1 John I. 1—6,
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life; (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.
WE call this book an Epistle, and I do not know that we have any right to say that it is not one. But it does not open like a letter. It is not addressed to any body of men, or to any one man. The author does not speak of himself. He does not introduce any greetings, such as you would expect of one who is at a distance from his friends. In all these respects it differs from the other Epistles in the New Testament, specially differs from those which St. Paul sent to the Gentile Churches which he had founded. The words ‘These things we write to you,’ and others of the same kind which occur afterwards, do not permit us to suppose that it was a discourse delivered with the lips. Otherwise we might have fancied an aged man standing up in an assembly of men among whom he had dwelt a long time, to remind them what lessons he had taught them, and for what end he had lived. And that I doubt not was his design. He may have been too feeble to speak what was in his heart, or he may have been away from Ephesus for awhile, in his exile at Patmos. Anyhow, it was ordered that his words should be committed to enduring letters, and that we should profit by them as much as those who lived in his day.
The absence of a special superscription has led people to call this Epistle a catholic or universal one. It well deserves the name. Its words, I think we shall find, are as good for London as Ephesus; for the nineteenth century as the first. And we shall understand better how fitly the opening words apply to us, if we consider for a moment what a peculiar fitness they had for the men who had sat by the old Apostle; who remembered that he had talked with our Lord on earth, and had been with him at the last supper; who had listened to him while he recalled the words which had fallen from his Master’s lips, the acts which had been done by his Master’s hand. Do you not think this thought must have often come into their minds?—‘Shall we not be terrible losers when he is taken from us?’—losers, not merely as all are who part with a dear friend and guide, but in this sense—that henceforth we shall ‘only have the lessons of Christ at second-hand; we shall only have scattered and broken memorials of His works and His life. And will it not be worse for our children than it is for us? Will not the tradition become fainter and fainter in each new generation? Will it not become more mixed with reports that are not true?’ ‘To be sure,’ they may have gone on, ‘we have books which contain accounts of His words and deeds, which are trustworthy. These we prize now; these we may transmit to the men who come after us and teach them to prize. But will not that be very different from hearing a living voice? Will reading a book be ever a substitute for that? And may there not be false reports which are handed down along with the true ones? Have not lying accounts of our Lord’s deeds and words been put together already, which His Apostles have told us not to care for? Who will give these warnings to our descendants? Who will help them to discern between the honest record and the counterfeit one?’
I cannot doubt that such things were said at this time, because, in some form of language or other, people have been saying them ever since. They have fancied that each age was less likely to be right than the last, because it was further from the age of the Apostles. They have supposed that our knowledge of Christ can only be second-hand, or third-hand, or fourth-hand knowledge. They have disputed whether we are dependent on oral traditions or whether a written book is sufficient without them. They have asked who is to determine between the false reports and the true reports. They have debated these questions backwards and forwards, and are debating them still.
Now, St. John’s words, it seems to me, meet these confusions, and answer them as no others can. He begins with speaking of that which he saw and heard and handled. Those who read his letter could have no doubt that he was referring to the time when he saw the face of Jesus Christ, when he heard His discourses, when he grasped His hand, when he leaned upon His breast. There might be some still upon earth who had been in Jerusalem at that time, who had even been disciples of Christ. There would not be any of them upon the earth long. And there was none of them who would have thought he had as much right to use these expressions as the son of Zebedee had. Here, then, he claims for himself the full dignity of an Apostle. Whatever advantage there was in this kind of intercourse with Jesus, he could say, ‘It was mine.’
Yet there is something peculiar in his mode of speaking. Why does he not say, ‘He whom we saw and heard and handled?’ St. John certainly meant this. Would it not have been more simple and natural to adopt that form of language? Before we decide, let us hear what he does say: ‘That which we have seen with our eyes, and our ears have heard, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life.’ The preposition of, which our translators have adopted, does not exactly answer to the one which St. John uses. I do not know whether I wish that they had rendered it ‘about,’ though that certainly would have been more literal. That would be nearly as unintelligible as ‘of,’ if we do not exercise our minds upon the passage; if we do, either may be intelligible. Think of the friend whom you have known best and loved best. Let each ask himself, ‘What is it that I have known and loved in him?’ Suppose he is gone away. You will recollect his look, the tones of his voice, the pressure of his hand. But you would not call these himself. You would not say these were your friend. You would say these were of him or about him. You would say that what you could not see or hear or handle was much more that which attached you to itself, that which you rested in. You would say—would not you?— ‘There was a life in him, which took hold of me. It was in that I found the difference between him and other people. It was with that I could converse. It was that which conversed with me. The goodness, the wisdom, the power which I recognised, were in that. The hearing, the seeing, the handling would have been nothing without that. They brought me in contact with the outside of the man,—an outside that was dear to me because of that which it expressed,—but he was within.’
