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last hour."37 "Abide in him, that, when he shall appear, we may not be ashamed before him at his coming." "That we may have boldness in the day of judgment." The evangelist's outlook for the return of the Savior is also shown at the end of his Gospel. "Jesus said not unto him, 'He shall not die;' but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" That the doctrine of a universal resurrection-which the Jews probably derived, through their communication with the Persians, from the Zoroastrian system, and, with various modifications, adopted—is embodied in the following passage, who can doubt? "The hour is coming when all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man and shall come forth." That a general resurrection would literally occur under the auspices of Jesus was surely the meaning of the writer. of those words. Whether that thought was intended to be conveyed by Christ in the exact terms he really used or not is a separate question, with which we are not now concerned, our object being simply to set forth John's views. Some commentators, seizing the letter and neglecting the spirit, have inferred from various texts that John expected that the resurrection would be limited to faithful Christians,-just as the more rigid of the Pharisees confined it to the righteous Jews. 'Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day." To force this figure into a literal meaning is a mistake; for in the preceding chapter it is expressly said that "They that have done good shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; they that have done evil unto the resurrection of condemnation." Both shall rise to be judged; but as we conceive the most probable sense of the phrases-the good shall be received to heaven, the bad shall be remanded to the under-world. "Has no life in him" of course cannot mean is absolutely dead, annihilated, but means has not faith and virtue, the elements of blessedness, the qualifications for heaven. The particular figurative use of words in these texts may be illustrated by parallel idioms from Philo, who says, "Of the living some are dead; on the contrary, the dead live. For those lost from the life of virtue are dead, though they reach the extreme of old age; while the good, though they are disjoined from the body, live immortally."" Again he writes, "Deathless life delivers the dying pious; but the dying impious everlasting death seizes."9. And a great many passages plainly show that one element of Philo's meaning, in such phrases as these, is, that he believed that, upon their leaving the body, the souls of the good would ascend to heaven, while the souls of the bad would descend to Hades. These discriminated events he supposed would follow death at once. His thorough Platonism had weaned him from the Persian-Pharisaic doctrine of a

See the able and impartial discussion of John's belief on this subject contained in Lücke's Commentary on the First Epistle of John, i. 18–28. 29 Ibid. p. 233.

38 Vol. i. p. 554.

common intermediate state detaining the dead below until the triumphant advent of a Redeemer should usher in the great resurrection and final judgment.40

John declares salvation to be conditional. "The blood of Christ". that is, his death and what followed-"cleanses us from all sin, if we walk in the light as he is in the light;" not otherwise. "He that believeth not the Son shall not see eternal life, but the wrath of God abideth him." "If any man see his brother commit a sin which is not unto death, he shall pray, and shall receive life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it." "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when he [Christ] shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." The heads of the doctrine which seems to underlie these statements are as follow. Christ shall come again. All the dead shall rise for judicial ordeal. Those counted worthy shall be accepted, be transfigured into the resemblance of the glorious Redeemer and enter. into eternal blessedness in heaven. The rest shall be doomed to the dark kingdom of death in the under-world, to remain there-for aught that is hinted to the contrary-forever. From these premises two practical inferences are drawn in exhortations. First, we should earnestly strive to fit ourselves for acceptance by moral purity, brotherly love, and pious faith. Secondly, we should seek pardon for our sins by confession and prayer, and take heed lest by aggravated sin we deprave our souls beyond recovery. There are those who sin unto death, for whom it is hopeless to pray. Light, truth, and the divine life of heaven can never receive them; darkness, falsehood, and the deep realm of death irrevocably swallow them.

And now we may sum up in a few words the essential results of this whole inquiry into the principles of John's theology, especially as composing and shown in his doctrine of a future life. First, God is personal love, truth, light, holiness, blessedness. These realities, as concentrated in their incomprehensible absoluteness, are the elements of his infinite being. Secondly, these spiritual substances, as diffused through the worlds of the universe and experienced in the souls of moral creatures, are the medium of God's revelation of himself, the direct presence and working of his Logos. Thirdly, the persons who prevailingly partake of these qualities are God's loyal subjects and approved children, in peaceful communion with the Father, through the Son, possessing eternal life. Fourthly, Satan is personal hatred, falsehood, darkness, sin, misery. These realities, in their abstract nature and source, are his being; in their special manifestations they are his efflux and power. Fifthly, the persons who partake rulingly of these qualities are the devil's enslaved subjects and lineal children: in sinful bondage to him, in depraved com

40 See vol. i. pp. 139, 416, 417, 555, 643, 648; vol. ii. pp. 178, 433.

munion with him, they dwell in a state of hostile banishment and unhappiness, which is moral death. Sixthly, Christ was the Logos who, descending from his anterior glory in heaven, and appearing in mortal flesh, embodied all the Divine qualities in an unflawed model of humanity, gathered up and exhibited all the spiritual characteristics of the Father in a stainless and perfect soul supernaturally filled and illumined, thus to bear into the world a more intelligible and effective revelation of God the Father than nature or common humanity yielded, to shine with regenerating radiance upon the deadly darkness of those who were groping in lying sins, "that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly." Seventhly, the fickle and perishing experience of unbelieving and wicked men, the vagrant life of sensuality and worldliness, the shallow life in vain and transitory things, gives place in the soul of a Christian to a profoundly-earnest, unchanging experience of truth and love, a steady and everlasting life in Divine and everlasting things. Eighthly, the experimental reception of the revealed grace and verity by faith and discipleship in Jesus is accompanied by internal convincing proofs and seals of their genuineness, validity, and immortality. They awaken a new consciousness, a new life, inherently Divine and self-warranting. Ninthly, Christ, by his incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension, was a propitiation for our sins, a mercy-seat pledging forgiveness; that is, he was the medium of showing us that mercy of God which annulled the penalty of sin, the descent of souls to the gloomy under-world, and opened the celestial domains for the ransomed children of earth to join the sinless angels of heaven. Tenthly, Christ was speedily to make a second advent. In that last day the dead should come forth for judgment, the good be exalted to unfading glory with the Father and the Son, and the bad be left in the lower region of noiseless shadows and dreams. These ten points of view, we believe, command all the principal features of the theological landscape which occupied the mental vision of the writer of the Gospel and epistles bearing the superscription, John.

