed' which
resides in good souls, and our author's doctrine of the 'seed.'
It is no wild hypothesis that the heretical teachers here in
view, like Philo before them and Valentinus after them,
referred to the divine principle immanent in man, as the divine
'seed'; and our author may well have taken over the word
from their vocabulary (as he may have taken over the term
'chrism'; see ii. 27, note). It seems therefore best to read, 'Any-
one who is born of God does not commit sin, for a divine seed
remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God';
which gives a (formal) parallel to the doctrine of Valentinus,
that 'some souls are by nature good, and others by nature bad,
and the good are those which are receptive of the Seed, but the
bad by nature could never even receive that Seed' (Irenaeus,
op. cit. t I. i. 15).
It does not, of course, follow that our author shared the
'Gnostic' metaphysics; for his thought, however influenced by
Hellenistic ideas, is rooted in the authentic Christian tradition.
In that tradition, regeneration is closely associated with the
Word of God. In Jas. i. 18 divine generation is 'by the word of the
truth.' In i Pet. i. 23-25 we are said to be born anew of im-
mortal, not of mortal, seed by the living, lasting word of God,
which is further identified with the word of the Gospel. In the
Fourth Gospel it is by receiving the (now personified) Word that
men become children of God (John L 12). It is noteworthy that
the Naassene writer cited above finds scriptural sanction for his
doctrine of the divine 'seeds' in the Parable of the Sower. In
the Gospels themselves the seed in that parable is said to stand
for the preached Word (Luke viii. n). There is therefore a
fairly well established association of the ideas 'seed* and
'word,' which in Hellenistic Christian circles might well be
helped by the Stoic doctrine of the 'spermatic' or seminal logos,
even though the Stoic logos is not a 'word.' In the light of all
this, it would seem natural to suppose that when our author
speaks of divine 'seed' he is thinking of the Word of God, or
77
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
the Gospel. And this is confirmed by the observation that, just
as he speaks here of the 'seed* remaining in believers, so in
ii. 24 he speaks of the original Gospel (that which you heatd
from the very beginning) as remaining in them. As therefore,
from one point of view, the Gospel is the 'chrism* that is to
say, it is that which when received and retained initiates the be-
liever into the knowledge of God (ii. 27, note) so from another
point of view the Gospel, as the Word of God, is the immanent
divine principle producing in men the regenerate nature which
does not sin. It was by receiving the Gospel that we became
children of God; it is by loyalty to the Gospel that we continue
to live as His children, and conduct ourselves in a manner
worthy of our divine parentage.
The teaching of this passage raises a difficulty when it is
compared with other parts of the epistle. In i. 8-10 the writer
has repudiated in the strongest terms the suggestion that any-
one may claim to be sinless. Yet here he says, Anyone who is
born of God does not commit sin. In ii. 1-2 he contemplates the
case of a Christian who commits sin, and assures him that
there is a remedy. Yet here he declares that the child of God
cannot sin.
The difficulty may be relieved by observing a distinction of
tenses in the Greek. The so-called present (more properly im-
perfect) and aorist tenses in Greek do not (except in the indica-
tive mood) express a difference in the time of action, but in' the
'mode of action/ The imperfect forms of the oblique moods
(including infinitive and participle) express continuous or
habitual action; the aorist forms express momentary or
occasional action. Now, in ii, i the verbs translated 'may not
sin* and *does sin* are in the aorist, and indicate single or
occasional acts of sin. In iii. 4-10 the relevant verbs are
uniformly in the present or imperfect tense: in particular, the
expression anyone who sins in verse 6 represents an imperfect
participle, and the infinite in the expression cannot sin is an
imperfect infinitive. These expressions therefore should
properly refer, not to single or occasional acts of sin, but to
78
I JOHN, CHAPTER III, VERSES i-io
habitual sin, or a continuous sinful state. The meaning might
be brought out by exaggerating the force of the tenses In
translation: 'Anyone who keeps on sinning has never seen Him
and does not know Him'; 'He cannot keep on sinning, because
he has been born of God/ (The aorist participle and infinitive
respectively would have meant, 'anyone who commits a sin'
and 'he cannot commit a sin'.) If therefore we interpret the
tenses strictly, we may understand the author not to affirm
that the Christian cannot possibly commit a sin, but to say
that it is impossible to conceive of a child of God being habitu-
ally sinful, while it remains possible (ii. i) for him to fall, once
and again, into a single act of sin (though he ought not to do
so). In other words, the renewal of our nature consequent upon
accepting the Gospel is such that our whole bent is away from
sin, and our normal condition one of sinlessness. It may happen
that, under stress of temptation, we commit a sinful act; in
that case we make our peace with God by virtue of the sacrifice
and intercession of Christ, and revert to our normal condition
of sinlessness. For, whatever happens, we are children of God,
and sin is abnormal and unnatural to us. It cannot be that,
while God's word remains in us, we should so belie our heavenly
parentage as to be set in sinful courses.
All this is true. Yet it is legitimate to doubt whether the
reader could be expected to grasp so subtle a doctrine simply
upon the basis of a precise distinction of tenses without further
guidance. Moreover, it is not clear that this distinction of
tenses is carried right through with the precision which would
be necessary if the whole weight of the argument rested upon
it. If we are to insist pedantically upon grammatical points, it
is difficult to draw a sharp distinction between the statement
Anyone who remains in Him does not sin (iii. 6, continuous
present), and the statement in i. 8, which is literally, 'We do
not possess sin' (also continuous present). Logically, it is not
clear why a person of whom the former statement is true
should not make the latter statement about himself. Yet the
former is affirmed, the latter denied.
Moreover, while the statement (roundly made) that a Chris-
tian does not and cannot sin is strange to us, there did exist in
79
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
early days a quite serious expectation that Christians should
be actually sinless. This was due, not only to the 'perfec-
tionism' which has often been observed to accompany revival
fervour, but also to dogmatic prepossessions. In the escha-
tology which Christianity inherited from Judaism it was
taught that in the Age to Come the people of God should be
sinless. Thus in Enoch v. 8 sq. we read: Then too will wisdom
be bestowed on the elect, and they will all live and never again
sin, either through heedlessness or through pride' (Charles's
translation; similarly Jubilees v. 12). As it was the general
assumption of primitive Christianity that the Age to Come had
actually been inaugurated (see pp. 34-7, above), the belief was
natural that this, like other prophecies, was fulfilled in the
Church. We may suppose that in the fervour of the early days
the actual moral renewal that took place in many lives seemed
almost to justify the belief: relatively and by comparison at
kast, converts were free from sin. Since this belief was widely
held, the readers of the epistle would be likely to understand
the writer to be affirming it, without observing too narrowly
his use of tenses. Nor is it unlikely that he himself, deeply
influenced by popular eschatology as he shows himself to be,
shared the belief, when he was thinking theoretically or ideally,
rather than looking at the facts.
The apparent contradiction is probably not to be eliminated
(thougli it may be qualified) by grammatical subtlety. In i. fi-
ll. 2 on the one hand, and in iii. 4-10 on the other, the author
is writing from different points of view, and concerning him-
self with different problems. The heretical teaching might have
different effects upon its adherents. Some of them were led to
assume that, being 'enlightened/ they were already perfect in
virtue. Others thought it did not matter whether they were
virtuous or not, provided they were 'enlightened/ The com-
placency of the former was castigated in i. 8-10. The moral
indifference of the latter is in view in our present passage. In
combatting it, the author uses all the resources of antithesis
to set forth the essential polarity of ethical religion. God
and the devil, children of God and children of the devil,
doing right and doing wrong these represent absolute con-
So
/ JOHN, CHAPTER III, VERSES i-io
traries. To be born of God, to belong to God, to remain in
God, to have His word in us, and to do right these all stand
on the one side of a dividing line: there is no alternative but
to do wrong, and so to belong to the devil and to show
oneself his child. To claim to be a child of God, and yet to
be indifferent to moral obligations, is to confuse the whole
issue. Of the personal problem raised for one who acknow-
ledges all this, and yet is conscious of sin, he is not at
this moment thinking. He is concerned to establish the
one fundamental point. When he is facing the facts of personal
experience, he is well aware that the pattern of life is not such
a perfect chess-board, with its black and white separated by
rigid lines. The actual and the ideal do not coincide. Neverthe-
less, it may be by contemplating the ideal that we best under-
stand the final truth of things which underlies the actual.
The last clause of verse 10 forms a transition to a fresh
aspect of the theme. In the author's manner it both carries on
the thought of the preceding verses and introduces the idea
which is to be the main theme of the verses which follow. He
has been speaking of 'righteousness' and 'sin/ He now makes
it clear that the specifically Christian form of righteousness is
love, or charity, and the lack or denial of charity is, more than
anything else, what Christianity means by sin.
2. LOVE AND HATRED; LIFE AND DEATH (iii. II-l8)
For this is the message you have learned from the very begin- II
ning, that we are to love one another : we are not to be like 12
Cain, who belonged to the evil One and slew his brother.
And why did he slay him? Because his own deeds were evil
and his brother's just. Do not wonder, brothers, that the 13
world hates you. We know we have crossed from death to 14
life, because we love the brotherhood; he who has no love
for his brother remains in death. Anyone who hates his 15
brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer
has eternal life remaining within him. We know what love 16
is by this, that He laid down His life for us; so we ought to
lay down our lives for the brotherhood. But whoever 17
81
THE JOHANN1NE EPISTLES
possesses this world's goods, and notices his brother in
need, and shuts his heart against him, how can love to God
18 remain in him? Dear children, let us put our love not into
words or into talk but into deeds, and make it real.
We have already been told that Christ's new command of
11 love, or charity, is an essential part of the original Gospel an
old command which you had from the very beginning (ii. 7). The
writer now reiterates this, with the intention of enforcing and
illustrating his thesis that right conduct is the only sure and
sufficient mark of the child of God, For in a Christian valua-
tion love and hatred are the typical forms of righteousness and
12 sin respectively. There is an example of unnatural and horrible
hatred between brothers in the biblical story of Cain and Abel
(our author's one and only explicit reference to the Old Testa-
ment). The precise pertinence of this illustration is indicated
in 146-15 , But meanwhile, by a swift transition of thought,
the two primeval brothers become representatives of the evil
world over against the family of God. As Cain hated Abel to
the point of killing him, because his own deeds were evil and
13 his brother's righteous, so the pagan world hates Christians,
and for the same reason; because of the inherent opposition of
wickedness to goodness. Thus the pagan world-order reveals
14 itself as a realm of hatred and of death. Christians on the con-
trary dwell in a realm of life, whose distinguishing mark is the
love that exists among God's children in His family. Thus the
ethical criterion for 'religious experience/ upon which the
writer has insisted again and again, is made quite precise, and
grounded firmly in fundamental principles. Charity is the
touchstone. The decisive test for all such claims as those which
are reviewed in i. 5 - ii. 7 lies in our attitude to our fellow men,
and this test is one that we can all apply with less risk of self-
deception than any other. The decisiveness of the test is
further emphasized negatively: he who has no love for his
15 brother remains in death; for hatred is murder; murder is the
denial of life: no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.
The thought of these verses is highly compressed, with
abrupt transitions. The connection of ideas may profitably be
82
/ JOHN. CHAPTER III, VERSES 11-18
studied with reference to a passage in the Fourth Gospel, which
was probably in the author's mind. In John viii. 37-47 we
have a scene described in which the Jews of Jerusalem (proto-
types of the world which hates the righteous in our present
passage) exhibit furious hostility to Jesus, culminating (viii.
59) in an attempt to kill Him by stoning. They claim to be
Abraham's children, and as such to have one father, even God.
Jesus retorts, If you are Abraham's children, then do as
Abraham did ; but now you want to kill me. . , Abraham did
not do that, ... If God were your father, you would love me.
. . . You belong to your father the devil, and you want to do
what your father desires; he was a murderer (the same word as
in I John iii, 15, though Moffatt translates it differently) from
the very beginning. Here we can recognize parallels to several
of the leading ideas of our present passage: the Son of God over
against the children of the devil; love for God's Son as a mark
of the child of God; murderous hatred as a mark of the child
of the devil; but here the reference to murder is natural and
unforced, for the Jews are in the act of attempting to murder
Jesus, thus giving overt proof of their descent from that
primeval murderer, the devil. With this passage as background
it is easier to understand the somewhat abrupt introduction of
the idea of murder in I John iii. 12-15. For although we have
the authority of Matt. v. 21-2 for treating hatred as construc-
tive murder, yet there is nothing in the context itself to prepare
for this particular turn of thought.
It is, however, a fruitful turn of thought, for it enables the
writer to bring out very effectively a fresh aspect of the con-
trast of the two orders the pagan world and the Christian
dispensation which he has already drawn in ii. 7-11. There
the contrast was drawn mainly in terms of light and darkness,
and light and darkness were correlated with love and hatred.
Here the contrast is drawn in terms of life and death; and
hatred is shown to belong to the realm of death just because
hatred is murder, the denial of life. By contrast, love is the
mark of the realm of life. The transition from the one realm to
the other (it is implied) is that birth, or rebirth, by which
we become children of God, and love between brothers is at
83
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
once the mark of the child o! God and the proof of eternal
life.
Hatred, then, is sufficiently characterized as murder, or the
negation of life. But how are we to characterize love positively?
16 For the Christian there is one inevitable answer. We know what
love is by this, that He laid down His life for us. The language is
that of the Fourth Gospel (cf. John x. 11-18, xv. 13), but the
fact is affirmed in every part of the New Testament (see Mark
x. 45, Gal. i. 4, Titus ii. 14, Heb. x. 8-10, I Pet. iii. 18,
etc,), 'belonging indeed to the central core of the original
kerygma or apostolic proclamation. Indeed, among the solid
facts of the Gospel history, attested by direct evidence
of the senses (what we heard, what we saw with our
eyes, what we witnessed and touched with our own hands) one
of the most securely attested is the fact that Jesus went
willingly to death at the hands of His enemies, having a few
hours earlier plainly declared by solemn acts and words that
He dedicated Himself to death as a sacrifice on behalf of men
whom it was His mission to save (i Cor. xi. 23-5, Mark xiv.
22-4). The interpretation of the saving efficacy of the death of
Christ is a task which Christian theology has never yet brought
to a completely satisfactory conclusion. Already within the
New Testament there are pointers to various lines of inter-
pretation. But that in thus dying He showed, not only a
martyr's devotion to a cause, but also a divine charity towards
men who had sinned deeply against Him and against God, is a
point upon which there is substantial agreement among New
Testament writers who otherwise differ considerably in out-
look (see Rom. v. 8, Gal. ii. 20, Rev. i. 5; and, by implication,
Luke xxiii. 34, Heb. ii. 10-18, 1 Pet. ii. 21-5). It is one of the
dominant ideas of the Fourth Evangelist, and he more than
any of the others insists upon the point which is essential to
any acceptable thcologia crucis, that the love of Jesus that is,
the loyalty and devotion to His friends, the magnanimity
towards His enemies, and the goodwill towards all men, in
which He died is indistinguishably one with the love of the
eternal God towards His creatures, which is their only hope
and assurance of eternal life (John xiii. 1-4, xv. 13-14, xvii. 19,
84
I JOHN, CHAPTER III, VERSES 11-18
x. 11-18, 27-30, iii. 16, etc.). This is the position assumed by
our author here and elsewhere. At this point he refers to it
for the sake of the consequences that follow for Christian
ethics.
It was an immense strength to early Christianity as a system
of ethical teaching that its regulative principle was expressed
in a term agape, love or charity which it was free to define
afresh for itself (see pp. 110-12); and that the content of agape
was supplied, from the outset, by reference to the concrete
action of Jesus Christ upon the field of history, conceived as an
expression of the eternal will of God, Thus in explaining what
sort of action is intended by the commandment, 'Love one
another/ the Christian teacher has neither to fall back upon
some speculative, a priori, conception of the love of God, nor
to become involved in the discrimination of various kinds
of 'love' among the chaotic manifestations of human affections
and impulses. It is strictly true, in the history of thought and
language, that we know what agape means from the fact that
Christ laid down His life for us.
The practice of love, or charity, therefore, can be broadly
described in terms of the imitation of Christ. It is clear that
from the outset the law of Christ' (Gal. vi. 2), by which
Christians are bound to direct their conduct, was defined in
the Church's teaching, not only by the traditional precepts of
Jesus, but also by His example. The appeal to His example is
explicit in I Cor. xi. i, i Thess. i. 6, 2 Cor. viii. 9, x. i, Rom.
xv. 2-3, Phil. ii. 2-8, i Tim. vi. 13, i Pet. ii. 21, Heb. xii. 3-4;
and it is probable that the idea of the imitatio Christi had more
to say than is commonly recognized by critics, in the selection
of incidents from the life of Jesus for record in the Gospels. In
the Fourth Gospel there is one incident the washing of the
disciples' feet which is expressly held up as an example to
be followed by Christians in their dealings with one another
(John xiii. 12-15); and this is shortly followed by the 'new
commandment' which is so emphasized in this epistle: as I
have loved you, you are to love one another (John xiii. 34).
That means, says our author, that we ought to lay down our 16
lives for our brothers (it seems a pity to substitute, as the
85
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
Moffatt translation does, the less simple and concrete expres-
sion, the brotherhood). There were occasions in the life of the
early Church, as there are certainly tragic occasions at the
present day, for a quite literal obedience to this precept. But
not all life is tragic; and yet the same principle of conduct must
17 apply all through. Thus it may call for the simple expenditure
of money we might have spent upon ourselves, to relieve the
need of someone poorer. It is after all the same principle of
action, though at a lower level of intensity: it is the willingness
to surrender that which has value for our own life, to enrich
the life of another. If such a minimal response to the law of
charity, called for by such an everyday situation, is absent,
then it is idle to pretend that we are within the family of God,
the realm in which love is operative as the principle and the
token of eternal life.
The reader may be conscious of a certain descent from the
sublimity of verse 16 to the apparent banality of verse 17. But
this is characteristic of our author. As he was concerned to
show (in iii. 4-7) that the terms 'righteousness* and 'sin' are
to be understood realistically, as the plain man understands
them 'righteousness' as doing right, 'sin' as doing wrong
so he is now concerned to say that Christian charity or love is
not to be defined in any artificial or arbitrary sense. It means
practical benevolence and beneficence. It may rise to a height
of self-sacrifice comparable with the sacrifice of Christ, or it
may mean that where another man is in want of necessities of
life which you possess, you will give him what he needs. How
easy, if the occasion for heroic self-sacrifice has not arisen, to
pretend to ourselves that there is no call to lay down our
lives'! But in any case there is the chance of helping someone
at some slight cost to ourselves. No doubt charity means a good
deal more than this; but in emphasizing that fact, the moralist
is in danger of forgetting that it means at least this kind of
thing. It is in any case concrete and realistic. This downright
concreteness, almost crudity, in stating the moral require-
ments of religion, belongs to the genius of New Testament
Christianity in general. It is noteworthy that in the Synoptic
Gospels the abstract term love' scarcely occurs (only in Matt.
86
/ JOHN. CHAPTER III, VERSES 19-24
xxiv. 12 and Luke xi. 42), and the command to love (except in
citations from the Old Testament) rarely in set terms, and
hardly ever without concrete exemplification. More often love,
or charity, is commended by examples of loving or charitable
action, as in Matt. xxv. 35-45, Luke x. 30-5, where the kind
of action protrayed corresponds closely with the terms of
verse 17. The fact is that Christianity derived this advantage
from its origin among a people for whom religion was ethical,
and morality was expressed in baldly concrete precepts. In
rejecting a false legalism, and insisting upon the inwardness of
true morality and religion, Christianity still demanded that
the spirit of charity should embody itself in definite outward
action. To over-spiritualize religion is to weaken it ethically.
And so, our author concludes, whether the situation is tragic 18
or commonplace, let us put our love not into words or into talk,
but into deeds, and make it real.
3, FELLOWSHIP WITH COD (Hi. 19-24)
Thus it is that we may be sure we belong to the truth and 19
reassure ourselves before Him whenever our heart may 20
condemn us; for God is greater than our heart, and He
knows all. If our heart does not condemn us, beloved, then 21
we have confidence in approaching God, and we get from 22
Him whatever we ask, because we obey His commands and
do what is pleasing in his sight. Now this is what He com- 23
mands, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ,
and love one another as He has commanded us to do; he 24
who obeys His commands remains within Him and He
remains within him. And this is how we may be sure He
remains within us, by means of the spirit He has given us.
This short section consists of a series of loosely connected
statements, set forth briefly and baldly, almost as if the author
had made notes which he found no time to work up. Six dis-
tinct points are made (some of which reiterate what he had
said already): (i) the exercise of charity is the sole and sufficient
assurance of our Christian standing; (ii) if through scruples of
conscience we lack this assurance, we may rest in God's complete
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
knowledge of us; (iii) if the conscience is clear, then we may live a
life of frank fellowship with God, in prayer and obedience to His
commands; (iv) faith and charity are the sum of God's commands;
(v) obedience to God is the self-authenticating form of mystical
union; (iv) the gift of the Holy Spirit is the token of such union.