Now, St. John says exactly this about that Lord and Master who called him from mending his nets, only he says something more than this. He says that that face of His which he saw, that voice of His which he heard, those hands of His which he handled were ‘about the Word of Life.’ A life was there within that body, just as there is a life within the body of each man whom we converse with. A life revealed itself or was manifested through those outward organs of His, just as a life is manifested through the outward organs of every person who speaks to us, who looks at us, who approaches us. But St. John says that this life which was in Him was not merely a life, but the Life; the life from which all the life that is in us and in the other creatures is derived. That there must be such a Life, such a central fountain of life as this, we all, I believe, feel more or less strongly. It is what men have been asking for in every country and every age. I showed you last Sunday how one who is seeking a ground for his own moral life is led to perceive the necessity of it. And I observed then how the thought of this life in man associated itself with the thought of God; how men had dreamed that the true standard and ultimate source of their life must be in Him. To that conviction, also, St. John does justice; the phrase ‘Word of Life’ intimates that the life which was in this Person was, in very deed, the expression or utterance of that which is in God. Just as the word I speak contains the thought that is in me and that I put into it; so this life with which St. John had held converse, was, he says, the Word of Life; the expression of the whole Mind and Nature of Him from whom all things have proceeded. We say sometimes of a speech which strikes us as very sincere and very powerful, ‘The speaker threw his whole soul into it.’ We mean that that speech showed or expressed to us very much of what we think was in the man who delivered it. But we know that no man can tell us all that is in him, by a speech. We must compare one thing that he says with another, we must be acquainted with his acts as well as with his sayings; both together help us to understand his mind and purpose. And there is so much in us that is variable and contradictory, that one act or one word may not represent the same mind and purpose with another. You may say to-day, ‘I fancied that person was one of the gentlest of human beings; now I have seen him in a passion, I find another kind of man in him; I cannot tell what to think of him.’ But supposing there were a being with nothing variable or contradictory in his nature, whose purpose was always the same, who was himself always the same; the sayings which he spoke and the acts which he did would be always in accordance; each one would tell the truth about him, each one would tell us of himself. And his acts, and his sayings together, would represent one life. Supposing, then, that you could ever say of the life of a man, ‘This life perfectly expresses the mind and purpose of God, this life perfectly shows the life that is in Him’—then you would say, ‘This is the Word of God. In him God speaks out Himself. In him God manifests Himself.’ You would not mean merely that something which he spoke proceeded from God, and declared what He intended or willed. You would mean that he, the whole person, was and is the Word of God.
You will think perhaps that I am in a hurry to put this meaning upon St. John, when perhaps his expressions can be explained in another way. There is nothing that I wish less than that any one should take my interpretation for granted. There is nothing that I wish more than that they should compare St. John’s different writings together, and see whether this is not the kind of thing that he is telling us in all of them. I say the kind of thing; for I am sure that what he is telling us is much better, and deeper, and larger than I have been able to express in my language. Perhaps one of the first discoveries to which such an examination would lead you, is the feebleness, the poverty, the circumlocution of my phrases, as contrasted with the strength, and the richness, and the directness of his. This, however, you may ascertain for yourselves. The meaning of these expressions ‘Word of God,’ ‘Word of Life,’ has not been left by the Apostle for other interpreters to bring out. His whole Gospel is an elucidation of it. There is not one narrative in that Gospel which does not help to present it in some new aspect. In doing so, I think—indeed, I have endeavoured elsewhere to prove—that he has made the force of the expression ‘Word of God’ in the Old Testament, and so the whole history and purport of the Old Testament, beautifully clear and consistent. And I am also convinced that this language of his is only obscure to us just as the great principles of science are obscure—not from their want of simplicity, but from our want of simplicity; and that like those principles, we shall at last be led to it by finding that we cannot explain the facts which most need to be explained, without it. Many circumstances in the history of our time, it seems to me, are tending to this result; none more directly than the conviction, at which we have all arrived, that the deepest knowledge is intended for all classes equally. The full idea of a Word of God, a Word of Life, a Word who is the Light of men, will come out, I think, as we try to act upon that conviction, and not till then. We shall not see our way through the puzzles of education, till we have taken firm hold of this truth. When we do, we shall find it a very levelling one; we shall find that we are all learners from first to last, and that we have all a perfect Teacher. You will not wonder, therefore, that I should dwell upon this subject in a College of Working Men.
