Imatges de pàgina
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236 'Word' and 'Son' complete and guard each other.

begotten k. This last epithet surely means, not merely that God has no other such Son, but that His Only-begotten Son is, in virtue of this Sonship, a partaker of that incommunicable and imperishable Essence, Which is sundered from all created life by an impassable chasm. If St. Paul speaks of the Resurrection as manifesting this Sonship to the world1, the sense of the word Hovoуevns remains in St. John, and it is plainly 'defined by its context to relate to something higher than any event occurring in time, however great or beneficial to the human race m' The Only-begotten Sonn is in the bosom of the Father (ó ☎v eis Tòv κόλπον τοῦ Πατρός) just as the Logos is πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, ever contemplating, ever, as it were, moving towards Him in the ceaseless activities of an ineffable communion. The Son is His Father's equal, in that He is partaker of His nature: He is His Subordinate, in that this Equality is eternally derived. But the Father worketh hitherto and the Son works; the Father hath life in Himself, and has given to the Son to have life in Himself; all men are to honour the Son even as they honour the Father o. How does the Son of God, as presented to us in Scripture, differ from Him, Whom the Church knows and worships as God the Son?

Each of these expressions, the Word and the Son, if taken alone, might have led to a fatal misconception. In the language of Church history, the Logos, if unbalanced by the idea of Sonship, might have seemed to sanction Sabellianism. The Son, without the Logos, might have been yet more successfully pressed into the service of Arianism. An Eternal Thought or Reason, even although constantly tending to express itself in speech, is of itself

* St. John i. 14: εθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, δόξαν ὡς μονογενοῦς παρὰ Πατρός. Ibid. i. 18: ὁ μονογενὴς Υἱὸς, ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ Πατρός. Ibid. iii. 16: [ὁ Θεὸς] τὸν Υἱὸν αὑτοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν. Ibid. ver. 18: ὁ δὲ μὴ πιστεύων ἤδη κέκριται, ὅτι μὴ πεπίστευκεν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ μονογενοῦς Υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ. Cf. I St. John iv. 9: τὸν Υἱὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ ἀπέσταλκεν ὁ Θεὸς εἰς τὸν κόσμον, ἵνα ζήσωμεν δι' αὐτοῦ. The word μονογενής is used by St. Luke of the son of the widow of Nain (vii. 12), of the daughter of Jairus (viii. 42), and of the lunatic son of the man who met our Lord on His coming down from the mount of the transfiguration (ix. 38). In Heb. xi. 17 it is applied to Isaac. μovoyevns means in each of these cases that which exists once only, that is, singly in its kind.' (Tholuck, Comm. in Joh. i. 14.) God has one Only Son Who by nature and necessity is His Son.

1 Acts xiii. 32, 33; Rom. i. 4. Compare on the other hand, Heb. v. 8. m Newman's Arians, p. 174.

St. John i. 18, 8 μovoyevns riós, where however the Vatican and Sinaitic MSS. and Cod. Ephr. read μovoyevǹs EOZ. For the Patristic evidence on the subject, see Alford in loc. • St. John v. 17, 23, 26.

Manifestation of the Word in history. 237

too abstract to oblige us to conceive of it as of a personal Subsistence. On the other hand, the filial relationship carries with it the idea of dependence and of comparatively recent origin, even although it should suggest the reproduction in the Son of all the qualities of the Father. Certainly St. John's language in his prologue protects the Personality of the Logos, and unless he believed that God could be divided or could have had a beginning, the Apostle teaches that the Son is co-eternal with the Father. Yet the bare metaphors of 'Word' and 'Son,' taken separately, might lead divergent thinkers to conceive of Him to Whom they are applied, on the one side as an impersonal quality or faculty of God, on the other, as a concrete and personal but inferior and dependent being. But combine them, and each corrects the possible misuse of the other. The Logos, Who is also the Son, cannot be an impersonal and abstract quality; since such an expression as the Son would be utterly misleading, unless it implied at the very least the fact of a personal subsistence distinct from that of the Father. On the other hand, the Son, Who is also the Logos, cannot be of more recent origin than the Father; since the Father cannot be conceived of as subsisting without that Eternal Thought or Reason Which is the Son. Nor may the Son be deemed to be in any respect, save in the order of Divine subsistence, inferior to the Father, since He is identical with the eternal intellectual Life of the Most High. Thus each metaphor reinforces, supplements, and protects the other. Taken together they exhibit Christ before His Incarnation as at once personally distinct from, and yet equal with, the Father; He is That personally subsisting and 'Eternal Life, Which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us P.'

St. John's Gospel is a narrative of that manifestation. It is a Life of the Eternal Word tabernacling in Human Nature among men 9. The Hebrew schools employed a similar expression to designate the personal presence of the Divinity in this finite world. In St. John's Gospel the Personality of Christ makes Itself felt as Eternal and Divine at wellnigh every step of the narrativer. Thus even the Forerunner describes

PI St. John i. 2. Cf. Newman's Arians, ch. ii. sect. 3.

a St. John i. 14: ẻσkhvwσev év huîv. The image implies both the reality and the transient character of our Lord's manifestation in the flesh. Olshausen, Meyer, and Lücke see in it an allusion to the 'Shekinah,' in which the Divine glory or radiance (12) dwelt enshrined.