The closing sentence of this section would suggest (in view
of his method elsewhere, e.g. ii. 29, iii. 10) that the author was
proceeding to a direct treatment of the theme of the Holy
Spirit; but he is led off into a digression in iv. 1-6, and then
drops that theme in favour of a very important development
of the theme of iii. 11-18. In iv. 13 he recurs for a moment to
the theme of the Holy Spirit, but again drops it without
further discussion. We never get the full treatment of the
theme which iii. 24 would lead us to expect, for when it comes
up again in v. 6-8 the treatment is allusive rather than explicit.
So far as the present section has a general theme it is that
of the Christian's communion with God as his Father an
intercourse of prayer and obedience with One who knows him
altogether, in whom he dwells, and who dwells in him through
the gift of the Spirit.
Verses 19-20 are obscure and constitute a notorious crux
interpretum. The varieties of reading offered by some later
manuscripts seem to show that the difficulties which we feel
were felt also in ancient times, and led to attempts to improve
the text. The best manuscripts are to be followed, but they
leave us in doubt about the punctuation and connection of
clauses, about the construction of certain Greek particles, 1
* The particle 6Vt occurs twice. At its second occurrence it is clearly
the conjunction meaning 'that' or 'because.' At its first occurrence it
might be taken in the same way, with the following t&v as the hypo-
thetical conjunction 'if,' In this case the second Sri is redundant,
resuming the first, a slight irregularity which is not without parallel.
But it is also possible that the first on is intended for the indefinite
relative, 'whatever,' and lw for the untranslatable particle dv. This
latter alternative is assumed in the Moffatt translation (whenever
being a legitimate and necessary paraphrase for a construction which
cannot be translated directly). It has the advantage of avoiding any
grammatical irregularity, though there is an undoubted clumsiness.
The former alternative is perhaps simpler, and more in accord with the
writer's general usage of these particles. It is impossible to decide
between the alternatives on their merits. Either may be adopted as the
general run of the passage seems to demand.
88
/ JOHN, CHAPTER III, VERSES 19-24
and about the sense in which the word here translated reassure
is to be understood.
To start with the last of these, the Greek verb peithein has
three main uses: (i) to persuade someone to do something; (ii)
to convince someone that such and such a thing is true; (iii)
absolutely, to win a person over by persuasion, to 'talk him
over/ as we say. The first sense is clearly not in place here.
The second is possible, and we should look for a 'that' clause
to follow. The third is also possible if we give to the verb the
meaning, reassure (as MofTatt does); a quite possible extension
of meaning, though one for which it is difficult to find an exact
parallel.
Then there is the question of the connection of clauses; and
first we must ask how the opening clause of verse 19 is to be
related to the context. It runs, literally, 'By this we shall know
that we are of the truth/ The form of expression is character-
istic of this writer; cf . ii. 3, 5-6, iii. 10, 16, 24, iv. 2, 9, 10. Of these
the closest in form to our present passage are ii. 3, ii. 5-6, and
iii. 24. In each case the writer takes a proposition which might
be regarded as disputable, or at least as lying beyond our
certain knowledge, and then asserts that it is known to be
true upon the ground of some fact attested by experience or
observation. Thus (to give a literal rendering): 'By this we
know that we know Him if we keep His commandments';
'By this we know that we are in Him he who says he is in
Him must walk as He walked'; 'By this we know that He
remains in us from the Spirit He has given us/ The keeping
of the commandments, the imitation of Christ, and the posses-
sion of the Spirit are matters of experience, and they are the
grounds of our knowledge of further truths. In each case the
words by this refer to what follows.
If we are to be guided by this clue, the passage might be
construed as follows: (A) 'By this we shall know that we are
of the truth, and shall convince ourselves (of it) in His presence
namely, by the fact that, (even) if our heart condemns us,
God is greater than our heart, and knows all/ The clause 'we
shall convince ourselves' is an expansion of the idea 'we shall
know * and the (second) 'that' clause refers back to the words 'by
89
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
this/ The argument would then be something like this: The
Christian believes himself to be living within the sphere of 'the
truth/ This belief may be challenged, either from without or,
more seriously, by doubts within the heart, since conscience
may make us uneasy. How shall we deal with such doubts?
We can only fail back upon the undoubted fact that God
knows us far better than we know ourselves, and leave it to
Him. A man's own heart (or 'consciousness') is not after all
the final judge: God knows all. We might compare what Paul
says in I Cor. iv. 4-5: Although I am not conscious of having
anything against me, that does not clear me ... The hour of
reckoning has still to come, when the Lord will come to bring
dark secrets to the light; or, again, we might recall his repeated
insistence that whether or not we know God, He knows us
(i Cor. viii. 2-3, xiii. 12, Gal. iv. 9). If we adopt this exegesis,
we must suppose that the writer, having set out to show that
it is possible to be sure that we belong to the truth, draws back,
lest he should seem to attribute infallibility to any human
judgment. We can be sure of it only in the sense that we can
be sure of God. But if this be his meaning, he has expressed
himself obscurely, and the transition of thought is extremely
abrupt.
It seems better therefore to suppose that in this case, con-
trary to his usual practice, the writer intends the words 'by
this' to refer back to the foregoing verses. There is a
parallel in iv. 6. He has there been considering how to dis-
tinguish true inspiration from false, and he sums up in con-
clusion, 'From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit
of error' (namely, by the tests just applied). Upon this analogy
we might in the present passage understand the first clause of
verse 19 to mean, 'By this (namely, by loving in deed and in
truth) we shall know that we belong to the truth'; that is to
say, an attitude of genuine charity towards our brothers, such
as has just been described, is something concrete and recog-
nizable in experience, and from it we may conclude that we
belong to the truth. This gives a clear sense, and it is one
which is in harmony with judgments expressed in other places
of the epistle. We know that we know God, if we keep His
90
I JOHN, CHAPTER III. VERSES 19-24
commandments (li. 3); we know that we are in Christ, if we
imitate His conduct (ii. 5-6); the children of God are recog-
nized by love to the brethren (iii. 10); we know that we have
crossed from death to life because we love our brothers (iii. 14).
And so here: we know that we belong to the truth because our
love is in deed and not in word alone. There can be little doubt
that this is the meaning intended, and it is represented by
the Moffatt translation.
The following clauses therefore do not merely carry on the
thought of 193, but add something fresh to it. But in what
sense? A respectable exegetical tradition, going back to the
Greek Fathers, interprets these clauses as a warning: if our
own consciences condemn us, much more will the Omniscient,
to whom all our faults lie open, condemn us. The conjunction
'and' must then be understood in a virtually adversative sense,
almost as if it were 'but' (parallels for this are not wanting).
We should then understand the passage as follows: (B) 'By
what I have said we may be sure that we belong to the truth.
Nevertheless, we shall do well to convince ourselves 1 in His
presence; that, if our own heart condemns us, God is greater
than our heart, and knows all.' It is a warning against the
complacency that may attend upon 'Christian assurance* (as
the history of various movements in the Church can attest).
The writer has been urging the necessity of absolute sincerity:
he now backs up his plea by reminding his readers that they
live in the sight of God, the Searcher of hearts. Such a warning
would be in harmony with the severity of tone which makes
itself heard in verses 3-8, 12, 15, 17. The demands here made
for absolute purity and absolute sincerity in love might well
arouse searchings of heart, and these searchings would gain
penetration from the recollection that they can never exhaust
the possibilities of evil in the human heart, evil which may
elude our scrutiny, but cannot elude God's. The readers must
not be allowed to come too readily to the conclusion that they
love in deed and in truth, or that in other respects they are
qualified to enjoy the assurance of 'belonging to the truth/
i If the passage is so construed, it would be easier to read, with some
inferior manuscripts, the subjunctive, 'let us convince/ rather than the
future indicative of the best manuscripts.
9*
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
But in spite of the recurrent note of severity, It does not
seem to be the intention of the passage as a whole to awaken
a sense of sin which would amount almost to self-despair. Its
main purport is that which is expressed in the words We are
children of God; we know that we have crossed from death to
life because we love the brotherhood. That is to say, the writer
seems to assume that his readers are entitled to be sure that
they belong to the truth, because (unlike the false teachers)
they have a sincere love for the brotherhood. They are not
indeed perfect. If we say, 'We are not guilty' (he reminded them
in i. 8-9), we are deceiving ourselves. But in the same breath
he reassured them, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and
just, He forgives our sins. And so here, having contemplated
the possibility that our heart may condemn us, he adds the
reassurance that God, who is faithful and just, whose children
we are, 'knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are
dust' (Ps. ciii. 14).
The passage therefore may be understood as follows: (Ci)
'By what I have said we may be sure that we belong to the
truth, and reassure our heart in His presence, whenever our
heart condemns us; because God is greater than our heart,
and knows all 3 ; or, alternatively (C2), 'By what I have
said we may be sure that we belong to the truth; and we
may convince ourselves in His presence that, (even) if our
heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows
all/ There is little to choose between these two renderings. The
former is substantially that of Mofiatt. In either case the
general sense is much the same.
22" The writer now brings his readers back to what he must
consider, in spite of all our imperfections, the normal state of
the Christian life; the state in which we are not under the con-
demnation of conscience, and have no sense of sinful alienation
from God. In this state we live in the free and happy inter-
course of children with their Father: we ask Him for what we
need, and do as He bids. The sequence of thought (or rather of
experience) from verses 19-20 to verses 21-2 may be aptly
illustrated from the Conversations of Brother Lawrence, who
said 'that when he had failed in his duty, he only confessed
92
I JOHN, CHAPTER III, VERSES 19-24
Ms fault, saying to God, "I shall never do otherwise, if You
leave me to myself; 'tis You must hinder my falling, and mend
what is amiss." That after that he gave himself no further
uneasiness about it. That we ought to act with God in the
greatest simplicity, speaking to Him frankly and plainly, and
imploring His assistance in our affairs, just as they happen.
That God never failed to grant it, as he had often experienced 1
(The Practice of the Presence of God: Second Conversation).
Brother Lawrence's expression, 'to act with God in the
greatest simplicity, speaking to Him frankly and plainly/
comes very near to our author's meaning in the words, We
have confidence in approaching God; for the word rendered
confidence stood in ancient Greece for the most valued right
of a citizen in a free state, the right to 'speak his mind'; and
although the meaning of the word became wider and vaguer in
course of time, yet there always hangs about it this special
association with the thought of freedom of speech, unhampered
by fear or shame. In our relation to God such freedom of
speech is not an inherent right, but is strictly dependent upon
an equally frank and straightforward obedience to the divine
will (verse 22).
The assurance that our requests to God will be granted upon
this condition finds its justification (as is usual in this epistle)
in statements of the Fourth Gospel. In John viii. 28-9 the un-
broken communion with God which marked the earthly life of
Jesus is grounded in His complete dependence upon, and
unswerving obedience to, the Father. I do nothing of my own
accord, "but speak as the Father has taught me. He who sent me
is at my side; He has not left me alone; for I always do what
pleases Him. Living in this intimate communion, Jesus knows
that His prayers are always heard (John xi. 22, 41-2). But,
further, His own relation to the Father is archetypal of the
relation into which He brings His followers. United with Him
in faith, love and obedience, they too may be sure of having
their prayers answered. If you remain in me and my words
remain in you, then ask whatever you like, and you shall have
it. ... As the Father has loved Me, so I have loved you; remain
within My love. If you keep My commands you will remain
93
THE J OH AN NINE EPISTLES
within my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and
remain within His love (John xv. 7, 9-10). The same thought
is put in other words in xiv. 14-15: I will do whatever you ask
me in my name. If you love me you will keep my commands;
and in xvi. 26-7: On that day you will ask in my name, and
I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf;
for the Father loves you Himself, because you have loved me
and believed that I came forth from God. To pray *in the name*
of Christ is to pray in virtue of our union with Him, and that
union is one of love and obedience, in which Christ's love and
obedience to the Father are reproduced in us through faith.
This whole complex of ideas reappears in a slightly different
form in the verses before us. Our requests to God are heard,
because we obey His commands and (like Christ Himself, John
23 viii. 29), do what is pleasing in His sight. And what are those
commands? First, that we should have faith in Christ (cf.
John xvi. 27), and, secondly, as the proper manifesta-
tion of such faith, that we love one another as He has com-
manded us to do (cf. John xv. 12, following upon the assurance
of answer to prayer in 7-10). That faith in Christ is a part of
the service of God is taught in John vi. 29, while for the close
association of faith and charity we may refer to Gal v. 6:
*faith active in love' is a Pauline definition of the Christian
34* life which our author would readily have accepted. Finally, in
simple obedience to the commands of God (of Christ) we
recognize the reality of that intimate union between God and
His children which is described as a mutual indwelling (cf.,
again, John xv. 7-10).
Verse 246 forms (once again after our author's manner) a
transition from the theme of iii. x 9-240 to that of iv. 1-6,
which is an almost parenthetical section.
With the words remains within Him, we have been brought
back to an idea which played a prominent part in earlier
sections of the epistle. It was first introduced at ii. 6, where
we saw reason to suspect an allusion to the misuse of 'mystical*
language by the heretical teachers. Their claim to 'remain in'
Christ that is, to be in mystical union with Him can be
allowed only if they imitate His example. In the verses which
94
I JOHN, CHAPTER III, VERSES 19-24
follow, another expression is substituted: 'to remain in the
light/ and the writer insists that to be in the light necessarily
means to obey the command of love. The subject is then
dropped for a time; but in ii. 24-9 we are brought back to it.
Here we leam that the condition of 'remaining in the Son and
the Father* is that the Word of God, or the 'chrism/ should
remain in us. In other words, there is no union with God in
Christ which is not conditioned by loyal adhesion to the Gospel,
in which is, included the 'new command' of love. Then the idea
of 'indwelling' gives place to that of divine generation, and
this in turn is brought into connection with the command of
love. The thought is developed that the only sure proof by
which we may know that we have been born into the life of
God is to be found in our love for our brothers. And then,
finally, the thought thus developed is linked with the earlier
line of thought by recalling the language of 'indwelling': He
who obeys His commands remains within Him and He remains
within him (iii. 240), This is a virtual reassertion of what has
already been said; but it is designed to lead up to the very
profound and significant conclusion in iv. 7-12, where the
doctrines of divine generation and divine indwelling are
shown to be rooted in the conception of the divine nature as
love, and consequently to involve by logical necessity the
obligation of mutual love among those who are the objects of
the love of God.
Meanwhile, however, the author is reminded that there is
another aspect in which the new life in Christ can be repre-
sented (beside regeneration and the mutual indwelling of
Christ and the believer) namely, the possession of the H$>ly
Spirit. This is a part of the primitive Gospel (that which you
learned from the very beginning). In the speech of Peter at
Pentecost, which is a kind of programme of the apostolic
Preaching, the gilt of the Spirit is an integral part of the
triumphs of God (Acts ii. n), by which the redemption of man
has been effected: This Jesus God raised, as we can all bear
witness. Uplifted then by God's right hand, and receiving from
the Father the long-promised Holy Spirit, He has poured on us
what you now see and hear (Acts ii. 32-3). In Paul the Spirit
95
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
is represented as the mode of Christ's indwelling in the
Church. In the Fourth Gospel the Spirit, conceived in fully
personal terms as the Paraclete, is the abiding representative
of Christ, in whom He Himself returns to His flock, to help,
guide and enlighten them, and through them to reveal to the
world the true nature of sin and righteousness and the reality
of the divine judgment (John xvi. 7-15). It is remarkable that
in this epistle there is little trace of the 'high' Pauline and
Johannine doctrines of the Spirit. The thought is closer to the
level of primitive Christianity, as it is represented in the Acts
of the Apostles and inferred from allusions in the Pauline
epistles, The Spirit is there primarily the spirit of prophecy
that is to say, an afflatus, or 'inspiration/ granted to certain
individuals, 'prophets/ by which the truth of the Gospel is
confirmed to those who hear (Acts v. 32; cf. i John v. 6).
So here, the fact of the mutual indwelling of Christ and
His people is confirmed by the gift of the Spirit, which is
(as in Gal. iii. 2) a datum of experience from which an infer-
ence can be drawn. But since it is fatally easy to mistake
a false 'inspiration' for the true, it is necessary to consider how
the two are to be distinguished, and this leads to a digression
in the verses which follow.
EXCURSUS ON INSPIRATION, TKUE AND FALSE (iv, 1-6)
iv.
1 Do not believe every spirit, beloved, but test the spirits to see if
they come from God; for many false prophets have emerged
2 in the world. You can recognize the Spirit of God by this : every
spirit which confesses Jesus as the Christ incarnate conies
3 from God, and every spirit which does not confess Jesus
incarnate does not come from God. This latter is the spirit
of antichrist; you were told it was coming, and here it is
4 already in the world. Dear children, you belong to God, and
you have conquered all such, for He who is within you is
greater than he who is in the world.
5 They belong to the world,
therefore they speak as inspired by the world,
and the world listens to them:
I JOHN, CHAPTER IV, VERSES 1-6
we belong to God I
he who knows God listens to us,
he who does not belong to God does not listen to us.
This is how we recognize the spirit of truth and the spirit of
error.
This section presupposes that the Church still has experi-
ence, as in the time of Paul, of inspired prophetic utterance by
its members. A study of I Cor. xiv. is a valuable preparation
for understanding the situation here contemplated. That
chapter has much to say of the extreme form of 'inspired*
utterance known as 'speaking with tongues/ That pheno-
menon no longer plays a part here. But over against this
irrational and unintelligible type of 'inspiration' Paul sets the
rational and intelligible 'inspiration 1 of prophecy, by which the
Church is instructed and 'built up* (i Cor, xiv. 1-5). The
actual effect of prophecy is vividly described in I Cor. xiv.
24-5: If everybody prophesies, and some unbeliever or outsider
comes in, he is exposed by all, brought to book by all; the
secrets of his heart are brought to light, and so, falling on his
face, he will worship God, declaring, 'God is really among you/
Observe here the two functions of the Spirit of prophecy: to
mediate divine judgment (as in John xvi. 8-11); and to
demonstrate the reality of the divine presence in the Church
(as iii. 24, above). Even prophecy, however, is not necessarily
to be taken at its face value. It is subject to criticism. Let only
two or three prophets speak, while the rest exercise their judg-
ment upon what is said (i Cor. xiv. 29). To what extraordinary
lengths uncontrolled 'inspiration' might go is indicated by
i Cor. xii. 3, where Paul contemplates the possibility of an
'inspired' person crying out, 'Cursed be Jesus!' Such an utter-
ance he would no doubt class with the irrational 'speaking with
tongues/ A prophet would hardly be guilty of such an aberra-
tion, since prophets can control their own prophetic spirits
(i Cor. xiv. 32). But even prophecy is not always on the same
level of truth or 'edification/
We now turn to the situation contemplated in our epistle.
The danger, always present, of a false inspiration has been
97
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
realized. Many false prophets have emerged in the world (iv. x) f
or, to translate more literaPv, have gone out into the world;
have gone out> that is to say, irom the Church and in its name
(cl 2 John 7 and note). They are the heretical teachers already
referred to in ii. 18-19. They had been, nominally, members of
the Church, but, says our author, they can never have been
true members of the Church, eke they would never have
separated themselves from it (ii. 19). No; their spiritual home
is the pagan world; the sources of their teaching are pagan;
and for that reason they find ready acceptance in the pagan
world (iv. 5). The description would fit the 'Gnostics' whose
teachings we know, for we must conclude that in most of them
the pagan element is their real basis, and the Christian element
a comparatively ineffective appendage. Some of them (not all)
no doubt intended, by 'reinterpreting' Christianity in 'Gnostic'
terms, to commend the Gospel to the pagan world. Our
evidence suggests that for a time their missionary activities
made a wide appeal, and seriously rivalled those of orthodox
Christianity, with its conservatism and intransigence in the
face of the religious tendencies of the time. When our informa-
tion becomes copious, towards the end of the second century,
the Church is almost 'out of the wood/ but behind this
appears to lie a period in which central or traditional Christi-
anity had its back to the wall, and saw the increasing success
of these compromising systems. That period is but faintly
illuminated for us. We may take our present passage as
representing an early stage in it.
The forerunners of second-century 'Gnosticism' have only
just declared themselves, and left the Church. They appeared
as prophets, speaking under inspiration. It may be suggested
that much of the fantastic material of 'Gnostic' literature could
well be understood as originating in the unbridled enthusiasm
of 'inspired' men, who claimed special 'revelations' of the un-
seen world, such revelations having been later organized by a
misplaced ingenuity into the elaborate systems known to us
from Irenaeus and Hippolytus. Our author is confronted by
this phenomenon: men speaking apparently under an inspira-
tion as real as that of any Christian prophet, and yet proclaim-
I JOHN, CHAPTER IV, VERSES 1-6
ing doctrines which he knew to be radically un-Christian.
Whatever their claims to inspiration, he could not regard their
teaching as other than 'of the world' that is, pagan in essence;
and their success with the pagan public he could only regard
as proof of a fundamental affinity with paganism. And yet
these men were prophets; they were 'inspired/ He could not
deny it. Their utterances had all the familiar marks of 'inspira-
tion/ No wonder simple-minded believers were impressed by
them, and wavered in their convictions. How was the situation
to be met?