I am advancing but slowly with the passage which I have chosen. But I gave you notice that I should have to dwell upon the separate words of it; and St. John himself stops us when we are over-eager to proceed. Here you will see that he introduces a parenthesis, one, however, which is very necessary for the complete unfolding of his design. ‘For the Life,’ he says, ‘was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father, and has been manifested to us.’ Of that thought he is full. He must make the Ephesians understand that this is the beginning and end of all he has been saying to them since he began to dwell among them. A life has been manifested; the life has been manifested. That which he saw of Christ, while he was with Him upon earth, was to enable him to testify of this life. He had no other business than to tell them that it had been fully revealed. But that he may perform that task properly, he must tell them what kind of life it is. It was the eternal life. Not a life of years, and months, and days, and instants; but a fixed permanent life—the life of a Being in whom is no variableness, nor the shadow of a turning. I am only seeking for expressions that may give you some help in entering for yourselves into the force of this word; I do not want to change it for any other. We all oppose Eternity to Time. Each of us in his heart recognises that distinction as a true and necessary one. The more serious we become—the more we begin to think about what we are—the more real and deep the distinction becomes to us. And yet we are apt to lose ourselves in utter vagueness when we try to contemplate Eternity. It seems to us something not distinct from time, but a very, very long time. Unawares, we begin to measure it by our clocks, even while we say it cannot be measured by them. And so by degrees we dismiss the consideration of it as much as we can, because if we put it far from us, it seems to fade into nothing, and if we bring it near to us, it seems too dreadful to endure. May I give you this hint about it? The Bible way of presenting it to us—St. John’s way—is the safest and the most rational. He joins eternal to Life; he joins Life to God. If the Life is that which was manifested in Christ, in His words and acts, it is a life of gentleness, justice, truth. You cannot measure these by the clocks; you do not wish, or try to measure them. You never did so when you were thinking about the gentleness, or justice, or truth of a friend. And if that is the life of God, surely it is not a terrible thing—though it may be an awful thing—to recollect that He is, and was and is to come, and that He is not far from any one of us.
But is that what St. John means by eternal Life here. Look at the next clause, and you will not doubt it. He speaks of the ‘Life which was with the Father and has been manifested to us.’ You will not doubt that when he speaks of the Father, he means the Eternal God. I would not have you satisfied with saying that. The name Father is not a name that is ever used carelessly. It is the New Testament name. It is that name which we pray to have hallowed. We should ask ourselves, why it is the New Testament name; why every little child may use it now? And I do not think we can get any other answer than this, that He who came into the world, and showed forth that life in it whereof St. John speaks, said, ‘I come from a Father. My Life is the image of His Life. Therefore it is an eternal life. It did not begin at a certain time; it will not end at a certain time. And as you are partakers of my nature, you are intended to partake of this eternal life; you are the children of Him who has declared me to be His only-begotten Son.’
I have thus brought together two names which are never long separated by St. John, the name ‘Word of God,’ and the name ‘Son of God.’ Neither gives forth a complete sense without the other. We might suppose that the ‘Word of God’ was only a sentence or decree of God—that it did not point to a person at all. If only the name ‘Son of God’ was used, we might mix associations of time with Him who is declared to have an Eternal Life. The two expressions, when they are compared together, discover the full intention of the Apostle. He who shows forth the true life to man is as much one with God as the word is with the thought that it makes known. But that we may understand how personal and perfect the relation is, we must resort to the highest and tenderest of human relations. The union and sympathy between a son and a father is most imperfect among men. There must be some perfect original of it. It could not be what it is to us if there were not. We are told that the original is where the original of all our life is—in God. The union of the Father with the Son is involved in the very idea of God as it is declared to us in the New Testament. We shall see also that it is involved in the idea of the way in which men are to partake in the life of God.