Baur, Dogmengeschichte, i. 602: Was das johanneische Evangelium betrifft, so versteht es sich ohnediess von selbst, dass das eigentliche Subject

238

Manifestation of the Word in history.

a Being Who appearing later in time has had an earlier existences; and Who, while coming from above, is yet ‘above allt.' Each discourse, each miracle, nay, each separate word and act, is a fresh ray of glory streaming forth from the Person of the Word through the veil of His assumed Humanity. The miracles of the Word Incarnate are frequently called His works". The Evangelist means to imply that 'the wonderful is only the natural form of working for Him in Whom all the fulness of God dwells.' Christ's Divine Nature must of necessity bring forth works greater than the works of man. The Incarnation is the one great wonder; other miracles follow as a matter of course. The real marvel would be if the Incarnate Being should work no miracles ; as it is, they are the natural results of His presence among men, rather than its higher manifestation. His true glory is not perceived except by those who gaze at it with a meditative and reverent intentness w. The Word Incarnate is ever conscious of His sublime relationship to the Father. He knows whence He is *. He refers not unfrequently to His pre-existent Life . He sees into the deepest purposes of the human hearts around Him 2. He has a perfect knowledge of all that concerns God a. His works are simply the works of God b. To believe in the Father

der Persönlichkeit Christi nur der Logos ist, die Menschwerdung besteht daher nur in dem σàpέ yevéσlai; dass der Logos Fleisch geworden, im Fleisch erschienen ist, ist seine menschliche Erscheinung.' It will be borne in mind that σáp§, in its full New Testament meaning, certainly includes uxh as well as the animal organism (see Olshausen on Rom. vii. 14), and St. John attributes to the Word Incarnate spiritual experiences which must have had their seat in His human Soul (xi. 33, 38, xiii. 21). But Baur's general position, that in St. John's Gospel the Personality of the Eternal Word is perpetually before us, is unquestionably true.

• St. John i. 15: ὁ ὀπίσω μου ἐρχόμενος, ἔμπροσθέν μου γέγονεν, ὅτι πρῶτός

μου ἦν.

t Ibid. iii. 3r : ὁ ἄνωθεν ἐρχόμενος ἐπάνω πάντων ἐστίν.

Cf.

u ěpya, St. John v. 36, vii. 21, X. 25, 32, 38, xiv. 11, 12, XV. 23. too St. Matt. xi. 2. The word is applied to the Old Testament miracles in Heb. iii. 9; Ps. xciv. 9, LXX. Cf. Archbishop Trench on the Miracles, p. 7. That, notwithstanding the wider use of pyov in St. John xvii. 4, pya in the fourth Gospel do mean Christ's miracles, cf. Trench, Mir. p. 8, note t. Cf. Lect. IV. p. 158.

▾ Trench, ubi supra, p. 8.

w St. John uses the words θεωρεῖν, θεάσασθαι to describe this.

* St. John viii. 14: οἶδα πόθεν ἦλθον.

y Ibid. iii. 13, vi. 62, viii. 58, xvi. 28, xvii. 5. Ibid. ii. 24, iv. 17, v. 14, 42, vi. 15.

b Ibid. ix. 4, x. 37, sqq., xiv. 10.

a Ibid. viii. 55, x. 15.

This explains St. John's point of view. 239

is to believe in Him. To have seen Him is to have seen the Father. To reject and hate Him is to reject and hate the Father. He demands at the hands of men the same tribute of affection and submission as that which they owe to the Person of the Father c.

In St. John's Gospel, the Incarnation is exhibited, not as the measure of the humiliation of the Eternal Word, but as the veil of His enduring and unassailable glory. The angels of God ascend and descend upon Him. Nay, He is still in heaven. Certainly He has taken an earthly form; He has clothed Himself with a human frame. But He has thereby raised humanity rather than abased Himself. In St. John the status inanitionis, the intrinsic humiliation of Christ's Incarnate Life, is thrown into the background of the reader's thought. The narrative is throughout illuminated by the never-failing presence of the Word in His glory d. Even when Jesus dies, His Death is no mere humilia