For an answer to the problem, he goes back to the principle,
long recognized, that prophecy is subject to criteria lying out-
side the mere fact of its 'inspired' character. Inspiration* as
such is not a criterion of truth. Do not believe every spirit, but I
test the spirits to see if they come from God, for there is dia-
bolical as well as divine inspiration. What then is the test?
Paul had laid down the principle: No one is speaking in the
Spirit of God when he cries, 'Cursed be Jesus 1 ; and no one can
say, Jesus is Lord/ except in the holy Spirit (i Cor. xii. 3). But
this criterion now needs to be made more precise, in the light
of the developed theology of the Church (especially in its
Johannine form). The heretics also might say, 'Jesus is Lord,'
but they would not mean by it what the Church meant. To 2
confess Jesus as Lord, in the sense of the Church's faith, is to
confess Him as the Son of God incarnate. Whatever else the
heretics might affirm of Christ, they would not confess the
reality of the Incarnation, By that test their teaching, however
powerfully 'inspired/ was condemned. The spirit by which 3
they spoke was not the Spirit of God. It was the spirit of
Antichrist (see ii. 18-19, and notes). As such, it represented
the most deadly assault of the powers of evil against the Church
of Christ and an assault, let us remember, which at the time
looked like succeeding, for the world listens to them (5). The
readers therefore must be reminded of that assurance of vic-
tory over 'the world* (over the forces of paganism, and conse-
quently over the insidious propaganda of paganism under
Christian colours) which is, as they have already been told, an
essential part of the Gospel (see ii. 12-14, an d notes). All that
99
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
4 they need to know is, You belong to God, and it follows, You
have conquered all such, for He who is within you is greater
than he who is in the world (i.e. the Evil One, v. 19). (All that
is implied in the expressions You belong to God and He is
within you, has already been set forth, and the readers are
5 expected to have it in mind). As for the success of the heretical
propaganda, if the world listens to them, it is true on the other
6 hand that he who knows God listens to us. (The first personal
pronoun plural here stands for the Church as a whole, speaking
through its responsible teachers, who embody the authentic
apostolical tradition.)
e~ The line is drawn, in the spirit of ii. 15-17, with the utmost
sharpness. On the one side is the pagan world, including, as
we now know, the heretical teachers with their semi-pagan
doctrines. On the other side is the Church affirming the true
faith. The antithesis is absolute: they belong to the world,
therefore they speak as inspired by the world, and the world
listens to them: we belong to God he who knows God listens
to us; he who does not belong to God does not listen to us.
If these words are taken in their strict literal sense, they
would seem to imply that missions to the pagan world have
no chance of success, since the 'world' lies wholly in the power
of the Evil one (v. 19), and therefore does not belong to God,
and cannot hear the word of God. The writer obviously does
not mean that. He is speaking out of the experience of Chris-
tian missionaries and teachers. The Gospel is proclaimed
broadcast. Some respond to it, as though they had a natural
affinity with it. Others remain untouched, as though there was
nothing in them to respond; or, worse still, they make an
apparent response, and enter the Church, only to lend a ready
ear to semi-pagan teaching, thereby proving that their
affinity is with the 'world/ Before the message was heard,
there was nothing to distinguish these two classes of persons.
When they had heard it, the difference between them became
manifest. If the question were asked, Why did A receive and
B reject the same message, proclaimed to both in the same
terms and under the same conditions? there seemed to be no
answer except that they were that kind of people; A was
100
1 JOHN, CHAPTER IV, VERSES 1-6
already a potential Christian (anima naturaliter Christiana');
B was not.
There is a similar implication in those passages of the Fourth
Gospel which speak of Christ's other sheep who have yet to
be brought into His fold (x. 16), and of the scattered children
of God whom Christ must gather in (xi. 52). The emphasis is
different. The Evangelist has his eye upon people in the
Gentile world, who, although outside the Jewish 'fold/ were
within the scope of Christ's saving work just as much as those
among whom He lived. That is to say, the statements are
meant positively and inclusively, without attention to their
negative and exclusive implications. Yet they do suggest that
there are in the world people who are, so to speak, predestined
Christians. But the very use of the term 'predestined* is a
warning that we are approaching one of the irresolvable
antinomies of human existence, the problem of 'fate, fore-
knowledge and freewill/ which the devils discussed in Pande-
monium 'and found no end, in wandering mazes lost.' If the
antithesis is stated absolutely, and understood as a meta-
physical principle, then we fall into the Gnostic dualism, which
held that certain souls were created from the first 'receptive
of the Seed/ and others not (see notes on iii. 9. Upon our
author's attitude to this dualism, see notes on ii. 15-18).
It must be admitted that he has expressed himself some-
what incautiously; but he is not intending precise philosophical
statement, and should not be held committed to the apparently
logical implications of what he says. He has his eye upon the
actual situation. Empirically, it is true that there is a diversity
in the response of different people to the Word of God, which
cannot be explained beyond saying that they are that kind of
people. Many centuries of experience have taught us that a
negative response may often be due to a defect in the preacher's
presentation of the message, or to his failure to understand
sympathetically the people to whom he appeals. Not all
heresy and unbelief are exhibitions of a radical affinity with
'the world/ or hostility to God. Yet, when all allowance is
made, there is here a mystery beyond our understanding. Even
as proclaimed by our Lord Himself, the Gospel was 'hidden
101
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
from the wise and prudent and revealed to babes 1 (Matt. xi.
25), and in spite of all complications and obfuscations, men do
come face to face with the truth, and, for ultimate reasons
which we cannot penetrate, range themselves by their response
to it.
Our author's immediate intention, however, is not to deal
with this mystery. It is to reassure those who are perturbed by
the success of semi-pagan teaching. That success was only to
be expected in a world like this. But it is limited by the fact
that God has those who belong to Him, and they cannot be
misled. And since He is greater than he who is in the world,
the final victory must lie with Him. To this we may surely add
that this victory must involve the salvation of the world itself
(ii. 2, iv. 14), and so, in some way beyond our understanding,
the salvation of those who belong to the world, and appear at
present as irredeemable enemies of the truth.
6J Verse 6b sums up the purport of the section. The word this
clearly refers (contrary to the author's usual practice) to what
precedes. The reference is not to the immediately preceding
sentence taken alone, but to the section as a whole. It deals
with the problem of 'inspired' utterances which convey false
doctrine. Such inspiration, it is assumed, is diabolical and not
divine, and the test by which true inspiration may be distin-
guished from false is the conformity of its deliverances with the
fundamental faith of the Church, set forth by its responsible
teachers. It is interesting to recall a somewhat similar treat-
ment of the problem of false prophecy in the Old Testament.
Several of the greater prophets are troubled by the appearance
of men whose inspiration is superficially similar to their own,
while their influence upon the people is disastrous. In Deut.
xiii. 1-5 the case is contemplated of a prophet who attempts
to lead the people into idolatry, and it is laid down that even
though his word should be confirmed by signs and wonders,
he is to be rejected. (We may fairly conjecture that such cases
had occurred.) This affords a real parallel to the treatment of
the matter in the passage before us. The fundamental doctrine
of Judaism is monotheism; no utterance, however inspired,
which contradicts the principle of monotheism can be accepted
102
/ JOHN, CHAPTER IV t VERSES 1-6
as tme prophecy. The fundamental doctrine of Christianity is
the Incarnation; no utterance, however inspired, which denies
the reality of the Incarnation, can be accepted by Christians as
true prophecy. Both religions recognize the freedom of the
Spirit, and both owe something of their essential character to
its exercise. But both of necessity draw a line beyond which
such freedom is restrained by the demands of some funda-
mental truth.
In order to appreciate the significance of the passage before
us, it will be well to consider further the history of prophecy
in the Christian Church. In the early Church, as we know it
from the Pauline epistles and the Acts of the Apostles, great
store was set upon what are called 'spiritual gifts/ among
which Paul includes both moral and spiritual qualities like
knowledge, wisdom and faith, and what we may describe by
contrast as abnormal phenomena, like spiritual healing,
prophecy and speaking with tongues. Among the abnormal
gifts he recognizes prophecy as having the greatest value for
the building up of the life of the Church, (i Cor. xii. 8-n, xiv.
1-5). He also places prophets along with apostles and teachers
as persons specially endowed for the ministry of the Church
(i Cor. xii. 28, Eph. iv. n). All this careful distinction and
grading of spiritual gifts is, so far as we know, part of Paul's
personal contribution to the doctrine of the Spirit and the
Church. At the beginning, to judge from the report in Acts,
the outpouring of the Spirit was regarded as the normal
accompaniment of baptism into the Christian Church, and the
various 'spiritual gifts' might manifest themselves indiscrim-
inately in the same or in different persons. The apostles in
particular possessed not only that peculiar 'grace' of apostle-
ship which Paul distinguishes from other gifts (Rom. i. 5), but
also the gifts of healing and of speaking with tongues, and (we
may assume though it is not directly stated) of prophetic
utterance. That which distinguished the Twelve from other
persons to whom inspiration is attributed (such as Stephen and
his colleagues. Acts vi. 3, 5, vii 55) was not so much any
103
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
peculiarity in spiritual endowment as their qualification to
witness to the Gospel facts (Acts i. 21-2).
During the whole of the apostolic age inspired utterance,
having the direct and enthusiastic quality associated with Old
Testament prophecy, played an important part in forming and
guiding the life and thought of the Church, and its importance
outlasted that of the other 'abnormal' gifts. But in the course
of the second century we find prophecy taking more and more
a subordinate position. The attempt at a prophetic revival
known as Montanism failed to win the support of the Church
at large, and its failure served further to depreciate that type
of inspiration. It is thus certain that prophecy declined
(whether for good or ill) between the apostolic age and the close
of the second century. The stages in that decline are not all
clear. The passage with which we are dealing may throw some
light upon it. It implies that spiritual gifts, and in particular
prophecy, are still a part of the living experience of the
Church, but its effect is to establish a somewhat drastic con-
trol of the freedom of prophetic utterance, by the standard of
a rule of faith, and by the authority of an acknowledged
ministry.
It is to be remembered that from the beginning Christianity
was not to be defined exclusively as a 'religion of the Spirit.'
Prophets had an important role, but they were subordinate to
apostles: 'First apostles, then prophets' is the order (i Cor.
xii. 28, and so in all relevant passages). Though the clarification
of the position may be due to Paul, it is clear that, from the
first, prophets who were not also apostles were in some sense
subordinate to the Twelve. This was not because their spiritual
endowment was inferior, but because the apostles possessed a
peculiar qualification which could not be shared by others.
They were the primary witnesses to the evangelical facts by
which the Church was constituted. Thus prophecy was never
fully autonomous, nor were prophets ever exempt from
criticism by virtue of their inspiration. In the earliest extant
Christian writing, Paul both affirms the value of prophecy and
prescribes criticism of its deliverances: Never quench the fire of
the Spirit; never disdain prophetic revelations, but test them all,
104
/ JOHN, CHAPTER IV, VERSES 1-6
retaining what is good, and abstaining from whatever kind is
evil (i Thess. v. 19-21), The criterion which he recommended,
as we have seen, is conformity with the fundamental Christian
affirmation 'Jesus is Lord/ Behind that affirmation lies the
total content of the Gospel, which in the last resort rests upon
the apostolic testimony. In a Pauline formula, the Church
is built upon the twofold foundation of apostles and prophets
(Eph. ii. 20), the apostles representing the authority of
primary witness to the Gospel facts, while prophets represent
the living guidance of the Spirit by which the facts were appre-
hended in ever fuller meaning and scope.
There was, however, always the possibility of tension be-
tween the spontaneity of prophecy and the principle of
authority embodied in the apostolic witness to the Gospel.
That tension revealed itself when persons who had secured
recognition as prophets put forth teaching which was opposed
to fundamental elements in the evangelical tradition. Such is
the situation contemplated in this epistle. It was one of ex-
treme danger to the Church. The freedom of the Spirit was the
life-blood of Christianity, and yet that freedom was being used
to disintegrate the life of the Church. In fact, one side of the
twofold foundation upon which the Church was built was
crumbling. In face of this danger the writer falls back upon the
other side, the apostolic witness to the evangelical facts
what we heard, what we saw with our eyes, what we wit-
nessed and touched with our own hands (i. i), the word which
you heard (ii. 7), that which you learned from the very begin-
ning (ii. 24). From the first the apostolic Gospel, which brought
the life of the Church into being, was prior to prophecy, in
which that life found expression. That priority now becomes
of direct practical importance. The writer has no wish to
see prophecy suppressed or discredited. On the contrary, he
would secure the value of prophecy in the Church by distin-
guishing true inspiration from false. In a situation of almost
desperate gravity it was a matter of life and death to establish
the principle that 'inspiration' does not in itself provide a
guarantee of truth. A man may possess an exalted sense of
direct guidance and enlightenment by the Spirit of God, and
105
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
the freedom and enthusiasm with which he speaks may per-
suade his hearers that he is indeed one of those whom 'God
whispers in the ear'; and yet it may all have nothing to do with
genuine Christianity. That alone is Christian which coheres,
intellectually and morally, with the fundamental facts of the
Gospel; and those facts we know, in the last resort, only
through the witness of the apostles, transmitted to us by such
channels as are avaOable.
Here we have the basis of that appeal to apostolic testimony
which was powerfully developed by Christian teachers of the
second century in the conflict with 'Gnostic' heresy, and led to
the safeguarding of the tradition by the threefold defence of
the Creed, the succession of the Ministry and the Canon of the
New Testament. The history of the Church shows that this
appeal to tradition could work in the direction of a sterile
institutionalism, robbing the Church of the freedom of the
Spirit which is its birthright: it shows also that enthusiasm,
mystical experience, assurance of special guidance, and all the
marks of inspiration, may be associated with doctrines sub-
versive of the Gospel The tension between authority and
freedom, between tradition and inspiration, cannot safely be
resolved either by the repudiation of authority "or by the
repression of inspiration. The Church fares best when apostle
and prophet stand together as the firm foundation of its life.
4. THE LOVE OF GOD (lV. 7-12)
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love belongs to God, and
8 everyone who loves is born of God and knows God; he who
9 does not love, does not know God, for God is love. This is
how the love of God has appeared for us, by God sending
His only Son into the world, so that by Him we might
10 live. Love lies in this, not in our love for Him, but in His
love for us in the sending of His Son to be the propitiation
11 for our sins. Beloved, if God had such love for us, we
12 ought to love one another. God no one has ever seen; but
if we love one another, then God remains within us,
and love for Him is complete in us.
106
/ JOHN, CHAPTER IV, VERSES 7-12
Verses i~6 have been in the nature of a parenthesis,
dictated by the necessity of removing any possible misunder-
standing of the appeal to the witness of the Spirit in iv. 24.
We now return to the main theme.
The position has already been established that any real
relation to God whether we express it as 'knowing God,' or
as 'remaining in Him/ or as being 'born of God 1 involves
obedience to His commands; and that His supreme and all-
inclusive command is that we love one another. All this is 7
now succinctly expressed in the words, Let us love one another,
for love belongs to God, and everyone who loves is born of God,
and knows God; he who does not love, does not know God.
Then the writer adds a theological statement of the utmost 8
importance, which provides the final justification for the teach-
ing he has given: for God is love.
In its form, this statement might appear to identify God
with an abstract principle, and so to imply an impersonal
conception of Deity (the same might be said of his other
statement, God is light (i. 5) ). But it is clear that this is not the
writer's intention; for in the context he speaks of the love of
God, and says that love belongs to God, and that God had love
for us. God therefore is presented as the personal Subject of
the act of loving. Yet the proposition, God is love, is clearly
intended to go further than the proposition 'God loves us/
What is its meaning?
Christianity always presupposes the Hebrew conception of
Deity as the 'living God/ In the Old Testament there is little
or no speculation about the nature of God as He is in Himself.
He is known to men in His actions as the Creator of the world,
Ruler of mankind, and the King and Saviour of His people.
History is the field of His self-revelation, and communion with
Him is conditioned by obedience to His commands. Accord-
ingly, the Word of God is not primarily the communication of
knowledge about the divine nature; it is active energy by which
the world was made and is sustained, and by which men are
called into active fellowship with God in carrying out His
purpose. If therefore we ask what God is, the answer must be
given in terms of what He does. He creates and sustains the
107
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
universe; He judges the world in righteousness; He succours
men in distress; He guides those who submit to His will; He
forgives the repentant; and the like. Now Christianity takes
over this Hebrew conception of the 'living God/ It is implied
in the Gospel teaching about the Kingdom of God; for the idea
of the Kingdom of God is essentially dynamic, not static. The
Kingdom is something that comes, as an event in history. Its
coming means that God has acted, for the fulfilment of His
purpose. The Kingdom of God came with Christ. Consequently
the character of His action is to be discovered from the life,
teaching, sufferings, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If
this is to be put in terms of the 'Word of God* (as defined in
the Old Testament), it may be expressed in the proposition
that 'the Word was made flesh' in Jesus Christ.
What, then, is God's 'word 1 to men? Or, to put the same
question in another form, What is the character of that divine
action which is the coming of His Kingdom? The answer
given in the Fourth Gospel is: God loved the world so dearly
that He gave up His only Son, so that everyone who believes iti
Him may have eternal life, instead of perishing (John iii. 16; a
passage obviously alluded to in our present passage, verse 9).
The Word of God to men is love; the coming of His Kingdom
is an act of love. Hence, if we ask, What is God's nature? the
answer must be given in terms of love.
Over against the Hebrew conception of the living God' we
may set the highly abstract conception of Deity which is
characteristic of much Greek thought. Here the term 'God*
stands for absolute Being, timeless, changeless, unmoved, and
best described by negation of all that belongs to our sensible
experience of the world. But in the period to which the
Johannine writings belong some Hellenistic thinkers were
feeling after a less abstract conception. Thus a writer in the
Hermetic Corpus uses the argument that the universe implies
the existence of a Creator, whose 'essence' is just the fact that
He creates. 'And if you compel me to speak more boldly, it is
His essence to produce and create all things. And just as it is
impossible for anything to exist without a maker, so it is
impossible for the Creator to exist without perpetually making
108
/ JOHN, CHAPTER IV, VERSES 7-12
everything' (Corp. Herm., V. 9). Another says, 'As man
cannot live without life, so God cannot live without making
what is good. For it is this that is God's life, as it were; His
movement, as it were; to cause all things to move and live'
(Corp. Herm., XL 17). The tendency of such thought is
towards the position that if you can describe God's charac-
teristic activity, as, for instance, that of creating the world,
or of giving life, or of originating goodness, you may at once
transfer this to the definition of His Being, since 'being self-
operating He always exists in His work' (Corp. Herm., XL
14). Thus, you can say, This is life; this is the beautiful; this
is the Good; this is God' (Corp. Herm., XL 13).
Such attempts to define the divine nature no longer confine
the idea of God to that of abstract Being. Whether or not this
movement in Hellenistic thought was stimulated by contact
with Judaism, it clearly comes nearer to the Hebraic strain in
both Judaism and Christianity; but it stops short of ascribing
personality to God, and makes God and the world mutually
dependent in a way strange to Hebrew and Christian thought.
As we have seen, the writer of this epistle shows several
signs of contact with Hellenistic religious thought. It is there-
fore permissible to understand his doctrine that God is love
from the kind of teaching just referred to. If we say that God
must be defined in terms of His characteristic activity as life,
because His activity is manifested in the life of created beings,
or as the Good, because all good is His work then the Christian,
who believes that God loved the world, may define God as love;
not meaning thereby to identify God with an abstraction, but
meaning (to adapt the Hermetic formula) that His 'essence' is
to love.
But there is something further to be noted. All Hellenistic
thought shrinks from ascribing personality to God. Though its
exponents may use the language appropriate to personality,
they almost always betray in the end an unwillingness to take
such language with full seriousness. And in the activities which
they attribute to the Divine there is nothing that logically
compels us to conceive it as personal. A 'life-force' or an 'Idea
of the Good' would be enough. But if the characteristic divine
109
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
activity is that of loving, then God must be personal, for we
cannot be loved by an abstraction, or by anything less than a
person. Thus even in using an abstract term the writer is not
reducing God to an abstraction, since he is to be understood (on
the analogy suggested) as attributing to God an activity
which is radically personal.
We are now in a position to say what is implied in the
statement 'God is love/ over and above what is implied in the
statement 'God loves/ The latter statement might stand along-
side other statements, such as 'God creates/ 'God rules/ 'God
judges'; that is to say, it means that love is one of His activi-
ties. But to say 'God is love* implies that all His activity is
loving activity. If He creates, He creates in love; if He rules,
He rules in love; if He judges, He judges in love. All
that He does is the expression of His nature, which is to
love. The theological consequences of this principle are
far-reaching.
10 Verse 9 is a restatement of the great Johannine declaration
of the love of God (John iii. 16) in terms differing only slightly
from the form given in the Fourth Gospel. It reminds us once
again that in speaking of the love of God we are thinking of
loving action, definite, concrete and recognizable on the
historical plane (see iii. 16 and notes). Verse 10 underlines one
point in this declaration which is of fundamental importance:
the Christian religion starts not with man's love for God, but
with God's love for man, and with God's love expressed in
specific action in history.