CHAPTER VI.

CHRIST'S TEACHINGS CONCERNING THE FUTURE LIFE.

IN approaching the teachings of the Savior himself concerning the future fate of man, we should throw off the weight of creeds and prejudices, and, by the aid of all the appliances in our power, endeavor to reach beneath the imagery and unessential particulars of his instructions to learn their bare significance in truth. This is made difficult by the

singular perversions his religion has undergone; by the loss of a complete knowledge of the peculiarities of the Messianic age in the lapse of the ages since; by the almost universal change in our associations, modes of feeling and thought, and styles of speech; and by the gradual accretion and hardening of false doctrines and sectarian biases and wilfulness. As we examine the words of Christ to find their real meaning, there are four prominent considerations to be especially weighed and borne in mind.

First, we must not forget the poetic Eastern style common to the Jewish prophets; their symbolic enunciations in bold figures of speech: "I am the door;" "I am the bread of life;" "I am the vine;" "My sheep hear my voice;" "If these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out." This daring emblematic language was natural to the Oriental nations; and the Bible is full of it. Is the overthrow of a country foretold? It is not said, "Babylon shall be destroyed," but "The sun shall be darkened at his going forth, the moon shall be as blood, the stars shall fall from heaven, and the earth shall stagger to and fro as a drunken man." If we would truly understand Christ's declarations, we must not overlook the characteristics of figurative language. For "he spake to the multitude in parables, and without a parable spake he not unto them;" and a parable, of course, is not to be taken literally, but holds a latent sense and purpose which are to be sought out. The greatest injustice is done to the teachings of Christ when his words are studied as those of a dry scholastic, a metaphysical moralist, not as those of a profound poet, a master in the spiritual realm.

Secondly, we must remember that we have but fragmentary reports of a small part of the teachings of Christ. He was engaged in the active prosecution of his mission probably about three years,―at the shortest over one year; while all the different words of his recorded in the New Testament would not occupy more than five hours. Only a little fraction of what he said has been transmitted to us; and though this part may contain the essence of the whole, yet it must naturally in some instances be obscure and difficult of apprehension. We must therefore compare different passages with each other, carefully probe them all, and explain, so far as possible, those whose meaning is recondite by those whose meaning is obvious. Some persons may be surprised to think that we have but a small portion of the sayings of Jesus. The fact, however, is unquestionable. And perhaps there is no more reason that we should have a full report of his words than there is that we should have a complete account of his doings; and the evangelist declares, “There are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should every one be written, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books."

Thirdly, when examining the instructions of Jesus, we should recollect that he adopted, and applied to himself and to his kingdom, the common Jewish phraseology concerning the Messiah and the events that

were expected to attend his advent and reign. But he did not take up these phrases in the perverted sense held in the corrupt opinions and earthly hopes of the Jews: he used them spiritually, in the sense which accorded with the true Messianic dispensation as it was arranged in the forecasting providence of God. No investigation of the New Testament should be unaccompanied by an observance of the fundamental rule of interpretation,—namely, that the student of a book, especially of an ancient, obscure, and fragmentary book, should imbue himself as thoroughly as he can with the knowledge and spirit of the opinions, events, influences, circumstances, of the time when the document was written, and of the persons who wrote it. The inquirer must be equipped for his task by a mastery of the Rabbinism of Gamaliel, at whose feet Paul was brought up; for the Jewish mind of that age was filled, and its religious language directed, by this Rabbinism. Guided by this principle, furnished with the necessary information, in the helpful light of the best results of modern critical scholarship, we shall be able to explain many dark texts, and to satisfy ourselves, at least in a degree, as to the genuine substance of Christ's declarations touching the future destinies of men.

Finally, he who studies the New Testament with patient thoroughness and with honest sharpness will arrive at a distinction most important to be made and to be kept in view, namely, a distinction between the real meaning of Christ's words in his own mind and the actual meaning understood in them by his auditors and reporters.' Here we approach a most delicate and vital point, hitherto too little noticed, but destined yet to become prominent and fruitful. A large number of religious phrases were in common use among the Jews at the time of Jesus. He adopted them, but infused into them a deeper, a correct meaning,-as Copernicus did into the old astronomic formulas. But the bystanders who listened to his discourses, hearing the familiar terms, seized the familiar meaning, and erroneously attributed it to him. It is certain that the Savior was often misunderstood and often not understood at all. When he declared himself the Messiah, the people would have made him a king by force! Even the apostles frequently grossly failed to appreciate his spirit and aims, wrenched unwarrantable inferences from his words, and quarrelled for the precedency in his coming kingdom and for seats at his right hand. In numerous cases it is glaringly plain that his ideas were far from their conceptions of them. We have no doubt the same was true in many other instances where it is not so clear. He repeatedly reproves them for folly and slowness because they did not perceive the sense of his instructions. Perhaps there was a slight impatience in his tones when he said, "How is it that ye do not understand that I spake

1 See this distinction affirmed by De Wette, in the preface to his Commentatio de Morte Jesus Christi Expiatoria. See also Thurn, Jesus und seine Apostel in Widerspruch in Ansehung der Lehre von der Ewigen Verdamnniss. In Scherer's Schriftforsch. sect. i. nr. 4.