This is the subject of the third verse, ‘What we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.’ There is nothing, you see, which he claims for himself as an Apostle, that he does not claim for those to whom he writes. The very highest privilege which can belong to him, he affirms to be theirs. His reward is, that he has the delight of announcing to them that it is theirs, and how they may enter into the enjoyment of it. Fellowship or communion with God, he is to tell them, is possible for man. The inferior being may partake the nature of the superior. ’The creature who has fancied himself limited to threescore years and ten may enter upon the eternal life of the Creator. The declaration sounds wonderful, the promise incredible. But the Christian revelation means nothing unless this assertion is true—unless this promise can be fulfilled. It professes to be the revelation of a Father through a Son, who has taken the nature of men upon Him—who has entered into our conditions of birth and suffering and death. If it is so, all who have that nature must stand in a direct filial relation to this Father in this Son; there must be some means by which they may acquire His mind, His character, or, to use once again St. John’s more comprehensive word, His life.
‘These things,’ says St. John in the next verse, ‘write we unto you that your joy may be full or fulfilled.’ I supposed that there might be a question among the Ephesian Christians, how they would fare after the Apostle had left the world—how their children would fare after they had left it. Would they be dependent upon a tradition, upon the things which the Apostles had recorded concerning their Master; a tradition that might become more muddy every year? Would they be dependent upon a mere written book? The Apostle answers emphatically ‘No,’ to both these. He saw and handled Christ; but it was that he might bear witness of a life that was in Him, an eternal life—one which had been in Him before the worlds were—one which would be in Him if all worlds were to come to an end. He had seen and handled that which was about this Word of Life, that he might tell them, because they were men—though they were not Apostles at all, though they had never seen and handled Christ at all—that His life was manifested to them, and that they might participate in it. He now adds, ‘And these things we WRITE that your joy may be full.’ They are written down, not that you may be satisfied with a set of letters, but that these letters may testify to you and to all generations which shall come after—when Apostles shall have been for centuries in their graves—of a life which cannot cease; of a life which must be the same always because it is in God; of a life which it is God’s will to communicate to His creatures, and which it is their highest joy to receive.
One verse more, and I have finished this Lecture. I cannot separate it from those which have gone before, and you will see immediately how it belongs to the subject of my whole course. ‘This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.’ This was the revelation which had been made to men in Him whom St. John had seen and handled—had been made not only with His lips, but in His acts—in the powers which He had exerted for man’s benefit—in the death which He had died. If He was the Word of God, if the whole life and purpose of God were manifested in Him, then it was possible to say boldly, ‘There is not one dark spot in this Being, not one evil malicious thought against any creature whom He has formed. All is clear unbroken light.’ And this word ‘Light’ is at once the simplest, and the fullest, and the deepest which can be used in human discourse. It is addressed to every man who has eyes, and who has ever looked on the sun, or to whom the sun has discovered the ground at his feet. The more you think of it, the more it satisfies you. It does not only tell you of Goodness and Truth without flaw, though it does tell you of these; it tells you of a Goodness and Truth that are always seeking to spread themselves abroad, to send forth rays that shall penetrate everywhere, and scatter the darkness which opposes them.
Here, then, is the answer to those terrible conceptions which I said in my last Lecture men had formed of the Divine nature and character; those conceptions which made Aristotle think that it was better and safer to leave what was divine out of his scheme of morals. I did not wonder that he had done so. I could find no fault with him. And yet I could not understand how that which affected men so much, and acted upon their character so much, could be treated as if it had nothing to do with the formation of their characters. In Christian ethics it is the foundation-stone. This proposition, ‘God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all,’ is the proposition from which all others start. How it has been demonstrated to men I have tried to show you. That demonstration in a Son leads on to the next proposition, that this divine light is not merely hidden inaccessible light; that it has shone out in a Person Who makes us understand what He is by doing human acts and bearing human sorrows. And so we arrive at the third proposition, that the highest end of man’s existence is to have fellowship with this Life and Light. And then a fourth, which we shall have to speak of more hereafter, that fellowship or communion with each other is implied in this fellowship or communion with God and with His Son.
These I regard as the fundamental maxims of Christian ethics. In any true study of them which is grounded upon the teaching of the Apostles, these maxims will precede any considerations respecting the condition of man as an erring and sinful creature. We shall know nothing about that condition unless we understand first what our true and proper state is. We must measure the crooked line by the straight, not the straight by the crooked. But in the next Lecture I hope to show you that these great principles of Christian morals, which St. John has declared to us, are not applicable to some imaginary, perfect world, but to ours—not to some pure and saintly beings, but to you and me.