This differentiates the specifically Christian experience from
all kinds of erotic mysticism, the classical expression of which
is to be found in Plato's Symposium. Plato takes as the
primitive type of love, sexual desire, which is a passionate
craving for beauty. But beyond physical beauty, beyond
the beauty of the mind and soul, lies Beauty itself, 'that
beauty which always is, never coming into being or passing
away, neither growing nor diminishing. ... It will not be
present to the imagination as a face, or hands, or anything
else which is bodily; nor again as thought, or knowledge of any
kind; nor does it exist in something other than itself, as in an
no
I JOHN, CHAPTER IV. VERSES 7-12
animal, or in earth or heaven, or anything else; but it always
is, itself in itself and by itself, sole and unique* (Symp., 2ioe-
2iib), 'What then do we think/ he continues, 'if it should fall
to the lot of a man to behold Beauty itself, absolute, pure and
unalloyed ... if he could contemplate divine Beauty itself in
its uniqueness?' The answer is that 'he if any man is dear to
God and immortal' (*&., 211^-212*3).
This aesthetic and passionate mysticism is turned by Aris-
totle into a metaphysical doctrine of the relation of God to
the world. God is absolute Reality, and therefore changeless
and unmoved. Yet He is the cause of all change and movement
in the universe. But how? 'He moves the world as being the
Object of its love (or desire)' (Metaphysics, XII. 7). Love there-
fore becomes a cosmic principle, and the mystical craving for
union with the eternal is given a metaphysical basis. The
type of religion to which this language belongs is not only
Greek. It is an an extremely widespread type. In such religion
love is essentially the love of man for God that is to say, the
insatiable craving of limited, conditioned, and temporal beings
for the Infinite, the Absolute, the Eternal. Love for man
cannot be attributed to God, for the Absolute must be passion-
less and unmoved.
This way of thinking was certainly dominant in the religious
world of Hellenism, though actual religious experience kept
breaking away from it in various ways. Over against it stands 10
the Christian affirmation: Love lies in this, not in our love for
Him, but in His love for us. Appropriately, a different word is
used for love. 1 In Plato and Aristotle, as in Greek religious
writers usually, the word is Sros, a term connoting primarily
sexual desire. Here, as all through the New Testament, the
word is agape. The noun is scarcely found in non-biblical Greek.
The verb generally has such meanings as 'to be content with/
'to like/ 'to esteem/ 'to prefer/ It is a comparatively cool and
colourless word. It is this word, with its noun, that the trans-
lators of the Old Testament used by preference for the love of
God to man and man's response, and by doing so they began to
fill it with a distinctive content for which pagansim, even in its
highest forms, had no proper expression. In the New Testament
in
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
this fresh content is enlarged and intensified through medita-
tion upon the meaning of the death of Christ. As Paul puts it,
God proves his love for us by this, that Christ died for us when
we were still sinners (Rom. v. 8); and our present author
similarly, We know what love is by this, that He laid down His
life for us (iii. 16: see note, pp. 84-5). The meaning of the word
must in fact be understood from the Gospel itself; and the
pith and marrow of the Gospel is this: God's sending of His Son
to be the propitiation for our sins. The meaning of the word
traditionally (but in felicitously) translated propitiation is
explained in the note on ii. 2. It means that the corning of
Christ, and in particular His death 'for our sins, according to
the scriptures' (i Cor. xv. 3), constitutes the means by which
we are cleansed from the taint of sin, and enter into the sphere
of divine forgiveness, with the newness of life that it brings.
That God provided such means for us, at such a cost, indicates
what is meant by the love of God.
11 After what has just been said, the command of love comes
with greater cogency than ever, Already in iii. 16 it has been
enforced by the example of Christ's sacrifice. That sacrifice has
now been shown to express the 'essence' of God Himself as
love. It can now be very plainly seen that the new command
is no arbitrary or optional addition to the original Gospel (ii. 7).
For the Gospel is the proclamation of the love of God of God
Himself as love and consequently to accept the Gospel is to
place ourselves under the obligation of love to our fellow men.
Indeed, such love is the appointed way of communion with
12 God. The mystics talk of the Vision of God/ but in fact God
no one has ever seen (as the Fourth Gospel also declares, i. 18).
We may recall that for Plato the love of divine Beauty
culminates in 'beholding' it, 'absolute, pure and unalloyed/
The New Testament, however, is notably reticent about the
vision of God. Here again it carries forward the thought of the
Old Testament. In Hebrew religion hearing, not seeing, is the
key to religious experience. Communion with God is a matter
of 'hearing the word of the Lord' that is, receiving from Him
the knowledge of His will, and ordering one's life according to
it. This is true blessedness: 'Blessed are they that hear the word
112
I JOHN, CHAPTER IV, VERSES 7-12
of God and keep it 1 (Luke xi. 28). This saying of our Lord sanc-
tions the Hebrew outlook in religion, which is also the Chris-
tian. The promise 'They shall see God* in Matt. v. 8 refers to
the blessed life of the age to come/ In so far as the age to
come has already dawned upon the world in the coming of
Christ, the Fourth Gospel folds a place for the vision of God,
not in the sense of mystical rapture, but in the sense that in
the incarnate Christ we behold the glory of the Lord: He who
has seen me has seen the Father (John xiv. 9) . There is indeed
a hint of fuller vision in the life after death (John xvii. 24),
and this hint is taken up in our epistle (iii. 2; see note). But in
Gospel and Epistle alike the direct mystical vision of God as
a goal of religious aspiration in this life is set aside. It is the
'Word' of God that comes to us in Christ. That word is a word
of love. Communion with God, therefore, is established in the
act of loving. If we love one another, then God remains in us,
and love for Him is complete in us. The last clause is virtually
repeated from ii. 5. There the completion of love resides in
keeping the word of God. We now know that the word of God
to us is both the expression of His love for us and at the same
time the command to love one another. Hence love to God,
which has no meaning apart from obedience, is completed in
loving our fellows.
III. THE CERTAINTY OF THE FAITH (iv. 13 - v. 13)
We now begin the third and last main division of the
Epistle, which has its character from the great affirmations in
which it culminates in v. 4-12. The division is not (here or
anywhere else in the Epistle) clear-cut. It appears, however,
that it was the author's intention to lead up to a conclusion
affirming the certainty of the faith, at a moment when many
minds were made doubtful or hesitant by the doctrinal dis-
putes which had broken out; and we may mark at this point
the transition to this final theme. Already in iii. 19-24 the
writer had begun to speak of 'assurance' and 'confidence,'
and apparently his intention was to turn at iii. 246 to the
theme of the witness of the Spirit, which in the Epistle as we
have it forms part of the concluding passage (v. 7). Thus the
113
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
last main division might have been made to begin at iii. 19.
But after iii. 246 the author was diverted to the distinction
between the true witness of the Spirit and its counterfeit
(iv. i~6), after which, feeling that his treatment of the theme
of divine love (iii, 1-18) was not yet complete, he added a
passage (iv. 7-12) which provides its indispensable culmina-
tion. This passage, therefore, cannot be separated from the
second main division of the Epistle. At iv. 13 we are back at
the same point as iii. 246, and the theme of divine love now
passes (though with many backward references) into that of
the certainty of the faith.
I. THE NATURE AND GROUNDS OF CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE
(iv. 13-18)
13 This is how we may be sure we remain in Him and He in us,
14 because He has given us a share in His own Spirit; and we
have seen, we do testify, that the Father has sent the Son
15 as the Saviour of the world. Whoever confesses that *Jesus
is the Son of God/ in him God remains, and he remains in
16 God; well, we do know, we have believed, the love God has
for us. God is love, and he who remains in love remains in
17 God, and God remains in him. Love is complete with us
when we have absolute confidence about the day of judg-
18 ment, since in this world we are living as He lives. Love
has no dread in it; no, love in its fulness drives all dread
away, for dread has to do with punishment anyone who
has dread, has not reached the fulness of love.
We are now to have a full and final treatment of the subject
which is one of the main themes of the epistles: that of union
with God, expressed in terms of mutual indwelling; and, more
particularly, in terms of the question (already posed and
answered in various ways in ii. 5, iii. 24), how we may be sure
that we remain in Him. After the disclosure of the supreme
truth that God is love, it is possible at last to give an entirely
satisfying answer to that question. This is how we may be sure
we remain in Him and He in us the word 'this' refers to what
follows, and in the first place to the next clause because He
114
I JOHN, CHAPTER IV, VERSES 13-18
has given us a share in His Spirit which is only a slightly
expanded repetition of the statement in iii. 24. But we shall
do well to regard the whole passage down to verse 16 as giving,
in effect, the grounds of assurance.
The first ground, then, is the gift of the Spirit. When this 13
aspect of the Christian life was mentioned before (at iii. 24),
the writer was diverted from his immediate purpose by the
necessity for distinguishing sharply between genuine divine
inspiration and its counterfeit. Now he restates his point
positively. He does not, however, develop it, and it remains
somewhat obscure. The first mention of the Spirit, in iii. 24,
at once suggested to him the Spirit of prophecy, and he pur-
sued that subject in the following verses. But it is not clear
that this was his first intention. Prophecy, indeed, was for
early Christians a powerful proof of the presence of God in the
Church (cf. i Cor. xiv. 24-5). But in iii. 24 it is the individual
Christian (within the fellowship of the Church) who is the sub-
ject of that union with God described as mutual indwelling; and
it is of this that the gift of the Spirit is a proof. Although in the
present passage the verb is plural, the reference would seem to
be the same. Prophecy is after all only one of the manifesta-
tions of the Spirit, and behind all such manifestations lies the
fundamental experience which is described by Paul in Rom.
viii. 15-16: When we cry 'Abba, Father!' it is this Spirit testifying
along with our own spirit that we are children of God, Probably,
then, we are intended here to think of the 'interior witness of
the Holy Spirit/ the immediate, spontaneous, unanalysable
awareness of a divine presence in our life. The author is well
aware of the danger of any appeal to such types of experience,
and that is why in iv. 1-6 he guarded against the danger (in
the special case of prophecy) by reference to the central
article of the Christian creed. Similarly here, he passes rapidly
from the 'interior witness* to the observable facts of the
Incarnation.
Secondly, then, the 'interior witness' finds its complement 14
in the external testimony to Christ as Saviour: We (that is, the
Church and its ministry continuing the apostolic witness to the
Gospel (see pp. 9-16)) have seen, we do testify, that the
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
Father has sent the Son as Saviour of the world. The verb
'to see' which is used here is the same as in verse 12 above,
where the Vision of God/ in the sense of 'Hellenistic mysti-
cism,' is denied. While God in His eternal being is invisible,
the Incarnate is visible, and that is sufficient to meet our
15 need for knowledge of God (cf. John xiv. 8-9). In the light,
therefore, of observed facts (cf. i. i, where again the same
verb of seeing occurs) we confess the Church's faith, Jesus
is the Son of God; and we now know (in the light of iv. 7-10)
that the ultimate content of that confession is nothing less
than the love of God, manifested in the incarnate life, and
16 the death, of Jesus: we do know, we have believed (for the
same combination of verbs, though differently translated, cf.
John vi. 69) the love God has for us. And so, finally, the truth
of the divine indwelling becomes luminously self-evident:
God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and
God remains in him.
By thus drawing together several strands of thought which
have run through the epistle, the author has produced a
balanced, comprehensive and singularly impressive account of
the grounds of Christian assurance. The Christian life is, to use
the language of mysticism, a life of union with God, where
God dwells in us and we in Him. Empirically, it is a life whose
ruling motive is love to God and man. But simply to say that,
is to fall short of the truth; for such love might be the expres-
sion of a natural disposition, or of an effort made from a sense
of duty. A man might be said to love God because he had, what
is very common, a craving for the infinite; and he might love
his fellow men because he had a naturally kindly disposition,
or because he acknowledged the duty of benevolence. All that
is good and desirable, though the craving for the infinite
sometimes takes odd ways, a philanthropy based on a sense of
duty is seldom welcome to its objects, and natural kindliness
may break down under stress. But Christianity is more than
this. It holds the belief that the love with which we love God
116
/ JOHN, CHAPTER IV, VERSES 13-18
and our neighbour really Is the love of God (Love lies in this,
not in our love for God, but in His love for us, iv. 10); it is a
divine power indwelling, for God Himself is love. In speaking
of the love of God Christianity means something quite con-
crete; for we confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and, having
before us the way in which He actually lived and died, we
recognize in that the love God has for us. That confession has
behind it the authority of the primary witnesses, whose testi-
mony resides in the continuous tradition of the Church from
the beginning. At the same time, we do not ground our assur-
ance solely upon external testimony, for this testimony is
confirmed in experience by an inward conviction, wrought,
we must needs believe, not by our own minds, but by
the Spirit of God. And, yet again, our assurance does not
depend solely upon such interior witness (for we might
mistake the spirit of error for the Spirit of truth); it is
corroborated by the objective facts of the Gospel (I4~i6a).
The aphorism which follows (166) resumes in compendious
form the conclusions of verses 7-12: God is love; and he who
remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. The
restatement is no mere repetition, for it is now related directly
to the theme of Christian assurance which has occupied verses
13-16. We know we are in union with God, because His Spirit
testifies within us. But not only so; we have external, objective
evidence, in the life and death of Christ, that God loves us; that
indeed the very nature and property of God is to love. Hence
follows a very direct ground of assurance. To live in love is to
live in union with God: and that points to the final test for the
validity of all religious experience.
The expression 'to remain in love' is suggestive rather than
exact. It is not clear whether the meaning is 'to continue to
live as the objects of God's love/ or 'to continue to love God,'
or 'to continue to love our brothers/ It is in fact impossible,
according to the teaching both of this epistle and of the Fourth
Gospel, to make a clear separation between these three modes
or manifestations of love. The energy of love discharges itself
along lines which form a triangle, whose points are God, self
and neighbour; but the source of all love is God, of whom
117
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
alone it can be said that He i$ love. Whether we love God or
our neighbour, it is God's love that is at work in us assuming,
that is, that our love is that authentic agape which is exempli-
fied in God's gift of His Son, and in Christ's sacrifice for us
all.
The last point is not unimportant. The famous aphorism of
166, in its English dress, readily lends itself to falsely senti-
mental interpretations if it is detached from its total context.
It does not mean that anyone who feels for another person any
sort of liking, affection or passion, which we loosely include
under the term 'love,' is ipso facto in union with God. The true
nature of divine charity is sufficiently defined by reference to
the Gospels, and it is this love, or charity, that is meant.
This closely knit statement therefore places the reality of
the Christian experience of God beyond question, guarding
against the dangers of subjectivism on the one hand, and of
mere traditionalism on the other; placing equal and co-ordinate
stress on love to God, which is the heart of religion, and love
to man, which is the foundation of morality, without allowing
religion to sink to the level of mere moralism, or morality to be
dissolved in mysticism. The passage is the high- water mark of
the thought of the epistle.
17 We are now led to a further development of the doctrine of
Christian assurance with which the foregoing verses have
dealt. We have been told that in a region where there is no
direct vision (for no one has ever seen God) we can nevertheless
have complete assurance that we are in union with God. We
have the interior witness of the Spirit, confirming the evidence
of the facts of Christ's incarnate life and death; and the
essential purport of this evidence is that God loves us. That
conviction, however, is ineffectual unless we 'remain in' God's
love (in the complex sense already indicated). Assuming, how-
ever, that by this test love is complete in us, and we axe thus
assured that we remain in God, and He in us, then we proceed
to a further consequence of this fulness of love. A literal trans-
118
I JOHN, CHAPTER IV, VERSES 13-18
lation will perhaps better bring out the connection of thought.
'In this fact love is made complete with us namely that we
have confidence on the Day of Judgment/ (It may be that
Moffatt is right in giving the sense 'about the day of judgment';
but the preposition properly means 'in/ and it is probable that
it is intended, quite simply, to indicate a point of time
namely, the now visibly impending Judgment Day.) In other
words, when Doomsday comes the Christian will possess confi-
dence before God, as the final outcome of a life lived in the
love of God on earth. (For the background and meaning of the
word translated 'confidence/ see note on iii. 21.) This recalls
ii. 28: Remain within Him now ... so that when He appears we
may have confidence, instead of shrinking from Him in shame at
His arrival. In both contexts the writer is speaking of that
union with God which is described as mutual indwelling; but
in the present passage that idea has been made more precise
and perspicuous through the doctrine that God is love, so that
to 'remain in God' is to 'remain in love/ Confidence on the Day
of Judgment, in fact, is the ripe fruit of a life lived in the love
of God or, to put it otherwise, of a life lived in this world
in conformity with the pattern of Christ. (For the suggested
contrast between the absolute perfection of unity with God
which belongs only to Christ in His glorified existence in the
eternal world, and the relative and progressive unity which is
possible for His followers in this world, see John xvii. 9-19.)
The conformity of the Christian life with the divine character
as revealed in Christ is a thought never far from the writer's
mind. Sometimes it is expressed precisely in terms of imitatio
Christi (ii. 6, iii. 3, 16); sometimes more vaguely (as L 7, ii. 29
where the sequence of thought may be compared with that in
our present passage). Here the context shows that he is
appealing to the example of Christ as the One of whom it can
be said, without qualification, that He remains in love and
love is complete in Him. In the Fourth Gospel we learn that
Christ is in perfect union with the Father, Father and Son
dwelling mutually in one another (John xiv. 10-11); and this
union with God by mutual indwelling is held up as the
archetype, or ideal, of the communion of the Christian
119
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
with God (John xv. 9-10, xvii. 21-3). All this is in our
author's mind when he says, in this world we are living as He
lives.
If then we take the picture of Christ in the Fourth Gospel
as the pattern of what it means to 'remain in love/ we can
give a full and precise meaning to that expression as it is used
here. The Father loves the Son and shows Him all that He is
doing Himself (v. 20): in fact, it is the Father, who remains ever
in the Son, who is performing His own deeds (xiv. 10) (which
are deeds of love towards the world, iii, 16); in other words,
Christ, as the incarnate Son of God, is the point at which the
love of God operates for the welfare of men; and it is with the
love of the eternal God that Christ loves His own in this world,
to the end (xiii. i). Again, by virtue of keeping God's commands,
Christ remains in the love of the Father (xv. 10); which must
mean that He lives with the Father in a relation of mutual love
(which can also be described as mutual indwelling). Hence,
to remain in love, living in this world as Christ lives, means
for us that we keep our place in God's family, as the objects of
His love, that we return His love in keeping His commandments,
and that by exercising the divine charity towards our fellows
we become points of operation for the love of God in the world.
Such is the way of living which reaches its perfection in an
absolute confidence on the day of judgment: and naturally so,
since it is a way of living which unites us with our Judge
(John v. 22, 27; cf. 2 Cor. v. 10). But, further, since it is a life
1 8 within the love of God, it is exempt from fear. Love has no
dread in it; love in its fulness drives all dread away. The love
spoken of is mutual love between God and ourselves (with its
corollary of charity towards our neighbours); but perhaps with
the emphasis, in this case, upon the love we bear to God; for
this seems to be implied in the negative clause, anyone who has
dread, has not reached the fulness of love. It is self-evident,
even in merely human relationships at their best, that the more
truly two persons love one another, the less they will be likely
to be afraid of one another. It is true that each may have a
very real fear of hurting one another (as we should fear to
affront the love of God); but not because he is afraid of what
120
I JOHN, CHAPTER IV, VERSES 13-18
the other may do to him. A fortiori, to live within the love of
God is freedom from the ultimate fear.
Our author, as we have seen, carries on from the earliest days
of Christianity a very vivid and forcible sense of the near
approach of Doomsday (see ii. 18, and notes, pp. 48-50). As
a matter of chronology, he was mistaken. History went on,
and is still going on. This, however, does not alter the facts of
the essential transiency of this world, and of its subjection to
the judgment of God. In these times of 'crisis' (as we call
them, using the Greek word for 'judgment 1 ), when the evil
tendencies resident in a whole epoch of history reveal them-
selves in their disastrous consequences, the awakened con-
science acknowledges that the judgments of the Lord are in
all the earth. Such recurrent 'crises' (whether in the history of
nations or on the small stage of the individual life does not
matter) are flash-lights upon the nature of our existence in this
world. Our sense of living at the end of a world epoch, and of
witnessing the reaction of a moral universe against the wicked-
ness and folly of mankind, is no illusion, but one more testi-
mony to the unescapable truth that this world comes to an
end (sooner or later, and for each of us at death), and leaves
us exposed to the final realities. In the end we must face the
truth about ourselves and our doings, as seen through the eyes
of God. If our belief is true, that our Maker is a God of right-
eousness, and that He has made us with a certain freedom
(however relative and limited) to choose and act responsibly,
then our life can hardly be said to make sense unless each of
us is to be given, at some moment soon or late, an under-
standing of himself as he really is and of his actions as they
really are; that is, as God sees them, for the interim judgments
of conscience are partial and fallible (cf. I Cor. iv. 3-5). This
is the Last Judgment we await. (It is effectively suggested in
the Prayer Book version of Ps. 1. 21: 1 will reprove thee, and
set before thee the things that thou hast done/) However we
imagine it to ourselves, it is a terrifying prospect. The dread
which it awakens is described in a classical passage in the
Epistle to the Hebrews: nothing but an awful outlook of doom,
121
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
of that burning Wrath which will consume the foes of God . . .