As M. Reuss admits: Il résulte (from the prerogatives ascribed to the Word Incarnate in St. John's Gospel) que le Verbe révélateur pouvait demander pour lui-même, de la part des hommes, les mêmes sentiments, et les mêmes dispositions, qu'ils doivent avoir à l'égard de la personne du Père. Ces sentiments sont exprimés par un mot, qui contient la notion d'un respect professé pour un supérieur, la reconnaissance d'une dignité devant laquelle on s'incline. A cet égard, il y a égalité des deux personnes divines vis-a-vis de l'homme. On ne croit pas à l'une sans croire à l'autre ; qui voit l'une voit l'autre ; rejeter, haïr le Fils, c'est rejeter et haïr le Père. (St. Jean iii. 33, 34, xii. 44, xv. 23). Mais dans tout ceci (proceeds M. Reuss) il ne s'agit pas de ce qu'on appele le culte dans le langage pratique de l'Église. Le culte appartient à Dieu le Père, et lui sera offert désormais avec d'autant plus d'empressement qu'il est mieux révélé, et que rien ne sépare plus de lui les croyants.' (Reuss, Théol. Chrét. ii. 455.) How inconsequent is this restriction! If the Incarnate Word has a right to demand for Himself the same sentiments' and 'dispositions' as those which men cherish towards the Almighty Father, He has a right to the same tribute of an adoration in spirit and in truth as that which is due to the Father. What is worship but a complex act of such 'sentiments' and 'dispositions' as faith, love, self-prostration, self-surrender before the Most Holy? If Tuâv (St. John v. 23), within the general meaning of due acknowledgment, includes much else besides adoration, it cannot be applied to the duties of man to God without including adoration. Our Lord's words place Himself and the Father simply on a level; if the Son is not to be adored, neither is the Father; if the Father is to be adored, then must the Son be adored in the same sense and measure. This is certainly not interfered with by St. John iv. 20, sqq.; while the best practical comment upon it is to be found in the confession of St. Thomas, xx. 28; on which see Lect. VII.

d This may seem inconsistent with (1) St. John xiv. 28: 8 Пaтǹp μei(wv μου ἐστίν. But such a statement would be 'unmeaning' in a mere man. See Lect. IV. pp. 202-204; (2) St. John xvii. 3: avтn dé éσti ʼn aiúvios

240 Christology of St. John's First Epistle.

tion; His Death is the crisis of His exaltation e, of His glory f. Not that He can personally increase in glory. He is already the Son; He is the Word. But He can glorify and exalt that Manhood which is the robe through which His movements are discernible: He can glorify Himself, as God is glorified, by drawing towards His Person the faith and love and reverence of men. It were folly to conceive of Him as enhancing His Divinity; but He can make larger and deeper that measure of homage which ascends towards His throne from human understandings and from human hearts 8.

III. 1. But does St. John's teaching in his earlier writings on the subject of our Lord's Person harmonize with the representations placed before us in the fourth Gospel? The opening words of his first Epistleh might go far to answer that question. St. John's position in this Epistle is, that the Eternal immaterial Word of Life resident in God had become historically manifest, and that the Apostles had consciously seen, and heard, and handled Him, and were now publishing their experience to the worldi. The practical bearing of this announcement lay in the truth that he that hath the Son hath the Life, and he that hath not the Son hath not the Life j.' For God hath given to us the Eternal Life, and this, the Life, is in His Son k' If then the soul is to hold communion with God in the Life of Light and

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ζωὴ, ἵνα γινώσκωσίν σε τὸν μόνον ἀληθινὸν Θεὸν, καὶ ὃν ἀπέστειλας Ἰησοῦν Xploróv. But here a Socinian sense is excluded, (a) by the consideration that 'the knowledge of GOD and a creature could not be Eternal Life’ (see Alford in loc.); (b) by the plain sense of verse I, which places the Son and the Father on a level: 'What creature could stand before his Creator and say, "Glorify me, that I may glorify Thee?" Stier apud Alf.;

(c) by verse 5, which asserts our Lord's pre-existent doğa. It follows that the restrictive epithets μóvov åλŋ@wóv must be held to be exclusive, not of the Son, but of false gods, or creatures external to the Divine Essence. See Estius in loc. Trench, Synonyms of N. T., p. 25, § viii.

• St. John iii. 14: ὑψωθῆναι δεῖ τὸν Υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. Ibid. viii. 28, xii. 32.

f Ibid. xii. 23: ἐλήλυθεν ἡ ὥρα ἵνα δοξασθῇ ὁ Υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. Ibid. xiii. 31.

8 Cf. Reuss, Théol. Chrét. ii. 456; although the statements of this writer cannot be adopted without much qualification.

On the question of the authorship of the three Epistles, see Dean Alford's exhaustive discussion, Greek Test. vol. iv., Prolegomena, chaps. 5, 6. See too Appendix, note E. i I St. John i. 1-3.

4 Ibid. v. 12: ὁ ἔχων τὸν Υἱὸν ἔχει τὴν ζωήν· ὁ μὴ ἔχων τὸν Υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ τὴν ζωὴν οὐκ ἔχει.

k Ibid. ver. II: Kal auтη ẻσTlv ʼn uaprupía (i.e. the revealed doctrine resting on a Divine authority) ὅτι ζωὴν αἰώνιον ἔδωκεν ἡμῖν ὁ Θεὸς, καὶ αὕτη ἡ ζωὴ ἐν τῷ Υἱῷ αὐτοῦ ἐστιν.

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