It is an awful thing to fall into the hands of the living God
(Heb. x. 27, 31), But no Christian need, or should, feel dread
like that, says our author. Such dread has to do with punish-
ment; or perhaps his meaning is that fear carries punishment
with it is in fact punishment. The Greek would bear that
sense, and it is at any rate a fact: there is hardly a worse
mental torment than utter terror; and many people have felt
it at the thought of judgment to come. But it is not the inten-
tion of the Christian religion that we should live in dread. For
to be a Christian is to live in love, and love has no dread in it,
love in its fulness drives all dread away.
2. LOVE, OBEDIENCE AND FAITH (iv. ig - V. 5)
20 We love, because He loved us first. If anyone declares, 'I love
God,' and yet hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who will
not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot possibly love
21 the God whom he has never seen. And we get this com-
mand from Him, that he who loves God is to love his
v. brother also.
1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ, is born of
God; and everyone who loves the Father, loves the sons born
2 of Him. This is how we are sure that we love God's children,
3 by loving God and obeying His commands (for love to
God means keeping His commands). And His commands
4 are not irksome, for whatever is born of God conquers the
world. Our faith, that is the conquest which conquers the
5 world. Who is the world's conqueror but he who believes
that Jesus is the Son of God?
It might seem that in these verses we are reverting to the
themes of the second main division, for they are in part a
resume of what was said in iii. 11-18 and elsewhere about love
to God and love to man. But all this is here recalled in the
context of the theme of assurance, and with v. 3-4 the
emphasis passes from love to faith, and it is this idea of the
Christian faith and its irrefragable evidence that prevails
down to v. 12.
122
I JOHN, CHAPTER IV, VERSES 19-21
The grounds of confidence on Judgment Day have been so
stated that they might seem to place too great a burden on the
conscience of the diffident Christian, who asks himself, 'But
do I love God enough to put fear aside?' To correct any such
impression, the writer repeats what he said in iv. 10 (see also
notes there). The love of which he is speaking is essentially 19
the love of 'God for us, and our love only derivatively: we love,
because He loved us first. 'We love/ he says: not, Ve love
God because He loved us first/ though that is true; but in the
widest possible sense, our very capacity to love, whether the
object of our love be God or our neighbour, is given to us in
the fact of our being loved by God. Thus, in facing the ex-
pectation of judgment to come, we find our real ground of
assurance not in our love for God but in His love for us in the
sending of His Son to be the expiation for our sins (10); though
it would be paradoxical if, being so persuaded of His love, we
did not return it in a love for Him which excludes fear.
This return of love, however, must find its object also in 20
our fellow men, as our author now insists, reverting to the
theme of verse n above (as well as of iii. 11-19, where love of
our brothers is said to afford a ground of confidence before God) .
There is here a serious possibility of self-deception. A man may
say, *I love God/ and mean it to the best of his belief. He may
experience the emotions of love to God; but love in the sense
intended by this writer is not merely, not even primarily,
emotion. Feelings may be delusive. The proof that love is real,
in the full Christian sense, lies in the overt action to which it
leads (cf. iii. 17, and notes). There is no real love to God which
does not show itself in obedience to His commands (see v. 3
below); and God's command is quite explicit: that he who loves 21
God is to love his brother also. The reference is clearly to the
tradition of the teaching of Jesus, as we have it in Mark xii.
28-31 and parallels. Hence the overt proof of love to God
the proof that is to convince not only observers but the man
himself lies in the practical exercise of charity towards his
fellow men. Negatively, if anyone declares, 'I love God/ and yet 20
hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who will not love his
brother whom he has seen t cannot possibly love the God whom
123
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
he has not seen. The meaning of this latter clause is not quite
clear. The word 'cannot' might bear either of two meanings,
which may be illustrated as follows. A schoolmaster might
observe to an idle pupil, 'Unless you attend to your lessons,
you cannot become an educated man 1 ; and, on the other hand,
the recipient of an anonymous letter might remark, 'A person
who writes like that cannot be an educated man/ Similarly,
here the meaning might be either that, unless one practises
himself in loving his fellows, he is incapable of the more
difficult task of loving God; or that the observed absence of
practical charity is a proof that a person does not love God.
The context seems to demand the latter meaning; for the
writer is not here concerned with the stages by which we may
learn to love God, but with the tests by which it may be known
whether or no we love God; and the most straightforward and
convincing test is that of charity towards our neighbours. We
have here in effect a fresh interpretation and application of the
evangelical commandment of love to God and neighbour. For
the 'first and greatest commandment/ and the second which
is 'like unto it/ are in the last resort one commandment. Being
the objects of God's love, we are to love our neighbour in Him
and Him in our neighbour; and that is what it is to remain in
His love.
v. The intimate connection between love to God and love to
l u neighbour may be illustrated in another way. And here the
writer harks back to the doctrine of divine generation from
which the argument started in iv. 7. There the point was made
that it is the nature and property of the child of God to love,
since it is his Father's nature to do so. Here the point is made
that the child of God is a person to be loved, because of his
parentage. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ
(every true Christian), is born of God. But it is a general prin-
ciple that if you love the parent you will love the child. (It is
not necessary to give the word 'father' a capital letter, for the
writer is enunciating a general maxim: love me, love my
child; although, of course, in the application which he gives it
the parent is God and the child the Christian man.) The con-
clusion we expect is: therefore if you love God you will love
124
I JOHN, CHAPTER V, VERSES 1-5
your fellow Christian. But verse 2 is not quite unambiguous.
Literally translated, it would run: 'By this we know that we
love the children of God when we love God and keep His
commands/ The Moffatt rendering assumes that the words
'by this' refer to what follows (as in this epistle they usually
do), and are explained by the words 'when we love God
and keep His commandments.' This would imply that if
we are uncertain whether or not we really love our fellow men,
we should ask ourselves whether we love God; or, in other
words, whether we keep His commandments (verse 30): the
evidence of our love to man is the fact of our love to God in the
keeping of His commands. This is not the usual order of
thought in the epistle. In iii. 14, 17-19, and negatively in iii.
15, iv. 20, it is suggested rather that the immediate datum of
experience is our love to man, and from it we derive assurance
of our relation to God. No doubt the author holds that love to
God and love to man are so inseparable that the presence of
either is evidence of the other. Yet it is a little surprising, in
view of his general attitude, to find Mm treating our love to
God as the more immediate certainty, from which we are to
deduce the reality of our love to man. The words of verse 2,
however, are capable of another meaning, which may be
represented by a slight alteration of the order of words in
English: 'By this we know that, when we love God, we love
the children of God/ The words 'by this' now refer to what
precedes (cf. iv. 6, iii. 19), and we have a perfectly logical
argument, which may be thus stated in syllogistic form:
He who loves the parent loves the child:
Every Christian is a child of God:
Therefore, when we love God we love our fellow Christians.
This would appear to be the author's meaning. He assumes the
solidarity of the family as a fact of ordinary experience, and
argues directly from it to the solidarity of the family of God.
To be born of God is to be born into a family, with obligations,
not only towards the Father of the family, but also (as part of
our obligation to Him) towards all His children. This needed
saying, because for many people to be a 'child of God* meant
125
THE JOBANNINE EPISTLES
an exalted spiritual status, accompanied by mystical experi-
ences of union with the Divine, without any necessary recogni-
tion of social obligations.
36 The reader has just been reminded that to love God means to
keep His commands. Love which does not include obedience is
not worth the name. But is it not a very hard thing to keep
God's commands? The Christian standard of conduct is high
and exacting. Yet the Lord Himself said, 'My yoke is kindly
and my burden light' (Matt. xi. 30). With this saying (we may
suppose) in mind, the writer adds, His commands are not
irksome, He does not mean that God's demands upon us are less
exacting than we supposed, but that they are accompanied by
the assurance of power to fulfil them. In our attempts to live
according to the will of God, we have against us the powers of
'the world' that is, of paganism, or human society organized
without God, bearing the marks of the desire of the flesh and
4 the desire of the eyes and the proud glory of life (ii. 1 6). But
He who is within you is greater than he who is in the world
(iv. 4). When the writer last appealed to that truth, he was
concerned with the victory of the Church over the forces of
error outside it. Now he is concerned with an even more in-
sidious attack of the powers of 'the world,' the attack which is
delivered against the Christian man through the pressure of
pagan motives and standards upon his own moral life. In face
of that pressure it is still true that we have in us something
which is more powerful than 'the world.' For we are children
of God, and we have in us something of God Himself. The good
in us is after all stronger than the evil, because it is the energy
of God: Whatever is born of God conquers the world.
Here, then, is the way to victory over paganism, the
paganism of the human heart, manifesting itself both in a
godless world-order and in the power of evil inclinations, false
standards and bad dispositions which we have to overcome in
ourselves in obeying God's commands. The way to victory is
not a confident assertion of our own better selves, but faith,
and faith necessarily refers us to something beyond ourselves.
The victorious faith of the Christian is trust in God as He is
revealed in Jesus Christ His Sori. It means committing our-
126
I JOHN, CHAPTER V, VERSES 6-13
selves to the love of God as it is expressed in all that Jesus
Christ was and all that He did. Such faith in God has its 5
intellectual basis in belief in the Incarnation of the Son of
God, Without that basis the conception of God as a God of
love remains precarious, in face of the many facts which seem
to contradict it. Granted that basis, we have a faith against
which all the forces of evil in the world and in ourselves are
powerless to prevail
3. THE WITNESS TO THE FAITH (v. 6-13)
Jesus Christ, He it is who came by water, blood, and Spirit 6
not by the water alone, but by the water and the blood.
The Spirit is the witness to this, for the Spirit is truth. The J
witnesses are three, the Spirit and the water and the blood,
and the three of them are in accord. 1 If we accept human 9
testimony, God's testimony is greater; for God's testimony
consists in the testimony he has borne to His Son. He who 10
believes in the Son of God possesses that testimony within
himself; he who will not believe God, has made God a liar
by refusing to believe the testimony which God has borne
to His Son. And the testimony is, that God gave us life 1 1
eternal and this life is in His Son.
He who possesses the Son possesses life : 12
he who does not possess the Son of God does not possess
life.
I have written in this way to you who believe in the name 13
of the Son of God, that you may be sure you have life
eternal.
* The Authorized Version reads here; There are three that bear
record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these
three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit,
and the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one.' This repre-
sents the so-called 'Received Text/ which goes back to Stephanus's
edition of the Greek New Testament, 1550. The sentence about the
Three Heavenly Witnesses' is found in no Greek MS. earlier than the
fourteenth century, in no ancient Greek writer, in no ancient version
other than the Latin, and in no early MS. of the Old Latin version or of
Jerome's Vulgate. It is first quoted as a part of the text of i John by
Priscillian, the Spanish heretic, who died in 385, and it gradually made
its way into MSS. of the Latin Vulgate until it was accepted as part
of the authorized Latin text. In the first printed Greek Testament to be
127
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
The writer now wishes to insist upon the whole rich content
of belief in the Incarnation, which is the pledge of victory
over the world. He does so in terms which aie obscure to us,
though his first readers no doubt had the clue to his language.
6 Jesus Christ, he says, is He who came by water, blood and
Spirit. 1 That He came by Spirit we can understand by refer-
ence to the evangelical tradition. The Synoptic Gospels trace
the beginning of the public Ministry of Jesus to the descent of
the Holy Spirit which accompanied His baptism by John (Mark
i. 9-11, Matt. iii. 16-17, Luke iii. 21-2). According to Acts x.
38, this constituted the 'anointing' by virtue of which He
appeared as the 'Christ' (= 'Anointed'). Again, these Gospels
designate Jesus as the One who is to 'baptize with Holy Spirit'
(Mark i. 8, Matt. iii. n, Luke iii. 16; cf. Acts i. 5), and in the
Acts it is He who pours out the Spirit upon the Apostles (Actsii.
33). The Fourth Evangelist has brought these two together in
a notable passage: John (the Baptist) bore this testimony also :
1 saw the Spirit descend like a dove from heaven and rest on
him; I myself did not recognize him, but He who sent me to
baptize with water told me, * 'He on whom you see the Spirit
published, that of Erasmus, 1516, the words do not appear. Erasmus
was attacked for the omission, and undertook to introduce them in.
subsequent editions, if any Greek MS. could be produced which con-
tained them. One of the poor and late MSS. which dp contain them was
produced, and, true to his word but against his own judgment, Erasmus
printed them in his edition of 1522. Meanwhile, the stately Compluten-
sian edition of Cardinal Ximenes, which gives, in parallel columns, the
Greek text (printed from the most beautiful Greek fount, perhaps,
ever cast) and the Latin Vulgate, had been issued (it had been in print
since 1514), and this gives the disputed sentence in a Greek text differing
slightly from that of Erasmus. It was retained as part of the text by
Stephanus, and so passed into the Received Text. There is no doubt
whatever that the words are a spurious interpolation, made first in the
Latin version, and that the various forms in which they appear in Greek
are all translations from the Latin.
* It is to be observed that the words 'and spirit' are not to be found
in all our MSS., and they are omitted from the texts upon which our
Authorized and Revised Versions are based. They are, however, attested
by those two excellent MSS., the Sinaitic and the Alexandrine, as well
as by some minor authorities. Some texts, again, seem to have omitted
the word 'blood,' since the passage is sometimes cited by ancient
writers in the form 'by water and spirit,' recalling the language of John
iii. 5. The true text remains uncertain, but the reading adopted above,
as well as being strongly attested, gives a good sequence of thought.
128
I JOHN, CHAPTER F, VERSES 6-13
descending and resting, that is He who baptizes with the holy
Spirit." Now I did see it, and I do testify that He is the Son of
God' (John i. 32-4). Here we have a 'witness* to the fact of the
Incarnation, the witness of John the Baptist; but that witness
rests on a prior witness of God Himself, in the descent of the
Spirit (for the Baptist did not recognize Christ until the divine
sign was given). It is in accord with this that our author says 7
that the Spirit is the witness, and (he adds) a witness to be
accepted, because the Spirit is truth (cf. John xvi, 13). In his-
tory, the descent of the Spirit was evidence of the Messiahship
of Jesus. In the present experience of the Church, the activity
of the Spirit is evidence of His power to baptize with the
Spirit, and therefore of His divine Sonship. The writer is here
thinking, it is probable, not so much of the 'interior witness
of the Holy Spirit/ but rather of the outward expression of
that inner witness in the corporate life of the Church, and
particularly in inspired or prophetic utterance (itself dependent
on the 'interior witness') by which the Church proclaimed and
confirmed the truth of the Gospel,
So far, then, we can follow our author's meaning. The 8
difficulty lies in the statement that Christ came by water and
blood as well as by Spirit, and that the witness of the water
and the blood is united with that of the Spirit. If we are to
turn, as usual, to the Fourth Gospel for a clue, we naturally
think of John xix. 34. The evangelist reports that blood and
water issued from the pierced side of the crucified Jesus; and
he underlines the importance of the fact by adding, He who
saw it has borne witness (his witness is true; God knows he is
telling the truth), that you may believe. Once again the idea of
'witness' is introduced; but it is the witness of an observer to
the fact, and not the witness of the water and the blood, as
here. Clearly the Evangelist attached some mysterious signi-
ficance to the fact, but what the significance was he has not
made clear. In view of the symbolism of the Fourth Gospel as
a whole, we should think of the blood of the Son of Man which
is real drink and confers eternal life (John vi. 54-5); and of
the living water which Christ bestows (John iv. 14). This
lmngwaterissaid,accordingtoaprobable construction of John
129
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
vii. 38, to issue from the body of Christ, and it is there
equated with the Holy Spirit. All this, however, does not seem
to throw direct light on our present passage, which states that
Christ came by water and blood, and that the water and blood
bear witness (consentient with that of the Spirit) to the truth
of the Gospel, and in particular to the reality of the incarnation
of the Son of God.
6 The author has found it necessary to insert an emphatic
parenthesis: not by water alone, but by the water and the blood.
This implies that someone taught that Christ came by water,
but not by blood. If we knew what this meant, we should be
well on the way to an understanding of the passage. Unfor-
tunately, we are not sufficiently informed about the special
form of false teaching attacked. It is, however, known that
there were teachers of Gnostic tendencies who held that Jesus
was a mere man until at His baptism the divine Christ des-
cended upon Him; that the Christ remained united with Him
during His ministry, but left Him before His crucifixion, since
the divine cannot suffer. Thus through His baptism Jesus, by
union with the divine Christ, was qualified to reveal divine
mysteries to mankind, but since it was as mere man that He
suffered, His death had no redemptive efficacy. This view
might conceivably have been expressed (though we do not
know that it was so expressed) by saying that Christ came by
the water (of baptism) but not by the blood (of the Cross). If
so, the meaning of the words he came not by water alone, but
by the water and the blood would be tolerably clear. The Gospel
affirms, upon the testimony of those who saw and heard, that
Jesus Christ was both baptized and crucified, ind both these
facts are essential to our faith in Him, because both taken
together bear the meaning that Jesus is the Christ or Son of
God incarnate (iv.2), and that as such He is the Saviour of
the world (iv. 14), and not merely its Enlightener.
8 In what sense, then, do the water and the blood bear wit-
ness? The question may perhaps be answered by drawing an
analogy with the witness of the Spirit. The Spirit is, as we have
seen, both a factor in the historical life of Jesus, and a con-
tinuing factor in the experience of the Church. Similarly, the
130
I JOHN, CHAPTER V, VERSES 6-13
baptism and the crucifixion are authenticated facts in history,
and as such bear witness to the reality of the incarnate life of
the Son of God; but further, the Church possesses a counterpart
to the baptism of Christ, in the sacrament of Baptism, and a
counterpart to His sacrificial death, in the sacrament of the
Eucharist. Both sacraments attest and confirm to believers the
abiding effect of the life and death of Christ. It seems likely
that our author is thinking of these two sacraments as providing
a continuing witness to the truth of Christ's incarnation and
redemptive death. Their value as evidence lies precisely in their
being concrete, overt, 'objective' actions, directly recalling (or
're-presenting 1 ) historical facts of the Gospel, while at the
same time they are the vehicles of a supra-historical life in the
Church. As verba visibilia, they confirm the prophetic word
inspired by the Spirit. Thus the apostolic faith is authenticated
against all false teaching by a threefold testimony: the living
voice of prophecy, and the two evangelical sacraments; and
the three of them are in accord.
In verses 9 and following the theme of 'testimony* is further
elaborated. The movement of thought becomes clearer if we
refer to an important passage in the Fourth Gospel dealing
with the same theme at greater length. The discourse in John
v. 19-47 explains and defends the claim of Jesus to be Son of
God. Briefly (we learn), it means that His every act is done,
His every word spoken, in absolute dependence upon the
Father and absolute obedience to His will; so that the words
He speaks are God's words, and the acts He performs are
'works of God 1 ; and these are, specifically, judgment upon sin
and the bestowal of eternal life. Such a claim needs to be sub-
stantiated by independent testimony, since a man's bare
assertion about himself is not valid evidence (v. 31). Accord-
ingly, three forms of evidence are offered. First, there is the
testimony of John the Baptist (cf. i. 29-34). This however is no
more than an argumentum ad hominem, directed to those who
were predisposed to give credence to the Baptist (33-5). The
real testimony is that of God Himself, which is given, pri-
marily, in two ways: in the actual effect of what Jesus did
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
(36), and in the Scriptures (39). What Jesus did was manifestly
the work of God, since His coming brought j udgment and eternal
Hie into the world, and God alone is the Judge and the Giver
of life; and it is God who speaks in the Scriptures.
In this argument we seem to discern the lines along which
Christian apologetic ran in early days. But though to the
Christian believer the evidence of the redeeming work of Christ
was manifest, and the corroborative evidence of Scripture
seemed conclusive, the fact remained that both failed to win
credence from the Jews, to whom the Gospel was first offered,
both by Jesus Himself and by His first disciples. Why was this?
The answer suggested in the Johannine discourse is that the
unbelieving Jews have not the word of God dwelling in them
('You have not His word remaining in you/ is the literal
translation of John v. 38, the language being similar to that
of the Epistle, though the similarity is disguised in the
Moffatt translation). They study the Scriptures diligently,
but lack an inner clue to their meaning (v. 39). Thus the
external testimony, of the works of Christ and of the Scrip-
tures, remains unconvincing, because the internal testimony
is lacking. It is lacking (says Jesus to the Jews) because
you do not believe him whom He sent (v. 38), and because
you refuse to come to me for life (v. 39). The ultimate testi-
mony is apprehended only by the believing Christian. That is as
much as to say that the claim of Christ is in the end self-
evidencing. External evidence will bring a man so far, but the
truth becomes luminously clear when faith ventures over the
line.
Thus far the Fourth Gospel The echoes of language make
it probable that our author had that passage in mind. In any
9 case, it provides a plain key to his meaning. The apostolic
faith, he has said, is authenticated by a threefold testimony.
In the ordinary affairs of life we are ready to be convinced by
the testimony of an honest and competent witness. A fortiori,
in the highest concerns of all, we must accept the testimony of
God Himself; and the consentient testimony of the Spirit, the
water and the blood is His testimony. For the historical career
of Jesus, from the descent of the Spirit at His baptism to His
J JOHN, CHAPTER F, VERSES 6-13
death on the cross, is a revelation of God; and it is God also who
speaks now in the Church, whether through the inspired word
of prophecy or through the 'visible words' of the sacraments.
But just as the Jews of the time of Christ remained uncon- 10
vinced in face of the evidence, not only of John the Baptist,
but of the Scriptures and of the very works of Christ, so now
there are those who refuse assent to the strong testimony of
God in history and in the experience of the Church. The writer
no doubt has especially in mind those false teachers who,
having been within the Church, and therefore directly exposed
to the testimony of the Spirit, the water and the blood, never-
theless deny the reality of the Incarnation and the redeeming
efficacy of the Cross. Such denial is tantamount to making God
a liar accusing the Truth of falsehood. The reason for their
unbelief he traces to the same source as the incredulity of the
Jews of Palestine: they have not the word of God abiding in
them, and consequently no external testimony, however
strong, will move them. On the contrary he who believes in the
Son of God possesses that testimony within himself.
Finally, the essential content of the divine testimony can be n
stated very simply: God gave us life eternal and this life is in
His Son. And with these words the author brings us back to
the thesis from which he started: The Life has appeared; we
saw it, we testify to it, we bring you word of that eternal Life
which existed with the Father and was disclosed to us (i. 2). In
the course of the epistle that central concept has been turned
this way and that, illuminated from one angle and another, and 12
now we are brought back to it with a clearer and fuller sense
of its meaning, and reminded of the stark alternatives: with
Christ, we have life; without Him we are dead.
The epistle is thus rounded off, and the author appears to
have intended to wind up with the brief summary of his pur-
pose in verse 13, recalling as it does the words with which the 13
Fourth Gospel was apparently at first intended to close:
These signs are recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is
the Christ, the Son of God, and believing may have life through
His Name (John xx. 31). As a literary whole, the epistle must
be held to be complete here. The rest is postscript.
133
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
POSTSCRIPT
(v. 14-21)
I. ON PRAYER AND INTERCESSION (v. 14-17)
14 Now the confidence we have in Him is this, that He listens
to us whenever we ask anything in accordance with His
15 will; and if we know that He listens to whatever we ask, we
16 know that we obtain the requests we have made to Him. If
anyone notices his brother committing a sin which is not
deadly, he will ask and obtain life for him for anyone
who does not commit a deadly sin. There is such a thing
17 as deadly sin; I do not mean he is to pray for that. All
iniquity is sin, but there are sins which are not deadly.
The first theme treated in the postscript is that of prayer,
which received only brief mention in the body of the epistle,
iii. 21-2. In reading the present passage, it will be well to
keep in mind both this earlier section of the epistle, and the
passages from the Fourth Gospel which were adduced in the
notes on it (pp. 93-4). The writer takes up again the thought of
14 the confidence with which Christians may approach God, being
assured that He hears and answers their prayers. Nothing,
however, leads us to suppose that God will grant just anything
we choose to ask, simply because we want it. There are limiting
conditions. In iii. 22 the condition is that of obedience to God;
in John xv. 7 it is that we should remain in Christ, and have
his words remaining in us; in John xiv. 14 it is that prayer
should be in the name of Christ. These all come to much the
same thing. Similarly here, the condition is that prayer should
be in accordance with the will of God, The same is clearly
implied in the prayer which Jesus taught, the regulative
clauses of which are, 'Thy kingdom come: Thy will be done';
and it is conclusively exemplified in His own prayer in Geth-
semane. For prayer rightly considered is not a device for
employing the resources of omnipotence to fulfil our own
desires, but a means by which, our desires may be redirected
according to the mind of God, and made into channels for the
forces of His will. Granted this one condition, our assurance is
134
/ JOHN, CHAPTER V t VERSES 14-17
absolute. We know that He listens to us whenever we ask; and
that means, since the will of God is efficacious In this world,
that our requests are there and then taking effect in it: we 15
know that we obtain the requests we have made to Him.
The verb is in the present tense: it is not that we shall obtain
our requests, but that we obtain them. The Greek is in fact even
more emphatic than this: it says (literally), 'We know that we
possess the requests we have made,' The saying of Jesus which
gives authority to all our assurance is reported in Mark xi. 24
in still more emphatic terms: 'Whatever you pray for and ask,
believe you have got it, and you shall have it.' Here is the
paradox that contains the secret of prayer: that in proportion
as it becomes real prayer it carries its answer within it.
The principle thus laid down is now to be illustrated from 10*
the prayer of intercession for our fellow Christians. All through
the epistle it is assumed that the normal condition for a
Christian is one of serene enjoyment of communion with God
and of filial obedience to His will. But it is recognized that this
condition is liable to be interrupted by our falling from time
to time into sin (see pp. 21-3). In such a case the will of God is
that the sinner should be restored. He has provided in Christ
an expiation for sin; Christ is our Advocate; and the Father
Himself is faithful and just to forgive (i. g-ii. 2,iv. 10). Conse-
quently we can pray for a fellow Christian who has fallen into
sin, with the knowledge that our prayer is in accordance with
the will of God, and so with full assurance that our prayer is
answered: we ask and obtain life for him.
No clearer case, it would appear, could be adduced. But the 10*
writer hesitates. Is it, after all, certain that in every case it is
God's will that the sinner should be restored? All iniquity 17
indeed (all wrong-doing of any kind) is sin, and certainly a
Christian may do wrong and recover. But there is such a thing ie
as deadly sin that is to say, sin which places the sinner
beyond the pale of that communion with God which (in the
language of this epistle) is life.' It seems that the writer is
thinking of an overt sinful act or course of action, and not of an
inward state of mind, for it is something that can be observed
by others and known for what it is. What particular sin or
135
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
kind of sin he has in mind is not made clear. A precise defini-
tion of 'mortal* and 'venial' sins is provided in the developed
Moral Theology of the Church, but it would be an anachronism
to try to apply it here. Nor do the partial parallels adduced
from Judaism give much help. No doubt the category of
'deadly sin' was one well recognized by the community to
which the epistle was addressed. In the Epistle to the Hebrews
we are told that those who deliberately and defiantly repudiate
their Christian faith are incapable of restoration, like Esau,
that 'profane person/ who got no chance to repent though he
tried for it with tears (Heb. vi. 4-6, xii 16-17). It would seem
likely that our present author too is thinking of apostasy or
denial of Christ as the sin that places a man beyond the pale.
We know that he traced the presence and power of Antichrist
in the denial of the Incarnation (iv. 2-5); and if a man had
become identified with Antichrist it was perhaps natural to
feel that he was past praying for.
Besides, the writer may well have thought that he had
warrant in the teaching of Jesus Himself for this stern con-
clusion. We have seen that his words about the sin of denying
Christ in ii. 22-3 probably rest upon a reminiscence of the say-
ing variously reported in Mark viii. 38, Matt. x. 32-3, Luke ix.
26, xii. 8-9. Again, he has said that to deny the truth which is
attested by the Spirit is to make God a liar; and tradition
reported a saying of Jesus, variously given in Mark iii. 28-9,
Matt. xii. 31-2, Luke xii. 10, to the effect that blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit was an unpardonable sin. If our author
believed that he had before him a case to which these Gospel
sayings directly applied, he may well have concluded that it
was idle to pray for one who had thus sinned unpardonably,
and whom Christ Himself denied before the Father.
It will be observed that the argument here turns upon
inferences and probabilities. The writer, addressing readers
who would know what he meant, has not made himself
explicit to us. On the main point, however, his meaning
is hardly doubtful, in spite of the efforts of some com-
mentators to soften it. He does not indeed expressly forbid
prayer for one who is in deadly sin, but he emphatically
136
/ JOHN, CHAPTER V, VERSES 14-17
discourages It. Again, he does not expressly say that such a
sin places a man beyond redemption, but only a clear convic-
tion that such was the case would justify his exclusion from
the prayers of the Church.
The questions of the forgiveness of post-baptismal sin and of
the restoration of the lapsed continued to agitate the minds of
Christians for generations. The decision ultimately went in
favour of the milder view, which admitted the lapsed to pen-
ance. The general sense of the Church has not endorsed the
view that we are competent to decide that a given person has
sinned himself beyond the pale of the divine mercy, and conse-
quently is past praying for. (The matter is discussed historically
in K. E. Kirk, The Vision of God: see especially pp. 221-9, and
his observations on our present passage, pp. 161-2.) It was
not for nothing that the Church which preserved in its tradi-
tion the severe saying of the Lord about the sin of denying
Him, also preserved the story of Peter's denial, of Christ's
prayer for him, and of his ultimate recovery (Mark xiv. 66-
72, Luke xxii. 31-4, John xxi. 15-17).
It may be that our author was misled by a too rigorous
exegesis of the sayings of Jesus; it may be that he has mis-
applied them under the tension of a situation of extreme peril
to the Church. In any case, it seems clear that it was with
reluctance that he felt obliged to admit a qualification which
really weakens the force of his affirmation about prayer and
its answer. Upon the ground of the general teaching of the
Gospels, and of the New Testament as a whole, and in agree-
ment with the general sense of the Church, we may take
leave to accept the affirmation and to ignore the qualifi-
cation. We cannot think that it can ever be contrary to the
will of Him who came to call sinners to repentance that
we should pray for even the worst of sinners (who may after
all be ourselves). If we have in mind any case where,
to our limited view, such a prayer seems unlikely to be
answered, we may recall what Jesus said when a man had
refused what looked like his only chance of salvation For
men it is impossible, but not for God; anything is possible for
God (Mark x. 27).
137
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
2. THE GREAT CHRISTIAN CERTAINTIES (v. l8-2l)
18 We know that anyone who is born of God does not sin; He
who was born of God preserves him, and the evil One never
catches him.
19 We know that we belong to God, and that the whole world
lies in the power of the evil One.
20 We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us
insight to know Him who is the Real God; and we are in
Him who is real, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the
21 real God, this is life eternal. My dear children, keep clear
of idols.
Turning away now from the gloomy contemplation of an
unpardonable apostasy, the writer comes back to the positive
certainties of the faith, which he sums up in three aphorisms,
each beginning with a confident 'We know.'
18 First, we are (as he has constantly affirmed, see ii. 29, iii
i-io, iv. 7, v. 1-4, and notes) God's children, born of Him,
belonging to Him as members of His family; and God's chil-
dren, having within them the divine seed which is the word of
God (iii, 9), do not live in sin (the tense of the verb here implies
this continuance, see notes on iii. 9). They may from time to
time be in danger, but the Son of God par excellence, the eldest
Brother of the family (cf, Rom. viii. 29), is there to preserve
them. Hence the Enemy of mankind, who holds sway over un-
redeemed human nature (cf. ii. 15-17, and notes), cannot
make them his prey.
Put in these general terms, the maxims may pass through
our minds almost as Christian commonplaces. But for the
writer 'the world' meant precisely that organized pagan
society in which he and his readers had to live. In its idolatry,
its violence, its corruption he, like other Christians of his time,
recognized the actual manifestation of the devil himself, the
spirit of evil. To lose vital contact with the means of grace
afforded by the fellowship of the Church was to expose oneself
to the immediate peril of falling into his power. The line
between Christianity and paganism, between the Church and
19 the world, was absolute. This absolute opposition is expressed
1*8
I JOHN, CHAPTER V t VERSES 18-21
In the second of the three aphorisms: We know that we belong
to God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the Evil
One.
To cross the line in the one direction was to pass from death
to life (iii. 14); to cross it in the other direction was to pass from
life to death. To yield to pagan standards was to make the
passage; to compromise with paganism was a breaking down
of the defences. Consequently the Christian's tenure of life/
threatened as it was at every point by the forces of death,
would have been precarious from moment to moment but for
the assurance that the whole power of God was exerted for his
defence. The conflict presented itself to the Christian of the
first century in desperately concrete terms. If for us the
situation is for the present in some measure disguised, in the
last analysis it is the same, and the assurance that we need,
And are given, is the same.
The third aphorism brings us back to the ground of this ao
assurance: the Son of God has come and has given us insight
to know Him who is the Real God. It is upon the historical
fact of the coming of Christ that our faith is founded; but its
significance reaches beyond the merely historical: it gives
knowledge of that which transcends history; of that which is
'real 'in the full sense of the word; or, rather, of Him who is the
final Reality. The fuU weight that here attaches to the word
real can best be appreciated if we recall that the religious
quest of the ancient world had become more and more, under
the influence of Platonic teaching, an attempt to escape from
the illusions of this transitory world into communion with the
world of eternal reality. Christian teachers in the Gentile
world were quick to see that their Gospel was directly relevant
to this quest, and could readily be stated in its terms. The
revelation of God which they found in Jesus Christ was a
revelation of the Real, over against the illusions of idolatry.
Accordingly, our author, who is about to warn his readers to
keep clear of idols (verse 21), lays stress here upon that aspect
of the Incarnation in which it is a way to knowledge of the
Real. Nor is this mere knowledge in the sense in which we
know objects external to us. It is the knowledge which is
139
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
communion. In so far as we are (in the familiar Pauline phrase)
'in Christ/ we are in Him who is real
To a Greek reader of the first century this was as much as
to say that Christianity possessed that which was the goal of
his own religious quest. What would surprise him would be
the way by which the Christian teacher declares this goal to
be attained. Most religious teachers and prophets of the time
agreed in recommending a via negativa by which the soul was
gradually detached from the world of ordinary experience and
concentrated more and more upon the highest abstractions,
till it could dwell upon pure Being, eternal, changeless, un-
differentiated, and free from all particularity. This was what
was implied by knowledge of God, or of the Real, in much of
the highest religious thought of the time. The Christian Gospel,
on the other hand, affirmed that such knowledge is given by
the Son of God who came to earth in the flesh that is to say,
in an actual, historical human life. The world of our ordinary
experience is consequently no longer a realm of mere illusion,
but is capable of becoming a means of communion with the
highest realities. That the Christian faith is thus rooted in the
concrete, the actual, the historical, has been a constant theme
all through the epistle. Now at the end the author emphasizes
the other side: it is at the same time concerned with the supra-
historical, the eternal, the ultimately real.
This, he adds, is the real God. In strict grammar, the word
'this' should refer to the last person named. Some commentators
accordingly take the sentence we are considering to mean,
'This Person, namely Jesus Christ, is the real God/ It is more
likely that the word *this' has a wider and vaguer reference. The
writer is gathering together in his mind all that he has been
saying about God how He is light, and love, how He is
revealed as the Father through His Son Jesus Christ; how He
is faithful and just to forgive our sins; how He remains in us
and this, he adds, is the real God, the one eternal Reality of
which the mystics talk, though they do not know Him as He
is known through Christ. And this, he also adds (meaning now
the knowledge of the Real God of which he has just spoken)
is eternal life. For illustration of this we need only recall
140
/ JOHN. CHAPTER V, VERSES 18-21
John xvii. 3: This Is life eternal, that they know Thee, the only
real God, and Him whom Thou hast sent, even Jesus Christ But
it is also worth while to recall that the maxim that eternal
life comes by knowledge of God, or of the Real, was a re-
ligious commonplace of the time. The new thing distinctive
of Christianity is the revelation of God in a human life, with
all that that involves.
The proper contrast to the Real is idols. The Greek word 21
(eidola) always carries with it the suggestion of unreality.
Plato used it for the illusory phenomena or appearances which
he contrasted with the eternal and immutable 'ideas' or
'forms/ In the Greek Old Testament the same word was
adopted to designate the images worshipped by the heathen,
as being counterfeit gods over against the one real God. In this
sense it was taken over by Christianity. The warning keep clear
of idols no doubt means 'avoid any contact with paganism/
Not perhaps that the readers would be likely deliberately to
take part in idolatrous rites; but where pagan practices pene-
trated every aspect of social life it was easy for Christians to
follow ways of accommodation that might insensibly lead them
into harmful compromise. Moreover, our author has in view
a movement among professing Christians advocating a far-
reaching accommodation, if not with actual idolatry, at least
with pagan ways of thought incompatible with true Christi-
anity. It is probably this movement that he has in view here
as elsewhere in the epistle: and by idols he means not only
images of the gods, but all false or counterfeit notions of God
such as lead to the perversions of religion against which he has
written.
It is in this sense that his warning is apt to our own situa-
tion. In our time there have appeared within what was once
Christendom movements using the language of religion and
offering God-substitutes that is, idols in the place of the
living God of Christian revelation. Some of these idols of our
time have shown themselves, by their fruits, to be no better
than the abominations of the heathen which the Hebrew
prophets denounced. It is no longer plausible either to hold
that a man's theology that is, his thought about God does
141
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
not matter; or to pretend that there is no great difference
between the Christian faith and any sort of religiosity that
may appeal to this man or that. Christians believe that the God
revealed in Christ and attested in the Scriptures is the one real
God, and the worship of any God-substitute is idolatry. The
issue is defining itself clearly in terms of contemporary
history. It behoves the individual Christian to be on his guard
against any such God-substitute, whether it be a political idea,
or some fashionable cult, or merely the product of his own
'wishful thinking. 1 The safeguards which this epistle recom-
mends are, to live within the fellowship of the Church, and to
adhere loyally and with understanding to the authentic
tradition of the apostles; keeping always in view that which
the apostles attest, and which creates the fellowship of the
Church the historical revelation of God in the life and words
of Jesus Christ. To put it briefly for our own situation: a con-
centration upon the New Testament, and the Gospels in
particular, in the context of a living Church fellowship, is our
best safeguard against modern idolatries.
142
THE SECOND EPISTLE OF JOHN
EPISTOLARY INTRODUCTION (1-3)
The presbyter, to the elect Lady and her children whom I love I
in the Truth (and not only I but all who know the Truth)
for the sake of the Truth which remains within us and will 2
be with us for ever: grace, mercy, peace will be with us 3
from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Son of the
Father, in truth and love.
The manner in which the epistle opens is based upon the
current epistolary style of the time, which is well represented
by the opening of 3 John; but while 3 John is quite obviously
a genuine personal letter, which would not be out of place (in
spite of the difference of subject) in any collection of private
correspondence of the first or second century, these opening
verses have an elaborate solemnity of phrase which, at the out-
set, suggests that we are dealing with a different type of
composition.
As in the Third Epistle, the writer does not give his name, I
but calls himself simply The Presbyter.' On the meaning of
this, see note on 3 John i. The recipient is denominated by a
form of words capable of more than one construction. In view
of the fact that general epistolary usage would lead us to
expect a proper name, it has been suggested that the words
should be translated (as they well might be), either 'to the lady
Electa' or 'to the elect Kyria.' The former suggestion, though
it has some ancient support (see p. xiii), is on all grounds
improbable. In favour of the alternative suggestion it may be
urged that Kyria (='Lady/ like Martha in Aramaic and
Domna in Latin) is a well-attested proper name, and that the
epithet 'elect' with a proper name is to be found in an epi-
stolary greeting in Rom. xvi. 13 (though the Mofatt trans-
lation disguises it). If we are to find a proper name at all,
then Kyria has the preference.
But is it really credible that the epistle is addressed to an
individual? The Lady (we learn) is beloved, not only by the
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
Presbyter, but by all true Christians everywhere. She has many
children; some of them live with her, and are joined with her
in the Presbyter's greeting; others he has met elsewhere; some
of them are good Christians, others, possibly, not. In addition,
the Lady has a sister and a family of nephews and nieces
residing, it would appear, at the place from which the letter is
written. Yet of all this large family, no single name is men-
tioned; there is no allusion which would serve to bring any of
them before us as individuals; and of all the reflections and
injunctions contained in the epistle, there are none which seem
relevant to the special situation of an individual or a family.
All this stands in marked contrast to the Third Epistle. There,
in spite of its brevity, Gaius, Diotrephes and Demetrius stand
before us as individuals; the relations of the Presbyter to them
are intelligible; the reflections and injuctions are such as to
apply to these particular individuals in that particular
situation, and to no others. In short, it has all the marks of a
piece of actual correspondence between two individuals. Pre-
cisely these marks are absent from the Second Epistle.
The probability is that the elect Lady is a disguise for a
community. If this appears to us somewhat fax-fetched
it must be remembered that the personification of cities,
countries and provinces in female form was a well-established
convention. In the art of the time the city of Rome appears as
a stately woman crowned (the original of the less flattering
portrait in Rev. xvii. 4). The 'Britannia' of our pennies is the
direct descendant of the personified province of Britain on
Roman coins. The coins which celebrate Titus's victory over
the Jews show a mourning woman, with the inscription,
'Captive Judaea/ This chimes in with a usage familiar among
the Jews themselves, amply illustrated in the Old Testa-
ment and elsewhere. Thus, 'the daughter of Zion' frequently
personifies the Jewish people. In Isa. liv we have a sustained
passage in which the holy nation is figured as wife and mother,
and the members of the nation as her children. Similarly, in
Baruch iv.-v. Jerusalem is the mother who bewails the calamity
of her children, and is comforted with the promise of their
restoration. This usage was easily transferred to the Christian
144
THE SECOND EPISTLE OF JOHN
Church. In Gal. iv. 21-31 the present Jerusalem is in servitude
with her children, while the free city, Jerusalem on high, is the
mother of all Christians. The elect Lady and her children form
a similar figure. Some ancient commentators took her to stand
for the catholic Church. This however does not seem possible.
The catholic Church has no 'sister/ We conclude that the elect
Lady with her children is a local church with its members;
and her 'sister' is another such local church that, namely, in
which the Presbyter is residing. There is a close parallel in
I Pet. v. 13, where Moffatt boldly, and rightly, gives the sense
in the words, your sister-church in Babylon, but the literal
rendering is: 'she in Babylon who is elect together with you/
Why was this mystification adopted? The possibility should
perhaps not be excluded, that, in the unfavourable situation of
Christianity at the time (see i John iii. 13), it was judged
safer, in case a document implicating the Church should fall
into hostile hands, that it should appear to be a harmless letter
to a friend. It is possible that the names of the writer and of
the church addressed are omitted for similar prudential
reasons though both may have appeared, for all we know,
on the outside of the postal packet, according to custom. On
the whole it seems likely that the device is little more than a
'conceit/ conforming to the taste of the period. However that
may be, the fiction is kept up all through: the language is such
as might be addressed to a pious matron, but it is a thin dis-
guise for a pastoral epistle to a Christian congregation.
The Presbyter first assures the church of his love for its
members. The expression 'whom I love in truth' might, in
another author, mean no more than 'whom I regard with
sincere affection' (see note on 3 John i). But the emphatic
repetition of the word 'truth' in different connections within
the same context suggests that it is being used with a more
special meaning. In these epistles 'truth' is not merely, as in
ordinary speech, that which corresponds with the facts, but
also, specifically, the ultimate Reality as revealed in Christ
(cf. i John ii. 21, iii. 19, iv. 6, v. 7). And so, in the present
passage, all who know the Truth are the whole body of believ-
ing Christians. Having responded with faith to the revelation
145
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
in Christ, and accepted the obligations it imposes, they possess,
through that revelation, saving knowledge of God (cf. i John
ii. 3-5). Similarly, the Truth, which is the Word of God,
remains within us (2) as a perpetual source of enlightenment
and moral power (cf. I John ii. 14, 24, and notes on ii. 20, 27,
iii. 9). The Truth, or the Word of God, comes to us, not only
as Gospel, but as Commandment (cf. i John ii. 7-8); and the
content of that commandment is love or charity (cf. i John
iii. 23, iv. 11-12). Thus the expression, 'whom I love in the
Truth/ probably conveys the idea that the love which the
Presbyter has for members of the church is not merely the
natural affection of ordinary human friendship, but that
divine charity which, as it is God's gift to us in Christ, is also
the proper relation of Christians one to another. This same
divine charity, he adds, unites the congregation to which he
writes with all Christian believers, in the fellowship of the
2 catholic Church. Within that fellowship all Christians love one
another for the sake of the Truth that is, the Word of God in
Christ to which they are all committed,
This reiterated emphasis upon the Truth, as directing and
controlling the entire system of Christian attitudes and
relationships, clearly reflects the writer's concern about the
inroads which 'the Lie' is making upon the fellowship of the
Church (cf. I John ii. 21-4). There is, for him, no real charity,
no Christian fellowship in the proper sense of the term, which
does not rest upon a sincere acceptance of the Christian faith
in its totality. The false doctrines which are going about -are
undermining, whether their authors mean it or not, the very
foundations of the Christian life. He addresses himself to those
who because they are firm in loyalty to the Truth know what
Christian charity is.
3 The epistolary address should, according to the practice of
the time, lead up to a greeting. The customary, and indeed
almost invariable, form of greeting in secular correspondence
of the period is not found in the New Testament except in two
epistles: Acts xv. 23, James i. I. Elsewhere we have a Christian
adaptation of it; usually 'grace and peace to you/ or (in the
two Epistles to Timothy) 'grace, mercy and peace.' The latter
146
THE SECOND EPISTLE OF JOHN
form is adopted here, but with a curious variation. Instead of
expressing a wish that God should grant grace, mercy and
peace to his correspondents, the writer turns it into a promise
or assurance of these divine blessings to all Christians: Grace,
mercy, peace, will be with us from God the Father and from
Jesus Christ the Son of the Father; and he adds, in truth and
love, because the grace of God is shown in that revelation of
Himself which is the Truth, and in the divine charity ex-
pressed in the work of Christ (i John iv. 9-10); and takes
effect in the true belief and mutual charity of Christians.
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE (4-6)
I was overjoyed to find some of your children leading the true 4
Life, as we were commanded to do by the Father. And 5
now I entreat you, Lady not as though I were writing you
any new command, it is the command which we have had
from the very beginning let us love one another. To live 6
by His commands, that is what love means: and the com-
mand is, live in love as you have learned to do from the
very beginning.
In correspondence of the time it was a familiar (and very 4
natural) custom to begin a letter by expressing the writer's
pleasure at hearing good news of his correspondents (for some
examples, see note on 3 John 3). Following this custom, the
Presbyter expresses his pleasure at finding that some members
of the church to which he writes are leading a truly Christian
life ( 'walking in the Truth' is the literal rendering of his words;
the meaning of which should be clear in view of the note on
'truth* above), and so fulfilling God's commandment through
Christ (cf. i John iii. 23). Significantly, it is some only of whom
this is true: the church is divided.
To this church, already suffering from internal troubles, 5
the Presbyter appeals to renew and maintain the threatened
fellowship by the exercise of Christian charity. In doing so, he
adds, he is not laying upon them any fresh obligation; for
charity is an essential part of the original and unchangeable
Christian Gospel (see i John ii. 7-8, and notes). To live in
147
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
6 charity is to live in obedience to the command of God in
Christ, and without such obedience there can be no real
Christianity (see i John ii. 3-5, iii. 11-18, v. 3, and notes).
FALSE TEACHERS AND HOW TO TREAT THEM (7~Il)
7 I say this, because a number of impostors have emerged in the
world, men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus
Christ in the flesh; that marks the real 'impostor' and
8 'antichrist. 1 Watch yourselves; you must not lose what you
9 have been working for, but gain your full reward. Anyone
who is 'advanced' and will not remain by the doctrine of
Christ, does not possess God : he who remains by the doc-
10 trine of Christ possesses both the Father and the Son. If
anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do
11 not admit him to the house do not even greet him, for he
who greets him shares in his wicked work.
7 The Presbyter now comes to the immediate purpose of his
writing. His correspondents should know that a widespread
movement of heretical propaganda is afoot, and may at any
time reach their city. The expression have emerged in the
world is a paraphrase of the Greek, which, literally translated,
runs, 'have gone out into the world.' The paraphrase may
give the sense which the author intended; but the literal
rendering as it stands seems to yield a perfectly straightfor-
ward meaning (cf. i John iv. I and note). The heretics have
'gone out into the world' in the sense in which that expression
is often used of the missionary work of the Church, after the
model of Mark xvi. 15 (where the language is similar, though
a different verb is used). That is to say, they have set on foot
a general appeal to the public, and especially to the pagan
public (which was for an early Christian 'the world' in a special
sense). That they were in fact carrying on a highly successful
mission we learn from i John iv. 5 (see note there). From their
own point of view, they were Christian missionaries. From the
standpoint of the Presbyter they were impostors, because the
doctrines they taught implied a denial of fundamental articles
of the faith. Indeed, anyone who is guilty of such denial is not
148
THE SECOND EPISTLE OF JOHN
only an impostor; he is antichrist (see I John ii. 18, iv. 3-6,
and notes).
The error of the false teachers is described in words which
are not entirely free from ambiguity. In any good Greek writer
we could hardly help taking them to mean, They do not
acknowledge that Jesus Christ is coming (i.e. will come) in the
flesh' (whereas in I John iv. 2 we have the past tense: ' . . . that
Jesus Christ has come in the flesh'). If this is the meaning, we
should have to suppose that the error of the false teachers
touched the Church's hope of the second advent of Christ,
upon which the First Epistle lays some stress (see i John ii.
17-18, 28, iii. 2, iv. 17). It may be that in this period of ferment
there was controversy upon the question whether the second
advent, like the first, was to be 'in the flesh'; but if so, it has
left no clear trace in our sources (Epistle of Barnabas, vi. 9,
which is sometimes cited as a parallel, is nothing of the kind,
as any attentive reader will see). We shall perhaps do best to
assume that our writer is not skilled in the niceties of Greek
idiom, and to understand the present passage in the light of the
First Epistle. The heresy is that of denying the reality of the
Incarnation; denying, that is to say, that the eternal Christ,
the Son of God, ever really lived a human life in history. This
denial was an element in a very widespread and influential
Veinterpretation' of Christianity in early times (see Introduc-
tion, p. xix, and notes on i John ii. 18-23, iv. i~6). If it had
prevailed, the distinctive character of the Christian religion
would have been fatally obscured. To lose hold upon the true 8
humanity of the Saviour, we are reminded, would be to
reduce the Christian life to frustration (cf. also i John i. 1-3,
iv. 14-16).
The heretics no doubt spoke of their doctrine (with some 9
pride) as 'advanced.' The Presbyter retorts that it is possible to
'advance' so far as to be quite outside the boundaries of
genuine Christian belief. What signifies is, not to exploit
Christian ideas in the spinning of able and brilliant specula-
tions, but to possess God (cf. i John ii. 23) or, in other words,
to maintain fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus
Christ (i John i. 3); and such fellowship cannot be maintained
149
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
without loyalty to the fundamental truths of the Gospel.
Where that loyalty exists, it is possible (as indeed the example
of i John shows) to embark upon far-reaching re-interpre-
tations of Christian doctrine, and in doing so to enrich
its content without obscuring its central purport. It must,
however, be admitted that the writer has incautiously ex-
pressed himself in terms which might seem to stigmatize any
kind of 'advance* as disloyalty to the faith, and so to condemn
Christian theology to lasting sterility. This extreme position
has not in fact been taken by any of the great Christian com-
munions, however strongly they have emphasized the necessity
of maintaining the faith which has once for all been delivered
to the saints (Jude 3).
11- The Presbyter is not sure whether this dangerous propa-
ganda has yet reached his correspondents, but he will instruct
them what course to take in case one of its agents should
approach them. If they find that any travelling missionary is
bringing a doctrine different from that doctrine of Christ in
which they have been instructed, he is to be treated as excom-
municate. No true believer must allow him to 'darken his
door/ If he meets him in the street, he must not even speak the
conventional word of greeting. The separation between
heretic and true believer is complete and final.
These instructions contemplate primarily the arrival of a
travelling missionary (like those of 3 John 5-8, only on the
wrong side) from some other place. Such missionaries depended
upon the support and hospitality of Christian brethren in each
place to which their mission took them. To deny them all
hospitality was an effective way of frustrating their attempts
at propaganda. But there is more in the boycott than this. He
who greets the heretic shares in his wicked work; and, con-
versely, to send him to Coventry, pointedly and publicly, is
to range yourself decisively on the side of orthodox belief. It
is the intense seriousness of the crisis in the Church that leads
the Presbyter thus to insist that all who accept his authority
shall declare themselves unmistakably against the heretical
movement, by joining in the boycott.
I5.P
THE SECOND EPISTLE OF JOHN
This 'short way with dissenters' strikes a harsh note in our
ears. To ostracize people whose opinions we dislike is natural
enough, but to find it recommended as a Christian duty is
another matter. In this country we have not yet had (in recent
times) experiences tragic enough to give us an understanding
of the situation in which the Presbyter writes. But suppose
the Church was struggling for its very life in a paganized
society; and suppose people calling themselves Christians, and
using the language of Christianity, were propagating doctrines
which caricatured its creed, parodied its worship, and per-
verted its moral standards. Many devout Christians in Ger-
many, both Catholic and Evangelical, have seen the contem-
porary situation in their own country in just that way. If we
could imagine ourselves in such a situation, we could better
understand this fierce intolerance. We could understand better
such a story as that which is told of the amiable and saintly
Polycarp. Marcion, now a heretic, met him and asked, 'Do you
recognize me?' 'I recognize Satan's firstborn/ was the reply
(Irenaeus, Adv. Haer,, III. 3. 4). There is a similar story told
of 'John, the disciple of the Lord/ who may have been the
author of this letter. One day he was at the public baths when
the heretic Cerinthus came in. He leapt out of the bath un-
washed, crying, 'Let us hurry away lest the building collapse on
us, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is here!'
(Irenaeus, loc. ciL}. We observe that he was not disturbed by the
presence of the usual pagan crowd of bathers. It was the traitor
in the camp, the Impostor/ whose mere proximity was dan-
gerous. Such stories belong to a situation of extreme danger to
the Church. How near it actually came to being overwhelmed
by a plausible and pseudo-Christian theosophy, we do not now
know exactly. There are hints that at one time it was touch-
and-go. The Presbyter and other responsible leaders had
grounds for thinking that neighbourly tolerance might easily
pass over into harmful compromise, and compromise end in
apostasy. It is possible that the boycott of heretics was the
only policy that could have succeeded in preserving the
distinctive witness of the Church,
It is possible. Yet we must doubt whether this policy in the
151
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
end best serves the cause of truth and lore, upon which our
author lays such stress. Does truth prevail the more if we are
not on speaking terms with those whose view of the truth
differs from ours however disastrous their error may be?
And if the norm of charity, as the First Epistle so eloquently
sets forth (i John iv. 7-11), is the love of Christ, who died for
our sins and not for ours alone but also for the whole world
(i John ii. 2)~~is it possible to exclude from its operation even
the most obdurate heretic?
We have observed that the Church has not, in the long run,
maintained the teaching of the First Epistle that certain
sinners are past praying for (see i John v. 16-17, and notes).
We may similarly decline to accept the Presbyter's ruling here
as a sufficient guide to Christian conduct. In any case, emer-
gency regulations (such as this is) make bad law. And the
spirit which in the hour of stress led to the boycott of heretics,
declined only too readily into the spirit of persecution when
orthodoxy came to command temporal power.
But if we take the responsibility of rejecting the Presbyter's
ruling upon this point as being incompatible with the general
purport of the teaching of the New Testament, and not really
consistent with teaching of these epistles themselves, we must
not in doing so evade the sense of urgency in witness to the
truth that lies behind it, for that is something that always
belongs to the situation of the Christian Church in the world.
A good-humoured tolerance which is more than half indiffer-
ence does not meet the seriousness of that situation, and is in
any case not likely to maintain itself under the strain of diver-
gent convictions upon questions which touch our emotions.
The problem is to find a way of living with those whose con-
victions differ from our own upon the most fundamental
matters, without either breaking charity or being disloyal to
the truth. A genuinely Christian tolerance must rest upon a
profound understanding of the meaning of truth and love as
disclosed to us in Christ. If the Presbyter fails to command
our full assent to his practical policy, he has given us the
indispensable starting-point for any discussion of the problem,
in his insistence upon these two fundamentals, and upon their
152
THE SECOND EPISTLE OF JOHN
inseparable unity in the Christian revelation and in the living
of the Christian life.
EPISTOLARY CONCLUSION (I2-I3)
I have a great deal to write to you, but I do not mean to use paper 12
and ink; I hope to visit you and have a talk with you,
so that our joy may be complete.
The children of your elect Sister greet you. 13
The Presbyter has much more to say, but prefers to leave it 12
for a personal interview with his friends when he visits them
in the near future. But if he had already written I John, in
which these themes are discussed at length, why did he not
enclose a copy, or (if his correspondents had already seen it) at
least make a reference to it? Or are we to suppose that i John
was written to churches which he found himself unable to
visit at this time? We have no material for answering these
questions, but the raising of them should forestall any too
confident dogmatism about the inter-relations of the Johannine
writings. It may be that the apology for brevity of the letter
is little more than common form. We may, however, take it for
granted that the Presbyter really is looking forward to a visit
which will give an opportunity of personal discussion of this
thorny situation, so that our joy may be complete an expres-
sion which, in view of I John i. 4 (see note) and John xv. n,
xvi. 24, probably means more than the simple gratification
which naturally comes from the reunion of old friends.
The letter ends with greetings from members of the Christian 13
congregation in the place from which the Presbyter is writing.
THE THIRD EPISTLE OF JOHN
EPISTOLARY INTRODUCTION (l-2)
The presbyter, to the beloved Gaius whom I love in the Truth.
Beloved, I pray you may prosper in every way and keep
well as indeed your soul is keeping well.
The letter begins after the conventional manner of the time
(see examples quoted below). It is, however, an exceptional
feature that the writer, instead of giving his name, calls himself
here (as in 2 John i) The Presbyter/ This has no parallel in
the New Testament, and it would be difficult to cite a precise
parallel from known Greek correspondence of the period. It
may be that the circle of Gaius and Demetrius had the habit
of calling their revered leader 'The Presbyter' and nothing
else, and that he has adopted their practice in writing to one
of his adherents. But in what sense is the term to be under-
stood? The word 'presbyter' means, in itself, no more than an
'elderly man.' We could imagine Gaius and his friends speaking
among themselves of 'The Old Man/ and, perhaps, the old
man accepting the affectionate nickname; but it would be
difficult to conceive him using it in a formal pastoral letter to a
Church, as we have it in the Second Epistle. We may in all
probability rule out this explanation of the term. Equally
improbable would be the suggestion that it is used in the
technical sense which it bore in the early Church (after Jewish
precedent) as the title of one of the board of Elders who
ministered as rulers and teachers of a local congregation. The
authority with which our author speaks is more than local. It
appears, however, that another quasi-technical use of the term
was current for a short time, mainly or even exclusively in the
Province of Asia the home, to all appearance, of our Pres-
byter. Christians of this province seem to have spoken of 'the
Elders' (Presbyters) in referring to a group of teachers who
formed a link between the apostles and the next generation
(Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., III. 39- 3~4)- 'The Elders, disciples of
the Apostles* is the formula in Irenaeus (who came from the
155
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
Province of Asia: Adv. Haer., V. 36, cf. V. 33. 3). They were
apparently a small group; and it was quite possible for one of
them to be spoken of, in appropriate circumstances, as ' The
Presbyter/ Irenaeus, for example, several times refers to
things which he had learned from The Presbyter/ or The
Presbyter, the disciple of the Apostles/ without naming him
(Irenaeus, op. cit., IV. 47. i, 49. I, I. 8. 17; Eusebius, op. cit. t
V. 8. 8). Papias, also a provincial of Asia, refers to The Pres-
byter' (Eusebius, op. cit., III. 39. 15), meaning, apparently, the
Presbyter John, whom he distinguishes from John the Apostle.
It is probable that the term is here being used in a similar way.
As Irenaeus spoke of his early teacher, who had transmitted
to him the apostolic traditions, so Gaius and Demetrius spoke
of their teacher, the man who stood to them for the authority
of the Apostles, as The Presbyter/ simply. He need not have
been, and probably was not, the same person as Irenaeus's
'Presbyter.' He need not have been, though he may have been,
the same as Papias 's 'Presbyter John.' In any case, *we must
suppose that he held so outstanding a position among Chris-
tians of the province of Asia, as a mediator of the apostolic
tradition, that he could write, whether to an individual
adherent or to a local congregation, under the title The
Presbyter/ without feeling the necessity of adding his
name.
Of the recipient of the letter, who bears the exceedingly
common name of Gaius, we know nothing but what may be in-
ferred from the letter itself. It is indeed stated in the Apostolical
Constitutions (VII. 46. 9) that he was ordained by John as
bishop of Pergamon. There is nothing unlikely about it, but the
document is late, and there is no early support for its state-
ment. From the letter itself we deduce that Gaius was a leading
member of some unnamed Christian church in the province of
Asia. He may or may not have been one of its clergy. In any
case, he possessed influence, and some means, since he is
expected to give generous support to travelling missionaries
(verses 5, 6). He is a faithful adherent of the Presbyter in the
unhappy disputes that were troubling the church. The Pres-
byter claims him as his 'child' in the faith (verse 4), which
156
THE THIRD EPISTLE OF JOHN
possibly implies that he had been the means of Gaius's con-
version, and in any case that he stood in a special pastoral
relation to him.
In place of the customary greeting (for which see note on
John 3) the Presbyter sends his love: To the beloved Gaius
whom I love in the Truth. The turn of phrase might in
another author mean no more than 'whom I love sincerely/
In very similar terms an Egyptian farmer writes, in a letter of
A.D. no, 'Greet all who love you truly/ and in another letter,
'Greet Epagathus and all who love us truly' (Grenfeli and
Hunt, Fayyum Papyri, Nos. 118, 119). Even in the present
letter, if it stood alone, we should not necessarily read anything
more into the expression. But in 2 John I the word 'truth' does
seem to bear a pregnant meaning (see note there), and since it
is throughout these epistles a word of far-reaching significance,
we should perhaps understand the Presbyter here also to be
reading a deeper meaning into a conventional phrase. In send-
ing his love to Gaius he is not simply expressing the affection of
ordinary human friendship; he is giving utterance to that
divine charity which, as it is God's gift to us in Christ, is also
the proper relation of Christians one to another in the fellow-
ship of the Church.
The courtesy formula, 1 pray that you may keep well/ 2
seems to have come into vogue during the first century, and
is extremely common in letters of that period. (For examples,
together with some other varieties of the formula, see Moffatt
Commentary, Romans, p. 6). The Presbyter expands the cur-
rent form slightly and writes, I pray you may prosper in every way
and keep well. The word translated prosper literally means 'to
have a good journey/ but as there is no suggestion in the letter
that Gaius is travelling, we may fairly take it metaphorically,
especially in view of the turn given to it in the next clause,
where the same verb recurs: 'as indeed your soul is prospering'
(for so it should be rendered: the Moffatt translation, as indeed
your soul is keeping well, which would presuppose the repeti-
tion of the other of the two verbs, is perhaps due to inadvert-
ence). The Presbyter, who, as we shall see, highly approves of
Gaius's line of action in a very trying situation, is satisfied that
157
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
he is 'having a fair journey' spiritually; he hopes that his
temporal affairs may be no less prosperous.
GAIUS AND THE TRAVELLING MISSIONARIES (3-8)
3 For I was overjoyed when some brothers arrived and testified to
the truth of your life, as indeed you do lead the true Life;
4 I have no greater joy than to hear of my children living in
5 the Truth. Beloved, you are acting loyally in rendering
service to the brothers and especially to any who are
strangers; they have testified to your love before the church.
6 Pray speed them on their journey worthily of God;
7 they have started out for His sake and declined to take
8 anything from pagans; hence we are bound to support such
men, to prove ourselves allies of the Truth.
3 In correspondence of the time it was a familiar (and very
natural) custom to begin the main part of a letter by express-
ing the pleasure of the writer at hearing good news of his
correspondent. Thus, a letter written between A.D. 70 and 80
begins, 'Chaeremon to his dearest Apollonius, greeting. I
received your note of the (?) th. inst, in a damp condition. On
reading it, 1 rejoiced that you were well, with all your family,
for I make this a matter of prayer' (Bror Olsson, Papyri am der
fruhesten Romerzeit, No. 43: my translation). Again, we have
an expression almost identical with the Presbyter's, in a letter
written in the reign of Claudius (A.D. 42-54), which may be
quoted in full as a typical example of a private letter of the
first century, with several points of similarity to 3 John (Teres
is having alterations done to his house, and Capito is super-
vising the work on his behalf).
'Capito to his dearest Teres, many greetings. Before all
things I was overjoyed, upon receipt of your letter, that you
are well, and have found your wife and child in good health.
About the dining-room, I shall of course do exactly as you
wish. I have undertaken to do all, if not more than all; for
I am deeply interested and set great store by your friend-
ship. You will find that all the instructions you gave me in
158
THE THIRD EPISTLE OF JOHN
your letter have been accomplished. Indeed, I hope that
when you come you will find even more accomplished.
I am most grateful to Primus and Tycharius, because
they attend to your instructions and assist us. The
plasterers have done, and are doing, all the work in
polychrome. About the veranda, write me what you
intend, since you are renovating it. What would you like
there pictures of the Trojan War, or what you will? The
place requires something. Farewell. Sertorius and his people
greet you. Greet all your family' (op. cit. t 34: my translation).
The Presbyter too has been made happy by good news of his J~
friend. He has recently been visited by certain Christian
'brothers/ who brought him the assurance of Gaius's complete
loyalty, In a situation where many proved disloyal. The
Presbyter, conscious of a pastoral responsibility for the
churches within his sphere of influence, is above all things
anxious that his children shall live in the Truth that is to
say, shall hold the full Christian faith, follow the teaching and
example of Christ, and adhere to the fellowship of the Church.
In some quarters he sees the faith perverted, the Christian way
of life dishonoured, and the fellowship broken. Consequently,
he is overjoyed to hear that Gaius at least leads the true life.
He can still be counted on.
He has given especial proof of his loyalty by the service he 5
has rendered to these brothers strangers as they are (for the
language of the original makes it perfectly clear that the term
'strangers' is a further description of the same persons as those
called 'brothers 1 'strangers as the}^ are' would be a fair
rendering). They do not belong to the same locality as Gaius,
and upon the conventional human level they have no claim
upon him. But they are 'brothers/ as being fellow members of
the Christian Church. Gaius has fully recognized this claim,
and has shown his loyalty to the Church (as well as to his
spiritual 'father/ the Presbyter), by offering them hospitality,
as they themselves testified before the church that is, the
Christian congregation in the place of the Presbyter's resi-^
dence. Here was downright proof that Gaius practised that
159
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
charity, or love, which is the mark of the Christian life.
6 The Presbyter has now a request to make. The brothers, we
learn, have set out upon a journey in the cause of Christ. They
are, in fact, Christian missionaries. Following the directions
which Christ gave to His apostles (Mark vi. 8-9, and parallels)
7 they have set out without providing money for their journey,
relying upon such support and hospitality as they may receive
on their way. They conscientiously refuse, however, to take
anything from pagans. We should bear in mind that the
wandering preacher was a familiar figure of the times. Devotees
of various religions tramped the roads, extolling the virtues of
the deity of their choice, and collecting subscriptions from the
public. Thus a 'slave' of the Syrian Goddess has put on record
(in an inscription cited by Deissmann, Light from the Ancient
East, pp. 108 sqq.) how he travelled in the service of his
'Lady/ and 'at each journey brought back seventy bags/
(His collecting-bag is the same, in Greek, as the wallet which
is forbidden to the apostles in Mark vi. 8.) The Christian
missionary must not be confused with these 'begging friars/
We may perhaps read between the lines that there were
Christian missionaries who had no scruples about accepting
contributions towards their expenses from well-disposed
pagans, but the Presbyter's friends are praised because they
refuse to do so: they will accept nothing but what is given in
Christian fellowship, as an expression of brotherly charity.
Consequently, they are entirely dependent upon the generosity
of their fellow Christians, and Gaius is asked to provide on a
liberal scale for the expenses of their mission. The word which
6 is translated speed them on their journey is something like a
technical term of early Christian missions. It occurs also in
Acts xv. 3, xx. 38, xxi. 5, Rom. xv. 24, I Cor. xvi. 6,
Tit. iii. 13. A comparison of these passages shows that while
the actual meaning of the vert is no more than 'to speed a
person on his way' (colloquially, 'to give him a send-off'), it
had come to imply the assumption of financial responsibility
8 for the journey. This is what is asked of Gaius. The Presbyter
adds that in thus defraying the expenses of missionaries we
prove ourselves allies of the Truth, inasmuch as we collaborate
160
THE THIRD EPISTLE OF JOHN
in the dissemination of the Christian message, which is the
truth of God revealed in Christ.
THE RECALCITRANCE OF DIOTREPHES
I have written to the church : only, Diotrephes, who likes to take 9
the lead among them, repudiates me. So when I come, I 10
shall bring up what he is doing, babbling against me with
wicked words and, not satisfied with words, he refuses to
welcome the brothers, checks those who want to welcome
them, and excommunicates them from the church.
Beloved, do not imitate evil but good; he who does good II
belongs to God, he who does evil has never seen God.
The Presbyter now passes to a less agreeable topic the 9
opposition to his authority which has developed in some un-
named church. I have written to the church, he says; Gaius
will know at once which church is meant. It might seem
natural to suppose that he was one of its members. But if so,
it is difficult to see why it should be necessary to give him in-
formation about the proceedings of the rebellious party in it.
We may perhaps take it that Gaius was not a member of the
offending congregation, but possibly a neighbour, and in any
case acquainted with its situation, though not with the latest
developments of it. At this point the Presbyter takes up his
tale. He has written a letter to the church, upon a subject
which Gaius will readily divine without being told.
It is tempting to assume (as many commentators do) that
this letter is our 2 John; but upon consideration the assumption
is not very probable, since there is nothing in the present letter
to connect it with the doctrinal controversy with which 2 John
is concerned. It would seem more natural to suppose that it
dealt, like the letter to Gaius, with the business of the
travelling missionaries. We might reasonably conjecture that
the Presbyter had appealed to the church to welcome the
missionaries and help them on their way, but the appeal had
been rejected; or, it may be, he had reason to fear that it
would not even be brought before the church; and that is why
he now writes to Gaius, upon whose support he can count. The
161
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
centre of the opposition is one Diotrephes, who likes to take the
10 lead among them. Diotrephes repudiates the Presbyter,
babbling against him with wicked words. But apparently he is
in a position to do more than make abusive speeches. It may
be that he was able to prevent the Presbyter's letter from
reaching the church. At any rate, he refuses to welcome the
brothers, he puts obstacles in the way of those who would
welcome them, and he goes so far as to excommunicate the
party favourable to them, It would indeed be possible to soften
the import of the words by giving to the Greek verb a dona-
tive' sense: 'he is for excommunicating them/ 'he moves for
their excommunication/ Or, again, it is possible that the
words, which might be literally rendered, 'he throws them out
of the church/ are not to be understood as implying formal
excommunication, but mean that Diotrephes used physical
violence to exclude his opponents from the church-meeting. It
seems, however, most natural to understand that Diotrephes
either possessed, or arrogated to himself, the authority to
excommunicate, and exercised it effectively, This authority
belonged, so soon as the monarchical episcopate was fully
established, to the bishop. Whether the church to which
Diotrephes belonged already possessed a fully episcopal con-
stitution, we cannot say. The churches of this region are
represented in the Acts of the Apostles and the Pastoral
Epistles as governed by a board of presbyters, who might also
be called bishops (Acts xx. 17, 28, Tit. i. 5-9). In the Ignatian
Epistles (about A.D. 115) they are governed by bishops, assisted
by a board of presbyters. At what stage this church stood at
this moment, we do not know. All we can say is that Diotrephes
acted in the capacity of a bishop, as understood from the
second century onwards. But what was his actual position?
There seem to be three possibilities: either (i) he was the
acknowledged bishop of the church, pursuing a policy hostile
to the Presbyter; or (ii) he was one of the board of presbyters
who, by force of character, or by successful demagogy, over-
rode his colleagues; or (iii) he was a layman, who had usurped
quasi-episcopal functions. The Presbyter regards him as
nothing but an ambitious demagogue. From his point of view
162
THE THIRD EPISTLE OF JOHN
at least, Diotrephes was no bishop. In any case, however, he
must have secured the support of a majority of the congrega-
tion; else we should have been told, not that he excommuni-
cated persons from the church, but that he separated from the
church with his followers (like the false teachers of I John).
The exact conditions governing the appointment of ministers
in the sub-apostolic period are obscure. Clement of Rome
appears to state the general view at the close of the first cen-
tury when he describes the presbyter-bishops of Corinth as
'established by the apostles, or in the meantime by other com-
petent persons, witli the consent of the whole church' (i Clem,
xliv. 3). His letter, however, shows that there was a party at
Corinth which took the view that the consent of the church
might be withdrawn, and the existing ministry might be super-
seded by popular choice. It may be that Diotrephes and his
party took a similar view. The Presbyter (if we have rightly
identified him as one of the group which perpetuated the
apostolic tradition at one remove) naturally stood for the
element of apostolic authority in the appointment of ministers
(the element for which Clement also contends against the
refractory Corinthians). The period was one of transition. In
the foreign missions of the Church at the present day it is a
familiar observation that a time arrives when the control of
the foreign missionary, accepted without question in early
days, begins to chafe the indigenous church, as it grows in
numbers, experience and self-consciousness. A phase of ten-
sion sets in, which, if development is healthy, ends in the
graceful withdrawal of the foreign missionary in favour of the
local indigenous ministry. It is probable that a similar phase
of tension arose in the sub-apostolic Church. The Apostles in
their lifetime had enjoyed an almost unquestioned authority,
based not merely upon their personal prestige, but upon their
unique position as personally commissioned by the Lord. Their
successors for a time seem to have assumed a similar undefined
authority. The Pastoral Epistles assume that Timothy and
Titus would exercise a supervision of ministerial appointments
and other ecclesiastical concerns, over a whole province, as
wide and unquestioned as Paul himself had exercised. When,
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
however, the church emerges from the 'tunnel' (see p. xviii), in
the course of the second century, there are no Timothys and
Tituses visible. The apostolic authority is now assumed to be
transmitted, in some sense, through the succession of local
bishops, who are not as yet under any 'metropolitan' control.
There must therefore have been a stage at which the
authority of local ministers was growing at the expense of the
waning authority of 'apostolic men, 1 like our Presbyter. It is
likely enough that this stage was marked by some tension.
Ageing men do not always yield with good grace an authority
which under changed conditions they can no longer exercise
effectively. Younger men, conscious of the growing needs and
opportunities of a fresh generation, are not always considerate
in grasping powers which are their due. It may well be that
this letter reflects such a stage of transition and perhaps of
tension. But if so, there are two different ways in which the
situation might be construed.
It may be (i) that Diotrephes is in fact the first 'monarchical
bishop' known to history in the province of Asia; one of a board
of presbyters who, with large support from the laity, made him-
self what the bishop was to become, and flouted the obsolescent
authority of a substitute-apostle. In that case we should con-
ceive the Presbyter as the last champion of a lost cause, and
his opponent as the pioneer of a new order which prevailed.
On the other hand, it may be (ii) that Diotrephes is a
symptom of the disease which the quasi-apostolic ministry of
monarchical bishops was designed to relieve. When the pres-
tige of apostolic authority at a remove, in the persons of the
Timothys and Tituses and their peers, declined, the very
vigour and independence of the growing local congregations
offered an all too tempting field to the ambition of able indi-
viduals. It seems clear that the danger which this state of
affairs threatened to the unity and continuity of the Christian
Body was one motive in the development of the catholic
episcopate during the second century. If this view be taken, we
shall conceive the Presbyter as confronting at an early stage
the threat of disunion and anarchy in the Church, which was to
occupy the energies of its leaders for a long time to come.
164
THE THIRD EPISTLE OF JOHN
It does not appear that there was any question of doctrine
involved. Diotrephes is not charged with heresy. He may, of
course, have been suspected of a leaning to the false doctrines
denounced in I and 2 John; but if so, the Presbyter would
surely have mentioned the fact; he is not wont to be mealy-
mouthed when heresy is concerned. It is, to all appearance,
purely a question of order and discipline. The measures he
takes are tentative. First he appeals to the personal loyalty of
those who still acknowledge his authority. Then he proposes to
visit the church, and to expose (presumably in the presence of
the congregation) the misdemeanours of Diotrephes. The lan-
guage which he uses When I come, I shall bring up what he is
doing, babbling against me with wicked words suggests that
the Presbyter is not too sure of his ground. He can do no more
than stake his personal influence and prestige against those of
Diotrephes. Whether his appeal succeeded, we are not told; but
the very fact that his letter is preserved tells, so far, in favour
of the view that it did. But that was hardly a final solution.
The problem, as we have seen, was ultimately solved by the
development of the catholic episcopate. It may be that the
traditions which make 'John' the principal organizer of the
episcopate in the province of Asia refer to our Presbyter and
not to the Apostle. It may even be that he himself appointed
Gaius as bishop, in accordance with the tradition preserved in
the Apostolic Constitutions. But there is no suggestion of this
in the letter, and conjecture is not profitable .
In verse u we have what looks like a purely general maxim; n
but we are probably safe in understanding that the evil example
is that of Diotrephes, who out of personal ambition hinders the
work of Christian missions, tyrannizes over his fellow members
of the congregation, interrupts communications between the
congregation and its apostolic pastor, and flouts and slanders
the Presbyter himself. All this constitutes a flagrant example
of breach of fellowship and denial of charity. This example
Gaius must on no account imitate. To do good (that is, before
all things, to exercise charity, see notes on I John ii. 7-11) is
the mark of one who belongs to God. Here the language of the
First Epistle is echoed. A reference to i John ii. 3-5, iii. 4-10,
165
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
iv. 7 sqq., and notes, will serve to illustrate what the writer
means by 'belonging to God' and 'seeing God/ To put it
briefly, there is no 'religious experience' which can rightly be
called Christian unless it attests itself in the practice of
Christian charity. Diotrephes, for all his ability and powers of
leadership, has shown himself no Christian. Gaius must not
follow his bad example. (Was he tempted to throw in his lot
with the majority?) There are better examples for the Christian
to follow.
A TESTIMONIAL FOR DEMETRIUS (l2)
12 Everybody testifies to Demetrius, and so does the Truth itself:
I testify to him too, and you know my testimony is true.
12 A third name is now introduced, that of Demetrius. Who he
was we do not know. According to the Apostolic Constitutions,
loc. cit., he was appointed by John to be bishop of Philadelphia,
but there is no early support for the statement. Conjectural
attempts to identify him with Demetrius the silversmith
of Ephesus (Acts xix. 24) or with Paul's unsatisfactory
assistant Demas (Col. iv. 14, Philem. 24, 2 Tim. iv. 10)
are little better than trifling. It may be that he was a
member of the disturbed congregation or of that to which
Gaius belonged; and at a time when there were cross-currents,
and personal loyalties were uncertain, the Presbyter wished
to assure Gaius that he was to be trusted. Or it may be
(and this seems more probable) that he was one of the travel-
ling missionaries, perhaps their leader. A likely suggestion is
that he was the bearer of this letter, which introduces him to
Gaius and the loyal minority, and serves as his credentials.
Commendatory letters (or certificates, as the Moffatt transla-
tion has it, 2 Cor. iii. i) played an important part in the life of
the early Church, as we can well understand in the circum-
stances of the time. We have an example of such a 'certificate'
in Rom. xvi. 1-2. In Col. iv. 7-8 Paul introduces Tychicus, the
bearer of the letter, as a faithful minister and fellow-servant in
the Lord, who will be able to give the Colossians accurate news
of him. Similarly, it may be, the Presbyter entrusts Demetrius
166
THE THIRD EPISTLE OF JOHN
with the delivery of his letter, and guarantees him as an
entirely trustworthy person. Everybody testifies to Demetrius,
he writes. By way of comparison (and contrast) we may take
the language of a letter written in 13 B.C. by a freedman to his
patron, who (he complains) has been listening to slanderous
tales about him. 'I believe/ he writes indignantly, 'that I do
not deserve to be insulted, as your friends will testify to you.
I have done you no wrong, and your friends will not think it
right for me to be insulted when I am meeting your claims'
(Olsson, Papyri aus der fruhesten Rdmerzeit> No. 9: my trans-
lation).
Everybody testifies to Demetrius, and so (continues the
Presbyter) does the Truth itself. The latter phrase is remark-
able. Its exact meaning is not altogether clear. The words, in
another author, might be no more than a strong affirmation
that the common opinion of Demetrius is the plain truth about
him, and it may be that no more is intended here. But in these
epistles we must always suspect that the word 'truth' has
some more special meaning. It is indeed an unlikely suggestion
that the Truth is here personified, and identified with God, with
Christ, or with the Holy Spirit (in spite of John xiv. 6, I John
v. 6). The Truth, in the language of these epistles, is the revela-
tion of God in Christ. This revelation is appropriated by
Christian faith, and embodied in Christian living. The Pres-
byter speaks of his 'children' as living in the Truth. Similarly,
the First Epistle speaks of practising the Truth (i John i. 6).
As thus practised, the Truth becomes a matter of direct
experience and observation, and provides a guarantee of the
Christian standing of him who practises it. It may be that this
gives the meaning of the expression in the present verse. The
Truth itself testifies to Demetrius in the sense that his whole
way of life so manifestly embodies the Christian ideal (as we
might put it) that no one who is acquainted with him needs
any further testimony. The Truth shines by its own light in all
his actions.
The Presbyter, however, wishes to make it clear that he
takes personal responsibility for his guarantee of Demetrius's
soundness. No doubt Gaius will be impressed by the fact that
167
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
Demetrius is generally esteemed, and in time he will appreciate
the self-evidencing integrity of his life; but meanwhile it will
mean more to him that the Presbyter, whose judgment he is
accustomed to trust, pledges his word in Demetrius's favour: I
testify to him too, and you know my testimony is true. The
phrase recalls the formula with which the Fourth Gospel is
accredited in the editorial note appended to the last chapter
(John xxi. 24). Who the 'we' are who thus attest the truth of
the Fourth Gospel, we cannot say; but they were certainly not
far removed from the circle of our Presbyter. Might we con-
jecture that he was himself the editor who wrote the note
when the Gospel was published with its appendix?
EPISTOLARY CONCLUSION (13-15)
13 I had a great deal to write to you, but I do not want to write to
14 you with ink and pen; I am hoping to see you soon, and we
will have a talk.
15 Peace to you! The friends salute you: salute the friends
one by one.
u" In conclusion, the Presbyter apologizes for the brevity of
his letter. He will be seeing his correspondent before long. Such
apologies were more or less common form; but in this case it
may well be that there were delicate matters to discuss which
the Presbyter preferred to leave to a personal interview.
15 The greeting, Peace to you! was adopted by Christians from
Jewish usage (cf. I Pet. v. 14). For the rest, the greetings
follow the general model of contemporary correspondence. For
example, in a first-century letter found at Oxyrhynchus we have
'Greet Ptolemas and all your people one by one 1 (Oxyrhynchus
Papyri, II. 298: my translation); and in a second-century letter
written from Rome: 1 send many greetings to your wife, and
to Serenus, and to all who love you, one by one 1 (Milligan,
Select Greek Papyri, No. 41: my translation). It is therefore
quite beside the mark to infer (as some have done) that the
party of the Presbyter was so small that it could (so to speak)
be counted on one hand. His intention is simply to individu-
alize for the recipients a courtesy which in writing must needs
be left general.
168
124975
